Queen of Ashes (7 page)

Now, bathed and dressed, she decides it is time to speak to Brehan. She has made her choice. Love is nothing. It can never be counted on. Power is everything. She exits the litter and strides across the field.

He waves to her and, as she approaches, says, “Good morning, Princess.” She's relieved he seems neither furious nor cold, simply friendly. “I have good news for you and bad.”

“Tell me the bad news first,” she says, steeling herself.

He runs a hand through his tousled hair. “There are three more cases of plague in the city. A painter's wife. A scribe. The six-year-old child of a temple priest.”

Laila closes her eyes. “And the good news?”

“The irrigation system is working perfectly,” he says, eying the rows and rows of small green barley plants. “In less than four months, these crops will be chest-high and ready to harvest. You will have a rich store of grain for your people.”

Thanks be to all the gods. Yet her happiness is tempered by the knowledge that this man standing right in front of her, the man she almost married, is a murderer
.
And he didn't just kill a man in a barroom brawl. He killed the girl he loved.

“Come,” he says, “walk with me to the retaining pool.” They tread carefully in between the rows of tender green shoots of barley extending bristly pointed leaves skyward. In the shade of the canvas covering the pool, Brehan takes a long stick from the ground and thrusts it into the water. He pulls it out and nods in approbation. “We are keeping the levels high,” he says, straightening. “Though the river hasn't risen, the nonflood flow is still strong, and our pipes and gates are working perfectly.”

“Thank you for staying on and keeping an eye on it,” she says. “But that's not the reason I wanted to talk to you.” She rubs her elbow, wondering how to begin. “You see, Riel told me that you and he used to be...” She pauses. It sounds so silly. And yet, given all the magic she has seen the brothers do, she knows it must be true. “Gods.”

He starts to speak, but she holds up a hand to stop him. “Please, let me finish. I always knew there was something different about you, but I wasn't sure what. I thought you were a powerful sorcerer perhaps, with some oracular powers. You can foresee events, right? That's how you knew the storm would come and the flood would not.”

He winces. “Not exactly. I could feel that the Nile wasn't going to flood. It is as if the river spoke her secret to me. But as for the storm...” He sighs deeply, staring at her in something like desperation. “I caused it.”

“You caused it?” she asks sharply. That has caught her completely unaware. “Why?”

“To meet you, Laila. I had seen you at Memphis, sitting on your throne on the Nile barge, in the parade of ships for Sobeq's festival. You looked so much like her, I felt as if a spear had pierced my heart.”

Laila remembers that procession. Her barge was one of many following the floating temples—each one the size of Pharaoh's throne room—made of cedar wood and covered with gold and silver ornaments flashing in the sun. The gem-studded, larger-than-life statues of animal-headed gods sat on thrones under rich awnings. Bald priests prodded enormous incense burners with gilded pokers as waves of perfumed smoke wafted toward shore. Colorful barge flags snapped and waved as musicians played tambourines, flutes and drums.

“But it wasn't just because of the similarity,” he continues in a nervous rush. “It was also
you
. I could see your wisdom, your struggle, the pain you wore like a sparkling dark veil. I asked people what city the symbol of the chisel and wedge on the barge pennants belonged to, and they told me Sharuna. I wanted to find you immediately, but then I thought about the horrors of last time and pushed the thought away. You see, she meant everything to me, and it didn't end well.”

I suppose not, since you killed her.

He brushes hair out of his face and kicks the ground. He looks around the fields, as if he can find the right words there, in between the barley seedlings. Despite the bright warmth of the day, Laila feels as if she is falling into a cold, dark place.
The horrors of last time.
Riel was telling the truth.

Brehan inhales deeply and continues. “I have had lovers since Cassandra, but I have never allowed myself to
fall
in love because that was the dangerous part. Until I saw you on the barge. Only heartbreak awaited me with this stern princess, I thought. I took the next boat for Crete. And bounced back soon after, knowing I would have no peace until I found you. My heart sank like a stone when I entered Sharuna and heard of the contest of suitors for your hand in marriage. And it soared like a falcon when I learned you had chosen none.”

