Chaos (28 page)

"None," Sasha said flatly. "Your life is your own and fate no longer controls you. I will wring his neck—"

"No!" David blurted. "It's not—I don't think he had a choice. He was fighting it, I think, but the power overruled him. It must be hard, not to be able to control what he Sees. Especially when he can See so much. Can he really see past, present, and future? What happens to him and the other Seers if fate goes away?"

Sasha relaxed and motioned for David to join him. Always happy for a chance to be closer, David immediately complied, yelping in surprise when he was pulled down onto Sasha's lap. "We can't—we're in a temple, Sasha."

"What are they going to do, throw us out?" Sasha asked dryly and kissed the tip of his nose. "Do not fret about the Seers, sweet. Fate is not 'going away.' It is merely being put back into balance. The Seers will always See; it is only that they will see possibilities rather than the single fate that Teufel has arranged for everyone."

"I just want it to be over," David said. "I want everyone to be safe again. I don't—I don't—" he broke off, voice trembling. "I don't want any more villages to be destroyed. What's the point of all of this if the Sentinels kill everyone before they can be free?"

"Shh," Sasha soothed and kissed him softly. "What can be destroyed can be remade. I am sorry that Black Hill fell. But you still have Killian, and whoever else managed to survive. Together you can rebuild what was lost. You'll make Schatten a land of light again instead of one of darkness." He stroked David's cheeks, then kissed him again.

"What about you?" David asked. "Will you help us? Do you have to leave? Would—could—don't leave me behind," he finished on a whisper.

"I won't," Sasha said. "We run together, remember? I have no idea what will become of me when this is over, but I won't leave you. I don't remember who I am, but even if I do, I'm yours before I'm anything else."

David laughed suddenly. "All you have to do is ask the High Seer to break the curse."

Sasha smiled ruefully and shook his head. "You're right, of course. How did I manage to forget that?" He drew David into another kiss that eventually bled into a second and then a third. David shivered beneath the onslaught, moaning softly as the kisses grew deeper, hotter, made him ache and hunger for all those things he barely knew of.

Was it wrong to enjoy Sasha so, to think of such things, in a temple and with so many bad things happening around them? It didn't feel like it; it felt like they were savoring what they had because it could very well be lost in the next moment. "Sasha …"

"Tomorrow we leave for Sonnenstrahl," Sasha said, nuzzling against him. "Tonight, however, I intend to find us a room and make full use of it." David shivered at the words, clinging tightly as he took another kiss, a little bit scared but mostly excited. He hoped they did manage it.

He jumped when the door opened again and felt his face grow hot at the smirk Fritz cast them as he resumed his seat. "I see you two managed without me. I am sorry I left so abruptly."

Face still hot, David fled back to his own seat and focused very hard on his tea. Sasha asked, "What did you do with Karl?"

"He will no longer be a problem," Fritz said. "Where were we?"

"We were done, really," Sasha said. "We leave tomorrow. Let me know if there is anything special I must do to prepare. I do not suppose you have a room to spare us?"

Fritz nodded. "Your room is being prepared, along with a bath. You'll have fresh supplies in the morning, as well, and clean clothes. Everything is being taken care of for us."

"And you found people to care for the temple while you are gone?"

"I think so—I hope so. But if we are done here, I will go and make absolute certain of it."

"Please do," Sasha said. "Thank you for everything, High Seer." Fritz nodded and rose once more.

"Your curse!" David blurted and laughed when both Fritz and Sasha rolled their eyes, exasperated with themselves.

"Of course, I'm an idiot," Fritz said. "I Saw when the High Sorcerer placed it on you. I am duly impressed you countered it as well as you did. Let us see it."

Sasha stood up and moved obediently when Fritz beckoned him away from the table. He stripped off his shirt and handed it to David, who was torn between admiring Sasha's fine chest and turning away from the awful spider web that covered most of it.

"The Web of Madness, and though I had no love of Wenzel I confess the curse was skillfully cast," Fritz said. "You are fortunate you were able to counter it as well as you did." He frowned thoughtfully as he touched Sasha's chest with his fingertips. "There are other spells on you—glamours. Those will also vanish when the spell breaks."

