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Zinandour and Csorwe had reached an uneasy truce in the Pearl of Oblivion; this only made it more clear that Zinandour and Shuthmili had not. Despite its familiarity, Shuthmili’s body still constantly found new ways to discomfit her. Zinandour shouldn’t be surprised. After all, she knew Shuthmili better than anyone, had suffused her very bones, and in all her life, she had never had a warm or welcoming personality. Why should she be any different as a vessel?
For a miniscule and achingly long amount of time—for the forty or so endlessly brief years of Shuthmili’s life—Zinandour had peered into the mortal world filtered through her. She thought she understood what it would be like, to finally live in it again. But looking through Shuthmili’s eyes had been like squinting through the slats of a tight cage, touching skin through heavy cloth, trying to breathe deeply through water. She was forced now to confront that this had not given her an adequate understanding of the experience.
Millennia in the void was long enough to forget many things. Shuthmili’s body had endless demands, and rioted when they were ignored: hunger and thirst and an urge to move, to use the freedom that Zinandour had spent so long without. Shuthmili remembered emerging from long study in dark rooms out into the afternoon sun, only to be dazzled by its brilliance. It was so bright that it hurt her. Leaving the void had done that to Zinandour. Shuthmili had always found small delight in sweets, but on Zinandour’s tongue they overwhelmed, a prickly and lingering sweetness that still strangely compelled her. Everything was like that: good, until it immediately became too much. But her body still craved the things that hurt her, stupidly, unstoppably. It grated. It made Zinandour want to tear off the very skin she had worked and waited and so patiently bargained for.
And most of all there was Csorwe. Brash, sturdy, piercing Csorwe, who stuck in Zinandour’s mind like a thorn caught and scraping against her scales. Zinandour had decided to leave her alone, alive and cared for but out of sight, but it didn’t help. She could feel Csorwe’s presence everywhere as she busied herself with mundane, pointless tasks. Tidying, arguing, weeding. It was pathetic, and more importantly insignificant. Yet Zinandour’s thoughts circled around her like the eye of a storm. This, too, was surely Shuthmili’s fault.
It wasn’t unlike hunger, when Zinandour left it ignored for too long, a physical ache that threatened to ruin her. A weakness she had never consented to; and yet, it could still kill her.
The feeling at least was mutual. Csorwe never seemed to be able to keep her eyes from Zinandour when she was near. Or, perhaps more accurately, she could not keep her eyes from the empty shell of Shuthmili.
(you’re the one who asked for this. if you don’t want it, give it back)
Zinandour’s lost little parasite was always closer to the skin when she thought of Csorwe. Zinandour shoved her aside, as usual. It was a cool afternoon, a stiff breeze coming from the ocean, and Csorwe, apparently, was busying herself making lunch. Zinandour landed lightly on her balcony.
Csorwe looked up from her work. Her eyes caught Zinandour’s. Zinandour said nothing; she had nothing to say to this creature.
(then why are you even here?)
Csorwe didn’t look away, because she was endlessly brave and stubborn. With apparent effort, she schooled her face into blankness, and waved the knife she was holding in Zinandour’s direction, too domestic to be threatening. She said, “Any requests?”
Zinandour shrugged. She had not paid attention to the names of the foods Shuthmili liked. She should not encourage this behavior. Csorwe had already made her a meal once, and though she had not poisoned the food, the event still had not ended well.
Since then she and Csorwe had done their best to ignore each other, and they were both endlessly failing. For example: Zinandour should leave. She should not have come here in the first place. But instead she stayed, and watched Csorwe work at her strange alchemy. She had gathered some of the shellfish Zinandour first offered her. Apparently they no longer offended her so; she coated them in a mix of flour and spices and tipped them into a pan filled with shimmering oil. The smell made Zinandour’s mouth water reflexively. She grimaced.
“You could help, you know.”
“I know nothing of this mortal sorcery, and I do not wish to,” Zinandour told her. She leaned against the wall a few careful feet from Csorwe. “I will observe.”
Csorwe’s mouth twitched. “Well, don’t hover too close. Unless you want to singe a wing.” A strange expression crossed her face. Some distant relation to sorrow. But she turned back to her work agreeably enough, nudging at the mollusks with a wooden spoon she had somehow unearthed.
Once she deemed them finished, Csorwe tipped the products of her labors into two bowls, and held out one to Zinandour. She kept holding it, even as Zinandour took one step back.
“No,” she said. She could almost taste the food, though she had never had its like before, as herself or as Shuthmili: the salt of the sea itself, a pungent sharpness, something brightly savory. A mix of everything. Her stomach ached as Zinandour took a step back.
“Alright,” Csorwe said, with false cheer. She moved to walk past Zinandour, perhaps to have her meal out on the balcony. Perhaps just to get away from Zinandour.
“Wait,” said Zinandour, on some traitorous leftover impulse from her vessel. She grabbed Csorwe by the bicep. She froze. Like a prey animal, except the thing in her eyes as she stared at Zinandour was not fear.
