Garden of Madness (29 page)

“What makes you think he knows?”

Tia began to find her strength at these words. Something about his smug tone, the way he taunted her with unanswered questions.

Shadir, always with the knowledge of secrets
. From Amel-Marduk’s parentage to her own, from furtive plots to overthrow thrones to surreptitious spells whispered in the bowels of the palace, Shadir swathed himself in the unknown. The mysteries and questions sickened her, and she would fight back.

Tia took a step toward him, hands fisted at her sides. “Do you think I cannot stop you?”

Something behind his eyes flared in response to her challenge. “Stop me? I do not think you even understand me.”

“Enlighten me, then. What is this knowledge you possess?”

He licked his lips, and she sensed he wished to tell her many things. She held her breath.

“You came to me with questions once before, Princess. Do you remember?”

“You told me Pedaiah killed Kaldu because he had poisoned my husband. None of this was truth.”

“Your husband was killed to free you. I would say that makes
you
responsible for his death.”

“Free me? To marry Amel?”

Shadir shrugged. “He is not the only prince who seeks your hand.”

Had her mother killed Shealtiel to marry her to her cousin?

“And who killed Kaldu?”

“I would say that Kaldu knew too much. Someone had to silence his . . . eagerness to be of service.”

“You? Did you rip Kaldu apart like a beast?”

“Again, you presume what you do not know.”

She was getting nowhere, and he would give her nothing more, this she knew.

“I will expose your intent, Shadir. I will even expose myself if necessary.” Tia drew herself up, nearly as tall as he, and took another step, narrowing the space between them. “I will tell the people I am not the king’s daughter. Where will your plan to marry me to Amel be then?”

They stood with bodies nearly touching, in that grand Hall with its lofty, unseen ceilings, and she felt strong, strong enough to wield word and body against him.

But he held her there too long. No response, no flutter of fear or even concern crossing his expression. Only slack cheeks and parted lips and hollow eyes.

The room grew colder. A chill draft circled her feet like fog, swirling upward around their bodies. It whipped the brazier flames into a frenzy but seemed to douse the sunlight, and Tia touched a hand to the table again to fight the sway of her head.

He spoke at last, the words sharpened into lethal precision, cutting low against her belly. “Your objections are nothing to me, Princess. Understand that. I will have my man on the throne.”

“I will tell the queen of your plot. She shall have you executed.” Her voice sounded faint, childlike.

The corner of his lip twitched upward. “You have lived in the palace all your life, and still you know nothing of power, little girl. Your mother, however, is a wise woman. She knows I am only the whisper of wind before the storm that is to come.”

He tipped her chin upward with his hand, a false affection that nauseated. “There is a web of power here in the palace, spread through the temples, all the way to the Tower of Etemenanki, that supports my cause. Will you untangle this entire web, little princess?”

She batted his hand away, but the dizzying coldness threw her off balance, and she stumbled as though she’d been slapped.

He is a sorcerer. Appealing to demons, not a servant of the gods
.

As though he read her thoughts, Shadir smiled. Satisfied, like he’d swallowed her whole.

But she would not be defeated without a fight. “I will do whatever I must to save the kingdom and my father.”

“Yes, your father.”

She would not think of that untruth. Not now. She must retain her strength, fight Shadir.

“You are not all-powerful, Shadir. You can be destroyed.”

He advanced on her then, towered over her with an expression of contempt, disgust. A look one gave to a vile insect in the moment before it was crushed.

“Listen to me, Princess.” The words hissed from his near-motionless lips. “They are
everywhere
, those loyal to me. Watching you. Studying you. Just as they have watched over Amel for years. Not a single action goes unreported.”

She tried to back away, but he grabbed her arms and pulled her to himself.

“Everywhere you go, you are not alone. Every word you speak, it is heard.” He leaned to her face, put his cold cheek against her own, and spoke into her ear. “Even your thoughts are mine.”

She could not stop the spinning of the Hall. The floor upended and the tarred walls flickered and the high and unreachable window fell to her feet. Bile rose in her throat and her legs would have failed if Shadir did not still hold her in his grip.

