Chapter Twenty-Two

Naratha was not the sort of woman who took easily to bowing to the whims of others, even if they were gods, which made kneeling at even a private altar an irksome affair. But while she might normally have felt some sort of kinship with Tanitha for exhibiting that same resistance to being commanded, she couldn't let herself do so now. Not when she had just learned with certainty that she had no choice but to kill the girl.

One could argue that killing Tanitha had always been her intention, of course. That certainly had been true at the beginning. But as a younger woman, war had taught her to leave no possibility unaccounted and unprepared for. And so, reluctant as she'd been to accept that Darius might truly care for the girl, she'd taken measures to address the possibility if it arose. But there were some dangers that couldn't be preempted, some perils that couldn't be addressed bloodlessly. This was one of them.

Smoke and incense coiled around her from the small braziers that had been set at the small but elaborately carved altar to the Awakened One. She wasn't certain what she hoped to accomplish, kneeling in apparent supplication like this. At this point, a god could manifest to her directly and command her to spare Tanitha and she still wouldn't do it. Not unless the god in question told her that the scholars were wrong, that there was a way she could spare the girl without risking Darius' life.

A quiet rustle sounded behind her, but she didn't open her eyes— she knew her foster son's footfalls well enough that it was unnecessary. She waited, breathing in the scented air in rhythm with the distant crash of the waves in the harbor.

Kai didn't speak as he settled to his knees beside her. Naratha waited, but he remained silent. Despite that, she had a fair idea of what had brought him there.

"You think it was cruel," she said at last, stating it as fact. "The second Trial."

"It was," he answered. His tone was mostly devoid of emotion, but she still thought she caught a hint of censure in it, or at least disapproval.

"Sending a plague survivor into that situation was cruel," Kai repeated. "And since the arbiters ruled in Tanitha's favor, I don't imagine it accomplished what you hoped, either. Unless I'm missing some part of your plan?"

She finally opened her eyes to give him a sideways look, one eyebrow raised. "Is your complaint that the Trial was cruel, then, or that it was ineffective?" she asked. He didn't answer, and she raised one hand, letting a coil of smoke from the brazier curl around it before lowering it once more.

"I assumed," she said, "that Tanitha would be unable to force herself to enter the town's borders." She shrugged, the scales at the tips of her wings rasping along the marble floor. "Her determination is admirable," she continued, managing not to choke on the admission, "but the fact remains that she could have resigned. She did not have to endure that."

"She did," Kai said wearily. "Let's not pretend otherwise."

She paused, then inclined her head in acknowledgement. Politics often required dishonesty, but he was right that she shouldn't proffer it to family. He deserved better than that.

"Why are you here?" she asked finally.

"I think you know," he said, his voice level and still lacking any hint of feeling beyond that faint note of censure. "There's a reason you didn't see fit to notify me that you had initiated her second Trial until after it was done, after all."

"And what would you have done if I had told you?" she asked. She hadn't taken any pleasure in the deception, but he was right. She'd been suspicious that he might be carrying some sympathy for Tanitha from the start. Giving him an opportunity to act on those sympathies would have been unwise.

He shrugged. "I would have tried to persuade you to reconsider, I suppose," he said. "I wouldn't have told Darius, if that's what you're asking. We all know where that would have led."

It would have led to Darius tearing apart heaven and earth to get to Tanitha. Naratha consciously smoothed her stress-furrowed brow.

"I spoke with Tanitha today," she said. "She told me that Darius would hold me responsible for her death, and that he would never forgive me for it." She managed, barely, to keep her tone free from the pain of voicing those words. "Do you believe that's true?" she asked.

A tiny glowing ember popped from the brazier to land in front of Kai, and he flicked it away. "I've given you my assessment of their interactions," he said quietly. "What they have is real."

She closed her eyes for a moment. Depths of the Abyss, what she would have given for him to have been able to truthfully offer a different answer. But it had been a weak, false sort of hope that he might have done so. At the beginning, she'd been able to lie to herself on that front, true. But she had never been skilled at deceiving herself for very long.

"Did you come here to ask me to spare her, then?" she asked.

"What would happen if you did?" he replied. "I know you have an arrangement with Alethia. What would happen?"

"Tanitha's fate is Alethia's to determine," Naratha said, flicking one hand. "I am to provide Alethia with the opportunity to do as she sees fit on that front. If I revoke that, Zharen will claim foul play. We would face sanctions from them and at least some of the other Enclaves. From there…" She trailed off. She didn't need to continue. He knew where that path could lead, what their enemies would do if Karazhen's alliances crumbled.

He was quiet for a few heartbeats before speaking. "I could talk to Alethia," he said. "I could try to convince her to stand down."