He turns his impossibly blue eyes toward her now and smiles sheepishly. “You were still free. And I could meet you if only I came up with a good excuse. On the Nile boat, I had passed Sharuna's thatch-covered grain storage silos on the cliffs and known what to do. Offer to save the grain that would be destroyed in a storm. Then send Sharuna the fiercest storm ever and emerge as her people's savior.”

Liar.
Riel was right about that, too. This man is a liar who started off their relationship with a lie. “If you can make it rain,” she says, her voice as taut as a bowstring, “why build the new irrigation system? Why not cause a refreshing late-afternoon shower every day?”

Brehan puffs his cheeks out and blows air out of his mouth. “You know how you can command the Bennu only once a year?” he says. “You know how you would have a hard time making him perform for a few minutes every afternoon?”

“Yes, but I'm not a
god
,” she snaps. “Are you telling me you can only make it rain once a year?”

“Sometimes twice,” he says, grimacing. “One year I even did it three times. Lightning, yes. That I can always do. But rain is unpredictable. I'm not fully a god anymore. My powers are limited, fractured. I'm but a pale shadow of what I once was.”

She studies him coldly, unsure if she should believe a word. “Then tell me about the powers you do possess,” she asks.

“I have the earth in my blood,” he says, bending down and picking up a handful of rich brown soil. He pokes a finger in it and pushes it around as he continues. “I am in tune with rocks and metal, air and water and earth. I can cause them to shift and move, to join together or break apart. I can heal injuries but not illness. I used to have that power, but destroying the Fountain of Youth fractured my gifts.”

“And Riel? Does he have the same powers as you?” She thinks about his commanding the butterflies. That sounds like nothing Brehan has just described.

He shakes his head, throws down the dirt and dusts his hands. “Riel is more in touch with living beings—people and animals. He can easily enter into them, feel what they're feeling and command them to do his bidding if they don't have the strength to resist. He can even transform himself into an animal, though his favorite form is that of a snake. That is why he calls his descendants Snake Blood.”

Laila remembers the large green snake on her window ledge, high up the tower, who seemed to be eavesdropping on her conversation with the twins about marrying Brehan. Could it be...

“Most disturbingly...” He pauses.

“Most disturbingly what?” she asks.

“Most disturbingly, he can reanimate corpses if they haven't been dead too long, if the muscles have not yet decomposed. He can make dead birds fly, dead fish swim, even dead people walk for a time. It is his favorite trick to scare people half to death.”

Laila nods as a shudder creeps up her back. The butterflies.

“I cannot do any of those things,” Brehan says, shrugging. “He was always the more powerful brother. And we both share the great curse of neither aging nor dying.”

“You will never die?” she asks, staring at him as if she is seeing him for the first time. Just how old is he?

“Only a magical person or creature could kill us.”

“Is that why you didn't want to marry me after you had time to think about it?” she asks, suddenly understanding. “You didn't want a wife who would grow old and ugly.”

“No,” he says, raising a hand to touch her face and then awkwardly lowering it. “I'll admit at first there were days when I wondered if I shouldn't get too close to you, so I kept to my rooms and acted aloof. After what happened last time, I was afraid I might somehow bring disaster to you, too, if I let myself love you.”

So that was the reason behind his periodic withdrawals. Reluctantly, she has to admit there is a kind of logic to it. She had misjudged him.

“But then my feelings became so strong I couldn't deny them anymore. And it wasn't because you looked like her. It was because you were you—a very different person from Cassandra, a person I was hopelessly in love with. But there was the difference in our stations—you, a highborn princess, and me, a lonely wanderer with a few magic tricks. And the knowledge that your princely suitor, Amosis, would return to ask for your hand. And then there came that day when the water first flowed, do you remember?”

Laila nods. It was the most beautiful day of her life.

