Chapter 17 #4
“Can I not? Can I not do as I please in my own court? You have no jurisdiction here. Not anymore. Your power is not what it once was, Auriel, Guardian of the Green Ray. You are diminished from what you once were—no matter how much the light from her breast tries to heal you.”
I shook my head, feeling desperate. We had to enter. We had to get what we came for. I didn’t care what animosity there was between Ma’Nia and Auriel, or how stubborn the Afeya could be. I was not leaving here without the red shard.
Auriel held up his scroll. “Then our bargain is broken. I will make copies of the Valya again. Share what I know.”
“Share what you know?” The Queen lifted an eyebrow in challenge. “What you know is worthless. Have you forgotten? It’s been a thousand years. They won’t believe you. They’ll say it’s a myth. A story. It will be dismissed.”
“You don’t know that,” Auriel sneered.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It won’t change things.
You see, some knowledge is priceless. This knowledge, these writings you clutch in your mortal fist, is not.
It is worthless without the missing piece.
” She gazed at my heart, and red light reflected in her violet eyes.
The red ray of the Valalumir. “Go, Auriel. I did not invite you here.”
“No?” he seethed. “But Mercurial made sure I became flesh. He pulled a lot of damn strings to bring me back.”
Queen Ma’Nia stiffened. “Mercurial, First Messenger of Her Royal Highness, Queen Ishtara, also has no jurisdiction here. Whatever he did or did not do will not sway my hand. Go north if you seek Mercurial.”
“I have every right to ask you to return what I gave you. That was our deal!” he shouted.
“You had the right to ask. And to receive. But only in your original body.”
“This is my original body!”
She tilted her head, tapping her chin. “I can see that it is. And yet—there’s something different. This body was not born.”
“Neither was I born last time,” Auriel shouted.
“I need some to think. Time to consider. To decide if this truly honors our bargain.”
“We don’t have time,” I yelled.
“Shhh,” Ramia hissed.
But I didn’t care anymore. They had a bargain, and Rhyan’s life was on the line. She was going to fucking honor it and I was going to do whatever it took to make sure of it.
“I need your help,” I said. “I am begging you. A Goddess is begging a queen. Mercurial acted to bring us here today, and I know you share a goal.”
“So?” She threw up her hands. “You’re here.
He succeeded. That does not mean my hand must be forced.
I have something you want, sure, but what do you have that I want?
Why would I help you, Asherah?” She peered at me from the corner of her eye.
“What could a mortal with only part of the Valalumir in her chest offer to me—when I hold the original shard? What favor can you offer in exchange for it?”
“You know that it’s mine,” I seethed. “And your magic will force you to acquiesce to Auriel.”
The Queen only shrugged. I wanted to rip her hair out. But that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I couldn’t lose more time. I had to save Rhyan. Find him before Sean did. Before Rhyan hurt anyone else. I knew what I had to do. The one thing no Afeya could refuse.
I lifted my chin. “Give Auriel back the shard. And I’ll make a bargain with you, in exchange.”
The Queen’s eyes flashed with interest.
“I’ll make a deal,” I said. “You name the price.”
“No,” Auriel said. “Lyriana, no.”
“Yes,” I hissed. “You have my word. Make me a deal, and fulfill your end of the bargain with Auriel. Tonight.”
She laughed, a finger curling around her chin.
“True love will make you indebted to all of us before the end. But having the word of a Goddess, even if she comes in a young form, is quite interesting to me. Very well.” She gazed out at the other Afeya on the shore, their eyes blinking in the night, watching me, giggling into their hands.
Ramia shook her head at me, the movement almost too subtle to see.
“Bring her to me,” the Queen commanded. “Now!”
“No!” Auriel yelled. But two Afeya materialized out of nowhere grabbing my arms and dragging me away from him.
Auriel followed behind us, I could feel him at my back and then he suddenly made a sound of pain as he was forced to stop his approach.
