Chapter 24

  Whatever means Derxis had employed to locate Akkama led them to Guertile, a region of rich grassy farmland on the coastal steppes of the Shogunate. Most of the patchwork fields lay fallow and unkempt as they slid beneath the borrowed A-grav unit. Zayana leaned against the plexiglass and watched as they descended to the chalky yellow cliffs overlooking the shore. Black specks wandered the fields alone or in stringy clusters. No one knew what caused the voidbound to aggregate. Guertile, the part of the Shogunate mainland closest to Meszria across the sea, was almost completely overrun. The surviving population of the Shogunate had retreated back to areas around the capital.

  Derxis steered the A-grav down through a wandering pillar of smoke and coasted alongside a low ridge that blocked their view of the shining expanse of the sea. “Not far,” he told her. This was as much as he had spoken during the entire trip.

  After a rough landing, in which one of the lateral A-grav fins was damaged in the act of obliterating an innocent boulder, they hopped down onto the grassy turf. Derxis surveyed his landing job and made some joke about Jeronimy’s construction techniques, though the rough landing had been entirely his own fault.

  “You sure you want to take that?” Derxis asked. He was talking about her bow, which she carried along with a quiver of arda-tipped arrows. She barely had the strength to draw it.

  “It’s symbolic,” she said.

  Derxis laughed. “I fear the symbolism may be lost on Akkama. She takes a narrow view about the use and purpose of weaponry.” He patted himself down, making sure he had all his tricks and colors and whatever else he thought he needed. Finally, he put the mask back on, the one he called ‘the grave face.’ It was grave indeed. It also had nearly killed them when Derxis failed to see a cloudspire on the High Plains through the small eye holes. Zayana doubted that Derxis possessed any kind of flight certification.

  “Let’s go,” said Derxis. He led them down along the valley in which they had parked. Though overgrown and long abandoned, Zayana found the scenery both beautiful and relaxing, especially after harsh Prax. Not much safer, however. The scattered black shapes of voidbound moved about on the green hills and among the tranquil woods. Zayana kept a sharp watch on them. A handful should present no difficulty to her and Derxis, but she recalled Anthea’s words: remember the Shrike.

  She saw no sign of Derxis’s supposed secret help, and she was beginning to wonder if it really existed at all. That would be just like Derxis. The thought worried her. What if Akkama…? But no. No, she would be safe with Akkama. No matter how far gone Akkama might be, they were still friends. Fiora had been right: there was still a lot that was good in her. If Zayana was in danger and Akkama could help her, then she would help. Zayana held on to that. Despite everything that had happened, they were still friends. They had to be.

  After a mile or so, Derxis led her up the hill toward the sea. He stopped just below the crest of the hill at a point where he could peek overtop without being seen. “There.” He indicated a cliffside mansion that overlooked the water. A squat structure of wood and brick, it was in some disrepair but still standing. A slider was parked on one side, and a trail of smoke wound up from one of the chimneys.

  They had already decided that Zayana would go in first and do the talking. If Akkama tried to run or fight, or especially if she tried using the mind stone, then Derxis and/or his mysterious helper would intervene.

  Zayana gripped her bow and stepped over the hill. She limped across the grassy half mile to the house, drinking in the scenic vista to take her mind from what was about to happen. If she ignored the signs of destruction from the war and the voidbound, Guertile was the very embodiment of bucolic splendor. The green sea glittered beyond the chalky cliffs. The land curved out in a great crescent on her right, terminating in the picturesque ruin of a lighthouse. Behind her, rolling hills became jade-colored mountains in the distance that eventually soared up to snowcapped peaks far to the north. Above, a great bank of sunlit clouds encircled half the sky as though embracing the world.

  Then, all too soon and suddenly, she was at the door. An erhu played a melancholy and mysterious strain within. Zayana steeled herself, tried to think how Anthea would go about this (correction: how she would have gone about this), and knocked.

  The melody of the erhu faltered, but did not stop. An invitation. Zayana unlatched the door and pushed through.

  A reception hall lay beyond, strewn with rubble and debris. The interior of the house betrayed more decrepitude than the exterior. Broken plaster on the floor, bare wooden beams showing through the walls, inked mountain scenes on shredded rice paper screens, a shattered coral and gold floral vase of delicate moonglass on the dusty floor.

  Akkama was waiting for her in a refurbished study to the right. She sat in a dusty plush chair beside a crackling fire, wearing her customary red leather armor. Books and a mug of steaming tea rested on a varnished table beside her, as did an array of colorful paper figures and a familiar orange crystal.

