Hearts of Chaos Read online

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pain tore through Corbette’s head. He bled freely, leaving a trail of bubbling red in his wake. The Enkidu was as strong as an aptrgangr, but even harder to kill. He crushed Corbette’s rib cage into his lungs. Only Lucia’s voice kept Corbette from succumbing to the blackness. Her song coiled around him, reknitting his bones and tissues as they were broken. He wrenched his elbow beneath the clay man’s neck and broke the creature’s hold.

  “Emory!” Lucia cried, and Corbette moved just in time to avoid another attack. Bloody hell. If he could touch the Aether right now, he’d blast that sorry piece of rock right back to his gods-be-damned maker.

  Dancers rushed from the floor, straight past him, blocking the Enkidu from another volley. They mobbed the side of the room that had been lost in shadow. His view was blocked by a rainbow of skirts and polished boots.

  Lucia pushed through the crowd to his side. She knelt and wiped a bit of blood from his cheek with the edge of her cloak. He caught the glimpse of her pale, naked limbs beneath the blue wool.

  “I’m fine.” He let her help him to his feet. “What happened?”

  “The Spider was trapped by the tainted Aether. She’s free now. Everyone is going to see her.” Lucia’s gaze was steady, her face betraying none of the shock he felt.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you knew the song? It was inside you, and the journey unlocked it? Was it a memory from past lives?”

  “It’s everywhere. I just had to listen.” She flashed him the smile of a woman with secrets to keep. There was no sign of the innocent girl she had once been. And—gods—the experienced version made his knees weak. Was there anything he wouldn’t do for one kiss? “We need to get to the Lady before the Enkidu does.”

  “Right.” He curled his arm protectively around Lucia and pushed his way through the crowd. She felt right in his arms. A missing piece of his life slid into place, soothing something inside him that he’d not realized was agitated. Even without the Aether, without his totem, she made him feel whole.

  The Queen of the Land of the Dead wore all black, from the long straight hair to the tight bodice and wide skirts. Her skin was bone, her hair ebony, and her lips the color of blood. The effect was stunning. She should be beautiful, but her beauty was the beauty of death, terrible and sad and irrevocable, and he wanted to turn his eyes away. On her finger she wore a thick silver ring that matched the nose ring of the Behemoth.

  The clay man pushed through the crowd ahead of them. She watched him, still as a block of ice. In her lap lay a gold bar that was the length of Corbette’s forearm and encrusted with black onyx. On one end was a knob with a needled point; the Scepter of Death was a spindle and distaff. He could feel the threads of Aether pulling toward and around it.

  The clay man bent on one knee and came to rest in a full bow.

  “Who sends the dead to the dead?” the Queen asked. Her voice was the deep rumble of the earth. Corbette felt himself instinctively curl around Lucia at the sound of it. It spoke of the hibernation of winter and the quiet suffocation of plants in the long snow.

  The clay man spoke. “Tiamat, Goddess of Chaos, sends you a message. She demands the return of her children’s souls. She demands justice on those who wronged her.”

  Corbette stepped forward, Lucia still tucked against his side. “Tiamat is a sadistic goddess who seeks nothing more than rule of all the Worlds. She will come for you next, and the Dead shall know no more peace. You can’t give her what she wants.”

  The dark Queen shifted her infinite gaze to him. He couldn’t stand under its weight. Helplessly, he let go of Lucia, crashed to his knees, and bowed, just as the dead man beside him. “And who dares order me in my own palace?”

  “You have forsaken the living,” Corbette ground out.

  “And who are you to speak of forsaking duty? You, who have forgotten what it means to serve?”

  Corbette’s head whipped up. “Me? I’ve served your children my whole life. The Kivati are everything to me. I would give my life for them.”

  “And here you are in death of your own accord, yet your people are no freer, no safer for your sacrifice.” She raised the Scepter and pulled the spindle from the distaff. Aether spun out between the two halves. “See the world continue on without you.” The spinning threads wove out from the spindle into the air in a shimmering picture. He saw Kivati Hall. Sun shone on the yellow facade and the new wide brick road that started from its new giant gold doors. On the steps stood Kai, a stern smile on his face, and next to him stood a beautiful Zetian. Her long black hair was twisted up in combs of gold and jewels, and her red silk gown trailed on the steps behind her. Her hand rested over the pronounced curve of her belly.

