The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening (5 page)

“Because telling someone you trust them is far from harmless. In my experience, it’s usually what someone says in an effort to get someone to trust them.”

“And what’s so bad about me wanting you to trust me. What’s so bad about me wanting you to open up to me a little so I can get to know you the same way you seem to know me?”

“Because it’s just deceit in the end.”

Upon hearing Devdan’s answer, MaLeila realized too late that Devdan had purposely goaded her into giving him the answer to the question he wanted answered in the first place, into saying things that she would never actually say to him because she knew he might react badly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Give trust to gain trust only so you can break that trust in the end.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Not on purpose, but that’s just the nature of trust.”

MaLeila groaned and put her math book on the coffee table. Then she turned all the way to Devdan and said, “That makes absolutely no sense.”

“It does.”

“Maybe to you, but I can’t even understand how it might make sense to you because you won’t open up and tell me what you mean instead of talking in fucking riddles.”

Devdan didn’t say anything immediately, but MaLeila could sense that he had something else to say. Finally he said, “I’m just warning you that whatever it is you want from me or you’re trying to get from me, you’re better off not trying. Play those games with Marcel. You’ll have better luck with him.”

Anyone who didn’t know Devdan like MaLeila did, at least as much as he let her, wouldn’t understand why those words stung as much as they did. When talking to Devdan, it was one thing to listen to what he said, but more important was what he didn’t say, what was between his short clipped words. In this case the translation was clear to MaLeila. It meant that she should stop trying to figure him out. Stop trying to find a way in. Stop hoping that one day, if she was patient the sexual tension between them might be something more than just tension, that it had the potential to be something more. It had been the clear cue MaLeila had been looking for, just not the one that she had been hoping for.

“How long is it going to take?” MaLeila finally asked. When Devdan didn’t answer, MaLeila continued. Even though she didn’t know the entire story, even though she had only pieced together bits and pieces of the puzzle, which only gave her more questions than answers, she elaborated anyway. “How long is it going to take for you to figure out that I’m not Claude?”

Predictably, Devdan stood up and walked away, but whereas MaLeila had expected him to go to his room, instead he left the house.

5

She could try to take the world by force. Force them to see that having her as queen would be their best chance at true freedom. But if she took the world by force in the name of giving the world the supposed freedom it craved, they would accuse her of taking their freedom. The thought that the world might accuse her of taking something they had never experienced in the first place amused Tsubame. The freedom regular people thought they possessed was a sham used to herd them so their slave drivers could continue to use and abuse them.

So no. Taking the world by force wasn’t the answer. Tsubame didn’t have access to all of her powers anyway. Being queen of this world would take all the skill, diplomacy, and conniving she had learned in the last few centuries, particularly during her first ascension to a global throne. Back then, she had become queen by a series of stressful mishaps and accidents that left her with little choice but to cement her power. This time would be different. This time it would be fun.

The first thing she needed was to get noticed and getting involved in a war was the perfect way to do it. She could have started one, but sowing the seeds of a war could take years and though Tsubame was patient, she didn’t feel like waiting that long to see any fruit from her seeds. And why start a war when you could just join one? The unrest and fighting and refugee crisis in the Middle East was perfect. A complicated conflict that all boiled down to who would control the area and the oil beneath their feet led by men who couldn’t care less about the civilian and infrastructural casualties they inflicted and didn’t stop to think that they would only be ruling ruins at the rate they were fighting.

If there was one thing Tsubame had learned in centuries of being queen, it was that one of a woman’s best assets and greatest weapons was her body. With it, she could bring down entire nations because there was hardly a man who could think straight when a woman stood naked before him. Tsubame had met very few that could and the only reason they could do so was they had a greater love for something or someone that transcended sex. But there weren’t many men that supernatural. So it was hardly a gamble when she pretended to be Nadiyyah—a native dessert woman with her dark hair, young heart shaped face and pouty lips. She positioned herself alone in a community that had been torn apart by civil war and bombings near the principle territory of the current military usurpers, and hadn’t been surprised when one of the soldiers, with guns on his back and black fatigues grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look at him while he inspected her beauty. And though she shook and pretended to be nervously defiant, she had to keep from smiling when they offered to let her live and come back with them willingly to be a sex slave or they could force themselves on her and leave her to die.

