But she knew the heat hadn’t woken her, nor Perdaro’s smell or his snoring. She’d been dreaming of the woman, Shariel, her assassin. The dream had been more than a dream, as they always were, and she had been pulled from her sleep when the woman’s life left her body.
She has failed.
She stood and crossed to the window, the soft fur of the bearskin rug grating on the bottom of her feet more than usual, her hatred of it amplified by her mood. Her skin was thankful when it touched cool stone.
I should have the damn rug removed.
She threw open the shutters and stared out into the night. From the window in the king’s quarters on the third floor, she could see the tops of a few buildings and the inside of the fortress’ wall, nothing beyond. She knew the building faced north when the happenings of her dream lay to the west, but she stared hard into the night as if doing so would allow her to see into the distant public house and look into the face of her enemy.
When it didn’t, she put her hand on her chest and breathed deep, her chest and heart and lungs stinging with the wounds inflicted by the flaming tyger on her assassin. She felt blood oozing from the wound and onto her fingers, heard the hiss of breath escaping from the holes in her chest. Life escaped the body with the fluid and the air. The Archon closed her eyes and concentrated, willing the power to rise in her, and the pain faded.
Vanquishing the feeling of Shariel’s wounds changed neither the fact of her death nor the survival of the man and the spirit of the king within him.
Her eyes remained closed another minute as she fought the urge to build the power further, to use it to transport herself to that distant city and finish herself what the assassin started, but she knew she didn’t have the power to do it. It took too much of her to raise the dead men and keep them going for her to expend so much energy elsewhere. She must trust the man’s journey would be cut short another way, or that he would come to her and find his death at her hands.
A cold breeze gusted through the window, blowing the scent of Perdaro’s body out of her nostrils and carrying with it the briny scent of the sea and the hint of winter coming in the near future. The wind embraced her, caressed her like no man ever could, but his time it didn’t calm her or make her feel better like it so often did. Instead, it was the gust of air to fan the flames.
“He lives,” she said aloud; Perdaro snorted in his sleep. “And he still carries the king within him.”
This wasn’t what she had foreseen. In her visions, Erechania’s king and its people simply bent to her will, provided her the stepping stone she needed to launch her offensive on other kingdoms. As her army and her might pushed forward, she would eventually overthrow the southern kingdoms and learn the secrets of their dark magic no northerner had ever learned, not even Monos. She’d be the most powerful Necromancer who ever lived. No one would stop her.
Yet this man, this farmer, stood in her way.
“How is it he yet survives?”
She knew the answer. It was unexpected and unlikely, but not out of the realm of possibility. Only one man could have kept the farmer alive so long, a man who professed not to involve himself in the goings-on of men. Her eyes narrowed, a shadow fell across her face.
“Darestat.”
She cursed herself for not ensuring the old wizard was truly dead as she watched clouds roll across the moon, throwing the fortress into deeper night. If the Necromancer still lived, she would have to find ways to increase her powers to defeat him. It was no longer a farmer or a fallen king against whom she fought, but the powerful magician.
And she relished the challenge.
“This is not done,” she said crossing the room to the divan.
The velvet upholstery chaffed her flesh as she reclined on the bench. She closed her eyes, focusing the power swirling within her until her mind filled with the vision of a verdant field, blue sky, and the shape of a woman reclining in the grass.
“Shariel,” she said and smiled.
Chapter Thirty-One
The flaming tyger’s claw pierces my heart and I know it’s done.
I’ve failed.
The flames flicker and die and the man called Khirro looks down on me with love and sorrow in his eyes. I want to tell him he’ll be okay, to reach up and stroke his cheek; in this moment I realize I’m Shariel no more. I’m Elyea: the woman he loved, the woman who loved him.
“Khirro.”
“Shh. Don’t speak.”
“She lied to me. It wasn’t you. I’m sorry.” He leans forward, puts his cheek against mine. It washes warmth through me not caused simply by the proximity of a warm body. This is the way he made me feel.
“It wasn’t you. I loved you.”
“Don’t go. Not again.” He shakes his head and his cheek touching mine is the last thing I experience. I breathe my last breath and feel myself floating toward the ceiling with it.
Below me, Athryn kneels, his chanting finished. He uses my death to heal them both and the thought fills me with joy. I caused their injuries, so it’s fitting I’ll be the cause of their healing, too. I pass through the roof of the building, floating upward, and can no longer see the two men. The city of Poltghasa stretches beneath me, a sleeping beast, a place where I wreaked such havoc and caused such death.
But it wasn’t me. I see that now.
And I see the truth now, too. Khirro didn’t do those things, the woman in black manipulated me. He didn’t do anything but love me and care for me-the only man who ever truly did. He deserves my appreciation and love, not hatred and disdain, and he’ll have it forever more. It pains me I can’t show him.
I will find a way.
The city disappears, replaced by grass greener than grass should be. I roll onto my back, delighting in the feel of the dewy blades caressing my naked flesh. A cloudless sky carved of sapphire stretches forever over my head and peace fills me. If I can’t be with Khirro, this is where I want to be.
The Gods did not invent the sundial, it is a construct of man, to gauge when his life’s end approaches, so it holds no value here. Lives here have already ended. Perhaps, to a mortal, I’ve been here a few seconds when the colors begin to fade, or maybe it’s eons. No matter, I’ve seen this before, it led me from my paradise to hell on earth and I won’t let it happen again. I concentrate. The field wavers then solidifies. The sky fades, flirting with white, then returns to cerulean when I turn my attention to it.
A spot of black appears before me, small at first. It expands; before it takes shape, I know what it is. Who it is.
Anxiety intrudes on my peacefulness, nesting in the pit of my stomach. The black smudge grows to the size of a person, resolves itself into the woman in black, her cowl pulled back from what I once thought her beautiful face. The look in her eyes sends a shudder through my body.
“Shariel,” she says, a smile oozing across her lips.
“I’m not Shariel. I’m Elyea.”
“Do not be silly, child. There is no shame in your failure. Even I did not know the power within him.” She takes a step toward me and I fight the urge to crawl away, knowing it will do me no good. “I am here to offer you another chance, Shariel.”
“No. He’s done nothing to me. I’m Elyea, and I love Khirro.”
Rage chases the smile from the woman’s face for an instant, then she recovers and I notice the white teeth in her smile end in points. She takes another step closer.
“Nonsense.”
She slides her cloak off her shoulders; it falls in a black heap on my emerald grass, an ugly stain on my perfect place. She stands naked before me, dark nipples against pale flesh, no hair between her legs disguising the flower of her womanhood. I gaze upon the splendor of her body and remember how it made me feel before, but it’s a memory now. This time, instead of the tingling in my loins, disgust writhes in my belly.