  “No,” Corbette said.

  “Did you think the world would fall apart in your absence? You are not so crucial a stick pin.”

  Corbette inhaled sharply. The emotion was a sucker punch in the gut. Instinctively, he reached out to the Aether, but it ignored him. A soft touch on his shoulder brought him back. Lucia.

  “She’s not showing you the whole truth,” Lucia said. “Show him the whole.”

  The Queen smiled. “All of it, little Crane? Do you have so much faith in him already?”

  “Yes.”

  Somehow, Lucia’s belief released the Queen’s hold on him. Corbette stood. Lucia slipped her hand into his just as the Queen in black gave way like an Aether vision breaking, and the giant body of a monstrous black spider took her place. Good Lady, no. But he held his ground. “How did you know?”

  Lucia shrugged. “I see her as she truly is, even without the Deadglass.”

  The Spider was all-encompassing. True terror, but she faded back into the mask of the dark Queen again. The woman smiled. After having seen her true self, Corbette couldn’t help picturing that smile full of venomous fangs. The Queen’s beauty was terror. “But you meant something else, yes? Harbinger, we have been waiting for you.” She raised her distaff again, and again it spun Aether out into a vision of the Living World. This time the sight roared down the new road to downtown, where human slaves toiled in the biting winter air to build a new hanging garden at the edge of the sea. Overseers, both Kivati and Drekar, held whips and marched down the lines shouting orders. “See, Raven? She rebuilds her idealized society, her memory of her golden age. She is not so different from you.”

  “But he is,” Lucia said. “He protected the humans.”

  The Queen’s face darkened. “He sent many through my Gates in his war with Tiamat’s children. It’s not enough to have good intentions if one’s means betray the ends. How many have you killed, Crane, in seeking your justice?”

  “None.”

  Corbette cut in. “If protecting my people from the Drekar attacks is wrong, I reject your idea of justice.” Lucia’s hand tightened in his.

  The clay man stood. “Tiamat is willing to trade for the Scepter in the old tradition.”

  “And what are you willing to trade?” the Queen asked Corbette.

  “What old tradition?” Lucia asked.

  “Balance, child of two worlds,” the Queen said. “There must be balance in the universe. When Ishtar traveled into the Land of the Dead, she made the blood trade to keep the scales balanced. She exchanged her husband, Tammuz, for herself and was granted release from my kingdom. Did you think there was free passage through the Gate? You, of all people, should know better.”

  “You won’t let us leave? With or without the Scepter?”

  “Do you want to go without it? You should never have come if your quest was so frail a calling.”

  “What is Tiamat’s trade?” Lucia’s voice rose. “The life of this man? He’s already dead!”

  “Blood sacrifice,” the Enkidu said and jumped. One moment he was frozen in a half bow, and the next he’d thrown himself at Corbette. Corbette fell beneath the impact, and they rolled to the floor. Corbette fought off the attack. He could hea
r Lucia screaming and the murmur of the crowd. But he couldn’t match Tiamat’s servant in strength. He started to lose consciousness.

  Suddenly Will was pulling away the Enkidu. “I’ve got your back, kid. No matter which side of the Gate.” Unlike Corbette, Will had the strength of the dead. He succeeded in pulling the clay man away and punched him in the face. With a roar, he dove after him, and the two went at each other like a couple of rabid dogs. Will’s shape morphed faster than a flick of light and suddenly a Thunderbird hovered in the air. His talons seized the Enkidu and threw him across the room. He followed, giant wings sending the candles sputtering and blowing the curtains off their hangers. There was a loud thump and the scuffle of further fighting from the back of the room.

  Corbette picked himself off the ground. An icy calm washed over him. He knew what the Queen wanted. He could see it in the unwavering black of her eyes. There was no room for adjustment, no room for persuasion or lies or manipulation. “A life for a life, is that the trade?”

