Disavowed, p.27
Disavowed, page 27
I am many things: imperfect, impatient, rash, emotional, trusting, gullible, and naive.
But I am not a coward. Not anymore, anyway.
By the time the plane lands, I still have no plan, no solution, no reason to hope that I will survive this. Except for the utter calm that has settled in my chest.
“You don’t look scared,” Noah says. “But we’re here. Right on time. You’re about to surrender that ring and walk into a battle to the death against not one, but two epic warriors.”
“I don’t say this lightly.” I raise one eyebrow. “Noah Wen, you give the absolute worst pep talks in the entire world. Reading me the prophecy would have been more helpful.”
“All I’m—”
“Actually,” I say, “reading me the back of a cereal box would have been more helpful.”
Noah grabs my forearms. “Why are you so calm? I’m supposed to be the one making dumb jokes to help you relax.”
I shrug. “I should be panicking. I should be a wreck, terrified that I’ll fail you, Judica, my mom, everyone. But.” I pause. “I’m not. Something about this feels. . . inevitable.”
“Alright,” Noah says. “Well. Alright.”
I laugh. “Alright? Wow. You’re still, like, epically bad.”
“Well, I’m sorry. Next time I’ll prepare a speech for when you’re utterly, sociopathically calm.”
“Next time.” My breath catches in my mouth, and I drag Noah’s head down to mine. I kiss him, short, sharp, urgent. “There will be a next time. Okay? Somehow, in a way that probably makes no sense, this is going to work. I am going to survive this.”
“Okay,” Noah says.
And he means it.
I walk to the appointed spot, right at the southern edge of Coles Bay, near the Freycinet walk, my feet sinking into the powdery white sand. My eyes feast on the pink granite peaks, the cerulean water, the exquisitely clean air.
It’s not a bad place to die, if that does happen. Not a bad place at all.
“I’m here,” I say, the guards Marselle chose lining up behind me. “And here are Alamecha’s honor guards.”
“I am Ella.” A short woman with dark skin and dark hair stands in front of a glass cabinet, bolted in place on the ground, sunk into concrete and iron rebar. The bindings are also iron. It’s impressive they were able to prepare this in a two-day period. Four sets of shackles are sunk into the ground two feet away, presumably to hold Lainina and Melamecha’s consorts. Ella extends her hand.
I reach out my hand to shake.
She frowns and drops her hand. “I was of the understanding we would be taking surety and then signaling the others it was safe to arrive.”
Duh.
I glance down at the stone on my finger. I didn’t think much about the security it provides for me, not until I’m faced with the prospect of giving it up. In a place I don’t know, on faith that the other families will honor the terms of our bargain.
For a split second, I doubt. I wonder whether I should have told Edam and Balthasar. Was this all a huge, epic, monumentally awful mistake?
“Chancery.” Melamecha’s voice is every bit as droll as I remember it. She has shaved her bright red hair on either side of her head and braided the center into a French braid that falls below her shoulders. It’s much more severe, much more alternative than her usual style. It’s actually pretty intimidating.
“I know I’m supposed to wait, but your family was always unfailingly trustworthy. I can’t imagine that has changed.”
Heat bubbles up in my chest when I see her, and I realize that like Mom before me, I hate her. I want to destroy her. And I could. She may not realize it, but right now, before surrendering my ring, I could split the ground beneath her feet, I could roast her into char, I could tear her limb from limb. Lark’s face flashes through my mind.
Is this what I’m meant to do? Am I the whirlwind, the guillotine? The power in my mind surges, the wells trembling with my fury.
But no. That’s not who I am: a liar, a cheat, a devastator. That is not me. I am Chancery Divinity Alamecha, daughter of Enora the Merciless. But unlike the world, I know that Enora knew mercy, and she taught me that there’s a place for mercy and a place for justice.
I don’t deceive, and I don’t double cross.
