Lord Sixx went to Myrmeen, who held Krystin tightly against her. "You may live."
"And my friends?" Myrmeen asked.
"Yes, whatever. I'm feeling benevolent, and you've certainly done me a service." He gestured grandly. "Zeal, Tamara, take them outside. Make sure they get what they need for their journey, wherever they wish to go. Any who harm the humans will answer to me."
The fiery-haired man and his wife brought Reisz and Ord forward. Zeal gestured, and the creatures that had followed him in the hallway retreated from the corridor.
"Wait," Krystin said, surprising Lord Sixx and Myrmeen equally. "You owe her more than that. You should tell her the truth about her daughter."
Lord Sixx's many eyes narrowed uniformly. "Why don't you do that, child? You know as much as I do."
"What's he talking about?" Myrmeen asked, despite her instincts, which told her to leave this place before Lord Sixx changed his mind and slaughtered them.
Krystin turned to face Myrmeen. "I'm not your daughter. I never was."
Myrmeen swallowed hard. "When did you learn this?"
"Days ago, in Calimport. It's my fault they're here," Krystin said, watching Myrmeen's features grow hard and cold. Despite this, she could not bring herself to stop. "I led them here."
"You didn't," Myrmeen said flatly, becoming numb.
" Alden followed the traces of blood I left behind."
Myrmeen felt as if she were about to pass out.
"In the beginning, all they wanted was for you to think I was your daughter and take me away," Krystin said. She wrung her hands and explained in full the deception that Lord Sixx had perpetrated and the part she unwittingly had played in his schemes. Then she told Myrmeen of how the locket had related to her stolen and bastardized memories. Finally she spoke of the deal she had made with Lord Sixx to save all their lives in Calimport.
"You're a fool," Lord Sixx said, aghast at the child's stupidity. He wondered how he could use it to his own advantage.
Tears soaked Krystin's face as she said, "Myrmeen, forgive me, I'm sorry-"
"What she's told you is true," Lord Sixx said, "but it's not the whole truth. For example: What happened to your true daughter? I can tell you that."
Myrmeen shook her head and said with a quavering voice, "I don't want to hear any more lies."
"You don't understand," Lord Sixx said as he motioned for Zeal and Tamara to come closer. "I also don't have any reason to tell you a damned thing. Give me some incentive,"
Myrmeen almost laughed. "I'm not playing any more games."
"You're not?" Lord Sixx asked quietly. "Do you mean to say that you have traveled so far, been through so much, lost friends to horrible deaths, seen living nightmares that will scar your dreams until you die, and now that the truth is before you, you would turn away?"
"Yes," Myrmeen said. A part of her wished to hear Lord Sixx's words, even if they turned out to hold only a glimmer of truth, because now she was left with much less than she had before entering the city.
"All I ask is a favor now and then, nothing of great import," Lord Sixx said, his delivery powerful and seductive.
That was his mistake. Myrmeen had dealt with men who had tried to use her all of her life. She knew how to resist them. "I'm not interested."
Lord Sixx frowned. "Fine. If you ever wish to find me, you will not have difficulty. And if you ever wish to know the truth of what happened to your child, the price will be the blood of this one."
His hand moved quickly, a dagger shaped like black lightning slapping into his palm. He pressed the knife against Krystin's throat as Zeal grasped her arms from behind. Tamara's arm's already had transformed, and the point of a steely spider-arm suddenly was pressed against the hollow of Myrmeen's throat.
Krystin's hand brushed hers, and Myrmeen realized that despite what the girl had revealed, she still meant what she had said to Krystin earlier that night. Losing her would be like losing her daughter a second time.
"Go to hell," Myrmeen said.
"Only if you'll join me," Lord Sixx said as he held her with his dark-eyed gaze. He then withdrew his blade and instructed Zeal and Tamara to lead the humans to safety.
Twenty
Imperator Zeal and his wife led the humans to the makeshift stables where Shandower had secured their mounts. The gags maintaining Ord and Reisz's silence had been removed, but the Harpers had said very little during the journey. Myrmeen had surprised Krys-tin by taking her hand while they were being ferried across the tiny lake where glowworms laid glittering traps for their prey. When the troupe had reached the shore, each of the humans was given an armful of provisions for the long ride to Calimport.
Tamara's dark eyes followed Myrmeen, her gaze clinging to the woman with the strength of the webs she had expelled while in her other form.
"I don't understand," Myrmeen said. "Why are you letting us go?"
"Because you no longer are of any consequence," Zeal said coldly. "And this is what my lord desires."
The wall leading out to the cliff vanished as Tamara kissed its cold surface, revealing a shoal of stars above the gently surging waters of the sea below. The humans led their mounts to the difficult trail outside, Myrmeen intentionally going last so that she could face Tamara, who remained close to her at all times.
"Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?" Myrmeen asked. Tamara raised her hand, and the wall appeared, separating them.
Myrmeen, the Harpers, and Krystin led their mounts along the rise, where they retraced their steps and eventually made their way to the top of the cliff. They mounted their horses and rode toward the city as if the red-haired man were chasing them, spitting fire at their heels.
Near the cavern's entrance, Imperator Zeal confronted his wife. The candles and torches lining the walls flared as if they were about to explode. "What was the Lhal woman talking about?"
"I went to her room," Tamara admitted.
"You were going to kill her?"
"I had planned to, yes," Tamara said. "She burned our home to the ground, destroyed all I had, all that was important to me."
"Those were just objects. They can be replaced."
"You never had a family," she whispered. "You wouldn't understand."
The fiery-haired man touched her arm with a gentle caress, his anger fading. Upon the walls, the brilliant light waned until the fires resumed their normal intensity.
"What stopped you?" he asked.
"You did," she said, burying her face in his hard, muscular chest, "I thought of the displeasure you would face from Lord Sixx if she were found dead. I couldn't do it."
He knew she was lying but held her close. "I love you, wife."
"And I love you," she whispered.
These words he believed. As he brushed her hair with his nearly smoldering hands, Zeal formed another explanation for his wife's actions. He decided that his wife had grown tired of having him ignore her urging to take Lord Shoe's power. She had planned to assassinate the Lhal woman to force the two men into confrontation. Sixx would have wanted Tamara's life for her actions, and Zeal would have murdered the man to protect her. At the last moment, she had changed her mind, granting Zeal the opportunity to decide for himself if he would try to usurp Lord Sixx, something that would be nearly impossible now that the man had the apparatus.
Imperator Zeal pulled back and kissed his wife's hungry lips. As he felt the flames of passion stir within him, several torches exploded, startling them both. Once they realized what had happened, Zeal and his wife began to laugh uncontrollably. They sank to the ground, their arms still around one another as they rolled on the hard stone, giggling like children.