Athalan, Empress of Macaria, was thirty-six years old. She had spent the last ten of those years married to Peleus; then two years prior to that in a sort of strange limbo, and before that, nine years spent engaged to Peleus’s younger brother Hector. Previous to that, she had been a girl, living in her father’s domain and under his control, though she had known that marriage to some aristocrat or another was her fate since before she could remember. That was how others might have subdivided her life.
From her perspective, though, the greater subdivision was between the seventeen years that she had spent living in Chrysopolis and the nineteen years previous to that that she had spent living in her family’s estate out in the countryside. Her time living in Chrysopolis felt like the much larger portion of her life, despite its briefer span. She hardly remembered much of her life on the estate. The memory had simply faded too far; Chrysopolis was her real home.
And now Athalan watched as Chrysopolis died. It was strange that nobody else seemed to notice it; perhaps because they were all too busy to look at what was right in front of their eyes. But Athalan had nothing to do but watch. The city had been dying ever since the siege began, the starvation as food supplies were cut off and rampant disease from overcrowding both taking a heavy toll. But now, with slaughter all in the streets? It was terminal. Even a simple sweep of the horizon from one of the Palace’s balconies revealed a score of smoke-plumes from where someone had started a fire, and those fires could consume entire neighborhoods before dying. And that wasn’t getting into the slaughter, the pillaging, the rape. The very air stank of blood and the sounds of screaming were an unending a capella accompaniment to the grand tragedy of the city’s fall.
Even if Peleus were anywhere to be found, Athalan doubted that he would be concerned about such things. His focus, always and forever, had been on victory, the destruction of the rebel army and their elimination as threats to his rule. The Athalan of even a week before would have dismissed this as being merely his due; Peleus focused on matters of rule, Athalan turned her attention to matters of human interest and compassion. Athalan was not the same person she had been a week before.
How could Peleus not see it, she thought to herself. How did he not realize that, in seeking victory above all other things, Peleus would leave himself with no Empire to rule? What did victory matter if everyone in Chrysopolis was dead? Perhaps if Peleus were before her, Athalan might have been able to argue fervently for her case, though it was more likely that she would fold the way that she always did. Athalan hadn’t seen him since the middle of the previous day, though she had heard vague rumors of his presence on the battlefield, leading forth a group of elite soldiers to bring down the rebel assault. Only rumors.
With each passing hour, Athalan’s hopelessness and fury grew. Something had to be done, the city had to be saved, but how? How? What force could Athalan conjure, who would listen to her commands? Even if she did exercise control in the absence of her husband, it would matter not a whit if she did not know what orders to give.
It was late afternoon. Athalan was beset with hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, and although she was surrounded by food and drink and places to rest she could not bear to sate her desires. Aissa had been sent away, put into the care of her nurses, for Athalan could not care for her when the cries of the children echoed in the air. Her skin was encrusted in sweat and accumulated dust, and her hair hung lank around her shoulders. With bloodshot eyes the Empress of the Macarians stared out upon the dying city, her mind awash with pessimism. That was when the dam finally broke, and Athalan admitted that she knew exactly where, and to whom, she could turn.
Shirrin, the Witch-Queen of Far Trabakond. Athalan’s closest confidante. The one who had spent nearly a full year carefully manipulating her out of a twisted sexual obsession. A woman possessed of vast mystical power, beyond even what she made public. She who had, only a few days before, admitted to attempting to get Athalan alone for her own purposes. Most importantly, however, was that she had intimated that she knew the fate which would befall the city; which meant that there was a small chance she knew how to avert that fate.
There was a man standing guard over Athalan, even in her miserable state. He stood straight-backed and stoic against the wall, a sword at one side of his belt and a dagger at the other. It was time to learn if she was truly as powerful as Shirrin believed her to be.
“You there,” she said.
“Yes, my Empress?”
“Your dagger. Give it to me.”
The man’s eyes widened. “My Empress? For what reason?”
“I have my own reasons. Give me the dagger.”
He handed her the dagger.
“And its sheath.”
He handed her the sheath.
