Shadows of Moth (33 page)

Madori wanted to
refuse. She wanted to toss the plate back at Lari. But she needed
this meal, as poor as it was. She leaped onto the morsels, stuffing
the duck skin into her mouth and crunching the bones between her
teeth, then licking the gravy off the plate.

"Truly you
creatures are pigs," Lari said, watching the spectacle, disgust
in her eyes.

Madori ignored her,
picking out the last bits of fat and skin from the rug. She no longer
cared for Lari's mockery; any dignity Madori had once possessed had
vanished here long ago. These scraps would keep her alive a little
longer, long enough to find the right moment.

Chewing on a bone,
she glanced up and stared at the tabletop. A knife lay here, stained
with the duck grease.

If
I move fast enough,
Madori thought,
maybe
I can grab the knife. Maybe I can—

Lari lifted the
knife and tilted her head. "You'd like to thrust this into my
heart, wouldn't you, little one?" Lari balanced the knife in her
palm. "Perhaps one turn you will try to grab it. And when you
do, this blade will enter flesh—your mother's flesh." Lari
licked the knife. "And if by chance you do manage to stab me,
mongrel—perhaps freeing yourself from your shackles and cutting me
in my sleep—you better also stab every guard in this camp. If
anything is to happen to me, they have their orders." Lari
grinned hungrily. "They are to immediately torture your mother
before your eyes, making it last for turns, until she dies. And only
then will your torture begin. So keep staring at this knife, worm.
Keep dreaming of ways to kill me. You are only planning your own
nightmare."

Madori looked away.

Not
yet. Not while Mother is imprisoned. I have to free her first.

She did not know
how she'd reach the canyon where the miners worked. Guards patrolled
it around the clock. All Madori could do was bide her time, grow
stronger, keep eating whatever scraps were tossed her way, and wait
for her wounds to heal. If she obeyed Lari for long enough, perhaps
the beatings would stop. Her bruises would fade, and with the pain
lessened, she would find her magic again.

With
magic I can sneak past the guards into the mine,
she thought.
With
magic I can free my mother and everyone else.
Her eyes dampened.
I
miss you, Mother. I miss you so much.

Kneeling
here before Lari, eating scraps like a dog, Madori thought back to
her time back in Fairwool-by-Night, living with her parents. How she
had clashed with her mother then! How often she had yelled at Koyee,
rebelled, made her mother cry! Whenever Koyee would scold Madori for
her hairstyle or clothes, Madori would shout, smash things, storm out
of the house and not return for a turn or two, leaving Koyee in
tears. She had hated her mother then, had thought Koyee the most
ruthless tyrant in the world.

I'm
so sorry.
Madori's tears fell.
I
love you so much, Mother. I'd give everything in the world to live
with you in that old house again.

Sniffing, she tried
to remember that house which the Radians had burned; it still stood
in her memory. She remembered her father working in the gardens,
tending to sunflowers, tulips, and sweet summer peonies. She
remembered her soft bed and quilt, and how she would lie there for
hours, reading in the sunlight that always fell through her window.
And she remembered good times with her mother from before her
rebellious youth, back in childhood when the world had seemed so
bright: walking with Koyee to the river to look at the fish, entering
the night with Koyee to watch the stars, or simply listening to Koyee
sing her old songs of Qaelin.

At the memory of
warmth, music, and love, Madori's tears would not stop falling, and
she vowed that if she ever saw Koyee again, that if the two ever
escaped this place, she would never yell at her mother again.

I
will always love you, Mother. Always, whether we die this turn or in
many years.

Lari finally left
her table and lifted a lantern. She stared down at Madori's tears
with a smirk on her face. "Follow me, mongrel. I have a new task
for you this turn."

The two left the
tent and moved about the camp. The other tents rose at their sides,
and soldiers moved among them. In the east, the workers were bustling
across the scaffolding, and a great wooden lever—dozens of feet
tall—was lowering a basket of bricks onto a half-completed wall. In
the west lay the mine; Madori could not see into the canyon from
here, but she heard the cracking whips and the screams of workers. As
usual, she was the only Elorian up here outside of the canyon.

