Queen of Ashes (13 page)

EPILOGUE

Chapter Twelve

THE LITTLE FAMLY of three stands before the cliff gate of Sharuna, glowing red-gold in the late-afternoon sun. Nothing stirs. There is no life here, no birds or insects. Sada has never seen anything so eerily still. So the rumors, the stories, the myths that have grown and spread across Egypt and beyond about this cursed city are true.

The landing where the boats used to dock to take on the huge limestone blocks has been destroyed by inundations and never repaired. The little boat left them off on the beach next to the steep staircase up the cliff face, the captain refusing to anchor at such an ill-fated place. He said he would wait upstream and come back at sunset.

“What now?” Amosis says.

Sada shrugs. “Those who have been here and returned say that she knows who waits outside her gates and will open them.”

They wait. A warm breeze blows a fine golden dust on her skin, like old times.

The gate opens, silently, and a dozen massive soldiers emerge, swords and shields gripped tightly. Hieroglyphs from the
Book of the Dead
are carved out of their flesh from the neck down.

One of them steps forward. “Come,” he says.

They enter the gate, followed by the
ushabti
warriors, and it closes behind them silently. As Sada walks down the streets, she wonders if she is in one of her recurring Sharuna dreams. The shops and houses, the temples and markets, are exactly the same as she remembers. But there are no people or horses, dogs or chickens, no buying or selling or gossiping.
No life
.

The palace courtyard is unspeakably empty and silent. The garden is the same, the long pool rippling slightly in the breeze.

Sada stops at the throne room threshold. Her heart hammers in her chest and something somersaults in her stomach. Her husband and daughter look back at her expectantly. Taking a deep breath, she enters its familiar coolness. Light filters in diagonal beams through the high windows. Hundreds of lamps flicker in alabaster bowls on the tall painted pillars, glowing with striations of orange and white and cream.

A guard stands at the bottom of the dais. Wazba.
The
Wazba. He grins and nods.

And there, high up on the dais, sits Laila on her throne. The same dais. The same throne. The same Laila. The same spot where Sada and Sarina used to stand behind her. Where they played at being goddesses for the contest of suitors.

The princess leans forward, her eyes intent. Sada runs up the steps awkwardly, tears streaming down her face, her arms outstretched. She embraces her old friend. But Laila's skin is cool and hard as stone. It is something not flesh. The stone arms embrace Sada with a fierce fervor, but she can feel no heartbeat pounding against her own.

After a time, Laila pulls away, sad dark eyes searching Sada's face. In some ways Sada sees before her the princess she knew; Laila has not aged a day in twenty years. Her skin is tanned now, no longer milky white. But there's another, greater change that Sada can't quite put her finger on. The set of her face is hard, the eyes a bit cruel.

“Finally,” Laila says, and her soft whisper echoes around the room, bouncing off pillars and walls, “you have returned to me.”

Sada pulls back, her heart breaking at this strange inhuman thing Laila has become. “At first we thought you died when Riel destroyed the city,” she says, hoping her voice sounds cheerful. “Then we heard reports that you were alive, but the city was cursed. Some of those who visited, asking for your hand, never returned.”

Laila smiles slowly. “Wicked ones. You remember the contest of suitors?”

Sada raises an eyebrow. “Beheaded?”

The princess nods. “It seems I am still Osiris, judge of souls. Only now I really can search men's hearts.”

She studies Sada carefully, a smile twitching on her lips. “You have not changed.”

This, Sada knows, is a total lie. She is twenty years older now, and a bit wider. She has smile lines around her mouth, and little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she laughs.

Laila's eyes light on Amosis and she smiles. “Amosis,” she says, “thank you for taking care of my friend.” Amosis, too, is older, his face etched with resting laugh lines.

Amosis steps forward and bows. “My princess,” he says. Sada sees concern on his brow, in the way he holds his mouth.

“And who is this?” Laila asks with a catch in her voice as she rises and glides past Sada down the steps. She stops before Sarina and cups her cheek. “Sarina,” she says, her voice raw with emotion.

The girl nods solemnly. “Everyone says I look just like my aunt. My mother has decreed we must have a Sarina in every generation to keep her memory alive.”

Laila's eyes brighten with unshed tears. Sada has never seen anyone look so unbearably sad. “Princess, let us stay with you awhile,” she says. “You seem so...lonely.”