She pressed her hand to her temple. She'd considered it herself. Alethia's fury might have cooled enough to accept another arrangement, provided it was sufficiently generous. But…

"It wouldn't help," Naratha said, her voice low.

"Isn't it worth trying ?" Kai pressed. "And are trade sanctions really worse than what Darius might do if Tanitha dies? Or what you might have to do to stop him?"

"It would not help ," Naratha said, her shoulders tense. Gods, she wished it were as simple as everyone else seemed to think. "It's true that perhaps you could convince Alethia not to pursue Tanitha's death. She's not irrational, and she might in fact be happy to enter a negotiation where she holds significant bargaining power. But she is not the main concern right now."

He started to answer, then paused, his brow furrowed. "What is, then?"

She turned to face him directly for the first time in the conversation, assessing him. She had kept certain information from him because she'd suspected him of holding sympathies for Tanitha, and he did, but those were firmly rooted in his desire to see to his brother's well-being. He was, ultimately, still trustworthy. So in the end, the desire to have someone else who could view the situation in its entirety won out over her inclination toward secrecy.

"Come with me," she said.

The guards stood at rigid attention as Naratha and Kai approached, and one of them unlocked and opened the thick oaken door separating them from the next block of the prison. As it creaked open, the sounds of conversation from several different voices stilled. Kai looked at Naratha warily as they entered, but she offered no explanation, motioning for him to shut the door behind him.

The room comprised a block of four cells that ringed a central area, but they were at that moment open and unoccupied; the four scholars she had recruited were seated at a broad table in the central room, its surface strewn with scrolls, loose parchments, and books. The scholars, two men and two women, all human, jolted to their feet in a flurry of motion upon Naratha's entry.

"Your Majesty," said one, bowing his head, though his posture was tense. She supposed that was natural; she wasn't known for being overly patient with failure, and thus far, this group had been unable to provide her with what she wanted. She didn't intend to exact any punishment for that— she'd known when she'd brought them here that what she asked was likely impossible— but she hadn't offered the scholars any reassurance to that effect. Fear, warranted or not, was a very effective motivator toward dedicated effort.

"Vatius," she said, greeting the scholar who'd addressed her with a nod. "Have there been any developments?"

He swallowed visibly, his gaze still downcast. "No, Majesty. We've requested more of the ancillary works referenced on the earliest beginnings of the practice, where we hope to find—"

She raised a hand for him to halt, and he immediately fell silent. She didn't need to hear of their increasingly desperate search for answers; she knew perfectly well that they were only casting such a wide net in an attempt to extend their appearance of usefulness, given their likely assumption about what would happen if she lost patience with them.

"What is this?" Kai asked in an undertone, more than a hint of unease in the set of his shoulders as he looked around, at the hunched postures of the other three scholars, at the chains around their ankles that were anchored to the stone floor.

"These four are some of the most preeminent scholars on the theory and application of soul-binding," Naratha said, her voice calm but firm. "They have been at the forefront of the efforts to allow human nobility to incorporate soul-bonds into their marriages."

"I know who they are," Kai said, still looking around in apparent incredulity.

"Then I imagine you can deduce why I brought them here," Naratha said. "They have been isolated since the morning a certain individual returned to Karazhen. Out of prudence, they have not been told the exact nature of what we are contending with. I have requested, however, that they research all previous writings on the subject of soul-bonds between humans and demons."

She turned back to Vatius. "So," she said, "for the sake of Prince Kaion's understanding, please reiterate what you told me this morning."

The scholar turned slightly to orient himself toward Kai, though he still kept his head bowed and his gaze lowered, as did the others.

"Soul-bonding between humans and demons is an area that has received only very limited research, given the…" he cleared his throat, "… implications of such a practice," he said.

Naratha thought she saw him stifle a glance in her direction there, but she gave no sign of noticing. He would naturally assume that this had to do with making the human population more malleable to demonic wishes, and she'd done nothing to correct the assumption. Better these scholars think she wanted a few human puppets as senators or some such than that they realize their crown prince was under a human girl's control.

"And?" Kai prompted. "What have you found?"

Vatius cleared his throat. "So far, very little, Your Highness," he said. "Although we will of course continue to search, there does not appear to be any record of such a thing ever being done." He cleared his throat again. "Of course, there is also very little written about the rituals that your people use among themselves for the same purpose," he said. There was no ritual involved, of course, but Naratha and Kai both nodded regardless. The scholar glanced at Naratha, then back to Kai. "What we know is that the rituals that we use to attempt human soul-bindings are very rarely effective. Additionally, some demons have allowed elementalist experimentation prior to their unions. The rituals have never once been effective on demons. If we were allowed to study the elemental magic that demons use themselves for this purpose…" He trailed off, then went very still upon seeing a warning in both Naratha and Kai's gazes.

