Chapter 4 Sadaré #3
Or more terrifying, since I can understand the meaning. Whereas he softened his title for me, masking it in unfamiliar sounds to make it less harsh, he did no such thing here. He wants me to be afraid of what’s out there—and perhaps less afraid of him. More eager to stay inside?
Ever the benevolent protector, until he decides not to be.
“Are all the views this pleasant?” I ask dryly, glancing at him.
He nods out the window, his lips twitching at my sarcasm, thawing the marble perfection of his face, though the edge of his jaw only stands out all the sharper.
“From this vantage, yes. Facing south like this, you have the most exciting view. From the east wing and its outlying tower, you can gaze upon the duller gray Plains of the Forgotten, and the north tower overlooks the bridge that leads to the Blessed Isles, where the noblest of mortal shades are allowed to keep their memories. Some here might find that view to be the worst, actually, because its beauty is out of reach for most. My fortress stands as a barrier to entry.”
A no doubt heavily guarded one. Which is unfortunate.
As is the fact that the fortress is likely on an island itself.
I can spot the spindly web of an impossible bridge stretching away from a tower standing perpendicular to mine, reaching for the mainland above the tossing waves below.
The south tower, then. But as it would deposit one closer to the fiery entrance to the Pit of Hell, it doesn’t look like the best avenue of escape, risk of falling into the sea aside.
Which means the only other way out of here ends in only more isolated islands, blessed though they may be.
At least on those isles, a shade can keep their memories.
And something tickles at my memory now—an old myth about a hero’s fantastical voyage to and from the underworld, ending with a golden gate that led him back to the mortal realm.
I certainly didn’t treat it as a factual account when I heard it, and I can’t entirely remember if he returned from the Blessed Isles or not, but that would be a fitting final stop for such a story.
And if such a gate exists, it seems likely it would be there. Or perhaps even here.
Maybe I can surreptitiously look for it while Isha gives his tour.
We continue down the arcade until his tall, broad figure somehow nimbly cuts in front of me to open another set of double doors, the spread of his strong arms and shoulders throwing them wide.
Beyond is a room that stops me in my tracks—and not because it’s horrific, for once.
Isha turns back to carefully note my expression of awe, which I don’t bother to hide.
A massive circular salon takes up one whole floor in a structure that could easily fit my tower inside.
This must be the west wing. The actual floor is one giant spiral of inset silver and black stone, while the walls are lined with pillars—still made of smooth bone—that support a balcony high above.
For viewing, perhaps? Because all around the room are beautiful polished instruments: kitharas, lyres, lyras, and even a towering harp.
A woman sits playing softly on the latter, while other people—shades?
—in simple pale tunics take note of our arrival and make themselves scarce, one carrying a broom, another a stack of clean cloths. So he keeps servants here, at least.
Which definitely means there must be guards.
“Thank you, my dear,” Isha says in a dangerously gracious tone to the woman playing. “But I didn’t tell you that you could play right now.”
The woman’s fingers come to a jangling halt of notes as she looks up with startled, fearful eyes.
Like me and the other servants, she appears more substantial than I ever imagined shades to be, but her warm brown skin is laced in pale scars like webbing, covering every bit of her from head to toe, even her face, which is framed under a thick braid of gray-streaked curly brown hair. But that’s not why I stare.
I recognize her. Not from my own memories—because she died well before I was born—but from memories that I borrowed only for a short time. Daesra’s. I also saw her briefly in the maze, as a statue.
This woman is Daesra’s mortal mother. Was his mother, perhaps, now that he has been reborn as a god and she’s, well, long dead.
She doesn’t recognize me, of course, and I keep any sign of recognition from my own expression as I glance at Isha.
Does he guess I might know her, after my time in the maze?
If so, is he testing his theory or, worse, trying to bait me into reacting poorly?
Or does he truly have no part in this meeting?
He sounded disapproving of her being here.
As she hastily dismisses herself, I want nothing more than to approach her, even throw my arms around her because of what she once meant to Daesra. But I hold my ground, feigning only mild interest as the woman—Melé, I recall—vanishes down a branching hallway.
“Do all shades look like we once did in the mortal realm?” I hold up my arm with its shadowy hand. “With our prior injuries? The woman was scarred,” I murmur more quietly, as if not to offend her.
My injury is just as obvious, despite the new limb.
Isha shrugs one shoulder, folding his own arms, my eyes unwittingly following the assured movement of his hands.
“Mortal souls—the speck of divine aether in you—are imprinted, shall we say, by the moment that most impacted you. Sometimes it’s your death, complete with the scars, and sometimes it’s the peak of youthful health.
” He gazes after where Melé disappeared, his darkly glinting eyes narrowing.
“A god tried to burn her even down to her aether, but I saved her before that could happen, pieced her soul back together as best I could, and brought her here. The experience marked her, like cracks in a vase.”
