The Queen of Death

57

Te’oma backpedaled, dodging just out of Esprë s lethal reach. The changeling felt the chill air left behind in the wake of the girl’s fingers as they brushed by her.

“Almost, dear.” Te’oma clucked her tongue. “Though I’m afraid, as always, that you don’t have that killer instinct.” Esprë snarled as she pulled herself up over the lip of the hole. “Get a little bit closer, and maybe you’ll find out.” “What makes you so determined to kill me before you kill yourself?” Te’oma asked. “What difference will my fate make to you when you’re dead?”

“It’ll help me enjoy my last moments,” the girl said. As she spoke, she reached back behind her and began to haul up the rope.

Te’oma smiled. The girl had grown a great deal in the past few weeks. Even with everything going on around her, she still kept cool enough to realize that she needed to cover her escape from Kandler and Burch. She looked very much like the girl the changeling had kidnapped in Mardakine, but she acted far more worldly.

Te’oma took some small amount of pride in knowing she had helped make that happen. It helped to balance out the shame she felt for the same deeds.

“Do you really plan to end your life,” Te’oma said, “or is this just a ploy to get close enough to kill the dragon queen?”

Esprë smirked at the changeling. She’d never looked so adult since Te’oma had known her. Something about her eyes had changed. If not older, they shone with a hard-won wisdom that had been thrust upon her by the turns her life had taken.

Te’oma imagined that the girl could never have dreamed of finding herself here in Argonnessen dealing with dragons who wanted her dead. She’d probably hoped to live for years in Mardakine with Kandler, only leaving once she’d buried him. Perhaps then she’d have made her way back to Aerenal, hoping to connect with her long-lost father.

The changeling wondered how Ledenstrae would have treated the girl if she’d never developed the dragonmark. Would he have refused to recognize her claim on him, or would he have put aside any bitterness toward her mother and taken his prodigal daughter in?

Such questions were pointless, of course. It hadn’t worked out that way, and pondering such possibilities only distracted from how things really were.

Esprë seemed to have abandoned any such illusions— along with any hope for a future.

“Do you think I would have a chance?” Esprë asked. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I used to think so too,” said Te’oma. “The years keep proving me wrong.”

Esprë tossed the rope to one side of the hole.

“Come with me,” the changeling said. “We can escape this.”

“How?” Esprë said, glancing over Te’oma’s shoulder at where the dragon queen continued to knock against the gigantic crystal on the far side of the chamber.

“The airship—”

“Too slow.”

“My bloodwings—”

“Not strong enough to carry us both—and too slow.” “We can hide. We can—”

“From that?” Esprë pointed at the dragon queen as the creature belched another gout of fire from its snout. “From the hundreds just like her?”

Te’oma frowned. “She’ll kill us all anyhow. Your sacrifice will mean nothing.”

“Then either way I’ll die. At least this way I get to choose how. I get to stand there before her on my own two feet and ask for it.”

“That’s what you want?” Te’oma couldn’t believe it. This girl had fought so hard to live.

“If I can just spit in her eye, I’ll be happy.”

Then Te’oma remembered how the girl had crashed the Phoenix straight into the Talenta Plains. Even then Esprë had been ready to die rather than surrender her life to forces beyond her control. She’d nearly killed them both in the process—and had expected to succeed.

“I can’t let you do this,” Te’oma said.

“You don’t have anything to say about it.”

Te’oma gathered her resolve deep in her mind and then lashed out with a mental blast that would have dropped a charging minotaur.

Esprë grunted and fell to one knee. The girl had been prepared for the changeling to try something like this, though, and she had her mental defenses in place.

Te’oma cursed. She’d hoped to take the girl out with a single, crushing blow. She didn’t have the time to dance around the observatory with her. Sooner or later the dragon queen would get tired of trying to kill Xalt and Sallah—or would succeed—and then she’d spot Esprë. Once that happened, their dance would come to a crashing end.

Of course, the girl knew that. All she really had to do was shout at the dragon to bring doom down on her head—and Te’oma’s too.

Te’oma took a deep breath through her nostrils and lanced out with her mind at a specific part of the girl’s brain.

Esprë clutched her head in pain then opened her mouth to scream. Te’oma winced in anticipation, but nothing came out. The girl’s lips curled in frustration, but try as she might she could not speak a single word nor utter even a feeble grunt.

Te’oma charged Esprë then. She knew that if she gave the girl a chance to think, she’d come up with some other way to get the dragon’s attention, even if that meant going over and kicking the queen in her red, scaly rump.

Esprë had to present herself to the dragon though. Just getting killed wouldn’t do anyone a bit of good. She needed to show the dragon her mark and explain that killing her would be enough to fulfill the dragon’s needs. After that, bothering to chase down the others would only be a waste of the dragon’s time.

As Te’oma came at the girl, Esprë raised her arms to defend herself. Her hands still glowed black.

