Hearts of Chaos Page 19

  He covered his chagrin with a smooth lie. “Humans used to believe that sex by moonlight, after the first sleep, was a better time to procreate.” It helped that it wasn’t a lie but a superstition, and Tiamat was nothing if not superstitious. She would do anything for her third pantheon.

  She relaxed back into the plush mattress. He let his fingers dip under the sheet to find her ready. She was always ready.

  Zetian had been here and gone in such short a breath he could hardly believe it hadn’t been a trick of Tiamat’s just to keep him on edge. But the raw vulnerability in Zetian’s plea was so far removed from Tiamat’s imagination. Tiamat was fully unable to comprehend things like vulnerability, hope, and love. She was pure selfishness.

  He rolled over her. Zetian’s body was beautiful, but she wasn’t in control of it. Shame settled in his stomach. It was easy to do his job when he hated her. This was wartime. This was survival—for himself, the Kivati, and anyone else inhabiting this cursed city.

  But he couldn’t shake her plea, and as Tiamat beckoned, he couldn’t help but think of the woman who owned this body and still resided inside. Did she sleep when Tiamat was in control? Or was she trapped as an observer in her own body? Because that took the assignment to a soul-tarnishing place he could never return from.

  “I grow impatient,” Tiamat crooned. “If your seed isn’t up to the challenge by the end of this cycle, I’ll be forced to find someone more amenable.” She pulled him close, bit the lobe of his ear, and then licked the blood off. “And I’ll find your little friends, Thunderbird. I know you’ve been passing them notes. Naughty, naughty. You’ve been a very bad boy.”

  Rocks of ice rumbled in his gut. There was very little time left. All he could do was ask for Zetian’s forgiveness.

  Corbette walked in darkness. He followed the sound of Lucia’s voice as she described the scenery of Death’s garden and palace. Even though he couldn’t see it, he could picture it perfectly, almost as if he’d been here before. Through the journey he’d felt an eerie sense of déjà vu, but he’d chalked it up to his Raven dreams. Never had he lost his sight in the dreams. Never had he dreamed of Lucia’s delicate body above him on the steep staircase. His feelings were tangled as a spider’s web. He wanted her again, but he shouldn’t have taken advantage of her in the first place. Would she want a blind man in the Land of the Living? He had nothing to offer her. He’d lost his throne, his totem, his Aether, and his eyesight in one long slide into darkness.

  “Do you think Will is holding off Tiamat?” Lucia asked, breaking into his cloud of self-pity.

  “Will is the best Thunderbird I have. If he can’t do it, no one can.”

  “He mentored you when your father died, right?”

  “Yes. He was more of a father to me than Halian ever was. We saw eye to eye.”

  “Is he as strong as Kai?”

  A flicker of jealousy struck Corbette. How could he have ever thought of giving her to Kai? The idea of her with anyone else flooded him with a wave of black irrationality. “Strength is useless if it can’t be directed. In a fight, Kai would win, but he’s hotheaded. Leadership is about putting the good of your followers above your own selfish desires. It takes trust and a certain selflessness.”

  “Faith,” she said. “You must instill faith in your people that you will lead them to prosperity and peace.”

  “Yes,” he said, startled, because he’d always thought that the Crane symbolized faith and the Raven symbolized power. She’d never shown much interest in being a spiritual leader of the people, and he’d never wanted to leave his rule up to such an insubstantial emotion as faith.

  “I believe in you.” She squeezed his hand.

  He let out a harsh breath. “After all that’s happened?”

  “It wouldn’t be faith if it was never tested.”

  “Gods, Lucy—” He pulled her to him and his lips found the edge of her ear. She laughed and turned her face to meet him. He caught the edge of her smile before she was opening to him, tongue sweeter than nectar, body pressed against his. Her faith in him shook him to the core, shamed him for how little he’d trusted in her before this journey. She’d surprised him with her endurance and generosity. She gave when she had nothing left to give. She believed when he’d lost all hope. “You make me want to open Gates for you.”

  “Despite your sacred duty to keep them closed?”

  “Yes,” he whispered against her lips.