I blink at him in surprise that I’ve no need to feign.
“You saved her?” I can’t imagine him saving anyone, let alone the mortal mother of his long-sought nemesis.
Unless, of course, it was to use her against him.
At least she didn’t look tortured, sitting there and strumming the harp.
I force my lips into a sly smile. “Why? Did you like her?”
Daesra would probably kill me if I weren’t already dead, but Isha can’t guess that I know who she is. Making suggestive assumptions is an easy way to throw him off the scent.
He shakes his head, giving me a wry glance. “I don’t like mortals, little one, I merely tolerate them.” For a brief second, the diminutive gives me a sense of just how old he is, and I suppress a shiver. “And I don’t like to lose souls, so I didn’t let the god take her from me.”
Maybe Sky was trying to do Melé an odd sort of favor while forcing her to look upon him, turning her to ash—not only to hurt his then-consort Sea and the newly daemonic Daesra, but to keep Melé out of Isha’s clutches at the same time.
But I doubt it, even if becoming nothing might be better than ending up here.
Because Sky would have wanted to hurt Sea as much as possible and probably figured nonexistence was the worse fate.
He was a complete asshole, by all accounts. I’m not sad that Sea ate him.
“So you’re only tolerating me?” I give him a dubious look.
He arches an eyebrow at me. “That remains to be seen.”
I don’t know if he means I’m risking his intolerance or his greater interest.
I raise both of my arms now and ask, truly curious, “So where does our flesh come from, if all that we have left is our aether?”
He sighs. “Here are all the questions.”
I doubt he’s actually vexed, so I waggle my shadowy fingers at him. “I just thought we might look more like this, rather than flesh and blood.”
“Because all you have left isn’t just aether. Only the gods can exist like that—the gods above,” he says with a cutting glance at the high ceiling, as if the celestial realm were right over our heads. His lips curl in a faint sneer that does nothing to mar his otherworldly beauty.
Does he resent being down here in the underworld, separate from the other gods? Is his rule a bitter one?
“You need a structure to house you, so to speak,” he continues.
“Whereas in the human realm, that spark of divine aether binds with your four earthly elements, here it must bind to thanar in order to sustain itself in the afterlife. It still can’t burn forever before the binding weakens, and you fade. ”
Shades were equally referred to as fades in the mortal realm, and now I know why, even if I don’t want to think about fading. “Thanar?” I ask.
“Imagine it as a sixth element. My element. The element of death.”
“So are you partly made out of it, too?” That’s why you look human? I don’t add, because I don’t think he would appreciate the comparison—the implied debasement, which the gods have always tried to avoid, however unsuccessfully.
“Obviously,” he says, and then proves me right. “And yet my aether is like the sun next to a mortal’s flickering candle.”
I hope he can’t see everywhere, despite being able to appear seemingly everywhere, because I can’t help rolling my eyes at his back after he turns away and starts across the grand salon, clearly expecting me to follow. He certainly has the pride of a god.
Pride, at least, I know how to use. The more injured, the better.
And yet I can hardly keep my thoughts straight as he carries on, not lurking behind me for once, but rather distancing himself as if to emphasize our differences.
He points down a stretching hallway. “This leads to the south wing, which in turn leads to the south tower that you just saw out over the waves. It serves as a gatehouse to the mainland.”
Or rather to that spindly bridge spanning that terrifying sea to reach that terrible shore. Like before, I’m not interested in that path, even though his eyes rove over my face as if searching for any intentions of escape.
I perk up when he says, “The main keep to the north contains my throne room, with my personal quarters taking up two floors above it. Entry is highly restricted.” The words, along with his iron gaze, grow heavier—with threat or promise, I’m not sure.
I imagine he’ll at least want to show me his throne room sooner rather than later, if only to preen. I would want to see it, but as a means to a different end.
“Is there also a north tower—like those outlying the other wings?” I ask, as though only interested in the fortress’s design.
His knowing smile sends a shiver down my spine. “Yes. And it serves as the gateway to the Blessed Isles, accessed solely through me.”
Which might be my only path of escape, allowing that there’s a mythical golden gate to the mortal realm in the Blessed Isles that may or may not exist. Unless, of course, I can convince Isha to free me, which might be the most possible of impossibilities, in this place.
I only make a rueful face as I shrug, holding his eyes steadily. “I don’t think I’m meant for those isles—not with how I’ve lived my life.”
But perhaps I’m meant for you, my words might hint. Of course, I don’t say that aloud. He would never believe it. At least not yet.
Charming him with every wile I have should perhaps be my singular focus, but I need to find Melé.
Talk to her in private. Seeing her made me miss Daesra with an ache I can barely suppress, but it also gave me a flickering hope to ward against the darkness of despair.
I don’t know what she might remember of her old life or even her afterlife, but maybe she knows enough about this place that we can both escape.
And then I’ll never have to give myself to Isha.