Csorwe always reacted like this when Zinandour touched her, as though her body could not remember that her beloved was no longer here. Distantly, through her gauntlets, Zinandour could feel the heat of her skin, the pulse of her blood, familiar and sweetly tempting. This was another of Shuthmili’s desires that Zinandour had no time for. It gave her an old echo of an urge to press her lips to Csorwe’s cheek or forehead or the tip of her tusk. To kiss her again, full on the mouth, and to not stop this time. To preface her next words with something as stupid and pointless as I’m sorry.
“The Thousand Eyes are lurking again,” she said. She nearly spit out the words to combat any urge to tenderness. “I will deal with them. You will stay here, out of sight.” The snakes had run straight into her wards, foolishly. She had thought they were at least better trained than that, but she had never understood Iriskavaal in any of her incarnations. Possibly she valued persistent idiocy in her followers.
Csorwe stared at her for another moment. “Fine.” She shrugged out of Zinandour’s grip. “But eat before you go. It would be really embarrassing if you keeled over in midair.” She turned around, perhaps to retrieve food and attempt to force it on Zinandour.
Zinandour did not have time for these matters. She turned back to the balcony, spread her wings, and took flight. The God-Emperor’s ever searching slithering fingers were an easier problem to deal with. Zinandour would crush the fragile bones of the Thousand Eyes and burn them to ash. That was who she was: a creature to be feared, a harbinger of destruction, a great dragon whose scales were too thick to even notice the brush of a girl’s sturdy hands.
-
The Thousand Eyes presented little challenge, but it took time to root out the last of them. There always seemed to be one more waiting to die. When Zinandour returned to her palace, the night was already half finished. This was preferable, because it meant Csorwe was not awake to fret uselessly over the blood splashed across Zinandour’s armor.
Still, a prickle of unease lingered under Zinandour’s skin, an infuriating anxiety of the body that had nothing to do with her true worries. She bent to it, disgusted with herself, and landed lightly on the balcony to Csorwe’s room instead of her own.
The doors opened easily for her, as every door or wall in her own palace would. Csorwe’s room was kept neat and tidy. She had always kept her things this way, but Zinandour had no reason to know or care about that.
Csorwe slept neatly too, on her back. Shuthmili had loved to curl up against her, bent into the spaces of her body, head resting against her collarbone. She was making harsh noises on every exhale. Something warmed inside Zinandour’s stomach at the sound, a haunting familiar ache.
Zinandour could see perfectly well in the dim light of the room. Csorwe’s jacket was tucked around her in lieu of a blanket. She couldn’t know how often Shuthmili had done exactly the same thing, tucked beneath that tattered jacket, and yet—
Things had been easier when Zinandour had dealt with Csorwe by forcing her endlessly into sleep, but even now, Csorwe in sleep could not be ignored. Zinandour contemplated ripping the jacket away from her and burning the cursed thing just to be free of this ugly tangle of feeling in her breast, but her hands would not obey. Her stubborn little parasite picked the strangest battles.
She turned away from Csorwe, and returned to the balcony. She could still hear Csorwe’s steady breaths, every other one a snore that Zinandour’s bones could only interpret as comfort.
Zinandour herself needed to sleep as well, another frustrating requirement she was saddled with by her vessel. She loathed sleep. To be separate from her body and forced into an empty darkness was horribly reminiscent of the void she had worked so hard to escape. She had waited a long time for her vessel; she did not like to leave it behind unattended.
Still, exhaustion tugged at her limbs like weights. It would take her soon if she did not willingly give into it.
She had some time left. She sat on the railing of Csorwe’s balcony, her wings trailing out behind her to balance. The sky of the Maze was endless and ever-changing, very different from the monotonous stretch of void she had lived in for so long. It was pleasant to look at. It calmed Shuthmili’s traitorous racing heart when it decided, falsely, that there was something it should be concerned about.
Zinandour knew it immediately when Csorwe woke. Her predator’s senses were attuned to the lives of all the small creatures around her; and Shuthmili’s body always knew what Csorwe’s was doing whenever she was near. Also, the snoring stopped.
She didn’t move. It was her palace, after all. She could go where she liked. Csorwe approached her with careful measured steps, and then leaned both her arms on the balcony, a paltry attempt at casualness. Zinandour did not turn to look at her, but could not help watching out of the corner of her eye.
“Can’t sleep?” Csorwe asked. “Haunted by the screams of your thousands of pathetic victims?”
Zinandour snorted. “Human matters,” she said. “I sleep when it is necessary. No more.”
She did turn to Csorwe then, even though she knew it was a mistake. Her face was alert, despite the late hour and the fact that she had just woken. Shuthmili had never been sure if Csorwe’s ability to be fully awake at a moment’s notice was a holdover from her employment with Sethennai, or something she had learned as a dedicate of the Unspoken One.
It would be so easy to reach out and touch her, to feel the solid reassuring muscle of her. This was the other problem with letting herself grow so tired: it gave her leech a better foothold.
“You know,” Csorwe said, “Shuthmili had nightmares too.”
“I know,” snapped Zinandour. “You think I am not acquainted with everything there is to know about her? I have lived in her since her earliest days. I shared this vessel with her for your fifteen absent years. I know exactly what she dreamed of.”
Csorwe flinched. Good. She should remember who it was she was speaking to. But she stood her ground. Of course she did. Peering up at Zinandour in the dark, Csorwe said, “Well, then, what do you dream about?”
