Bound by Sin (26 page)

“Do you recall telling me of your brother? The one who is buried deep in the ground?”

“Yes,” Jaykun said, a strange sort of anxiety bleeding into him the moment she spoke the words. Somehow…somehow he knew what she was about to say would be instrumental in his search.

“I am certain I know where he is. I did not mention it before because it was merely a legend amongst my people, but the legend sounded so similar to your story. The legend tells of four brothers who angered the gods for whatever reason and they were buried deep beneath the ocean floor…where we chain our prisoners. It is considered cursed ground because of that. But I believe the legend has it wrong, that it isn't four brothers, but one. Yours.”

Jaykun could hardly believe what he was hearing. So close! All this time! He must have swum past the chains at least twice in the past hours. He had ignored the area because of the serious faces of the guards patrolling the prisoners and the eerie look of the people chained to the bedrock of the ocean floor.

But as exciting as it was to know where Maxum was, it was just as devastating. The foundation of the entire area of the chains was solid stone. There was no telling where to begin; there was no telling how to begin. Even if they could free Maxum, the god Sabo might merely thrust him back into the ground somewhere else where they would never find him. Sabo, who had devised Maxum's punishment, was a cruel and unforgiving god. It would take another god to free Maxum. Nothing short of another god could do it.

“Thank you,” he said quietly as he got to his feet. “Thank you.”

“No. Thank
you,
” Jalaya said, grabbing for his hand and squeezing it hard until his dazed eyes met hers. “What you have given me is priceless. The gods will reward you one day.”

“The gods have forsaken me,” he said numbly. He gently removed his hand from hers. “But I thank you for the thought.” Jaykun turned and walked out, leaving everyone to stare after him.

“Aren't you going to go after him?” Jalaya asked Jileana.

“Not just now,” she said quietly. “He needs some time to come to terms with this knowledge.”

“I did not tell him previously because I knew how impossible it would be to retrieve his brother. I wasn't sure which would be worse: searching endlessly elsewhere or knowing that he is here but just out of reach. I decided it wasn't my knowledge to give or withhold. Eventually someone else around here who is old enough would've remembered the legend and told him. I didn't have the right to make the choice for him, in any event.”

“I'm sure he is glad you have told him. And maybe there is a solution. It will just take some time to come to it.”

“Maybe. Jileana, I must thank you for bringing him here. I don't know if I've done that yet, but I must. His advice to me has been invaluable and he gave it freely without expecting anything more in return. We had already negotiated the building of Weysa's temples, so he had nothing more to earn.”

“I am glad I brought him. But I must thank you, for the situation with Barban. Tradition is for the father to approve or disapprove of the mate of his daughters; you could have upheld that tradition.”

“That tradition is dust and bones, where it should be. None of the fathers I know force their daughters to marry someone they do not wish to. Not even in the high houses, where marriages are advantageous. Certainly there is gentle coercion, but nothing more.”

“It is standard practice now to let each daughter choose for herself and then have that choice approved by the father or parent. It seems my father was being forced away from that practice. After all, he dare not say no to the second-most powerful man amongst our people.”

“Horgon is going to have to get used to hearing no. He will be hearing it a lot soon. His son as well. If they give you any further trouble, simply come to me and I will handle the issue more forcefully.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Now I am hungry. Let's eat something.”

The courtiers agreed and the food began to be served. The entire meal was spent with courtiers jockeying for positions on the blossoming council. The empress heard each of them thoughtfully in their turn.

Jileana, however, barely heard any of the exchanges. Her mind had walked out of the room along with Jaykun.

I
t was nearly a week before Jaykun allowed Jileana to speak of Maxum without shutting her down immediately. That week had been spent helping the empress construct her new council and negotiate the finer details of the siren hunting parties. Jalaya had demanded Jaykun be by her side for all of this, and he had willingly complied and worked diligently on her behalf in both matters. They first had to decide how big the council should be. Then they had to decide who should be on it. Jalaya knew her people far better than Jaykun did of course, but she was able to give him brief pictures of each applicant's worse and better points.

The members of the court jockeyed for the open positions for all they were worth. Jileana had never seen so much kowtowing and foot kissing in her life. Courtiers sent Jalaya lavish gifts or poetic verses or whatever they could think of to sway her attention their way. But Jalaya ignored most of it and focused on what would serve her best and who.

Jaykun did not distance himself from Jileana entirely. They still spoke of other things. They still made love—although there was a taste of feverishness to his lovemaking that had not been there before. It was something almost desperate at times. As though somehow, in the warmth of her body, he could find the solution he was looking for.

