“Scorio?” Never had it been so eerie to hear Naomi’s voice come from the Nightmare Lady’s maw. “You believe me, don’t you? That it was an accident.”
Blood was still ebbing from Alain’s neck. “I believe you,” he said woodenly.
The Nightmare Lady took a step back and shrank down into her Naomi form. “She made me do it. I didn’t want to. Scorio, she made me!”
Only to surge back up into her dark, angular Nightmare Lady form. “I wouldn’t have had to if you trusted me!”
“Naomi?” Scorio took a step forward. “Calm down. We can figure this out.”
The Nightmare Lady shrank down to Naomi, who stared at Alain’s corpse. She was breathing fast and shallow, her hands rising up to rake at her scalp. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want for him to…”
Faridian still had both hands raised. “The Imperators will fix this. Everything will be fine.”
“No!” She burst back up into the Nightmare Lady and leaped away. “You’re lying! They’re the problem, they’re all part of the problem. If we stay, if I stay…” She fixed her burning green eyes on Scorio. “We need to run. Now.”
He looked back to where Queen Xandera was slowly rising from the marl. At the dead, the damage, the desolation. Back to the Nightmare Lady.
Run.
To flee with her into the Iron Weald.
He looked down at Alain.
“Scorio?” Darkness burst out around her, and then she was before him, having skitter-stepped across the intervening distance. “Scorio? You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
He looked up into her skull-like visage, into her burning green eyes.
She reached for him with her emaciated hand, but when he flinched she snatched it back.
“You don’t trust me,” she whispered.
“I trust you, Naomi,” he said, voice faint. “Just shift down.”
“Why?” She glanced around suspiciously at Faridian, at those gathering behind them. “No! You don’t trust me… and I…” She leaped back again and stared at Alain, then laughed, the sound akin to glass shattering. “This wasn’t… I did this for you!”
Scorio felt his heart breaking, and could only shake his head. “I never wanted you to kill them.”
“Because you’re weak.” Her voice grew low and cruel. “Weak and gullible and stupid.”
“Just… just come with me. Please?”
The Nightmare Lady laughed again, raised her face to scream at the dark sky, then spun, took ten long strides, and dropped into a chasm and was gone.
Chapter 60
Naomi didn’t return.
Events proceeded apace. The valley hardened into shattered black rock. A whale ship arrived from the Fiery Shoals, disgorging a Pyre Lord and small army of Dread Blazes and Flame Vaults. Queen Xandera recovered from her wounds and retreated to her royal suite to confer with her remaining five selves.
The Imperators never returned, either.
Alain’s body was cremated along with the remains of the fallen Great Souls. Scorio attended the ceremony. It was a somber affair, and lasted too long. Scorio slipped away while speeches were being made, and lost himself in the darkness of the valley till at last he fetched up against one cliff face and there sat to await the rising sun.
So many memories flickered through his mind. People he’d known. People he’d seen die. The Blood Ox’s frenzied words. Bravurn’s sneer. His thoughts turned again and again to Fyrona. It felt important to find a way to tell her that Alain was gone, but he couldn’t muster the will to do so.
Scorio stumbled through the following days. He refused food, couldn’t understand when people sought to confer with him, and for the most part simply sat by the main entrance to the Fury Spires, gazing out over the Iron Weald canyon, waiting.
Waiting for Naomi to return.
Queen Xandera invited him to an audience when he was ready, but he never found himself so.
A whale ship finally flew in from the south. Scorio watched it glide through the cloudy skies to alight on the high dock. The distant Telurian Band sun had dipped but half an inch when someone emerged to drop to her knees by his side and hug him tightly.
Lianshi.
Scorio startled, raised a hand to her arms, then felt his eyes prickle with tears as he turned back to gaze out over the valley. She held him tight, then finally settled down to sit beside him.
Her shoulder was warm against his own. Her arms wrapped around her knees, just like him.
Finally her silence drew him out, and he glanced sidelong at her, knowing that doing so would bring nothing but pain.
The compassion in her face was too much. He lowered his brow to his knees and fought back the oceans of grief as she slipped an arm around him once more.
When he was calm, the valley now dark, she helped him rise and guided him to a room somewhere inside the spire. Nobody spoke to him, but he felt their stares. Lianshi settled him in a bed, covered him in blankets, and dimmed the lights.
Scorio slept.
When he awoke, she was reading in a chair she’d dragged in, a tray of food on a side table. The smell was faint, the food cold, but his stomach gurgled and when he sat up she smiled and placed the tray on his lap.
“I was about to get new food,” she said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “The weed salad—I’m sure it has a better name—has practically congealed into a stone. But the soup’s good, and the bread and cheese even better.”
Scorio devoured the food, suddenly as ravenous as four men. He couldn’t tell if the food was good or not. He simply ate it, and when he was done, took a large cup of warm water from Lianshi and downed it in a series of gulps.
“There,” she said, taking the tray away and setting it down. “Turns out the spire’s packed full of provisions. Enough to feed an army. Makes you wonder.” She hesitated. “Or not, I suppose.”
Scorio studied her, mute.
“I’ve heard some of what happened,” she said at last. “The Imperators managed to follow the Blood Ox into his Sanctum. He wasn’t able to close the aperture in time. They killed him. They nearly died, too, but healed each other right after and returned to the Twilight Cradle.”
“So they’re gone.”
“It’s a miracle that they stayed up here as long as they did. Moira’s earned a lot of credit for how she handled the situation. She’s becoming the main authority in LastRock now that Charoth and Aezryna have left for the Emerald Reach.”
“And Jova?”
“She’s in LastRock, but she’s just a Dread Blaze.” Lianshi made a face. “Listen to me. ‘Just’ a Dread Blaze. With the fiend tribes so badly scattered, and the Blood Ox gone, there’s no need for her to reclaim the old pacts. People thought she would, as a means to start reclaiming her authority, but she hasn’t bothered. I’m guessing she’ll be moving deeper into hell soon.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t go with the Blood Barons.”
Lianshi curled a lock of dark hair behind one ear. “They invited her to do so, but she declined. I don’t know why. We’re not exactly close.”
Scorio managed a smile. His first since Alain had died.
“So.” Lianshi smoothed her hands down her lap. “Everybody’s amazed by what happened here. Queen Xandera is refusing to talk to anybody beyond basic courtesies until she speaks with you, but there’s a sense we’ll all be asked to leave soon. The Fury Spires are decidedly not ours any longer.”
“Good.”
“Everybody wants to talk to you.” Her voice softened. “But Moira’s told them to wait.”
“Did she send you?”
“No.” Lianshi’s tone remained gentle. “I came of my own accord, but she knows I’m here, and approves. I… when I heard…”
Scorio felt a twist in his chest and looked down.
Lianshi placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Scorio. You’ll see her again. I know you will.”
“I…” His throat closed up, and he coughed to clear it. “We… we became a couple, at the end.”