But today, somehow, I will avenge. I hand my ring to Ella. “I am Chancery Divinity Alamecha. I am here to respond to a challenge issued to me by Melamecha Shamecha and Lainina Adora. I have chosen blades.”
Ella’s eyes don’t blink as they take the stone, but her hands tremble, her eyes downcast. It blackens as she gently, reverently places it in a small glass case. “Bulletproof, shatterproof, but visible.” She spins around and sets the glass case inside the secured cabinet and locks it all, employing titanium locks. Then she swallows the key.
“Um, I hate to be a downer here,” Noah says. “But how exactly do you propose we get that key back, you know, after we’ve won?”
Melamecha’s laugh is more of a bark than anything else. “I’ll slice her belly open to remove it, once I’ve separated your head from your body.” She eyes me from my toes up to my face. “No offense of course. I’m even a little sad it’s come to this.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“You had a lot of potential,” she says. “If only you’d been willing to be guided. But no, you’ve made a real mess of things.”
She’s not wrong about that.
“Your surety?” I ask.
Melamecha gestures and Venagra, her dark eyes flashing, and Michael, a vein popping in his forehead, both approach and extend their arms. Ella shackles them, arms and legs both, and then asks them to test the shackles. They might not withstand extended attempts to escape, but they should hold long enough.
“Lainina is always late. What a coward, wanting to ensure that any trap you have planned falls squarely on me.” Melamecha spits. “I shouldn’t have expected anything different from someone who doesn’t even fight her own battles.”
We only wait three minutes before Lainina appears, flanked by Ranana and Rothgar. Lainina may not be particularly physically imposing, but she certainly selected for that in a Consort, and she passed it along to her daughter, too. Ranana isn’t as tall as her father, but she towers over her mother. All three of them wear their raven black hair down, flowing freely over their shoulders. They’re so beautiful, it nearly hurts to look at them. Shining hair, unbelievably huge, dark eyes. It’s easy to see where anime draws its inspiration.
“My surety.” Lainina offers her hands to Ella to shackle and tosses her head at Ranana who does the same.
Rothgar, now that he’s close, is probably the largest man I’ve ever seen. It’s not so much his eight feet of height as it is the breadth and heft of his shoulders and the width of his chest. He smiles at me then, and it’s feral. One tooth is twisted to the side, and it’s jarring.
Evians are always perfect, from our hair to our toes. He must have worked for that imperfection. How had I never noticed it before? Perhaps because I usually headed in the opposite direction from wherever he was in the past.
“Shall we?” Ella asks.
Lainina’s soldiers and Melamecha’s line up on either side of the four shackled individuals. My soldiers encircle the glass cabinet.
Alora and Noah both smile at me, and if the smiles are a little forced, well, I don’t blame them.
Ella walks calmly toward the water of the cove. “We agreed to fight here, and we’ve marked the bounds of the fight, as you can see.” She gestures at the enormous concrete barricades, connected by metal cables. “It’s roughly twice the size of a normal ring, to accommodate the addition of an extra combatant.”
I unsheathe my sword, Mom’s old blade, a gift from her first husband, Melamecha’s brother. Evian life is incestuous in many ways.
“Anything goes,” Melamecha says. “To the death.”
“Well not quite anything. I did select blades,” I say. “So we are each limited to two blades, of any length we choose.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Melamecha says.
“The victor rules all six families,” Lainina says. “That’s the deal.”
Whoa. My eyes shoot toward Noah’s. Winner takes all? Which means—I thought Melamecha and Rothgar were here as allies, but if only one of them will emerge. . .
Ella counts us down.
And in the space between the numbers, I notice something else. Something I hadn’t even considered. Melamecha failed to remove her ring. The staridium flashes gently on her hand. The hubris of it, demanding that I lock my stone away, and dangling one right under my nose, appalls me.
It’s also the answer I’ve been searching for—the unbelievable gift I didn’t expect.
The very second Ella reaches the end of the count, Rothgar’s massive scimitars flash in the sunlight, arcing toward my neck and my waist.
