She was breathing.
She was still alive.
“I should not blame you.” Her voice rumbled beneath him. Lenk turned and saw a single eye staring at him, wide and white with a gold iris from skin blackened. “You did as you were supposed to, as your kind did back then, too, listening to a father of your own.”
Water, neither silver nor black, rimmed her stare.
“Perhaps you wanted to protect those you loved. Perhaps you wanted to prove me wrong. Perhaps you will, still. I should not hate you.”
Her voice rasped on plumes of steam.
“My children have no mother. I have no children. I hope you live your life well, Lenk. And I hope that whatever hell you go to when you die, I will be waiting for you.”
The water carried her up on the rising tide, closer to the dying earth. Lenk lay still upon her body, felt her breathe no more. Despite the steam, despite the blood, he felt cold.
“Mother?” A voice, weak and trembling. “Mother.”
He looked and saw the Abysmyth, wading up to Ulbecetonth’s body. It laid claws upon her, tried to shake her colossal form.
“Mother,” it said, its voice a whisper. The silver water splashed on its skin, sent it steaming and charring like its mother’s. It took no notice. “Mother, wake up.”
“Please, Mother, please wake up.” It was joined by more demons, more hands upon her, more voices pleading to the dead. “Mother, please don’t leave me.”
“Mother, it hurts, please don’t-”
“-Mother, I don’t want to feel it, anymore, please-”
“-we succeeded, Mother, we got the book, you can-”
“-Father is outside, Mother, please, just-”
“-Mother-”
“-please-”
“-I’m scared-”
“-Mother-”
Their flesh turned to steam, their claws to bone, their voices to ash. As, stain by stain, piece by piece, the water unmade them, their fears, their whispers, until only bones remained. They rested their skulls upon her body. They lay still and peaceful.
“I killed them,” Lenk whispered. “All of them. And her.”
“Yeah,” Kataria said. She wrapped her arms around him, pulled him to her body. He felt his own life painted upon her skin. “You did.”
He reached up, wrapped his fingers around her hand. “You’re still alive.”
“Yeah.” Her grip tightened. He steadied the tremble of her hand, she found the life left in his arm. “I am.”
He felt her breath upon him. He felt her heartbeat through her hands. He felt her hair brushing against the blood on his face. He felt warm.
“Wish I had something better to say,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
They looked up toward the ceiling. The earth was gone. Only the great clouds of steam, all that was left of Ulbecetonth and her brood. Only the water, falling in sheets and tears.
“Pretty, though,” Kataria said, pulling him closer to her.
“Yeah.”
And they rose. To the closest thing to heaven they would ever see.
Carried on endless blue.
THIRTY-FOUR
It was funny, she thought, but he weighed less than she thought he would. She had seen him unclothed. He had always seemed a strong man, then, a man of weight. But she could feel his ribs through his vest, hear his breath come so weakly, see his eyes glazed over like a sick man’s.
And still he smiled. All that was left of him was the mask. A face that belonged to a man at peace.
“How’s it look?” His voice was a hollow, fading thing.
“Shut up,” Asper said. He knew damn well how it looked. She had stolen only a glimpse under his tunic, saw the pink organs, the copious blood. She knew what it meant. “You’re going to be. .” She looked around. “I just need my bag. .”
“If you did, you would have gotten it,” he said.
“I said shut up. You’re not helping anything by talking.”
“But you didn’t. You’re here. Holding me like I deserve it.”
“Denaos, please, just-”
“Because you can’t give me anything else.”
And she offered nothing but silence. The kind of weak, painful quiet that came when only three words could be written on a long, blank piece of paper.
She could have contented herself saying there was nothing else she could have done. She could have watched him die. She could have lived with that quiet.
But then he spoke.
“Last rites.”
“No.”
“Come on.”
“No.”
“I don’t have anything left, Asper. Nothing but a dead girl and a lot of sin. I can’t take that with me.”
“Denaos, don’t ask me to do that. I can’t do that. You’re supposed to die long after we’ve parted ways, grinning as someone sticks a knife in you.”
“What, you’ve thought it out?”
“A little.”
“Well, it hasn’t worked out that way. Just listen to me while I’ve got the blood to speak, okay?” He forced a smile, red at the edges. “Look, I’ll even grin while I do it.”
What else could she do but nod?
“Riots in Cier’Djaal. You heard of them, right?”
She had. She had been amongst the few to work the injured who were sailed day and night to Muraska, propelled by the Venarium when Cier’Djaal’s own healers were overworked.
“There were. . a lot of people dead,” she said. “A lot. We saved. . three. Three out of the hundreds that came to us.”
“You know how it happened?”
She said nothing.
“Please, Asper, it saves me from having to say it-”
“She was murdered.” Asper said, choking on something. “The Houndmistress. She challenged the Jackals, drove them back, and they. . someone killed her and that started the riots.”
“And people died.”
“Yeah. Fourteen hundred.”
“More.”
She looked down at him. He looked up at her. Past her. Into heaven.
“How many,” she asked, “did you kill, Denaos?”
His smile faded. His mask broke.
“One.” He coughed. “All of them.”
“Which is it?”
“Both.”
Had she not been so numb, had the feeling of her body not been welled up inside her throat, she would have dropped him. Had she worshipped any other god, she would have risen and walked away.
What could she do but whisper?
“Talanas. .”
“He wasn’t there when it happened.”
“Denaos, you. .”
“Yeah. I did.”
“How? Why were you there? What were you doing with her? Were you some. . some kind of assassin? Some thug? Did you know? Didn’t you realize what you would do?”
“I was in the palace. I was around her a lot in those days. I was near her. I knew what she was doing and I knew how to. . how. .” His eyelids fluttered. He drew in a rasping breath.
She was squeezing him. She wanted him to hurt. By her hand.
“You killed her.”
“Yeah.”
“You killed all of them.”
“Kind of, yeah.”
She could not blink, could barely breathe. “What the hell do you expect me to do about that, then? Absolve you? Tell you it’s going to be okay?”
A glint in his glazed eyes. Fading. “Can’t do that, I’m guessing?”
She simply stared.
“Then just listen.”
“I can’t. Whatever rites I could give, I was going to give to Denaos. You’re not him. I don’t know who you are.”
“That’s fine.”
“You’re a murderer.”
“Yeah.”
“You killed them all.”
“Yeah.”
“You killed her. You killed the Houndmistress. You killed them all.”
“She wasn’t the Houndmistress.” He looked at her now. Not at heaven. Not at ghosts. “Her name was Imone.” He smiled, briefly. “She was my wife.”