The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening (14 page)

“A massacre,” one of the younger women who wasn’t even out of her teenage years said.

“How do you know this?” Saha asked.

“It doesn’t matter. But that’s what people are calling it. That’s what the Americans and Russians and the Europeans are calling it. Talking about how it’s only making the refugee crisis worse.”

“And who told you that?” Saha pressed.

The young girl blushed, and Tsubame assumed it was from one of the young soldiers who had been left behind to protect the compound and couldn’t keep his mouth shut because he was thinking with his lower head instead of the one on his neck.

“You don’t think they’re going to bomb us, do you?”

Saha huffed and began to berate the girl but Tsubame cut her off.

“Did your soldier tell you this too?”

The girl was silent and Tsubame took a deep breath, pretending to get impatient with the girl, before saying, “You didn’t come up with this from your own head otherwise you never would have said it, nor would it have crossed your mind. So tell me. Did your soldier tell you this too?”

Finally the girl nodded.

At that point, Saha told them that they were all being ridiculous and that dinner needed to be prepared. Tsubame had no reason to stay after that, deciding to go back to her garden anxiously anticipating the fallout from the failed peace talks with the rest of the world. Tsubame would have to get the entire story from Fathi when he returned or as much of it as he would give her, but Tsubame could guess what happened. After the assassination all the other leaders had undoubtedly risen up against him, deciding to take the opportunity to get rid of him in his own territory with their own armies. Since Fathi was lacking in the area of diplomacy, undoubtedly he had lost his temper and when the other factions tried to bring the rest of their armies and the people rose up against them, he called forth his army and annihilated them. Undoubtedly international intelligence from the ruling powers had gotten ahold of the news and were now circulating Fathi’s name on a constant cycle spewing that he made a crime against humanity to justify an attack and eventually an invasion or occupation. It was exactly what Tsubame had been betting on and waiting on to happen since she infiltrated the compound months ago in effort to speed up the natural process that would have probably taken another year to get to this moment otherwise.

When Fathi returned a week later, he confirmed her suspicions after she carefully pried the full story from him without seeming overeager and without asking the direct questions that she wanted to ask.

“They’re going to bomb us,” Tsubame said.

“They’re not.”

It hadn’t been a question. Tsubame knew how this game worked, knew that the powers that be always like to interfere with the less powerful and call themselves judges, as though none of them would have killed or attacked a group of rebels who tried to kill them whether those rebels were justified or not in their own countries, as though they would hold back from retaliating when they were attacked or if their livelihood and wellbeing was in danger. Tsubame wasn’t angry about it though. She had gotten over being angry about that a long time ago. Instead she would take advantage of people’s need to meddle and bully and bring about their descent and her inevitable ascension.

Fathi added as an afterthought that he had invited the Magic Council and representatives from the U.N. to talk, but Tsubame knew they would never come. And even if they did, they would never listen. And even if they pretended to listen, it would only be to give Fathi a false sense of security so they could betray him later. A brave warrior he may have been, but Fathi was too gullible, too trusting, too ignorant to handle the forces that would soon be put against him. Eventually, he would outlive his usefulness to her and at that point, very soon, Tsubame would show her hand and the real fun would begin.

For a week or so, Tsubame was aware of the drones circling the city, watching them, getting imagery, finding out how Fathi operated, when the best time to attack was. She could have told Fathi, but the last thing she needed was him becoming suspicious of her power. He didn’t know about the drones until a missile struck the military barracks in the back of the compound. The explosion rocked the entire compound and the first thing the soldiers did was to get her and Fathi out.

“I can help,” Tsubame pretended to plead and beg as the guards forced her toward an exit of the compound. “I can stop them from dropping anymore missiles.”

Fathi ignored her, as did the soldiers as they pushed her along. Tsubame then found gap in their cover over her and ran. As soon as she rounded a corner, she stepped into a shadow and used the shadows to travel to the roof. Tsubame could have done what she was about to do from anywhere, but it had been important that she got away from Fathi to manage it and that the magical community would know that what she was about to do hadn’t been a coincidence of Mother Nature. She wanted them know that she had acted very purposely as Mother Nature.

After weeks of holding back her true potential or at least the potential she had access to for now, using powerful magic was like using magic for the first time again. Not in the sense that she was unfamiliar with it, but in the sense that she felt the rush and exhilaration that came with being able to manipulate something that was beyond the physical, that most people could only attempt and fail to imagine. She used that power to cause the wind to disturb and pick up the dessert sand in and around the city, to form a massive cloud of dust and sand. It quickly began to overtake the compound and eventually it began to overtake the entire city and undoubtedly, it overtook the strike planes that were hovering above and around the compound and the city in general.

