Chapter 23
No one stopped me as I made my way through the palace; indeed, a pair of servants scattered, a scribe reversing direction and hurrying down an opposing hall.
A stammering courtier pointed me in the direction of the throne room when I asked after the queen, every guard I passed curiously still.
Perhaps they’d been ordered to permit me passage, so that Lab’s “trial” might proceed without delay.
The dying sun painted the corridors in vivid crimson hues, echoing the blood that soaked my clothes, ran down my skin, and squelched in my boots as I walked.
Feathers and bits of bone, of viscera, had dried to my skin. Undoubtedly, I looked a monster.
But a glance through the windows revealed the blazing sun still at the edge of the sea: I had met Lab’s deadline.
However, when I tried to enter the throne room, one of the shield bearers stepped in front of me, blocking my passage.
I drew up in surprise. It was the same young woman as always, the heavily tattooed warrior who looked to be sister to the man at her side, the one I’d swear I’d seen weeping my first day in Khatti Ugal.
They sported matching red-and-green cloaks woven with blocky patterns.
“Is there a problem?” I asked carefully.
The woman stared at me, wordless, and I suddenly realized I had never heard a single soldier in Khatti Ugal speak. Her gaze was so intense that it sent a chill down my spine. But her stare didn’t feel threatening.
It felt beseeching, like someone trying to scream without a mouth, her brown eyes bloodshot and damp.
Her brother stayed at his post, as frozen and lifeless as a statue—bewitched.
I grasped then how much I had come to dismiss the more fanciful aspects of Khayzur’s and Jamal’s tales as exaggerated fables; I had been lulled by the seemingly human queen, by the placid city.
However, I still needed to face her. “I’m very sorry,” I said softly to the young warrioress.
“But I must pass you.” I did so, sidestepping her and pushing open one of the grand doors.
She didn’t stop me—perhaps she couldn’t—and so I entered the throne room.
Quiet murmurs of conversation were audible, but they faded the moment I approached.
A harpist gasped, her companion on the lyre dropping his instrument in shock.
The queen sat enthroned with about a dozen advisors beneath her, silent servants behind.
In the vanishing light of day, the throne room was transformed from what had looked like a lovely seaside cove to an ominous lagoon.
The tropical plants that climbed the stone walls were black, grasping tendrils.
Torches blazed, turning the water that ran along the perimeter into a river of fire.
I felt keenly the judgment, the hostility simmering in the faces of those set above me.
I had eyes for none but Queen Lab. As she met my gaze, her expression cool and impenetrable as an expanse of midnight sea, I finally loosened my burden and tossed the last griffin egg to the floor.
The enormous egg rolled toward the queen like a boulder, splattering her fine carpet with the blood of its parents and the weeping yolk of its siblings.
Ignoring the scandalized gasps of her audience, I tossed her knife after it.
“Your blade by sunset,” I said harshly, offering the barest of bows. “As requested.”
Her dusky eyes took me in from head to toe, tracing every grisly detail as though savoring a fine prize. “How many?” she asked, hunger in her voice.
Hate churned in my belly. I allowed it no outlet. “Six.”
She leaned back in her fine chair, visibly impressed. “There were only four last time. An incredible feat.” She traced her fingers over the egg as though to admire the gold, but to me, it appeared she was tracing patterns in the gore. “Impossible, one might even say. Certainly for a mortal.”
There was a pregnant pause in the room, the gazes of her guests—her prisoners—shifting to me, heavy with fear and fascination.
I lifted my chin. “I was lu—”
My throat abruptly closed.
Gasping, I had no sooner fallen to my knees than I was dragged, as though an invisible hand snatched me by the collar and threw me at the queen’s feet.
“If the word lucky leaves your lips, al-Sirafi, I will have you tossed to fifty griffins.” The pressure released on my throat, and I inhaled, trying to catch my breath as she continued.
“An ordinary human would be lucky to flee one. This?” She gestured to the egg. “This is beyond human capabilities.”
I swallowed, and Lab seized me by the chin, her piercing eyes seeming to peel me apart as they traced across my body.
She reminded me of a tiger, preparing to sink fangs into my neck.
The sounds of shock had fallen away—no, not fallen away; rather they were frozen.