Of course she agreed to go with them to the compound they’d seized when they first took the city and now used as a base of operations. As a courtesy for being so cooperative, they let her bathe, gave her a few days to rest and eat, to get a feel of her surroundings and replenish her strength. Though Tsubame was far from weak or tired, she acted as though she was slowly regaining her strength and used the days to watch her captors. As she walked through the compound and got to know where everything was, she learned a few things. The first thing she learned, not to her surprise at all, was that magic was involved in this war.

Specifically, there were two magic clans in a clash over territory with everyone else involved only lesser players comparatively. But they could fight all they wanted and the council would pay no mind so long as they didn’t expose the magical world or the ancient magic families; who controlled the world from the shadows using democracy, communism, socialism and every other political ideal to make people think they were in control when those ideals were actually fabricated by the ones who really ruled; who would never be exposed because they controlled the media, the corporations, and the families who supposedly controlled the corporations. They kept people fighting and squabbling over silly ideas about race, gender, sex and whatever else they could think of and then herded the masses into thinking the way they wanted them to in order to keep control over their countries, because it was much more effective to make people think they had their own minds and wills when they actually didn’t than to force them to bow.

It was a closely guarded secret that the run of the mill sorcerers didn’t know, that not even the children of these families knew until they came into power as the heads and leaders of their families, that Tsubame wouldn’t have ever known if she hadn’t stumbled upon it when she first began her ascension to rule. Most run of the mill sorcerers went their whole lives being herded like everyone else.

The second thing Tsubame learned during her supposed recovery was who was in charge. She figured it out after two days and the other servants, who took it upon themselves to help new girls get accustomed, confirmed Tsubame’s guesses. The commander was Ahmed, a military man in his mid-forties with average magic for a sorcerer. He was somewhat warm to those he considered allies and ruthless to his enemies with a weakness for women if the way he was always touching and fondling on the other women and girls was any indication. Then there was his second, Fathi, a large and muscular man, ruthless in battle and with an icy personality to match. The man never betrayed an emotion. Ahmed gave him an order and Fathi carried it out.

Tsubame chose Fathi as her target. She could get in bed with Ahmed, but it was always much more fun to turn two people against each other because it was those who were a person’s greatest supporters who had the potential to be their worst enemies.

Once her rest days were over, they put her in simple but nice garments and put her to work. After showing a propensity for healing, they put her to work helping their wounded, bringing their sick back to health. When she wasn’t doing that, she helped tend to their captors every want and whim. For a few days, she didn’t even see her target, but Tsubame was nothing if not patient… when it came to some things.

It was as she was bidding her time that she heard the other servants debating about something in the kitchen. Being the new girl, overly curious, but mostly shy (or at least Tsubame acted the part) she made her way over to see what was going on.

“Fathi’s back and he needs to be served in his room.”

“Oh? Why won’t he eat with the others?” Tsubame asked.

“Probably got hurt in the fight and doesn’t want to show weakness in front of them.”

“Then what are you fighting about?” Tsubame asked.

All the girls looked at her and then at each other before an older one said, “I forgot you just got here. No one likes to serve Fathi, especially when he’s hurt. He just stares at you like this.” The woman narrowed her eyes, frowned, put her shoulders back, and curved her arms outward in her best impression of looking intimidating. The rest of the servants fell out laughing.

Tsubame simply shrugged. “He can stare all he wants. I mean, he doesn’t… do anything, right?”

“We don’t stick around long enough to find out.”

Tsubame paused and then said, “I’ll serve him.”

The woman, whose name Tsubame didn’t know but had just mocked Fathi in front of her, became serious and shook her head.

“You’re new. I wouldn’t do that to you. Besides, you’ll have your hands full once they start really noticing how pretty you are.”

She said nothing else in reference to Tsubame being pretty, but Tsubame had noticed that for a woman who had been taken because she was pretty enough to be a sex slave, she hadn’t been forced into anyone’s bed yet. Based on the woman’s comment, Tsubame assumed it was because everyone had their favorites, not to mention most of the Ahmed’s soldiers were in the field for the foreseeable future.