"You're saying that the mechanism of soul-binding humans is poorly understood, and seems to be fundamentally different from what works on demons," Kai said, likely taking pity on the man, who had practically frozen.

"There… does seem to be a fundamental level of incompatibility," the scholar said.

It was an understatement, in Naratha's opinion. The simple fact of the matter was that humans did not possess a true form. Without the ability to display their truest selves, soul-binding was a near-impossibility. Even the few times it had been accomplished in human marriages, no one seemed to have a good understanding of why it had worked.

"And do you believe that this incompatibility can be overcome?" Naratha asked.

"Anything can be done with sufficient research, Your Majesty," he said, lowering his head slightly. As he did, though, his posture tensed and his gaze slid to the left. Naratha pursed her lips. Most people had no idea how obviously their mannerisms betrayed even small deceptions, which this was not.

Obvious or not, though, letting him know that she saw through his attempts to extend his usefulness did not serve her interests. "Thank you, Vatius," she said calmly. She turned to Kai. "Is there anything you would like to ask, or is the situation clearer to you now?"

"It's clear," he said, his tone clipped. He nodded once to the scholars, then turned to leave with Naratha.

When they were well out of the guards' earshot, she stopped their progress down the dark passageway, turning to Kai.

"You saw that, I take it?" she asked.

"Did I see that he was lying through his teeth when you asked if it's even possible to bind Tanitha to Darius properly?" he asked, running a hand through his hair in a stressed motion. "Yes, I saw it." He let out a short, forceful exhalation. "Are you going to kill them?" he asked. "The scholars?"

"Why would I do that?" Naratha asked calmly.

"Those four are brilliant researchers," he said. "Responsible for some of our strongest advancements in several fields. They're not fools. If you release them and they hear that Darius was betrothed to a human woman, they'll quickly form some suspicions."

"They'll suspect that I wanted to determine if a binding between Darius and his bride was possible, and they'll be correct," she said. "It isn't a problem. They're convinced a demon cannot soul-bind a human; why would they wonder if the reverse had already occurred?"

"So, you don't plan to kill them," he said, looking at her with faint skepticism.

She stifled a flutter of impatience. "Their fate is hardly the most salient issue right now."

"I imagine it's quite salient to them ," he said, jerking his head in the direction of the cell.

She folded her arms, failing to fully contain her exasperation at his insistence at discussing this point rather than the matter of obviously greater significance.

"They'll live," she said with a dismissive motion. "Killing them would only make others suspect they had discovered something related to soul-binding that demonkind considers dangerous, thus encouraging more secretive investigations. I would rather be kept abreast of all developments in this field, for obvious reasons. They will be released unharmed when this is over."

His expression showed no signs of relief. "When this is over," he repeated, with little inflection. "What does that mean?"

She met his gaze steadily. "It means," she said, "when Tanitha no longer has unilateral control over Darius."

"When she's dead, you mean," he said tonelessly.

"I do not see another path to guarantee his safety," she replied. "Do you?" He didn't answer, and she continued, "I have had little choice but to conclude that they do have feelings for each other. But I think you understand how little that matters in this situation. While she lives, there is nothing I can do to safeguard against the possibility of her one day abusing the sway she has over him. I cannot allow that."

"I don't believe she means to harm him, or us," Kai countered, but she could see that he was wavering.

Naratha acknowledged the statement with a nod. "That may be true. Her intentions may be pure… at least, right now. But there are few people in this world who could resist the temptation of that sort of power for long." She met his eyes intently. "She has broken his trust in a profound way once already," she said. "And I do not intend to stand idly by and wait for it to happen again. Because someday, somehow, it will. I don't know how or when. But it will happen." She took a slow breath. "Unless I put a stop to it."

Kai was silent for several long moments. "When?" he asked finally. "Do you have a plan?"

"The word we received from Magister Alodion this morning affords us an opportunity," Naratha said. Kai's expression took an uneasy edge of understanding, and Naratha laid a hand on his shoulder.

"It will be a clean death," she said gently.

Kai looked away. "He won't forgive you," he said, voice low. "Tanitha was right about that. He won't forgive you. Nor me, I imagine."

"I think that's true," Naratha said quietly. "But I consider that infinitely preferable to never being able to forgive myself. Do you disagree?" He didn't answer, his shoulder tense under her hand. "Kai," she said, her tone still gentle. "She has far too much power over him, and there is no other way to counter it, or protect him. If there were…" She trailed off. If there were, she might be able to do something, anything, to avoid inflicting this pain on Darius. But as it was…

"Tanitha has to die," she finished. "There is no other way."

He remained still for several seconds. Then, finally, he looked up to meet her gaze.

He nodded.