Mistress of Bones by Maria Z. Medina - XXXVI. What Remains

XXXVI
WHAT REMAINS

A YEAR AND A HALF EARLIER
Edine de Guzmán knew she was in over her head, like the time Si-so threw her into the deep part of the lake and she had stared right into Lord Death’s eyes. But she survived the lake, and she would survive this.
She had begged Si-so to come help, just as she begged him at the lake, but this time he refused. This time it was all on her.
After all, hadn’t she come to Cienpuentes to make her fortune? Si-so and Nida and Iriana had all done it before her, so perhaps this was the Lady Dream’s way of telling her that some things must be faced alone, that the fortune she had begged for in the shrine back home as she tied her wish to the goddess’s leg could only be earned on one’s own.
She crept along the narrow passageway between two of Cienpuentes’s stone buildings. It was late at night, and this part of the city lay quiet and sleepy and dark. So dark she could barely see her hand in front of her eyes, Luck and Wonder’s shine hidden behind a mass of clouds.
A few days earlier, she’d slipped into an old servants’ corridor, forgotten after some renovations in Iriana’s house. The De Guzmáns’ oldest sister had never liked secret passageways in her home, not after Edine and Si-so played so many tricks on her at their family’s estate, but whomever she had contracted to close this one up had done the shoddiest job.
The door at the end of that corridor had been nailed shut, and wallpaper was all that hid it from view on the other side. Voices drifted clearly through the cracks between the frame and the uneven edges of the door. Edine hadn’t intended to spy on Iriana, but working for her sister as a messenger had piqued her curiosity: the sealed messages she delivered, the constant reminders not to call attention to herself; the flickering of the recipients’ eyes when she handed them the letters, as if they were checking who might be watching the exchange.
Cienpuentes was a city full of schemers, as Si-so had reminded her when she went to him with her worries, but something about this hadn’t felt right. Perhaps it was the worry lines marring Iriana’s face, perhaps the tightening of her mouth after certain friends paid her a visit.
So, Edine had listened in on these visits, and when they yielded nothing beyond vague mentions of the Heart and Anchor and the regent and the king, she stole a missive before her sister threw it into the fire. It contained a place and a date.
The place and date being here and now, in a small square walled by buildings. Edine had assumed the people in attendance would check the alleyways before conducting their business, so she had waited before slipping in. Catching half a conversation was better than being discovered and catching nothing.
Carefully, she peeked into the square. Three caped figures stood in close formation, their voices only murmurs. Edine strained to catch the words.
“… Witch…,” accompanied by spitting.
“… De Guzmán…,” followed by a shake of the head.
“… must kill her…,” in a female tone she recognized as one of Iriana’s friends.
Edine’s blood ran cold. Assassinations had become less common over the years, and Edine could not believe her sister would be involved in such a thing. Oh, if only Si-so were here to burst into the square and demand an explanation! If Edine did that, who would listen to her? The only one who ever did was Miguel, and she couldn’t tell him. Not when family was involved.
For all that she feared she might love the man, she loved her siblings a lot more.
“Can’t,” a voice snapped. “If she has the goddess inside…”
At this, Edine scowled. She? The goddess inside? Did they mean the Witch? She had heard rumors about some woman who dealt in people’s dreams. But Edine came from a place where such things were common tales with no grounding in reality, so she hadn’t thought much of it.
“Then we’ll end this before it starts,” the woman said, anger coloring her voice. Edine wondered where her sister was and why she wasn’t here to end this strange argument.
Edine had come here to unravel plots about palace insurrections, not listen to folktales about gods and creatures.
“The Lady Dream would never betray us,” one of the others insisted. “Watch your tongue, Dela.”
“Why shouldn’t she?” Dela answered, acerbic and sour, and Edine could imagine the lines on her forehead deepening as her lips pursed. “What have we done to ingratiate us with her? With the Blessed Heart? All that work to put the Anchor ban in place and now—gone with the queen!”
One of the figures shushed her.
But Dela wasn’t done. “If we eliminate the hosts before the gods come, we’ll have nothing to worry about.”
Edine reeled back, shocked. Hosts? For … for the gods? What did that mean? Her heel slipped backward, connecting with a rodent. Its squeak filled the air, and the three figures snapped their attention to her.
“Who’s there?” one of them asked, reaching for his rapier.
Edine swallowed a curse and retreated through the alleyway. Loudly. Too loudly.
She had taken not two steps into the wider street when someone slammed into her. She went sprawling to the ground with a grunt, then rolled and got to her feet, hand immediately going to her rapier.