The Queen held up her palm, a shimmering silver light taking form as a Valalumir star.
I sucked in a breath. I still remembered the night I accepted my contract with Mercurial. The way the Valalumir had sparkled and shone. The blinding pain when it entered my body.
But that had been the Red Ray, the original light of the Valalumir. What the Queen offered was only a portion of her soul. Not the light itself.
“Lyriana, don’t,” Auriel yelled.
The Moon Queen held up her hand once more, and Auriel was silenced. She turned the star back to me, letting it spin and twirl as it floated above her palm, every bit as mesmerizing and dazzling as Mercurial’s had been.
Some part of me railed against this, my stomach turning in warning. But I couldn’t take my eyes away, nor could I back down. Not with what was at stake.
“Well?” the Moon Queen purred. “Are we in agreement?”
“That depends. What are the terms?’ I asked.
Her eyes flashed, focusing again on my chest, like she was seeing my contract with Mercurial, like she was reading some fine print I’d never known about.
“First,” Queen Ma’Nia continued, “you will fulfill your agreement with Mercurial. What I want from you cannot be done until his wishes are complete.”
My stomach turned. Shared goals, indeed.
“Then,” she said, “you will grant mine.”
“Another vague favor?” I sneered. But my skin was crawling with fear.
The Queen’s eyes narrowed, looking beyond me. “Shhhh. Calm yourself, Auriel.”
I followed her gaze, Auriel’s mouth remained closed, but his face was red like he was trying to yell and scream. He shook his head when his eyes met mine, full of alarm.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed, and turned back to the Queen.
She smiled. “Vague? Have patience. I will tell you what I want, and what you will do if you wish to save your lover.” Her eyes flashed, a cat-like smile on her face. “Your most recent lover.”
My hands clenched. “Name it.”
She waved her hand, showing off silver-painted nails.
She blinked, and they turned amethyst, then silver once more.
“You, Lyriana Batavia, are going to do something we’ve all greatly desired for centuries.
You are going to lift the curse upon us.
You will remove the bindings that force us to bargain, that have forced us into a singular immortality for a thousand years.
Unable to die, unable to start anew, to begin fresh, to live different lives, to reunite with our loved ones in the Celestial Realms.”
I blinked, for once realizing how immortality itself could be a curse.
“You want to be mortal?”
“Yes,” she said.
“You’ll be able to do magic still—any kind of magic you want, but freely?
” My heart pounded with a warning. They’d have nothing stopping them, nothing to control the power they’d have, no way to rein them in.
Until they died. Whenever that happened.
It could be dangerous. The knowledge they had, the years of practice and perfection.
“We can do any magic we want at last, wherever we want and whenever we want. And … when we so choose, when our work is complete, we will wither and die, and be reborn.”
I bit my lip. “How long will you remain before that time comes?”
“Only one bargain tonight. No more questions.”
“I lift the curse and give you free reign, all so you can fulfill the oath you were supposed to in the first place,” I said, my hands clenching into fists. I shouldn’t have even had to bargain. But here we were. “If I unleash you on Lumeria,” I said slowly, “I want something in return.”
“The shard to save your love, your mekarim, isn’t enough for you?
” she asked sweetly. Then smirked. “Oh but it is … I can smell it. But, as I am a gracious queen, I will offer you a gift. After you lift the curse, all Afeya in the Moon Court may be summoned to fight on your behalf. We shall,” her eyes sparkled, “become your soturi.”
I balked. “You’ll fight for me? In battle?”
“Once. You may call upon us once. One battle. Choose wisely. Many lay ahead for you.”
My pulse pounded, my mind reeling. “I can command you as my army for one fight, and you’ll fulfill your end of the bargain with Auriel—tonight?”
“We shall begin proceedings, and I shall invite you inside, along with him. What you do next will determine the outcome. But without our bargain, we won’t even begin negotiations. Not tonight.”
“H-How do I lift the curse?” I asked. It was a thousand years old. I didn’t even know it could be undone. “I know it’s a question, but if you want me to do this—I need to know how.”
