Dark Lord's Wedding (19 page)

“Pomegranate extract,” Hiresha said. She twirled a finger, and the droplets spun midair then floated back into the cup.

“Where’s the liquor?”

The vendor spread her hands. She had painted moths on her palms. “No alcohol in the City of Gold. I have crawlers.”

“This is a terrible place to get married.” Miss Barrows stamped, and her whole body rippled.

Hiresha took her away and leaned close to her ear. “If we’re smuggling in a groom, we could do the same for drinks.”

“Aww! You’re a true friend for all of being an old statue. Want to share a snake? I mean to eat. That is, a cooked one.”

They bought a meal of smoked viper basted in peanut sauce. It was thoroughly edible.

“Easy on the tongue.” Miss Barrows sucked the juices off her fingers. “That reminds me. You should leave the wedding banquet to Tethiel. Those Feasters know how to lay a spread.”

“Excepting that, as I understand it, they’ve lost all natural sense of taste.”

“And you’ve never had it to begin with. Trust me, ‘least the meal won’t be boring as raising children. Lucky we won’t find any of the selfish snots in here.”

Miss Barrows leaned into an establishment. Steam wafted out. Women lay on slabs of slick stone while being massaged. Miss Barrows turned back to Hiresha.

“We’re due a good rubbing. Oh, but you don’t like being touched at all?”

“I never said that.” The heat of the place was already soaking into Hiresha’s skin. “I could abide this, as long as you’re paying.”

“What? It’s your turn.”

“You may be amused to hear, Miss Barrows, that you are now wealthier than I.”

“You gristle-hip liar! What about your diamonds then?”

“Those are priceless.” Hiresha left her dress suspended in the air and lay down for the massage. “All my other assets I had to leave behind in the Empire.”

“How’re you paying for the wedding then?”

“Through Tethiel, I should hope.” Hiresha’s muscles tensed.

The woman spreading coconut oil over her blinked down at Hiresha’s piercings. “Shouldn’t I touch these?”

“Press them the hardest.”

Hiresha had settled into the rhythm of the massage in time for her calm to be shattered by a scream.

The wail was choked off, yet it had been from Minara. Hiresha knew it with boundless certainty. She flew into her dress and then leaped across the street.

Minara had been seized. She had been skewered against the wall with six-inch nails. One Bright Palm set a third spike against Minara’s heart. Another glowing woman lifted a mallet.

Hiresha brushed them away. She pulled the nails from Minara’s neck and leg. Enchantments held the wounds closed. She would live.

“She wasn’t doing any harm,” Hiresha said.

“Feasters are never Innocent,” one Bright Palm said. “Twelfth tenet, stanza eight.”

The Bright Palm’s face stayed serene as she lunged with the mallet. Hiresha let it hit against her will. The mallet broke.

All the women on the street saw it. They had also seen Hiresha bring the girl back from death. Power had been proven to the populace as well as to the Purest. Tethiel had arranged the meeting with the latter. Tonight of all nights she had been close enough to save his Feaster. The coincidence sent a ripple of dissonance through Hiresha. She could not help but speculate that risking Minara’s life had also been part of his plan.

Jerani blinked awake, and the lady was leaning over them in the tent. She gripped Celaise. Jewels flared against her, and Celaise’s skin shone purple. Her eyelids fluttered open and closed. Her fingers clawed at the blanket.

“What’re you doing?” Jerani pushed out of his sleep fog and gripped his spear. He couldn’t strike the lady, could he? His muscles shivered and screamed.

“I cannot have her limping around when there’s work to be done,” the lady said. “I must attend to her now. Opportunities for an uninterrupted morning will only become scarcer. The Dominion of the Sun will have begun its hunt.”

Celaise slackened with a hissing wheeze. The lady put a big blue jewel on Celaise’s chest. Celaise floated to the center of the banyan grove. Her eyes never opened.

Jerani scrambled after the lady. “You’re going to heal her?”

“I’ll need to rebreak her bones. You should not watch.”

“I’m staying with her.” Jerani gripped Celaise’s claw hand.

“That will take the most time to repair.” The lady nodded to the hand. “At present, she’s unconscious and beyond pain. Observing would only discomfort you.”

This was really happening. Celaise would be remade. She wouldn’t need her crutch. Her days wouldn’t hobble her. They wouldn’t torture her. Even with her twisted bones, even with her agony she was amazing. What could she do with straight flanks?

Jerani might be dreaming this. He had before. Even if it wasn’t real, it was a good dream. It needed to last. He had to see Celaise standing on her own two legs and smiling her black-stone smile up at the sun.

He couldn’t go back to the tent like the lady wanted. Closing his eyes might make this dream end. How could he sleep anyway with his heart racing? “I can’t leave her.”

“Perhaps admirable, if technically untrue.” The lady pounced on him, her hands spread with jewels like angry-spider eyes.

Jerani had to let go of Celaise. He needed to dodge to the side. He meant to, but he spun toward the lady instead. He fell into her arms. The coldness of her jewels pierced through his chest and bones.

His heart stopped.