I leap backward, and Melamecha scores a deep slice across my right hamstring. I drop to the sand, barely retaining my grip on my sword.
Not an auspicious start.
Rothgar beams, his crooked tooth taunting me. His scimitar swings at my neck, and I barely block in time.
But Melamecha slices again, this time scoring the back of my left arm. I’m holding my sword with just one hand now, too focused on healing my injuries.
“Not so fast, Rothgar,” Melamecha says.
“I’m not like you. I don’t enjoy playing with my food,” Rothgar says.
I stand up, relieved at their squabble, since it bought me the time I needed to heal my leg and arm. But it’s short lived, and I realize it was merely another step in Melamecha’s game. She really does enjoy harming people. I try not to listen for her melody—because it turns my stomach.
Rothgar slams into me a third time, the shudders from blocking his attack traveling down into the soles of my feet, and again Melamecha strikes before I can recover, this time stabbing me in the kidney.
I fall forward and cough up blood onto the sand, but I haven’t dislodged her blade. I don’t have the strength to do it.
“Fine,” Melamecha says. “If you’re in such a rush, I suppose we can end this part, so we can focus on deciding which of us will walk away.” Her eyes gleam, sizing up Rothgar, as she twists her sword, pulverizing my kidney, driving pain up the side of my body and down to my feet.
Rothgar knocks me forward further with the flat of his blade, my face colliding with the sand. They’re going to finish me, right here, right now. Before I’ve had a chance to drive a wedge between them. Before I’ve even come close to Melamecha’s ring.
As if she can’t quite help herself, Melamecha reaches down and steps on my back, her hand fisting in my hair, yanking my head backward, breaking my spine, but it’s low, below T-10.
Which means I can still use my arms. She laughs again, like a colony of sea lions barking with joy. “This was actually fun.”
“You’re sick,” Rothgar says.
“I’m honest,” Melamecha says. “And that scares you.”
I slide my dagger down from my sleeve and into my right hand. And I while they’re sneering over my broken body, I reach back, quick as lightning, and slice Melamecha’s finger off. It drops to the sand in front of me, and I drop my dagger to grab it, surrounding the stone with my palm. Blood pours from Melamecha’s hand over my head, dripping to the sand on either side of me, but she doesn’t cry out, and she doesn’t shout.
She swears, low and furious.
And she lifts her blade above her, ready to sever my head from my body.
I cast about wildly for the well of power in my head, the well I desperately hope will be there.
And it is. I reach for the power, and I feel it, the pulsing well of strength, just like the others, but also different, as they always seem to be.
I turn, as much as possible, throwing my shoulders sideways. My upper body screams with pain, but I ignore it. What can this power do? I yank on it, pulling hard, and I feel it then.
It controls water. The ocean to my side beckons to me, ready to do as I bid.
Useless. This power is useless. I can’t drown them. They’d hack me to pieces while I tried. Water power, I hate you.
Melamecha’s blade connects with my neck, shearing tissue, shredding my body, my blood gushing from the wound.
And I realize.
We’re all made of water.
I feel for Melamecha and for Rothgar, and I squeeze.
And they explode.
I dislodge Melamecha’s blade from the vertebrae of my neck and heal the damage. My neck and then my back, and then I force myself to my feet, and I look down. The entire ring is covered in. . . a film. A pink film.
That used to be Rothgar and Melamecha.
Lainina is screaming, her eyes bulging. Ranana is utterly still. Michael and Venagra stare at me with identical looks of horror on their faces.
I walk into the ocean, letting the water rinse away the gore. I’m aware that it’s cold, but it doesn’t touch me. Maybe that means my brain is broken, or maybe I’m in shock. When I walk back out, I’m dripping with saltwater and dread. I wish I could wash away the image of what I’ve done as easily as I washed away the evidence on my body. I turn and walk toward the sureties and the guards.
“As you may have noticed, the stone I removed from Melamecha as she was attempting to behead me controls water.”
