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Sixteen

Imeria

“I have failed you, Mother,” Luntok slurred as she helped him into bed.

He was under the influence of the sleeping draft the healers gave him to ease the pain.

They had stitched him up the best they could with their prayers and petty sorcery, but Imeria could do better.

He groaned as she eased him onto his side and, as lightly as she could, undid the bandages on his back.

The cut that awful Gatdula girl gave him was shallow, but it would scar if Imeria didn’t act quickly.

Her hand hovered over the wounded flesh.

She closed her eyes as she reached deep into the blood, deep into herself, grasping for the power she had long been forced to hide.

The power greeted her like an old friend.

It wove itself into the space between her fingers and Luntok’s wound.

The skin on the edges, cut cleanly by Bulan’s blade, glowed.

At her coaxing, it sealed itself shut.

“Tickles,” Luntok murmured into the pillow.

“Hush.” She needed all her concentration if she wanted to finish healing him.

Her forebears would not have blinked twice at such an injury.

They once wielded power far greater than the Gatdulas could have imagined.

That power was lost generations before; it died alongside the Kulaws’ shamans and their sacred texts.

And the Gatdulas, who thought themselves their saviors, rejoiced as they marched all the way south to Thu-ki and watched everything the Kulaws built burn.

The power to wield mind and flesh was believed to have disappeared generations before Imeria was born.

But it lived, a flame born of the brutality and righteous anger that surged in her blood.

It was a mere scrap of what she might have possessed had she received the proper training as a child, but maybe it wasn’t too late.

Her free hand wandered to the pocket of her skirt, where she kept the vials of precioso hidden.

Soon, she thought to herself.

With haunting certainty, she remembered how Hara Duja threatened her with the earthquake earlier that morning.

Perhaps it would all come to a head sooner than she realized.

When the last bit of skin was mended, Imeria released her hold on the power.

The slightest use drained her.

She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

Her bones ached.

Luntok groaned as he rolled onto his back.

He looked at her, bleary eyed.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

When he’d been old enough to keep a secret, Imeria decided to show him what she was.

He didn’t understand it completely.

The Kulaws’ power did not dwell within him.

“Of course I did.” Softening, she ran her fingers through his hair, as she had when he was a little boy.

“You fought bravely today, Son.”

“I lost,” he said, stiffening when she kissed him on his forehead.

“You didn’t lose. She stole your victory from you,” Imeria said spitefully.

She harbored more than enough rage for the two of them.

“I’d already won.” A moan escaped from him, pitiful and childlike.

He wrapped his arms around his middle as if to shield himself from the humiliation.

Imeria continued to stroke his hair.

The last of her strength she used to prod at the warring energy she sensed within his skull.

She couldn’t read his thoughts, but she could feel the shame and anger and vindictiveness, emotions that crashed into one another like waves.

I know, Son.

I know.

She laid her palm flush against his temple.

It warmed as she calmed his thoughts into flat, bloodless plains.

As her power worked through his mind, he began to relax into the mattress.

His eyelids drifted shut.

“Thank you,” he whispered as he slipped out of consciousness.

“Sleep now, darling. I will fix this.” Slowly, gently, she withdrew her hand from his temple and rose from the bed.

His head lolled to the side.

By the time she reached the doorway, his breathing had steadied.

He was fast asleep.

Imeria headed down to the veranda.

For the dry season, the night air was abnormally thick with the metallic taste of rain.

As she sprawled out on the divan, fanning herself, a servant arrived with a pitcher of rice wine.

“Leave it here,” she said, and served herself.

If Imeria could have wielded her own mind, she would have rid herself of her spite long before.

It festered in her blood like venom.

Each time she found herself in Mariit, the gilded prison of her childhood, she could think of little else.

She finished her glass in a single gulp and served herself another.

The Gatdulas relished humiliating them?—first Imeria, now her son.

In her own mother’s eyes, that was the price of mercy.

