Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Iknelt on the cold floor of the temple of Herdat, goddess of death and ruin, my sister’s body laying before me on the stone altar, her hair brushed to a shine, her silver dress accentuating her beauty beyond all denial and the low neckline letting the entire world see what had been done to her if they cared to look.

The time that had passed since her death had been an agony unlike anything I had ever known.

People had come to mourn her, speaking words of loss and despair over a woman they had never truly known. Not like I had. Not like Aren and her twins had.

Something inside me had splintered and shorn off. A piece which would never return because it had been so intrinsically linked to her that it couldn’t exist without her to breathe life into it.

I felt cold. Deep down to the roots of my core, cold. Like frost had taken root in the part of my soul which demanded I keep living beyond her death. It was growing inside me, climbing through my veins and freezing everything it touched, kissing my lips so that they forgot how to smile, chilling my eyes so they forgot how to cry, and stilling my heart so that it only beat in shallow, insignificant thumps which did nothing beyond staving off death.

Because I didn’t want to die.

Not yet.

I wanted to claim my revenge first.

Inside me, a little girl still screamed and raged at the world, her broken heart whispering words to me between thoughts, giving me a taste of her pain whenever she could with the lash of her tongue against the inside of my skull. She was me and not me. Fractured, divided. Like I had split in two but remained in one body.

You made that bargain, she hissed with venom, the memory of Carioth’s acid green eyes haunting me from within my own mind. You let her leave the house that day.

“I know,” I told myself, because I wasn’t denying it. Aalia’s death fell on me. It was my doing almost as much as it was the emperor’s.

I knew it was him without needing to ask the question. I knew what he’d done, and I knew he had done it before and would do it again.

He’d seen something that wasn’t his. Something beautiful and pure and loved beyond any emotion he knew, and he had wanted it. She’d denied him in front of the entire court, embarrassed him and dented his ego. So he’d snatched her, and beaten her, and taken what he had been refused before wrapping his hands around her neck and stealing her from this world once and for all.

The Fae couldn’t tell lies. But secrets were easily kept by the dead.

I took Aalia’s hand in mine one last time, the coldness of her touch so alien that it didn’t even feel like it was her I was holding.

You killed her.

“And I’ll avenge her,” I swore in reply to my own mind. It wouldn’t fix it. But it would at least reset the balance.

I pressed a kiss to the back of my sister’s hand and stood, feeling the night pressing in on me as I forced myself to release her and turn away.

I was ice. A statue given breath. Inside, I was broken, but on the outside, a calm had consumed me entirely. A plan had formed within my mind, and I would see it done no matter the cost it bore.

I strode from the temple and into the night, the cicadas calling to the moon all around me as I turned toward the river and began walking.

The temple of Herdat sat alone on an outcrop at the bend in the river, right before it widened and swept out towards the distant sea. Death liked solitude after all, and though the temple had Fae visiting it daily, the walk from the city to its black stone walls was a long one. The thought was that the journey brought you closer to the dead, finding memories and ghosts in the solitude as you travelled the well-worn cobbles towards the iron door of the goddess of death.

I hadn’t touched the door as I’d left, but many did, allowing the power to be drained from them as they stood there in sacrifice to Herdat and in honour of those they’d lost.

Death wasn’t a common companion to the Fae, and with the length of our lives, it was always a tragedy. The murder of a lady of the court had brought many out of their homes to mourn. I hadn’t recognised half of them and didn’t care much for the rest. Their condolences had been empty, their sorrow inconsequential. None dared speak of what had happened or who might have done it. No one wished to utter the truth we all knew so blatantly.

Aalia had scorned the emperor and had died for it.

I focused on the sound of rushing water as I traversed the darkness towards the river’s edge.

They were there already, the boat loaded with all the coin we’d been able to take from the family coffers, every valuable item which could be transported with ease. The twins were curled up tight against their grandparents, their tears fallen to exhaustion and sleep keeping hold of them for at least a little while.

I nodded to Aren’s family but stopped dead at the edge of the small jetty.

“Come, Kyra,” Aren said in a voice raw with grief, his bloodshot eyes illuminated by the dim light of the moon as he offered me his hand.

I didn’t take it. Didn’t move at all.

“We need to get into the straights before the sun comes up,” Aren went on as if he couldn’t tell what I was going to say, as if he hadn’t already considered doing the exact same thing that I planned to a thousand times. “If we can get that far down river, then no one from the city will spy us. We’ll have a better chance of escaping this place without-”

“Tell them I wanted a lifetime under the sky with them,” I said slowly, my eyes on the twins as my chest tightened and my resolve threatened to crack for the first time. “Tell them I loved them more than words could ever convey. And tell them…not to wait to begin their adventures. I wasted my life looking at the horizon and never chasing it. The world was out there this entire time, and I never got to taste it.”