Lari led her toward
the camp's serrated iron fence. Guards moved aside from the gates,
and Lari walked outside into the open night, beckoning for Madori to
follow.

Madori
stood frozen, hesitant.
Why
is she leading me out of the camp?
She swallowed.
Does
she intend to kill me out there, to leave my body for the worms?

"Follow!"
Lari barked. "Here, mongrel."

Madori raised her
chin. Whatever Lari planned out there could be no worse than the
camp. Chains rattling, Madori hobbled through the gates and outside
into the darkness. The only light here came from Lari's lantern; the
moon was gone from the sky.

Her
eyesight will be weak here,
Madori thought.
She
has small Timandrian eyes. I can fight her here.

They walked for a
stretch before reaching a wheelbarrow of Elorian corpses. A smoking
pit gaped beyond it, and a stench hit Madori's nostrils like a blow.

"Come, stand
on the edge," Lari said, inviting Madori forward. "Look
into the abyss."

When Madori stepped
forward and looked down into the pit, she had to cover her mouth. She
felt her paltry meal rise back up.

"By Xen Qae,"
she whispered.

Hundreds of charred
skeletons filled the chasm. They were Elorian skeletons, Madori saw;
the skulls' eye sockets were twice the size of a Timandrian's. Shreds
of burnt flesh still clung to the bones, and a foul smoke rose to
sting Madori's eyes.

"Beautiful."
Lari stared down into the mass grave with delight and awe in her
eyes. "It's the most beautiful sight I've seen—the purification
of the world, the light we bring to the darkness." She turned to
regard Madori. "Some turn soon, your mother will burn in this
pit too. That turn, I will spit upon her bones. But that won't be for
a while longer. I have a task for you while you still live."

Madori stared at
the emperor's daughter. "You're mad," she whispered. "Lari,
how can you delight in death like this? How can you slay innocents?"
She gestured down at the smoking bones. "These were women,
children, not soldiers. They were—"

"They were
nightcrawlers." Lari licked her teeth. "Have you truly not
understood yet, mongrel? They are all my enemies. Their very presence
in this world disgusts me."

"Why?"
Madori whispered.

The princess
caressed Madori's cheek. "Because they corrupt all that they
touch. Everything they approach turns to rot. Like you, mongrel. Your
blood is half Timandrian; your father is a man of sunlight, sharing
my own blood. The nightcrawler whore tempted him, lured him into her
bed, and they produced you. A monster. An abomination. You could have
been pure, Madori. You could have been like me, a lady of sunlight.
We are cousins, and we could have ruled the world together, two
companions, two mistresses of light. Now you are ruined, a freak."

"I'd never be
like you." Madori shoved Lari's hand away. "Never. My
father is a pure Timandrian, and he's also pure of heart. But your
heart is rotten. There was never impurity in the night nor in me. I
realize that now. For many years, I too thought I was impure."
Madori shook her head. "But I'm not. The true disease is not in
my mixed blood but in your heart, Lari, and in the heart of your
father. If you will kill me for these words, then kill me. There is
no value left to my life. Not here."

Lari smiled thinly.
"Madori, have you heard tales of the old empire of Riyona?"
She gazed back into the pit and seemed to contemplate the bones. "The
empire was mighty and ruled all lands north of the Sern River, all
the way to the coast in the north, the mountains in the west, and the
darkness in the east. All other lands in sunlight paid tribute to
Riyona's glory. Do you know how the Riyonans built an empire?"
Lari's lips peeled back in something halfway between grin and snarl.
"With cruelty. With strength. They stamped out their enemies and
they intimidated all others to obey. The Riyonan emperors had a
practice. When an enemy was truly great—a warlord or rebel
leader—the emperor would skin him alive, then create a book out of
the skin. Human parchment. Upon the book, the emperor would write the
names of those he had slain." Lari turned back toward Madori.
"Some of those old books survive. I've seen them in Markfir,
capital of a new empire—the Radian Empire. We are the new Riyona.
But unlike that old empire, we will rule forever." She gestured
at the fresh corpses in the wheelbarrow. "I will have you create
me a new book, made from the skin of my enemies. Choose one body.
Peel off its skin, and we will write the names of all those I kill
upon the parchment."

