The Serpent Bride

  Salome had managed, by this stage, to wrench her mouth shut. She was torn between irritation with this Maximilian who had just ridden into her life and decided to take it over, and the continuing bewilderment she felt as to how he’d known who she was and who she hunted (and what was the King of Escator doing out here, anyway?). She was also torn between a thrill of excitement and a growing self-righteous anger now she knew StarDrifter to be so close.

  Finally, she would get her hands on him.

  She’d drifted off again, and realized suddenly that the two guides had turned their horses and were cantering back down the track.

  Maximilian was still smiling at her.

  “They did say good-bye,” he said, “but your thoughts had wandered.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, and then flamed in humiliation. What had happened to her famous poise?

  “You do not have to apologize for everything,” Maximilian said. “Come, ride on. We have a way to go, and we can talk as we go.”

  “How did you know who I was?” said Salome, kicking her horse after Maximilian’s. “And who I hunted? And how it was that I was here?”

  “I am traveling into Isembaard,” said Maximilian, “hunting my wife, who was stolen from me. I have a somewhat disparate group of individuals within my group. StarDrifter, who you seek—”

  “Does he still have the Weeper? I want it back.”

  “Yes, we have the Weeper, but I doubt you will ‘get it back.’”

  “It is mine.”

  Maximilian gave a small shrug, his eyes on the road ahead. “I think the Weeper chooses his own companions. Now, please, allow me to finish.”

  Salome gave a curt movement of assent with her head, wondering how it was that this man could make her feel so small with such a simple statement.

  “I also have in my group four Icarii—I assume you know of the Icarii?”

  “Yes,” Salome said, “of course. They fluttered uselessly about Yoyette from time to time.”

  That earned her an unreadable look from Maximilian, but he made no comment on her words.

  “I also have two marsh women with me,” he said. “Witch-women who walk the boundaries between the dream world and this one. Their names are Venetia and Ravenna, mother and daughter. Venetia knew you were coming, and asked me to wait for you. She knows you hunt StarDrifter, and—”

  “Does she know why I hunt him?”

  Maximilian’s look of sympathy at that point almost undid her.

  “Yes,” he said. “At least we know some of it—of what happened after StarDrifter stole the Weeper and left you to suffer the hatred and revenge of the Corolean court.”

  “They murdered my son!” she hissed. “Murdered him!”

  “And you were poorly treated, too,” Maximilian said. “I am sorry, Salome. You have our sympathy for it, know that. Although I will not allow you to physically harm StarDrifter, I am prepared to stand back and watch whatever else you deal to him.”

  Salome humiliated herself yet further by bursting into tears. She had been deeply angry and emotionally overwrought for many weeks. Maximilian’s unexpected sympathy caught her so unawares she could not prevent the emotion spilling over.

  “I want to kill him so badly,” she managed to get out between the sobs. “I want to…but I can’t…I can’t.”

  Maximilian pulled his horse to a halt across the path of Salome’s horse, making it stop as well. He didn’t say anything, but he reached out a hand, resting it on her shoulder, and Salome dropped her reins, lowered her face into her hands, and cried as she’d never allowed herself in her life previously.

  StarDrifter rose to his feet as he saw the two riders approaching.

  Nerves fluttered in his belly.

  Everyone else—the Icarii, Maximilian’s two guardsmen, Venetia and Ravenna—stood slightly apart from him, distancing themselves both physically and emotionally.

  The sound of the horses’ hooves grew louder, and StarDrifter forced himself to look at Salome.

  She was still lovely, but the suffering she’d experienced at the hands of the vengeful Coroleans (at his hands) showed clearly on her face and in the brittleness of her eyes.

  She and Maximilian pulled their horses to a halt, Maximilian dismounting and then helping Salome off her mount.

  Salome’s eyes did not leave StarDrifter for one moment.

  She was dressed in men’s clothes, leather trousers and boots, and a jerkin over a thickly woven undyed linen shirt, but StarDrifter could still see that she’d lost a lot of weight.

  Maximilian bent down and said something very quietly in Salome’s ear.