“Where were you?” came the harsh demand from the alleyway.
The three figures spilled out to join the one who had knocked her down.
“Doing a perimeter walk,” the newcomer answered. A female voice. “Like you asked me to. This one”—she gestured toward Edine with the dagger in her hand—“slipped past me.”
Edine shuffled backward, but the woman waved her dagger. “Not so fast.”
“How long were you listening?” Iriana’s friend asked.
“I listened none,” Edine answered. She looked for an escape route, but they had her surrounded.
Four versus one. Well, she had faced those odds before, against bullies back home, hadn’t she?
But those had been kids, and these were adults armed with rapiers and daggers, and Edine had never been quite so good with her sword as Nereida. Her sword! She hadn’t even named it yet.
Oh, how she wished Sío were here.
“She’s here. That’s enough,” one of the men said. “Get rid of her.”
Edine swallowed but raised her rapier.
She had come alone to find her fortune, and it appeared that alone she would find it.
THE PRESENT
Azul lay on a narrow bed in a small room. A window graced one wall, its shutters open to the late morning sun. The sheets were clean, the white walls high and bare, and someone had put her into a thin nightgown.
Sombra sat on a stool by an old trunk, legs stretched in front of him, back relaxed against the wall, and arms crossed over his chest. He wore the same clothes as before, but his hair had been brushed and fell loose around his shoulders.
“You’re alive,” Azul said, then winced, the void inside of her trying to feed off her guts. But innards could not feed the soul. Nothing could. It would either grow back, or stay as it was. And what if she were stuck this way for the rest of her life? Tears started to form but she blinked them away.
Sombra nodded. His face showed some bruising, but their adventures had not marked him otherwise, except for the dirt on his clothes and the occasional rip in his sleeves.
“En…” Azul swallowed hard. She could not breathe. “The emissary? D-Death?”
He stood, pointing at the door.
“Are we at Almanueva?”
A shake of his head.
Not at her brother’s mercy then.
Air finally made it into her lungs. It helped with the gnawing hole at her core. It helped calm her heart.
“Where are you going?” she asked, sitting up and gathering the sheet against her waist. Belatedly, she noticed a hulking mass of fur lying at the bed’s end—the large gray feline she’d brought back to life. It opened one eye to look at her, huffed, and went back to its rest.
Sombra retrieved his hat from the top of the trunk, bowed deeply, and stepped outside. Somewhat rude, and definitely not helpful, but Azul found a strange sort of comfort in Sombra’s familiar actions.
“We are in Valanje’s local house,” said the Lord Death from the doorway.
He strolled into the room and took the stool her shadow had vacated. The seat was too low for him, and he leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees. He wore no emissary mask—she supposed there was no need for one anymore, but she missed the sight of it—and unlike Sombra, he had changed into clean clothes. His hair was tucked into a braid at the nape of his neck; his violet-gold eyes gave nothing away.
This man, who had intruded into her life, into her thoughts, into her heart, was nothing but a shell now. A suit of clothing worn by someone else.
How could she ever reconcile the sight of him with the knowledge of what had been lost? Of what could have been?
Azul breathed deep and tried not to drown. “My brother?”
“It has been strongly suggested that he not leave his house while the investigation into the bodies found at his property runs its course.”
“He’ll be gone within the week,” she said grimly. Along with any bones he had left over, for whatever he planned to do with them. Become a god, supposedly. “What are they going to accuse him of? There are no witnesses except for me and Sirese Sombra. And how are we to prove that he kept the corpses alive? No, this will come to naught. He’s the Marquess de Gracia; I’m simply the half sibling.” Her gaze meandered toward the window, then back to him. “Will you take me back to Valanje now?”
A cruel smile curved his mouth. But perhaps he simply wasn’t used to human reactions, because there was no bite to his words: “There is no need.”
Azul swallowed. “Even though I’m a necromancer?”
Death chuckled. “You might be the Mistress of Bones, but you are no necromancer.”
Stunned, she could only stare. “Then what am I?”
“Is it not obvious?”
Azul didn’t need to tell him no; her shocked expression spoke for her.
His eyes brightened with mischief. “You are a child of the Lord Life. You do not—cannot—control death. You can only create life.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “Enjul said—”
“Virel Enjul was a good emissary, but he allowed his fears to twist his understanding of my wishes.”
“Is … is he really gone?”
“Yes.” The word carried as much finality as death itself.
Azul squeezed her eyes shut.
Ah, what could have been.
“Why did you not revive him as you did in Diel?”
