The Dead God's Due (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 1) (13 page)

“Stay with me,” he
said, even more worried now. Kariana had always been the dramatic
sort. She was good at it, and fooled most people, but he knew her
well enough to tell most of the time. This was different.

“It got out of hand,”
she choked out. “It all got out of hand.”

He ran a soothing hand down her
hair and sighed. “I know.”

“It wasn’t supposed
to be like this.”

“It was a mistake from
the start, Kariana. It’s horrible, ugly business.”

“Not just this,”
she sobbed. “
Everything
!
This whole
life
!
It wasn’t supposed to be like this for me. For
us
!”

Aiul stammered briefly,
blinking in shock. “What are you saying?”

Kariana looked up at him, her
eyes shining with tears and wide with mad hope. “We were
supposed to be together, Aiul! Mei, you were supposed to be
mine
,
not hers!”

“Kariana—“

“No! Listen to me!”
She tore her tiara from her head and hurled it across the room. “I
hate this job! I hate it! It’s wretched and horrible, and
people say terrible things about me! I don’t want to be
empress!” Aiul tried to speak but she clamped a hand over his
mouth. “I’ll give it to you, do you hear me? Leave her
and come to me. You can be emperor, if you want. Or we could just
run away and be free! Just
stay
with me!
Please
!”

Aiul struggled to free himself
from her grasp. “Kariana, you are not well! You’re
exhausted and in shock! What you’re saying is madness!”

“It’s truth!”
she cried. “It’s
destiny
!”

Aiul had had enough. He
forcefully pulled away, and Kariana collapsed to her knees, so
wracked by her sobbing that she seemed near convulsion.

“Don’t go!”
she begged.

“I must, damn it!”
He hurriedly gathered his equipment. “I am married, Kariana!
You must accept it.”

Without warning, Kariana leapt
to her feet and lunged toward him, her face twisted in fury, a low,
bestial snarl rising in her throat. She was on him in an instant,
slashing at him with her long nails and spitting like a feral cat.
“You bastard!” she shrieked. “You insufferable son
of a whore! An empress on her knees offering you her crown is not
good enough for you?”

It was all Aiul could do to
keep her slashing claws from his face. She was a mad tigress. He
seized at a flailing arm as she brought the other up and grabbed a
handful of his shirt for leverage. “Stop it, Kariana!”

She spat at him and delivered a
series of savage kicks to his shins, punctuating each with a curse.

Aiul had suffered enough. He
shoved her away, harder than he had intended. She flew back from
him, still maintaining her death grip on his shirt. The fabric
parted, and she staggered back, unbalanced, a look of shock on her
face. She teetered briefly, then fell to the floor, striking her
head against the table where Yazid lay dead. The Southlander’s
massive, plank-like hand seemed to reach for her hair on her way
down. She looked up at Aiul, a mixture of fear, fury, and pain on
her face, the scrap of cloth from his shirt still clutched in her
hand.

Aiul shook his head in
consternation, torn between the contradictory urges to tend her
wound and flee from her. “Damn you, Kariana! Why did you make
me do that?”

She looked up at him, tears
running down her face, no longer an empress or a savage beast, just
a heartbroken little girl, exhausted and defeated. His heart went
out to her.

“I’m sorry,”
she pleaded. “I just—“ She paused and wiped at the
blood on her forehead. “I never felt like this before, don’t
you understand? Not until you came back to me. It’s too much!
I can’t bear it!”

“You need rest, Kariana.
And you need to sober up.”

She brightened. “I’ll
sleep, I promise! Come with me. Put me to bed.”

Aiul sighed, exasperated. He
had walked right into that one. “I cannot Kariana. I have a
wife. I have responsibilities.”

“Don’t you leave
me, Aiul! Not now, not tonight! I
need
you.”

“My wife needs me.”

“I
command
you!”

Aiul shook his head. “Not
this time, Kariana. And not ever again.” He turned away and
walked toward the door.