It was as though the room were being preserved in ice; a minister’s concerned expression flared with unnatural slowness, the musician bent in minuscule fragments to retrieve his fallen instrument, a servant drifted to mop up spilled wine that spread as though it were honey.
“You are no elemental of air nor water,” the queen murmured in assessment. Her lips drew back in an undisguised expression of contempt. “I know well their stench. Nor is the creature in my dungeon to whom you are apparently married. So, what is it? What are you?”
Elementals of air and water? My mind spun at Lab’s words. Could she be referring to the peris and marid?
Her fingernails cut into my flesh. “Answer, al-Sirafi,” she snarled. “You do yourself no favors concocting more lies.”
I flushed, caught out. But she didn’t know.
It was clear that it was the queen’s ignorance that enraged her, her inability to sort me into a category of something understood.
I thought fast: I couldn’t deny any connection to the supernatural, but I suspected that confessing a link to the “air elementals” so hatefully alluded to wouldn’t go well for me.
“A question for a question,” I choked out.
The queen abruptly dropped me. I fell hard to the ground, all my injuries taking the opportunity to burn in painful protest.
“Are you . . . bargaining with me?” she hissed in venomous disbelief.
A wave of dizziness swept me. I bowed my head in servility, which wasn’t difficult when my body wanted to be one with the floor.
“Forgive me,” I begged. “But it is a truth that I hardly understand myself. One that puts me at great danger, even among my own people.” I wet my lips, glancing about with obvious fear. “My men . . . did you bring them for judgment as well?”
“Your crew remains at the beach, at work on repairs. They apparently take direction better than their captain.”
“And Dalila?” I asked, trembling. “She isn’t here?”
Intrigue lit the queen’s otherwise scathing gaze. “Have you lied to Dalila about your magic, as well? So much for friendship, though perhaps she is better for it. The doctor was far more willing to come to an agreement. So, tell me,” she pressed. “No more delays.”
The barest hint of relief ran through me. My crew and Dalila were alive. Not safe—Lab’s answer regarding Dalila seemed particularly ominous—but I pressed on, thankful for this small mercy, and answered, compliant.
“I am everything that I have told you,” I began. “A reformed pirate. A mother. But many years ago, I made a bargain with a demon.”
“A bargain with a demon?”
“Yes. A contract, a marital one. Raksh is no man; he is—in his telling—a spirit of discord. But our union was a drunken mistake on both our parts. Since we wedded, we seem to . . . feed off each other in a way I don’t understand.”
“Try to understand,” she snapped. “A ‘spirit of discord’? What sort of explanation is that?”
At least we had one frustration in common.
I leaned into it, venting. “He will not tell me! I don’t even know his true name, his nature.
” Her expression twisted, and I swiftly elaborated.
“He claims he was once worshipped as a god and that he survives off ambition, the making of legends. The more extraordinary feats I accomplish, the further tales of my name carry, the more he gains power, and I gain magic. The strength, the speed that you pointed out.”
Lab sat back, drumming her nails on the carved armrest of her throne. “A demon,” she finally repeated, seeming to contemplate my reply if still clearly suspicious. “A demon who thrives—survives—off mortal ambition?”
I dug my fingers into the carpet, trying to steady the spots dancing before my eyes.
There was an oddly sweet fragrance to the air, spiced honey and warm citrus, that made me nervous.
I’d seen what magic Khatti Ugal wrought with its aromas.
“That’s all I know. I told the truth about being on a better path; I have been trying to avoid Raksh. Our journey here—”
“Was innocent?” she scoffed. “Do not pretend.”
I hesitated. Every instinct in my gambler’s heart warned me to hold the tale of the spindle close.
For the kernel of Khayzur’s and Jamal’s accounts had proved true: Lab did have access to magic.
She made her home in a land that was impossible to leave.
If this also implied that even a fraction of what Khayzur had warned about the spindle was possible, I could only pray Lab didn’t know about it.
Confessing I was here to steal it was out of the question.
But she wasn’t satisfied. And I had but heartbeats to devise another excuse. What did this woman want? I ran over everything that I knew in my head . . . and then something snagged.
Lab never invited my men back. For all the queen’s words about welcoming new arrivals, luring them in and insisting those who wished to stay be permitted to do so, my crew had been kept at work. She’d visited my ship, picked my brain, and then laden us with supplies.