“It’s okay,” Tsubame said, feigning timidity. “I’ll do it. Where’s his room.”

The older maid, whose name Tsubame finally learned was Saha, told her where the room was and sent Tsubame on her way. She used her first time serving him to discreetly observe him as she set up his dinner. Seeing that Tsubame seemed not to be unnerved by Fathi, Saha sent her to serve him the next evening. All the while, Tsubame felt his eyes on her, felt his curiosity spike at seeing her serve him for a second time. She didn’t glance up at him as she set up his dinner though, pretending to be more interested in the empty cigar case on the stand. Yesterday there had been cigars in it and the fact that the room smelt of smoke more than it had yesterday told Tsubame that they hadn’t been just for decoration.

Without prompting, she grabbed the box and said without looking at him, “I’ll bring this right back.”

When she came back with the full cigar case, she sat it on the table and just barely turning her head to him, gave him a glance. A quick movement of the eyes, barely anything that anyone else would notice, but in that brief split second, they caught each other’s gaze.

That miniscule glance told her everything she needed to know. Some men respected innocence, would do anything to preserve it. Some respected wit, knowledge, strength, morals, passion. But there were plenty of servants in the complex like that. However, what seemed to attract a warrior like Fathi’s attention and respect was courage, bravery; that even after what the servants said she had the courage as the new girl to serve him not once, but also not being intimidated by him enough that she came a second time and left to come back again within a five minute span.

Tsubame kept herself from smiling and decided to leave. But before she left she felt him reach out curiously with his mediocre magic to get a feel for her. What she did next was a gamble, but if done right it would make her task, while still somewhat challenging, a lot easier. Since she came to this world, she had been shielding her magic for the most part, but right as she felt Fathi’s magic reaching out, she let her magical aura briefly flare as though reacting to his magical touch; let him get a feel for her potential; that there was potential power that could match her stupid courage and make her a potential force to be reckoned with as a woman, making her certainly worth his attention. As quick as she allowed her magic to flare, she reined it back in, pretending to act totally oblivious to his magical senses touching her as she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Tsubame remained passive, responding shruggishly that she got Fathi more cigars when Saha asked what took her so long. Saha held her gaze for a moment before shaking her head and going about her other tasks, and only then did Tsubame look up in the general direction of where Fathi’s room was in the house.

Now, the fun part began.

6

If there was one thing MaLeila knew about Devdan over the years, it was that no matter how much he left, no matter how long he was gone, he would always come back, usually unannounced. MaLeila never asked where he went, and whatever his vices were, he never brought them to the house. Never had she smelled alcohol on him or cigarettes, never did he look like he was high (not that she thought she’d be able to tell because she had a feeling Devdan would be functional even when he wasn’t all the way sober). But no matter what he did when he left, he came back on his own and almost certainly always before she would need him again.

It was the same this time. After only three days away, she was pleased but not surprised to find him in the kitchen nursing a cup of coffee and leaning on the counter as he waited for her so they could go to school. What she wasn’t pleased about was how he was so distant. His aura was withdrawn and any time she unconsciously reached out to touch it with her senses, it retreated from her touch. At the very least, Devdan would usually allow her to brush her aura along his if only to reassure herself that he was indeed himself.

He also refrained from saying anything to her. Most days she could get a “good morning” out of him or something that resembled a conversation but now he was barely acknowledging her presence. Rather than be hurt by it, MaLeila decided to treat him the same way. He might not be affected by it, but it made her feel better about herself.

Meanwhile, as Devdan continued to give her the cold shoulder, MaLeila spent more time with Marcel. On yet another date that ended up outside her house, MaLeila once again moved her hands over Marcel’s to place them back to a more respectable place on her body. More respectable because some people wouldn’t believe letting him hold her hips to keep her pressed against him was respectable, but it was the best MaLeila could do when she was trying to do the task while simultaneously kissing Marcel at the same time.

Finally she managed to pull herself away and after taking a deep breath, she said, “We’ve been out here a long time. I’m shocked no one’s called to report us for being indecent.”

Marcel rolled his eyes, “People over here act so prudish. We weren’t doing anything.”