“Nothing you could hope to know or understand. You have always been a silly creature,” she said. “Go back to your bed. I tire of this.”
“No, I don’t think I will,” Csorwe said. “Unless you want to put me there.” She blinked, and twisted her mouth, as though embarrassed by what she had said. Still, she did not turn away. She looked up at Zinandour with her horridly hopeful gaze, like she thought if she just peeled back Zinandour’s armor, Shuthmili and her nightmares would spill out from underneath.
Zinandour still wanted to touch her, badly. So instead she answered Csorwe’s question. “I dream of the void. Open and endless and eating away at my very sanity. Shuthmili’s nightmares were always small in comparison.”
“Is that why you’re so afraid to sleep?”
“I am not afraid,” Zinandour said. She pressed one knuckle to her temple, and ground it in. The spark of pain was not helpful. “It is simply. Difficult. Everything is difficult. To be so suddenly let out of a cage is—the freedom of it is disorienting. You know, Csorwe, you remember what I was like when we first—” She snapped her mouth shut, but it was too late.
“You are there, aren’t you,” Csorwe said, in that terrible yearning voice. The voice she’d used before Zinandour had kissed her, when she thought her dead lover was still here.
(i am here, my love—)
Zinandour squashed her down. YOU ARE NOT.
Csorwe reached a hand towards her, and Zinandour threw herself away from the balcony, her wings beating hard in the open air.
The silence between them stretched. Csorwe pulled her hand back. With visible effort, she rearranged her face into neutrality, as though she thought that would help her. “Go to sleep,” she said, firmly, her voice only barely cracked. “There’s no use worrying about shit in the dark when you can do it just as easily in the morning.” She took her own advice, with one last lingering look at Zinandour, and retreated to her own bed.
Zinandour ached to follow her, the desire a nearly physical pull, as though she had not fully yanked Shuthmili’s puppet strings from her own limbs.
She turned away. Suffering sleep would be a small price to pay to avoid these indignities.
-
Csorwe was making breakfast again, the smell and heat of it suffusing the kitchen of their small apartment and leaking into the bedroom. Zinandour had told her that it wasn’t necessary; and Csorwe had just smiled and said she liked to do it. Wanted to do it, for her. It was horribly charming. Talasseres had been in the room, and made an exaggerated gagging noise in their direction.
It was nice to wake up this way, with someone already thinking about taking care of her. Csorwe grinned at her over her shoulder when Shuthmili came in. “These are just about done, I think,” she said, poking at one of the griddle cakes with her spatula. She’d discovered that Cricket Station was on a trade route for a grain she was familiar with from Oshar. It was very yellow.
Zinandour pressed a kiss to Csorwe’s cheek over her shoulder, neatly avoiding getting poked by her tusk with the ease of long practice. “Good morning,” she said, because it was. Because this was the happiest she had ever been.
“Good morning,” Csorwe agreed, even though it was no longer morning, because now they were back on the whaling ship on the way to the Echentyri temple. Shuthmili was cold, and Csorwe was busy helping with the rigging, though every few minutes her eyes found Zinandour’s, and she threw a smile over her shoulder at her, an attempt at reassurance.
They’d caught another whale. Zinandour looked down at it under her hands, felt its anguish, its fear at being trapped, its knowledge it was going to die. These things meant something to her. They made her throat tight. Just as it began to occur to her that this was strange, she reached out with her magic for its heart, and snuffed out the whale’s life.
It hurt her to do it. Why should it hurt her? She had never felt anything before as her claws ripped into living flesh, and this was not nearly so vicious and satisfying. Perhaps she was disappointed? But no, she knew this feeling, a deep wretchedness that lived in her very bones, as if they had been hollowed out once again to hold it—
The whaling ship was gone, but the ache remained. Zinandour was in her room in the Lignate Citadel. Csorwe wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. Her corpse ruled the city into ruin, and Shuthmili sat alone in her room, curled around a bottle of resin wine, weeping. It had been exactly a year today since she lost Csorwe. It was stupid of her to keep track, but her mind had betrayed her, and marked the date against her will.
“Please,” Shuthmili said, to no one. To herself. “Please, you have to promise me we’ll fix this.”
I PROMISE WHAT I HAVE ALREADY PROMISED. NO MORE, AND NO LESS. YOU ALONE I WILL NOT BETRAY. YOU’RE MINE.
I can’t live without her.
THEN FREE ME, AND BE DONE WITH IT.
No. No. Not yet. You won’t save her. I know you won’t save her.
THEN LIVE.
Shuthmili took another drink, and then threw the half-full bottle across the room. Zinandour clawed her way to consciousness as it shattered, gasping, a fresh wave of familiar misery washing over her. Her eyes ached with Shuthmili’s tears. Csorwe, Csorwe, Csorwe. She was alright, Shuthmili had made sure, she’d given everything for it and it was the worst mistake of her life, but was she really here, she needed to go see, to make sure—
No. Zinandour gripped her own forearm, hard, digging in with her claws, and remembered who she was: the great dragon of Qarsazh, a ruthless and hated traitor, the devouring flame. She was not a mere scavenger living in paltry domestic bliss or a traveler eking out passage on a whaling ship. She was not an insect, defeated and in mourning. She was not Shuthmili.
