Law of beasts, p.27
Law of Beasts, page 27
Though Hadassah didn’t ask, Leah offered an explanation. Hadassah understood the Fae Queen chose to deal in bargains, but she didn’t have to. Her ‘Wings of Bargain’ had a different function entirely; the way it was used was only to mislead stupid people.
“You can kill me,” Hadassah reassured.
They stood there in a stalemate. Hadassah did not seem to care either way, but Leah was clearly conflicted. After what seemed like forever, Leah swore and threw her sword against the adjacent wall in anger. Her mask hid her emotions, but even then, Hadassah could tell she was seething.
“I hate how much you remind me of him.”
“Him?” Hadassah questioned.
“Leon. I hate how smug both of you are. Even now in his death, he haunts me. Rhea must be rolling in her grave.”
Hadassah’s brows furrowed. “My mother is not dead, just—”
“I know; I’m not stupid,” the Fae Queen snapped. “I wish she were dead.”
Leah slumped back onto the bed, leaning back with straight arms on her palms as she regarded Hadassah with a weary sort of amusement.
“You know,” she said, “you were an irritating child. Always getting into trouble. Remember the day you got swallowed by that frog?”
Hadassah scoffed. “How could I forget?” She seemed cursed to have bad experiences with frogs. She hoped never to meet the rain frog tribe again, or she would actually lose her mind.
Leah snorted a laugh, the tension easing slightly from her shoulders. “Whatever it was, it had you halfway down its throat by the time we found you.” She tipped her head back, laughing at the ceiling. “You were so tiny. Like a plum. I still remember pulling you out of its mouth by your ankle.”
Hadassah would have laughed too if the situation didn’t feel so stifling.
The Queen straightened, a small smirk forming on her face. “Do you remember what I told you?”
Hadassah shook her head.
Leah chuckled lowly. “Toads cannot be blamed for wanting to eat someone so adorable.”
Hadassah’s lips twitched despite herself.
The heavy door creaked open, and both women turned at once.
Valdemar walked in without ceremony; his light purple hair was pulled back, and his shoulders were covered with a finely made forest-green cloak with gold leaves along the hem. He nodded politely at Hadassah, and then without hesitation—as though he had been waiting for this moment—crossed the room and knelt before Leah.
His wife’s lips twisted in indignation. “Stand,” she said stiffly.
“Please,” he pleaded. “You have watched her grow up; you cannot possibly kill her, Leah.”
Hadassah felt an ugly knot of guilt in her chest as she watched her beloved uncle bow before his wife. He finally turned his warm, timeless gaze toward her.
“Hadassah, I’m sorry.”
Why was he apologising? As far as Hadassah was concerned, he was the only person she could claim was truly without fault in this world, simply because he had lived for a millennium, and he would live for a millennium more.
Valdemar was a deity; he could not die. Concepts like selfishness must have seemed meaningless to him. Leah had no such protections. Naturally, her life would one day fizzle out.
“You already have your wings, you have the flute of ten thousand beasts, is it not enough?” he asked, turning back to Leah. “True immortality is not possible; even the mythics will one day die, so do not persecute the girl for nothing.”
Leah said nothing, only staring coldly at her husband. Hadassah felt a flicker of fear for him but remained quiet. If the two of them were to fight, she would be the one to lose.
“She can leave now; it doesn’t matter if I kill her now or not; her days are numbered.” Leah finally relented, but her words confused Hadassah.
Leah had no way of knowing that she was going to die if she sat on the throne of Emeris, so what was she talking about? The Dragon Queen? No, that didn’t seem right either.
“You ate Gu.”
Leah’s words made Hadassah’s heart skip a beat. It was still alive inside her? But Arcadia was dead.
Leah turned to her. “Arachne eat their women after birth because they will die anyway; no underworld Queen will risk a female surviving long enough to threaten her position. The needle-eye Gu, even if you’ve killed the Broodmother, it will still kill you.”