And Imeria had paid dearly.

The servant returned, hovering over her on the veranda.

“My lady, a messenger stopped by from the palace.” He presented her with a letter bearing the ancient seal of the Gatdulas.

Curious, Imeria opened the letter and held it to the light.

“Oh my,” she murmured.

“Have the carriage ready in ten minutes,” she told the servant, sweeping past him on her way back inside.

Her fingers tingled with the last traces of the Kulaw power.

A power that could do far more than heal shallow wounds.

Tonight.

The word echoed in her head, louder than her own heartbeat.

Tonight, she had a meeting with the queen.

Hara Duja didn’t turn around when Imeria was announced.

She stood in the center of the great hall.

The sconces burning from the tops of the walls illuminated her profile.

The queen cast a long shadow, which stretched across the cavernous space.

“Leave us,” the queen said to the guard who had escorted Imeria in.

He nodded and left the room.

The weighty giltwood doors groaned shut behind him.

They stood in silence for a long moment.

Hara Duja was unable to look at her.

Imeria fought the urge to fidget.

She had never liked this room at night, how the shadows danced across the vaulted ceilings like vengeful spirits.

The sandstone tiles, freshly scrubbed, gleamed between them like a desert sea.

She cleared her throat, and even so, Duja said nothing.

The room was far too big for the pair of them.

Imeria remembered the last time they’d been alone together in this very room, though she wished she didn’t.

She had lost all sense of pride when she’d thrown herself at Duja’s feet.

I am loyal.

All I’ve ever wanted was to serve you.

Please, Duja, don’t send me away.

And Duja had stood there, stone-faced, the same way she was looking at her now.

“Imeria. I’m sorry for what happened today,” she said in a quiet voice.

“It was dishonorable. I’ve spoken to Bulan. She will reach out to your son with a formal apology.”

“An apology would be the least you can offer,” Imeria said stiffly as she plucked at the stack of bracelets on her wrists.

She did her best to ignore her heart racing.

The queen had chosen to be alone with her, knowing full well the danger.

However, Imeria couldn’t move too fast, lest she ruin the opportunity.

Her best bet was to draw out the conversation.

For years, she had dreamed of what she would say when she had a chance to speak to Duja frankly like this.

But the decades-old hurt had frozen her tongue.

She found herself staring like a fool, struck dumb by the queen’s presence.

“I wish I could offer you more.” Duja looked at her then?—truly looked?—and Imeria saw genuine pain in her eyes.

“Duja...” She hated how her voice suddenly shook.

She tore her gaze away, angry tears spilling down her face.

“Please,” the queen said weakly, “I didn’t wish for you to cry.”

“If not my pain, what did you wish for?” she bit back.

She felt like a child again, sobbing against the tiled floor.

“I’d hoped?—” Duja’s voice hitched.

She cleared her throat.

“I’d hoped we might put the grief between our families behind us.”

Imeria let out a watery laugh.

“And who are you to offer me peace? I’ve respected your desires and kept my distance. It’s your daughters who have subjected my son to humiliation time and time again.”

The queen didn’t try to argue.

“I know, Imeria, and that is my failure.” Guilt clouded her features.

In a quieter voice, she added, “One of my many failures as a mother.”

Imeria swallowed.

In Duja’s words, she heard echoes of her own shame.

She understood, intimately, the struggles of parenting a child with a frightening will of their own.

Despite her rage, the tension in her shoulders slackened.

“No, Duja,” she murmured.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

Their eyes met.

Years of unsaid questions flooded the air, filling the space beneath the vaulted ceiling.

For the first time in two decades, the queen stood within arm’s reach.

One touch, and Duja’s mind would be hers to wield.

And yet, Imeria, who had come to the palace with a head full of schemes, found herself wavering where she stood.

The queen’s gaze swept across the empty throne room.

“The last time we were both here, we were scarcely more than children. We gave little thought to the years ahead. And motherhood was but a distant dream.”