  She gave a tight nod, then walked over to StarDrifter.

  The atmosphere was so tense that StarDrifter could barely breathe. The sheer weight of the guilt he felt was almost too much to bear.

  All he’d wanted was to snatch the Weeper and walk away. He didn’t really want to know about what Salome had endured after he’d taken the Weeper, and he very much didn’t want to be faced with it now.

  She didn’t say anything. Not at first. She stood before him, regarding him with such a passion of hatred that StarDrifter was forced to drop his eyes.

  “Do you have any idea?” she whispered finally. “Any idea, StarDrifter, what you did to me?”

  There wasn’t anything he could say. He wanted to say that it hadn’t been him, that it had been Ba’al’uz, but he knew he couldn’t say that.

  In the end, he was as guilty of what had happened as Ba’al’uz.

  StarDrifter forced himself to meet Salome’s eyes again.

  They were brilliant with emotion.

  “They murdered Ezra,” she said, her voice close to breaking. “They brought him before me and, not enough that they’d raped me, they raped him, five men, or perhaps ten. I lost count. They brutalized him so badly…”

  Her voice broke, her entire body shook, and for a moment StarDrifter thought she would fall over.

  He reached out a hand, but she flinched away from him.

  “Don’t touch me!” Salome took several huge breaths, managing to bring her emotions under control enough to resume speaking. “They raped and brutalized him, before the entire court, then took a knife and cut off his penis and his testicles, and they let him bleed out in front of me, over me…I still feel his blood all over me, StarDrifter! It stained me, it stains me, to this day, and it stains you, too…can’t you feel it, can’t you see it? Can’t you…can’t you…”

  She burst into sobs. StarDrifter knew he should do something, but didn’t know what, then in a moment Maximilian was beside her, an arm about her shoulder, pulling her against his body, murmuring something into her hair.

  StarDrifter wanted to sink into the ground. He wanted one of Gorgrael’s Ice Worms to appear right now and swallow him. He wanted a gryphon to drop down from the sky and seize him in cruel talons and carry him to a mountaintop where he would be torn apart and released from this damned, cursed misery of guilt.

  He thought he could have weathered a Salome accusing him of the hurt done to her, but this broken woman before him now, accusing him of the hurt and harm and death done to Ezra, who StarDrifter had never meant to hurt, against whom he had held absolutely no grudge at all…

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and Salome tore herself out of Maximilian’s arms.

  “Do you have any idea what it is like to watch your child die before you?” she screamed at him.

  StarDrifter’s eyes filmed with tears—not tears of pity for himself, but for Salome. “Yes,” he said, very softly, remembering watching his granddaughter Zenith being torn to pieces before his eyes.

  He’d been responsible for that death, too.

  “Yes,” he said, “I do know, Salome. I am so sorry, I don’t know what I can do to—”

  “I don’t want you to do anything!” she shouted. “Nothing! I want nothing from you! I want…I want…”

  Suddenly she wheeled to one side, almost leaping the two or three paces between
herself and Doyle. The movement shocked and surprised everyone, and before Doyle could stop her Salome had seized his sword, and was back before StarDrifter again.

  She shrieked, lifted the sword above her shoulders, and, even as Maximilian grabbed frantically at her, hit StarDrifter across the cheek with the flat of the blade with all the strength she could muster.

  StarDrifter staggered back several paces. He raised a hand to his cheek, watching Salome, now held firmly about the waist by Maximilian.

  He pulled his hand away from his cheek. It was slick with blood. Salome had hit him with only the flat of the blade, but even so the twin edges of the blade had cut into his flesh, and now he had two parallel cuts along his cheek.

  “I want to murder you,” Salome said in a voice half hiss, half whisper. “I want to stick this into your belly, and make you suffer the way Ezra suffered, but I can’t…I can’t…I can’t kill you…”

  She bent half over, still holding the sword, the point of the blade now resting on the ground, and sobbed again, once, twice, then she looked up to StarDrifter, her eyes swollen with emotion and grief.