“Do you know the current location of the Witch-Queen?” Athalan asked.
“No, my Empress.”
Athalan pouted. Already, a flaw in her plan. But if she was going to save Chrysopolis, then she would have to overcome. “Very well. In that case, she shall come to me. Go and start spreading word that I wish to speak to the Witch-Queen in private. Tell her to show herself… in the usual place. Tell anyone who will hear, and order anyone who can be spared to spread the message as well.”
There was a moment of hesitation. Then, “Yes, my Empress. I will do as you command.”
And like that, Athalan was alone in the chamber. The next score of breaths were spent on the verge of breakdown, the twin rushes of success and of fear threatening to overwhelm her. But Athalan was not done yet. She raced away to the old bedroom, the very one where she and Shirrin had met at night for so long.
There was, of course, a great deal of fretting and nerves once Athalan closed herself within that room. Every uncertainty was entertained with reckless abandon, every possible negative outcome explored and affirmed. But beneath it all, the steady foundation preventing collapse was the realization that, for once, Athalan was in control.
And then, just like that, Shirrin made her appearance. That she arrived in no time at all was not surprising. What was a surprise was that she arrived so unassumingly. There was no trick of magic, no sudden appearance from the shadows or demonstration of shapeshifting; she opened the door timidly and slowly, slipping through the gap with a sorry expression held on her face. Gone, too, were the airs of prowess and authority which usually radiated from the Witch-Queen: she appeared for all the world like an ordinary woman, aside from the foreignness of her dress.
Regardless, Athalan was not taking any chances. She drew the dagger from the sheath held in her left hand, and aimed its point directly at Shirrin’s chest.
“Try nothing, and I will have no need to use this. Am I understood?”
Shirrin nodded wordlessly. Her eyes looked miserably exhausted; she must not have slept much either. Athalan suppressed the ensuing pang of sympathy.
“Good. This isn’t me changing my mind. I still think you’re a loathsome, disgusting rake. But you’re also a useful rake, so you may be able to make up for it.”
“I am at your command, my l— my Empress.” Shirrin bowed, slow and deep.
“Good. Now then. You intimated previously that you had knowledge of the fate that will befall Chrysopolis. Was that merely a lie?”
“No, it was not,” said Shirrin. “Doom will be upon the city in a matter of hours, and I know its cause.”
“Then tell me that cause,” said Athalan, brandishing the dagger for emphasis. “And how it may be averted.”
Shirrin was silent. She shut her eyes, brow furrowing as though affected by a sudden ache of the body.
“I cannot tell you plainly; or rather, I could, but you would not understand. There is a story that I must tell you, if you are to comprehend the position in which I find myself. I have been hiding the truth for too long.”
Athalan could not help but believe her. No deception could be as complete as this total inversion of everything that had belonged to the Shirrin she knew, this sudden bone-deep exhaustion as though she had aged thirty years in a day. Slowly, Athalan lowered the dagger.
“Very well,” she said. “Tell me what I need to know.”
Shirrin nodded. After several moments more to gather herself, she began to tell a story. “Hector was the chosen heir to the throne of Macaria, younger of two brothers, betrothed to Athalan, a beautiful princess of the Macarian countryside. He was not, to put it lightly, the sort of man that one would…”
And so Shirrin told it all. How public opinion had turned against the young prince; how he was too timid and too unsteady to match his brother’s schemes; how in the end it had been that Eteocles and a band of ruffians had taken Hector captive and secreted him away to a forest on the northern border. None of this was truly a surprise to Athalan. Sure, she had not known the details, but in her heart she had always known that Hector was assassinated, and Peleus’s involvement was a near-certainty. Even still, tears came to her eyes as Shirrin described it, the fear and despair in the prince’s heart, the viciousness of the brutal beating which was visited upon him. She could not bear to listen as Shirrin described him crawling, broken and aimless, through the woods.
