When Avun arrived at the room where he and Muraki shared their meals, he barely recognised it. The table of black and red lacquer was surrounded by four standing lanterns, the flames burning inside metal globes with patterns cut into them to allow the light through. Exquisite drapes had been hung over the alcoves, hiding the statues there. A brazier of scented wood smoked gently in the far corner of the room, providing heat and a subtle fragrance of jasmine. No longer did the room seem cold and empty, but warm and intimate. The meal was already served, bowls and baskets steaming on the table, and Muraki knelt at her place, dappled by the light from the lanterns.
'This is wonderful,' he said, unexpectedly touched.
Muraki smiled, her eyes averted downward, her face half-hidden by her hair. Beyond the three tall window-arches at the back of the room, it was utterly dark: no stars or moons could penetrate the canopy now.
He settled himself, kneeling at the mat across the table from her. 'Wonderful,' he murmured again.
'I am glad you approve,' she said quietly.
'Will you eat?' he asked. It had become one of their rituals. At first, because she was always reluctant to dine with him, and later, as a wry joke between them at the way she had been. He began to take the lids from the baskets and serve her.
'It is done, then?' he asked. 'The book?'
'It is done,' she replied. 'As we speak it is being taken to the publisher.'
'You must be relieved,' he guessed. He really had no idea how she felt at any stage of her writing, for she had never discussed it with him.
'No,' she said. 'Saddened, perhaps.'
He paused in the act of spooning saltrice onto her plate, puzzled.
'I thought you were celebrating?'
'I am,' she said. 'But it is a bittersweet day. That was my last Nida-jan book.'
Avun was confounded by this. It was as if she had told him she was giving up breathing. 'Your last?'
Muraki nodded.
He passed the plate to her and started taking food for himself. 'But why?'
She was sliding on her finger-cutlery. 'His journey has run its course,' she said. 'It is time, I think, to begin anew.'
'Muraki, are you sure about this?'
She made a noise to the affirmative.
'Then what will you do? Will you create a new hero to write about?'
'I do not know,' she replied. 'Maybe I will stop writing altogether. Today, Nida-jan is ended, and all things are possible.'
Avun did not quite know how to gauge his wife's mood, and was careful in his words. Though he had always found Muraki's constant writing a source of irritation, he found himself unable to imagine her any other way, and now that it came to it he was not sure he wanted her to stop.
'Are you doing this for my sake?' he asked. 'I would not have you change yourself for me.' The hypocrisy of this passed him by entirely.
She met his eyes for a moment with something like amusement. 'It is not for you I do this, Avun,' she replied. 'Too long I have lived in the safety of my own world and ignored the one that surrounds me. Today I have closed my world away, and I am ready to face what is real.'
He set down his plate, hiding his wariness. He was unsure whether to be glad or worried about her decision. Writing had been such a big part of her life for so long that he was afraid she might not cope without it. And he would not be there to watch over her; there was no way he could delay the movement of the Aberrant forces now, even if he wanted to. After all the effort he had spent to make himself indispensible to the Weavers, he could not back out. Kakre would shred him.
'You must tell me,' he said, to cover his thoughts. 'How does it end?' He poured each of them a glass of amber wine.
'It ends well for him,' she said. 'He finds his son at last, in the Golden Realm where Omecha has taken him. There he wins him back after facing Omecha and beating him in a game of wits. They return to their home, and the son acknowledges Nida-jan as his father, for only a father's love could drive him to seek his son even beyond the realms of death. And so the curse laid upon him by the demon with a hundred eyes is lifted.'
'It is a good ending indeed,' Avun said. And yet privately, he wondered. For it was no secret to him that she had been mourning the loss of their daughter in her books, mirroring her grief in the actions of Nida-jan, and this sudden turn to happiness made him suspect that something had happened which he was unaware of.
'Come to the window, Avun,' she said, picking up her glass of wine and holding out her hand to him across the table. Surprised by her uncharacteristic impetuousness, he took up his own glass and rose with her. Together, they walked across the room to the window-arches that faced out over Axekami.
In the night, the miasma overhead could not be seen, and Axekami seemed peaceful. Lights were lit, tumbling down in profusion towards the Kerryn and the River District. Not as many as there had been in days gone by, but enough. It was almost possible to believe the city was beautiful again.
Muraki turned to him. 'While I was dreaming, you have become the most powerful man in Saramyr, my husband,' she said. She kissed him deeply, and there was a hunger in it that made him dizzy. He wanted to have her then and there, but he did not yet dare to do so, did not trust that he would not embarrass himself by overstepping the mark. Presently, she drew away from him, her eyes searching his, and she took a sip of wine, regarding him over the rim of her glass. He slid his arm around her tiny waist. His wife's words made him burn with pride. It was true: he had done all this, he had made this of himself. He sipped his own glass as he surveyed his conquest, the great capital of Axekami, and he was content.
It took him only seconds to realise that the wine was deadly poison, but by then it was far too late.
The first he knew of it was the awful tightening of his throat and chest, as if he was choking on a bone. His hand came free of Muraki and went to his collar; his other, absurdly, still held the glass out of instinctive reluctance to drop it. He could not draw breath. Gaping, he staggered backwards and tripped on his heel, falling to the floor. The glass shattered in his hand, cutting it badly. His chest was a blaze of pain as if he had swallowed the sun. His lungs would not respond to the urging of his brain, would not expand to fill with oxygen.
Wildly, in blind animal panic, he reached for his wife, but Muraki was standing by the window, her face shadowed by her hair, and she was not moving to help him. His eyes widened in horror and disbelief. That appalled gaze still rested on his wife when his body went slack and his life left him.
Muraki regarded him for a long time. She had expected tears to come, but there were none. She had expected, at least, to be consumed by remorse or guilt, but she felt none of that either. If she were writing this scene, she thought, she would not do so with such a dearth of emotion. Real life was infinitely stranger and unpredictable than the one she lived in her imagination.
She turned away from her husband and looked out over the city once again. She could smell the oily tang of the miasma, overpowering the jasmine from the brazier. She had never quite become accustomed to it. Her lips tingled where the poison wine had touched them, but she had not let it past into her mouth. Simple enough to procure poison from Ukida: she had only to order him, and he obeyed. He was loyal enough to keep her secret and not to ask what it was for.
She glanced at the corpse of Avun again, trying for some last time to stir something in her breast. The newly awakened passion for him had not been faked by her. She had wanted to enjoy what she could while she could, and she wanted to make him happy too. After all, she thought he deserved that much before she killed him.