“Kyra,” Aren rasped, taking my hand by force and gripping it tightly. “Aalia wouldn’t want this. She would never wish for you to lose your life in some impossible attempt at revenge for-”

“I’ll see him dead, Aren,” I swore, taking a gilded knife from my pocket and pulling the sheath from it to reveal the iron blade. We’d had this discussion already, both of us desperate to fulfil the task, though the impossibility of it had convinced Aren out of the idea in the end, especially when I’d made him think about the twins. They deserved better than to lose both parents. But me? I was expendable. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it until now. “I’ll see him bleeding and sobbing at my feet for taking her from us.”

Aren’s throat bobbed with the desire to see that too, his fist closing and then opening as he looked over his shoulder to the sleeping twins in his parents’ arms.

“You’ll never get close enough to do it,” he breathed, the weight of his words falling over me because he believed they were true enough to have spoken them aloud.

“I will,” I told him just as firmly, letting him see my truth too. “I plan on making whatever deals I need to, with whichever gods I have to, to see it done. She was my joy, Aren. I won’t attempt any kind of life without her in it. Especially not while that piece of shit still draws breath.”

Aren frowned as his grip on my hand tightened, words forming on his lips before falling away again as he saw my decision on this. I wouldn’t be swayed. I wouldn’t be turned.

“You’ll come find us when it’s done,” he said firmly, and I managed a smile, a bittersweet smile for that pretty wish. We both knew there would be no surviving this for me. If by some miracle I ended the life of the emperor, I would never escape his guards.

“I’ll see you in the Garden one day if not,” I swore to him. “Aalia and I will wait for you there on a swing seat just like the one beyond the river by the house.”

His eyes roamed between mine, and I knew he was picturing her there now, her bare toes in the long grass, a sweet smile on her lips as she beckoned us over. She was at peace, waiting for us in the fullness of the flowers, a summer breeze in the air.

A tear tracked down his cheek and I raised my hand to brush it aside. “Live well for their sake,” I whispered. “Find that adventure, love fiercely, die bravely. We’ll meet again, brother.”

Aren choked back a sob as he drew me into his arms, my face pressing to his chest, and I returned his embrace knowing that this was it. I would never see them again. The family my sweet sister had gifted me, drifting away downriver in search of a new land and a new life. They would change their names when they arrived in Souvion. They would use their wealth to establish themselves and never speak of their past. And if by any chance, the queen of Souvion ever discovered who they were and why they had come to seek refuge in her kingdom, I was confident she would protect them. She was one of the few Fae queens who had never been afraid of Farish. She opposed him openly, even if it had never quite come to war, and would welcome them into her court should the truth present itself. But I hoped it never did. I hoped they could simply avoid the question of when and where they’d come from and focus entirely on where they were going. An adventure primed just for them. A new life where perhaps they could find happiness again, despite all they’d had so cruelly stolen from them.

We parted in silence, no goodbyes escaping us while Aren moved to sit with his children, drawing them into his arms as the boat set out towards the distant sea.

I remained standing there, immobile, my gaze fixed on the silver hair of the twins who I loved more than life itself as they headed away from me for the final time.

I watched until the horizon swallowed them and the boat was lost beyond it, their path set, just as mine was.

Your fault, the voice inside me screamed, and I accepted the lashings of her words. She was me and yet she wasn’t. I was nothing but this cold vessel for vengeance now. Who knew what I might become once I achieved it?

I turned my back on the river, feeling so cold that I could have sworn frost marked my footsteps in my wake.

I could feel the eyes of the gods on me. They knew as well as I did that I intended to keep my word on this. The death of an emperor meant nothing to me in the wake of my sister.

I hadn’t lied to Aren. I was willing to make a deal with any god to see this done. But I didn’t need just any god. There were two who claimed the crowns as the most powerful of their kind. Saresh, keeper of the sun and giver of life. I had already begged him for anything he might wish for to return my sister to me, but he hadn’t so much as replied to my call. He had heard it all before, no doubt, the desperate pleas of those left behind to the one god known to breathe life into the world, but he had never answered anyone before me, and he ignored me just as surely.

So that left an option which none but the most desperate would attempt to bargain with.

Herdat. Goddess of death and ruin, gatekeeper to the Garden, master of souls.

I stepped back into her temple, my heart falling still as I spied the empty altar, the priests and priestesses having taken Aalia’s body in my absence. They were somewhere in the depths of this place now, preparing her for burial. Speaking the rites over her body to help her stick to her path during her final walk into the Garden.