  “I—” She stiffened.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a man walking toward us.”

  “The Enkidu?”

  “No,” she whispered. “No.” Her fingers dug into his arms.

  A moment of happiness, and then the gods ripped away even that. He knew by the sorrow he heard in her voice what she was going to say. They’d been too lucky not to cross paths with any of their people so far. With Tiamat in the Living World, he’d been surprised that there hadn’t been a flood of spirits crossing the Gate. He braced himself. “Who?”

  She didn’t answer. He listened to the crunch of pebbles beneath booted heels coming toward them. A man, tall, broad, by the sound of it. A familiar set of footsteps.

  “Hello, Emory,” Lord William Raiden said.

  Corbette needed a long moment to find his voice. Lucia took his weight as he rested, so briefly, from the punch in the gut. “How?”

  “Tiamat took the hill.”

  “When?”

  “Four months have passed in the Living World.”

  “Four?” Corbette croaked. At his side, Lucia gave a little cry.

  “Casualties?”

  “I was the first.”

  So Will wouldn’t know how bad things were. Time was even more pressing now. “Any news of the others? Have many passed through the Gate?”

  “Yes. Humans and Kivati. You must hurry your quest. I’m sorry, Emory.”

  Corbette nodded. It was all he could manage.

  Blinking back tears, Lucia studied the shade of the Thunderbird general in front of her. Same stern expression, same proud nose and arrogant cheekbones. He wore the same clothes she’d seen him in last, which meant he’d died soon after she’d left him at the Hall. Anger replaced the shock she’d felt at first seeing him. “I warned you Tiamat was on her way.”

  Will gave a faint smile. “She strolled in without a shot fired.”

  “You had time to prepare!”

  “Moments only.”

  Corbette put a hand on her arm. “It’s done. Will, have you seen others? My sister?”

  Will shook his head. “I don’t know. I was carried through the Gate and made my way here. The last journey one makes alone. I haven’t seen Alice, but I fear for her. She’s headstrong. Wouldn’t bow to Tiamat even to save her own skin.”

  “But her mate, Brand, surely he would protect her from his dragon goddess—”

  “Dragon, Kivati, Human—those old separations are done,” Will said. “You didn’t see her, Emory. If there is any hope for the Living World, they must forget their enmity and work together to defeat her.”

  “But you hate the Drekar,” Lucia pointed out.

  “More than anyone,” he agreed. “But I loved life more, and I lost it. So you know it’s with greatest gravity that I say do not shun help, no matter what side it comes from.”

  A weight settled in her gut. Was this what had carved Corbette into such a serious, untouchable ruler—the knowledge that he’d sent good men to their death? She didn’t like it any more, but she finally understood it. Doubtful she’d have any laughter left if she’d had to do this for centuries. A grim resolve replaced the feeling of victory she’d had at seeing the palace. “We should hurry.”

  “Follow me,” Will said. “I can guide you to the maze, but that is all.”

  “Lead on.” Lucia pulled herself away from Corbette’s comforting side and tugged his hand. “Tell us what you know.”

  “I know little. Only the Spider can see through her webs into the Living World. It
’s better for the Dead to forget the past.”

  “Unless you have unfinished business,” Lucia said.

  “I’ve been waiting for you at this junction.” Will gave her a smile so full of sorrow that she felt her heart breaking. “I can’t be at peace not knowing if you’ve succeeded.”

  “Will we succeed?” Corbette asked.

  “Only the Lady knows, but you must.”

  “Then fuck it—let’s do this thing,” Lucia said. The palace drew into view, but the lower part was still hidden by bushes and briars. “Where’s the front door?”

  “Through the maze.”

  Of course it was. As they drew nearer, the hedges of the maze drew up. Above soared Alhambra lace-carved stone, vaulted windows out of which blew sheer crimson curtains, rising to shimmering onion domes of pure obsidian. The towers wove out of thin air in places, an impossible dreamscape. Below waited a forbidding warren made of blood-red nightshade, hemlock branches, and purple sawtoothed leaves.