Still, Shuthmili’s dreams lingered like the smell of smoke after a fire. That was why it took her too long to realize the tower was empty.
It was hours before she noticed. She had thought to avoid Csorwe. She was never sure of herself around her anymore, and Shuthmili’s memories pressing so close to the surface of her thoughts boded ill. But then she remembered that Csorwe would need to eat—and though she was capable of feeding herself, Zinandour wanted to ask her about the yellow griddle cakes Shuthumili had dreamed of. Zinandour hadn’t gotten to taste them. The idea was repulsive, but refused to leave.
But when Zinandour alighted on the balcony yet again, Csorwe’s room was empty. And there were none of the telltale signs of her keeping herself busy: no freshly washed pots, or dirt from the terrace gardens tracked in, or a broom and dustpan set aside. The room was perfectly neat, just as it had been the night before. The only oddity was that the bed was unmade. Csorwe, with the discipline of a woman raised by lay-sisters, always made her bed first thing every morning.
Csorwe often kept herself busy in the gardens, but each one Zinandour checked was empty, and left her more uneasy. She should never have let that creature wander so freely around the palace. She should never have let her out of her sight. She should have kept her safe, she had promised to keep her safe, (can’t you even do that right you archaic old bat, oh, something’s wrong, where is she—)
Obviously the girl had just found her own way out of the tower and left. She didn’t want or need Zinandour’s protection; perhaps it was better for her to be gone. Zinandour could not make herself believe this, no matter how many times she repeated it to herself.
The note was tucked away in Zinandour’s disused entrance hall, on an otherwise empty table. A parody of a delivered letter, as though Zinandour was in the habit of receiving mail. She could not imagine what had possessed Csorwe to leave such a thing in her escape.
The ostentatious wax seal was the first hint that the letter was not in fact a final note from Csorwe. Zinandour ripped it open with one claw and unfolded it. The paper was glossy, the words written in a messy but artful scrawl. It read:
To The Great Dragon of Qarsazh,
Since my previous attempts to contact you have been so quickly and bloodily rebuffed, it seems a new strategy is in order. The truth is I am in dire need of your assistance with a small matter, and have dispatched my Thousand Eyes to incentivize you to help me: Csorwe will once again enjoy the hospitality of the Lignate Citadel. She will of course not be harmed, as long as you join her in a reasonable amount of time. I look forward, as ever, to your swift and affirmative response.
Kindest regards,
Belthandros Sethennai
That motherfucker. Shuthmili’s voice was stronger than it had been since she was subsumed, as though her anger had buoyed her up into Zinandour’s consciousness, bubbling and churning. Zinandours hands were shaking with it. That rotten fucking bloated supercilious corpse of a man, I’m going to—
YOU WILL DO NOTHING. I WILL RETRIEVE HER.
Yes. We will. I’m going to help.
AND WHY WOULD I NEED YOUR HELP, LITTLE PARASITE?
You know how to rend and tear flesh, how to suck the marrow from the bones of any creature—very charming! Not helpful right now! I know how to negotiate. I lived in the God-Empress’s palace for fifteen years, and I have heard more than enough about Belthandros Sethennai. Csorwe is just a pawn to him. One wrong step and he’ll kill her.
Zinandour thought of the snake that must have left the letter here. Such a polite hand-delivered threat, when Csorwe had been stolen from her bed. Of course the God-Emperor would not stoop to such things himself. Zinandour had never understood the appeal of delegation, of thousands of faceless subordinates who had no choice to obey. She was particular in her chosen followers. She hoarded only the best.
THEN HE KILLS HER.
Don’t act like that doesn’t matter to you, said Shuthmili. If she is lost, it will be as if the emptiness and rot of the void itself grows inside you. It will swallow you from within. You won’t be able to escape it this time.
Zinandor grimaced. She crumpled the letter in her talons, and felt no satisfaction as the paper tore beneath them. SHUT UP.
I’m right, Shuthmili said, without satisfaction, with only the same desolation already spreading in Zinandour’s breast. Of course you know I’m right. I know better than anyone what it feels like to lose her.
-
The stretches of the Maze that surrounded the Pearl of Oblivion were harsh and inhospitable. Zinandour had picked the location for that reason. She liked to be left alone. It was surrounded on all sides by the sea, which had a nasty habit of devouring any ships that attempted to cross it; and the space around it was well-warded with Zinandour’s magic. She did not know how the Thousand Eyes had gotten through, and had no time to investigate. Her parasite was right, as bitterly as Zinandour hated to admit it: losing Csorwe was not an option.
There was no sign of a struggle anywhere. It sickened Zinandour, because she imagined Csorwe being sent straight into sleep, just as Zinandour had done to her so many times, and then carried out of the palace like that, limp in arms of some foul creature.
Perhaps that would be preferable. She could not help but picture Csorwe simply agreeing to go with the first snake that offered her passage out of the tower, because she found her old hated employer preferable to her new—companion. It was an old and guilty fear of Shuthmili’s that had found new life. Zinandour could not seem to discard it.