“Death eventually touches all of us.” A crooked smile appeared on his face as he looked her up and down. “Almost. I retain all my emissary’s memories, Azul del Arroyo. You seek your sister’s bones.”
“Yes.” Warily, she scooted closer to the end of the bed until she was sitting across from him. She would eagerly bear all the sacrifices, have all the deaths on her conscience, if it meant she hadn’t failed her search.
“Seek no more. They are gone.”
Azul reeled back, his words, sharp and sure, incomprehensible to her.
He pressed on: “There is no way for you to bring your sister back to life. You may search to the ends of the continents, go through Sergado de Gracia’s collection—or any other cache of bones in existence—and this fact will not change. It is beyond your capacity, for nothing of her remains.”
The room blurred. An unendurable bleakness began to weigh down her limbs, her heart, what was left of her soul.
“But I can,” he said.
Her gaze snapped to his.
“I can pluck her essence from the Void,” Death continued. “For I am the Lord Death and it is within my power to do so.”
A pause. Too long a pause. Surely, Azul would die if he didn’t speak soon.
“If you do as I say.”
She gathered the folds of her nightgown in her hands and waited.
“It would seem,” Death explained, “that my gifts in this form are somehow tied to you. I take from your essence, as I am sure you can tell by now, and I have no wish to leave this body quite yet. There are things I mean to do.”
Unease churned Azul’s stomach.
“You do not like this. You do not trust me,” he continued. “Who would? Worry not, I am not lacking in feeling. Did I not, along with the others, sacrifice my body for the sake of life on these lands? Thus, you shall be rewarded for your help. Is it not worth your sister’s life?”
Azul studied his face. His expression told her nothing, just as Virel Enjul’s hadn’t. Death retained his emissary’s mannerisms as well as his memories. She recognized the small tics, the slight tilting of his head while he waited for a response, the stillness of his hands, the way he would not play coy but prey on everything he set his mind to. The strange pull she had once felt in his presence was still there, mingled with deep wariness and amplified a hundredfold.
“What are your plans?” she finally asked.
“I mean to find my brethren.”
“The other gods?” Azul exclaimed. “They are around?”
“They will follow.” He gifted her with a dazzling smile, which was as shocking as the knowledge he had shared with her.
“Why?”
The smile turned devious. “There is something we want back.” Before she could ask anything else, he stood up and told her pleasantly, “Now, I have ordered for clothes to be brought to you. Another dagger, as well, since you are keen on them. I will not begrudge you your gift, as my emissary did.
“As long as you don’t use it on my land without my permission, I will not step in the way. I have some affairs I must deal with in this city, so you may take a few days to organize your own before we leave.”
Her acceptance was taken for granted, and Azul resented this deeply. Like Enjul, the god wasted no time waiting for answers when he already knew the outcome. The illusion of choice, though, would’ve been welcome. He might be a god—Death embodied, thanks to her—but she did not trust him.
“And my brother?” she asked. “Will you make sure he pays for his crimes?”
“What harm can he do? I can claim any bones he takes from death. Or do you wish me to kill him?”
That gave her pause. “Is there no way to simply restrain him?”
“Ah, Life, always seeking a way. How refreshing. It was his idea, you know, to raise the continents.”
“Well?” she insisted, refusing to delve into theology. “Sergado will be free soon, and he’ll seek to carry on his work elsewhere. He must be stopped or he’ll continue killing.”
“He is of no concern for now.”
Of course the god would show no concern, Azul thought bitterly. What were a few human lives compared with his godly one? If he didn’t need her, he would not have cared about hers either.
“Why not simply force me along?” she asked. “Why tempt me with Isadora when it was your fault her body crumbled on your shores? You are a god—you can do as you please.”
“I am the Lord Death, not the Lord Control of Your Thoughts. Your willingness will save effort and time.” His smile was a dazzling invitation, a dare. Mischief, promise, eagerness. Temptation.
“I shall go with you,” Azul said, because it felt important that she make the choice even though none had been offered to her.
His smile changed, morphed into something that could either send a person down into the Void, or reform them into greatness. This was where Enjul’s body ended and the god showed himself. For the first time, Azul saw the power behind this being—that this was a walking god, that the Temples weren’t built in vain, the way Isadora and so many others believed. That once upon a time, he had cared enough for life to elevate the lands, but life itself held no sway over his whims.
It held no sway over any of the gods who, by his own words, would follow.
What did they want? Why take human form now?
Her blood chilled, Azul had one more thought:
That perhaps, for once, she shouldn’t have fought for life.