“You cannot,” Laila says, her voice flat. “Every night at sundown the city turns into a graveyard. Dead bodies. Burned buildings. The screams of the dying. It would drive you mad.” Her sigh wafts across the room, making all the lamps flicker and nearly go out.

“How long,” Sada asks, stifling the sob rising in her chest, “must you live under this curse?”

Laila pulls open the turquoise beaded netting over her white linen gown, and Sada sees a white mark on the tanned skin, a scar in the shape of a lotus blossom. “Until someone brings me a pendant that fits into this scar,” she says. “That is why I let all strangers enter, to see if one has brought the pendant. I foresee that it will come, one day, though it could be hundreds, even thousands, of years in the future.”

Sada blinks back tears as Wazba and the soldiers march with them through the palace and back to the cliff gate. She shouldn't have come. She shouldn't have seen this.

The gates close silently behind them, and they make their way across the field and down the stone steps. The shadows lengthen before their little boat rounds the bend, and the captain eyes them closely before he lets them board, as if afraid they, too, might have been cursed.

They clamber onto the boat just as the air softens to a shimmering rose gold. As the southerly winds fill the two large, square sails and pushes the boat toward Thebes, Sada utters a fervent prayer that a savior will come soon to free Laila. She looks at her handsome, kind husband, wrapped in his own deep thoughts, head forward, arms crossed, and at her beautiful, talented daughter, trailing her fingers over the side of the boat into the Nile. Sada has so many gifts poor Laila will never have, including the gifts of aging and dying.

As they round the bend, she casts one long, lingering glance at the cliffs of Sharuna, wondering if her love can penetrate the curse. Doesn't light always chase away darkness? Or is this darkness simply too powerful?

“Goodbye,” she says, as the city slides from view.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
EMPIRE OF DUST
by Eleanor Herman

Be sure to check out all the titles in
New York Times
bestselling author Eleanor Herman's Blood of Gods and Royals series!

Royalty. Magic. Love. Betrayal.

It's in Their Blood.

Alexander
, Macedon's sixteen-year-old heir, is on the brink of discovering his fated role in conquering the known world.

Katerina
must navigate the dark secrets of court life while keeping hidden her own mission: kill the queen.

Jacob
will go to unthinkable lengths to win Katerina, even if it means having to compete with
Hephaestion
, a murderer sheltered by the prince.

And far across the sea,
Zofia
, a Persian princess, seeks the deadly Spirit Eaters to alter her destiny.

Read them all now!

VOICE OF GODS
(Novella)
LEGACY OF KINGS
(Book 1)
EMPIRE OF DUST
(Book 2)
QUEEN OF ASHES
(Novella)

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Empire of Dust

by Eleanor Herman

Chapter One

LEAVES RUSTLING. BRANCHES CREAKING
.

The tinkle of tiny bells and cymbals creeps toward her on the wind. Olympias—queen of Macedon, mother of Prince Regent Alexander—knows she is close.

She keeps walking through the trees of the sacred trail—where horses are forbidden—even though her legs ache and a dull pain in her lower back throbs from long hours in the saddle. She needs answers.

Finally, she sees the sacred oak in the clearing ahead, a tree that was already ancient when Troy burned. Its weighty lower limbs, thick as a man's body, rest on the ground, gray and gnarled, before curling up again.

The afternoon air is thick and warm, and a trickle of sweat drips down her neck. Her long, silver-blond hair has come undone, wisps blowing into her face as they did so often when she was young and preferred to wear it loose.

An eternity ago, on just such a summer afternoon full of birdsong and sunshine, she lay with
him
here, wrapped in his strong arms under these wide, whispering boughs. Then her heart was alive with love, and she truly believed she could feel the presence of the goddess who was said to dwell within the tree. Now her pulse is no more than a beating drum, counting the hours, months, years that have been lost. The emptiness of her life eats at her organs like the arsenic she has feared ever since she became queen. For all know that arsenic is the king of poisons, the poison of kings. And queens.

She feels the unquenchable hunger rising in her blood again, the insistent need for something—anything—to stop the torment. Watching as flames consumed the potter's house three days ago—hearing the screams of the family as her guards dragged them outside—satisfied her need for action for a few beautiful hours...but then the bright, warm blaze of vengeance quickly turned cold as ashes.

Frustration gnawing at her, she pushes her way into the sanctuary of the branches. The world under the tree is like a spacious villa, with countless rooms on many floors—long-empty—divided by diaphanous curtains of green. Golden light pours through dozens of windowlike partings. She approaches the trunk and runs a hand over the rough edges of the lumpy bark. How many warriors joining hands would it take to surround the trunk? Twelve? Fifteen?