  Akkama’s eyes were closed, but they opened into crimson slits when Zayana entered. Those eyes gleamed like firelit rubies, and her slow grin told Zayana that this would not be an easy conversation.

  Akkama nodded to a nearby chair and did not cease playing. She eyed the bow, but Zayana walked to the hearth and leaned the bow against it to match Akkama’s new dragonsteel sword that glimmered in the dancing firelight on the other side.

  “Something to drink?” Akkama asked as Zayana sat across from her. “Tea?”

  Zayana was about to decline, but changed her mind at the last second. Tea would be fine. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Akkama spent another ten seconds wrapping up her music before she laid the erhu aside. She stood and swept around the table to the teapot. Zayana watched her closely. A slight limp. Minor injuries in the process of healing, much like Zayana herself. But Akkama had accumulated an array of older wounds as well since Zayana had last seen her, and her armor was long overdue for repair.

  “Like what you see?” Akkama flounced her mane of red-streaked hair and grinned as she returned and presented Zayana with a steaming mug of tea. It smelled of mint, citrus, clove and cinnamon. Brass tea, a Meszrian classic. Zayana’s favorite. She took a long sip and sighed in pleasure. It had been a while. Here by the fire, in this comfortable chair, she was sorely tempted to relax. What could be the harm in taking a moment to unwind with her best friend and perhaps reminisce on better times?

  But Derxis was out there, waiting. Anthea was far away, broken in some mysterious and horrible way that no one understood. Emmius had lost an arm, though to be fair he didn’t seem very concerned about it and was enjoying the replacement.

  “So,” said Akkama. “Look at you. Saw some of the action, huh? Got a little beat up. Tough princess.” That fanged grin. “The hero, coming to…?” She sipped her own tea but watched Zayana like a viper over the rim of her mug.

  Zayana had long since decided that the best approach lay in a simple presentation of the facts. That was the place to start, since she didn’t know how much Akkama understood of what she had done. “Anthea is alive,” she said. She saw surprise and confusion in Akkama’s eyes.

  “I heard otherwise,” Akkama said.

  “She did die. But Fiora and Catch brought her back. Fiora is alive as well; this was in doubt for some time.”

  Akkama leaned back. “What else?”

  “Emmius lost an arm. Jeronimy made him a replacement.”

  Akkama snorted in laughter, gestured for Zayana to continue.

  “Rosma has returned to Ys. Acarnus has vanished on us.”

  Akkama shrugged. “So it’s all good. What’s that they say? All’s well that ends well?”

  Zayana looked Akkama dead in the eyes and said, “Anthea lost her Song.”

  The grin faded from Akkama’s expression. “…eh?”

  “She is alive. But she has no Song. She has no arda; her wings were shattered when she died. She is curled up in bed, crying, terrified, talking about—about burning books.” Zayana’s voice shook, sick with the memory.

  Akkama forced her grin back into place. It looked ghastly in conjunction with her wide, shocked eyes. She nodded at the fire. “Been burning some books myself.”

  “Really, Akkama? A joke? Is that all you can say?”

  She shrugged. “What do you want me to say?”

  Zayana found herself on her feet, mug of tea on the floor, her jaw open at the audacity. “I want you to say you’re sorry !” She hadn’t meant to shout, but once the words were out, she was glad. It felt good.

  Akkama raised her eyebrows. Her self-satisfied smirk was real now; she was back in familiar territory. She spoke with an infuriating air of persiflage. “Sorry for what?”

  “For taking things too far! Like you always do! For—for doing what you did to Emmius, then to—to everyone! For trying to make Anthea murder her friend! For not thinking about the consequences of your actions.”

  Akkama leaned back in mock surprise. “You’re hardly injured.”

  “That does not matter!”

  “Why do you care so much about me apologizing?”

  Zayana clawed at the air, searching for words to express her frustration. “Because I’m your friend, you asshole!”

  Akkama appeared genuinely taken aback.

  Zayana forced herself into a relative calm. She took a deep breath. “Akkama, you have to make this right.”

  A simple shake of the head. “Don’t think so.” She took a gulp of tea.

  “You can’t just go around hurting people and using them. You also will be hurt in the end. And I don’t want that! You can’t just do whatever you want.”

  The grin returned, as did the glint in her eye. “Yeah? Who’s gonna stop me?”

  A new voice spoke: “I will.” It was an old voice, as deep and strong as the roots of Annunciation. Zayana recognized it at the same time that she became aware of an overwhelming presence. It closed in around her as though she’d stepped into a pressure chamber. Her entire body tingled; her arda hummed with involuntary energy.