  The Queen’s voice hissed with a thousand echoing tongues off the high ceilings overhead. “Yessss.” The mask shivered, overlaying the truth of the giant Spider across the woman on the bone throne. “Balance.”

  He took a step forward. “I accept.”

  “What?” Lucia asked.

  “The Scepter belongs to Tiamat!” the clay man screamed from the back of the room, followed by the shriek of a Thunderbird, but Corbette kept his face turned to the Spider and let his resolve steel his voice. In his acceptance, everything else fell away. So small a thing, this surrender. So vast a power. Lucia had taught him so much.

  The Spider’s voice rang in his mind. The blood exchange is irrevocable.

  “My life for Lucia’s. Let her go. Take me instead.”

  “What? No! Emory. Don’t do this.” Lucia tugged on his arm. “Please, no. Take me. The Kivati need you. Didn’t you see the vision? They will all die without you! You are their only hope—”

  “No, love.” He trapped her hands in his. Gods, she was beautiful. Light radiated beneath her alabaster skin. Her white hair streamed down her back. Tears rose in her wide blue eyes. Dragon blood, Kivati blood, it didn’t matter. She was his to love and his to lose. He brushed away a drop of water that threatened to spill over. “I can’t promise you forever. I can’t promise you it will be perfect, or that the world will be saved. But I can give you this: life. Please.” He kissed her—too briefly, but all the more sweetly for it. “Live, my lady. If you still want me at the end, I’ll be here waiting for you. There are no good-byes.”

  “How can you give up on us? How can you just walk away?”

  “I’m not.”

  “The Raven Lord I know would never give up!” She pulled one hand free and hit him in the chest.

  He captured it and laid a kiss on her palm. “I’m sorry I was such an ass. We could’ve had more time.”

  “We can still have it now! Don’t do this.” She turned to the Queen. “Please. Please don’t ask this. Haven’t you taken enough from us? Do you have no mercy?”

  The Queen turned her head to the doorway, where the Thunderbird and the Enkidu still fought. Already dead, death was no ending for their fight. “The balance of the universe must be restored. That is mercy, so that all creatures may live in peace. Your actions helped sever the weave and weft of the Aether, and your actions now may restore it, but nothing worth doing is free. So tell me, Light Bringer, will you be the key to salvation? Or will you be the ruin of your brothers and sisters, leading them into chaos?”

  “Look at me, Lucy.” Corbette took her face. His hands shook. “They need you out there. Take the Scepter and go. Defeat Tiamat. This is your destiny. This is the battle of the prophecy, but the prophecy never said if you win or lose. I’m not the one to do it. I’m just a small bit player in the game. I helped you get here, and now it’s your time to go on. You can do this. I believe in you.”

  “I don’t want to go without you.” The shattered look in her eyes cut him as if he’d eaten broken glass.

  “I know.” He kissed her again, poured all his love, all his regret, all his hope for her into that one last kiss. Her lips were demanding beneath his. No soft surrender here, just passion and the fierceness of the end. He pulled away, breathing ragged, knowing if he went any further he would never be able to let her go. “Lady have mercy on us both.”

  The Aether curled around him and pulled them apart. This time he didn’t try to pull it inside him. It was a false god, that rush of power. All he needed stood in front of him, and he was letting her go.

  Lucia knew panic like nothing she’d experienced since the Unraveling. Corbette was abandoning her after all they’d been through and every fiery kiss they’d shared. He would die, while she lived to take the Scepter back into the Land of the Living. Didn’t he know there was nothing left for her back there without him? This journey seemed to have been orchestrated for one outcome. The spirits had been waiting for her. The land welcomed her. The signs were everywhere—she belonged here, not Corbette. “Don’t be such a fucking martyr. I never asked you to die for me.”

  “I know.”

  “We’ll find another way.” She reached up and wrapped a hand in his shirt. His eyes widened. “Dying is easy, and you’ve never taken the coward’s way out. Don’t start now. I need a man who has the courage to live. Not to live for me, but to live with me, facing the good with the bad.”

  “You think I wouldn’t choose that if I could?” he growled.

  “It’s been the Kivati or me all this time, and now you change your tune? Now? When our people need you more than ever? Finish what you started.” She released him, her throat too tight to get another word out.

