At first, Ildiko merely squinted at it, unable to make out what he held in the dark—the pale moonstone flower with its tangle of black roots. Then she gasped, her eyes filling with tears as he dropped the necklace into her hand. “Oh gods, Brishen, I thought it was lost forever!” She clutched his gift, pressing it to her chest. Tears streamed down her cheeks and dripped off her jaw. “You found it. You found me.”
He held her close and stayed silent until her crying eased and only sniffles were left. “The chain’s broken,” he said.
She wiped her nose on her sleeve and smeared away tears with one hand. The look she gave him was one he’d grown familiar with during their marriage, one that comforted him during the longest nights and the hardest hours. She cupped his cheek. “But we are not.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
In the month since their return to Saggara from Orshulgyn, Ildiko had been plagued by bad dreams and grim memories. Ineni cutting Tarawin’s heel, her own abduction, the Kai guard beheading the human driver in front of her, the hot splatter of his blood on her shift, the rattle of the urn lid and the feel of icy fingers on her calf from the touch of a dead sorcerer—all combined to rob her of sleep.
Sometimes the memories visited during her waking hours, when her mended bones remembered cracking against unyielding ground after she and her guard fell. She didn’t recall anything else beyond explosive agony until she opened her eyes to see Brishen’s beloved face hovering above her, golden eye shining like a beacon. She’d been dying then; she was certain of it. He’d saved her with the last of the Elder magic he’d hoarded since his time as a Wraith King—and forged a tether between her and another Wraith King.
“Witch, open the gate for me.”
She’d spoken those words in unison with Megiddo as Brishen strove to claw her out of Death’s hold. She uttered them now on a harsh gasp as she hurtled up from restless sleep and the recurring dream of the doomed monk.
Brishen bolted up beside her, knife in one hand, the other holding her arm in a firm grip, ready to fight his way out of their bed to protect her. After a moment of silence, he returned the knife to its place under his pillow. The hold he had on her arm became a caress. “Easy, wife,” he crooned softly in the darkness. “You were dreaming.”
Despite the perspiration sheening her skin, she shivered. Brishen coaxed her to lie down once more and tucked her into the cove of his body. She caught one of his hands, entwining her fingers with his. “I’m sorry, Brishen. I keep waking you with all my noise and twitching.”
His low chuckle vibrated against her back and caressed the top of her head. “That would be our daughter, not you.” He kissed the top of her head. “You spoke the words as before. You dreamed of Megiddo, didn’t you?”
She nodded. They both called it a dream, but it was more than that. A vibrant vision not wrought from her memory or created by her imagination, but a true moment of time and place in which she looked out at the world from Megiddo’s eyes and spoke with his mouth, calling a terrified young woman a witch and commanding her to open a gate.
They stood within a ruined enclosure, a temple or sanctuary that somehow seemed familiar and was surrounded by a winter-bare forest frosted in snow and bejeweled in ice. The woman sat on the ground, fighting with all her might to keep from being dragged toward the broken steps. A writhing miasma of shadows swirled about Megiddo, twisted faces with fanged maws opened wide in silent screams and howls. Madness trapped within an ethereal cloak worn by the doomed monk.
The first time she described the vision to Brishen, he’d paled to the color of cold ash. “Those are the galla, though I have no idea who the woman is.” One of his hands had flexed as if he wanted to shred the memory of the abominations who’dattacked Haradis and changed the fate of the Kai forever. “Were they torturing him?” Dread at her impending answer threaded through his voice, along with the awful guilt she’d seen bow his shoulders many times.
Ildiko had clasped his arm, though she didn’t know if she did so to sooth him or warn him. “No.” The gods had granted her the mercy of not yet witnessing Megiddo’s suffering as Brishen had, but what she’d seen made her shudder. “I don’t think he’s their victim anymore, Brishen. I think he’s their master.” He’d shuddered at her words.
What had she witnessed through the power of the Elder magic Brishen had sent rushing through her body? And what was the fate of the poor woman who’d defied Megiddo’s grim command?
She drifted to sleep once more, still troubled but comforted enough in her husband’s arms not to be plagued by more dreams. When she woke, the darkness within their enclosed bed was more gray than black, and she could make out the faint outline of Brishen’s sleeping sprawled next to her.
While she lived her life now during the nocturnal hours as the Kai did, she woke early, when the sun still blazed bright in late afternoon. Those were the hours when Saggara was at its most peaceful, when most of the Kai slept and those assigned day duty moved quietly through the manor and the grounds. She used that time to either sit in solitary bliss in the garden or read a book in the library, perched in a chair next to one of the tall windows where the sun spilled a lattice work of light across the floor and warmed her skin.
Today, however, was not a day for such indulgences, and her stomach roiled with dread at the task ahead of her. With Sinhue’s help, she dressed quietly and braided her hair into a simple style that she fastened at her nape with a pair of ornatepins. The maid pronounced her presentable with a hand signal and the two tiptoed toward the door.
“Are you certain about this, Ildiko?” Brishen’s voice called from behind the bed curtains.
Both mistress and maid froze in their tracks, and Ildiko flinched before turning around to face the bed. “I’m certain, Brishen.”
The answering silence was long and heavy. “So be it. If you need me, I’ll come.”
Such a simple statement, yet behind it, the most majestic promise. Ildiko smiled. “I know.”
She and Sinhue left with a quiet click of the door behind them, greeted the battalion of guards lining the hallway outside the royal bedchamber and nursery, and descended the stairs toward the ground floor. While the servants passing them offered salutations as they went about their duties, their expressions were no longer curious at seeing the hercegesé awake during the Kai small hours.
She entered the narrow corridor that acted as the only entrance and exit to Saggara’s prison. Sinhue kept pace beside her, carrying a lantern to light her mistress’s way. The warden himself had met them in the courtyard, offering the light and a respectful bow before leading the hercegesé’s entourage into his domain.
Built below ground when Saggara first rose on this flat plain as the summer palace for the Kai royal household, the prison was a modest affair with a dozen small cells used to house prisoners prior to transport to the capital for trial. Even now, with Saggara the new capital of Bast-Haradis, it maintained its humble size. Most of its occupants were moved to the prefectures from which they came where the local justiciars oversaw trials, handed down judgments, and meted out punishments and executions.
There were sometimes exceptions. A few were too important or too dangerous to release outside of Saggara’s walls and place in the hands of lower-ranking officials. They were kept in cells isolated from those waiting for transport. At the moment, only one such prisoner held that dubious honor. Those who had aided in her plan had been executed within a day of Brishen returning to Saggara, their bodies buried without proclamation or lamentations.
Ildiko wiped her damp palms on her skirts as she kept her eyes on the warden’s back and counted the synchronous steps they’d naturally fallen into as they traversed the long hallway toward a set of doors bound by iron straps and crossed by a heavy bar fitted into a pair stout brackets. Her stomach, queasy for hours from dread, erupted into a roil when the warden called out to the pair of guards standing sentinel on either side of the doors.
“Raise the bar and open the doors,” he instructed.
The two leaped to his command, and soon the entry into the prison yawned wide to welcome them.
