“The Circle of Skulls,” said Soku. “A fitting place to meet, don’t you think? A fitting place for you to ascend as Empress of the entire capital.”
Volusia looked at it, studying it, thinking. She knew the history of this place, this magical circle carved on the desert floor, by whom or by what, no one knew, a place of true power, a place where so many kings of old had met to discuss terms of truce. Now it was her turn. She saw standing inside it, already waiting for her, Luptius, the acting ruler of the Empire Council, along with his dozen councilmen and a mere dozen soldiers. The Empire army was nowhere in sight.
“Exactly as agreed, Goddess,” Soku said. “They bring but a dozen men. They are bringing you terms of truce. They are preparing to defer to you.”
“It appears that they have not even brought an army,” Aksan said.
Volusia scanned the horizon, thinking the same thing.
“Why do you hesitate, Goddess?” Soku pressed. “You stand with two hundred thousand men behind you. They stand there alone in the circle, with no one.”
She turned her icy glare on Soku.
“I never hesitate,” she replied. “I observe. When I feel ready, I will go.”
Volusia stood there, staring, taking it all in, as her men grew silent around her. They were finally learning not to question her.
“Vokin,” she said aloud.
Vokin, the Vok leader, turned and shuffled up beside her.
“You shall join me in the circle.”
Soku stepped forward, looking concerned.
“Goddess, that is not a good idea,” Soku said. “That is not what was agreed. A dozen men only. The Empire has outlawed the Voks. They will take it as a threat. Perhaps they shall withdraw the terms of peace.”
“The Voks shall be treated will all honors in my Empire,” Volusia replied harshly. “You had best treat them as such, if you wish to remain my commander.”
Soku looked down to the floor, clearly not willing to argue with her.
Volusia took a deep breath, finally feeling ready.
“Let us go,” she said.
Volusia mounted her horse, as did the others, and they all charged out, racing toward the lone circle in the middle of the desert, leaving behind her army, joined only by her dozen soldiers and Vokin.
Volusia reached the circle’s edge and dismounted with the others. They walked toward the circle, towards the waiting contingent of Empire men, and as they reached the edge, Volusia nodded to her men stopped, and they all stopped at the edge and lined up at the periphery the circle, just as the Empire’s men were. Except for Vokin, who remained by her side.
Volusia walked into the circle, just she and Vokin, facing off alone with Luptius, who stood there, smiling contentedly, hands folded before him, looking back at her. Now an elderly man with graying hair, he looked back at her with eyes that appeared to be kind. But she knew the legends about him too well to know he was anything but kind. He was a man who lurked in the shadows, who made Empire rulers—and broke them—at his whim. So many had come and gone. He had outlived them all.
“My Queen,” he said. “Or shall I call you Goddess?”
“You may call me whatever you wish,” she replied, her voice confident and firm. “It will not change the fact that I am a goddess.”
He nodded.
“I welcome you to the capital, to our part of the Empire,” he said.
“All parts of the Empire are mine,” she said back, her voice cold.
His eyebrows raised just a bit.
“They are not, Empress.”
“Goddess,” she corrected. “I am Goddess Volusia.”
He hesitated and she could see the anger building in his eyes. He looked shocked, but he quickly regained his composure, and put on a fake smile.
“Very well, then, Goddess.”
He looked over her shoulder and he stopped, seeming disconcerted, at the sight of the Vok. But he held his tongue and quickly looked back at her.
“Do you know why we are meeting here today, Goddess?”
She nodded.
“To accept your truce,” she said, “and your offer of the throne.”
Luptius smirked.
“Not exactly,” he replied. “We are here to broker a truce, that is correct. But it will be a one-way choose. Also known as a surrender. We are going to take your army; you will be stripped of power; this war will end; and you, I’m afraid, will not ascend to any throne. In fact, you are about to spend your final moments right here, in this circle, in this desert. But I do wish to congratulate you on what has been an extraordinary run. Just extraordinary. And to thank you for handing us your army.”
