Rachel Aaron: Spirit’s End

“I’m your favorite!” Nara screamed. “I’ve always been your favorite! For the last eight hundred years I’ve given you my utter devotion. I gave you half the world as a peaceful, prosperous Empire! I raised you an army and sailed across the Unseen Sea. I destroyed an island, sacrificed my men, all for you! Everything I’ve ever done has been for you! So why? Why am I so summarily replaced by this disobedient, arrogant, faithless—”

The words froze in her throat as the air around her solidified. Suddenly, Nara couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe. In front of her, Benehime’s white mouth curled in a disgusted sneer.

You will not speak so of my favorite.

Completely frozen, Nara could only stare in response.

The Lady reached down and took Eli’s wrist. He flinched when she touched him, but didn’t say a word as the Shepherdess lifted his hand and held it out to Nara.

I am the Shepherdess, the Lady said, turning the thief’s hand palm down and pushing it forward until his fingers were half an inch from Nara’s frozen lips. A Power of Creation, given dominion over all spirits by the Creator himself. There is no opinion in the world that matters save mine, no will save my will. Now, do you love me, Nara?

The frozen air thawed just enough for Nara to take a breath. “Yes,” she whispered, tears running down her face. “But—”

And do you wish to stay by my side forever?

“I do.” The words burned in Nara’s throat.

The Lady smiled a cruel, beautiful smile. Then know your place. She pushed Eli’s fingers closer to Nara’s lips. Kiss my favorite and apologize for hurting his lava spirit and putting his friends in danger.

Nara stared at the Lady, her battered body perfectly still though the frozen air had already released her.

Benehime’s smile faded. Do it, she snapped. Prove you love me. Honor my favorite and take your place at the bottom of my stars.

Nara glanced at the thief’s fingers, now barely a quarter of an inch from her lips. On the Shepherdess’s lap, Eli’s face was a calm, bored mask, his gaze fixed on some unseen spot on the ground. But as much as he tried to hide it, Nara saw the truth. The thief’s eyes were full of pity. He pitied her, and in that moment, Nara hated him more than she knew she could hate. But even so, even though it boiled her blood to do it, she leaned forward until her lips touched the thief’s outstretched hand.

“Hail the favorite,” she whispered.

Eli flinched as though the kiss were an arrow in his chest, but the Shepherdess looked pleased. She dropped Eli’s hand and reached out to lay her fingers gently on Nara’s head.

Poor Nara, the Shepherdess said, stroking her hair. You probably think I’ve played you unfairly these last few days.

The Empress resisted the urge to lean into the Lady’s touch. “You used me,” she said, glaring daggers at Eli. “To get to him.”

That I did, the Shepherdess said. But it was you who said you would do anything for me. What could be a greater honor than being a tool in the pursuit of my happiness?

Nara clenched her teeth and said nothing.

Unfortunately, the Shepherdess went on, all tools outlive their usefulness eventually.

Nara blinked. “What?”

Times are changing, Nara, the Shepherdess went on, stroking the Empress’s dark hair absently, like she was petting a cat. There’s no room anymore for the disobedient.

“What?” Nara said again, louder this time.

The Shepherdess’s fingers suddenly curled, tangling in Nara’s hair, and the Empress cried in pain as Benehime wrenched her head up.

You shouldn’t have thrown that water on my favorite’s lava spirit, she whispered, her white eyes boring into Nara’s. You shouldn’t have come here uninvited, and you should have kissed my Eliton’s hand the first time I told you to. One disobedience I could overlook; three is simply insulting.

Nara’s eyes watered at the pain of Benehime’s grip on her hair. This was all wrong. This was not how it was supposed to be. The Shepherdess was her beloved, her everything.

“No,” she whispered, reaching up to grab Benehime’s hand. She clutched the Lady’s white wrist, arching her neck painfully as she tried to kiss it. “I love you. If I was ever disobedient, it was from love of you. Tell me what to do, tell me how to change to make you love me again.” Her voice rose to a frantic shriek. “Tell me how to love you and I’ll do it!”

The pain in her head faded as Benehime’s fingers released their grasp. The White Lady snatched her hand away and looked down with a disgust so intense Nara barely recognized her.

Why would I need you? she said, her voice cold as a glacier’s heart as she pulled the thief closer. I already have someone to love me. Good-bye, Empress.

Nara doubled over as something inside her, something deeper than she’d ever known her soul could go, twisted and broke. All at once, she could no longer feel her body. She tried to breathe, but her lungs wouldn’t obey. Looking down at her shaking hands, Nara saw her skin turn gray, then white, then vanish altogether. Her bones shrank before her eyes, growing smaller and brittler until they snapped under their own weight. Her chest ached, and she looked down to see that it was caving in.

She would have screamed then, but there was no longer breath in her crumbling throat. As her vision went dark, her last thought was a memory. She was kneeling in the swamp again, and Benehime was reaching out, her lovely fingers curved in an inviting gesture, her light lighting up the world. Before Nara could rise and go to her, the moment was gone, and she fell to dust with Benehime’s name on the last remnants of her lips.

Well, Benehime said, shaking her hand as though she could shake the last feel of Nara from her skin, that’s that.

On her lap, Eli was staring at the pile of dust that, seconds ago, had been the most powerful ruler in the world. “What did you do?” he whispered.

She was no longer worthy of being my star, Benehime said. So I removed my blessing and allowed age to catch up with her at last. Eight hundred years is a lot to handle all at once. I guess she couldn’t take it.

Eli’s voice was shaking so badly he could barely get the words out. “But she loved you.”

Everything loves me, the Shepherdess said with a shrug. Even you. Isn’t that right, darling?

Eli said nothing, and the Shepherdess tightened her grip, her sharp fingers biting into his ribs.

None of that, she whispered. I won. You’re mine, remember? Now, don’t you love me, darling?

Eli turned to her with a slow smile. “Of course I do.”

Benehime smiled back and gave him a kiss on the nose. Then she motioned for him to get off her lap. Eli moved to sit where she motioned, leaving the Shepherdess some space as she turned to talk to the Lord of Storms.

Their conversation was low and tense. It sounded like an old argument, and though Eli tried to listen, his attention kept drifting to the Lady’s floating sphere, which was hanging in the air by his elbow. Particularly, his eyes kept going to one small island off the coast of the western continent where the fires were still burning in a destroyed city as dawn broke over the eastern sea.

Josef Liechten, King of Osera, was spending the twentieth hour of his reign in the still-smoking shell of Osera’s throne room, listening to old men argue.

He sat on the steps of the throne beside the one remaining iron lion. The other lay toppled on the floor, its head melted to slag by the foot of the war spirit whose cold corpse lay collapsed in the rubble of what had been the throne room’s western wall. The throne was crushed as well, the carved stone bench and backboard pounded into gravel. That was probably for the best. Sitting on the stairs listening to his mother’s advisers bicker over Osera’s future was bad enough. If Josef had been forced to sit in her chair for it, he probably would have walked out.