For a moment, Ineni’s mocking laughter was at odds with her expression, a vague wariness of Ildiko’s threat and the possibility she could carry it out. “You’ve a mother’s ferocity for a child not of your blood or even your race, Hercegesé. I find that admirable.”
Ildiko couldn’t care less about Ineni’s opinions. She stared hard at Tarawin, noting the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her bow-shaped lips pursed with her breathing, forming spit bubbles that disappeared back into her mouth with each inhalation.
Such serenity didn’t ease her fears. Tarawin was a lively child, especially now that she’d learned to walk. At home, she’d be toddling around the nursery, getting into trouble with her nurses or demanding Ildiko or Brishen carry her around the redoubt to see and hear all the goings-on there. And the queenregnant didn’t easily warm to strangers. Were she awake, she’d squirm in Ineni’s arms and bellow her disapproval at being held by someone she didn’t know. This was no natural sleep.
“What have you done to her?” Ildiko tried to free herself from her guard’s hold to no avail.
“Nothing that many a harried, worn-out mother hasn’t done with a fussy baby refusing to sleep.” Ineni lifted Tarawin to place a kiss on her forehead. Ildiko bristled. “A simple elixir of dream flower I brewed and mixed with milk. She’ll wake in a few hours none the worse for it.”
Until she could actually snatch her daughter back from her abductor, Ildiko would have to be satisfied with the other woman’s explanation and pray she wasn’t lying. “We considered you and your family friends, Ineni. Why did you do this?”
She couldn’t think of any reason for Ineni’s actions beyond inexplicable madness. The Emelyins had visited Saggara often, when Cephren reported to his liege matters of a judicial nature in his province, and sometimes at Brishen’s invitation. Ildiko had liked Ineni since the first time she met her and sometimes found it difficult not to show her obvious favor for the justiciar’s daughter over other visiting Kai families. A ribbon of cold shock was still unfurling within her at the revelation that this woman, whom Ildiko had considered a friend, was behind the abduction.
The sudden anguish twisting Ineni’s features startled her. “Friendship,” she said softly, “is a gift that must sometimes be sacrificed for necessity.” She tucked the sleeping Tarawin a little closer to her side as if seeking comfort. “You and the queen offer a chance to bring back the power that died with Queen Secmis and was lost to her son when he became a Wraith King.”
Even with the fog of a sleeping drug still clinging to her thoughts, Ildiko’s mind raced as she tried to comprehend Ineni’s enigmatic statement. Tarawin had inherited her grandmother’s formidable legacy. When she was older, and her sorcerousheritage manifested, she’d be the most magically powerful living Kai. That valuable heritage would have once been Brishen’s. Ineni was mostly right when she said he’d lost the power passed to him from Secmis. What little remained he jealously guarded in the hopes of one day uniting Megiddo’s eidolon with his physical form. Ineni didn’t know that, and Ildiko trusted she never would. Still, none of that enlightened her as to why Cephren’s daughter had taken the queen regnant and the regent’s consort.
Ineni studied her for a moment in silence. “Most Kai don’t understand how or why you’ve earned such devotion from the herceges. I think I do. You’re kind and obviously as devoted to him as he is to you. You held his kingdom together when he went to war and treat his niece as if you birthed her from your womb even though you’re not kin-bonded in any way.” She sighed, a mournful sound. “And there’s the crux of it. Were you Kai, none of this would be necessary. The little queen would still claim the throne, but Brishen’s line would also continue. Sons and daughters whose magic was as strong as the young queen’s even though their father no longer possessed his.”
The alarm bells chiming softly in Ildiko’s ears now rang loud and incessant. Ineni was making a winding way toward an explanation, but what she didn’t yet say painted every word spoken. Ildiko had been raised as a noblewoman of no importance except as a convenience in sealing a treaty. Now she was one of inconvenience, and the latter carried far more risks than the former.
Ineni turned her attention to the Kai holding Ildiko. “What of the driver?”
