Divined (34 page)

“Hers will be the last blood shed on this pyramid. We’ll make sure of that,” Riece said, looking around at Derik and Zarae.

Clio nodded. She knew what had to happen next. It hurt to stand, to put distance between herself and Ashira, but if they were going to take back this Empire, if they were going to make sure Ashira’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain, they would need to act quickly. Grief could wait.

“Your people cheer for you.” Clio looked down on the square.

“They cheer for you, too,” Riece said. “Listen.”

She heard it then. A whimper in the roar. But it was there.
Oracle.

“
She
was their champion. Not me. I want them to know what she gave them, gave us all.”

“They’ll know.” It was Zarae who spoke.

“Thank you,” Clio breathed. She turned to Riece. “Go. Claim your kingdom. Give them back their freedom.” She nodded to the crowd.

He studied her, his expression cautious.

“Address them, Riece. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” She managed a small smile. “They need you right now, and I need… I’ll be here,” she finished. She needed quiet, and Riece deserved this moment with his people.

He squeezed her hand before turning to face the waiting crowd, and Clio limped back toward the tunnel as his first words as the Emperor of Morek rang out over the square.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Two of Riece’s warriors were restraining Vazuil just outside the entrance to the pyramid’s tunnel. As Clio approached, warriors and offerings alike bowed their heads in deference. The rain had washed the dye from her hair, marking her as their Oracle once more. She didn’t like the silence that followed her every step, didn’t like the way all movement ceased wherever she walked. But she wouldn’t fight it anymore. It didn’t matter if she had the Sight or not—it never really did. To them, her people, she would always be the Oracle.

She stopped in front of Vazuil and held her hand out for the nearest warrior’s blade.

“Just get it over with,” Vazuil spat, straining against his captor’s hands.

“Was it true? Did you intend to take the power for yourself?” Her voice felt somehow far away, like she was hearing it from the bottom of the square.

“What do you think, Clio? He took everything from me.”

Clio nodded, weighing the dagger in her hand. It was so much lighter than the one she’d used on her father, and yet, still, she found herself shuddering under its weight. She pressed the dagger to his neck, watching as a bead of red blood welled at the blade’s point.

“What are you waiting for?” he rasped.

Her eyes found his. His face, his voice—he had haunted her for so long. She’d dreamed of this moment since the day she walked away from her calling. But looking into his eyes, his life under her dagger, she found herself lowering the knife and stepping away.

“Leave the Empire or take your own life. I don’t much care which, but I suspect you’re too much of a coward for the latter.”

Fear made his eyes bright. “You should kill me.”

Clio saw it then. The prospect of a powerless mortal life stretched out before him. “I used to be afraid of you, of what you could do to me. I’m not anymore. But you—you’ll be afraid until the day you die. Mortality is longer than you might think.” He struggled against the warrior’s grip. “Take him to the border. Leave with enough food to make it to another city,” she said to the warriors, then handed back the blade and turned to go.

The pyramid was buzzing with activity. Warriors and offerings alike tended to the wounded and helped restrain the surviving priests. Clio looked to the front where Riece stood, Derik and Zarae flanking him on either side. Her shoulder ached, her side stung. She was suddenly tired. And behind everything was grief and the feeling that this wasn’t victory. She couldn’t bear to stand in the midst of the city’s celebration, not without Ashira. Not while Clio could think of nothing but the truth—that it should have been her to die, to give her blood for the sacrifice. She had failed.

She needed quiet. Without thinking, she slipped behind the shattered doors of the ceremony chamber. The room was cold, unnaturally so, she supposed, from the power that had been taken here. It was fitting. The cold and the quiet, with no one but the dead for company. She leaned against the wall, turning herself over to the numbing cold spreading through her veins.

A low moan broke the silence.

Clio straightened, realizing she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

The sound was coming from the back room—the room filled with Nox’s final offerings. One was still alive. The thought filled Clio with dread. She didn’t know if she could hold another girl and watch her as she died in Clio’s arms.

But she couldn’t ignore it. She crept to the back room, the moaning growing louder, until Clio realized it wasn’t a moan of pain, but a broken whimper. A cry.

She reached for the blade tucked into her belt. She’d assumed Nox had taken the distraction of battle as a chance to slip out of the chamber, but what if he hadn’t?

