“You are cruel.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t mean I want you to think I am.”
I shook my head.
“You once told me we were monsters. We are.” Roland smiled at me. “Things are so difficult for you because you’re denying your nature.”
“No, please not another parental lecture on the virtues of evil.”
“Evil and Good are in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “That which benefits the majority in the long run isn’t evil.”
“It is if it comes from the suffering of others.”
“People suffer, Blossom. It’s the definition of our existence.”
Talking to him was like walking in circles. He bent every argument backward.
“You cost me a ten-year friendship.”
“Ten years. A blink.”
“A third of my life.”
“Ah.” He leaned back. “I keep forgetting. You’re so young, Blossom. I ask myself why you were born into this broken age. Why couldn’t you have been born thousands of years ago? You could’ve reached such heights.”
“Nope. I wouldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“You would’ve killed me.”
He laughed quietly. “Maybe.”
“Let’s be honest, Dad. You’ve killed everyone else. You would kill me as well, except something is preventing you from doing it. I will figure it out.”
“If you died, I would mourn you like I mourned my firstborn,” he said. “That death nearly broke me.”
“It’s so hard to talk to you, because you are the axis on which your universe revolves.”
“Aren’t we all?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. It was like I stared in the mirror. Crap. I’d been doing that ever since I could remember and here it was. Thanks, DNA.
“You more than others.”
We finished our beers and sat quietly side by side, watching the city.
“Do you intend to go through with this foolish marriage?”
“Yes. You’ll be relieved to know there will be a proper feast.”
“Blossom, come back with me.”
I turned and looked at him. Pain twisted his face.
“Come back with me,” he said. “Leave this behind. Come home with me. Whatever your price, I’ll pay it. We’re running out of time, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Come home. We have so much to talk about.”
All I had to do was get up and walk away with him. He couldn’t kill my son if there was no son. It would be so much easier. All this pressure would disappear. I could bargain for Curran’s life and the city and take my aunt’s place. Become a fully realized monster.
I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “I can’t.”
Sadness filled his eyes. “You can’t save everyone, Blossom.”
“This isn’t about saving them. It’s about saving me. If I go with you, I’d have to walk away from everything I stand for. I don’t want to be a monster. I don’t want to murder people or raze cities. I don’t want anyone to cringe when they hear my name. I want to have a life.”
He winced.
I reached out and took his hand. “Father, what you are doing is wrong. What you have done for these past years, what you will do after you have restored Shinar, is wrong. You bring pain and suffering. You want to resurrect the old kingdom, but the world has moved on. Shinar doesn’t belong here. It is lost. It will never be again. And if you somehow forced this world to obey your will, it would fall the way the old world of magic fell. Stay in the city, Father. Live a normal life for a little while. Come to my wedding, figure out what it is to be a grandfather. Enjoy the small things in life. Live, Father. Live for a little while without ruling anyone.”
“You would forgive me all my past transgressions if I stayed?” he asked.
“Yes. You are my father.”
If it meant that the city would survive, I would. I would take the look on Andrea’s face as she held Baby B, Julie’s tears, Jim’s flat stare, the knife in Dali’s chest, and everything I went through, and I would put it away so they could all go on living.
He patted my hand gently. “I cannot. It is against my nature. Decades ago when I had awoken, maybe. But now it’s too late. I am walking this path.”
“I’m right. Deep down inside, you know I’m right. This is a onetime offer. I won’t let you murder the man I love. I sure as hell won’t let you murder my son. You have no idea to what depths I’ll go to stop you. I won’t let you impose your will on those people you see on the street.”
“People must be led.”
“People must be free.”
He shook his head and sighed. “What am I going to do with you, Blossom?”
“Think about it, Father.”
“We are going to war, my daughter. I love you very much, my Blossom.”
“I love you too, Father.”
We sat together and looked at the city until finally he rose, drew his cloak over his head, and left, melting into the traffic.
Erra appeared next to me, her form so thin it was a mere shadow.
“Good-bye, brother,” she whispered.
CHAPTER
14
I STOOD IN our backyard as the sun set and tugged on the invisible ocean of magic around me.
“Take and hold,” my aunt said.
The magic flexed, obeying my will. All through the land I claimed, the magic stopped, hardening, as if the pliable soft water had solidified into impenetrable ice. It was like working a muscle. Her magic battered my “ice” wall and retreated.
We’d been at this for four hours.
“Release. Take and hold. Release. You’re doing better, but you need to think less. The magic of the land is a shield. You’re raising it. It should be instinctive, or you won’t react in time.”
Take and hold. Release.
Take and hold. Release.
“Commit!” my aunt snarled. Magic walloped me upside the head. My vision swam.
“Ow.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“That I’ll take too much.”
“Too much what?”
“Too much magic. Once I fought a djinn and used a power word against him . . .”