She felt as though she let him down every time the solution did not come.

But finally, when she happened upon him sitting at the edge of the chains, staring out at the solid bedrock and the people bolted to it, he had something to say to her about Maxum.

“I suppose we could just chip away at it for the next thousand years,” he said, his tone wry and full of pain.

“We could. Perhaps we could give the task to the prisoners…give them something to do. It might break up the monotony of their imprisonment.”

“I have already thought of that. The truth is, there is nothing to be done to find him if Sabo doesn't want him found. But perhaps…now that we know where he is, perhaps I can beg Weysa to help us retrieve him. For I know only a god can offer me a solution to this. I do not care if he has to suffer the same fate I do night after night, as long as he is free the rest of the time. Perhaps I can convince Weysa that he would make another fine soldier in her army, that he can help us fight for her cause.”

“You have the ear of a goddess. It seems the wisest course of action,” she said.

“I have that ear only when it pleases her. I cannot make demands of her. She will not take kindly to it.”

“Then ask. Beg. Supplicate. Do whatever you need to do.”

He nodded. “If only there was a temple here.”

“Jalaya has begun work on the ones she has promised to you. But they will not be complete until after you have left. Do you need a temple to contact her?”

“I don't know. I don't know how it works. I have never called for her before. Perhaps my brothers would know, but…” He trailed off. They both knew why he couldn't contact his brothers. She had cut him off from them.

“I'm so sorry. I never meant to cause you any pain or inconvenience.”

He turned and looked at her with surprise on his features. “Do you think I blame you for something? Hold you responsible?” He then thought about it a second. “I do blame you. If not for you, I would never have heard this story. I would never have come here and found my brother. I would have sailed away to the next city on my list and been completely ignorant. Yes, I blame you for all of that.”

He jerked her into his arms, up against the hard length of his body, and sealed his mouth over hers. Kissing him beneath the water like this always flooded her senses with the taste of the salt water first, then overwhelmed her with the taste of him. His kisses were bold and warm and so very much a reflection of what Jaykun was, it made her dizzy with sensation and excitation. He had not kissed her with such unfettered zeal in many days. Before, there had always been the shadow of his brother hovering over them.

But he had shared his pain with her and that had somehow lightened the weight of it. He couldn't explain it and neither could she. But he kissed her now on the edge of the chains as though someone were going to come along any minute and chain him down amongst the other prisoners.

Eventually she drew back, her fingers stroking along the side of his face, toying lightly with his hair. “It will be all right,” she assured him. “Somehow, some way, you will get your brother back. I believe that with all of my heart.”

“How do you believe it? How can you believe something about me that I don't believe myself?”

“I believe you have been punished enough for your sins, that something somewhere has to give way. One day it will all work out. I don't know how long it will take for it to come about, but it will happen.”

“I wish I could believe the way you do. I wish I could have that kind of hope. But hope was something that was burned out of me a long time ago.”

“I don't believe that for a second. If you had lost all hope, you wouldn't have bothered looking for Maxum in the first place. You would have merely abandoned him to his fate and carried on with yours. But you've had hope that you would find him and now that hope has been rewarded. You must continue to have hope. You must try.”

He realized she was right. If he hadn't had hope, he would have given up long ago. By all rights, he should have given up. He should have lost any ability to see a future at all—for himself and for his brothers. But when he was rescued from that star and given a life again…perhaps that was when hope had been reborn in him. If he could be rescued from hell, then anything might be possible.

Including freeing his brother from his.

“From now on I will be dedicated to finding a way to free Maxum. I will win a thousand cities for Weysa if that is what it will take to convince her to free him. I will do whatever she asks of me in return. Surely she must grant me this one thing. I have always been loyal to her, even when I was not cursed. That has to count for something.”

“I'm sure it does. Pray to her. See if that does not call her to you. Otherwise, it is only a short while before you can return to the Overworld, where you will find a temple that can bring you closer to her. She has to hear your call then. She just has to.”

Jaykun reached to trace a warm pattern over her cheek and nose and lips. “Ever the optimist. You have such a light heart; you believe anything is possible. I wish I could see the world like you do. All the good in it, all the joy in it.”

“You can, you know,” she said with a smile. “You simply have to open yourself up to it.”

“I have. Since meeting you, I have. I look at the world through your eyes and it seems so much brighter, so much more special. Thank you for giving me that.”

“You're welcome,” she said. “Now come. Jalaya is expecting us. We need to make the final choices for the council.”

“Of course,” he said, turning to swim beside her.

Sometime later all but one of the council seats had been filled.