A man's voice startles her and she inhales sharply. “I received your message, my queen.”

Lord Bastian steps out from behind the trunk and gives her a mocking bow—not quite low enough and far too fast. She lets herself take in the burning dark eyes and tall form, a bit sorry he isn't wearing the black leather uniform and horned helmet of an Aesarian Lord, although his mulberry-colored tunic shows off his lean muscles. His dark hair hangs in thick waves to his shoulders.

Olympias fingers the dagger in her cloak pocket and feels the sharpness of its tip. “You survived the battle,” she says archly. “My guards told me that my son performed brilliantly as general.”

The scar on Bastian's cheek twitches a bit, puckering. “Yes. It was an impressive performance. Still, I don't know that Alexander would have won if the girl hadn't helped him.”

The
girl
.

Olympias should be grateful to the wretch for saving Alexander's life, but all she can feel is a bright, hard anger pulsing through her veins. “My messengers have brought me stories that Katerina used a catapult to shoot amphorae full of scorpions and snakes at your army. That she unleashed the hellion—”

Bastian winces and waves a hand to stop her. “Speak no more of the battle,” he says, taking a step toward her. “The Lords have been humiliated. Despite our superior numbers, despite the fact that we are the best fighting force in the world, we were vanquished by a boy leading an untested army—and a girl tossing pots.”

He steps even closer, and she can feel his breath on her forehead. “Where have you been the past few days?” he asks. “Our spies say you left the palace before the battle.”

Her heart beats faster as he nears. It's not just that he's young and handsome and slender while her husband, King Philip, is middle-aged, stocky, and missing an eye. What draws her irresistibly to this Lord is the sense of danger that wafts about him like an Egyptian perfume. Intoxicating.

This man knows no loyalty—he is capable of doing anything, killing anyone. Even her. He's already tried once.

When her taster had fallen unconscious after sipping the queen's wine, Olympias learned from her guard that the Aesarian Lord Bastian, a guest at the palace, had been flirting with the serving maid while she was carrying the queen's tray to the royal rooms. It was not hard to conclude that he had poured poison into the cup while the silly fool was staring love-struck into his dark eyes.

She could have called her guards and had Bastian imprisoned, tortured, and executed—but that would have been the impetuous solution. Olympias has always prided herself on seeing the larger stage and possessing the patience to allow plots to unfold. She suspected the Lord would make a useful tool, and she had been right.

At her request, he had framed her long-lost daughter, Katerina, for his own misdeeds, keeping the queen free from Alexander's blame when his friend was flung into the dungeons. Bastian had whispered to her the Lords' plans to break into the palace, so she had had time to hide from the attackers in her hidden altar. Bastian had proven very useful—until the Aesarian Lords left the palace to prepare for battle against Macedon while King Philip was away in Byzantium.

With war declared between Macedon and the Lords, Bastian could obviously no longer serve as her spy in the palace. As easily as he'd become her minion for a brief time, his loyalties shifted.

But they are
always
shifting, she realizes now. She can see it in his eyes, the way self-interest and opportunity ripple across his vision like waves in a pond. He is more of a threat than ever before. He knows too much about her plots, her fears, and her needs.

She cannot allow him to live.

But she needs one last thing.

“What are you hiding?” he asks, tracing a finger across her jaw.

“All mortals have their weaknesses,” she says, refusing to answer his question. “That girl—Katerina...” The name tastes like acid on her tongue. “She happens to be mine. And yours, well...” She removes her cloak and unclasps the jeweled brooches at her shoulders, letting her gown slip down slowly until it pools around her ankles. Streaks of sunlight sway through the curtain of leaves and tickle her skin. “We all know yours.”

A man's eyes are the best mirror for a woman's beauty. When she gazes into his, a thrill of satisfaction, of power, moves through her. He closes the distance between them, unable to contain his hands, which weave themselves into her waist-length hair. He grabs on—a bit too hard—and draws her to him, his mouth pressing on hers. For a moment, she
wants
to be overpowered. Wants to forget.

She kisses him back, tasting the sweetness of his youth, his energy, his belief in his own invulnerability. Olympias was like that once, too. Long ago, when the world shimmered like a gem in the palm of her hand and anything seemed possible. Before the curse that ground the gem into dust.