Zinandour leapt from the palace, her wings catching her on the wind. She could not pause to think, because when she paused it only allowed Shuthmili’s fear to bubble up inside her.
That’s ours too. Nothing is just your or mine anymore.
Zinandour did not even spare a thought to tell her to shut up. It was a fault of her vessel that she could not clear her mind. Her heart was unruly in her chest, and her breaths would not come evenly no matter how hard Zinandour tried to corral them. Shuthmili was defective after all.
You’re just freaking out.
DO YOU NOT HAVE ANYTHING HELPFUL TO ADD?
Yes, actually. If they’re taking her back to the Gate, they’ll need to head due West.
Zinandour was turning before she had even processed the thought, as though Shuthmili had moved for her. She could not care about that. It was a problem for later, when Zinandour had Csorwe safely back within reach, and could force her parasite back into her place.
For once flying did not calm her. Her mind continued to return to unbidden images of Csorwe bleeding, broken, dead. Shuthmili had come up with an elaborate and unlikely nightmare of Csorwe being once again possessed by Iriskavaal. Of Csorwe’s face looking back at her with blank and uncaring eyes, just as she had for fifteen long years, the stubborn frustrating spark gone out of her.
STOP WORRYING. YOU ARE ONLY DISTRACTING ME.
Shuthmili said, You think that’s just me?
Zinandour lunged, clawing at nothing, just the very air itself. She could not actually fly any faster than she was. They had followed the probable path of the Thousand Eyes ship past the edges of the ocean now, to the dry desert that lay between it and Grey Hook.
Finally, they came upon more than empty sky and empty ocean. There, Shuthmili whispered. That’s a Tlaanthothe shuttle. They were all commandeered years ago by the Thousand Eyes. She’s—she must be in there.
The ship was an ugly thing, dull gray metal ineffectually spewing smoke. Zinandour could crush it easily in one claw, with one swipe of her talons or strong beat of her wings—
If you crash the ship, Csorwe will die, Shuthmili said very firmly. Zinandour was not stupid. She was older than the very sea they had just overtaken. She knew that. It did not stop the want from rising up in her, like water as it filled lungs, furious and choking. She couldn’t think of anything but the creatures that had taken Csorwe from her lying smoking on the ground. The way the metal would feel as it tore, a satisfying crush, and how the bones would be even better once she had pulled her targets screaming from the ship.
Well, get over it, said Shuthmili. You think I don’t want to see them burn? Being human means you can’t just destroy everything in your path anymore. You might hit something important.
I AM NOT HUMAN. I AM MERELY BORROWING YOUR BONES, AS MUCH TROUBLE AS THEY INSIST ON BRINGING ME. IF YOU HAVE A BETTER IDEA, STOP WASTING MY TIME.
You need to force them to land. Weather or mechanical problems. Not the kind that take the whole ship down, but that make it seem like a possibility.
Zinandour could do that. She gathered her power—Shuthmili’s power—the power they had shared for nearly all of Shuthmili’s life, and called the wind down.
The storm was refreshing. Finally, the world around echoed the torrent inside Zinandour. The ship did its best to tolerate being buffeted by the winds. It would be an admirable effort on the part of the crew, if Zinandour did not hate them so. But when a crash of thunder nearly sent it spinning over itself, it finally plotted a course to land, setting down in the desert and sending up clouds of dust.
Zinandour circled, high enough that in the darkness of the storm she would not be seen. Then she was forced to watch and wait. It had not occurred to her how unbearable this would be. Her miserable panicked flight had at least involved movement, forward momentum; to merely hover and observe made her skin itch beneath her armor.
The snakes poured out of their ship, and set up an approximation of camp. That shuttle will be crowded, Shuthmili explained. No sleeping quarters. It’s not meant for long term transport, just short jumps. I think the God-Emperor must be running out of resources.
I DO NOT CARE WHAT BELTHANDROS POSSESSES OR LACKS, AS LONG AS HE DOES NOT TRY TO STEAL FROM ME AGAIN.
At this, Shuthmili was silent. Zinandour did not care to contemplate what it was that had shut her up. Instead she held herself again in stillness until, finally, she got what she’d been waiting for: she saw Csorwe, being led out of the shuttle. The sight of her was sharp, a nearly physical blow.
Two snakes led her out, manacled. She was supporting herself mulishly. Something in Zinandour relaxed to see her awake. Then her lip curled. How foolish were Sethennai’s underlings if they treated Csorwe this casually? She was a capable swordswoman, cunning and strong. She had been Sethennai’s student for half a decade. He of all people should know better. They were treating her like a sack of grain that couldn’t think for itself.
They still remember when she was their God-Empress, Shuthmili said, relieved in the back of Zinandour’s head. She, too, had calmed at seeing Csorwe well. They can’t be too rough with her. Sethennai didn’t think about that.
Csorwe was dragged, gently, towards the campfire. Shuthmili wanted to wait, still, until it was night, when the snakes would be complacent and distracted. They’ll be expecting us, obviously, she wanted Zinandour to know. It didn’t matter. Zinandour didn’t care. This was as far as she could go; she simply could not wait any longer. That was not the kind of creature she was—even Shuthmili, who had planned so carefully for fifteen years, a blink of an eye to Zinandour but an eternity to her—even she could not make Zinandour into something built for biding her time. Millenia locked away hadn’t done it either. It had only made her despise it even more.