"That's fine," Sasha said. "I can always recast them if it's necessary. I just want my memories back."

Fritz nodded and stepped back. "Brace yourself then, because this will hurt." When Sasha nodded, Fritz pressed his hands together and said,
"Though the night seems endless, the day always comes, and the rays of the sun force bad dreams away. Open your eyes and see the light of day."

Brilliant, golden light poured from Fritz's hands and shone in several beams directly at Sasha, covering him, turning him into a figure of gold. Sasha cried out, faltered—but remained standing. After a few heartbeats of time that seemed to last for hours, the light faded.

The shirt David was holding slipped from his fingers as shock jolted through him. He had known Sasha was not from Schatten, had known he would look different … but he had no idea …

Sasha was beautiful—like a flame come to life. His skin, once so pale against the black hair, had taken on a slightly warmer tone. His features seemed sharper, even more stunning than before. His eyes were the color of dark gold. But his hair was the most amazing thing—a dark, rich red that looked as if it would burn his fingers if he touched it.

He swallowed and said shakily, "Sasha?"

Those brilliant, faintly glowing golden eyes turned toward him and Sasha said in a soft, husky voice, "David. What do you think?"

"You're beautiful. You're like something out of a story. I didn't know hair could be that color."

Sasha smiled at him and beckoned him close in that way he had done a thousand times. It steadied David, reassured him the stranger before him was not really a stranger at all. He leaned up eagerly when Sasha bent to kiss him softly. "Do—do you remember everything now?" he asked when they finally drew apart.

"Yes," Sasha said. "My name is Nikolai Aleksandrovic Krasny."

David frowned. "Your name isn't Sasha?"

"Sasha comes from my middle name," Sasha explained. "I … have a very demanding position back in Pozhar. Often I would sneak out at night and blend in with the ordinary people of Pozhar, who seemed more real to me than most of the people I called peers. Amongst those ordinary people, I went by Sasha." He smiled softly and caressed David's cheek with his knuckles. "I prefer it."

"Me too, though your real name is pretty. It sounds like an important sort of name."

Chuckling, Sasha said, "Not so important. In the end, what matters most is that I am unique amongst all the people in the world. A child of chaos, and the only one capable of getting into Schatten. It did not take me long to almost fail, did it? That scorching Web of Madness almost had me. Thank you for breaking the curse," he said to Fritz.

"I am happy I could help," Fritz said. "Now come, I will show you to your room."

Nikolai looked up as he heard footsteps and felt a prickle of awareness that only struck him on two occasions:   when he was in danger and when a god walked into his office.

"Eminence," he greeted, setting aside the papers he had been reading over and rising politely.

Raz motioned him to resume his seat, smiling easily. It just made Nikolai's skin prickle all over again. Only a bare six months had passed since the people of Pozhar had revived the god they thought they were destroying. Convincing people it was actually a good thing had not been as difficult as he had expected, but then Pozhar was a country of rebirth and always preferred to focus on that rather than death.

It did not make it any less unnerving to speak with a god as he might anyone else who stepped into his office. Trying to pretend Raz was anything but a god was impossible. He had that presence and those burning ember eyes that saw far more than any mortal ever would.

"Majesty," Raz replied. "I wanted to discuss something with you."

The weight of the words made Nikolai's shoulders tense, but he only nodded and rose, not wanting to be trapped behind a desk while he listened to what Raz had to say. The doors of his office closed and locked with a flicker of power from Raz, and then Nikolai felt the weight of a spell fall across the room. It was no minor spell, either, and made him long to have his sword and whip at his hips.

But those days were past. It was one thing to risk his life sneaking about the kingdom as Sasha when he had been the Advisor and the palace happier when he and Zarya were apart. Quite another when he was Tsar.

Fires, he felt tired.

Striding to the windows on the far wall, he stared down at the private gardens below, clasping his hands behind his back. After a moment, he reluctantly turned around. "What did you want to discuss, Eminence?"

