Chapter Twenty-Three #3
“Now Garreth and I have to go to the chains. I need to know what’s happened. Jalaya won’t be safe until it’s over.”
“Be safe, my love,” Jileana whispered before giving him one last kiss for luck and sending him on his way, promising to watch over Jalaya with her mother somewhere away from the castle until all the resistance was soundly put down.
It actually took a lot less effort than Jaykun had anticipated.
With Barban captured, Horgon still chained, and the bulk of the empress’s guard quartered just outside the area of the chains, the coup was over long before it really began.
It boiled down to the council in the end.
Horgon had lost a lot of support because of that council.
By giving the most powerful people a place to air their grievances and voice their concerns, Jalaya had taken away their reasons for potentially standing against her and answering Horgon’s call to arms to that degree of traitorousness.
Jaykun did not give Jalaya the opportunity to waver and change her mind about executing Horgon.
He did it for her with one smooth swing of his brother’s powerful sword.
He did not, however, have the opportunity to do the same with Barban.
Which he supposed was for the best. This way Barban could be executed publicly as a warning to anyone else who thought to become traitors to the empress.
In the end, it was a lot of bloodshed for no reason.
It was a shameful waste of life. But it could have been much worse. Much worse.
To Jaykun’s relief, when he got back to Jileana it was to discover that Barban had not had the opportunity to harm her too much.
He had roughed her up a bit, threatened her a lot, but he had been too focused on his endgame to worry too much about his “future wife.” If Jaykun hadn’t made it back to Serenity so quickly, things might have gone very differently.
Later that day they were all in Jalaya’s private rooms: Jileana, Garreth, Jaykun, Ravi, Creasus, Silan, and Jalaya herself. The empress was sitting as she eyed the gathering before her.
“Jaykun,” she said, holding out her hand to him.
He obediently stepped forward, dropped to a knee before her, and kissed the hand he held. “Majesty,” he said.
“Jaykun, we will never forget what you have done for us this day. You have saved the selkie people from a lot of pain and strife. I thank the gods every day for sending you to me.”
“I am glad to be of service to you, my lady empress.”
She smiled and opened her mouth to continue, but a sudden eruption of bubbles appeared beside her seat, near where Jaykun knelt, and she leapt up in alarm. Not knowing what the disturbance was. Jaykun put himself between the bubbles and the empress and drew his sword.
Suddenly the bubbles dissipated and in their place was a beautiful woman, with hair as green as grass and eyes as blue as the turquoise ocean waters around her.
Jalaya gasped and dropped to her knees. “Diathus!”
It was indeed Diathus, goddess of the land and oceans. Warning bells went off in Jaykun’s head. Diathus was a goddess of the faction warring against his goddess Weysa. Her being there could only mean trouble for him and his brother.
“Relax, warrior,” Diathus said as if she could read his mind. “I am not here to harm you. Rather, to thank you.”
“Thank me?” he asked warily.
“Yes. The selkies are my most beloved children. You have saved them from themselves. For this I am compelled to give you thanks. You have the gratitude of a goddess. The question is, what will you do with it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I will grant you a boon, human man. Ask any favor of me and you shall have it.”
Jaykun could hardly believe his ears. Here was a mighty god thanking him for his services? Willing to grant him anything he desired?
“Here is the dilemma,” the goddess said with a chuckle. “Do you wish to be freed from your curse, or do you wish to have your brother returned to you? Which do you ask for?”
“How can you free me from my curse?” he demanded of her. “It can only be released by the god who set it upon me and that is Lothas.”
“And Lothas is my husband. He will do whatever I ask of him.”
Her husband. He had forgotten that part. “And what of Sabo? He has cursed my brother. What will keep him from casting Maxum back into the earth somewhere else?”
“That is not my concern; it is yours. But if I free your brother, he will suffer as you suffer. Every night from dusk till juquil’s hour the earth will swallow him whole again. Suffocating him. Crushing him. Just as it is doing even now.”
The dilemma was no dilemma at all. Not to Jaykun.
“Free my brother,” he said quickly. “I will bear my curse for as long as he does if it means he will have some hours of life once again, some reprieve.”
“Hmm. A selfless choice. You impress me. And I am not easily impressed.” Suddenly the room dissolved around them and Diathus, Jaykun, and Jalaya found themselves at the edge of the chains.
The earth began to rumble and bubbles rose up from a spot not too far from where they stood.
Rock and soil spewed upward into the water, clouding the water with silt and making it impossible to see.
But in the next instant, the rock and soil cleared away and the water was as clean as ever.
Jaykun knew it was the hand of the goddess that had made it so.
And there, floating naked and unconscious, was his brother Maxum. Jaykun swam to him and grabbed him up close. He could feel in the limpness of his body that every last one of his bones was broken, pulverized by the pressure of the earth.
But that didn’t matter because he knew that Maxum had also drunk from the Fount of Immortality, which meant he would heal as rapidly and completely as Jaykun and Garreth did.
“Thank you,” he whispered fiercely to the goddess. “Thank you with all of my heart.”
“If you really wish to thank me, you can stop fighting in Weysa’s name,” Diathus said.
“This I cannot do. I have made a vow to—”
“Yes, yes,” she said, waving the matter off. “I suppose it cannot be helped. What I need is a warrior of my own to fight in my name. Perhaps your brother would do this?”
“And pit one brother against the other?” he asked. “For that is surely what would end up happening one day. Didn’t we just avoid a battle that would pit brother against brother? Selkie against selkie?”
“This is true. But I have not freed him so he could fight in Weysa’s name. She is my enemy, after all.” She thought on it a moment. “If you can vow to me that your brother will not fight in the name of any of the gods that oppose my faction, I will get Lothas to release you from your curse.”
Jaykun couldn’t believe the offer. It would be like getting everything he wanted all at once. His brother and freedom from his curse … and Jileana. What more could he ask for?
“I cannot make a vow for my brother,” he said at last, knowing it was true. Maxum had always been his own man. He had always done whatever he wished to do. He had sold his sword to whatever cause struck his fancy. Jaykun could not take that right away from him.
Then he felt the slight squeeze of a hand around his arm. He looked down and met the pain-filled eyes of his brother. Maxum could not speak under the water, not having the benefit of Ravi’s magic, but the nod of his head was unmistakable.
It was as good as his word.
“We do so swear. Maxum will not fight in the name of any god.” He had said “any god” on purpose. He did not want Maxum beholden to any of the gods. If Maxum must suffer Sabo’s curse, he would do so on his own terms.
“Very well. As long as he holds to this promise, you are free of your curse. I will speak to Lothas straight away and it will be done. Congratulations. Your burning days are finished.”
Then the goddess turned to Jalaya. “You are the rightful queen of your people. Never doubt that. Never forget it. I cannot protect you at all times—the war garners much of my attention—but if you need me, pray to me. I will try to answer you if I can.”
“Thank you, my beauteous goddess,” Jalaya said, humbly kneeling before Diathus.
“Enough of that. You are an empress. Stand and be recognized as one. Farewell, beloved child.”
With that, Diathus disappeared in a rush of bubbles.