She swooped down to the camp, casting her wings wide. She opened her mouth and let forth everything inside herself, the tangled web of anger and grief that Shuthmili had planted inside of her. It came out as a roar, reminiscent of the first vessels she had taken long ago.
The snakes did not startle the way mortals did. They went for their swords. There were perhaps a dozen of them, a paltry force. Most of them came straight for Zinandour, and two fell back to guard Csorwe.
She tore the first few snakes to shreds, artlessly, without finesse in her anger. Shuthmili was distantly horrified, and smug, and horrified again at her smugness.
LITTLE PARASITE, Zinandour thought, almost fond at her distress. AREN’T YOU GLAD YOU CAN PROTECT HER?
She was, viciously so, a spike of triumph in their heart.
The snakes had swords, but she had claws and talons and teeth. Zinandour gathered her glass sword into her palm, and for once did not feel the usual rush of pleasure and rightness at carrying it again. The last batch of Thousand Eyes that Zinandour had dealt with had been nearly boring. This, though, forced her into her flesh. Perhaps this was what mortal creatures meant when they spoke of feeling alive.
Csorwe took care of the two snakes guarding her easily with her manacled fists. Zinandour only caught glimpses of her, but the way she moved was beautiful and familiar, even after all these years. Csorwe had always been strong in a way that made Shuthmili’s heart do interesting acrobatic tricks, which it had apparently failed to forget.
It was a strange, jolty feeling. Zinandour coped by grabbing a sword that came towards her face in her free gauntleted palm, and swinging it around so that its hilt brained her attacker.
When she whipped back around, her eyes drawn, always, to look for Csorwe, she found her shoved to her knees with a snake’s sword at her throat.
“Stop,” said the last snake left standing, stupidly brave, and apparently uncaring that she would die for it. “The God-Emperor has words for you.” She opened her mouth to keep talking. Shuthmili had a good idea of what she would say: a rote recitation straight from the grandiose mouth of Belthandros Sethennai. She didn’t want to hear it. Neither of them did. Csorwe was staring up at her, unafraid but slightly unsteady, as though she had been drugged or hit hard. It filled Zinandour with enough fury to snap the last of Shuthmili’s borrowed patience.
“Shut up,” spit Zinandour, in a voice that shook the ground. The snake flinched back, her sword arm wavering. The blade scraped across Csorwe’s skin, drawing blood, and the snake made a stricken noise. Shuthmili had been right. She still saw Csorwe as a part of her god. She wouldn’t hurt her.
Zinandour lunged forward, teeth bared. She wrapped one clawed hand around the snake’s wrist, wrenching it up and away from Csorwe. “No. You will listen to me.” She twisted the snake’s arm back, until the movement of her muscles and ligaments forced her to drop it as she let out an agonized sound. Csorwe lurched away, out of harm’s way, so finally Zinandour was free to do as she liked.
She drew in another breath for another great dragon’s roar. “I am the Zinandour, the Flame That Devours. I am the Queen of Decay, the Paragon of Rot, the traitor-dragon who escaped the void to scorch the earth, and I let no one take what is mine.”
The snake did not last longer than any of her predecessors. There was a deep satisfaction in the snap of her bones.
Distantly, Zinandour became aware that the rain had stopped. There was no one left alive in the patch of desert but her and Csorwe, just as it had been in the Pearl.
“Well,” said Csorwe, woozily, from where she had sprawled on the ground a few feet away. She seemed to be clinging to consciousness by her fingertips. “That was dramatic.”
The pulse of affection in Zinandour’s breast was painful in its intensity, a scorching fire in her ribs.
Csorwe was smiling up at her, lopsided and slightly giddy. She held up her hands, still chained together at the wrist. “A little help here?”
Zinandour struck through the metal with one talon, and the chains fell away. Csorwe rolled onto her knees and then stood, too fast. She staggered. Zinandour rushed forward to catch her before she could fall back to the bloody ground. She scooped Csorwe up, cradling her tight to her chest.
“Are you in immediate danger of death?” Mortal wounds were not her speciality.
Csorwe blinked up at her. “How sweet,” she said, and then she started to shake alarmingly against Zinandour.
Shuthmili bullied her way forward. Calm down. She’s laughing. “Csorwe?”
“I’m fine,” said Csorwe. She trailed off. “Just scraped up. Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Good,” said Zinandour, firmly taking control of her own mouth, and took flight with Csorwe in her arms.
The flight was refreshing, and finally sensible. The past few hours did not bear thinking about.
“Kind of forward,” Csorwe mumbled into Zinandour’s neck. “Who says I’m yours?”
It was Zinandour’s turn to laugh. It was a strange, bubbling sensation. Unfamiliar. How many times had Shuthmili laughed in the past fifteen years? “Of course you are.”
Csorwe was quiet. She didn’t argue. Zinandour had learned to expect arguments from her, and thought she might have lost consciousness, until she spoke again. “Those were Sethennai’s people. The snakes.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did they want with me?” Csorwe asked, in a voice like she knew already.
