Kreya peeled herself off the pillar. “Enough. There’s no need to relive it. I stopped him. You stopped his army. World saved. Everyone went their separate ways. The end.”
“You went your separate way first,” Zera said. “Or did you miss the part when I said you went in alone, leaving us to face an army of nightmares?”
One of the girls at Zera’s feet, starry-eyed, sighed and said, “You were so brave, Master Zera. A few against an army. Saving us all.”
Smiling, Zera patted her on the head as if she were a well-behaved puppy. “That’s right. We were victorious, even though our friend and leader, oursister,abandoned us. And then she walked off into the sunset, still without us, to grieve a loss we should have shared.”
Kreya snorted. “Seriously? You’re angry at me for grieving my husband. That’s it?”
“Yes. And for all the years since then.”
“Sorry for saving the world at great personal cost and needing time to recover.”
“Twenty-five years, Kreya. A quarter century! Maybe, just maybe, I needed you too! Ever think of that?” Zera shot to her feet, and her sycophants, who had been leaning in closer and closer, fell backward.
“I was in pain.”
“So was I! My heart hurt!” Zera grabbed the fabric of her shirt over her heart and yanked. Pearls and beads and jewels popped off. They sprinkled onto the marble floor, and Kreya watched them roll, scattering in every direction.
Zera’s chest was heaving, as if she’d run a race, and her curves were visible through the torn fabric, which Kreya had no doubt was intentional. She wore an expression of pure martyrdom, holding the pose, while her sycophants looked from her to Kreya and back again, waiting with bated breath.
Slowly, sarcastically, Kreya applauded.
Zera quit panting and closed the front of her shirt. “Go,” she said to her followers.
They scrambled up and out of the salon. A few of them slid on the pearls that littered the marble floor, then caught themselves on the pillars carved like skeletons. In seconds, all of them had tumbled out of the room. All that remained was the sound of waterfalls, trickling.
“You left me,” Zera repeated, but this time there were no theatrics.
“I’m sorry,” Kreya said quietly. She meant it. She’d never intended for any of it to happen—or yes, she had. They had defeated Eklor and become heroes, exactly as they’d wanted to.She had just never anticipated that doing so would destroy her. “Have you been all right?”
“Do you even care?”
Kreya considered that. It was an honest question; it deserved an honest answer. “Yes.”
Zera sank again onto her couch. “I told myself you’d come back. For a long time, I made excuses. ‘She just has to grieve.’ ‘She needs to be alone now.’ ‘She cares, but she doesn’t know how to express it.’ I waited for you. Kept my heart open for you. And then, when you didn’t come, all that hope switched to anger. I succeeded here, built all of this, in part to spite you, to show that I could be fine without you.”
Kreya didn’t know what to say, but she didn’t need to, because Zera wasn’t finished.
“And you know what I discovered? Iamfine. Without you. Now that you’ve come back, I look at you, and I know I should feel all that old anger and hate. I know that’s what they”—she gestured to where her sycophants had disappeared—“expect. But you know what I feel?”
Kreya shook her head.
“Nothing.” Zera scooped up a few of the fallen pearls, spread her fingers, and then let them fall again in her lap. “I feel nothing for you, Kreya, because you are nothing to me now. You are the past, and I’ve let go of the past.”
Kreya felt as if her ribs had tightened around her heart. She deserved that. And more. She hadn’t expected forgiveness. Still, a piece of her had hoped for it all the same. After all this time, she did still care what Zera thought and felt. “Very well. I understand. But the talismans—”
“What will you use them for?”
“I . . . I can’t tell you that.” She had intended to tell Zera the truth. She’d thought she owed her that much. But now . . . There was too great a risk that she’d be overheard, or that Zera would disapprove and try to stop her.
Zera laughed, an empty sound. “You came here, after all this time, to ask a favor and won’t tell me why? You have not lost your nerve.”
“It is for a good cause.”
“Is it? That’s nice. I charge for good causes. And for bad. My power bones are among the most coveted, and therefore most expensive, in Vos. How much gold did you bring with you, Kreya dear?”
“None. I had hoped our past friendship would be enough—”
