“I’ve made a box,” Ilvani said. “A box for Ashok. To keep all his lies safe. Do you know what’s in that box?”
Ashok could smell his own flesh burning. He tried not to gag when he answered. “The maps … the notes. I did lie to all of you. I-”
“It admits what it did wrong,” Ilvani said, in a tone of mocking surprise. “But I’m still going to put your ashes in the box. You’ll stand in for all the others.”
“You mean your companions. The ones who didn’t come home,” Ashok said. He gritted his teeth as she moved her hand, crept it up toward his neck. “I’m sorry for what was done to you and your people. If I could have stopped it, I would have.”
“Would your lies have stopped it?” Ilvani demanded. “Would your pictures? You were going to kill us, just like you killed them.”
“No,” Ashok said. “Your companions-I swear they didn’t die by my hand.”
“Swear on your flesh!” Ilvani screamed, and she ground her hand against his chest. Ashok cried out in agony, but he didn’t try to pull away. He leaned into her touch, endured the pain, and waited until he’d composed himself enough to speak again.
“I was … a different person … when I wrote those things,” Ashok said. “I didn’t know you and Uwan, Skagi, or Cree. I never knew a city like this existed. I wanted it to be … my home. So I lied. I tried to bury my past, but it didn’t work.” The searing in his chest made it impossible to concentrate. “I never meant harm … to you.”
Abruptly, Ilvani removed her hand. The intense heat disappeared, but his chest burned with every breath he drew.
“What was Natan?” she said in a cold, dead voice. “He was the only one left. No boxes, no bad memories. You told me I should see him.”
“I wanted you to,” Ashok said. “Ilvani, I’m so sorry, but I didn’t kill him. I swear on my soul.”
“You put him in a box,” Ilvani said. Her body trembled. Ashok thought she hadn’t been so close to breaking even when she’d been in her cell in the slaughter room. “I told you he wouldn’t fit, but you made it happen.”
“No,” Ashok said. She took a step back, but he strained toward her. He wished he could break the chains, but he had no strength; he couldn’t focus his mind to teleport.
Ilvani raised a hand as if to stave him off. Her palm continued to glow, filled with magic. Ashok bent his head so his forehead touched her fingers. He felt the burning heat, power barely contained.
“Do it,” he said. “Finish it.”
She caught her breath, but she didn’t lower her hand. “Why?” she said, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You’re trying to store more lies.”
“No,” Ashok said. “But if it’ll ease your suffering, then do it, Ilvani, kill me. Do it for both of us.”
“You don’t mean it,” she said.
“I don’t want you to put yourself in a box,” Ashok said.
She slapped him. His cheek burned and went numb. His eyes watering, he tried to lean into the heat, but she backed away.
“You’re false!” she cried, pacing before him like a starved, half-crazed cat. “You’ll die when I say.”
“Do what you have to do,” Ashok said.
She sprang forward and raked her nails across his chest, shredding flesh. Ashok’s body convulsed. He groaned as the fire lines bled, and the wetness ran down his torso.
“Fight back!” Ilvani screamed. She grabbed his hair and jerked his head to one side. She laid her burning fingers against his neck. Ashok couldn’t find the breath to scream and sagged against the chains.
“Not yet,” Ilvani said. “The darkness can’t have you yet. I’m not done taking your ashes.”
Ashok’s head lolled to the side. He bit his lip and tasted blood. He tried to speak, but his throat burned. His entire body was on fire.
“What did you say?” Ilvani asked, stepping closer. Her fingers hovered before his eyes. Ashok watched the glowing points and waited for her to blind him. “Speak,” she commanded.
Ashok’s body begged for the release of unconsciousness. He tried to follow her voice out of the long, dark tunnel. “I said … Take them all. All the ashes. I want …”
“What?” Ilvani said. “Say it.”
Ashok closed his eyes. “Forgiveness,” he said. The darkness surged in to take him.
Ilvani stared at Ashok’s mutilated body. He was not dead, but the pain had made him sleep. In a rare flash of pragmatism she recognized that she would need to summon healing, or Ashok would not live to face his trial.
Is that what she wanted? With clarity came confusion, fear. What had she done? Punished a murderer. Confronted the deceiver with his lies. Judged the guilty.
“Is it guilty?” she said, but of course Ashok couldn’t answer her. She had only the answers he’d given her earlier to judge.
He’d denied nothing, except killing Natan and her companions. At the thought of her brother, Ilvani went away for a while, into a fugue place where she could be safe. In that place there were no thoughts or pain. She’d discovered the small world within her mind while she’d been imprisoned.
When she came back to herself, she was walking up the tower stairs to her quarters in Tower Athanon.
How long had she been away? She didn’t know, and she didn’t know what had become of Ashok. Had she told the healers to see to him?
She reached in her satchel and took out the evidence she’d taken from Vedoran. When she got to her quarters she locked her door, lit a candle, and carried it up the ladder to the window seat. By the faint light she read the evidence again. If she didn’t read certain books or papers often, the words tended to rearrange themselves so she could no longer understand them. She had to keep watch over the pages carefully so they didn’t try to trick her.
She read the notes and looked at the maps again. Would they be infected by Ashok’s lies? Would they try to tell her a tale of innocence, when she knew Ashok to be guilty?
His eyes had tried to tell her the same tale. Ilvani remembered the pain in them, not from the wounds she’d inflicted, but from the thought of her suffering.
Ilvani clenched the pages in her hands. Deceiver. He wants you to pity him.
“That’s not true,” came a voice.
Ilvani started. She looked wildly around the room, but there was no one else there, only the long shadows staring at her from the corners of the room. They always stared at her, but she ignored them as usual.
It must have been her own voice speaking. She just hadn’t recognized it.
She folded the maps and held them in her hands. Nothing had changed. Ashok’s guilt was written in his own hand. All that remained was for her to take the evidence to Uwan. She should do it now while everything was clear.
“He was ready to die for you,” came the voice.
“Stop it!” Ilvani said, covering her ears with her hands. She knew that voice, and it wasn’t hers. It was the voice of dead hopes, of the person she used to be.
“Please look at me, sister. There is not much time.”
Ilvani choked on a sob. She forced her hands down to her sides and turned unwillingly to look at her brother.
He stood at the foot of the ladder, looking up at her with a smile. The pose, the affection was so familiar she felt she was being ripped in two.
“It’s not real,” she said. She found herself using that phrase a great deal when she was alone. When Natan was around, he used it for her.
“I’ve seen you many times this way,” Natan said. His skin looked healthy, and he’d put on weight. He’d always been beautiful, her brother, even when he’d stopped taking care of himself so he could talk to Tempus. She’d always resented the god for taking her brother away from her.
“You’re in the box,” Ilvani said. “I saw them put you in and cover you up. They buried you with swords. I wanted to bury you with silk.”
“You know me best,” Natan said. “Sister, you must set him free.”
“He’s a liar,” Ilvani replied. He deceives beyond death, she thought. How powerful was Ashok?
“He told you the truth,” Natan said. “And you know it, else I would not be here.”