Tsubame was the eye of the storm. It whirled and danced around and above her like a typhoon. Tsubame wasn’t sure how long her sand typhoon lasted as it was always hard to gauge time when using powerful magic like she had, but by the time she was done and the sand had settled, a few hundred yards from the compound was a strike plane covered in sand. She tilted her head as she observed it, feeling no way in particular about it only that this represented the next phase in her plan, where the magical world and soon the entire world would realize that they had much bigger problems than a bunch of rag tag supposed terrorist groups that had gotten out of their control.

As she turned to make her way from the roof, the guards were just arriving with Fathi, staring in awe at the plane in the distance. Tsubame swept past them and as she was leaving whispered to Fathi, “I think they’ll be ready to talk to you now.”

15

“Why would she fight for the Magic Council?”

Bastet and Devdan asked the question at the same time MaLeila asked the question for herself.

Just as Bastet predicted, the Magic Council was requesting her again now that she’d graduated, this time not as a power play to the Russians but as an ace in case all hell broke loose and they had to end up fighting Tsubame at the peace talks they were now being forced into after witnessing Tsubame’s powers. When the news of the sandstorm in the Middle East broke, MaLeila had been discussing with Bastet the prospect of exploring the magical world and visiting other magical communities and cultures outside the political sphere of the Magic Council in lieu of going to college immediately, especially since MaLeila hadn’t applied to any colleges because she had no clue what she wanted to do with her life. The storm was called an unnatural phenomenon, a term that was code for a magical phenomenon. Faced with the exposure of the magical world, the Magic Council now had no choice but to take a less underhanded approach in their dealing with Tsubame preferably through diplomacy, but they’d duel both her and Fathi if they had to.

“That’s what I told them,” Marcel assured. “But they’d be willing to cut a deal with you if you showed you were willing to cooperate. Maybe even keep a closer eye on the sorcerers that attack you and stop the larger families and clans from sending them.”

“That’s something they’re supposed to do anyway,” Bastet said. “We’d want more than that.”

“I want access to every magical library in the world,” MaLeila said immediately. “No restrictions.”

Marcel raised an eyebrow before saying, “That’s… an interesting demand. Don’t know if they’d ever allow it.”

“If they want me to potentially come and fight for them, that’s what I want. Forget the sorcerers coming after me. I’ve been handling it the last three years or so, I’ll keep handling it. But I want access to all the libraries.”

“That’s nice sweetheart, but you’re going to have to give us a reason why you want that kind of access,” Nika said. “If we go tell the council that, they might think you’re the one trying to take over the world.”

“I’m not stupid,” MaLeila replied. “Do you know what they’d do to me if I tried something like that?”

Nika hummed. “Fine. I’ll tell the council, but if you get that, you’ll come to the talks?”

MaLeila nodded.

“Okay,” Nika said and then nodded to Marcel. “Drive me to the airport will you?”

“Don’t we both need to report to the council?” Marcel asked her.

“Yeah, but you’ve been neglecting your girlfriend. And I’m pretty sure your mother taught you how to treat a woman better than that. Those old heads will live,” Nika said.

Marcel frowned at Nika, even as he wrapped an arm around MaLeila’s waist and pressed a kiss on her cheek before saying, “I’ll be back.”

MaLeila nodded, looking between the two siblings as they left again. Once they were gone, she turned to Bastet and Devdan, waiting for one of them, probably Bastet, to ask the question that undoubtedly had them wondering. Bastet didn’t disappoint.

“Why would you want or even need access to all the magical libraries?”

“Because of this binding. Claude did something different with it. I don’t know what, but the method to unravel a regular bind isn’t working for this one. And I could try to unravel the magic manually, but…”

“That could take decades,” Bastet finished. Then she said, “MaLeila, you don’t have to do this. We’re okay. We’re not your slaves. We know that.”

MaLeila was sure Bastet knew that, but she was also sure that Devdan didn’t share that opinion and she didn’t need to look at Devdan leaning on the kitchen counter with his arms crossed, aloof as always but certainly paying attention to every detail of what was happening around them, to know that. In the last few weeks her initial anger and frustration at them had ebbed because for the foreseeable future whether they wanted to or not, whether their loyal if sometimes tumultuous camaraderie was a result of the binding or organic, they were stuck with each other. So they may as well act like they were there because they wanted to be and make the best of it. But the best of an unideal situation wasn’t enough for MaLeila because the possibility that it was all artificial would eat away at her until she did something about it.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bastet continued. “This magic was put in place long before you were born.”