“Still…”

Marcel suddenly smiled and leaned down to put his forehead against hers, “You know we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone calling on us for being indecent if you’d let me come in every now and then.”

MaLeila made a sound that was between a laugh and a scoff and then said, “Unfortunately, I don’t live by myself.”

“My place works too,” Marcel said beginning again to run kisses down her cheek and toward her neck.

MaLeila certainly would have liked to, but she couldn’t afford to be careless. Tsubame hadn’t resurfaced in a month, so under the radar that MaLeila would have started to doubt she was a threat if not for the nagging feeling that the woman was dangerous. But until she reappeared, Marcel had no reason to stay but to date her and since he stayed because of her it was almost easy for MaLeila to forget that Marcel worked for the council. But she always remembered, particularly when he asked her to let him take her to his apartment.

“No,” MaLeila finally answered.

He kissed her on the lips and said, “One of these days you’re going to figure out I’m not with you to spy for the council.”

“And then what? You’ll whisk me to your place to have your way with me.”

Marcel laughed and kissed her on the lips again before saying in a husky tone, “Exactly.”

MaLeila felt her face warm and an uncomfortable heat begin to pool in her pelvic area. Marcel chuckled in her ear, causing more heat to rise to MaLeila’s face as she realized he was teasing her, taking advantage of the fact that, in his own words, she was so feisty and powerful yet so innocent in the ways of romance.

“Alright. That’s enough,” MaLeila said pursing her lips together and pulling out Marcel’s grasp and away from his reach while trying to keep from smiling at him.

“One of these days,” Marcel assured as he made his way back to his car.

MaLeila simply shook her head in response and went back into the house, only to stop in the doorway upon seeing her older brother sitting on the couch.

“Hey sis,” he said casually.

MaLeila huffed and closed the door behind her before making her way to him. Her brother—all of six feet, in between lean and buff, with skin a couple of shades lighter than hers, a bald head, and a thin mustache—stood up and met her halfway.

“You jerk. What have I told you about coming home and not telling me about it?”

“And what do I always tell you,” he said as he embraced her. “Life’s no fun without surprises. The good kind anyway.”

That might have been true before it became a habit for powerful sorcerers and sorceress to spring impromptu surprise attacks on her. Afterwards, she warned him to let her know the specific dates he would be coming home from his deployments, especially after she almost attacked him on one of his returns a few years ago. Normally, she didn’t attack people without magic even when they surprised her because she could sense their lack of magical talent in their dull auras. But it turned out her brother had a limited sense of magic that allowed him to see ghosts. It had been so weak before that MaLeila hadn’t been able to sense it until he came back from a second tour in the Middle East.

Her brother’s response to that explanation had been that getting his head knocked off was a risk worth taking to continue surprising her.

“One of these days, Merrick,” MaLeila warned him to which Merrick rolled his eyes and led them to the couch.

“So when did you get back?” MaLeila asked once they were sitting down.

“Flew into the country this morning. Then bussed back here into the city and called a cab to get home. By the time I got to the house, you were already on your date,” Merrick said pointedly. “You never told me you were seeing someone.”

MaLeila shrugged. “It’s only been a couple of weeks. Nothing so serious that it was worth mentioning. But we can talk about my life later. How was your tour?”

“You’re not slipping out of this one, Leila,” Merrick insisted with his arms crossed. “It looked pretty serious to me or do you make a habit of making out with strangers in front of the house and I wasn’t aware of it.”

MaLeila sighed. “Fine. We haven’t been together long. A little over a month and a half or so and I didn’t want you to get worked up while on tour.”

“So is it serious? Does he know about…?”

“My magic? He’s a representative from the magic council sent to investigate a report I sent in about an unknown sorceress. So yes. He knows.”

Merrick, who had already been frowning at the news that MaLeila had a boyfriend, furrowed his eyebrows further in thought. Then he said, “Wait a minute. Don’t you hate the magic council and anyone associated with them? Don’t they give you hell?”

“If by giving me hell you mean turning a blind eye to my existence and letting crazy magic users attack me, yes.”

“And you’re dating one of those old bastards.”

MaLeila rolled her eyes. “Marcel isn’t even that old.”

“Which brings me back to how old he is?”