Zinandour felt the urge to apologize, of all things, Shuthmili’s worry and anxiety trying to bubble up through her mouth. “He wishes to force my hand,” she said. “To help him find his errant offspring. Apparently he was not content to allow me to simply murder all his messengers.”
“Right. And so he decided to kidnap me about it.”
“Foolishly, yes.”
Csorwe started to shake again, the warmth of her laughter against Zinandour’s neck cutting through the cold wind. “Well,” she said, “you can’t blame him for trying—it worked, didn’t it?”
Zinandour’s claws tightened minutely against Csorwe, both her and Shuthmili for once in perfect agreement: they would blame Belthandros Sethennai all they liked for trying to take Csorwe away.
In her distraction, Zinandour’s stomach growled. Her body had remembered that it was hungry.
-
The tower was unchanged when they returned. Of course it was. They had been gone for half a day at most. But the halls seemed to echo strangely in Zinandour’s ears. This was now a place where Csorwe had been taken from her. That had weight, the memories settling over everything like dust.
Zinandour landed at her usual perch on the balcony of Csorwe’s room, and set her down carefully on her bed. “Stay there,” she said. “I will tend to you.”
“Will you, now,” Csorwe said, but there wasn’t much bite to it. She closed her eyes and sank down against the blankets. She was as solid and sturdy as ever, but she looked tired, and dark bruises had started to bloom over her gray skin.
She was no longer actively bleeding, but Shuthmili had opinions about the dangers of infection. She had opinions about the bruises, too, and about the way Csorwe’s mouth twisted when she stretched and pulled a sore muscle.
QUIET. STOP FRETTING AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Wretch, Shuthmili thought, but she nudged Zinandour to turn and start gathering supplies from the cabinets.
When she turned back around, Csorwe had opened her eyes to watch her silently from the bed. She sat up at Zinandour’s direction, and did not flinch back from her touch when Zinandour knelt between her legs.
Zinandour allowed Shuthmili to guide her hands against Csorwe’s fragile wounds. Zinandour knew how to destroy, not mend. She had never paid attention to those details when Shuthmili had done this before, pressing her hand to skin and using Zinandour’s magic to convince it to stitch itself back together. She could feel her brow furrow in concentration.
Csorwe’s skin was warm with blood, proof that she lived, that Zinandour had saved her. Her hands lingered even after Shuthmili was done.
“So,” Csorwe said, as though she was commenting on the weather. “That was pretty impressive back there. Should I say thank you?”
“Do you wish to?”
“Well, you are technically still keeping me prisoner here,” said Csorwe. “So not really.” She no longer sounded angry, or distressed, or distraught, the way she had the first few times she had woken up here. The way she had sounded after she kissed Zinandour, and then begged to see Shuthmili. Her tone was thoughtful instead.
“Should I have let them take you?”
“Obviously not,” Csorwe said. “I’ve had enough of being one of Belthandros’s toys. Even if he’s got a whole other thing going on now, it’s always the same old shit.” She sighed, and unexpectedly tipped her head forward, so that she was leaning on Zinandour’s shoulder. Zinandour held herself very still.
“Sorry,” said Csorwe, quietly. “Actually, no I’m not. I’ve had a really shitty day, and I’m sick of—a lot of things, actually. Of being helpless, and missing you, and not even knowing if I should miss you.”
Driven by an urge she could not understand, Zinandour reached a hand up to lay across Csorwe’s back. Csorwe shook, and this time, it was not from laughter. She said, in a rough voice, “Can you just pretend for me? Just for a minute?”
Zinandour should rear back. She should insist, again, that Shuthmili was gone, that Csorwe was never going to get her back. That she should stop torturing herself with the belief that things could go back to normal, that she could ever again have what she wanted so badly. Was her life not enough? Zinandour had given that to her; she’d fought to give it to her. She would always fight to keep Csorwe from harm. What right did she have to ask for more? Why would she ever ask it from a creature like Zinandour, a traitor to all?
She slid her hand up to grasp Csorwe by the back of the neck, and pulled her back. Csorwe made a noise of distress, but Zinandour said, “Quiet.”
She cradled Csorwe’s cheek in her gauntleted palm. She thought of what it had felt like, to see Csorwe’s face every day for fifteen years, and to know that nothing of Csorwe lived there, and never would again.
Csorwe leaned into her hand, unafraid, even when Zinandour’s thumb dug in too hard, drawing more blood. Zinandour wanted to break something, but she could not break Csorwe, would die before she did that; so instead she yanked her forward and kissed her.
It was still strange and awful and somehow addictive, the way the first bite of food made an ignored hunger suddenly flare. Zinandour, miserably, helplessly, tried to give Csorwe what she wanted: how had Shuthmili kissed her? Never quite like this. But it was not hard to impart the same desperation that Shuthmili would have after all this time. Zinandour knew it well, as she knew everything that was Shuthmili’s.
Their eyes caught and held as Zinandour pulled away. She wanted to kiss Csorwe again, on her mouth and everywhere else, even as her mind shied away from the idea, from those useless mortal complexities. She wanted to eat food from Csorwe’s hand, and feel her skin against her tongue, and hold her safe and warm against her breast. It was an aching and awful and unfamiliar hunger that Shuthmili had saddled her with. It pierced her, the way Csorwe’s gaze did, and somehow still she did not regret it.
