Chapter 24 Daesra #2
She smiles as if seeing something I can’t.
“In containing me, he sets me free. Horizon told me that’s how it works with the one who balances you perfectly.
And they were right—just not about that person being you.
” She takes a step back toward Isha, still brimming with that horrible love for him.
“Death has been a new life for me. A fresh start, without the burden of my past. He’s who I want.
He’s my future, not you.” She mostly has eyes for him, even though she glances at me once more.
“I wish you hadn’t come. I wish you could have just let me go, like I did you.
I hope you can now, for your sake. Because the woman you love is truly dead.
” Facing the throne, she as good as turns her back on me. “Please leave.”
I not only feel as if the floor has dropped away, but the guts out of my chest cavity. “I hoped you might step outside with me,” I say softly. Begging. “To let me introduce you to my mother, and so you could see Pogli again.”
Something tells me they’re still there, even though I told them to leave. If Sadaré can just get away from Isha and the terrible oppression of this dark throne room, perhaps she’ll see more clearly.
When Isha finally speaks up, I want to hit him until he can’t speak anymore. “That creature is no more your chimera than you would have been yourself after absorbing me. He’s merged with Bereus,” he adds in a quieter, seemingly considerate explanation for Sadaré.
Her face crumples in grief for a brief moment as she looks over her shoulder—over my head—showing more emotion for Pogli than she has for me. Not that I fault him for it. And then she takes a deep breath, visibly steeling herself.
“I think it’s best we don’t complicate matters,” she says crisply. “Besides, I have something to tell Isha.”
“Then you can damn well say it in front of me!” I burst out with a wave of my hand. “How can you not see that you have no future here? Even if you’re no longer the woman I love, as you so claim, then you’re still as dead as she is, and—what? Merely content to be his slave?”
She doesn’t even glance back at me. “I could be more, if he desires it.” She holds out her arms—rather, her arm and the one he gave her—both of them wreathed in silver.
“I don’t need these cuffs anymore to know I belong to you.
With you. But I’ll wear them like I wouldn’t wear his ring if this is the only symbol of our bond that you prefer. ”
Isha doesn’t respond, only stares off into the distance after her declaration, resting his chin in one hand. The finger of his other taps silently on the armrest.
I still can’t shake the feeling that there’s something wrong here—with him, with Sadaré—but maybe that’s my fault. Maybe I am a delusional, arrogant fool.
And yet I have to make one last, desperate attempt to free her.
“Take me in her place,” I say, taking one step up the dais stairs, willing Isha to hear me.
“It would be the worst decision I’ve ever made, but I’ll still do it to save her.
I’ll trade myself. I’ll become your monster.
” I spread my arms, as if presenting myself to him.
“This is what you wanted, right? The worst version of me?”
His iron eyes, at least, lock onto me. “I—” He pauses, still seeming to have trouble finding words. And then he leans back on his throne, lacing his fingers in his lap. “I’ll consider your offer.”
“What?” Sadaré cries in undisguised horror. She drops to her knees before him, clutching his hands. Her desperation for him pierces me to see. “How could you send me away when this is what I want? How could you choose him over me, when I choose you?”
Is that pain as well in Isha’s gaze as he looks down at her, somehow mirroring mine?
It hits me: Isha loves Sadaré, too. I was certainly a fool not to see it, beyond what I took for a passing fascination or even infatuation with her.
Of course he loves her. How could he not?
And then I realize, with sinking despair, that I might not be worth enough for him to trade her for me. Not anymore.
“I’ve been your devoted servant.” She takes his hand and presses it to her breast, over her heart. “But I could be more. I will be something more, no matter what,” she adds in a fervent murmur.
His eyes narrow down at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll be the mother of your child.” She gives him a wavering, tear-filled smile, placing her shadow hand over her stomach.
He opens his mouth, his dark brows furrowing, his nostrils flaring in surprise, but she speaks over him, her voice low and passionate.