  The Majesty, his large body stooped and wrinkled with age, stepped into the open entryway. He leaned on his cane and peered at them with rheumy eyes through his thick spectacles, but the shell-form arda spines on his back boiled with purple light. Zayana had always seen the Majesty as a friend, a protector, to be respected but never feared. But now the sight of him chilled her to the core. She had seen him angry, but never like this. At that moment, she thought she would prefer to be in this room with a raging dragon.

  Akkama laughed. She laughed at the Majesty when he stood in a sea of arda energy that could sweep her away like a leaf in a river. She stood, picked up her sword, and turned to face him. “Why are you here, old man?”

  “I was told,” he said in his voice that had aged like a fine mead, “that here I could find the murderer of my heir. Thaevrit.” His eyes fell upon the mind stone at the table. “My, my. Is that brass tea? It is my favorite.”

  “Fresh out,” Akkama snarled at him. Then she attacked. She attacked the Majesty, with a sword, right in front of Zayana. She must have thought she could move faster than he could react. She must have thought her youth and agility gave her an edge. She must have believed that he would hesitate or be surprised.

  She was wrong.

  In the blink of an eye, before Akkama had taken more than a single step away from the hearth and toward the Majesty, the purple luminescence condensed around her. With a wave of power that sent Zayana staggering even though it bore no actual physical force, every single crystal of red arda growing on Akkama’s body shattered.

  *

  Akkama turned it into an explosion. It was all she had, her only available act of defiance, the only way in which she could lash out in the instant before her power vanished. She channeled every spark of energy she could muster into her arda. It was like taking a deep breath before an indefinite plunge.

  Her arda shattered into approximate dust; it broke as though each crystal had been smashed with a hammer. The pain was immeasurable, far beyond anything she had experienced before, not even in this very house. The agony of it consumed her mind and banished all thought, even thought of retribution. But the work had been done, her rage made into flame.

  The countless tiny fragments of her arda, glittering like sparks of fire as they turned in the air, released their charge of energy. First, the powdered dust of the crystals immolated the air nearby. The force of their heat and the expansion of the surrounding air flung the rest like burning missiles, shrapnel of solidified fire.

  Akkama dropped to the ground, howling in agony as everything exploded around her. Waves of heat enveloped her. Her eyes were squeezed tight, but she felt herself bleeding through the pain. Hot red blood trickled from every place where arda had grown. It was in her eyes now, hot. Burning, boiling, blazing. Her own blood, burning her. Fire and pain.

  Noise came to her, percolating through the dense haze of anguish that was her entire world. Shouting. Crying out. It made her smile through the torment. Someone else besides her had been hurt. Who?

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Akkama gritted her sharp teeth. She growled and hissed; she spat and writhed on the floor. She put one arm under her, then one knee. Slowly, slowly, she knelt. She caught something solid nearby, something to hold on to. She sensed heat and light. A fire, nearby, everywhere. She heard the crackling flame, and a voice. The voice of the Majesty. The one who had done this.

  Akkama made herself reach out and touch the ground, feeling for her sword. Her fist closed around it nearly at once, as if by magic. It was her sword, after all. It wanted to be with her. It wanted to be used. She felt it. The weapon throbbed in her fist.

  She fought to shake off the torturous trembling that wracked her body. It was just pain. She could still move. She could still fight, though she was losing blood. She stood shakily to her feet, looked around, tried to clear her mind and her vision.

  Fire decorated the study in a dozen places. Not an inferno, not yet, but it would be. It ate at the chairs, the old books, the musty carpet. It would soon eat this entire house. The thought made her grin even through the pain. She had always wanted to burn this place down, and never more than when she had lived here, suffered here. Now, at last…

  The Majesty crouched among the flames. He had his arda-shielded back to her. Thinking her no longer a threat, the fool. He was bent over Zayana, who rolled about on the carpet, gasping in pain, clutching her face.

  Akkama took an unsteady step, fell, caught herself on the table. The Majesty didn’t notice; he was comforting Zayana, protecting her from the fire. Somehow, he was not burned in the least. The fires around him reached away from him as though repulsed. The arda spines on his back that looked like a shell were shimmering with deep violet light. A cloud of shimmering red mist—her own arda, Akkama realized with shock—encircled him like the ring of a planet. He was using the remains of her own arda to control the fire.