She edged forward. All the bodies had been moved. Each and every one of them had been laid out flat, respectfully, their eyes closed and their hands crossed over the holes in their chests. All except one.

In the center of the room a lone girl sat on the floor, her arms wrapped around the one body that hadn’t been moved.

The girl glanced up.

“
Tirza
?” Clio looked down at the face held tenderly in Tirza’s lap. Nox stared up unseeing at the girl as she brushed the hair back from his glassy eyes. “What are you doing here?” But before Tirza could answer, Clio saw the truth. The dagger discarded by Tirza’s side, the blood staining her hand, the red splashed across Nox’s chest. “
What did you do
?” Clio whispered.

Tears streamed down Tirza’s cheeks, and she clutched Nox to her breast.

“I—I thought, if I only saw him, spoke to him… I thought I would know it was all some cruel mistake, that he hadn’t—he didn’t—” Her words broke. “But I saw what he did to them.”

Clio sank to her knees at Tirza’s side, taking her hand. “You did the right thing, you know that.”

Tirza nodded, her chest silently heaving as she fought down her sobs. “I loved him though. Even as I did it. I loved him when I slid the knife into his chest, when he died in my arms. I love him still.” Her voice went quiet.

“Of course you do.” Clio didn’t know what to say. Of everything in this room, Tirza seemed the most broken, her heart cut as deep as those stretched out on the cold floor.

“No.” Tirza shook her head. “You don’t understand. If… If I can love someone who’s done…this”—she looked around at all the bodies—“then there has to be something wrong with me, right? I have to be as—as evil as he was.” She pressed her face into Nox’s cold shoulder as another sob wracked her frame.

“No,” Clio said after a moment. “No. You didn’t know. You didn’t know he would do this when you fell in love with him.”

Tirza looked up, her loose hair sticking to the tears on her cheeks. “I
should
have known. How could I not? How could I not see this?”

“Love makes blind slaves of us all,” Clio murmured.

“What?”

Clio shook her head, shrugging off the memory. “Tirza, we can’t see everything coming.” She laughed. “I know that better than anyone. The future is impossible to foresee. We can’t know it. If we did, we’d be Deities. But we’re mortal, and that means we have to forgive ourselves for stumbling in the dark.”

Tirza’s tears had dried. Her hands ceased their stroking.

“Forgive yourself, Tirza. Forgive yourself for killing him and forgive yourself for loving him.”

Something flickered in the girl’s expression, and Tirza cast her gaze to the ground as if she couldn’t face Clio.

“It was me,” Tirza said suddenly. “I’m the one who told the Emperor about the Oracle of Sheehan. I’m the reason you had to leave. I was trying to drive you from Riece’s life once and for all. I’m sorry.”

Clio blinked, then reached for Tirza’s shoulders, ignoring the painful stab in her side. “That’s all right. I probably deserved it anyway.”

Tirza looked up, the ghost of a grin in her eyes. “You did.”

Clio laughed, and it wasn’t long before Tirza’s lips curled in a small smile. She looked down once more at Nox, then moved his head off her lap, laying him tenderly on the ground beside her.

“I’ll do it if you do,” she said seriously, watching Clio.

“Do what?”

“Forgive yourself.”

Clio looked to the side, unable to meet Tirza’s eyes. “You’ve always been too insightful. It’s why we’re always at odds with each other,” she said lightly, trying to break the sudden solemnity cutting between them.

“No. We’re at odds because you’re impossible and because you’re always ruining my brother’s happiness by feeling guilty for things that haven’t happened yet.”

“Fair,” Clio said with a laugh. She thought of everything she’d done to fight the future, all the people she had hurt, everything she’d pushed aside. She didn’t need to anymore. Ashira had given her that freedom, and Clio wasn’t going to waste it. Her vision dimmed around the edges, and Clio felt suddenly weak.

“Clio?” Tirza sounded scared. She rose to her knees. “Are you all right?”

“I am,” Clio said through a giggle, letting the world spin around her. “But I feel certain I’m about to pass out.”

Tirza jumped to her feet and headed to the door.

“Wait,” Clio called from the ground as the room faded around her. “Tell Riece I’m saying yes.”