  He stumbled back. Big, strong, confidant man that he was. His shoulders curled in on him. He rubbed the left side of his chest. “Damn it, Lucia. What would you have me do?”

  “Live.” She wished she could soothe the pain from his eyes, but she had nothing left. He wouldn’t leave willingly.

  “So be it.” The Queen’s voice echoed in the room and a phantom wind ripped the tapestries from their moorings. “Emory Corbette, son of the Raven. You may have what you came for. Use it wisely. You have three days.”

  “No!” Corbette cried. The Scepter appeared in his hand. Aether twisted around him, buffeting his body with its magic light. He rose in the air until the tips of his toes left the ground. A giant Raven—translucent, more nightmare than bird—raced across the great room with its wings spread and talons out. It shot straight into Corbette’s chest. A bomb of light exploded from his body as the totem reconnected. His limbs shot out, his head dropped back, and his mouth opened in a cry of agony. Light shot from every inch of skin and with a great ripping sound, he Changed. The man dissolved to feather. The brooding nose lengthened and sharpened to a beak. In the great bird’s talons hung the Scepter, still weaving the Aether on its spindle point.

  “Emory!” Lucia cried. But the Raven didn’t look at her. It launched itself straight up to the high vaulted ceilings. At the highest point, the rafters closed around a smoke hole open to the sky. The bird shot straight through the hole and disappeared from sight. There was nothing left of him. No feather, no light, nothing but the shriveled pieces of her heart. With a slow, zombie lurch, she turned to the Queen. “He got what he came for.”

  “Yes. And you made the trade. The balance of the Universe is intact.”

  The buzz of the courtiers started up around her. The high tinkle of laughter and the low buzz of conversation returned to normal. How would she survive in such a place? But this had been her choice. She’d told Corbette to go back and finish what he started.

  But she’d become so used to having him by her side, the physical loss felt like she’d severed a limb. How many times had she glanced over to see his expression? How many times had she stopped to touch him, to take his hand, to reassure herself that he was whole and with her? What had started as the overbearing mask of the Raven Lord had crumbled to reveal the
very real man beneath, and that man had grown more precious to her than breathing. Good thing she needed neither blood nor breath in the Land of the Dead.

  In the corner of the ballroom, the Thunderbird and Enkidu still fought. Will had stepped up in the nick of time. She couldn’t let him be unmade. The crowd parted for her. The strange, unreal animal heads, hands, and hooves stuffed into elegant formal wear had lost their ability to intimidate her. Let the dead mock her. Their pity couldn’t touch her. She’d had the love of a good man, and there was nothing they could say or do to take that warmth away from her. The aisle opened straight to the fight. The Thunderbird was barely holding on, half his wing hanging at a crooked angle. The clay man dug his heels into the parquet floor and tore a piece of flesh off Will’s neck with his teeth. The Thunderbird screamed.

  “Stop it,” Lucia ordered. “Stop it!”

  They didn’t heed her. She focused on the Aether swirling through the room, no longer tainted, no longer tangled in webs sticky with the Unraveling’s darkness. Her Drekar blood meant that she’d never been able to manipulate the Aether like she should, but she could feel it now, a comforting thrum of power. Perhaps the Kivati way didn’t work for her, but she’d never tried the Drekar way. She’d picked up a few more things from Grace than just fighting. Next to her stood a lady with the head of a rainbow pheasant. In her goat hands she held an elaborate fan with a mount of sage green lace and blades made of finger bones.

  “Excuse me,” Lucia said. She ripped the fan from the woman and broke it. The finger bones had been sharpened at the end, and she tore one out to use as a carving tool. Grace had special instruments for her runes, silver needles for inking and a running iron to brand, but Lucia suspected that the true magic behind it was intent. She’d never been so focused in her life. All the anxieties she’d had back in the Living World had been stripped away. She knew with absolute certainty that she was the Crane. Though mortal, she’d journeyed through the Land of the Dead. She’d sung to clear the Aether and freed the Spider. There was no self-confidence she hadn’t earned with the scrabble of her nails and the spilling of her own blood.