Ilyas
I’d won the last laugh. Jem had been struck witless, staring down at the black and white pieces strewn across the stone floor as his shoulders trembled. All while I gloated. Not very princely, I know, but he deserved it, for…
Saving me from death. For caring for me. No, for thinking he could outwit me.
All at once, Jem had grown still. He even stopped blinking. Then he crawled around the floor, picking up the discarded pieces to return to their boxes. I stumbled back into a wall, unable to remove my eyes. He crawled with such languid grace, even as his face hardened into marble. He knelt in front of the hearth, staring into the fire. The white pieces had charred black, ruined. He raised his hand and reached for the flame. I jumped forward with a wordless yell, but he snatched his hand back into his chest. He pressed his lips thin, and his eyes moistened as if he were about to cry.
I froze. Jem didn’t cry. He didn’t do anything but look dispassionate. The wavering gloss in his eyes was only a trick of the fire. The plummeting of my stomach and the pinpricks in my chest were only… Only…
Jem stood, hands clenched against his thighs. Without a word, a look, or even a stern warning that his snow demons hungered for my blood should I step one foot outside, he charged out the door.
I waited a long moment for him to return. Then another moment. And another.
“Finally, a moment to myself.” I laughed. It sounded hollow. I stomped my foot. Why should I care about Jem? He’d abducted me and planned to either sell me as a slave or sacrifice me to some god.
Jem would expect me to run. But as I’d already discovered, running was suicide, and a knee-jerk reaction. Even if Jem didn’t lurk at the bottom of the stairs, his demons flew by the windows. He’d know in minutes if I tried to leave. But I had a far better use for the privacy.
I rose and positioned myself facing the door, in case he decided to return early, and swept my arms over my head, my chin following. My back sang in ecstasy. Jem had kept me cramped and stiff, my muscles wasting away. With my back and thighs knotted, I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t outmanoeuvre Jem. But with Jem gone, I gave my body, my temple, its offering and it would bless me in return when the time to act arrived.
My arms swept down, my back following, bending forwards, allowing the blood to rush into my head, and for my hamstrings to lengthen. I moaned. Too, too long. I was never going without this for more than a day again, even if I must strangle Jem to do so.
My body swept through the rest of the positions of the familiar sun salutation. Lengthening, stretching, strengthening. All thoughts dropped mercifully away. No worries about my usurper, no irritation about Jem, nothing but the way my body moved. The way it cried for joy as I unleashed it.
I balanced on one foot, sending the other behind me, reaching for the impossible.
“My, you’ve grown comfortable.”
I jerked at the words, my knee buckling. My hip struck the flagstone. I growled, half due to the pains shooting up my side, and half in embarrassment for anyone glimpsing my private joy. I glared around me, ready to bite the head off whomever dared intrude upon me.
But the door remained shut, and outside the window was a sheer drop to one’s death. I was alone.
The same blue light from the cell flicked in front of my eyes.
“Although your balance could use some work.” The voice was distant, as if speaking through a metal pipe.
I poked at the light, but it dodged my hand.
“Don’t do that,” it said.
It sounded almost like… “Ambassador Dajana, I presume?”
“Of course.” She sounded miffed.
“Is this your light?”
“My firefly, yes. Why? Oh, that’s right, there isn’t magic in the Land of Fire.”
I clenched my jaw. Of course there was. Perhaps we didn’t summon demons or create flickering bugs, but our one magic was more precious than anything they could conjure. The only thing I had ever ached for, but was forever out of my reach. But she didn’t deserve to know that. Instead, I glanced around the room in disdain, and said, “Why wouldn’t I be comfortable? I can sleep on a mat on a stone floor, shiver myself to sleep, and then wake up for a nice big piece of bland, tough bread. Which I get to enjoy thrice a day.”
“You eat three times a day?”
I sighed.
“As much as he pampers you, though, you should still remember why you’re here.”
“Because there’s snow demons and ice water outside.”
Dajana stuttered, the firefly mimicking with rapid movement.
I crossed my arms. “Yes, didn’t you hear? I nearly died trying to escape.” An ambassador’s most important duty was spying. If she hadn’t found out that much, it didn’t matter if she was trustworthy. Incompetence was worse than backstabbing. “Why ever would I try it a second time?” Only fools made the same mistake twice.
“There are worse things than death.”
“The bread does come close, but no. Death is death, and I would rather not bother with that.”
“Then you don’t know.”
I waved my hand, sighing again. “Yes, yes, your Prince Hemi is going to sacrifice me to the Dark God.”
“He’s not my prince,” she said. “And yes, he is.”
I raised my brow.
“You should be very, very afraid.”
“Sure.”
The firefly twitched, as if in confusion.
I snorted. “Look, you haven’t told me anything I don’t know. Yes, I should escape. Even my toddler niece could have told me that.”
“Then let me tell you something you don’t.”
Finally, Dajana might say something useful. “I’d like to see you try.”
The firefly paused, then flittered in an agitated pattern. “Go to the door.”
“Why?” I drawled.
“You’ll see.”
Heaving a pretend sigh, I rose and crossed to the door, the firefly following me. A moment later, a wad of folded paper was pushed under the door. Taking my time, I picked it up.