“But as the prince faded, a miracle occurred. For even as his eyes clouded over with blood, he saw before him a vision of Lord Ethirus, god of strength and vengeance, in the total majesty of his form. Lord Ethirus spoke to him, and explained that Peleus and his people had neglected the old gods for too long. He explained that he needed an agent, one to visit his wrath upon the Macarians for all of their sins. And so, he offered the prince a deal. He would whisper vast secrets into the prince’s ear, great knowledge of magic, of transformation and alchemy and enchantment and other things along with. And in exchange…”
Shirrin trailed off. For a moment, Athalan was confused, even incensed that the Witch-Queen would leave off at the most crucial part of the tale. Then she saw it: a single tear, brilliant as a diamond, spilling down Shirrin’s cheek. Athalan relaxed. It made sense; by the tone of her voice it was quite clear that the story was wearing on Shirrin’s emotions, as to be expected from one being forced to recount…
Revelation struck. Athalan had been so caught up in the telling that she had failed to realize the story’s obvious implication. Her heart broke.
“…Hector?” she said, her heart breaking.
Shirrin flinched away as though to hide her face. “Please don’t call me by that name.”
“But you are…?”
“I was,” Shirrin said venomously. “But to transform is the power of witchcraft. Hector was a weak man; but I am not weak, and I am not a man.”
“So you’re a woman, then?”
“Yes. Though I know the power of disguising myself otherwise, on occasion.”
“Why would you do such a thing, making yourself a woman?”
For a moment, Shirrin shed her morose aura, holding her head high and placing one hand delicately on her hip. “Don’t you think it suits me?”
Athalan could not help but blush, partly at the absurdity of it all and partly for other, deeper reasons. “You are rather beautiful, in a barbaric sort of way.”
“Thank you,” Shirrin replied; but after a moment, the light faded from her eyes, and her smile grew weary and strained.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Athalan said seriously. “I thought you were dead, Shirrin. I mourned you. I wept for you. Every time I remembered your face I would feel as though the gods had spited me. If I’d known it was you…”
“I did ask how you would react if you found out I was alive,” Shirrin said. “You couldn’t decide.”
“Because it was a hypothetical! Because it was absurd! Because I didn’t have my pounding heart screaming at me to pull you into my arms and damn the consequences! Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“Because if I told you the truth about who I was, then I would have to tell you the truth about what I’ve come back to do. About the deal I made with the god of vengeance in exchange for getting to make this new life for myself.”
Athalan fell silent. She wanted to say that it didn’t mean anything… but she wasn’t so sure, not when Shirrin was making so awful an expression.
“Tell me, then. You know you’ve been dishonest, so tell me.”
“I am the agent of Lord Ethirus’s vengeance,” Shirrin said. “I swore that I would return to this city to destroy it, destroy the empire, bring it all to ruin. This rebellion is my doing. The burning of the docks was as well. I visited madness and paranoia upon Peleus, fomented disobedience within the Senate, and although my conscience overcame me, I even visited plague upon your daughter, all the better to bring forth discord and chaos.”
Athalan’s mind reeled at the magnitude. Everything was Shirrin, all of it. The death that was coming to Chrysopolis, that which she had come here to avert, it was all Shirrin’s doing, as part of…
“Why?”
Athalan was crying.
Shirrin’s face hardened, though her eyes, too, glimmered with tears. “Vengeance. Peleus betrayed me, yes, and I reserve the worst of my hate for him, but it was this entire city, this entire Empire that turned its back on me for my weakness, that raised Peleus to be the traitor that he became. And Lord Ethirus agrees; Macaria has turned its back on the old gods in favor of the Golden Lord, and for that the city will burn.”
Pain and hatred danced in Shirrin’s voice. Athalan’s heart broke a dozen times over, both for the suffering that the Witch-Queen had visited and for the darkness of the soul that must have driven her so far.
“And it’s worse than you think;” Shirrin continued, “this war is not merely a war. Through my witchcraft I have made it so that every drop of blood shed as rebel and loyalist battles for control, is a sacrifice to Lord Ethirus himself. Tonight is the night of abject finality, and tonight I shall go to the grand temple and I shall summon Lord Ethirus into the world, in all of his majesty, and he shall burn Chrysopolis to the ground with the heat of his wrath and all of its inhabitants.”