  Suddenly the ground shook. Lucia crashed to her knees and watched the ornamental tree in front of her crack down the center and fall, straight up, into the sky. The sky was so close here. An optical illusion, but she felt like she could almost reach out and touch the swirls of color.

  “What’s happening?” Corbette demanded.

  “Earthquake,” Lucia said. “What’s wrong with the Land of the Dead, Will? It’s felt so wrong the whole journey. I can feel it in my bones that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Will watched the swirling sky. The tree passed the onion domes, hit a thick smear of red swirling sky, and exploded. Fireworks poured down over the palace in gold and green. “Same thing that happened in the Living World: the crash of the Gate destroyed the balance of Aether. The fabric of the universe ripped. Think of a woven tapestry—you pull one thread and it bunches the rest, distorting the pattern. The Spider weaves the Aether threads to hold the worlds together, but the threads on one side were all yanked out of alignment.”

  “But we closed the Gate,” Corbette said. “Kayla took power from all of us: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. All the Lady’s sacred tools. It should have worked.”

  Will shrugged. “The Aether can’t hold an electric charge in the Living World. What do you think it did to the Land of the Dead? All those inventions and tools you saw on the way were once someone’s hopes and dreams. Now they’re rusting in a swamp. Discarded like trash. People can withstand the crash of civilization, the death of loved ones, disease, poverty, suffering. As a group, they are resilient. They will bounce back with their creativity and grit. But take away their dreams, and their souls will shatter like an ice crystal. They can’t make their way through the Land of the Dead to their everlasting peace. They become trapped.”

  “Like the birds in the cages,” Lucia said.

  “Yes.” Will adjusted his suit jacket, and she caught sight of a large blue-black hole through the center of his chest. What had Tiamat done to him? “Don’t waste your pity on me. I haven’t lost my faith in Corbette in a hundred and twenty-five years. I’m not going to now. I believe in Emory, and, for good or bad, Emory believes in you. Come. The quake is over. If you don’t find the Scepter and restore the balance of the Aether, Tiamat won’t be the only threat rising from the dead.”

  Lucia pulled herself off the ground and helped Corbette to his feet. “How do we restore the balance?”

  Will gave her his sad half smile. “I don’t know.”

  They continued toward the maze. Many of the statues had fallen from their pedestals. She stepped over a giant bust of a many-armed blue elephant and helped Corbette navigate around it.

  “One thing I’m confused about, Will,” Corbette said.

  “Why did Norgard have any of the Lady’s sacred powers? He and his Drekar kin were cursed. They have no connection to the Aether other than the power to Turn, and without their soul’s other half they are barred from the Lady’s domain. Why would he have the power of fire? Maybe it didn’t work because Kayla only had four of the powers present to close the Gate.”

  “A better question would be, why could Lucia’s blood break the Gate in the first place? Norgard waited a few centuries to find a cracked Gate and set up his plan. He had the Tablet of Destiny and he had plenty of Kivati he could have used, but he waited. Why?”

  “He planned to use Kayla’s sister, Desiree, or their kid for the ceremony,” Lucia said. “Maybe he was waiting to have a child and wasn’t able to impregnate anyone else.”

  “A child to mix the Drekar and Kivati blood,” Will said. “An abomination.”

  “It would reunite the Drekar blood with the sacred blood of the Lady,” Lucia said. “Ceremonially, it makes sense—”

  “But your blood was the blood to open the Gate in the end, and you’re pure Kivati,” Corbette said.

  “As far as I know,” Lucia said, but she was beginning to doubt everything she’d thought she knew about herself. “My parents, grandparents, everyone listed in the family tree was Kivati. Of course, if someone wasn’t, it would be considered a great dishonor. No one would talk about it.” Her aunt had died escaping almost a year of Drekar captivity. What if Sarah had had a Drekar child? Would her parents, with their strict adherence to Kivati law, kill the baby or shelter it? She didn’t know anymore. Why did she heal so fast? Why did she have such blue eyes? Why couldn’t she touch the Aether with a skill worthy of the prophesized Crane? She knew she was Kivati, because she had two souls, but she had no idea if she had tainted blood. She found she didn’t really care, except she was afraid of what Corbette would think of her. She glanced anxiously at him.