Disbelief settled over the human girl, but turning to Valdemar, she realised it was true. “A deal is a deal! Why didn’t you take it out of me?” Her sudden spike of anxiety was reflected in her voice, but the moment the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a mistake showing her fear.
“You humans are the most creative parasites on this continent. As Leon always said, under the heavens there are numerous principalities and powers; you will find a way.”
Not everything in this life can be fully explained, and in that vein, anything is possible.
Stifling silence filled the room, choking Hadassah.
‘Don’t cry, there’s no point,’ she told herself.
“How long do I have with the Needle-eye Gu?”
The Fae Queen laughed, as if relishing the girl’s realisation. “One year.”
One year.
So, at the end of the day, she had no choice. She couldn’t even delay her occupation of Emeris and spend time with the people she had grown to care about. She would die regardless. How easy was it to do the impossible? Was it even worth it? Fate forced her hand, as it did again and again. But at one point, fate itself should begin to fear her response.
“She can leave now, can’t she? There is probably someone waiting for her.” Valdemar said quietly, disrupting the tension in the room.
“Whatever,” Leah muttered dismissively; she knew this wasn’t the end.
Hadassah quietly bowed her head in forced gratitude and left the room; it seemed they had, at the very least, saved Rahn.
Hadassah knew Valdemar loved her greatly, like she was his own child. But being married to the Fae Queen meant he could only obey his wife.
Still, Hadassah would forever be grateful for his benevolence; in the same vein, she would kill the Fae Queen the moment she had the chance.
When she had first woken up from the Veres expedition, she had been cooped up in her room trying to make the dragonfly scale armour for Zarek and eventually herself.
A knock on the door had broken her concentration; she blinked, her vision swimming; her throat was dry so she struggled to speak. The knock came again, but this time she stood from her seat at a bronze workbench. The table was large, rectangular, and covered from corner to corner with books and scrolls. Empty ink pots and crumpled-up paper littered the room; rogue dragonfly scales glimmered on the floor; they had been there for days, untouched or unseen.
Hadassah opened the door, squinting as bright daylight hit her face. A figure blocked the light quickly, allowing her eyes to adjust. She blinked, seeing the familiar purple locs of her uncle, his familiar soft eyes, and that familiar kind smile.
“What day is it?” she rasped, the world seeming to spin from the overstimulation of sunlight.
“Time to come out of there; humans die if they don’t drink water for a while.”
“Right…”
She was dragged out and forced back to her room; food was waiting for her, steaming. She couldn’t remember the last time she had sat down for a hot meal. She had spent the week trying to make what she could in preparation for their mission. Many of her previously collected artefacts were petty toys with no effective use in combat, and now she needed to consider Zarek, something that would keep him alive.
“Eat,” Valdemar instructed.
She did as told; her stomach was slow to respond, but eventually, it began to churn and whine about her starvation. She ate slowly, and as she ate, her uncle took a wide-toothed comb to her hair.
She let him.
Though she had resisted returning to the Fae court, Valdemar had visited often to play board games with her father; they entertained each other in conversation. Hadassah had always assumed her father was a scholar; she wasn’t entirely wrong; a Kesmes was a sort of scholar, one who studied human artefacts. When Zarek had called him ‘The Great Kesmes’, Hadassah found herself uncomfortable.
“Small braids, right?”
Hadassah nodded, raising her left leg to rest it on her chair. She hugged her leg as Valdemar sectioned and braided. A problem she barely had time to even dwell on, solved quickly without the need for too many words.
“I missed your birthday,” Valdemar said.
Hadassah was silent for a moment, her mind still full and hazy. “It’s alright; another one will come,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure how special her birthday was; her father was gone and Kaladin—
She refused to think of him, whether he was alive or not, whether he had made his way back to the Dragon Queen; she did not care. Or rather, she did not want to care.
“Will you come back in the future?” Valdemar asked again.