“I know that,” MaLeila assured, gaze going to Devdan. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t fix it.”

Devdan locked eyes with her and said, “I would try to stop making promises I wasn’t sure I could keep if I were you.”

That said, Devdan left the house.

MaLeila turned back to Bastet with a sigh, only to find the woman leaning back in her chair and fixing MaLeila with a particular stare. After a few moments, something that looked like realization flashed in the woman’s eyes and she leaned forward towards MaLeila.

“I hope you want to do this for the right reasons, MaLeila.”

“What are you talking about now?” MaLeila asked with a roll of her eyes.

“You keep doing that and you’re going to end up cross eyed,” Bastet warned and then added, “And I’m talking about your insistence on breaking this bind. You thinking it’s the right thing to do is one thing, but you using it as a last ditch attempt to get Devdan to take a shot on you is another.”

“I’m with Marcel. That’s far from the reason.”

“That’s what you say, but your actions tell an entirely different story. You don’t think I haven’t noticed how you squirm and fidget in discomfort when you’re sitting next to or near Marcel and he touches you while Devdan is near, like it’s wrong or like you don’t want Devdan to get the right idea even though it’s no secret you and Marcel are dating? How you don’t talk about your relationship with Marcel if you don’t have to when Devdan’s around, yet waltz out the door to go spend the night at Marcel’s apartment? I’ve been around the block a few times, MaLeila. I know what you’re doing,” Bastet stated bluntly.

“So now you’re saying I shouldn’t undo the binding?”

Bastet shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t care about the binding. I’m saying that you need to stop kidding yourself and you need to stop trying to lead Devdan on because if you’re breaking these binds for the wrong reasons someone is going to end up hurt. Either you, Devdan, Marcel, or all of you. So I’d figure out what I really wanted if I were you before I made a move on anything.”

Later, as MaLeila laid on Marcel’s bed waiting on him to return, Bastet’s words still weighed on her. The woman always had a way of making MaLeila look at things she had avoided looking at. While she had been in school, MaLeila used the excuse that she had to get through high school before she thought about what she would do afterwards because for a while it looked like she might not live to see graduating high school, never mind the fact that for most of her sophomore year it looked like she might flunk out of high school. But that was over and still MaLeila wasn’t sure what she wanted: to pretend to be live like a non-magical person while being on the perimeter and always looking into the magical world from the outside or to embrace the magical world and all its flaws, to find a place in it. Not having anything to do with magic wasn’t an option.

When she had been discussing college options with Merrick and Nina, Merrick asked her what she saw herself doing and MaLeila had never been more tempted to go to her room, concentrate on her magic and take a look at what the future might actually hold. Her ability to see into the future wasn’t a power that anyone besides, Bastet and Devdan knew she had and the only reason they knew about it was that Claude had the ability. Unlike Claude though, MaLeila could turn the power on and off at will, and Bastet had revealed that sometimes the only way Claude could get respite from the visions was an over dosage of sleeping syrup to put him into a visionless sleep. MaLeila resisted the urge to use her power of foresight though, because sorceresses had been driven mad trying to avoid or figure out how to walk into a future they had seen.

She didn’t like the idea of letting a man dictate how she would plan her life, but since MaLeila was failing at that on her own, she decided to weigh the two men against each other. She started with Devdan, the first thing coming to mind about him was how unyielding and singularly focused he could be when he put his mind to something. That was a con when she had briefly been his enemy and he tried to kill her, but once she made him to understand that they didn’t have to be enemies, it was one of his greatest assets. Devdan was the type to look in the face of death and not bow, a stubborn fighter to the end, especially when it had come to protecting her those first months after her mother died and there was hardly a day that MaLeila wasn’t fending off at least one magic user. He could also be cold. MaLeila knew that first hand, but she also knew that when he wanted to he could be just as warm, having a gentle patience with her that most people mistook for annoyance, but was just Devdan’s personality. It showed the most when he was conversing with her in fluent Spanish when she was taking Spanish in school, making her different teas when she was sick, anxious, or otherwise just awake at night because the adrenaline from an earlier fight hadn’t worn off and she needed to go to sleep, taking the time to teach her how to drive because Bastet didn’t have the nerve and Merrick had been on tour. MaLeila could come up with dozens of other examples, but those were the first that came to mind and they were the reason that MaLeila had hope that if she could undo this bind, she’d realize and Devdan would realize too that they’re relationship wasn’t artificially designed as much as they both thought.