Csorwe said, her voice dipped low, “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be any good at pretending.” But she wasn’t upset. There was a smugness underneath her tone. It was charming. Zinandour was charmed, the way that Shuthmili had always been charmed by Csorwe, since the very first day she met her. Csorwe raised a hand to touch her face, and was not deterred when Zinandour startled back from it. She spoke with wonder, and a little sadness, and a tempered desperation: “But she is in there, isn’t she? Come on. Neither of you can lie to me. I think that’s been made abundantly clear.”
Shuthmili said, “I’ll always be with you.” It came out too fast, rushed, because she expected to have to fight to say it, to have to wrestle for control of her mouth, but Zinandour didn’t stop her. Her borrowed heart was beating too fast. She couldn’t think or do or say anything at all.
Csorwe hadn’t expected it either. Her mouth went slack, her eyes wide. She crushed her mouth to Zinandour’s, to Shuthmili’s, ungainly and too hard, unmindful of her tusks as one scraped along Zinandour cheek. When they pulled apart, she said, almost too soft to catch, as if it wasn’t meant to be heard: “Don’t go.”
Zinandour’s eyes burned. “I told you. You will never come to harm while I can stop it. And I will always be able to stop it. But it will never be like it was.” She thought of the yellow griddle cakes, of the simple happiness of those two years in their small apartment at Cricket Station. Shuthmili missed them so badly that for a moment it was hard to breathe. “No matter how hard either of us pretend.”
“I know,” Csorwe said, but Zinandour knew her too well, knew her as well as Shuthmili—Csorwe would never give up. She would never settle the way Shuthmili had, for the least worst option. She would find hope wherever she walked. She should have died before she ever had a chance to live, and she hadn’t, and now she would never accept that there were things she couldn’t change.
Csorwe pressed a kiss to Zinandour’s cheek, the tip of one tusk glancing against Zinandour’s lips. It was startlingly warm—warmer than a simple dry press of lips should be. She said, “Are you hungry?”
Zinandour was, ravenously so. Csorwe could see it in her face before she even answered. She nudged Zinandour out of the way, enough that she could stand, still a little stiff. “Alright. You’ll protect me, and I’ll feed you. That’s a place to start. We can figure out the rest when I haven’t just been hit really hard on the head a few times.”
Zinandour watched her rummage through the cabinets, still kneeling on the floor. A new unfamiliar ache spread through her, from her throat to her ribs. When Csorwe turned back around to meet her eyes, she felt it like a scorch mark.
-
That night, Zinandour didn’t want to let Csorwe leave her sight. After much negotiation, Csorwe agreed that Zinandour could share her bed if she promised to actually sleep.
“You’re giving Shuthmili dark circles,” she said, touching one gentle thumb there. Zinandour was too startled to correct her about whose dark circles they were.
So as Csorwe slept, Zinandour lay curled up beside her. Not the way Shuthmili once did, with her head on her chest. Zinandour needed to be farther away to watch Csorwe properly, and ensure the regular repetition of her breathing.
When Shuthmili spoke she was close to sleep, the rhythm of Csorwe’s snores soothing her. Thank you, she said, a whisper in her heart. For getting her back.
THERE WAS NO OTHER OPTION. I AM NOT IN THE HABIT OF ALLOWING LESSER CREATURES TO STEAL FROM ME.
Shuthmili reached out their hand and traced a careful finger along Csorwe’s cheek. Csorwe didn’t react, as though her body knew there was no danger. Is it so hard to admit you care for her?
YOU WANT ME TO ADMIT WHAT IS NOT TRUE?
I just want you to stop acting like a coward. What have we been doing all this time if not caring for her?
YOU DID THIS TO ME, Zinandour accused her. YOUR USELESS FORM—IT NEEDS SO MANY THINGS. FOOD AND WATER AND COMPANIONSHIP. I HAVE PROTECTED HER, YES, BUT ONLY BECAUSE I CRAVE HER, ENDLESSLY, ALWAYS, THE WAY I MUST EAT AND DRINK AND SLEEP. BUT DO NOT MISTAKE ME: IT IS NOT KINDNESS. I HAVE NO CHOICE. I WANT TO DESTROY HER ENEMIES AND BURN THEM TO ASH. I WANT TO KNOW WHERE SHE IS, ALWAYS. And finally, the purest, simplest, most selfish truth: IT HURTS ME WHEN SHE ISN’T THERE.
Exactly, said Shuthmili. That’s love. What made you think it was only something nice? You were with me all those years when I used it as a weapon to hurt myself. To hurt the world. Love can be just as cruel as we are. Just as selfish. I think maybe there’s no way to help it. But you’re right. It’s just another kind of hunger, and you can’t stop this kind either. You can try to outrun it all you like, but it will always catch up with you. And if you run too far, you’ll die. Caring for her is a part of you now whether you like it or not.
Zinandour asked, with a horrible kind of understanding, LIKE YOU ARE?
Yes, said Shuthmili. She smiled into the darkness, the expression an unfamiliar twist on Zinandour’s mouth. It made something inside her chest ache. She could not dislike it. Exactly like me. Your very own bespoke little parasite.