Queen of Fire

“Then let’s wring what we can from him and have done,” Lekran said, nodding at Thirty-Four.

 

“He’ll tell you nothing,” Weaver replied. “Any torment you visit on him will be just another amusement.”

 

“Can you heal him?” Frentis asked. “Mend his twisted soul?”

 

Weaver glanced back at the Arisai, hands clasped together, his face betraying the first sign of fear Frentis had seen in him. “Perhaps,” he said. “But the consequences . . .”

 

“Something comes back,” Frentis said. “Every time you heal someone, they give something back.”

 

Weaver nodded, turning to him with a tight smile. “If you wish me to try . . .”

 

“No.” He moved towards the Arisai, drawing the dagger from his belt. The man’s amusement deepened at Frentis’s approach, his laugh rich with genuine mirth.

 

“She did say you would prove interesting,” he said.

 

“Does she give you names?” Frentis asked him.

 

The Arisai shrugged. “Sometimes, those of us she bothers to recognise. She called me Dog, once. I quite like it.”

 

“You know she sent you here to die?”

 

“Then I am pleased to have served her purpose.” The man met Frentis’s gaze with steady eyes, fearless, even proud, but still mostly just amused.

 

“What did they do to make you this way?” Frentis asked him, surprising himself with a sudden flare of pity. Weaver was right, this man had been born to a life that twisted him into something far from human.

 

The Arisai’s grin turned into a mocking snicker. “Don’t you know? Your time in the pits taught them so much. For generations they bred us, trained us, tried different bindings to make us the perfect killers. It never worked, our forebears were either too wild or too much like the Kuritai, deadly but dull, requiring constant supervision. My generation was no different, yet another failure. Ten thousand Arisai destined for execution, after they had bred us with suitable stock of course. Then came you, our saviour, a shining example of the advantages of cruelty, the discipline and cunning inherent in the soul of a true killer. When she sent us here she told us we would be meeting our father, and I must say, I do find it a privilege.”

 

“So,” Frentis mused, “there’s at least nine thousand more of you?”

 

For a moment the Arisai lost his smile, frowning in consternation like a child fumbling for an answer to an awkward question. “Not perfected after all,” Frentis observed, moving behind him, dagger poised at the base of his skull. “What do you know of the Ally?”

 

Dog brightened once more as the point of the blade touched his flesh, laughing with a wry shake of his head. “Only the promise she made us on his behalf the day she led us from the vaults; ‘All your dreams will be made flesh.’ We had been waiting so long, and had many dreams. Should you chance to see her again, father. Please tell her I—”

 

Frentis thrust the dagger in up to the hilt, Dog the Arisai arching his back and convulsing before slumping lifeless to the ground. “I’ll tell her,” Frentis assured him.

 

? ? ?

 

Why?

 

The question comes to her without warning, causing her finger to slip yet again, another spot of blood spreading across the taut fabric. She regards the needle embedded in her finger with cold understanding; the flesh is like ice, devoid of pain. The needlework is poor, a child’s fumbled attempts to mimic adult skill. It is tempting to blame the shell and its numbed digits, but this particular craft has always been beyond her. The memory is dim, as are all her recollections of childhood, but there was a woman once. A kindly woman, with a face of feline beauty, who could sew with amazing skill, her fabrics adorned with a clarity and art that could match the finest paintings. They would sit and sew together, the woman guiding her small hands, pulling her into a kiss when she did something right, merely laughing at her frequent mistakes. She is sure this memory is real, though for some reason her thoughts continually shy away from the woman’s name, or her fate. Instead they always shift, becoming darker and she finds herself abed, whimpering as she stares at her bedroom door . . .

 

A squeal of ropes and gears draws her gaze to the balcony. I have an exalted visitor to greet, my love, she tells him. An Empress shouldn’t neglect her duties.

 

Why? The thought is implacable, irresistible in its demand.

 

You know why, beloved, she tells him.

 

Images swirl and coalesce in her mind, another precious gift captured by his sight: flames erupting from the sewers of Viratesk, the Arisai fighting, killing and dying with all the fury she expected. One, ablaze from head to foot, whirls in a welter of flame, still killing and laughing even as the arrows slam home.

 

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