Unlike a wizard or a priest, the girl didn’t need her voice to activate her power. She had no incantations to recite or petitions to pray. She only needed to summon up her powers with her own will.

Te’oma drew her black-bladed knife and brandished it before her. Esprë’s eyes grew wide as she watched the changeling handle the blade. Then, just as Te’oma advanced on her, the girl smiled.

Esprë came at Te’oma with her glowing-black hands spread wide. Instead of putting her arms up in front of her, she made no attempt to protect herself or to avoid the blade.

Surprised, Te’oma pulled her knife back. The girl had called her bluff. Esprë knew that the changeling wanted to save her, not kill her. To stab her with the knife would work against that goal.

Esprë smiled, and the black glow arced between her outstretched hands. Te’oma had never seen it do that before. It seemed the girl’s powers were growing still.

Perhaps Kandler had been wrong not to take the girl into hiding. If they had tried that, they might have been able to delay the inevitable long enough for all of Esprë’s horrible powers to reach maturity. Then she might have stood a real chance against the dragons or any others who would have wished to harm her.

Still, to then have to live her life forever on the run, only able to keep people away by killing them, that wasn’t what Esprë wanted, but wouldn’t that be better than being dead?

Apparently not, from the girl’s point of view.

Esprë swiped at Te’oma again, and the changeling ducked out of the way. The glow on the girl’s hands seemed to whisper with the muted accusations of the souls of those she had already killed. Her voice may not have worked, but her powers strove to speak for her.

Te’oma reached deep into the darkest pockets of her mind, struggling to summon up enough power to stab once more into Esprë’s brain. She figured she’d only get one more chance at taking the girl out before everything went to hell.

When learning to hone her mental powers, Te’oma had spent many hours—days, even—meditating, practicing at concentrating. Whereas some students of the mind liked to cloister themselves in silent abbeys or dank dungeons, she preferred to work at her art in the midst of chaos. She went to the main square of whatever town she was in at dawn and stayed there until dusk, forcing herself to tune out any distractions that came her way.

In the wealthier cities, she’d put an empty hat in front of her to collect change from those passersby who thought her a sad veteran of the Last War. In such efforts, she rarely sat alone.

The trick, she had found, was to be able to ignore everything about yourself but the threats. Discerning a true threat when concentrating on something else wasn’t easy, and Te’oma had taken many a boot in the rib before she managed to master the skill. Eventually, though, she’d come to know instinctually the difference between a threat, a bluff, and the bluster of life.

All that training paid off now when Esprë came at Te’oma. Instead of stepping out of the way—or just turning tail to run—the changeling knew what the girl was after. She wanted not to kill but to die.

Esprë raised her arms, her hands strained into the shape of claws, and charged straight at Te’oma. The changeling knew that if she let the girl by she’d keep running past her until she could tap on the dragon queen’s tail.

Te’oma reached out and grabbed Esprë’s glowing arms by the wrists instead.

Esprë screamed in frustration at the changeling, although no sound came from her mouth. Then she flexed her arms and started to bring her hands together.

The girl’s anger at the changeling had pushed her over the edge. Her use of her dragonmark was no longer an idle threat. If Esprë managed to touch Te’oma with one of her hands, the changeling would die.

“Don’t,” Te’oma whispered. “You don’t really want to kill me.” She hoped she could convince the girl to believe in the lie.

Esprë snarled voicelessly at the changeling.

Holding Esprë like this, Te’oma couldn’t help but think of all the horrible things she’d done in her life. The worst—surpassed only, possibly, by abandoning her own daughter—had been to turn this innocent child into a murderer.

When Te’oma had first entered Esprë’s life, the girl’s powers had already started to kill, but without Esprë’s knowledge or control. When the girl had discovered what had happened, she’d been mortified.

Since then, Esprë had been pushed into trying to kill others over and over again. Each time, she’d approached the task with some reluctance—or so Te’oma had told herself, perhaps to assuage her own conscience.

Now, though, the girl held nothing back. She wanted to kill the changeling before she died.

Te’oma’s vision blurred, and for a moment she feared that the girl had managed to use her dragonmark’s powers against her after all. Then she blinked away the tears that had formed in her eyes.

“You don’t have to do this,” Te’oma said, her voice raw and pained. “You don’t.”

The girl pulled herself backward and crumpled toward the ground. Surprised, Te’oma kept her grasp on the girl’s wrists and toppled over on top of her. It wasn’t until she started to fall forward that the changeling realized her mistake. If she and the girl fell to the floor together, she’d be at the girl’s mercy.

Te’oma released Esprë’s wrists and tried to pluck her hands away. The girl’s left hand shot out, though, and caught the changeling around the shoulder.

As the black glow began to flow from Esprë into Te’oma, the girl mouthed a single word at the panicked changeling. “Die!”

Te’oma gathered everything she had left in her mind and formed it into a black-bladed knife. “There’s no other way,” she said. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

With but a single, desperate thought, she flung the blade at Esprë’s brain.

Everything turned black.