On the other hand there was Marcel. He was a nice guy, pretty typical at first, but very atypical in terms of being a representative of the Magic Council. He was more open then Devdan, but at the same time secretive. Sometimes MaLeila got the feeling that he was keeping things from her, not bad things, just things that he wasn’t ready to divulge to her yet. She could hardly remember a time where he divulged something about his personal life without her directly asking about it, even if they were on the topic. Whatever he was hiding didn’t stop him from being nice to her, didn’t make him push her away. He embraced her need to be close to him and for the most part, except for his secrets, he said what was on his mind. And though MaLeila didn’t know him as intimately as she did Devdan, she’d seen that unyielding determination flash through his eyes, although Marcel hid it behind a laid back and flexible persona, almost like he enjoyed humoring people, like he enjoyed humoring her brother when Merrick virtually interrogated him. It was the only way he could possibly work for the Magic Council and yet date her and not force her to conform in ways that he had to in order to keep his job.

Now that MaLeila thought about it, Marcel subtly reminded her of Devdan, once she stripped away their surface differences and the way they expressed their characteristics. Private, sometimes secretive, warm, patient, unnervingly perceptive of people’s motivations and true natures.

Marcel’s voice snapped her out her thoughts. She was glad he hadn’t been an enemy or intruder because she hadn’t even sensed his approach.

“Good,” he said, taking off his blazer and throwing it across the dresser before beginning to unbutton his shirt. “Right where I want you.”

Marcel got his shirt off and then took off the tank under it. Normally, MaLeila blushed still not used to the level of physical intimacy between them but even as he took off his belt and undid the button on his trousers, causing them to hang low on his hips, MaLeila could only look at Marcel with furrowed eyebrows.

He came over and got on the bed, leaning over her as he said, “I’ve missed you.”

“Hasn’t been that long. Only a few weeks,” MaLeila said.

“Exactly.” Then he asked, “What’s on your mind? You look contemplative.”

MaLeila silently looked at him, briefly wondering if there was a way to admit without hurting his feelings that her attraction to him might have something to do with the fact that on a subconscious level he reminded her of Devdan. If she had come to this conclusion before, she would have brushed it off, figured that people like Devdan and Marcel just happened to be her type. But Bastet’s words about figuring out what she wanted before someone got hurt haunted her.

“Just got a lot on my mind. Trying to figure out what I want out of life now that I can’t use high school as an excuse to hold it off,” MaLeila finally replied.

Marcel shifted to lie next to her so that he was facing her.

“Well, what are your ideas?”

MaLeila had spent most of the day thinking about them and the last thing she wanted to do was discuss them. Right now, she simply wanted to live in the moment because she had the nagging feeling that in the near future she’d be forced to stop playing the fence and trying to have the best of both the magical world and the non-magical, of Devdan and Marcel, and be forced to choose what she wanted. Thus in response to Marcel’s question, she shook her head and rolled over onto Marcel so that she was straddling him and said, “When you said this was where you wanted me, I didn’t think you meant so we could talk.”

“I didn’t,” Marcel assured as he pulled on her tank to urge her to come closer to him until their lips were connected.

He was gentle with her first, then after she seemed to loosen up he became aggressive and impatient, flipping them over so that he was above her. There was something hurried about this, rushed, as if they didn’t have all the time in the world, which MaLeila guessed they might not if the feeling she had about the future, even without directly looking into it, was right. There was also the fact that it had been at least three weeks since he had seen her, not that they had spent much more time than a handful of days together in the last month and a half as it was with him travelling all over Europe and the Asian continent trying to reassure magic families and clans that they had nothing to worry about and their power and positions weren’t in danger from a sorceress who wasn’t in the registry and a sorcerer with average potential that they thought had been neutralized like all the other sorcerers who popped up in a family with no apparent trace of magic in their families. In that time he had been back twice; once for a couple of days where he had been almost as patient and understanding with her as he had been their first time together, as if he wasn’t sure if their encounter had been a onetime thing that MaLeila didn’t want to repeat where she had to assure him that she wanted sex to be permanently a part of their relationship; another time where they didn’t even get a chance to get any alone time since it coincided with her high school graduation and her extended family had taken up most of her time for the week.