  Akkama took another step. She raised the dragonsteel blade called Nemesis, and with an awkward lunge and a gasp of agony, she ended the life of one of the greatest Majesties of the last age. The perfect, beautiful sword that Rasmus had reforged pierced the Majesty through the back of the skull, killing him almost instantly. He slumped forward over Zayana, and Akkama fell after him, unable to halt her momentum.

  Zayana grunted at the sudden weight on her torso. Akkama rolled off and pushed herself back to her feet. Her vision swam with the torment of existing, staying conscious. The pain crawled out from deep inside, as though her bones were twisting and cracking.

  Zayana moved her hands from her face to paw at the body of the Majesty. Akkama saw the problem. Zayana’s eyes were charred. Fire had scorched and blackened the pits of her eyes, along with a broad sweep of flesh across her face. She feebly felt the Majesty’s body, called his name, and then understood that he was dead. She raised blistered hands sticky with his dark blood, but could not see them. A hoarse squawk of horror and disbelief tore from Zayana’s throat.

  The sight twisted Akkama’s guts. This, on top of the unrelenting pain, made her turn and vomit onto the wooden floor.

  Shit, she thought to herself. Fucked up. She’d really fucked up this time. “Not Zayana,” she muttered to herself, hardly aware of speaking over the thunderous silence of the pain that rang in her ears.

  She stumbled to the table by the hearth and stopped herself by simply crashing into it, smearing it with hot blood. Her journal was there, in danger from the fire, and some of her origami creatures were already aflame. One was the spider.

  Akkama reached desperately, with arms that didn’t want to cooperate. There it was: the mind stone. Cracked, but still good. Maybe good enough for one more miracle: to make Zayana forget. To…to help her. Somehow. To erase this memory. To leave only the good ones.

  She seized the mind stone and turned. The fire was catching on now; soon it would be hard to breathe. She had to get Zayana out of here. But first she would fix this. She would fix all of this. Like smelling a flower, like taking a breath of fresh spring air, she embraced the power of the mind stone. She saw Zayana’s mind like a bright light. But there was another light in the house. It—

  The lights vanished. The mind stone blinked off as though a switch had been turned.

  Derxis didn’t say anything. He just went to kneel by Zayana, to help her roll the weight of the Majesty off of her. He glowed orange in the smoke, and he didn’t make the Majesty’s mistake of turning his back to Akkama. Indeed, it seemed to her agony-stricken eyes that the terrible gaze of that mask never left her for a second. She had never seen that mask before. It glowered out at her from the flame, dark and dreadful amidst the blazing rainbow-soaked saffron of the color priest’s robes.

  Derxis leaned close to Zayana, whispered something. He helped her up, moved her to the exit. They left.

  Akkama pushed herself off from the table and limped to a window, pressed her face against the warm glass. A unicorn rode like the wind itself across the sunlit grass. Zayana hugged its neck, crying, her hair streaming back in the wind from speed.

  The mind stone, still in her hand, began vibrating, shining with light. It burst apart with a gristly cleaving sound. Sharp shards cut at her hand as they flew. The orange crystals broke apart, disintegrated, became inert dust.

  Derxis laughed behind her. She turned from the window, leaving it smeared with red blood, and saw that awful mask shaking its head. “I knew it was a bad idea to bring her,” he said. “I should learn to trust myself.”

  His arda was not glowing anymore; he wasn’t using his powers. Akkama clenched the hilt of the sword in her fist. He was all the way across the room, and the pain, though subsiding slightly, had left her terribly weak. That or the blood loss. She might still be able to cross the room in time, to reach him before he could do something. Maybe. But she had no idea what he might do. She didn’t even know if he could fight, or if he could, in what manner. She didn’t know his tricks; she only knew he had them. Well, she knew some of them now. She had held a mind stone, had had the power of the color priests in her hands. What if he used that power on her? The very idea made her furious.

  “What now?” she asked. She spread a trembling, dripping arm to indicate the rapidly burning room.

  He stood there, watching.

  “Fuck this,” she muttered. She limped to the hearth and struggled to pick up her erhu. It was getting sooty, but still mostly unharmed. The far edge of her journal smoldered, but she rescued that as well. She paused when she saw that all the origami figures she had made were either burning or nothing more than ash.

  She turned to the door. He was still there, watching with the terrible gaze of that mask. Rage burned inside of her, feeding on the pain. She limped slowly, painfully to the door, using Nemesis as a cane to support part of her weight. She would simply cut him down if he tried to stop her.

  Derxis raised a hand and pointed it at her before she made it halfway. She stopped. She had to stop. With that mask watching her, she somehow had no choice. That grim wooden face, carved and painted, was all she could see. A cold, ancient weight pressed against her will, and it was stronger than her rage.

