The words filtered through his mind on a series of clunks and mis-hits, the combination of nouns and verbs and other things making no sense.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?"
As he sat up, the bottle he'd been nursing rolled away, knocking into Rhage's boots.
"We received word from the Territory that the Queen is no longer going to attack because Trez has voluntarily returned to the s'Hisbe--"
"Jesus Christ!"
Jumping to his feet, he shoved through the pair of them and burst into his brother's room. The bed was messy, and the closet doors were open . . . and there was absolutely, positively no sign of Trez.
"No--no, we're supposed to leave!" he shouted at nothing and nobody. "I'm arranging everything! We're going to leave!"
When he wheeled around, the two were standing in the doorway.
Mary's voice grew strident, as if she knew damn well he was liable not to follow what she was saying otherwise: "We know you're going to want to go after him, iAm. But before you do--"
He headed out of the room, prepared to mow them down if he had to, as much as he appreciated their concern.
But Rhage caught his arm and yanked him back. "Let me get you armed first. And Lassiter is going with you. He can be out in the sunshine."
iAm was about to argue when he thought, Well, duh.
"We're still prepared to back you up, my man," the Brother said grimly. "You're not in this alone."
For a moment, iAm couldn't figure out what the guy was saying--and then he realized, Shit. If he went back in there and got Trez out . . . the Queen was likely to attack Caldwell in retaliation.
And then these people would be under siege.
"Why did he do it?" iAm moaned. "Oh, God, why did he do it?"
Mary took his hand. "He must have found out about the threat. Somehow he must have heard something in the house."
iAm closed his eyes. "This has to stop. This whole goddamn thing has to stop."
Because assuming Trez had finally fallen on that sword he'd been cursed with? The guy was going to mate and have sex with the only female iAm had ever loved.
'Cuz he and his brother were lucky like that. Yup.
"Come on," Rhage said. "Let's get some weapons on you. Lassiter is already waiting."
What happened next was all a dizzy haze. Down to the second floor. Holsters belted onto his hips, wrapped around his shoulders. Guns. Knives. A long black leather trench coat that covered the lot of it.
Then it was down to the foyer, where the fallen angel was similarly adorned, and not making jokes at all.
Just before the pair of them left, Rehvenge stepped up and embraced him. "I have to stay here. In case the Shadows attack Caldwell, I need to be able to command my sin-eaters to defend during the daylight hours."
Fuck. He and his brother's private misery had become so many's.
"I'm so sorry," iAm said, glancing around at the Brothers. Wrath. The rest of the household. "I can't believe it's coming to this."
Rhage shook his head. "We gotchu. We do what we have to, to take care of our own."
And then the talking was over and iAm and Lassiter were out through the vestibule and on the front steps of the mansion.
The fallen angel reached out and grabbed his arm. "Get ready to ride."
Frowning, iAm looked over at the black-and-blond-haired male. "What are you talking about--"
In an instant, he was consumed by a sun ray, up and out of there without any control or thought or will of his own . . .
...heading for the home he hated and the destiny he was still fighting against.
EIGHTY-TWO
The gems were cold and heavy.
As the Chief Astrologer draped Catra with mesh after mesh of platinum-set diamonds and sapphires and emeralds and rubies, she was less and less able to breathe right.
Although that was probably more because the enormity of what was happening was sinking in, rather than the weight of the ceremonial robes.
The final part of the Queen's dress was a thin veil that drifted down over her face like a breeze.
"It is done," the Astrologer said.
In ordinary circumstances, the garb would have been delivered to the Queen's quarters and cleaned and prepared for the wearer by a fleet of maids. But this was not ordinary.
Was the Queen dead now?
How would the death happen?
As those questions played through her head over and over again, she--
". . . has arrived! He has arrived!"
Out in the hall, the sound of voices shouting the same thing permeated the dense quiet of the chamber.
Frowning, she picked up the skirting and walked forth--only to remember she couldn't activate the door to the corridor.
"Will you please open this up?"
"At once, Your Highness."
The Chief Astrologer rushed forward, placed his palm on the wall, and the panel obligingly retracted.
". . . Anointed One has arrived!"
It was mad chaos outside, people running and jumping with joy, a celebration breaking out. For a split second, she stood in the doorway, taking it all in--before remembering there was carnage in the circular room behind her.
"Come out here," she hissed to the Astrologer.
Just as he walked through, the door shut automatically, her presence registered to the multitudes racing up and down the corridor.
Everyone stopped. Dropped to the floor. Prostrated themselves.
As the citizens began to murmur the required greeting to royalty, they clearly assumed she was the current Queen.
While that dawned on her, so did another thought. "Cleansing . . ." She wrenched around and forced herself to keep her voice down. "Oh, stars above, they're going to cleanse him--quick, we must go unto the high priest!"
The Astrologer didn't ask any questions. He just followed her as she ran through the palace. Fortunately for them, her presence carried with it a wave of genuflections, what would have been a congested trip freed up by the fact that everybody, from courtier to Primary to servant, hit the floor as soon as they saw her.