“So…whom do we choose for the last seat?” Jalaya asked.

“I don't think you'll enjoy my suggestion,” Jaykun mused.

“Whom do you have in mind?”

“Horgon,” he said.

“Horgon!” the empress exclaimed. “Never!”

“You said yourself he is from one of the most influential families of the selkies.”

“But didn't you say not to choose someone who will always say no? Who will always oppose me? You are the one who wanted him eliminated!”

“And you are not willing to do that, so the best course of action is to keep him as close to you as possible. Give him a voice. Perhaps if he believes he is being heard…Plus, it will look good to your people, to see you trying to make the effort to pull all the most influential families along together. He may be a hindrance more than a help, but at least you will have your eyes on him. It might even mollify him to some extent. Although, it is clear nothing will keep him from wanting to be emperor and deposing you.”

“The thought of eliminating him has grown more and more appealing over this past week,” Jalaya said. Then she sighed. “But I am not as cutthroat as he would be.”

“I know,” Jaykun said with kind understanding. “And that is what will make you an infinitely better monarch than he would be. Better even than I would be. You are willing to find solutions to your problems—difficult solutions—rather than take the easy way out.”

“So…Horgon on the council,” she said uneasily.

“Remember, it is your council. You can just as easily remove him from it as you can place him on it.”

“This is true,” she said. “Very well. I will send messengers right away to inform all the members of their chosen status and we will convene a council meeting right away. And, Jaykun,” she said, looking directly into his eyes, “it would mean a great deal to me if you were there for our first few sessions. Just to help me run things smoothly, and for your advice. I find I am quite lost without you.”

“Nonsense. You have been ruling alone for decades. You know what it means to be ruler and you have earned your place at the head of your people a thousand times over.”

“Except lately…lately things have been escalating out of my control. I am not too proud to admit that. You have helped me to find ways to bring order back to my life. I cannot tell you what a valuable gift that is to me and I have no idea how I will ever repay you for it. I can start by telling you this: If there is some way my people and I can help you to retrieve your brother, then we will do it. You need only ask it of us.”

“Only a god can help to retrieve him, and now that I know where he is, I hope my goddess will smile kindly on me and help me to bring him home.”

“Then let me extend an invitation to you. You are welcome here, Jaykun, from now until the end of your days. You may visit here”—she cast a sidelong look at Jileana—“or even live here if you so wish. Perhaps one day when your goddess allows you to retire from her service.”

“Perhaps,” he said with a small smile.

Jileana knew what the empress did not. There would never come a time when he would not be in service to his goddess—and he didn't mind that. From what Jileana had learned this past week, he actually enjoyed working in service to Weysa. He did not need a curse to be reined in by her. Jileana could only hope that one day Weysa would see this and be benevolent enough to release him from his burden. He did not deserve to suffer any longer. He had paid for his hubris a thousand times over.

“I will be glad to sit in with you and your council for as long as I am here and as long as you will have me, Jalaya.”

“Thank you. Now off, the two of you,” she said, shooing them away with her hands. “There are many more things of greater pleasure than staying cooped up in this castle with your empress.”

“Majesty,” Jaykun said with a grin and a bow. Then he winked. “But not many.”

He took Jileana's hand in his and they swam out of the castle together.

A short while later they surfaced before the cliff face and waited for their eyes to adjust to the bright, high sunlight. It was midafternoon, several hours before dusk threatened them. It was Jileana's favorite time of day. She and Jaykun would almost unfailingly climb to the very top of the cliff and make love for hours. They were rarely disturbed there; apparently the younger selkies used the spot for the same purpose, only they waited until after dark. There was something more daring about doing it in the daylight when anyone might happen upon them and easily be able to see them. Not that it mattered greatly. Selkies were not a shy people and happening upon any in the throes of passion was not an uncommon thing. She and Jaykun had stumbled upon more than one couple in their travels around the selkie kingdom, both above and below the waters.

Jaykun led the swim to the cliff face and dragged himself out of the water the moment he had a solid hold on the fossilized coral. When they reached the top of the cliff, he dusted off his hands and looked out toward where the distant horizon would have been, had it not been obscured by the ever-raging storms that protected the selkie lands. For a moment he was angry with Jileana for bringing him here, for exposing the way to travel to her home to someone who could easily exploit it. But he dismissed the emotion. No army could come through the portals. Between their location beneath the water and the fact that they were heavily guarded, there was no chance of an invasion having any kind of success. Besides, he suspected he had barely touched the surface of what Jileana's mother and the other sea witches were capable of. It would be hard to fight spells as well as the selkies
and
fight for breath beneath the water.