Chapter 27 #2
“He was mine, for a long time,” Liana said. “Then I lost him. Then I begged the gods—” Liana pressed her hand to her lips, hope and dread and grief threatening to explode her heart. “When you love someone, I suppose you are ready to do whatever it takes.”
Neither of them were sitting down, the queen still leaning on the desk, Liana standing in her dirty sandals and blood-spattered clothes on the soft teal carpet.
The queen was shorter, but when she approached Liana and took her grubby hand with her cold white fingers, Liana felt she had to look up to meet her gaze.
“If this were just about the king, I wouldn’t dare ask. What is my grieving heart compared with the whole kingdom? But this is not about him.” The queen’s hands were smooth, silken, yet her grip was hard. “If he dies, we all die. I’ve seen it.”
They’d all died the last time, Liana wanted to say, all but Amron, and he…
“Amron too,” said the queen. Light as a feather, final like a stone sinking on the bottom of a lake. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
She didn’t know it, not this time round. She could have hoped his luck would hold once again, but even if he survived the beginning, there would be no Liana waiting for him in Till, to follow him, to join him in every battle. To save his life, just as he had saved hers, time and again.
“I did all I could do to prevent the slaughter, but history doesn’t budge,” Liana said. “I failed at every turn and the events rolled over me like a cart rushing downhill. I don’t know how to stop it.”
Somewhere in the palace, the king was dying.
Somewhere in the city, Amron was running through a burning building to face the Elmarran blades.
Somewhere in the streets, Roderi of Elmar was pouring his poison.
And hundreds of miles away, in some exquisite room, in some sunlit residence filled with birdsong, the Emperor of Seragia was biding his time, moving ivory figurines across the map of the world.
“You need to ask the gods for help,” the queen said.
“You just said you trust your physicians more than you trust the gods. If they can save my father, perhaps they can save the king.”
“No.” The queen shook her head. “You know how that poison works.”
She did. Still, she said, “I asked my mother to help my father this afternoon, and she refused. The gods won’t answer me. I’m sure they’d listen to you sooner than they’d listen to me.”
The queen shook her head. “I tried. I begged and offered bargains and sacrifice, but they won’t listen. Once, I was useful to them, a tool in their hands that rewrote the history of this city, but that task is long finished, and they have no interest in me now. I have nothing left to give them.”
“I have nothing left to give them either,” Liana echoed.
“I forced my mother to listen to me once, for Amron’s sake; she didn’t come willingly and she didn’t offer her help freely.
I forced her. And then I struck a bargain, and bet everything I had on it.
And now I’m going to lose.” She rubbed her tear-stained cheeks.
“It was impossible, of course, all deals with the gods are rigged. But I was desperate and he was…” Her voice wavered.
“Dead,” the queen said.
Liana nodded. “And now there is no one left to help us.”
The queen walked to the window overlooking a garden.
Inside the walls of the palace, the evening seemed peaceful, the gentle breeze carrying the scent of flowers and the salty whiff of the sea.
Only a distant rumble, like a thunderstorm far on the horizon, reminded them of the turmoil in the streets.
“Whatever my sons do down in the city, it won’t be enough if the king dies.
There’ll be no persuading the people that the Seragians are blameless.
And by the time the emperor hears about it, the peace treaty will be out of the window, and the only possible response to the events here will be another war.
Amril and Amron, they can win the fight in the streets, but only you can win the fight against death. ”
It was so obvious now where it all led. Yet, Liana struggled against it. “I can’t. Nobody can. I tried and failed.”
The queen turned back from the window and crossed her arms over her chest, like a humble petitioner. “Try again. Please.”
Her gaze was too intense to bear. Liana averted her eyes, studying the tapestry filled with silver fish, the silver candelabra shaped like an octopus, the white marble fireplace with delicate flowery carvings.
Liana’s time was almost up, only one night remaining.
And even if she could somehow drag Amron out of the burning city and make him forget the rebellion spreading around them, even if it was possible to make him kiss her, what would the outcome be?
Certain war and uncertain future, and Amron, who would never forgive her such a move.
She’d offered it, back in his room. He rejected it.
The only thing left now was the attempt to save the peace treaty, against the odds. Even if it cost her everything, at least she would lose knowing that Amron was safe. It was worth the sacrifice.
On the queen’s desk, yellow roses floated in a crystal bowl filled with water.
“I’ll do it,” Liana said. “But I need to be alone.”
The queen nodded. “Thank you.”
When she left, Liana scooped up the roses and threw them in the empty fireplace.
Then she bowed low over the water, the tip of her nose almost touching the surface, closed her eyes, and whispered, “Morana, I’m here.
” Fingers gripping the edge of the desk to prevent them from shaking, Liana slowly submerged her face.
The curtain between the worlds ripped as the cold snatched her in its grip, the icy vortex pulling her down into the gloomy depths. She sank like a stone, heavy and frozen, crushed by the immense pressure of the water above.
“Breathe, you stupid girl. There’s no water here.”