Ildiko felt him shrug behind her. “Dead. You instructed us to bring the hercegesé to you unharmed. He disobeyed.” His voice reflected no regret over the man’s murder.
“Needs must,” Ineni said softly, a bleakness tightening her mouth.
How many times, Ildiko wondered, would decent people use that reasoning to justify terrible acts? She’d killed a man herself to defend Tarawin and still had nightmares about it. She’d almost abandoned her marriage and the man she loved for a kingdom and people not her own. What had driven Ineni to these extremes?
Needs must.
Terror sent her thoughts scattering, and she fought hard in the henchman’s grip when Ineni instructed him to bring her closer to the altar slab. Ildiko squirmed, kicking back with her bare feet and tried to bite the hands that held her tight to no avail. The Kai simply shook her like a wet cloth and pulled her hair until her scalp caught fire and tears spilled down her cheeks.
The pain didn’t stop her. She fought even harder when Ineni paced alongside them with Tarawin to the altar. “You said you wouldn’t hurt her.” Ildiko wheezed the words between her teeth, her vision blurry.
“And I won’t.” Ineni bent to gently lay the sleeping child on the slab’s stained surface. “At least not very much and nothing she’ll remember.”
Grim words that only made Ildiko’s panic soar.
Ineni kept one hand on the sleeping child. Her features, when she faced Ildiko, had adopted an eerily calm expression. “Humans didn’t inherit Elder magic, but that never meant they lacked power of their own. Orshulgyn is proof of that. The ashes of sorcerers who could control magic with the same skill as any Kai adept are kept here, their power undiminished, even by death. She reached inside the satchel she carried with one hand, pulling out a ragged book which she held up for Ildiko to better see. “Grimoires like these hold spells, potions, incantations,some useful even to those who have no magic or aren’t human. I’ve never subscribed to the Kai notion that your kind is inferior to us in such matters. That’s a dangerous pride.”
Ildiko barely glanced at the book, all of her attention locked on the slender hand holding Tarawin down on the altar. “Please, Ineni,” she begged. “Whatever you’re planning, stop. No good can come from it.” She reached desperately for anything that might make the other woman pause and rethink this mad plan. “Surely your father doesn’t know about any of this, nor would he approve.”
Ineni’s strangely serene look melted away, leaving anguish behind. “He would disown me if he did, and he may still do so one day. I love my father, but his approval, his love, must come second now.” She frowned. “We’re a nation dying with every child born. Tarawin is a hope, but a single, fragile one. We need more than one if we’re to survive as a people with a soul. Without our magic—our ability to reap our mortem lights and preserve the memories of those who came before us—we will vanish before Tarawin can bounce a grandchild on her knee.”
Ildiko continued to fight against her captor’s grip when Ineni instructed him to drag her to the slab and hoist her atop its surface next to Tarawin. He held Ildiko down easily enough, her struggles no match for his strength.
Ineni lay the book down, adding a flask, a chalice, and knife next to it.
Please, gods, save us,Ildiko screamed the prayer in her head.Save Tarawin. Mercy for the queen.
“Peace, Hercegesé,” Ineni half crooned to her as she lifted the knife. “Neither you nor the queen are useful to me dead.” She paused. “At least not yet.”
With those words, the knife flashed, and Ildiko felt a sharp pain along the inside of her forearm before Ineni raised it and placed the chalice edge against her skin. She held her arm in avice grip as blood ran in rivulets into the cup. Ildiko’s arm was awash in red by the time Ineni pulled it away and turned her attention to Tarawin.
“Don’t! This time she shouted the word as Ineni partially freed Tarawin from her blanket to expose one of her feet. The Kai holding Ildiko down clapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her protest.
Tarawin didn’t awaken when Ineni carefully pricked her heel, only pulling her leg back in reaction to the wounding. While Ineni wasn’t as harsh with the knife as she’d been with Ildiko, she was no less merciless in extracting the amount of blood she needed from the queen regnant to drip into the chalice. When she was done, she carefully wiped Tarawin’s foot and covered it in the blanket.