  “I can’t kill you, StarDrifter, because I am pregnant with your baby. An Icarii baby, and I know more than anyone that if a woman bears an Icarii baby without its Enchanter father there to sing it out, then the baby will tear her to pieces, and I don’t want to die like my grandmother died, screaming and bleeding as her child was born…I don’t want to die like my grandmother died…”

  StarDrifter already felt as if his world was falling apart—his child? She was pregnant with his child?—but then Salome uttered the words that exploded his entire life into a million jagged, terrible pieces.

  “I don’t want to die like Embeth died,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The FarReach Mountains, Southern Kyros

  Something terrible had happened. No one was quite sure what, but as soon as Salome had mentioned the name of her grandmother—Embeth—StarDrifter had let out a choked cry and sunk to the ground, his face contorted, his fingers clawing into the earth.

  Maximilian was tired. Tired of all the complications the SunSoars brought into everyone’s lives. They just couldn’t lead normal, straightforward, blameless lives. Instead, the SunSoars demonstrated a remarkable talent for destroying everyone within flesh-touching distance.

  It was dusk, and they were all now sitting about the campfire. Maximilian had introduced Salome to everyone—she was very quiet now, clearly emotionally and physically exhausted—and they had sat down. Ravenna, Serge, and one of BroadWing’s companions, SongFlight, handed about food and flasks of wine.

  Maximilian thought they’d all needed the wine.

  StarDrifter had joined the circle about the fire, but he refused the food, and had taken only a couple of sips of wine from the flask being handed about.

  He looked completely wretched, and Maximilian sighed, supposing it would be up to him to find out what now had gone so wrong in StarDrifter’s life.

  Doubtless it would affect them all sooner or later.

  “Who was Embeth?” Maximilian said, looking at StarDrifter.

  His face tightened. He did not speak, and it was Salome who answered.

  “My grandmother,” she said, her voice quiet and lacking in any emotion at all. “The birth that killed her produced a daughter, Hasweb, who was my mother.”

  “Hasweb,” StarDrifter murmured, and passed a hand over his eyes.

  Maximilian glanced at him, but addressed Salome. “You said she died giving birth?”

  Salome sighed, more from weariness than anything else. “Yes. She was not a Corolean. She came from Tencendor—”

  Maximilian had a sudden terrible premonition of where this tale would lead.

  “—but married into a noble Corolean family. She was pregnant at the time. Everyone thought it was her new husband’s child, but…she had a terrible labor. The child would not be born. It tore my grandmother apart. My mother, Hasweb, survived, but Embeth did not.

  “Hasweb was an Icarii child. But she was a wanted and loved child, and Embeth’s husband forgave the fact she’d come into their marriage pregnant with an Icarii child, for he had loved Embeth, and raised the child as his own.

  “When she was five they sent her to a specialist, who cut from her back her wing nubs.”

  “Oh, gods!” StarDrifter said. “No! How could they—”

  “StarDrifter, you will say no more until Salome has finished,” said Maximilian. “You will say nothing, do you understand?”

  StarDrifter gave one tight nod.

  “It was done cleanly and kindly,” said Salome, “as it would later be done to me. Hasweb was given a powerful drug that rendered her unconscious. There was only a little pain from the incisions later, when she awoke, and the scarring faded within a year or two. As it faded with me.” She paused, then continued. “Hasweb was married into the First. Embeth’s Corolean husband was a member of the First…and he passed Hasweb off as the child of his former wife, who had died only weeks before he’d married Embeth while he’d been on a diplomatic mission within Tencendor. So no one knew that Hasweb was not a born and bred child of the First. No one knew that I was not, until…” She shot a vicious glance at StarDrifter.

  “So that is how you came by your Icarii blood,” said Maximilian. “From your mother’s unknown father.”

  Salome grimaced slightly. “Not all of it. My mother Hasweb had married into the First, but…she took an Icarii lover herself. My own father was Icarii. I am almost full blood Icarii.”

  “And did Hasweb die in your birth?” Venetia asked.

  Salome shook her head. “No. Her lover came back for my birth, for he had loved my mother, and he sang me out of her womb.”