Volusia stared back at him, amazed at his calm composure, at how expressionless he was, speaking in such a matter-of-fact way, as if he were reporting the weather. He merely nodded his head, and suddenly, she heard the sound of swords being drawn all around her, on all peripheries of the circle, and she felt two dozen blades pointed at her back.
Volusia glanced back, even though she did not need to, to know what happened. All of her men had betrayed her. Led by Soku, her trusted commanders had enacted a coup, teaming up with the Empire to kill her through treachery, through a false peace offering.
“There is a reason I did not bring an army, Goddess,” Luptius continued, smiling. “Because I did not need to. Because I already have one here—yours. They’ve been bought, and I must say, their price was cheap. You’ve been brought to me like a lamb to slaughter. Indeed, I find it most fitting that we shall slaughter you here, in this circle, where so many rulers have died. You are a foolish girl to trust in the loyalty of your men. To believe in your own myth. And now you will pay the price.”
He stared back at Volusia, clearly expecting her to be shocked or to lose her composure, or anything—and he seemed surprised when she stood there, equally calm, and merely smiled back.
“I find it amusing,” she said, “that you think your soldiers’ spears and swords can do me any harm, I, a goddess. I
am
a goddess. When I ascend to the throne, a statue shall be erected to me in every city in this realm. I am Volusia. I cannot be touched by any man, by any weapon—especially a lying, ineffectual old man like you. Tell me, Luptius: after I have killed you, will anyone remember your name?”
He looked at her, clearly shocked, and for the first time she saw him lose his composure; he gained it back quickly and smiled and shook his head.
“Just as they say about you,” he said. “Delusional to the last. Just like your mother before you.”
Luptius nodded, and suddenly all the men marched forward, closing in on her in the circle, preparing to murder her from all sides.
Volusia looked at Vokin, who looked back at her and nodded. He took out a small sack from his hand, reached over and turned it upside down in her palm. Red sand came pouring out, into her hands. She felt it trickle through her fingers and it felt nice and warm from the sun, as she closed her fist on it.
As she did, she closed her eyes and felt the power of this red sand.
The men closed in on her from all sides, now just feet away, and as they did, Volusia leaned back and suddenly threw the sand high up overhead, high into the air, a good ten feet. As she did, it morphed into smoke, a smoke that was blown by a breeze in all directions, covering the men on all sides of the circle.
Suddenly, the air was filled with the screams of men, as all around her men fell writhing on their backs, dropping their weapons. They cried out, their bodies convulsing, and Volusia slowly turned and looked at them all, shaking, convulsing, blood pouring from their ears and noses and mouths. Finally they stopped, eyes looking up at the sky, their faces frozen in a death agony.
Only Luptius still stood there, horrified, watching all of them die. Volusia bent over, grabbed a sword from a dying soldier, took two steps forward, and as the Empire leader looked back at her in shock, she plunged it through his heart.
He screamed out in agony, blood gushing from his mouth, and she smiled wide as she grabbed him with one hand on his chest and pulled him close, till their faces were almost touching. She held the sword deep in his heart as he gasped, not letting go.
“I almost wish it was harder to kill you,” she said.
Finally, he slumped down, dead.
In the stillness that followed, Volusia looked at the dead bodies all around her, and she raised her arms to the skies and leaned back, triumphant.
She looked ahead to the horizon and she knew that now there lay nothing between her and the capital. Her destiny.
“VOLUSIA!” screamed the two hundred thousand men behind her. “VOLUSIA!”
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Gwendolyn marched through the Great Waste, the beating sun shining down off the red desert, red dust swirling in the air, at her feet, and she felt as if she could not go on another step. It was hard to think clearly, with the sun beating down the way it was, sweat pouring down her cheeks, down the back of her neck, all of her possessions lost to her. She had dropped them long ago, as had all the others, she could not remember when, a long trail of objects left in the desert. It didn’t matter. There was no food left now, no water left either. Every breath was an effort, her voice rasping, dried out days ago.
She was amazed they were still walking, all of them, like the walking dead, refusing to die. It had been days more of marching since the great revolt, since half her people had risen up against her. Gwen took some assurance in knowing those close to her were still marching with her.
