Page 110 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth

“My brother held Eddenahr for ten days, until the Barons’ combined regiments arrived. They took the city back in six hours.”

Eda hated herself for asking, but she did anyway. “What about Ileem?”

“He called for his god in the midst of the battle, but Rudion did not come. They cut his throat. Left him to choke on his own blood in the dust.” Anger hardened Liahstorion’s frame.

Eda felt sick. No matter what he’d done to her—he didn’t deserve to die that way, abandoned by the Shadow he’d served as a god. “What then?”

“Then the Barons realized they could not agree on who ought to be Emperor. More fighting broke out. A resistance of commoners was raised. The Barons were united in fightingthem,only they couldn’t extinguish the spark of rebellion against the idea of royalty at all. Agreements were struck. I was let out of my cell.” Liahstorion shot Eda a baleful glance, absently stroking the tiger’s head with one hand. “The Empire has been dissolved. We’re trying our hand at democracy.”

“‘We’?”

“The peace treaty between Enduena and Denlahn stands. I am here to ensure no vengeance is sought because of the things my brother did.”

Clearly there was more. Eda waited.

“I’m to marry Domin.”

Eda was surprised.

“He’s been elected Governor of Enduena, and I am to stand beside him.”

“Why call him Governor and not King?”

“The people don’t want a king, Eda. Or an Emperor. They want to be free.” Liahstorion leaned out on the railing, shutting her eyes into the warm embrace of the sun. The tiger rubbed against her leg.

“What do you want?” Eda asked her.

“What I’ve always wanted. Peace. Now I have it.”

Eda considered her, her strong shoulders and lithe frame, muscular arms used to holding a sword, and wielding it. And yet it would be so easy to overpower her. So easy to drive her down onto the floor and make her scream, make her suffer for all the things her brother did.

But Eda didn’t move to touch her. She just stood there, the sorrow eating her up from the inside. She had power now, power she had always wanted. But she was still that lost little girl, wanting to find a place to belong. She knew in her heart of hearts that Enduena was better off without her, that perhaps it always had been. And she realized that place she longed for, the belonging she had always craved, was no longer here.

“I am sorry about the temple,” Liahstorion said.

Sorrow burned. “What happened to the temple?”

The former Denlahn princess turned to look Eda in the eye. “They tore it down. Burned it to ashes. It was the one thing everyone agreed on.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

SWEAT PRICKLEDEDA’S NECK AND SHOULDERS,DRIPPEDdown into her eyes. The temple steps remained, but the rest of the building had indeed been torn to pieces. A scorching wind swept through the empty shell of it, smelling incongruously of incense and honey.

Eda paced to the center of the temple’s floor, sitting cross-legged on the once-polished marble. It was strange, to be back where it all started, in the temple she’d built to appease the gods, to assuage her guilt for bargaining away the life of her sister. It would end here, too, and that seemed only right.

She shut her eyes and waited, as the sun beat down on her and the wind spat dust into her face.

She waited, as the day spun into evening and the scorching sun sank beyond the western rim of the world.

She waited, as the stars came out and the moon rose beyond the northern mountains.

And then at last she heard a step, and knew she was no longer alone.

She opened her eyes.

Niren stood there, silver skirts whispering about her knees, Starlight in her forehead blazing bright. She didn’t look like a shadow anymore. She brimmed with life.

And yet Eda knew her sister had not rejoined the land of the living.