“Cocksucker! Motherfucker
son of a bitch bastard—“ She trailed off, out of words
crude enough to express her contempt. “Mei as my witness, I’ll
fucking
kill
you
and
that wretched
whore! Do you hear me?”

Aiul hunched his shoulders
against the onslaught and stepped out of the room.

“Aiul! I’m sorry!
Aiul
!
Please
!”

Aiul kept walking.

Kariana lay in a heap on the
cold stone floor for some time, trembling, unable to control her
warring emotions. She wept, cursed, and screamed, buffeted by rage,
humiliation and deep, agonizing loss. How could this be? How had she
come to this? “It isn’t fair!” she screamed, and
tore at her hair in frustration. She tried to rise to her feet,
staggered, and tried again, hauling herself up against the table.
The dead Southlander seemed to leer at her, mocking her, drinking in
her pain like a fine wine. She reached for her knife and stabbed him
again, swooned, then steadied herself with both hands. Blood dripped
from her gashed forehead onto the Southlander’s face, ran
slowly down his cheek like a tear, and mixed with the rest she had
spilled from him.

“Blood calls for blood,”
she whispered, wondering why she should think of the phrase. She had
heard it somewhere before, but why did it come to mind now?

She raised the scrap of Aiul’s
shirt to her forehead and daubed at the wound. It was superficial,
really. She barely felt it. But then, she thought, she might not
notice a sword shoved through her gut right now, not against the
rest of her pain.
Well, that and the drugs.

It was all her wretched
brother’s fault. If he hadn’t gone and gotten himself
killed, none of this would have happened. He would have been
emperor, and she would have been happy. But instead, they had put a
crown on her head, and whispered secretly that she had engineered
the entire affair.

They called her murderess and
whore, a poor ruler, stupid and vain. She could accept some of it. A
whore? They never complained when they were with her. No, they took
their pleasure and then spit on her because she took hers as well.
Better a whore than a hypocrite. A poor ruler? Certainly. What had
she ever been taught of such things? Who had prepared her? And yet
they cursed her when the crown they placed on her head failed to
magically infuse her with wisdom and knowledge. Vain? Her father had
been of the mind that the entire point of her existence was to serve
as decoration. She was but what she had been groomed for, what she
had been expected to be: a toy. Was it so wrong to accept her place
as had been defined for her by others, to take joy in it? Stupid?
Oh, yes, very, up to now, and it was high time for that to change.

But murderess? She had never
hurt a soul until tonight.
Well, not without their consent and a
safe word in place.
She knew how, of course. Torture was a
womanly art, handed down from mother to daughter for centuries. The
only use she had ever found for it was to entertain her friends who
had peculiar, embarrassing tastes that their wives would not
indulge. The same friends, she thought bitterly, who denounced her
to hide their own shame. She was nothing but a receptacle for their
vile spew.

Suddenly, everything seemed too
close, too tight. She had to get out, get some air to clear her
head. She looked briefly at the rapidly cooling body of the
Southlander, wondering what should be done about him, then dismissed
the notion.

Let someone else clean up the
mess. She was empress.

Aiul spent most of the trip
home cursing himself for letting things come to this. It was all
idiocy, pure and simple, and had been from the start. He had no idea
how it would play out with the Southlanders, but one thing was
certain: his part in their story was over.

He was only interrupted from
his brooding once, when a group of three men moved toward him
menacingly. Aiul hitched the edge of his cloak aside, grasped the
handle of his mace, and stared at them from beneath his hood with
pure, undisguised malevolence. In truth, he would have been quite
pleased to bash in some thug’s skull, a fact that was
apparently clear to his would-be muggers. The men slowly backed
away, then turned and fled at full speed.

Aiul shook his head and moved
on, his mind turning back to Kariana. He ground his teeth in
frustration. Damn her! He could barely contain his fury at her
presumption, her selfishness, and yet he felt a deep sympathy for
her, as well. He resolved not to hold it against her. She was who
she had always been, and he should have known better. He would check
in on her in the morning. A night’s rest should clear her head
of the drugs and exhaustion, and she would be in a more sensible
state of mind.
Perhaps we
could even be friends again
, he thought.
Mei
knows, she needs some true friends.