What was happening? He should’ve got away. He was fast. Only, the jewel beneath his arm had tugged him toward her. He had put it there, and it had pulled on his skin and stopped him from getting away. He had crossed the lady. Would he live?

Blackness spilled into his eyes. He sagged against her. He became weightless. He was drifting away.

His heart beat, once. Maybe he wouldn’t die.

Jerani thrashed upright in the tent. He tried to think how much time had passed. Had it been a dream? His spear rested beside him, and Celaise … and Celaise.…

She was there, and she was whole. Her ankles, both true. Her back, straight in her sleep. She always lay curled on her side. Sometimes her knees touched her chest, but there she was, flat and peaceful.

She had to be alive. The jewel on her chest was moving, shedding fleas of light across her. That meant she was breathing. It was the huge blue jewel that looked like a pyramid, with smaller pyramids in rows across each side. The lady had really done it. She had healed Celaise.

She would be able to walk and dress herself and tend the herd all alone. She wouldn’t need him. Celaise would leave him.

No, no she wouldn’t. Celaise would still need him to start a family. They would make fire together. He was already stirring at the thought.

Her hands, so lovely. Jerani cupped the left one. Not a claw anymore, it was soft. The nails shone like polished horn. Her fingers slid between his. Jerani’s were darker, but their palms were the same color of pink. He pressed them together. Her hand pulsed with life.

His eyes filled with warmth. Everything went blurry, and he had to blink and blink. Hot streams ran down his cheeks.

Celaise’s bones had been reshaped by the lady. Where had she gone? Jerani pushed back the tent flap. The grove was empty except for the piles of polished crystal. The lady had been gone for days, then swept in on them sleeping.

He shivered. The place her jewels had touched him still itched with coldness. He pulled at the gem on his side, the one that had reeled him toward her. Tugging it moved his rib beneath, like the gem had burrowed into his skin and latched on. Jerani might not even be able to cut it out. In a way, the lady was as ferocious as the lord.

And as powerful. She had reset Celaise’s bones. Had they cracked under the gems? Had there been a sound? He should’ve been there for Celaise. She hated being helpless. Even if he could’ve done nothing for her, even if she couldn’t know he was there, he should’ve been. The lady had been wrong.

She had been gentle. Celaise wasn’t even bruised. He checked every part of her. The side of her foot she’d had to drag over the ground was callused. It scratched his fingers.

“Celaise, you won’t have to walk on your ankle anymore.”

She didn’t stir.

Her bones had been rebroken. Touching them might’ve hurt her. He hadn’t thought of that. “Celaise?”

She lay still, her lips in a cute frown. She didn’t moan or toss about. The gem on her chest twinkled. It might have been pinning her in deep sleep.

Jerani should check on the llamas. He should look into the fox’s burrow, see that the little monster was sleeping. He should feed his bull-rumbling belly. But he couldn’t leave Celaise, not again. When she opened her eyes he would be there to tell her she was well.

All their struggles in strange lands had been worth it. The lord hadn’t been all bad. The lady had paid them with a miracle. With the crook-limbs gone, Celaise looked like a young woman. Celaise was a young woman. She and Jerani could build a future together.

“We only have to finish this last task. Then the lord promised he’d let us go.”

And how hard could a wedding be? The lord only had to give the lady’s family some cows, and they would have no trouble somersaulting between a bull’s horns. Could be they didn’t have a cow grand enough. They might want to do the marriage in some other—

A llama cried out in a loud moaning. Then another did. Oh, no, not the fox again.

Jerani stepped out of the tent. Dusk had fallen over the grove. The crystals hadn’t yet lit. The lady wouldn’t be back until midnight. How soon was that? He had lost track of time beside Celaise.

The fox pattered around him then jumped at Jerani’s chest. Jerani caught him. “Wait, if you’re here …”

Boom!
It sounded like a drum beat, out in the jungle
. Boom! Boom! Clack!
Sharp splitting noises echoed. Was that tree trunks being split?
Clack!

Jerani leapt over the lotus pond. He raced onto the path out of the grove. He couldn’t leave the llamas with whatever that was. They were braying for their lives.

Clack!
The sounds might’ve come from one thing or many all around him.
Boom!

Jerani spun about. Celaise still lay in the tent. All the noise hadn’t woken her. He couldn’t leave her alone.

The fox sprang away and hid under a root. If only Jerani could’ve found as safe a spot for Celaise.

The high pitch of a human cry bounced off the trees. It might’ve been a child. Something must be attacking the village.

Jerani gripped his spear and war club. He pressed them against his brow. His teeth scraped against each other. He couldn’t cower in this grove while llamas bawled and people cried. He might be far from the grasslands and his tribe, but he was still a Great Heart.

One more look to Celaise, and Jerani drove himself from the grove. The forest was dark and dripping. No good choices here. He ran away from the llama’s pleas and toward the village. Lights burned at its center.

People held torches. They were the villagers, huddling together. One scrambled back into a hut only to be dragged out again by a warrior.

“Outside, outside.” The warrior waved his spear about with its green band. “All together.”