“Isha, my love. I’m already with child. Your child. ”
His mouth snaps closed, and the god of death freezes upon his throne in stunned silence. I’m so shocked I nearly fall off the stairs.
All I can do is stare, gaping at her bowed head, her glowing red hair curtaining her pale face, searching for something, anything, to make sense of this.
Cold dread trickles down my neck when I find nothing.
Sadaré was never motherly. She never wanted a child.
Never mind what a child of mine might have done to her mortal body.
She always used her witch’s powers to prevent it.
My chest caves in when I consider that she only felt that way because of me.
And now that she’s with him, that’s exactly what she wants.
I don’t know how it’s possible for her to bear Isha’s child if she’s dead, but aether is aether, perhaps even down here—and Isha’s the most potent of all in this place.
A god’s aether. And yet I can’t sense any bright, golden pulse beneath the shadow of her hand. Maybe it’s too soon to tell.
Why would she lie about such a thing?
There’s a pit inside of me once more, and I’m tumbling headfirst into it.
Oblivious to my agony, Sadaré continues, “I would forge the bond with you that I refused him. I would be your wife. Your queen, bowing only to you.” She’s already bowing before him, as if to demonstrate her willingness.
“I will never leave your side. But he should leave.” She tosses her head at me—as if I were a mere servant she was dismissing. “Leave us in peace.”
I would think she was playing him like a lyre, but I can’t see how. She’s not doing this for immortality, not if she didn’t accept the ring in the first place. Isha doesn’t have that power anyway, as far as I know. The ring is trapped around her neck, and yet she’s not asking for it.
Perhaps she truly loves him. She truly wishes to stay with him.
Bear his child. I tip my head back, nearly wishing the black ceiling above would swallow me in darkness.
Now I understand why Sadaré always laughed when she was in the throes of agony, because a laugh bursts out of me—if only to relieve the tension that’s tearing me apart.
“Ah,” I gasp when I can, stepping back off the stairs onto level ground, “I rescind my offer. I can’t force her from here if she’s unwilling to go.
Especially not if she’s carrying your child…
and not even if she wasn’t. I can’t take the choice from her.
I’m not that much of a monster in the end, even if I wish I could be.
And I won’t become one at your side. I would have, to save her, but she doesn’t want to be saved. ”
I remember the words she told me so long ago: You have to want to save yourself.
“You can still stay.” The quiet offer comes from Isha.
From the god who doesn’t offer, only takes.
“The three of us together, ruling over the underworld. Three as one.” His slight gesture takes in the dais—as if we could all be positioned up there, just like the underworld’s judges, dripping in blood.
The thought makes a shudder rise from deep within me. Especially since I’m considering it.
Sadaré, for her part, only scowls down at me, keeping her lips pressed tight. Not so bold as to reject his suggestion outright, but making her thoughts on it plain. At least to me.
It stings that she wouldn’t want me to stay even in that regard—to come between the two of them. Or the three of them. Their little family in hell. As awful and twisted as Isha’s proposal is, I hate that she would refuse it because of me.
“You want me to give you myself for nothing in return?” I nod at his throne.
“You would still rule over the both of us. And then I would no longer be the person Sadaré loved—not that her love is within my reach anymore,” I add before she can drive that knife deeper.
I toss my head back at the doors to the courtyard.
“I would no longer be the person my mother loved—and he’s miraculously still in there somewhere.
Most of all, I would no longer be someone I could someday love.
” I tap my chest before letting my hand fall, my voice fraying.
“I must keep hold of that, because who else do I have, in the end, but myself? You already learned that lesson, Sadaré.” My eyes find her again—they can’t seem to avoid her, despite how much it hurts to look at her, still kneeling before him.
“It has taken me this long to learn it myself.”
She can’t be my only reason for living differently. She wouldn’t be enough, in the end. I have to carry the reason inside me. I have to be enough.