“Did you think you could so savagely murder the slave girl Ying and not face consequences?”

So this was part of his plan? To blackmail her?

“Do what you must, Princess.” His gaze grazed her face. “But understand that I hold the very lives of your family in my hands. Your mother. Your sisters. Your young, beautiful nephews.” His words battered and pounded her mind, no chance to breathe, to react. “They all belong to me.”

He released her and she fell against the table. Her hand swept its surface, grasped for something solid. His knives and instruments scattered. A bowl teetered and fell, smashed to shards of blood-tinged clay. She sucked air into her chest, steadied her limbs.

“It is time for you to leave, Princess.”

With the simple dismissal came a release of the stranglehold on her heart and body.

He has been in control all along
.

Tia clutched her stomach, still fighting queasiness, and backed away from Shadir and his table of horrors, backward through the gloom of the Hall until her heels struck the base of the steps. Shadir did not take his eyes from her.

She feared to turn, feared that he would somehow strike her dead if she showed him her back.

I must run
.

She must be rid of his foul presence. With a deep breath she spun to the steps, sped upward, and fled under the columned arch of the Hall of Magi.

CHAPTER 34

I must run
.

Tia’s only cohesive thought echoed, propelled feet and body away from the Hall.

Not the king’s daughter
.

She would not think of it. She would hold it by her fingertips, arm outstretched, a reeking piece of filth. And she would turn away from the stench.

The corridors of the palace raced past, distorted and hazy as she ran.

She jolted around a corner and the guard in the lower east corridor snapped to a stiff salute, then trotted alongside.

“Does my lady wish to use her training chamber?”

The answer huffed from her chest on an expelled breath. “Yes. Yes, I must run.”

He pushed the door open and she fell into the familiar room. Meager light from the doorway did little to chase shadows.

She stripped her robes as if they were contaminated by Shadir’s words, stripped to her short tunic and even unbelted.

“Shall I retrieve a torch, my lady? Light the braziers?”

She heard the curiosity in the guard’s voice but ignored it. “Yes. Light them.”

He disappeared, but she would not wait.

She ran the dark circuit by memory, pounded the length of the room, turned at the shadowy corner, then turned again and sprinted back to the head of the black chamber.

I know this room better than I know my own self
.

No, she would not think of that.

A musty dankness she never noticed in the light closed around her as she ran, thickening her throat. The guard returned, thrust his torch through the doorway ahead of his body, as if to ensure his safety. She passed him and kept running.

Blessed sweat seeped from her pores, a cleansing. She pushed harder, until her chest heaved and her legs trembled with the furious pace.

The six braziers sizzled and popped, their smoky oil assailing her nose at each mad intake of breath, the harsh yellow flames like six demon eyes.

And still she ran. She ran until the pain licked tongues of fire at her calves too hot to bear and then she stumbled and fell and lay panting on the floor.

Her mouth tasted of salted sweat and smoke, but the sour emptiness of her stomach intruded and she fought to keep from retching while her throbbing breaths slowed.

Amytis had lied. Lied too many times to count, but this deception was far greater than any other.

And yet she needed her mother’s power, must think of king and kingdom and their protection. Only Amytis held the influence needed to stop Shadir.

Tia leaned her forehead against the cool floor mat, felt the linen wick away the dampness, felt her hair stuck fast to her skin.

She must find a way to control her destiny. She would not marry the Median prince, nor Amel, though he was not her brother.

She will not have her way. Not in this
.

As her feet had carried her here from the Hall of Magi, they now directed her past her training bull, through the chamber, and into the corridor.

She would speak to Amytis.

Tia reached her chamber within minutes. No guard attended her door, meaning she was absent. Tia shoved the door open and scanned the room. A young attendant quivered at the wall, biting her lip and staring at her with wide, guileless eyes.

“Fetch my mother. Tell her I wish to speak to her at once in her chamber.”