A wave of nostalgia coursed through Imeria’s unwilling body.

“Those days are long over. I try not to dwell on them,” she lied.

The queen was not one to think rosily about the past.

Yet to Imeria’s surprise, Duja closed the distance between them.

Her next words dripped with such bald-faced sincerity Imeria willed herself not to pull away.

“I owe you more than one apology, I think.”

She set her jaw.

“If you’re talking about that accursed day, I’m afraid you’re twenty-two years too late.”

But Duja didn’t shrink back.

She stared back at Imeria, pity flickering in her expression.

“I never wanted to hurt you, Imeria. I was merely afraid.”

They spoke not of the tournament, but of another battle.

A battle that took place twenty-two years before.

A battle that refused to end.

At long last, the accusation tore from her lips.

“How could you fear me?” Imeria asked.

“I protected you. I am the reason you defeated him. Without me, he might have?—”

Imeria broke off midsentence.

She knew Duja feared her powers.

Feared the threat they might pose to her own.

She remembered the heat of the fires that shot out of the crown prince’s fingers, the cruel echo of his laughter, the way his eyes glowed red.

The eastern wing crumbled to ash before him, yet he did not stop.

Would not stop.

He turned to Duja.

He would have hurt her too if Imeria hadn’t reached for her power, clawed deep into the rotten crevices of his mind, and stole his will from him.

She did this, knowing it would unveil her as the monster she was.

But she took the risk and wielded her power anyway.

Back then, Duja was the air in Imeria’s lungs, the sun in her sky.

Imeria would have risked everything to help Duja.

To save her.

“I know,” Duja said hoarsely.

“I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you. But you have to understand?—I had lost so much so quickly. I was afraid.”

Imeria had watched Duja mourn her mother from afar and was not without sympathy.

But as she grew older, she realized Duja acted with a cold rationale that was rooted beyond fear.

“If you had asked me to leave the capital, I might have understood,” Imeria whispered.

“But you didn’t just send me away. You made me marry him .”

Anguish flashed in Duja’s eyes before she tore her gaze away.

“You forget how the memory of the rebellion was so fresh in those days. Few would have married the traitor’s daughter if not at my bidding,” she said breathlessly.

“I didn’t want to cast you off on your own, Imeria. I wanted you to marry a good man.”

Imeria didn’t want to think of her late husband, who had been a good man.

For a time, he almost made her feel whole again after Duja had ripped her from her life.

He was kind and just and sweet, but not sweet enough to make Imeria swallow her bitterness.

“That’s not why you wanted me to marry him,” she spat.

“You thought he was barren.”

Her late husband, Luntok’s father, had had two wives before he married Imeria and no children of his own.

Duja could present as many arguments as she liked, but Imeria knew the truth.

Duja feared the resurgence of the Kulaws’ power.

She did not want Imeria to pass it on to her own kin.

Duja’s lips flattened into a line.

She did not deny it.

“I thought it would be better this way,” she said simply.

Imeria’s mouth hung open in disbelief.

Better?

She wanted to rip the hair from Duja’s head.

Slash the gold from her collar.

Run her fingers over the tender skin where her shoulder met her neck.

It didn’t have to be this way.

“I married him because I wanted to please you,” she said as she wept.

“I’d have done whatever you asked. I...”

She had been in love with her, but gods be blessed, Duja didn’t let her say it.

“I know. I never should have doubted your devotion. I truly am sorry.” A shade of sorrow passed over Duja’s face?—something akin to regret.

Something Imeria could use.

“If you truly regret what happened, Duja, perhaps you might consider this,” she said, wiping her cheeks on her sleeve.

Her tears stained the silk, but she didn’t care.

“What is it?” Duja asked.

In one wild moment, Imeria forgot her treasonous plans.

She reached for the queen’s wrist and felt the rapid pulse beneath.

Push me away, she willed her, but Duja didn’t.