Liana opened her eyes. She stood in a massive chamber filled with shifting greenish light and the sound of waves somewhere overhead. A whiff of water reeds, of rotting plants, reached her nostrils. In a blink, the goddess appeared before her.
“You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? The rigged deal?”
Liana had always thought Morana was the most terrifying of all the gods, but standing before her now, there was little difference between her coiling hair, her deathly white face, and Lela’s merciless gaze and predatory growl. All gods were terrifying. All gods lied.
“I don’t lie.” When her mouth was closed, Morana looked like a thin middle-aged woman with black, serpentine hair. But when she talked, she revealed rows of needle-sharp teeth, like a hungry moray. “I am the ultimate truth.” The Goddess of Death grinned.
Liana winced but refused to step back. “You told me to call you.”
Morana nodded.
Liana breathed in slowly. Perhaps the gods could wipe the slate clean when it suited them, but Liana wasn’t so generous, not to the one responsible for Amron’s death in the first place. It was hard, very hard to look at Morana’s pale, grim face and not hate her.
“I made a bad deal. A rushed, desperate deal. And now I’m going to lose, and I will join my mother’s hunt, never to return to the mortal world, and I’ll never see Amron again, in this life or the next.
” Despite her best efforts, tears welled up in her eyes.
“And to make matters worse, the war seems to be inevitable now that the king is dying. When I leave this place, it will sink into a fiery chaos. Queen Orsiana thinks I should negotiate with my mother but Lela won’t listen to me.
You’re the last one I can turn to, although I can’t see why you’d be willing to offer anything to me. ”
Liana lifted her eyes to the impossibly high arches above her head, covered in glittering fragments that might have been a mosaic or fish scales.
Although there was no water around her, she felt she was at the bottom of a lake.
She tried to compose her thoughts, but bitterness seeped into her words as scenes of battlefields flashed through her mind.
“So much death, so much grief. Oh, how they’re going to worship you, your name will be on thousands of lips every day. ”
The goddess stood perfectly still, yet her hair and gown moved, as if floating around her. “You are as shrewish as your mother, I see. A little humility would serve you well, considering you’ve come here to beg.”
Liana bit her lip so hard the skin broke under her teeth. Sharp pain cut through the fog filling her head. “I am begging you to help me,” she said.
“And yet you resist me with every bone in your body.”
Liana wanted to turn away then. She was sick of divine games, sick of their tricks.
“Not so fast,” the Goddess of Death said. “Tell me what you want.”
A flash of anger, a spark of desperate resistance. “I want to stay here, with Amron.” The words flew out of her mouth, and even if it was possible to take them back, she wasn’t willing to.
The corners of Morana’s mouth lifted in a toothy smile. “That’s not what the queen asked of you.”
“No. But you asked me what I wanted, and I want that. Can you do it?” Liana paused, sensing the chains of a bargain forming out of thin air.
It was dangerous to say your wishes out loud in front of the gods, but to make this wish come true, she was ready to give anything the goddess asked for. “Can you?”
“No,” Morana said after a long pause. “I cannot undo the deal between you and Perun. Other gods’ bargains are beyond my reach.”
Liana’s heart sank. “Then why tell me to call you at all? If there’s nothing you can do?”
“Oh, I can do many things,” the goddess said.
Liana took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
If she couldn’t stay with Amron, perhaps she could ensure he survived even if she wasn’t there to protect him.
Perhaps the queen was right after all, and the only way to stop the war was to save the king.
“The king is dying,” she said. “Can you spare him?”
Morana’s grin grew wider. “Now you’re getting closer.”
It had to be enough to stop the war. “Spare the king,” she said. “And tell me your price.”
The long black coils of hair reached towards Liana, like tentacles ready to wrap themselves around her. She stood still, staring into Morana’s eyes, black with golden swirls inside them.
“Three days,” the goddess said. “I’ll grant the king three more days.”
“That’s not.…That’s not enough.”
“And yet, that’s my offer,” the goddess said. “Take it or leave it.”
Would it be enough? Perhaps. Just to stop the Black Lord, to get Amril back to his wife.
“And what do you want in return?” Liana asked.
Morana stepped closer. “I take life, I don’t create it. To give it to the king, I need to take it from someone else.”
“Who…?” The image of Darin lying on the pallet, his face white as chalk, his shoulder bandaged, flickered before Liana’s eyes. “No, not my father. You can’t take him!”
“He’s already at my door. It’s a bad bargain for me, he’s got less than three days to live.”
“No! Leave him alone. Take them from me, take those three days from me, I don’t care,” Liana cried.
“Oh, but you have many more than three left,” the goddess said.
A cold wave of fear washed down Liana’s back. Of course it wasn’t so easy. “How many, then?”
“Not a single day,” Morana said. “And all of them. What I want is your divine nature in exchange for the king’s life.”
Liana didn’t even know she could be separated from one half of her being, but it hardly mattered anymore. If she had to live without Amron, she didn’t want a long life. And her mother would hate it so much, having a fully human daughter plodding after her.
“My divine nature in exchange for three days of the king’s life,” Liana said. “I agree.”