35 Power
Her knees struck the ground with bruising force.
Winded, she clutched her head until the world stopped spinning and slowly stood. The tile at her feet gave away where she was before the snarl of thunder outside. Oh, for the Elsar’s sake!
“This is getting tiring!” she roared, gripping the railing of the balcony atop Sidran Tower. “What’s next? Will Aelius rise up from the dead to shove me off once more?”
A throaty laugh boomed in the air. The view past the balcony darkened until it seemed as though she and the tower were suspended in a black void.
A face emerged from it. All eyes, eighteen eyes—black to the reaches of her sclera, all swallowing any semblance of light. She understood now who the madness-struck saw. The goddess hovered midair, ribbons of what could have been night sky wrapping around her lithe frame.
Understanding lanced through Sarai. “Faragathe,” she whispered, recalling the play in Sal Flumen.
Of course. Burned alive for supposed heresy by greedy, apathetic folk who’d called themselves devout. And then, she’d ascended to incredible power. Dalvia would have seen a kinship.
“Most people react differently.” The goddess laughed. Her voice made Noceo’s sound like rocks cracking against each other. “I show the evil their fears, and they scream so loudly.”
You showed me mine a few times too many. Sarai took a shaky step forward. “Why hold massacres across the country? Could you never forgive the land for hurting you?”
“I massacred your evil to remind your people that they could. Many still chose not to.” Horns crowned Faragathe’s void-black hair.
“You won’t convince me that everyone who died was evil.”
“I took my share of innocents. This world didn’t deserve them.
The goddess’s smile had too many teeth. “But you need not join them. Give me this city, and you’ll never lack for power again.
Not the vials that the scion of Clan Kader swears by, but true power.
” Faragathe watched her unblinkingly. “I can rearrange the very essence of your being to make you a Twelfth-Tier lightning magus. You could surpass your Magus Supreme in a heartbeat.”
Blood rang in Sarai’s ears. The country would deign her the same respect that Kadra enjoyed. A week ago, in the rubble, her answer might even have looked different.
“It doesn’t need to change.” Reading her mind, Faragathe angled her head in the way of a curious owl.
It has to. It was one thing to crave power. But her goal wasn’t power for power’s sake but to feel secure, unthreatened. I won’t earn that at the cost of the lives of everyone in Edessa.
“Dull,” Faragathe pronounced, nearing her. There was a quiet horror to seeing the goddess up-close, all eyes and horns. Unfathomable power leaked from her in waves to lick at Sarai’s skin. She flinched back. Any hell she presided over would be monstrous indeed.
Faragathe grinned. “Everyone’s in a hell of their own, child. I just make it real.”
She closed in right as footsteps sounded on the staircase up to the ballroom.
A bloodied Anek emerged, clutching what appeared to be a broken elbow. They flinched at the sight of the goddess. “Wrath’s blade, you again. Does it strike you that this entire business will really besmirch your name going forward?”
Faragathe glided past Sarai and into the ballroom to give them a pitying look. “I’m inevitable. And now this land will remember that when they sleep, I rule the roost of their mind.” She smiled. “Good devotees are so hard to find.”
Sarai shuddered. Gods, no wonder they’re called the Wretched. The general theological consensus was that devotees of the High Elsar became Saints. Those of the Dark Elsar became the Wretched. How cruel had this former Seer been that Time himself hadn’t been able to push her into Sainthood.
“I could kill you for that thought alone,” Faragathe mused, examining her claws.
“And you wonder why I had it,” Sarai said, voice hard.
More footsteps struck the stairs. Black and gold swept in before he did. Sarai relaxed at the fierce glitter in Kadra’s eyes. Noceo looked no less cowed by the goddess.
“My, we’re getting a crowd.” Faragathe didn’t sound irritated but oddly thoughtful when Méherre came up the stairs as well, sweating from the exertion. Anek rushed to the Bridger. “I’ll ask you again. Power and your friends’ lives in return for this city.”
Sarai stiffened at the addendum. “My friends’ lives?”
Lightning flared to life and encased the small group and Sarai to separate them from Faragathe.
“That won’t happen.” Kadra’s voice was dangerously quiet.
The goddess perched atop the balcony’s railing and grinned. “Why did you think that the threat would come from me?”