Or were they? She was too tired to turn and look, and she couldn’t remember the last time she did. And the red wind howled too loudly for her to hear anyone else—anyone but Krohn, who still walked by her feet, gasping, his fur on her ankles.
That was all that was left of the Ring, Gwen marveled. The once great and glorious country, with all its kings and queens and nobles and princes and Silver and Legion, with all of its ships and fleets and horses and armies—all reduced to this. Just this.
Gwen was amazed that any of them still followed her, that any of them still thought of her as Queen. She was a Queen without a kingdom, a queen without a people left to rule.
Krohn whined, and Gwen, out of reflex, reached down into the sack at her waist to give him of whatever food she had, as she had for days. And yet there was nothing left. It was empty.
I’m sorry, Krohn
, she wanted to say. But she was too weak for the words to come out.
Krohn continued to walk alongside her, his fur brushing up against her leg, and she knew he would never leave her side—ever. She wished she had anything left to give him.
Gwen mustered all her remaining energy to glance up, at the horizon. She knew she shouldn’t do it, knew she would find nothing but more of the monotony. More of the Great Waste.
She was right. She was crushed to see nothingness, spread out before her in all its cruelty.
They had been right all along: the Great Waste was a suicide mission. Godfrey might be dead in Volusia, and Darius might be dead on the battlefield. But at least they had died quick, merciful deaths. Gwen and the others would die long and torturous deaths, left as food for insects, as skeletons in the desert. Finally, she realized she had been foolish to attempt this, to overreach, to search for the Second Ring. Clearly, it had never existed.
Gwen heard a baby’s weak cry, and she managed to turn and look over.
“Let me see my baby,” Gwen somehow managed to say.
Illepra, shuffling alongside her, came over and laid the baby in Gwen’s arms. The weight of her, as young as she was, was almost too much for Gwen to bear.
Gwen looked into the baby’s beautiful blue eyes, dim from hunger.
No one deserves to die in this world without a name,
Gwen thought.
Gwen closed her eyes and laid her palm on the child’s forehead. Suddenly, it came to her. For some reason, she thought of her mother, how they had reconciled at the end, had even become close. And as she looked into this baby’s eyes, the look in her eyes, somehow it reminded her of her.
“Krea,” Gwen said, mustering the strength to speak one last word.
Illepra nodded back in satisfaction.
Gwen kept walking, clutching the baby, and as she looked out into the desert, she could have sworn she saw the face of her mother, beckoning her. The face of her father, waiting to greet her. She began to see the faces of everyone she had ever known and loved, most of them dead now.
Most of all, she saw the faces of Thorgrin, of Guwayne.
She closed her eyes as she marched now, her eyelids, caked down by the red dust, too heavy to keep open. As she marched she felt her thighs growing heavier, as if she were being dragged down to the center of the earth. She had nothing left now. All she had were these faces, these names, the names of all those who had loved her, and whom she had loved. And she realized that was worth more than any possession she’d ever had.
Gwen wanted to stop marching, to lie down a bit, just a bit. But she knew that the second she did, she would never rise again.
After how long she didn’t know, Gwendolyn felt her knees buckling, felt her legs giving way beneath her. She stumbled, and then she could not stop the fall.
Gwen dropped down to the desert floor in a cloud of dust, turning her body to take the fall instead of the baby. She expected Illepra to cry out, to rush to grab her, or any of the others to.
But as she lay there and looked over, she was shocked to see that no one else was there. She was alone. They must have, she realized, collapsed somewhere else, long ago. She had been marching all alone for she did not know how long. Even Krohn was no longer there. Now, finally, it was just her. Gwendolyn, Queen of the Ring, clutching a baby and left alone to die in the midst of nothingness.
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Angel opened her eyes, shivering from the cold, to see the world rising up and down before her. She bobbed up and down slowly, gently rising and falling in the rolling waves of the ocean. She felt her body still immersed in the water, and she looked up to realize her head was just barely above water, and she was clinging to a piece of wood. Her entire body was freezing, immersed in the cold water, and as she looked up she saw the most beautiful sunrise she had ever seen, lighting up the ocean, spreading out over it like a blanket. She wondered how many days she had been floating here.