Raz moved closer to him, but remained a respectful half dozen steps away. "Have you ever heard of a child of chaos?"

Nikolai lifted his brows. "We normally call them the children of storms, children of the sea, but children of chaos would be another name for the people of Kundou."

"It has been used that way, yes, but in this case I mean a very specific child of chaos," Raz replied. "A true child of chaos is extremely rare and for almost nine hundred years the world did not have one."

"But one has been born now and this is important?" Nikolai asked. "With all due respect, Eminence, come to your point. Is this child of chaos someone you need my help finding? Someone I need to help you convince to do something? Though I cannot imagine why a god would require my assistance."

Raz nodded. "A child of chaos is someone completely immune to fate. Wherever he goes, whomever he touches or interacts with, he changes that person's fate—or rather, adds chaos so that they are not bound to
one
fate. He gives them choices."

Nikolai frowned. "All right. And?"

"And there are ways to mark a child of chaos. The easiest marker is that he is a child of four nations and that connection is what makes him extremely powerful in terms of magic."

"I see," Nikolai said and turned back to face the window. "A child of four nations. I suppose that would be obvious to a god when it has never been apparent to anyone else. But then, I look like I am pure Pozharan, don't I? You're the first and only to ever realize."

"Who was your real mother?" Raz asked softly.

Nikolai's mouth twisted. "She washed up on shore near our family estate in the south. Half-Kundou, half-Verde. A storm swept her away before the mermaids got to her. And, of course, everyone knows the scandal of my father's birth, when his father married a Piedren woman. My uncle never really did forgive him for humiliating the family line that way, but I was far too talented a nephew to snub." Sometimes he wondered if his Uncle's attitude was part of why Zarya had always pushed him away.

But he much preferred not thinking about Zarya; there was just too much pain there. Sometimes, it seemed like there had never been anything between them but pain. He turned away from the window and faced Raz. "I cannot be the only person in the world who bears the blood of Kundou, Pozhar, Piedre, and Verde."

"But you are," Raz said. "In an age where travel is rare—and even rarer back when you were born—halflings are rare enough. Occasionally you'll get someone with the blood of three. But the blood of all four? No. You are the only. That is why you are such a powerful sorcerer:  you access four veins of magic."

Nikolai sighed. "So what am I meant to do, then? What can I do when I am now Tsar. That keeps me plenty busy enough—and confined to the palace."

"You are going to save Schatten."

"What?" Nikolai said, dropping his clasped hands in surprise. "What in the Fires is that supposed to mean? Save Schatten. That is a matter for gods."

Raz shook his head. "We cannot get into Schatten; Teufel has us sealed out. The barrier will weaken one day, enough for you to get through. You alone can breach Schatten, spread chaos, and destroy Teufel."

"Me alone," Nikolai echoed bitterly. "Isn't gallivanting about and saving the day a young man's job? Somebody who still has a spark in his eye and actually believes things like saving the Land of Shadows can be done? I stopped believing in those tales a long time ago, Eminence. I'm an old Tsar now, not a young hero."

He tensed when Raz moved closer and froze when a hand landed on the small of his back, hating that in the next breath he relaxed slightly, lulled by the reassuring warmth of Zhar Ptitsa's fire. "Schatten has been sealed away from the rest of the world for over nine hundred years. The people there live subjugated by fear, fated to lead the lives that Teufel writes for them. You and I both know that a country like that needs someone who knows what he is about—a man of experience, a leader, not someone young and reckless and brash."

Nikolai stared out at the landscape beyond the castle in the direction of Schatten, thinking of how much Pozhar had suffered under its own burden. Amplified by a thousand-fold ... he could not imagine a world of such pain.

"You're a man of great kindness," Raz said softly.

"Is that another trait of a child of chaos?" Nikolai asked.

"No," Raz said. "Merely a bonus. Another bonus is that you speak Ancient so fluently. Schatten has not changed with the rest of the world. There are not many people in the world who can understand them."