Chapter Five
I awoke to the hum of bees. They were back. My eyes snapped open in excitement.
It was still dark, but not as dark as it would have been if a glowing golden bee hadn’t popped up into my palm.
“You’re back,” I breathed, not sure if it was gratitude or relief that was filling me to the brim. “I’ve missed you, little friend. Listen to me, bee, we are in trouble.”
The bee bounced on my hand as if it was trying to agree, trying to tell me something.
“I need you now more than ever. I need you to help me speak to my family. Tell them I’m going to end this. Tell them not to come for me,” I whispered.
How a little bee could possibly do that – well, I didn’t know. But I knew bees communicated. I knew that they spoke to one another. Maybe my bee could speak to my people for me, too.
I thought of how they could spread in a swarm. The Forbidding had claimed to have a tangle in every heart, but there was a bee for every tangle. As a swarm, there was no evil they couldn’t unwind, no hurt they couldn’t at least try to heal. They could do this, too. I had every confidence in them.
“You’re going to have to fly very high, above the flames. And very far – all the way back to the colonies. Can you do this for me, little bee? Can you fly and fly and fly and be free like I never can again?”
The bee spun a circle around my head like a golden ring and then zipped up into the air.
“Fly with speed and blessing, little be. You hold my hope in your heart. Pollinate it across the land as you go.”
As she sped away, I sent my heart with him and all my love and my last goodbyes. I’d probably never see that little bee again – just like I’d never see my loved ones again. But if I did this right, they would all be free and safe again. I just needed to focus. I just needed to be faithful. I just needed to do as I must.
I rose in the darkness, calling another bee to my palm to light my way down the spiral stairs outside the tower. My muscles were stiff and my bones ached as if I’d slept three nights instead of three hours and my torn dress was barely thick enough to keep even a brush of the cold at bay.
When I reached the fires below, I found those who came with me fast asleep under blankets and in the jackets they’d worn here. None of them had offered me anything at all. This proved that I was Empress to them only in name. But I’d known that. Just as they were my people only in name. I’d hesitated over killing Juste before. But I knew now that I’d kill him without even thinking twice about it. Because I knew what the alternative looked like. And even if I could forget watching my brother’s body hanging at the end of a noose, or seeing my father slain for having the audacity to stand with me, or seeing Glorious Ingvar burn and her people lined up for the slaughter, I would still have Returning Aella’s view of things and I would know how things would have looked with Juste in charge of them. And I would know that the only hope anyone had at all was that I would rise and do the only thing an Empress could ever do – take care of an Emperor.
I was clenching my jaw hard when Essa slipped in beside me. We stood together in the darkness out of earshot of the rest.
“They can’t understand me. Only you and the Adder,” she said. “The Adder has said he will bring his Wings – the abominations with the spirit-birds – and one of his warriors. The rest he will leave here with my people. I, alone, will go as his guide to the seat.”
I turned to her and looked into her hollow eyes. “Why not bring everyone? You have snake manifestors. And they will be useful. You have many civilians here to farm and herd and tend this place.”
“I can only bring six with me through the final gate,” she said, her voice very certain. “And only eight with me through the first gate.”
I watched her eyes for a hint of anything to explain what she was saying. Regret flashed through them so quickly that I wondered if I’d even seen it at all. And then I realized what she was saying.
“You’re leaving everyone else to die,” I said grimly. “The civilians. Your snake manifestors. Our Claws. Everyone but those first eight and you.”
“You’re only half right,” she said, and this time, there was only steely determination in her eyes.
Half right. I paused, thinking, and for a moment, I was rocked by a memory from the Hissan. A memory of a man saying goodbye to everyone he loved and looking toward a dark tangled throne.
“Everyone will die,” I said eventually. “Everyone here and everyone who goes with you.”
“It is the price we pay,” she said at last. “Judgment for our sins. Judgment for the past. A restoration that none of us will ever see. Perhaps my son ... if he still lives.”
“He lives,” I said grimly. “As much as I wonder if that is good for anyone but you.”
She shook her head. “How can you know what is best? You are an abomination. And you are already dead. The moment you walked into the flames you died. It just hasn’t caught up with you yet.”
“How lovely,” I said to her with a steely tone. “Someone should record your words for future generations. They’re so pleasant, I’m sure they’ll want to remember them.”
She ignored my sarcasm. “My words have been sealed and placed in the ground. When the fire has burned out and our people emerge from under the earth, they will find all I have said. They will understand.”
“That you sold the living for a hope and a prophecy?” I asked, looking out at the sleeping people around the fires.
“That I did it for them. That they may once more walk under the sun. Now. Wear this cloak. It will guard you from the elements.
I tugged on the Hissan cloak – a strange piece made of sewn strips of snakeskin. I kept the sword, and the crown, and my shredded dress, but clumps of my thick hair fell free as I shrugged on the cloak. It had been singed so badly it couldn’t be saved. I threw the chunks to the ground. No point getting precious about lost hair when you were going to die very soon.
“Wake the Adder and tell him the time has come,” Essa said. “Then follow the stairs and meet me below. We travel.”
I bit my lip as I made my way through the sleeping bodies to where my emperor husband lay. My hands twitched. They wanted to snatch my sword and neatly remove his head. I could almost feel what it would be like. It would only take a moment and a firm hand and then we’d be rid of him forever.
What was wrong with me? When had I become so twisted?
I’d been stripped down to my core and it turned out I was more wicked than I’d imagined. Maybe the voice in the tower was right. Maybe we all had a twisted bit of the Forbidding inside of us. Maybe that was all that was left inside of me.
I reached for Juste but before I touched him, his hand came out and caught my wrist. His eyes snapped open.
“Wife.” His tone was danger and violence.
“Emperor,” I returned. The snakes on his crown were looking at me again. “Essa says we are ready to leave. Eight people only.”
“Mmmm.” His eyes glittered in the light of my bee and I saw he was considering it.
He licked his lips and then he reached out lightning-fast and slid his hand under the collar of my shirt, over his feather stuck in my chest. I’d been in so much distress before that I hadn’t realized how much it hurt to have him touch me there – where I’d tried to dig the feather out myself. I felt it the moment he started to steal all my power. My bee winked out, the buzzing stopped, and it felt like I hadn’t slept at all. I swayed, struggling to stay upright.