AnsLai's sacred chamber was not far from the ceremonial hall, and when she came to it, she went to put her hand on the wall--but the Astrologer ducked in first and found the spot with his palm.
As the panel slid back, she got a look at a large naked male form stretched out on a black slab of marble, his arms down at his sides, his feet together.
AnsLai was across the way, standing before a fire pit, both palms up to the heavens as he whispered an incantation.
"Stop!" she said. "I command you to stop!"
The high priest wrenched around--and promptly dropped to his knees. "Your Highness, I thought you were still in the ritual room?"
Catra rushed over to the male who was lying with his eyes closed. "Tell me you haven't cleansed him--"
"I have just administered the solution unto his veins--"
"Oh, no, no, no," she said. "No!"
"Whate'er do you speak of, Your Highness?" the high priest said, straightening. "He has been on the outside for decades. He is impure to mate with your daughter--"
"He's not the Anointed One."
At that, the male they were discussing turned his head slowly toward her.
And that was how she finally met, after all those years, TrezLath.
"I'm so sorry," she breathed to him, bending down and clasping his hand. "I didn't make it in time--I'm so sorry. . . ."
*
As Trez lay on the table, he could feel a burning on the inside of his forearm from where they had injected him using a surprisingly modern, human-world needle.
He would have assumed, given how ancient the ritual was, that they would have preferred some kind of reed or hand-fashioned ancient metal syringe.
But no. It was actually precisely the same kind that his Selena had been injected with.
Instantly, he had felt the poison in his veins, and, rather like the venom of a snake's bite, it wasted no ti
me in spreading, multiplying, taking over.
Weakened as he was from grief and exertion, he realized there was a good chance he wouldn't survive this.
And that made him focus on the ceiling above him. Funny, whenever he'd pictured this ritual, it had always been with him tied down.
Strange where you ended up. Now, he welcomed the coming pain--because it might just be his ticket back to Selena. Gossip held that you didn't get into the Fade if you committed suicide, but if you were killed?
Not your fault.
There was, of course, an existential issue to be reconciled: namely how the pair of them, coming from different traditions, could in fact find each other on the other side of life. If there was another side.
But if faith had any power, he was going to believe they would.
He might as well go out on that note.
Gradually, he became aware of two other presences in the room with him and AnsLai. And one of them sparkled from head to foot in a rainbow of colors.
The Queen.
She began speaking to AnsLai after the high priest bowed down to her. And then AnsLai was straightening, talking, looking alarmed . . . then panicked.
The Queen approached Trez--and after a lifetime of hating the female, he thought idly of reaching up and trying to strangle her.
He didn't have the strength, however. Especially not as the pain intensified even further.
He hadn't intended to move, but he began to writhe, his body trying to escape the poison.
And then suddenly his entire suit of flesh was on fire on the inside.
The last thing he remembered was more people racing into the room, and they did not drop to the floor. They stared at the Queen in confusion.
And then the Chief Astrologer in his red robes addressed them all.
A moment later, they did hit the floor before the female.
Oh, what did it matter, Trez thought.
What did any of this, even the monumental pain, matter . . .
EIGHTY-THREE
That fallen angel got them to the Territory.
And as iAm re-formed, he realized it was a good thing that Lassiter had taken control of the flight. With his brother in the clutches of the Queen, he doubted he would have been able to concentrate enough to dematerialize.
"I'll take it from here," iAm said.
"Got your back."
With a nod of gratitude, iAm strode over to the front entrance of the s'Hisbe. Among the things the Brotherhood had given him as parting gifts were a couple of pounds of C4 plastic explosive. All he had to do was set a serving or two of it up at the huge gates and--
As if the entrance to the s'Hisbe wanted to avoid bodily harm, the giant halves split and opened before the pair of them.
But it wasn't a fortuitous departure of someone on the far side.
s'Ex stood tall and proud, the perfect guard to the Queen's lands.
Except . . . something was all wrong. The male was wearing the kind of farshi servant dress he'd given to iAm before, and it was dripping with blood.
There was also a red-stained, serrated dagger in his hand that was as long as a male's forearm.
"We don't have a lot of time, come on," the male said urgently.
Ordinarily, iAm would have thought twice about going anywhere with a Grim Reaper like that. But he'd already trusted the male once--and it was clear there was a coup in play.
Falling into a jog, he and Lassiter followed the executioner to the palace complex and entered the compound through a hidden door. Once inside, s'Ex led them through corridors that were utterly empty.
No servants. No courtiers.
And s'Ex had no apparent concern that they would be detained, questioned . . . threatened.
The male had either lost his mind or . . .
"What the hell is going on here?" iAm demanded.
"You're the Anointed One, not your brother."
iAm stopped so fast that Lassiter had jump to the side or mow him down. "What."
"No time. Your brother's being cleansed--he's on death's door. If you want to say good-bye to him, you'd better hurry up."
As iAm just stood there, like someone had unplugged him, Lassiter and s'Ex grabbed him under the arms, jacked his feet off the ground, and carried him off.