You did this. You killed her. You should have done more, should have taken her place. You never should have let her walk out that morning.

I closed my eyes to ward off the vision of that empty altar, but the words which were screamed from within myself only grew louder.

I turned back to the iron door, reaching for it blindly before pushing it shut, my palms flat to the hateful metal as I suppressed a groan at the nausea which rolled through me from the contact. My knees buckled as I felt my energy waning, my Affinities dwindling within me and my spine tingling as even the ghost of my wings seemed to wither away. I hadn’t flown since I’d lost her. Likely wouldn’t ever fly again.

“Herdat,” I ground out as my knees collided with the hard stone and my body quaked from the prolonged contact with the iron. “I beg you for the power I will need to gain entry to the palace to seek vengeance for my sister.”

Several seconds passed as I trembled there, the vile spell the iron had laid on me weakening me to my very core, but I simply called out to her again. And again.

The fifth time I called her name, the air shivered in reply and a scream caught in the back of my throat as something twisted in the shadows at my back.

I gasped as I turned from the door the same moment the torches which had been burning around the circular temple all guttered out.

Death lurked in the spaces between the shadows, its call a sweet caress on the air as Herdat shifted closer in the darkness.

“And what might I get in payment for such a boon?” a voice of nightmares purred in my ear, every muscle in my body tightening as the desire to wet myself and run screaming from this place nearly consumed me.

I bit into my cheek so hard that I drew blood, focusing on the memory of my sister’s body, murdered for the crime of refusing the emperor’s demands.

“I know you relish blood and suffering,” I whispered, taking my dagger and unsheathing it before slicing a deep gash into my own arm.

I cried out at the pain of it as I struck the vein, my blood spraying hot and fast against the wall. Herdat moaned in feminine appreciation as my skin began knitting itself back together again, my Affinities healing the wound over in a matter of moments.

“Oh, what fun we could have, daughter of Luciet. How I could watch you suffer and bleed for me without end while her power maintains you.”

A strike of sharp claws collided with my shoulder, and I was knocked to the floor as my blood spilled again, a yell of pain echoing from the walls which made Herdat’s power pulse all around me.

“Is that your price?” I panted, willing to pay it if that was what this took, but it seemed too simple, too easy. The priests and priestesses who dedicated their lives to the worship of Herdat offered her as much pain and suffering as they could endure on a daily basis. I’d never understood the appeal personally, but there were plenty of them who did so, and other Fae often came from the city to offer up their pain in worship of her too, so it didn’t seem like something she would be short on.

“No,”Herdat breathed in my ear, and I flinched as I pushed myself to my feet once more, turning wildly in the dark as I sought her out. “I will give you what you need to gain entry to the palace, young soul. All I ask in return is that you spill as much of his blood as you can. Make it hurt, pretty thing. Make him scream and suffer for me. I have waited so very long to taste his end.”

My lips parted, then closed, my answer so simple that it seemed impossible.

“I want nothing more than to make him suffer,” I snarled, straightening my spine as I felt the sinful presence of the goddess circling me. “That won’t be a problem.”

Herdat inhaled so deeply that she drew the breath from inside my own lungs, a soft moan escaping her as she feasted on that truth.

“Oh, pretty little thing. You will enjoy his death so very much. I do believe you could become something far greater than you are once you have a taste for it. Once you see what joy his punishment serves you.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat, wondering if there could be any truth to her words. I had never killed before, but I had no doubt in my mind that I could do this. I wouldn’t flinch, and she was right – if I pulled it off, then I was almost certain I would find enjoyment in it too.

The screaming of the little lost girl inside of me quieted at that thought, and I wondered if she feared me. If I feared myself and what the death of my sweet Aalia had created in me. But it was far too late for all of that, and I knew it.

“What will you give me?” I asked, unsure what I would even need to accomplish such a task, and Herdat’s sultry laughter filled the space before she replied.

“You shall have the power to speak the words you need to gain entry to his palace. They shall fall from your lips like drops of dew, set to sow the seeds of a new world for your kind and mine alike.”

“That’s it?” I whispered, uncertain of what she even meant by that.

“That’s it. But be warned, sweet soul, that if you do this, the gods themselves will riot. The world may crack and tear in two. Chaos shall rise and the dawn will break upon a new and different hour. This is your last chance to avoid corruption. Turn from this path or follow it with your whole heart. The power is yours.”

The oppressive weight lifted from the room, and I stumbled backwards as I felt her departing, her words ringing in the air like a curse of their own, but I didn’t understand their meaning.

It didn’t matter anyway. I would pay whatever price necessary to see my sister’s killer dead, and damn the consequences.