Erra rolled her eyes to the sky. “Mother, give me strength. Why would you do an idiotic thing like that?”
“Because I didn’t know that we have djinn blood.” That was when I learned that a long time ago one of my ancestors was an ifrit, and the presence of her blood in our bloodline made djinn immune to our power words. Which raised the question of what would happen if I ever used a power word against my father. It probably wouldn’t work. Hugh and Adora seemed to have no problem using power words against me and their brains didn’t blow up, but their blood wasn’t exactly as potent as my father’s.
Erra’s nostrils fluttered. Come to think of it, she breathed. I could see her chest rising and falling. She had no reason to breathe; she was dead. Maybe it was force of habit.
My head rang. “Ow.”
“Concentrate! What happened with the djinn?”
“My brain tried to explode. I was dying, not physically, but mentally. The magic was down and there was very little they could do for me. So I lay in bed, feeling myself die, and I reached out and took some magic to keep myself alive. It hurt the land.”
Suddenly my aunt’s face was half an inch from mine. “Listen to me very carefully. Do not do that again. If you keep doing this, it will make you akillu, the devourer, an abomination. You are a queen. Your responsibility is to defend the land, not to feed on it.”
“I wasn’t planning on a repeat performance.”
“Good, because I’ll kill you myself if you do that again. It is a sacred rule. Even at my worst, I never resorted to that. When your father’s beloved towers fell, he did n
ot feed on the land to hold them up.”
“Got it,” I growled.
“I don’t blame you,” she said. “I blame Im. One doesn’t simply hand a child a piece of land and let her stumble around in the dark with it. Has he taught you anything?”
“He’s offered, but only if I pledged to obey him.”
“I don’t understand that. He loves nothing more than to teach. He taught all of his children, even the ones he disliked. Even those who had neither brains nor power to do any real damage to themselves or others. You’re intelligent, disciplined, and you have power. You’re one of the strongest of his children I’ve seen. Why?”
“I thought about that,” I said. “I think it’s because I don’t matter.”
She stared at me. “Explain.”
“It’s not important for me to know anything about ruling the land. In his mind, I’m your replacement.”
She recoiled.
“He sees me as a sword, not a ruler. No matter what he says, I will never get the keys to his kingdom. I’m meant to kill for him and lead his armies at best, and die at worst. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too old or too stubborn, but there it is. If I blight the land accidentally, all the better. It would make me desperate enough to beg him for his wisdom and he can move me into the place he has chosen for me. If all else fails, from his point of view, I would make a decent vessel for bringing his grandson into this world. I know the prophecy says he will kill my son, but given a chance, I think he would take him. He likes new and shiny things, and my son will be shiny.”
Erra stared at me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was shocked.
“You are not a hireling,” she said finally. “You are a child of royal blood. His blood. My blood. It is your right to know these things. It is his duty as your parent to pass them on to you.”
I spread my arms.
She squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her face. “You, our mother . . . It’s like I don’t know him anymore. There’s nothing left of the golden child he was. Is it because I slept while he stayed awake for another thousand years, or was I just that blind during my life?”
“He isn’t wrong,” I said. “I do make a better killer than a ruler.”
Magic exploded on my chest. I landed on my ass.
“Never put yourself down,” Erra snarled. “You are my niece. If he won’t teach you, I will! I may have never claimed a kingdom, but not because I don’t know how to do it or what to do once the claim is made. Get up. You have to practice.”
I rolled to my feet. “It wants to change me.”
“What does?”
“The land. The Shar. When I use the magic, I feel urges.”
Erra’s eyes narrowed. “Desire for more power?”
“No, desire to not be accountable for anything. I stop caring about things that are important, like family, friends . . .”
“Listen to me carefully. The Shar pushes you to acquire land and defend it. It fuels your feud with your father. It does not do anything else. What you’re experiencing is a different thing entirely. When you sense the land, what does it feel like to you?”
“An ocean.”
“Right now, you are a barren rock within this ocean. A part of you feels the great power that lies there and wants to become one with it. There is so much magic there and you are only human. But because you are human, you impose limitations on yourself, things you won’t do no matter what. These limitations are good. They keep your ego intact. Without them you would melt into the waters.”
“What would happen then?”
“You would become everything you fear. A tyrant, a demon, eventually a god. Hang whatever label you wish upon it. You must find a way to draw the ocean into yourself without losing who you are. You absorb it, not the other way around. That is fundamentally harder than letting yourself become one with it.”
I stared at her.