But now, at least for a while, she can be young and free again as the wind rises around them, and the giant oak whispers restlessly, urging them on.

* * *

Olympias adjusts her gown as Bastian pulls on his boots. The sun is low on the horizon, its rays filtering in through the branches and turning the trunk bright red in patches.

“I won't make it back to the fortress until the day after tomorrow,” he says. “And you? You, too, have a long ride back to Pella, or are you returning to Erissa? What were soldiers doing there—looking for the girl?”

When she doesn't respond, he picks up his sword belt and buckles it around his slim hips. “Why does that girl matter so much? What is she to you?”

“
She
is nothing,” Olympias says. “But she is the key to freeing someone infinitely more important.”

He tilts his head and stares at her. “Who can be that important to the queen of Macedon?” His eyes narrow. “A lover, perhaps?” He laughs as she looks quickly away from him. “What—you think I don't know you're imagining someone else when we're together? I don't care. I'm not in love with you. Zeus help the man who is.”

Olympias pretends to focus on tying her sandal strap, but she is angry. Not with Bastian, but with herself. Has she gotten so soft that she can't mask her feelings? Philip never knew. But then, Philip is a fool.

“You spoke of freeing him. Is this lover a slave, then? I would like to see the man who has such an effect on you,” he says, taking a step toward her. He towers over her, his long shadow swallowing her. “More of an effect, even,” he says slowly, “than me.”

“A slave? No,” she says sharply, standing and slapping the dirt from her robe.
I am not afraid of you,
she thinks as she flings the cloak over her shoulders, aware of her dagger's weight in the right pocket. “No
man
could ever have a hold on me.” She's tired of his arrogance. He speaks to her as if he owns her—and she is no toy.

He grabs her wrist hard and leans in to her, his breath hot on her cheek. “A woman, then,” he says, his eyes lighting up with sensual amusement.

“A
god!
” she spits at him, her patience done. She hasn't spoken the word in years, but it doesn't matter that he knows because after today he will cease to exist. Bastian thinks he knows what power is—but what he knows is only a poor imitation of true majesty.

It takes Bastian a moment to comprehend what she's saying, but she can see the instant he understands. His eyes burn, sharp as flints.

Suddenly, his expression softens, and he puts a hand on her arm. “In that case, I can't be jealous of my rival, Olympias,” he says, his voice oddly gentle. “Indeed, you have my sympathy. It's ruinous for a mortal to love a god.”

She says nothing, though his words unsettle her. She doesn't want his pity.

The wind moans. All around them, the chimes tied to the branches—offerings to the goddess—clang like harsh laughter, the ribbons dance, the branches pop and wheeze.

He plucks a leaf off her robe. “Wouldn't you rather have a companion of flesh and bone?”

Olympias smiles, more to herself than to the scarred Lord. He would never understand the sensation of being next to the burning soul of a being made from the same stuff as the stars, who has wind in his blood, and fire for a heart.

“You have been a most amusing companion of flesh and bone,” she purrs, placing a small white hand on his chest, feeling the hardness of muscles. She runs her hand down to his abdomen, lingering a moment on his rib cage and feeling the tendons alternate with bone. The best place in which to slide a dagger.

He stops her hand from dipping lower. “Let's toast to that.” He pulls a goatskin from his pack, and she observes as he puts it to his lips, drinking deeply. She watches carefully, noting when he swallows. “Ah, Chian wine,” he says. “Even better than the gods' nectar.” He passes the goatskin to her.

It's strong and sweet, and she feels it warming her chest. She tries to hand the goatskin back to him, but he shoos her hand away.

“Have more,” he says, studying her intently.

A red-hot spike of fear shoots up her spine. “No,” she replies, pushing the goatskin away too hard. “I don't...don't...” Her words slur, and her head is suddenly crushed by dizziness.

Poison.

Impossible. She
saw
him sip it, too...

The wind whips angrily through the tree; the huge boughs seem to rise up like arms and drop down again with a groan as the bells and cymbals jangle. The world reels diagonally, and Olympias drops to the ground, facing the tree trunk. She hears Bastian's footsteps crunch over the leaves as he walks away. She tries to turn her head to see, but she can't.

Her blood turns to ice, slowing and hardening in her veins. Her breathing slows, too—she can't get air. Blackness descends all around her, muffling the swishing leaves, the creaking branches, and the sound of her heartbeat, faltering.

Copyright © 2016 by Paper Lantern Lit LLC and Eleanor Herman