“Why don’t you ask Auriel, hmmm?”
“Ask Auriel?” I frowned.
“You see,” she continued, “Auriel is more than just the God who fell from Heaven. The God who stole the Valalumir from the sky. He is the God,” she spat, “who cursed our kind. Who sentenced us to exile, to immortality, and to an eternity of making petty bargains in exchange for power. He is the God who exiled us for a thousand years, forcing us to hold all knowledge of the universe in our hands, but to only access and touch it when asked.” Her eyes glittered with something in between venom, and pride.
“Canturiel may have created the Valalumir. But after the War of Light, it was Auriel who cursed and thereby created the Afeya.”
My mouth dropped open as I turned, stunned, to Auriel. “You,” I whispered. “You were the one who cursed them? You made it so they could only do magic if asked?”
“And therefore binding us,” the Queen hissed, “to an eternity of fulfilling favors. Without release. Without death.” Some of the Afeya watching us began to yell, cursing at him, and booing.
Auriel blew out a sharp breath and nodded slowly. “Turns out … Yes. That was me.”
By the Gods. He hadn’t just written the Valya. He’d written the curse of the Afeya. No wonder we weren’t being greeted warmly, or allowed inside. And while I knew I’d never forgive Mercurial, his bursts of anger around Rhyan were starting to make more sense.
A sudden rush of magic forced me to face the Queen again.
“Now are we in agreement?” she asked. “I can send you both away and Auriel can try to claw his way back and bargain with me, find another water dragon willing to carry him here, seek another of my daughters who may offer him her favor. Or, you can agree to finish what he started, agree to free us from his curse, and we can begin negotiations.”
My heart slammed into my throat. A shadow of a warning settled inside of me.
If I freed them of their curse, they’d be like Lumerians.
But more. They’d become Lumerians who held all knowledge of the universe.
The danger they’d pose to Lumeria unrestricted, free to do whatever magic they wanted, and when they wanted—the idea terrified me.
But not as much as walking out of here without my shard.
I took a deep breath. “You will fulfill your end of the bargain with him. All of your terms with Auriel will be fulfilled. I will find a way to break the curse. And I will call upon your army for a battle of my choosing,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then we are in agreement,” I said and squeezed my eyes shut.
Blinding silver light filled my eyelids as a sharp pain of ice so cold it was hot—like the silver rings in the habibellum pierced through my chest.
Fire and ice were dancing inside my heart and I gasped, feeling faint, my knees buckling.
Ramia grabbed my arm, shaking her head. “I told you to let me do talking.” But she brought me stumbling back to Auriel’s side. He wrapped an arm around me at once, pulling me against him.
The Moon Queen laughed. “Asherah would have known better.” She shook her head.
“You see,” she continued, “I was bound to fulfill my agreement with Auriel, however distasteful I find him. However unwelcome he and you remain, and will always remain in my court. Not after what you two have done.” Her head tilted to the side, in an agitated twitch.
“You didn’t have to trick her,” Auriel shouted. “You didn’t have to do any of this! We had an agreement. We had a bargain!”
“I know,” she said. “We did. But you cannot blame me for trying. After all, when someone can give you what you want, why not take it?” Her gaze settled on me, condescending and full of disdain.
“I heard you were easy to bargain with. But I had no idea you’d fold so quickly.
” She raised her arms high. “I should have asked for more.”
I snarled. Fuck. I didn’t even have to bargain in the first place.
And now, I’d be unleashing Afeya into the Empire— all so the Queen could do what she’d always sworn she would.
Having her army on my side for a battle was good— but the fact that I could only use them once?
And who was to say they wouldn’t join the other side the moment the battle was done?
The Queen grinned widely, knowing she’d won. Knowing that whatever we walked out of here with, she’d taken something more.
“Let’s proceed shall we? We have guests,” she announced. Then to us, she winked. “Now, you may come inside.”