A second later, he came to and forced his way out of their holds, taking control of his own feet. "It's not possible," he shouted over the pounding of their footfalls.
"The Queen forged the charts. You were the one all along--but you weren't supposed to live for long after the birth. Trez was the better bet--for the Queen and for your parents."
All at once, they burst into the main audience hall, and iAm found his feet faltering again.
Up on the dais . . . his maichen--the Princess--Christ, whoever the hell she was--was having the crown of the Territory placed upon her dark hair.
As about two thousand Shadows fell to their knees on woven silk mats, their heads bowing in supplication.
"She figured it out," s'Ex said. "She figured it all out--even though it nearly cost her her life."
"Where is the former Queen?"
"At the feet of the daughter."
That was when he saw the severed head off to the side, black eyes staring out at the crowd, but seeing nothing.
"I believe in fate," the executioner said. "I believe in the stars. This is the way it was meant to be."
iAm shook himself. This was all really too much, and nothing that really concerned him. Trez, on the other hand. "My brother . . ."
"This way."
*
When iAm finally burst into the room where Trez was, he lost his breath. His brother, his blood, was on a marble table, that big body twisted up in pain.
His first thought was that it reminded him of Selena, the way she had contorted.
iAm rushed over without acknowledging the other people who were standing around. Clasping Trez's hand, he fell to his knees. "Trez . . . Trez . . . ?"
But there was no reaching his brother. He was gone, alive but transported somewhere else, as if his body had issued a temporary vacate order.
"No," he heard himself say. "Not after all this . . . Trez, you're free . . . you can stay with me, we're free. . . ."
Well, sort of free if he himself was the Anointed One. But he couldn't worry about that right now.
Fuck.
"Don't leave me, my brother."
". . . antidote. We shall have to see."
iAm looked up and saw AnsLai, the high priest, standing on the other side of the table. "What?"
"I gave him the antidote . . . as soon as I knew." The male glanced at s'Ex. "But it may be too late. He was in a weakened state when he came here."
iAm started talking, blathering about . . . shit, he didn't know what.
It was all he could do.
As his brother twisted and turned, arms and legs sawing against a pain that iAm couldn't even imagine, iAm was helpless. So helpless.
". . . see you?" AnsLai asked him sometime later.
"What?" he said in a voice that was hoarse. Guess he hadn't stopped talking.
"Your blooded parents. They have heard that you are both within the Territory--that you are rightfully the Anointed One, and they would like to--"
iAm bared his fangs and glared into the high priest's worried eyes. "You tell those two that if they want to live they will never, ever approach me or my brother again. Do you understand? Tell them that the only thing that could distract me from Trez right now is murdering them both where they stand."
The high priest blanched. "Yes. But of course."
iAm refocused on his brother.
And resumed talking nonsense. Just as Trez had done to Selena as she was in the grips of passing.
Sometime later, he was dimly aware that a female came into the room. And he knew who it was by the echo of his own blood, but he did not acknowledge her.
He was too consumed by trying to keep Trez on the planet when, undoubtedly, the male was
busy working to make his way to the far side.
EIGHTY-FOUR
Trez got his wish.
In the course of his dying from the cleansing, he learned that, in fact, there was a Fade. And yes, people of different traditions and faiths all went to the same place.
At some point, the pain became too much and his body gave out--and the abrupt lack of any sensation was a shock. Yet he welcomed the numbness.
And the sense of flight.
Soaring, he was soaring . . . until he found himself in a vast white landscape, a foggy landscape that, as he walked along, made him feel both weightless and grounded.
Soon enough, a door was presented to him. A door with a knob that he instinctively knew if he turned, would allow him to step into what was beyond and thereby never, ever go back to Earth.
And that was when he saw Selena.
Her face and form appeared to him not on the door, but in it, as if even closed, the panel contained three-dimensional space.
Instant. Joy. And it was the same for her, her smile radiating through the distance between them, their eye contact translating to a caress he felt throughout his body.
She was healthy. She was strong. She was whole.
"My queen!" he shouted, reaching for her.
But she put her palm out, stopping him. "Trez, you need to stay."
He recoiled. "No. I need to be with you--this is the way it's supposed to be--"
"No. You have more to do. You have things you need to do, people you have to meet. Your journey's not done."
"It sure as shit is." Check him out with the cursing. Way to do the whole reunited-in-Heaven fantasy. "You're dead and I want to be with you."
"I'm going to be here, waiting for you." She smiled again, and warmed him anew. "It's wonderful where I am--I flew because of what you did, the way you freed me. I found flight and I am free and I am going to wait for you until your journey's done."
"No," he moaned. "Don't send me back."
"I don't have that power. But you do. Make the choice to stay down there--you have to take care of iAm. You need to pay him back for all the years he's been there for you. It's not fair for you to leave him alone. He will never be at peace, and he's earned it."
Well, hell. That was probably the only argument she could have made that had a chance of getting through to him.
Shit.
"What about us," he moaned. Even though that was selfish. Childish. "What about me . . . I'm nothing without you."
"I'll come to you in the night sky. Look for me there."