“My name is Arinae now,” she bites out, “and I don’t know what lesson you mean. I have Isha, and our child. They’re all I need.”
I try to let her words wash over me like water, not burn into my skin like embers spat from a fire. I bark another laugh. “And you would no longer be the person I loved.”
Her only response is to seethe at me, so much loathing surfacing in the hidden depths of her eyes that I finally have to look away from her, never mind that the alternative is Isha.
“And I could never love you,” I tell him.
“You know that’s not true,” the god of death says softly, holding my gaze—the god who is never soft.
“Not fully, just as I could never fully hate you. You felt it—our likeness as well as our opposition. There’s something that draws us together even as it forces us apart.
” He glances at Sadaré, who’s only cleaving to his leg as if she’ll never let him go.
As if she’ll fight even him if he tries to pull free.
I shake my head. “I still won’t become your monster, even if that’s what she’s chosen for herself.
But I hope you become less of one, whether by choice or necessity.
” Looking around at his throne room—at the statues like Orseus’s somewhere in the Plains of the Forgotten—I smile as much as grimace.
“Your aether will never be what it once was unless you better nourish the souls in your care. Otherwise many will leave voluntarily rather than stay to be ground up in your mill.” I turn partially away. “I am leaving now.”
“Good,” Sadaré mutters. “Finally.”
Isha’s expression hardens once more, even as he glances down at her.
“Good luck, rather, finding the way.” He tosses a careless hand in my direction, as if he’s not bothered by my imminent departure, though I can see that he is, in every hard line of his body.
“Take your mother with you, for all I care. You’ll see what happens when she tries to leave—shades don’t have the substance in the mortal realm that they do here.
Or you can stay and watch as I take everything from you.
” He stands slowly—still graceful despite how worn and aching he looks—and lifts Sadaré to her feet, facing her in front of the throne.
Look away, I plead with myself. Go.
I want to look away. I want to go. But I can’t.
He brings his hands to rest upon her shoulders, and for a brief moment I’m afraid he’s going to hurt her, even now.
I ready myself to charge up the dais, uncaring if she despises me.
But then in one swift motion, he snaps the collar from her neck instead of snapping her neck.
The cuffs on her wrists and ankles fall away as well, ringing on the stone and bouncing down the steps.
Her hands twitch as if to catch them in reflex, but she lets them drop.
Suddenly desperate, I search for another ring, but I don’t see it. I’m frozen in place, which Isha must take for my decision to stay.
“Very well,” he says heavily. “Let him witness our betrothal before he leaves. Let him take this final memory with him, so he can always remember what he lost when he challenged the will of Death.” When he raises his hand, he has a spiked silver crown, newly minted from the collar he held.
“I told you it was inevitable that it would end like this.”
And yet he doesn’t sound victorious as he lowers the crown over Sadaré’s bowed head, seating it in her red hair.
When she rises, her face is aglow. She throws her arms around him—her mortal arm and the one of shadow—in an exuberant display of affection that would surprise me if I didn’t feel so dead inside. But it surprises Isha, based on the crease in his brow over her shoulder.
And so he doesn’t see the ring she slips on her mortal finger behind his back, using her shadow hand to do it. But I do.
My dead heart kicks back to life, beginning to race.
When she pulls away, she grins up at him, her adoring eyes glinting with an edge that wasn’t there before—at least not where he was concerned. “I’m your queen, but I’m also your equal. Because I’m a—”
She can’t finish, because she screams at the same time light explodes from the ring. I cringe even as delirious hope explodes within me. Because I know what she’s feeling.
I hadn’t yet warned her what it felt like to become a god. I wasn’t sure she wanted it.
Evidently she did. And now she’s getting it.
Her scream doesn’t stop as the radiance races up her arm and floods her entire body, washing her in a brilliant glare, dissipating the shadow of that arm. Even melting the crown atop her head.
Burning her away. Making her new.