The girl’s head quivered in some sort of agreement and she scurried past to do Tia’s bidding.

The room held none of its charms for Tia today. Amytis occupied these chambers, protected from truth, as though she lived encased in a cushioned shell, safe from any consequences.

The heat of her run still fired Tia’s skin, lit her senses. She paced the room, unable to remain still. No words formed in advance of the confrontation. Only images. The king’s arms around her on the eve of her wedding. In the Gardens, his long beard and yellowed nails scraping stones. Shadir’s lifeless face, marked only by a knowing half-smile. Her mother’s treacherous beauty.

Amytis arrived at last, smelling of flowers and wine, drifting into her chambers like a waft of costly incense.

She stopped inside the door, her eyes wide and lips parted. “Tiamat, by the gods, what has happened to you?” Her mother’s gaze traveled the length of her.

Tia had not donned her robes before leaving the training room. She stood in her simple unbelted tunic, its light fabric clinging to her damp body the way her hair stuck to her cheeks.

“The truth has happened, Mother. The truth.”

A flicker of fear in her mother’s eyes. Tia saw it and a holy anger swelled like a burst dam in her chest.

Amytis turned to her attendants and inclined her head toward the door—the slight, superior motion of a woman accustomed to having every directive obeyed.

They disappeared and Tia continued her pacing.

“Tia, settle yourself down. You are behaving like—”

“Like what? A madwoman? Has that particular trait been passed along to the next generation?”

Amytis’s lips tightened, as if she tried to keep the truth from slipping through.

“Oh, but wait. How could I have inherited madness from the king?” Her voice had taken on a hot, feverish pitch.

Her mother’s composure in the face of her questions angered Tia further. She noticed only a slight shift of her shoulders, a pulling back as though she braced herself for a blow.

“Yes, how could that be, Mother?
When I am not the king’s daughter?”
Tia scraped the hair from her face, her eyes, exposing herself to the terrible truth. Would she shrivel in its searing light?

Amytis swallowed convulsively, the cords of her neck straining with the movement. The muscles in her jaw knotted and pulsed. She swayed on her feet and Tia thought she might fall. But then a cold light returned to her eyes and she lifted her chin.

“I did not want you to know.”

“No, of course not. Why would you want your foolishness known?”

Amytis crossed to the window, a gliding motion that belied any disturbance of emotion. Did she need air? Did she feel trapped?

Tia pursued, pushed up against her back to continue her accusations, to ask the question that had burned through her since Shadir’s pronouncement. Her mother’s hair brushed her cheek and smelled like lavender.

“Tell me the truth, Mother. Did he know? Know what you are?”

Amytis stiffened.

“Did he know what I am, Mother?”

What did Tia wish her answer to be? That the man she had known as her father was unaware of her parentage and believed her a princess? Or that he knew and loved her still?

“He has always known.” Amytis whispered the words over the city, washed in the blinding light of midday that obscured all decay.

Tia’s chest collapsed against itself. “Why did he not expel you from the palace? Send us both away?”

“Because he is a proud man.”

The one statement Tia knew to be truth. His pride had been legendary.

Amytis lifted her hand to her face, used an elegant fingertip to wipe the tiniest drop of moisture from the corner of her eye. “And because he loved me.”

In spite of herself, Tia must also acknowledge this truth, though she had never understood it.

She pushed away from the window, strode across her mother’s lavish chamber, and turned on her. “Shadir has full knowledge of the truth, Mother. He had Shealtiel killed to marry me to the king’s true heir: Amel-Marduk. He has threatened to destroy our family, down to the youngest of us, if I do not comply. You must stop him.”

Amytis spun, her eyes afire. “What do you think I have been doing, Tia? Did you think I summoned my cousin from Media for your happiness?”

Tia laughed, a short burst of false mirth. “No, I never believed such a lie.”

“Then let me do what I must! And you must do your part!”

Tia marched toward her, and Amytis braced her hands against the window’s sill at her back. “I will not again be controlled. Nor allow you to expose the king and give his kingdom to the Medes.”