A loud, startled wheeze sounded behind her. Sarai whirled around to find Méherre gripping Anek’s throat, fingers pressing hard around their windpipe. Her eyes weren’t glazed. Kadra halted Noceo when he stepped forward. Realization hardened his severe features.
“Well,” there was an eerily familiar blankness to the Bridger’s voice now, “this has probably gone on long enough.”
Her short hair lengthened in a smooth rush, lightening until it reached an ephemeral brightness that went beyond white. Her features sharpened, turned graceful. Dalvia’s nails bit into Anek’s skin and forced them down. Wordless and pale, they sank to the ground, kneeling.
A True Illusionist. It had been an easy thing to overlook in the chaos of fighting battles at multiple fronts. Especially when I ruled you out as a suspect from the start.
Pieces fell into place with devastating rapidity.
Méherre’s convenient appearance at the start of Edessa’s woes.
How she had seemed to always know so much about her.
How much she had known about gods and Summonings.
For all the rarity of Bridgers in the country, Sarai hadn’t questioned meeting two in short order.
“You seem surprised.” Dalvia spoke to Sarai. She didn’t release Anek. “I’d actually hoped you’d put it together.”
“We’d have to know you for that.” Anek vibrated with rage, uncaring of the threat to their life. “You acted righteous among us but you treated the injured of your own city as cattle!”
“There was no saving them.” Dalvia considered them with a perturbed frown. “The goddess told me which ones were worth saving and which ones weren’t. Most really weren’t, and it worked well for him.” She leveled an assessing glance at Noceo. “Farmed him more power.”
Sarai stilled at the memory of the yellowish liquid in the vials Noceo had retrieved from the Institute. And the boil beetles’ yellow venom sacs.
A raw sound left Noceo. He seemed to be seeing her for the first time. “Is that what I’ve been injecting into myself for five months? Venom?” Fury built in his silver eyes.
“You wanted power.” Something turbulent roiled in her eyes. “I provided it. You never asked why or how so long as you had it, and I was only useful to you so long as I kept you supplied.” Another empty smile. “Why act angry about the cost now?”
“I would never have agreed—”
“Wouldn’t you?” She hadn’t tightened her grip, but Anek was starting to turn puce.
“You killed hundreds at the Aequitas. You killed an innocent, grieving woman eleven years ago and forced yourself to believe that you hadn’t done it.
You forced me to stay.” A crack in her blank mask. “Don’t play the Saint.”
Noceo crumpled against the banister, mouth working uselessly.
Sarai’s throat ached. “You resented the world for allowing all of it.”
The fracture widened. Dalvia’s fingers twitched, letting color back into Anek’s skin.
“I resent everyone.” Wildness flushed her delicate features.
“I resent the foolish things you all do to appease yourselves while others suffer. The capital has always craved attention. They’ve hoarded yours for years with their tantrums. Now, they get all the eyes they want on them. ”
“I’m sorry for what you’ve endured,” she whispered, moving slowly forward. “But what will hurting them,” she indicated Anek, “accomplish?”
“I got you out of this city!” Dalvia snapped. “You should have stayed in the Institute. I wasn’t trying to hurt you until you wanted to stop this. Let Edessa go. Sometimes, in order to heal a land, you must first break it.”
The words struck a bitter pang of understanding, hitching Sarai’s breath. “And what happens to you afterward?”
Dalvia blinked, something faintly confused appearing then vanishing from her gaze. “Anything. Because now, when you reign, you’ll know that it’s all the smoother because of me.”
Sarai took another step and caught Kadra’s eye. He inclined his head in silent understanding of what she was attempting to do. The grave set of his face told her that he would take no pleasure in this kill.
“Why the subterfuge?” Anek asked through gritted teeth. “Was playing the weakling not enough?”
“I wasn’t playacting,” Dalvia said tonelessly. “Méherre could say things that Dalvia couldn’t. She was the honest one, outspoken. She’d save me from harm in a heartbeat. The guise took on a life of their own after a while. It was nice not being me.”
Sarai’s gut churned. “You’re a fool.”
Tears rolled down Anek’s cheeks. “I really liked you. You could have built a life of your own. You bought a hav?d house here!”
For the first time, warmth blossomed on Dalvia’s face.
“That’s the strange thing. I liked you all too.
I thought about stopping all this, but it was too late.
I had already promised my goddess this city, and without her, I faced the same fate I had with Noceo—freedom without true power.