This time, Hadassah did not reply because she did not know. The future was uncertain, her existence wavering, and her will to live seemed only tethered to those to whom she owed a debt. After saving Ahqi, she knew she had to defeat the Dragon Queen, but honestly, in her heart, she did not share the strong emotions Arcadia had. But those were her instructions; they gave her a purpose, a path to walk on, and she was unwilling to diverge.
Seeing her dulled disposition, Valdemar’s eyes saddened. “Do you remember when you were little?” he asked. She hummed in acknowledgement. “You were a very adorable child.”
She scoffed, “When did I stop being adorable?”
The deity smirked, “When you started stealing artefacts from all over the place; it drove Leah mad.”
Her face heated up and she rubbed her forehead against her knee, groaning as though embarrassed.
“You liked to distress your father a lot; he was not a fan of your…collection.”
Hadassah couldn’t help but laugh despite her embarrassment; she understood a little more of the dangers artefacts could bring. It was lucky the most deadly one she found was the Wyre, but nothing brought her as much joy as discovering something that was meant to be hidden away and forgotten.
“I watched you grow up for nineteen years; it was indeed an honour. If your mother was here…” He trailed off, and Hadassah suspected it was because he too did not know what her mother would think of her.
Hadassah recalled her experience in Veres; the woman Arcadia showed her looked so happy, so why did she leave? Where did she go? Why wouldn’t she ever come back? Her questions were numerous, but her heart was too wounded to dwell on it. It was easier when she assumed the woman dead, but now to know she was alive, just unwilling to meet her children, it left a hole in her heart she had never experienced before.
Buzz.
Buzzing soon consumed the room and Hadassah jumped in her seat at the sudden jump in noise level. She suddenly felt very warm, surrounded by the pink wisps. At first, she felt fear, wondering if they were going to pull her hair again, but remembering Valdemar was there, she relaxed; they wouldn’t dare bully her in his presence.
She was right; they took strands of hair, pulling, and they began to help with her braids; her head became a strange pink halo as her hair was done in record time.
It only took three hours compared to the usual full day block she scheduled, and they even added little gold trinkets for her. Hadassah lampooned, wishing she had threatened them with Valdemar’s name more effectively in the past; if she had known they could have been this useful, her life would have been much easier.
“Come with me; I have something to show you.”
Valdemar placed a hand on her left shoulder, drawing her eyes away from the small mirror she was given to admire herself. She smiled, delighted; despite the eye bags and dry skin, she couldn’t help but feel good with a new hairstyle.
Valdemar led Hadassah through the winding halls of the palace, down corridors she had never seen before. The air grew heavier with dust, and the further they went, the more neglected the space became. Ancient drapes sagged under their own weight, and the floor bore the soft crunch of dried leaves scattered over forgotten tiles. She found it strange, knowing the palace to always be spotless without a leaf out of place.
At last, they reached a massive set of double doors, their bronze handles dulled with age. Valdemar pressed his palm against them, and they groaned open, revealing a breathtaking sunroom. The ceiling arched high above, its glass panes smudged but still allowing shafts of golden light to stream through. Vines crept along the corners, their leaves thick and wild, curling around what seemed to be enormous, covered portraits.
Hadassah’s breath caught in her throat.
With a slow wave of Valdemar’s hand, the curtains of ivy and greenery began to shift, peeling away from the portraits they had concealed.
Six grand paintings were revealed, each depicting a figure immortalised in oil.
Hadassah stepped forward, her gaze sweeping over each one in awe.
At the very centre was painted a woman with regal beauty, brown eyes piercing through the paint as though she saw beyond the veil of death. Her dark brown curls framed her face, and she wore a dress similar to the one she saw in Arcadia’s memories. Thin, elegant, like water. She held a skull in both hands, split in two, horns jutting out. Her head was turned up slightly as though she were looking down on them.
'Rhea, The Mother of Ferals. The Last.'
To her right stood a man with flaming red hair, the man from Arcadia’s memories, his sharp eyes as crimson as fresh blood. He was clad in black and silver armour, his grip firm on the hilt of a stunningly crafted sword.