  He cocked his head sideways at her, as though listening. His orange arda glowed. He spoke, and his words were spoken into her mind.

  as the serpent rages against the dragon

  so she shall again

  but the serpent shall succeed where before it failed

  for its venom shall pierce the heart

  and as the ten creatures burned,

  so they will burn again

  and as the winged phoenix will rise from the ashes

  yet a fire comes from which she shall not rise

  and this fire in which you stand now, serpent,

  is not the greatest blaze that your pride shall spark

  …and now!

  a Judgment

  of the Color Priests

  upon you:

  that priestly stone you held will not be the last in your hands

  but the next will burn you

  it will be a sign that justice for you is nigh

  you will be consumed by your own fire

  you will be pursued by your own darkness

  hope will be taken from you

  as you have taken it from others

  yet there is this,

  a blessing within the Judgment:

  you will know fear again.

  Akkama regained awareness on the floor. Not much time had passed. Derxis sagged against the doorframe in weariness, consumed in a fit of giggles, though that mask still glowered threateningly. “What’s the point,” he asked softly, “of saying prophecies when I know they won’t make a difference?” The sound of the fire had grown loud, its heat intense.

  He straightened, brushed ash from his singed saffron robes. “That’s it. I’ll be going. Someone outside wants to talk to you.” He turned, paused. “One more thing. Why did you never use the stone to see what she thought of you? Zayana, I mean.”

  She glared at him from the floor.

  “Of course. It would never have occurred to you.” He departed, chuckling as he went.

  “I’m not afraid of you!” she shouted after him. Her voice was hoarse. “And don’t laugh at me!” Her shouting dissolved into a series of painful hacking coughs. The smoke was getting thick, the fire burning too hot even for her.

  She growled. She hissed. She spat blood. She bit back whimpers of pain even though she knew no one could see her. She gathered three things: Nemesis, though she could easily have found it later in the rubble, her erhu, though it would have to be restrung, and her journal, which was scorched around the edges but otherwise intact.

  With these treasures, she dragged herself out of the burning house, leaving a trail of soot and blood. The pain came back, and now something new joined it: the sense of loss. No more fire. No more heat. Her arda was gone, shattered away. A cold emptiness gnawed at her stomach, and she knew it would only get worse. She sobbed in pain and rage as she wormed out the front of the house and onto the green grass.

  She crawled far enough for safety, then flopped onto her side, panting from pain and exertion. Still not safe here. There were voidbound about. She glanced at her surroundings. No Derxis, but…

  A dragon stood there, not twenty paces away, watching her. He or she was twice as thick as Akkama was tall. The dragon’s shining green scales were streaked with silver. Great silvery metallic eyes peered down at her from over long wispy whiskers that shone in the light.

  Akkama’s first thought was of the dragonsteel blade, and the old tales of dragons hunting down those who carried them. But this dragon did not look angry or even aggressive. It looked curious.

  Akkama and the dragon met each other’s gaze. Akkama had to look away after only a moment. She could not meet those eyes. They were as bad as that awful mask.

  Greetings, said the dragon without sound. I am called Ten Trees.

  Akkama pulled herself to her knees. She dropped the erhu and journal on the grass and leveled Nemesis at the huge beast. “Here to fight?” she shouted. “You don’t scare me. I’ll fight you. I’ll fight everyone !” She waved the blade back and forth, though she could barely maintain her grip on it.

  She wanted to fight. She needed to fight something. If only she could do that, then…then she would be okay. Everything would be fine.

  The dragon blinked and recoiled slightly in a show of surprise. And mockery? She glared at it, spat at it, hissed.

  I have been sent by the assembly of the Dragonmount, Ten Trees said. We are merely curious about the one responsible for breaking our Cloudstone.

  “Your…your what?” She lowered Nemesis. It landed edge-first, and even the mere weight of its dropping cleaved several pebbles in two.

  Cloudstone is the name we had decided to grant her. It is a pity. A great pity.

  Cloudstone? Did this dragon mean Anthea? Akkama had heard of people being granted their second name by dragons, but only in legends. Only heroes.

  Fear not, said Ten Trees. We are beyond vengeance. And seeing you, none is necessary.

  She snarled at it. She flung wordless challenges.

  The dragon called Ten Trees laughed at her before flying away and riding the afternoon clouds back to the Dragonmount, leaving Akkama bleeding and raging in the grass as the mansion burned behind her.

  The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on

  Nor all your piety, nor wit,

  Shall lure it back to cancel half a line

  Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

  - From “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”