No,” she shook her head sadly, “there’s no life waiting for me. ”
Another step, and Sarai stood before her. She gently gripped the wrist that was holding Anek prisoner. “Won’t you at least try?”
Dalvia studied her. “Wanting something to be true isn’t the same as reality, Sarai.” She dropped her arm. Anek scrambled away, gasping for air. “I just wanted to snap my fingers and fix it all,” she said dully. “It all just never made sense.”
A lump choked Sarai’s throat. “I’m so sorry.” She stepped back. “I wish this could all have been different.”
Dalvia blinked right as multiple cages of lightning domed around her and atop each other, hissing across the ballroom floor. She examined the bars of lightning with mild curiosity and no surprise.
Kadra’s jaw was granite. “Call your goddess away. You’ve convinced yourself that you have no hope of survival here, but there may be a future for you yet.”
“A future where these cages will disappear, and a more permanent one will take me.” Dalvia turned to Kadra and smiled.
“I meant everything I said that day. I did get some of this wrong. But not all of it.” She glanced at Noceo, and every mask slid from her face in a silent relinquishing of self.
Hatred and yearning suffused her gaze. “I would have stayed every day if you hadn’t forced me,” she whispered.
The man looked like he’d been struck by lightning.
Dalvia considered the bars of her cage once more, and Sarai had the horrible feeling that she knew what was going to happen. She wanted to beg the other woman not to do it. But who was she to demand that a woman who had been trapped in a cage for so long return to a different one?
The same realization coalesced in Kadra’s face. “This is what you want,” he said in the heavy timbre of a man who had seen too much and would now bear one more stain on his soul.
“I knew it was coming from the moment Sarai tried to resolve things with Noceo.” She glanced at Kadra. “I’m tired.” She exhaled. “I’m ready.”
Sarai swallowed. “If it’s death you want, let me do it instead.” She stalked to the other side of the cage to face Dalvia. “This will hurt him,” she said fiercely.
“It’ll hurt you too.” Dalvia’s mouth tilted up. “That’s nice to know. That’s a good way to be remembered.” Before Sarai could speak, she turned to Faragathe, who had been watching them intently all the while. “It seems that I can’t give you a city, my goddess.”
Sadness crossed Faragathe’s inhuman features for a fleeting moment. “I knew.”
“Oh,” Dalvia breathed.
Hot tears washed down Sarai’s cheeks. She clutched her arms to steady herself.
Noceo finally unlocked his knees and stepped forward. “Stop,” he ordered with full Coercive force. “We still have much to discuss, you and I. You can’t do… whatever it is that you’re—”
“What will my punishment be?” Dalvia angled a slim hand through the bars of her cages toward Faragathe. Sparks caught portions of her skin, but she didn’t so much as flinch.
“Quiet.” The goddess took her wrist with a brief glance at Kadra. He returned it and dropped the cages around Dalvia. “For many, many centuries until the gods send you down to the mortal plane again.”
Dalvia smiled. “I think I’ll like that.” She stepped forward. Anek made an anguished sound.
Noceo screamed her name right as Faragathe faced them with a glower. All eighteen eyes pinned them with quiet fury before goddess and girl vanished.
And the screaming in the courtyard suddenly stopped.
Numb, Sarai trailed one hand along the wall, walking until she found Kadra’s solid frame and leaned against him.
“She was—” she swallowed, “she was right about a great deal.”
Kadra’s arm came around her shoulders. Grief burned in his eyes. “She was wrong about just as much.”
“The worst of it,” Anek sucked in a breath between sobbing, “is that I can’t fault her for it or forgive her for it.”
Steps bounded up the stairs. “I think it’s over! Everyone’s waking up!” Harion’s voice arrived before he did. “Gods, I never want—” He and Cassandane stared at the dismal tableau in the ballroom.
The Head Tetrarch glanced each of them swiftly. “Casualties among us?”
“None,” Kadra confirmed.
“Then, why the long fucking faces?” Harion squinted at a still-crying Anek and reared back in shock.
Sometimes, you can see who someone is and who they wanted to become. And they do too. And the dissonance between the two eats at you both.
“And where is Dalvia?” Harion cracked his knuckles menacingly. “That bitch deserves a public beheading.”
“She’s free,” Sarai said quietly, glancing at the moonless sky and knowing that Dalvia had passed far beyond it. “She’s finally free.”