'Lucian, Harbinger of Ruin.'
Beside him was a more slender figure with cropped purple hair, his expression unreadable, yet there was wisdom in his gaze. He held a delicate artefact in his hands, one Hadassah did not recognise.
'Nicholas, Amate.'
Hadassah felt a chill down her spine as she moved on.
Next was a white-haired warrior, his face marred by scars that only accentuated his fierceness. His golden eyes seemed to glow despite the bright room, and his arms, covered with dark, gold-edged gauntlets, looked as if they had seen countless wars.
'Zion, Harbinger of Mania.'
To Rhea’s right, a man of radiant beauty. His golden hair cascaded over his shoulders, blending with the sunlight. He bore an air of warmth, his blue eyes like a tranquil sky. In his hands, like Arcadia, a staff and a basket of abundant fruit. His title read: 'Caesar, The Great Healer,' Arcadia's progenitor.
Next to him, a man with dark skin and deep blue hair stood, his gold eyes gleaming, horns curled back from his forehead, adding to his imposing presence. He held a long sword in his grip, its hilt blackened. 'Korrin, Harbinger of Dominion.'
Hadassah’s gaze drifted finally to the far right, where she was met with an all-too-familiar sight. A man with long black hair, his posture calm, his hands resting over an open book. His black eyes stared at her, and his smile brought her mind to the brink of ruin. Below him, the inscription read: 'Leon, The Great Kesmes.'
She barely noticed as her knees buckled, bringing her down in front of her father’s portrait. She placed her hands against the frame, trembling.
These were the men who had stood by her mother, the Queen of Emeris.
Her mother.
These people were her family.
“Why…?” she rasped, her voice barely above a whisper. “Why did he keep them here?”
Valdemar exhaled softly. “He wanted to remember them,” he said, kneeling beside her. “He wanted someone to always remember them.”
Hadassah clenched her fists, her tears hitting the floor below. “He never told me,” she choked. “He never said a word about them.” He spoke of them as though they were heroes, legends of old. But he was right there amongst them, seemingly the last to return to death.
A bitter laugh escaped her lips, but it was hollow. “It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
Valdemar placed a hand on her shoulder. “It matters if you choose to remember.”
She inhaled shakily, her fingers trailing over the etched name beneath her father’s image. She would remember. No matter how painful, no matter how uncertain the path ahead, she would remember.
Her mind tried to keep her grounded as she pretended he was there, as though he was playing his flute again, and she was dozing off to that same music. All she wanted was to lose herself there, in that moment. She closed her eyes, pretending, just for a second, that it was him—that he was standing there and that he would reach out, pull her into his arms, and tell her everything would be okay.
But this man had asked for her life.
And she had agreed to give it to him. The day Leo left this world; she had been a dead woman walking. Every breath since then had been borrowed time; she had lived because of his instructions, and even now, he was the only reason she was still bothering to survive. No one ever wanted to die, but Hadassah was not sure if she would be so upset if someone snapped her neck and ended her misery.
“Your lineage is one of great power, Hadassah. You were all great women.”
Hadassah stopped her humming at Valdemar’s words, and after a long pause, she stood up; there were only two of them left now. She and the Dragon Queen – her job was to make sure the both of them, along with this miserable world, ceased to exist.
Rahn’s dark hair hung in damp strands around his face, his long body still wrapped loosely in the worn white tunic he’d been sleeping in. The moment he awakened, his violently bright golden eyes locked onto hers, and a low, shuddering breath escaped him.
“Hadassah.”
Hearing her name on his lips shattered whatever composure she thought she could maintain. He spoke—he actually said her name. Tears welled, then spilled hot and fast down her cheeks. She dropped the now-empty box behind her without a thought, her hands trembling. Once again, he was face to face with the most breathtaking tears he had ever seen. She had missed him. She had been waiting. She wanted him by her side more than anything.