I look from one end of the line of guards to the other. “You’re all made of, well, mostly of water.” I swallow. “All it takes is one little squeeze.” All of them turn and sprint down the beach toward where they landed, stumbling over one another in their desperation.
“Now what to do with these four,” I say.
“I vote you explode them,” Noah says. “They’ll just cause problems.”
Alora’s jaw drops.
She doesn’t know Noah as well as I do—he’s bluffing of course, which is good. It distracts me from doing what I desperately want to do—rushing back to the ocean to dry heave until I can blank the image of what I’ve done from my brain. “Or, we could take them back with us,” I say. “Captives to ensure that their families behave.”
“I’m with Noah,” Alora says, catching on to his ploy to make them behave. “Easier to kill them.”
Lainina can’t rip her ring off fast enough. She throws it at me, in the midst of begging for me to spare her life. Of course, the flinching they do every time I move toward them, even incrementally, doesn’t help me forget what I’ve done.
I may never forget.
Ella surprises me. She doesn’t act afraid at all when I approach. “Congratulations, Your Majesty. That was an impressive win.” She smiles, her white teeth nearly blinding. They remind me of Rothgar’s twisted one. I wonder whether it is lying somewhere, in the sand, or floating in the ocean. I shudder.
“I assume you’re not going to slice me open for the key?” Ella asks.
My mouth drops. I shake my head.
“I’ve taken a laxative and will shortly return with it,” she says.
My lip curls, but I don’t argue.
A few minutes later I watch as she washes the key in the ocean, thank goodness. Even so, I let her unlock the cabinet and the glass case. I rest easier once the ring is back on my finger. Easier, but not without guilt.
“You prevented the nuclear war that was imminent,” Noah says softly, from next to me on the way home. “When you can’t sleep at night, when you think you’re a monster, just remember that. They were prepared to bomb the world out of existence. You did what had to be done to prevent that and nothing more.”
I remind myself of that over and over the entire way home. And when I land, with two new stones in my pocket, and I hand the captives over to Balthasar, I remind myself again.
Somewhere around the hundredth time I repeat the words to myself, you did what had to be done to prevent something far worse, they cease to have much meaning.
Because what can be worse than exploding humans into droplets and teeth?
“Are you okay to be alone?” Noah stops at the door to my room.
I shrug.
Edam approaches from the other direction. “I need to talk to her.”
Noah opens his mouth to argue, but I shake my head and he shrugs.
“It’s fine.”
Edam follows me inside.
“You have no idea how awful today was,” I say.
“I wish I had known,” he says. “I know you think I would have stopped you, but—”
“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t talk about us right now. I’m barely a person.”
Edam nods. “Understood.”
“So if that’s what you needed—”
“It’s not,” he says. “I wish it was.”
I close my eyes. What now? “Please tell me that no one else has died.”
“I’m officially a member of the Sons of Gilgamesh,” Edam says. “And I could have waited and waited and finally been brought into their plans slowly.”
I frown.
“But we don’t have time for that.”
“What did you do?” I lift one eyebrow.
“You don’t want to know. You had a bad day, and I’ll just say that you weren’t the only one.”
“Okay.”
“But I have proof that the Sons of Gilgamesh released the SARS-COV-2 virus.”
I lift my eyebrows. “But it’s abating some, and many places are reopening—”
Edam shakes his head.
“What?”
“That was a trial run, to gather information about spread, timeframes, reaction from the local populations. The world has grown dramatically since the flood, apparently.”
I gulp.
“They believe that there’s a solar flare coming,” he says. “It will boost the speed at which the human DNA breaks down. They believe the entire human species will cease to exist within the next twenty years. The onset of child cancer is the marker of the beginning of the end, in their opinion. According to them, the last time the humans dealt with something similar, the body attacking itself, cells growing out of control in children, was just before the flood. They claim that the virus that they released then was not to destroy. It was a mercy kill, to end things and reset the children of Eve in the most humane way possible.”