Her fingers tightened around her wrist, just in case.

She could have dug her claws into the queen’s mind.

Could have seized the opportunity dangling above her very nose.

Instead, she lowered her voice to a desperate whisper.

“Please, Duja. Let them have what we could not.”

Duja’s hand twitched in hers.

Her eyes snapped open, watery and bleak.

Imeria had bared her heart to Duja the same way twenty-two years before, the last time they’d been alone in the throne room.

Was Duja also thinking about the life she might have had, had she opened her heart in return?

“I cannot,” she said in a cracked voice.

“You know why I cannot.”

Imeria had not come here to beg, but she begged anyway.

“Please. Luntok is no threat to you. He loves your daughter. I can see it. As do you.”

Duja gave her a small, sympathetic smile.

“Our children are young and foolish. Calf love does not a marriage make.” Despite the queen’s dismissal, Imeria detected the slightest hitch of desire in her words.

A desire that mirrored her own.

“We were once young and foolish, Duja. Don’t you remember?”

Duja swallowed hard.

Imeria inched toward her, but the queen stopped her with a jerk of her head.

“Imeria, don’t ,” she whispered.

Imeria froze but didn’t let her go.

The fantasies she had shoved down for years flew from her lips.

“The answer is so simple. How can you not see it? Despite the odds, despite your wishes, I bore a son . The same year you bore Laya. My son and your heir, our families united as they were always meant to be?—this is how the gods willed it.”

You and I, together once more, Imeria thought.

That fantasy, she did not dare speak.

When Duja stayed silent, Imeria reached for her, brushing her thumb across her jawline.

The queen reached up to cup Imeria’s hand to her cheek.

Her arm trembled with the onset of a minor tremor.

She didn’t pull away.

“Imeria,” Duja sighed, and the sound of her name sent a cascade of want down Imeria’s spine.

“Say yes,” Imeria pleaded.

“Think of how wonderful, how easy it would be.”

Imeria no longer spoke on Luntok’s behalf.

She knew what she was asking.

Her heart pounded in her ears.

Don’t push me back.

Don’t say it’s too late.

The queen quivered on her feet.

For one agonizing second, she leaned toward Imeria?—close enough that Imeria could see the skinny tail of the burn scar peeking out from the collar of Duja’s dress.

But instead of edging closer, Duja drew back and closed her eyes as if the sight of her had become too painful.

“Oh, my heart. If only my world was as easy as it appears to you.”

Her answer was no, then.

Imeria felt as if a thread had broken inside of her.

She wrenched her hand back, fresh tears threatening to spill over her eyelids.

“You make it complicated,” she all but hissed.

“Please understand. Laya is my heir. Like me, she cannot marry her first love. How I wish I could afford her this indulgence.” She contemplated Imeria longingly, mournfully, as if she were a ship that had left her behind.

Moments before, Imeria mistook her remorse as an opportunity to twist Duja’s heart for her own gain.

But now, to gaze upon her this way was like falling on her own knife.

“Oh, I understand, Duja. I understand that, however little I ask, you will never indulge me,” she said, jerking back.

The girlish yearning soured once more as rage boiled in her veins.

From high up on her obsidian throne, the queen liked to pretend she was a pillar of duty and sacrifice.

But Imeria knew that beneath the steady veneer, Duja was calculating and selfish and cruel.

She had preyed upon Imeria’s devotion in the past when she’d cast her out of the palace.

Scathingly, Imeria wondered if she’d summoned her to the throne room to humiliate her one last time.

Duja frowned.

“That isn’t fair. What you ask, Imeria, is no small thing. If we can speak rationally for once, perhaps we can?—”

“No, Duja. You’ve said your piece.”

The queen called out her name, but Imeria had already turned her back on her.

She could no longer listen to Duja’s reasons.

No longer play this game.

No longer pretend that, in the hollow stone of Duja’s heart, Imeria had ever carved out a place.