Page 6 of Queen Demon
Kai thought of the burning tents of the Saredi and wondered how any of them could agree to this; all he wanted was vengeance. But something about the words “a path forward, to a future” hung in the air. The region of the Arik was greatly hurt but still mostly intact. The people here had a small chance to live through this into a future where the Hierarchs were dead.
The silence held, then Hiranan said, “It sounds impossible but so has everything we’ve done so far.” Her voice was wry and resigned. She was Bashasa’s elder by some years, her dark hair streaked with gray, and fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Sheleaned on a crutch for support, a permanent injury. “I see no reason for us to stop now.”
Kai had thought he would do anything for vengeance. Maybe what he really wanted was to do anything for that path forward.
“Very good.” Bashasa smiled wearily. “If all agree, we must begin tonight.”
One
They had left the Kagala behind them, flying over the dry plain of the western Arik in an Immortal Blessed ascension raft. Kai curled on the bench with his back against the metal wall of the curtained shelter, facing into the warm wind, trying to ignore the argument. Which was impossible, considering which members of his extended family currently living in the mortal world were here.
Using her heart pearl to speak silently to him, Ziede said,Just don’t jump off the raft.
Too tired to even feel sour about it, Kai replied,I’m going to spend the next fifty years living in the Arkai marshes with Dahin.
The raft was shaped like a curled gingko leaf, and though it was large as such crafts went, there wasn’t much room to get away. Toward the bow, Saadrin and Tahren faced off. Both Immortal Marshalls, they resembled each other in their height and strong build, their features similar enough for a stranger to guess that they were related. Tahren’s hair was blond and a few finger widths long, and Saadrin’s was silver and cropped so close it was just fuzz on her scalp. Her light tawny-golden skin was darker than Tahren’s ivory. Both were missing their armor and their only weapons were scavenged from their mostly dead captors. Their bedraggled clothing had been washed in water drawn from the Kagala’s desert well but didn’t look much the better for it.
And of course Saadrin was a complete ass. With all the confidence of someone whose will was seldom questioned, she told Tahren, “You can’t shirk your responsibilities like a weak mortal.”
Deadpan and as immovable as a mountain, Tahren countered,“I can. And the mortals you call ‘weak’ often have more moral fortitude than the strongest Immortal Marshall.”
Dahin stood at the raft’s steering column, his gaze on the horizon as if lost in thought. A Lesser Blessed, he was small compared to the Immortal Marshalls, light hair tied back in a queue, wearing an equally battered Arike-style tunic and skirt. He said, “Kai wouldn’t let me stab Aunt Saadrin and now he regrets it, don’t you, Kai?”
Kai sighed. Tahren didn’t react, but she caught Kai’s gaze across the raft and her left eyelid twitched. Kai sympathized. Dahin hated other Blessed, especially the ones he was related to.Maybe I’ll live alone in the Arkai marshes,Kai thought.
Saadrin ignored Dahin except for an exasperated grimace. Still trying to glare Tahren into submission, she said, “Even you won’t ignore your role in this farce of a treaty and let the consequences fall on the Blessed, no matter how forsworn you are.”
“I might,” Tahren said, with no detectable sarcasm whatsoever. After a beat, she added, “I find myself more inclined to it with every passing moment.”
It was always strange how the Blessed would refer to Tahren as if she were something to be scraped off their boots when the rest of the Rising World considered her a hero and savior. Kai touched Ziede’s heart pearl and said,You and Tahren should come to the marshes with me.
That’s not helpful,Ziede Daiyahah replied. She stood beside Tahren, absently tapping her nails on her folded arms. She had wrapped her long dark braids up in a scarf, and her dark brown skin was without makeup, her long tunic and pants as bedraggled as the rest of their clothes. It made her look oddly bare and stripped down to essentials, ready for a battle. She added,Tahren is fucking furious.
Good,Kai told her. Tahren had every right to be fucking furious. When they had first rescued her from the Witch cell in the abandoned Kagala fortress, Tahren had assumed Ziede and Kaihad been searching for her the entire time she was missing. The power written into the walls of the cell had left her in a waking dream, and she had no idea how long she had been imprisoned. Then Ziede explained that she and Kai had been captured at the same time, entombed, and had only recently escaped.
“You have to admit, Aunt Saadrin,” Dahin said conversationally, idly making a minute adjustment in the raft’s direction as the wind tried to shove it sideways. “The Blessed have certainly asked for any consequences they get. It’s rather a habit of the Blessed, asking for consequences and then whining once they get them, isn’t it?”
Saadrin’s jaw set. She didn’t look at Dahin, but her answer was clearly directed at him. Which was a mistake, Kai could have told her. She said, “It was not all the Blessed who did this. Only a few are foresworn.”
Dahin laughed. “Oh, Aunt Saadrin. Someone’s going to have to teach you about irony. Maybe it’ll be me.”
Tahren knew Dahin too well to respond to him when he was like this. Still focused on Saadrin, she said, “If only the Blessed did not have a history of blaming the many for the actions of the few.”
Kai snorted quietly in appreciation. Tahren knew how to hit Saadrin where it hurt. Not that it was helping anything.
The argument was about where they would go next, and who would go there. Kai and Ziede had assumed Saadrin would want to return to the Blessed Lands with her prisoner, the Lesser Blessed Vrenren. He was currently sitting on the floor of the raft, tied up with rope meant to restrain the Immortal Blessed, and watching the argument with wide eyes. As one of the few survivors of the Immortal Blessed faction of the conspiracy, he apparently had too much sense to contribute.
Kai thought Saadrin would have been eager to return to the Blessed Lands and report all the perfidy to the Patriarchs. Reporting on other people’s perfidy was one of the few thingsSaadrin seemed to truly enjoy, as far as Kai could tell. Instead she wanted to go directly to Benais-arik.
Benais-arik, where the real plot had been hatched.
They didn’t have to go with her. Dahin could take them to the nearest canal outpost where they could leave Saadrin to continue her journey with the raft while they made their way home to Avagantrum by boat. But Saadrin wanted Tahren to speak to the council at her side.
Saadrin’s whole face had tightened at Tahren’s last comment. Obviously trying to pretend it hadn’t hit home in the worst way, she said stiffly, “This is no joking matter.”
Tahren’s sense of humor was dry as dust but it was obvious she was deadly serious now. She said, “I am not known for joking. I am known for dispensing justice.”
“Justice except for what you owe to your own blood kin—”