“You’re not fighting the land!” she barked, exasperated. “You’re fighting yourself. The combined magical power of the land is far greater than you are, but it has no will of its own. Interacting with it is terrifying, because your instincts are warning you about the enormous power difference between you and it. Your fear is pushing you to subjugate it, and fear is telling you that once you impose your will on the land, it will be a slave and no longer a danger. But this is the one thing you cannot do. It will feel like a victory, but in reality it will be the end of who you are. You must find a balance, a place within your land’s power. Doing that is a lot harder, and so a part of you rebels against all of the work you must do to get there. Yes, it will feel as if some outside force is pushing on you. I’ve known people who even heard its voice and talked to it. Some of them went mad, child. Trust me, it’s you. You have to overcome yourself. If the land had a will of its own and was wrestling with you, it would be so much easier. You would just crush it and move on. But you are fighting yourself.”
“How do I win?”
“That’s for you to figure out. One or the other part of you will get the upper hand. It’s not important now. Your father is preparing for battle. You must prepare to defend your land and all within it. What we’re practicing now is fundamentally different from what you’ve done before to keep yourself alive. You’re taking nothing. You’re shaping the magic the way a vessel maker shapes clay and then releasing it. This harms nothing. Feel the magic. Commit. Let yourself sink fully into it, but do not let it pull your essence apart.”
I let the ocean of magic wash over me.
“Deeper,” my aunt demanded. “I won’t let you harm anyone.”
I opened myself and let it swallow me whole.
“Finally,” Erra said. “Take and hold. Release. Again. Again. Again . . .”
• • •
I LAY ON my back in the grass and watched the stars get brighter. I was so tired.
Curran loomed over me. I didn’t hear him approach. His gray eyes were dark.
“What?” I sat up.
“I told Derek to meet me here at nine. It’s ten now.”
Derek was punctual. If he said he would here at nine, he would be here. You could set your clock by him. Alarm pinched me. “Maybe he got held up?”
“He called, said he and Julie were going to run a short errand, and then they would come straight here. That was two hours ago. Julie was supposed to meet with Roman about bridesmaid dresses. He’s been sitting in our living room for half an hour.”
Something had happened.
I rolled to my feet. “I’ll get the car.”
Fifteen minutes later we drove out into the night, with the black volhv in the backseat.
“Did they say where they were going?” I asked.
“Near Gryphon Street.”
My old apartment was on Karen Road, off Gryphon Street. Crap.
“Thick magic tonight,” Roman said from the backseat.
I felt it, too. It was flooding me with power. Streets sped by.
“Any idea what they would be doing on Gryphon?” Curran asked.
Probably moving an assassin who thought I was her key to heaven into my apartment. “Some.”
“Feel like sharing?”
“No.”
“Kate, I’m getting sick of this. I was cool with Mishmar, I dealt with you bringing the ghost of your aunt into our house, but I’m done with all the secrecy. You know what’s going on and now the kids are in danger.”
“I’ll tell you afterward. It’s complicated to explain and you’ll be pissed off.”
“I’m already pissed off,” he snarled.
Not yet. When he was truly angry, he would turn ice cold.
“Look, it’s my fault, and now Julie has taken it upon herself to fix my mess. But right now let’s find the kids, and I promise you, you can roar as much as you want after.”
His eye
s were completely gold. The steering wheel groaned slightly under the pressure of his fingers.
He would leave me. I knew it with absolute certainty. When he found out everything, he would leave. This was one straw too many.
“She’s right,” Roman said from the backseat. “Rescue first.”
“Stay out of this,” Curran and I said at the same time.
Roman raised his hands.
Curran took a turn. We shot out onto the street leading to the Berkins overpass, a massive stone bridge spanning a field of rubble where several office towers had collapsed and part of the city had sunk.
To the right side, Julie knelt on the bridge. Around her a faint red glow shimmered in a circle. She’d set a blood ward. Within the defensive spell, Derek paced back and forth. Adora knelt by Julie, her head bowed.
Behind the circle a dozen people waited. Two stood out, at the back of the group, a man and a woman, twins in their early twenties, both redheaded, both wearing the black and purple of the sahanu. Five hyenas sat by the female twin’s feet, secured by long chains.
“The twins are my father’s assassins,” I said.
The female twin reached down and took the collar off the first hyena.
“My lord is so good to me.” Roman grinned.
“What?”
“It’s a bridge.” He rubbed his hands together. “I love bridges!”
Arrows hit the car. Magic whined and our windshield shattered.
Curran threw the wheel to the right and braked. The car skidded to a stop, the driver’s side facing the bridge. He grabbed the door. Metal groaned. The door came free. Curran heaved it in front of him like a shield. His body tore. Bones grew, powerful muscle wound about them, and fur sheathed the new body. His jaws lengthened, the bones of his skull crunching and moving to make new leonine jaws. Fangs the size of my fingers burst from his gums. Sharp claws tipped the fingers of his monstrous hands. The change took less than a second, and then the nightmare that was Curran in warrior form snarled and leapt onto the bridge.
“Scatter!” the male twin ordered. “He’s ours.”
My father’s soldiers dashed out of Curran’s way, clearing the path to the twins.