She closed her eyes, imagining the future waiting for her when she awoke.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

She woke too warm. Her whole body was stiff, and her arm throbbed, but Clio barely felt it. She opened her eyes with a single word on her lips.
Yes
.

Immediately, she knew she was back in the palace. She was on a mat in the center of a large room, a window overlooking one of the palace’s glittering pools. It sparkled in the high sun. She recognized the room, although she’d never seen its inside before. The Emperor’s quarters.

“You’re awake.”

Clio turned. Ealis sat on a stool in the corner of the room, and Clio suddenly felt like she was back in Cearo. But everything had changed since then. She smiled.

Ealis held a finger to his lips and nodded to Ixie asleep on the bench behind Clio. His eyes too were dark and lined, but there was something silently happy in the way his gaze lingered on Ixie’s sleeping frame.

“Riece?” Clio mouthed.

Ealis grinned like he was holding back a laugh. “Tending to the Empire, solidifying his alliance with King Derik and Queen Zarae, and complaining every moment about how his place should be here, by your side. I assured him I’d take good care of you,” he whispered before standing and crossing to Clio’s side. “Next time you take a spear to the side and a dagger to the shoulder, do me a favor and at least try to halt the bleeding. You scared us all.” His eyes flickered to Ixie as he said it.

“Sorry,” Clio muttered, chagrinned. She’d been so caught up with Ashira’s death that she’d hadn’t thought about how close she might have been to joining her. “Thank you, Ealis. Again. And Atzi?” Clio didn’t want to think of the last time she’d seen the Oracle, how injured she had been after facing the Bloodied One unarmed.

“She’s hurt, but she’ll recover. With the help of Kusa, I’d expect. She set out this morning to summon him somewhere more private.”

Clio wasn’t prepared for the relief that flooded her chest at his words. They’d survived. Against fate, they had survived. She turned to Ixie. Scrapes covered her face, but her lips were pink, her breaths steady and strong.

“Has she been here long?” Clio asked.

“Since the battle. Three days ago,” he added. “This is the first she’s slept since. I tried to tell her it wasn’t necessary, that the danger had passed, but, well you know how she is.” He smiled, his cheeks reddening.

“Impossible,” Clio agreed with a laugh.

“I can hear you two, you know,” Ixie said, not moving from her place on the bench. Her eyes fluttered open. “And I wouldn’t have had to stay awake and watch over you both if Ealis showed
any
promise with a blade.” She stood up and walked to his side. “But no, my tedious scholar insists on books over blades.
Someone
has to watch over him while he’s so helpless.” She leaned over him, laying a hand on his shoulder. Clio didn’t miss the way Ixie’s fingers brushed his neck.

Ealis glanced up at her. “Mm, I told you, Ixie. With a threat like that, what incentive could I possibly have to learn to defend myself?”

Clio found herself smiling at the ease between them.

“What?” Ixie asked, looking at Clio.

“Nothing.” Clio laughed. “I’ve just never seen the two of you behaving so nicely to one another.”

Ixie scowled even as her cheeks flushed. “You think my insults nice?”

“For you? You might as well kiss him and be done with it.”

Ealis stood suddenly, his whole face red. “Riece was very vivid in his threats of what he would do to me if I failed to fetch him the moment you woke. I’d best go find him.” He walked stiffly from the room, and even Ixie was laughing by the time he was gone.

“Careful,” Clio warned. “I fear you’re in danger of being unbearably happy with him.”

For the first time since Clio had known Ixie, her gaze dropped shyly to the floor. “It might be too late for that.”

When she looked back up, there was a new sadness in her eyes, and Clio knew what she was thinking of.

Clio reached for her hand and squeezed. “She’d want you to be happy. She would have wanted nothing more.”

Ixie grinned. “I know that, of course. Such a foolish girl. She just had to go on and prove how stupidly and wonderfully brave she was.” She paused, blinking tears from her eyes. “Riece told the city what Ashira did for us, for them. They’ve started offering in her name.”

“What?” Clio leaned forward.

“No blood offerings of course—the Emperor’s banned them—but there are shrines. People kneel and pray to her, to the one who saved them.”

“I’d like to go to one,” Clio said softly.

Ixie nodded. “I’ll take you.” Footsteps sounded down the hall, and Ixie looked to the door.