Athalan’s breath came on quick, and she felt lightheaded. The one she had loved for so long returned to her, only to reveal that she had done so to destroy everything? It was almost too much. She clutched the dagger close to her chest.
“No. You won’t.”
“I have no choice, Athalan. I made a deal with a god.”
The Empress glanced down at the knife held in her hands and lurched a step forward. “What if I kill you?”
“Then I will be dead, having failed to complete the task through no fault of my own. Chrysopolis will recover, and all will be right with the world.” Shirrin let her hands fall wide, looking away from Athalan as though she could not bear to watch. “Go on, then.”
Athalan took another step forward. She was close enough to reach out and do it, now, seize her own fate and save her city in one blow. All it would take would be to slay the woman who had brought her such grief, even trying to slay her very child with a cursed plague!
But that wasn’t right. It was not only rage that she had heard in Shirrin’s voice, but pain too. The person she had known, Hector, was not this vengeful, evil being. He had been kind, and although Shirrin was not the same as she had once been, Athalan could not bring herself to believe that all that kindness had been rent utterly and permanently from Shirrin’s heart. And even if it had, whose fault was that? Certainly not Shirrin’s. It was Lord Ethirus who had offered this burden on pain of death, Peleus who had put her in such a position to begin with.
“No,” Athalan said. She raised the blade again, ready to stab into Shirrin’s chest. “No. No!”
“It’s alright,” Shirrin said. “It’s the only way out.”
The dagger fell to the ground with a clatter, and with it gone, Athalan’s shoulders slumped, her breath sucking through exhausted throat. “I refuse to believe that there is no other way. If Lord Ethirus has forced you into this position with his foul bargain, then demand to renegotiate!”
“It cannot be done,” Shirrin said, gritting her teeth. “The deal was plain. The city cannot be saved while I still live.”
“Then… then damn the city! What of its people?”
“What difference does that make?” asked Shirrin.
But even as the question was asked, something in Shirrin’s expression changed. Her eyes went wide, and her jaw went slack. Revelation was written across her features, the rapid leaping of her thoughts visible like flames under her skin. Slowly, the awe of discovery gave way to unabated joy.
“Of course! You’ve figured it out!”
Shirrin lunged forward, throwing her arms around Athalan and pressing her into a kiss. An instant later, the Witch-Queen retreated, expression dour.
“I’m sorry, I was…”
“Don’t be. I’d forgotten quite how good of a kisser you are,” she said, and grabbed Shirrin right back.
Athalan forgot about everything else; the city, the doom, the plan, the war, all of it. It had been so long, years and years, since Peleus had made her feel so loved. When at last she returned to her body, Athalan’s skin was tingling from scalp to foot and she felt about ready to faint. Shirrin gazed into her eyes for another gorgeous eternity, the intimacy so beautiful that Athalan did not even care that her thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
“I have a plan,” Shirrin said. “It might work. But it might very well not.”
“That’s better than nothing.”
“Indeed. But for this to work… I have my own work to do, and you yours. Even if all goes better than my wildest expectations, this may be the last we meet one another for… a while.”
“A while? How long?”
“I don’t know. I may be able to meet with you at dawn, once it is all over, but even then I shall have business to take care of in Trabakond. And I may not be able to meet with you tomorrow. Or ever. I could still die.”
Athalan pressed her brow against Shirrin’s chest. “Damn you. I get you back, and already you leave?”
“It must be done.”
“Promise you’ll come back. Swear on your life and your power.”
Shirrin raked her fingers through Athalan’s hair, her whole body trembling. “Very well. I, Shirrin, Witch-Queen of Trabakond, do swear that I shall return to you, Athalan, Empress of the Macarians, wheresoever you may be, before the end of sunset on this same day exactly one year hence. And if I do not hold to this oath, then you know I shall have died here tonight.”
Athalan threw her arms around Shirrin’s shoulders and clawed at her back, desperate to keep that hold forever. Eventually, she mastered herself, and the two of them parted.
“Very well. The end of sunset, a year from today. Now, what is my part in this plan of yours?”
here we go!!!
Jeez
Rawwwrrr!