She took the child from me and looked at his face.
“I just want him to live a happy life,” I told her. “The war is terrible. It will never end, as long as my father is allowed to be free. He can’t stop. Maybe a part of him wants to, but even if it does, he doesn’t know how. Someone has to end it.”
A woman appeared behind us, regal, tall, her wrists heavy with golden bracelets, her flowing dress a deep emerald green. Black kohl lined her eyes, her eyelids and lips dusted with gold. Semiramis reached down, took my son from Erra’s hands, and smiled at him.
? ? ?
THE GARDENS FADED. The grip of the magic released me, its pain an echo in my bones. The arcane inferno died down. Semiramis withdrew, revealing Erra.
“He created an order of assassins to kill me,” she whispered. She had seen sahanu in my memories. There was something almost vulnerable in her face.
My grandmother reached for her, wrapping her ghostly arms about her daughter. Magic swirled around them.
“I know,” Erra whispered. “I understand.”
She turned to me, all tenderness vanishing from her face like a mask jerked aside.
“You will do two things for me. Once this is over, I will choose the burial place for myself and my mother. You will move us there.”
“Done.” I would’ve done it anyway.
“And you will abandon the city.”
“What?”
“You will agree to never rule the land you’ve claimed.”
I opened my mouth. Everything inside me rebelled at the idea. It was my city, my land, my people, mine . . .
No. It was not mine. I took it, but it was never mine.
I raised my hand.
It was so hard. I wanted to charge across the room and beat her head against the stone until I saw the color of her brain for even bringing it up.
This wasn’t me. I wouldn’t become my father.
I could lie.
I crushed the thought.
“I promise that the day my father is dead or contained, I will walk away from the land I claimed.”
It hurt to say it.
“Not good enough,” Erra said. “I don’t want you to walk away. I want you to swear to never rule it. You’re a queen like your grandmother and her mother before her. Swear to me in the true language.”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
“What’s the matter, little squirrel? Want to kill me for daring?”
Yes. Oh yes. So much.
I needed to reach deep down and find the strength to do it.
“Your land or your lover and your son. Choose.”
It wasn’t even a choice.
“I swear . . .” Each word was impossibly heavy. The room around us shook. Little chunks of mortar fell from the ceiling. “. . . to never . . .” It felt like all the ligaments in my throat would tear. The tomb shuddered. “. . . rule the land I claimed.”
It hurt so much.
“The word of Sharratum is binding,” Erra said. “So witnessed.”
The room stopped shaking.
A cool rush swept through me. Suddenly the air felt lighter.
“The Shar is a persistent bitch,” my aunt said. “Giving up the land you claimed is the first step. Watching it being taken by another is the second. Letting them live is the third. If you survive, we will do this over and over, until you reach your equilibrium or it drives you mad.”
“Thank you.” Universe help me, I meant it.
My aunt waved her hand. “Why did he let you live?”
“According to him, it’s because I’m his treasured daughter, his Blossom, the precious one, the one he loves above all others.”
I heard my own words and cracked up. Erra guffawed. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The laughter came and came, pouring out, until I had tears in my eyes. We stood there and laughed and laughed.
“Oh, that’s good.” Erra sat on the steps. “That’s good.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so hard. My stomach hurt. I must’ve needed it.
“Why do you think he let you live?”
“I have no idea.”
“There must be something.”
“I don’t know. He tried to kill me before. He said that he loved my mother and promised her that he would give her a child like no other, but then foresaw that I would become like Kali, the destroyer of worlds, and so he tried to kill me but failed. He glossed over that part.”
Erra pondered it. “If Im tried to kill you, you would be dead. He must’ve reconsidered. But why?”
“I don’t know. Also he inscribed the language of power on me in the womb.”
“And you didn’t start with that? Let’s hope your lion has some brains, otherwise your child will be a dimwit.”
Semiramis moved.
“Yes, I know, Ama. Your grandmother says that in this day and age, you could do worse. Show the inscription to me.”
“I can’t. It only shows up in certain moments. When I claimed the city, for example. He can make it appear by touching me, but I can’t.”
“Do you know what it says?”
“No.”
She rose and touched me. Her hand went through mine. She waved her hand back and forth through my arms. I’d tell her that it felt like being passed through an icy cheese grater, but she would only do it more.
Erra swore. “Being dead has its problems. Although it does give you a certain clarity. I felt my mother when I awoke. I asked him about it and he told me he had left her by the banks of the Tigris. I told him then that if he lied to me, he would regret it.”
“He will regret many things by the time I’m done.”
“Find a way to record the words and show them to me,” Erra said. “We must learn why you’re still alive.”
“Okay. I will.”
I turned to the doorway.
“Where are you going?” Erra demanded
“I’m escaping,” I said. “He’ll probably arrive in the next few minutes.”
Behind Erra the purple blaze of Semiramis flared.
“Yes,” Erra said, pronouncing each word very clearly as if talking to someone very stupid or hard of hearing. “That’s why you have to take me with you. Because you’re an idiot and you need help and I’m the bigger idiot for promising it to you.”
I stared at the mass of her bones. “How?”
She turned away from me. “It’s time.”
Magic raged through the chamber, a furious tempest, filled with grief. The walls shook. I curled into a ball, trying to hide, but it was everywhere.
“I won’t be long,” Erra whispered, melting into the magic, her voice carrying through the room. “I’m coming back, Mother. And then I’ll take you out of this awful place.”
My grandmother wept.
I clamped my hands over my ears, shut my eyes, and tried to keep calm.
The room shook and shuddered. My body bounced off the floor.
Suddenly it was quiet. I opened my eyes. A dagger had sprouted from the center of my aunt’s bones, a wickedly curved double-edged blade with a bone hilt. A thin line of blood-red script crossed the plate substance of the blade. My aunt’s name.
I reached out and took it. It came free with a light snap. The bone flower fell apart into dust.
She’d molded her bones and blood into a dagger and sunk her soul into it. I could never let my father see this knife.
“Hurry up,” Erra’s voice snapped. “I can feel him coming.”