“Open it.”
I rolled my eyes up to the heavens, then unfolded the paper. My blood froze faster than when I’d fallen through the ice. I blinked my eyes as my vision blurred, as if my eyes tried to hide what was on the paper. I swallowed, forcing myself to look, to take in the details. Whomever had drawn it hadn’t skimped on those.
My eyes picked up a detail here and there. An illustration, with a foot, and damnable ice. “I-is that…”
I saw the image. I screamed.
“Shh!” the firefly warned me.
I glared at it, glad for the break, then turned back to flip through the papers. I didn’t scream at the next one, but my stomach churned. I flipped through them, refusing to look away, but my stomach protested with each new image until I had to run to the window. I felt around to throw the sash up before I vomited all over the floor.
“STOP!” she yelled through the firefly.
I kept pulling at the window, bile threatening to explode out of my mouth.
“Do not open the window. You will only alert him to my presence!”
Goddamn her. I swallowed the bile down and took several deep breaths of stale air, none of them cleansing. Even the arctic blast sure to sweep into the room would be better.
But Dajana would not see me like that.
My stomach churned again, the images emblazoned in my mind. How could illustrations be so lifelike? As if I already felt the knives and the needles and whatever that last machine had been carving up my flesh.
“That’s what the Dark God will do to you.”
Why was she talking?
“Your death won’t be quick. You’re His blood sacrifice, His amusement on this earth, His exotic trinket and toy. The price we must pay to have Him walk among us once more.”
If she wasn’t going to add anything useful, why wouldn’t she just shut up?
“I know there’s little reason to trust me.”
I thrust myself away from the ledge, turning upon the firefly. “Why do you care?”
As superstitious as these people were, Dajana should be thrilled to have her god back.
“Look at the images,” she said. “Go ahead, look.”
I shook my head. She was not my better. I did not obey her whims.
“That is what the Dark God will do to you. And the reason I care is because that is what He’ll do to my family, and every other royal family on this peninsula except for that bloody brat Haori.”
“Some god you worship,” I muttered. “Why would you even bother?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
I turned away, the images on the paper flickering through my mind, and the answer came readily. They worshipped it for fear the Dark God would do worse to them if they didn’t.
“Several centuries ago, the Dark God ruled this entire peninsula. One empire under God, where everything was united. Sentei grew the food, Lumi provided ore, and each of the myriad of other states had something to contribute to the whole.”
“In exchange for…” I waved at the paper.
“Sacrifices to our god? Yes. But then the Dark God’s previous vessel failed and the Dark God slumbered. With no one capable of ruling in His absence, we fractured, declaring our own independence. If you can call it independence, when each of us requires trade with the others to survive.”
Not like Nuriya, with its plentiful food and spices and clothes and dyes. The only thing we needed were metals, imported from across the ocean at a staggering price.
“But should one kingdom manage to summon the Dark God, then the Dark God will forcibly reunite His fractured empire.”
“So Prince Hemi has grown so power-hungry, he can’t even limit himself to one kingdom.” I laughed. Jem had tried to convince me otherwise, but here was the proof.
Dajana didn’t laugh with me, and when she spoke, her voice sounded uneasy. “You haven’t noticed yet?”
“Noticed what?” That people were all the same, no matter how far north one travelled?
“Never mind,” she said. “But the crux of the matter is that Prince Hemi requires an exotic and perfect sacrifice. You. There is no substitute for you. So if you escape, you’ll save us all.”
Or die trying. “So what’s your plan?”
“Plan?”
“Yes, how am I supposed to escape and leave Lumi without Jem stopping me? Or me dying?”
The firefly slowed, shifting from side to side.
I flicked a bang out of my eyes. “I would come up with a plan myself, but I’ve run out of options. I tried seducing Jem.”
Her surprised bark of laughter made the firefly vibrate. “You can’t seduce him. He doesn’t have feelings or desires. I can’t believe you even tried.”
Except he felt something for Prince Hemi. Jem had proved loyal to him and the little princeling. Perhaps he even possessed illicit feelings towards the regent. That might prove useful. Dajana was wrong. No one possessed the intensity Jem had if they didn’t have emotions.
“So how are you going to help me?” I asked. “Fight Jem with your magics?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. I couldn’t do that.”
“Because that would prove too useful?”
“Because Jem is the snowmancer, the most powerful magic user in centuries. The rest of us must settle for our little magics.”
I shrugged. “Fine. Then what else can you do? What is your plan?”
Besides barging into my room and demanding I make my escape.
“You don’t have the luxury of waiting for the perfect plan,” she said. “If you wait too long, you’ll… Well, just look at the papers.”
Which was her arrogant way of avoiding admitting that she didn’t know, and I was on my own. The way it should be.
Dajana had started to mumble something else when the firefly jumped and dashed away. I merely raised my brow. No need for her to waste more of my time, I supposed.
Alone again, but unable to trust it, I tossed the papers into the fire. The edges caught fire first, framing the woodcut. Intestines dripped over a torso and legs, until the page burned away. A cage with rats attached to the pelvis. Skin parted from arm muscle, the face wide-eyed and screaming. I turned my back on the hearth until they all burned to ashes.
That would not be my fate. I wouldn’t allow it.
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