  Corbette sighed. “I can see some of my policies to keep us safe have bred dangerous secrets.”

  “Desiree and Kayla have very little Kivati blood. They’re mostly human,” Lucia said. “Everyone knows Kivati and Drekar can’t mate.”

  “Improbable, not impossible,” Corbette said. “There is very little that the universe is incapable of imagining.”

  “You don’t sound horrified.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, shaking his usually sleek locks back from his face. “I’ve had my world turned upside down. My beliefs, my staunchly held prejudices—those are slipping from me with every step deeper into the Land of the Dead. Drekar and Kivati? Will is right. Who cares about parentage or heritage? All that matters is where you stand now: for Tiamat, or against her.”

  Lucia let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

  Another earthquake, and this time the ground seemed to tilt. Fallen statues slid toward the maze. She stumbled and lost Corbette’s hand. She grabbed a tree root to keep from falling. The elephant statue caught Corbette across the ribs and dragged him across the ground. “Emory!” she screamed. He couldn’t see to escape, tangled in the marble arms that seemed to writhe with life.

  “Lucia!” He fell straight at the maze. With a rustle, the thorns parted to let him and the statue slide through. She saw a dark corridor of purple leaves, and then the bushes snicked shut behind him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Corbette extracted himself from the crushing grip of the marble and let it tumble away from him. He tried for purchase on the thorns that brushed past him in the darkness, but his hands came away bloody. Finally, he found a thick iron bar and hung on until the ground stopped shaking. Wind whistled through the branches, and he knew he must be in the maze. He felt the ground and found flat stones. Pushing himself up, he examined his surroundings with his fingers. Iron bars. Either the maze wasn’t all thorns, or he’d fallen straight through into something else. Gods, he hated being blind.

  Hello, Emory. A hissing voice sounded in his mind.

  “Who’s there? What do you want?” He heard the click of bars being shut. “Don’t lock me in here!”

  Patience and faith, little bird, the voice said. It seemed to come from all directions at once.

  “Faith? I built an empire from the ground up and hid it in plain sight from the
humans. I watched countless of Kivati blood fall to the Drekar, and still fought on to defend our sacred honor. Who are you to talk about faith? Is this faith, to risk everything and end up with nothing?”

  Only the wind answered him.

  “I need the Scepter!” he shouted, but the voice—the Lady or a ghost or simply a tempting dream—didn’t respond. He thought of all those birds Lucia had freed on their journey here, stuck in cages like his, and wondered how long he would wait until someone came along to save him too. He didn’t give up until he’d explored every inch of his cage. Barbed branches stuck through the iron bars, letting him know he was still in the maze. He tried climbing the bars, but his hands gave out long before they ended, if they ever did.

  With no other options, he sat down to wait. He remembered Lucia’s soft scent, her comforting touch. The way she’d ribbed him. The press of her lips against his. She made him forget his duty. Dangerous, but that was why he’d always set her at a distance. Now that he had nothing to do but wait, memories of her came flooding back. The time he’d watched her dance in the rain. Laughing with her friends on the balcony of Kivati Hall. The fear in her eyes when she’d had one of her nightmares. His arms had ached to hold her, but back then he hadn’t trusted himself. Why not? When she needed comfort, how could he turn away? He’d been a cold bastard. Gods, he hoped he had the chance to make it up to her.

  He heard a flapping of wings against the cage and then a screech of hinges in need of oil. “Lucia?” He pushed himself up. “Lucia, is that you?” Next to him, the Aether rolled. He couldn’t help but lean into its old familiar warmth. The brush of Aether was replaced by a very real brush of fingers, soft as a babe’s cheek. “Lucia?” he asked, but he got a whiff of jasmine. “Evangeline.”

  “Emory, you don’t have to sound so put out. I thought it was you, but it seemed too good to hope.” Her voice was just as he remembered it—a wry bell like the jingle of fine china. Her fingers moved into his hair. She massaged his scalp and the crease of his forehead. “You work too hard.”