Kingdom of Monsters - Empire of Sand Series

Chapter 4.5

Her sister needed her.

"I beg passage," she said.

He snorted. "What makes you think I will grant it?"

She closed her mouth.

The thinnest skin separated this moment from the past. He must remember her amongst the screaming onlookers. She was as guilty of her village's downfall as anyone; guiltier, because she had not the excuse of fear, nor false counsel to bind her silence.

And now her victim sat before her. A general. A warrior. A man.

She released all of the rehearsals. "Please. Allow me to go."

"How dare you ask that of me?"

His accusation crossed her skin like little blades.

"You should have expected death when you were caught. Every breath you draw is a gift from a merciful god."

She rubbed her arms.

"Why did you alone of your village remain?" He spat hissing coals. "Why you? Why not one of your worthless men?"

"The true name of fever root is known only to me."

"Was collecting it worth your life?"

"Yes."

In the darkness, she could not see the divot in his forehead turn smooth, but it must have done so, because his next words dropped quiet. As if he asked because he could not help himself. He had been a member of their tribe once. "Who is ill?"

"My sister."

He hesitated. "Does she still smile?"

The weight of his question lay between them like the weight of the whole camp. Violence and blood, unjust death and false accusations, loss and revenge.

"She smiles differently now," Lunsa said.

His eyes blackened, unfamiliar as the powerful hulk of his adult body, and she wished that she would have lied.

Her sister Mara had once lived free and happy. Then, she was wronged by a village boy, and instead of allowing Mara to take her proper vengeance, their mother-ka forced Mara to pretend it had never happened. Injustice strangled her in a cocoon of lies. She had gasped for air and died right in front of Lunsa, and no one else seemed to notice.

God-curse the demon child, the villagers said. He killed a boy for no reason, and the shock broke our fragile flower.

Their misunderstood attempts at kindness passed over her sister's closed lips until even Lunsa barely recognized the person Mara had become.

"It was after your whipping," Lunsa told Demian. "When my sister awoke and heard what injustice they had done to you, she—"

"Injustice?" His hand moved restlessly, collecting grainy lakeshore stones and allowing them to filter through his large fingers. "I have sent a great many men off to the bone-fields since that meaningless trial, many as young as the one I killed there, and more who didn't deserve it. The punishment in your village square may have been the only time I ever faced justice."

"Demian—"

"You speak with such familiarity," he snarled. "I, who broke your sister's smile."

She choked. "Beg forgiveness."

He scratched at the ridge above his eye. The horns were longer and more twisted than when they graced his child head.

Finally, he sighed. "Would that I had the power to let you go."

Amazement swept through her. He would, then, let her go after all?

"Thank your kind—"

"I said would."

But he must have that power. "You are the General."

"To some." He glared at the water. "To others, I am an oversized goat in an ill-fitting pair of trousers."

Zephyris susurrated through the basket reeds.

"Then . . ." She licked her lips and shifted to the side. "If I should leave from here, would you please not raise the alarm?"

"I wouldn't have to. Wherever I am, Arctavian's men spread like an infectious constellation. You couldn't reach the other side of the lake without his consent, and you certainly couldn't reach the outermost edge of the camp or the road."

She reached for Lirial. "You have the Prince's confidence—"

"And that is why I cannot help you. I am as much a captive as you are."

"But my sister—"

"You should have given her up to save your own life. Now you are both as good as dead."

"But—"

"I cannot free you, Lunsa."

Her name sounded odd in his mouth. He was the first to use it since she had turned from the flight of the refugees. Now it stopped her like a broken blessing. Fractured and helpless.

"Please," she whispered.

"Only a child begs impossible things."

"You have the power—"

"I have nothing. I summoned you here only so that you would know." He shot to his feet, abruptly doubling his size and towering over her. "Your family has fallen under an ill-fated star, Lunsa of the Hollow Tree. Your brother's blood, when his enemies stole and revealed his true name, cursed you—" she clapped her hands over her ears to stop his mention of the one whose curse raced along their bloodline into her own veins "—and no man or beast can turn that evil aside. Not even me."

He strode into the blackness. A rustle of reeds, a voice of acknowledgment spotlighted one of Arctavian's soldiers, and then nothing but wind writhed through the isolated lake.

She rubbed her ears. That Demian could speak so casually about that which must not be spoken. That he could think of that which no longer existed—truly, he spat in the face of the gods themselves.

Lunsa shivered all the way to the conscripts' wallows of the camp and picked between their restless forms. Someone had stolen her bone, but, as though the rumor of her branding had already reached these battered men, no one bothered her in the night, leaving her discomforted by her knowledge.

She had hoped that Demian would help her. Now, she had no choice but to pray the gods to make her own escape.