Madori found
herself strangely calm; perhaps after so much pain, so much terror,
she was too hurt, too jaded for shock. She met and held Lari's gaze.

"Then hand me
your dagger." Madori nodded toward the dagger that hung from
Lari's belt. "I'll need a blade."

Something strangely
subdued, almost calm but fully dangerous, filled Lari's eyes. Not
breaking her stare, she drew her dagger and held it out, hilt first.
Madori took the weapon. For a moment the two women stared at each
other, saying nothing.

Finally Lari broke
the silence. "You have a choice now. You can attack me. Maybe
you'll even kill me. And then my soldiers have orders to torture your
mother to death." Lari shrugged. "It might be worth it.
Koyee is nearly dead anyway; I doubt she'd last more than another
month here. And if you slay me with this dagger, well . . . that
would be a great boon to the nightcrawlers, would it not? And a great
act of vengeance for you; you might even get a chance to flee into
the darkness after slaying me. There are no guards here to stop you."
Lari tapped her chin. "But I wonder . . . I wonder if you'd be
willing to flee, to abandon your mother here to death and torture.
Let us see how honorable a mongrel is. So choose, Madori. Thrust this
blade into a corpse and bring me its skin . . . or thrust this blade
into me. Your choice."

Madori held the
dagger before her. She looked to her right; skeletons smoldered in
the pit and corpses lay in the wheelbarrow. She looked to her left;
the camp fence rose in the distance, and screams sounded from beyond
it.

What
do I do?
Madori thought. Her belly twisted. She raised the dagger an inch,
desperate to attack Lari, to thrust the blade into her heart. The
princess made no move to flee or fight.

It's
a trap,
Madori thought. It had to be. If she attacked, Lari would use magic
to thwart the thrust. Perhaps magic was already shielding the
princess with invisible armor. And yet . . . maybe if Madori thrust
hard enough, fast enough, maybe she could kill Lari. Maybe she could
have her vengeance, then run into the darkness, flee this place, be
free.

And
leave my mother behind.

A
part of Madori screamed inside her:
Koyee
is already dying! She might be dead already. How could you give up
your vengeance and freedom for a dying woman?

She
looked east, across the chasm, to the open night.
Mother
would want me to flee,
Madori thought.
She
would tell me to kill Lari, to escape, to leave her . . . yet it's
something I cannot do.

"Have you
chosen?" Lari asked.

Madori looked at
the corpses in the wheelbarrow. A dead youth, younger than her, hung
across the rim, glassy eyes staring at Madori, mouth still open in a
silent scream. This was not something Madori could do either. She
would not disgrace the dead.

"Choose!"
Lari said.

She had only one
choice left, Madori knew. The only choice she had ever had, perhaps.
The only choice that could thwart Lari's plans and end this pain.

Madori placed the
tip of the dagger against her own neck.

She closed her
eyes, the steel against her skin.

She saw the swaying
rye fields of Fairwool-by-Night, golden in the sunlight. She saw her
mother smile, singing softly as she tucked Madori into bed. She saw
her father wave from his gardens, saw herself run to him, jump into
his arms, and kiss his cheek. She saw all her friends: Tam, the boy
she had once thought she would marry; Neekeya, her dear, brave friend
from distant lands; and Jitomi . . . the only boy she had ever
kissed, ever loved as a woman loves a man.

Goodbye,
she thought.
Goodbye,
my family, my friends. Goodbye, Timandra. Goodbye, Eloria. Goodbye,
this world we call Moth. I love you all.

She took a deep
breath, prepared to shove the blade.

"Madori."

The
voice was distant, soft, carrying on the wind.
His
voice. The voice of Jitomi, the voice she had thought she'd never
hear again.

"Madori!"

"I have to do
this," she whispered to his memory. She saw him in her mind: a
young man with white hair, his nose pierced, a dragon tattooed across
his face. "I have to."

"Madori!"
His voice was louder now, torn with pain, coming from above her, from
the stars. Perhaps he had died before her, and she would join him now
in those celestial halls.

"Madori,
wait!"