He found himself home before he
quite realized it. His feet, apparently, knew the way well enough to
take him there without his head having to be overmuch involved. He
looked up briefly at the towering building, his head clouded with
strange thoughts. The Cradle of Nihlos was one of the tallest
buildings in the city, practically clawing at the sky. It bespoke
privilege and power like little else could, a middle finger raised
to the sky, defying the gods and their petty gravity.
And
we who live there imagine it speaks of us in such terms
,
w
hen in truth, we’re
all just devolved wretches, children playing with the masterworks of
our betters who came before us, as the whole thing winds down like
an untended clock.

Aiul entered the Cradle’s
large, opulent foyer, his boots clicking against the marble tiled
floor and echoing from the polished granite walls. The light from
the few candles the staff kept burning at night cast a soft glow
over the room, enough to see by, but not so much as to trouble the
eyes of those coming in from darkness. The concierge, an elderly and
dapper man with white hair, stood his usual post behind the huge
reception desk. As Aiul crossed toward the elevators, the older man
looked up briefly and examined a chart hanging from the wall on his
left, pressed his pencil to his lip, then turned to examine a chart
on his right. Satisfied, he turned back to his work. It was a
practiced gesture, one that allowed him to scrutinize anyone
entering the establishment without seeming to focus on any
particular person. Aiul had been fooled by it for months when he had
first moved in, only later realizing the level of service and
subtlety his coin had bought him. This last week, he had begun to
appreciate the true value of it.

Aiul entered the elevator,
giving a tired nod to the short, well dressed attendant. The man was
a commoner, of course, such menial tasks being beneath even slaves,
but he still bore the air of professionalism upon which the Cradle’s
reputation depended.

“Twelfth floor, sir?”
the attendant asked.

Aiul nodded again, and the man
responded by sounding two bells, once strike against a lower pitched
one, twice against a higher pitched one. The elevator jerked
slightly, then began a smooth ascent.

“Still using bells?”
Aiul asked.

“Aye, sir,” the man
answered. “Most of the residents prefer it this way, so I am
told. They are more comfortable with slaves powering the elevator
than with magic. The accident…”

“So the official line
goes,” said Aiul. “I think the truth is simpler.”

The attendant stared at the
floor, and repeated, “I am told the residents prefer it this
way.”

“Of course,” Aiul
said with a wry smile.

Aiul inserted his key into the
lock and turned it as quietly as possible. So far, he had been
lucky, and Lara had no idea how late his excursions often ran, and
for her peace of mind, he wanted it to remain that way. He opened
the door to find darkness, and breathed a sigh of relief.

There was some light filtering
through the curtained windows from outside, enough to navigate by.
He removed his shoes, robe, and mace, leaving them at the front
door, and padded softly across the carpet to the living room. He
knew he should put them away, especially the mace, so as not to
provoke any questions from Lara, but his mind was in an uproar, and
he needed something to calm his nerves. They could wait a few
minutes, until his hands stopped shaking, he told himself.

He took a bottle of fine
whiskey from his bar, unstoppered it, and hesitated, considering
simply drinking from the bottle, but his manners were not so easily
dismissed. He settled for four fingers in a large tumbler, neat, the
first finger gulped with all the expected fire and grimacing, the
remaining three to be sipped while the first worked at his nerves.

Aiul opened the heavy curtains
to reveal a huge picture window that looked out on the city below.
He nursed the whiskey, his eyes roaming over the spires of the city.
Everything was orange at night, tinted by the ever-present, luminous
cloud cover. Nihlos knew no rain or snow, nor did she ever grow too
cold or too warm, all due to those clouds.
Another miracle we
will not be able to repair once it fails.

He watched over the sleeping
city for a while, seeking solace that would come only with a higher
blood alcohol level. At last, the muscles in his neck began to
relax, the pounding in his chest and temples subsided, and he told
himself that he would, perhaps, be able to sleep.