  “Is Hasweb…is Hasweb still living?” StarDrifter asked, ignoring Maximilian’s injunction to keep his silence.

  Salome did not appear to notice who had asked the question. “No. She died when I was fourteen, pining for her lover, I think.”

  “Who was your father, Salome?” Maximilian asked.

  She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. Not really. My mother would only say that he was the loveliest man she had ever met, with copper hair and violet eyes, and a power so extraordinary that—”

  “No!” StarDrifter cried. “I can’t believe this!”

  Maximilian ignored him. “And Hasweb’s father?”

  Again that shrug. “I have no idea. Embeth never said.”

  Now Maximilian looked at StarDrifter. “Well?”

  “How do you know?” said StarDrifter, his voice hoarse with emotion.

  “Because the SunSoars destroy lives so effectively that I cannot imagine that you have not had a greater hand in the destruction of Salome’s life than what has occurred only in the past few weeks.”

  StarDrifter did not reply immediately, and by now every eye about the campfire was trained on him.

  “I was Embeth’s lover,” StarDrifter said eventually. “I was Hasweb’s father. I had no idea Embeth was pregnant when she left Carlon. Salome, I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “You are my grandfather?” she said.

  StarDrifter made a helpless gesture with a hand. “I had no idea, Salome. I am sorry.”

  “But she was your lover!” Salome said. “How could you leave her pregnant and not know and not care?”

  Maximilian thought of several highly cynical comments he could interject at this point, but thought it better to remain silent. This was now between Salome and StarDrifter only.

  StarDrifter was too emotionally drained to couch the truth in palatable words. “I didn’t love her. Perhaps I liked her. I can’t really remember. She was just someone to have in my bed at night. It was during the heady days of Axis’ first wave of great success. He’d taken Carlon and defeated his brother, Borneheld. Life was about celebrating. About getting drunk on song and wine and success and taking to bed the woman you wanted. But the woman I wanted, Azhure, was wedded to Axis, and so instead I to
ok Embeth, Axis’ old lover. It seemed fitting, somehow.”

  He paused, and didn’t seem to realize the silence about the fire was thick with horror.

  “She left Carlon at some point,” StarDrifter continued. “With Faraday, I think. I never thought of her again.”

  “Faraday being Axis’ rejected lover, also pregnant at that stage with his child,” BroadWing put in for the benefit of the non-Tencendorians among them who were not familiar with the twists in the tale.

  Maximilian closed his eyes momentarily. He couldn’t believe it.

  “And my father?” said Salome. “Who was he?”

  “Your father could have been no one else but the fabled Enchanter-Talon WolfStar SunSoar,” said StarDrifter. “The description fits him perfectly. And WolfStar would have known, somehow, that Embeth had left Carlon pregnant with my child. He would have known Hasweb was my daughter. She was of SunSoar blood. He wouldn’t have been able to leave her alone, and her seduction would have amused him. He would have known that at some point it would cause havoc—and causing havoc was what WolfStar did best. The instant he laid eyes on Hasweb he would have known her SunSoar blood. All SunSoars are pulled to each other. We felt it, Salome. That’s why—”

  “Just get on with it!” Salome hissed.

  “I am your grandfather, Salome. WolfStar SunSoar, the greatest Enchanter the Icarii has ever known, was your father. You are not only virtually full blood Icarii, but you are also virtually full blood SunSoar. I don’t know what to do, Salome. I don’t know how to atone for what I have done to your family. Hasweb…gods, I had another daughter, she would have been an Enchanter, and I had no idea…no idea…nor that you…Salome, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”

  For a long time no one said anything.

  Then BroadWing gave a short laugh. “Trust the SunSoars to survive the destruction of Tencendor in virtual full force. You are the heir to the Icarii throne, StarDrifter. You are our Talon—an Enchanter-Talon. And now you have made an heir to succeed you, and on a hitherto unknown granddaughter of yours and a daughter of the renegade WolfStar. I don’t know whether to congratulate you, or to curse you.”