“You agreed to marry me. I had never been so happy, Laila. I would have married you that night on the temple porch if Riel hadn't attacked me.” He inhales deeply and says quietly, “I would have gladly stayed by your side if you lived to be a hundred and grieved for you every day after you died. What can I do to prove it to you?”

After Riel nearly smothered her in butterflies this morning, Laila can believe it. It occurs to her that if Riel had been the snake listening to her plans to meet him at the temple, he might have intercepted Brehan that night. But why? Was he afraid Brehan would stay here with her and never go to the Eastern Mountains?

But that doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters is becoming a goddess to help her people. “You can prove it to me by taking me with you when you and Riel go to the Fountain of Youth to regain your divinity,” she says. “We can all go together.”

He stares at her, stunned. “Are you saying that if I went, you would go with me?”

“Yes, of course,” Laila replies.

“Why?” he asks. “I thought you hated me. Why all of a sudden—”

“If you still care for me,” she says, lightly touching his hand, “once you and Riel are gods again, you can make me a goddess, too. I want to help my people. The plague is here. In the future there might be war or locusts or other catastrophes. I need that power, Brehan. If you ever cared for me, don't deny me this.”

Brehan pulls his hand away from hers and takes a step back. “Riel put you up to this, didn't he? He tempted you with the idea of becoming a goddess.”

She has no words.

He looks at her with something like pity. “My brother is a liar, Laila,” he says. “Even if we did become gods again, it is not possible for us to make you one.”

“Why not?” she asks, her irritation rising. “What about Ariadne? Leukothea and Psyche? Were they not made immortal?”

“Yes,” he says. “But that was long ago. And the gods who immortalized them were far more powerful than Riel or I ever were, let alone how we are now with our greatly diminished abilities. Not all gods have the same gifts, the same powers, Laila. Gods are different just as people are different. Some people can sing beautifully, others can run like a gazelle for hours on end. Some can—”

“You are the liar!” she interrupts. “Riel told me all about you. You lied to me about Cassandra. She didn't break your heart. You killed her, didn't you?”

“She did...break my heart,” he begins, looking so sorrowful that for a moment Laila wants to take him in her arms. “And it is also true that my actions caused her death.” Then he turns his gaze to her hair and as he touches it, his expression becomes not pain, but horror. When he pulls his hand away, a butterfly sits on his fingers, slowly flexing its milky-white wings.

“Where did you get this?” he asks, his glance a burning accusation.

Laila gazes in shock at the creature. Riel's little joke, he called it, his way of letting Brehan know he had slept with a woman. It hadn't been there when the twins were bathing and dressing her; they would have said something about it when they were trying to put a wig on her and she pushed it away. Riel must have sent it to follow her here in the fields, alighting in her hair so Brehan would think they had slept together.

“Where were you last night?” he asks, each word a stab.

She feels a hot blush rising to her cheeks. She cannot look him in the eye. Even if nothing happened, she was in his brother's bed.

“No,” Brehan growls, and the earth itself seems to tremble. “No! Not again! You slept with him! You slept with my brother!” His voice rises to a roar, or is it the earth that roars? The river? Laila starts to tell him nothing happened, but the ground below her tilts and she falls flat in the dirt. The poles all around the pool that hold the canvas cover snap and it falls into the water. She hears a loud groaning sound, and the ground on the other side of the pool heaves upward. She pushes herself up and sees the water in the pools whoosh downward into a newly opened crevasse. At the same time, the ground above the pipe system explodes. The pipes crack and water sprays into the air.

Laila feels as if she is riding a wildly bucking horse when she is lying flat on the ground and wonders if she is trapped in a horrible dream. Brehan is still standing, legs spread for balance. His eyes are closed and his hands are on his head. Is he doing this? Has his power unleashed the earthquake? Laila staggers up amid the heaving, grumbling earth and goes to him. “Stop it!” she cries.

He doesn't see her. He's almost crushing his head with his powerful hands. But slowly the earth settles.

Brehan opens his eyes and lowers his arms. She has never seen anyone look so horrified.