MaLeila decided she may as well get it over with. “Twenty-nine. So he’s not old.”

“Too old for you,” Merrick said laughing.

“I’m eighteen.”

“He’s twenty-nine.”

“She’s a sorceress,” Devdan said from behind them as he entered the room.

Merrick looked turned to look back MaLeila’s guardian with a passive expression and then said, “You’re still here.”

Devdan didn’t reply as he grabbed a coke out the refrigerator and came to sit on the couch across from Merrick and MaLeila. MaLeila sensed the atmosphere thicken, the charge in the air rise, and both men’s auras flare as Merrick continued to look at Devdan. Her brother had never been particularly fond of the man, not at all comfortable with an adult man being so close to his younger sister, especially one as peculiar and (in Merrick’s opinion) psychopathic as Devdan. His belief was only reinforced once Nina, in an effort to get Merrick to see that Devdan wasn’t so bad, let slip that Devdan tried to kill MaLeila when they first met. The two’s relationship only went downhill from there. For the most part, Devdan treated Merrick like he treated everyone else, hardly acknowledging his existence except on the few occasions where Merrick got caught up in attacks on MaLeila and he had to protect him. But on occasions like the one MaLeila currently found herself in, she got the feeling Devdan got a kick out of bothering her brother.

Seeing that Devdan wasn’t going to bother to reply to his question, Merrick said, “What’s her being a sorceress got to do with this?”

MaLeila looked at Devdan. He didn’t turn his head, but she did notice him glance at her out his peripheral vision. Then he turned his complete attention back to Merrick.

“It means that in the magical world, dating someone that far apart in age from you is normal and not taboo like it is in the non-magic one,” Devdan replied.

Though the statement was factual, MaLeila wished Devdan hadn’t been so blunt about it and explained it to Merrick a little more. But then again, when had she ever known Devdan to be gentle about anything?

“So it’s normal for teenagers to date a grown man in the magical world.”

“Considering that the age of majority is sixteen in it? Yes,” Devdan replied. “Besides, she’s eighteen. So she’s legal in both worlds now.”

“She’s still in high school.”

“She’s a sorceress. It really doesn’t matter. She’s part of a world that has rules very different from yours.”

“A world our mother didn’t even want her to be a part of,” Merrick reminded.

Devdan looked at Merrick as though considering his words. For all MaLeila knew, maybe Devdan was since he had been so fond of her mother. Merrick was right when he said their mother hadn’t wanted MaLeila to be a part of the magical world. She used its racism and classism as her reasoning, but MaLeila always argued that she didn’t have to go be involved in the daily life and politics of the magical world to experience that. MaLeila later figured out that her mother simply didn’t want to lose MaLeila to the magical world.

“And what do you want her to do?” Devdan asked. “Graduate school, go to college, become a doctor or maybe a teacher? An engineer? Get married, have 2.5 children with a white picket fence? The American dream?”

“I want her to have a normal life.”

Devdan huffed. “Normal is relative Merrick. It changes all the time. And magic is your sister’s normal, even if she tries to act like it’s not. She would grow up, marry a regular Joe, have kids, and they would grow old and die, long before her skin even began to wrinkle, if it ever wrinkles.”

“So what are you trying to say?” Merrick asked in irritation.

“I’m saying don’t argue about and make a fuss about things you have no clue about. Do you think Bastet and I would let her date Marcel if he were a danger to her?”

“He’s part of the Magic Council.”

“And that’s questionable,” Devdan admitted. “But MaLeila’s handled it this far. Besides, you haven’t even been around to know if you should be worried or not.”

MaLeila held in a mixed sigh of exasperation and resignation. Devdan always seemed to bounce back and forth between being her greatest critic and her most staunch supporter and defender.

Either way, Merrick always did find it difficult to defeat Devdan’s sound arguments and this time was no different. Reluctantly, Merrick let up on MaLeila about Marcel. Done with the conversation, Devdan left the room, leaving Merrick and MaLeila to catch up on what had been going on in the last eight months he had been gone, where MaLeila filled him in on the incident with Tsubame. Eventually the topic did return to Marcel when Merrick calmly asked if he could at least meet the guy. MaLeila ran the idea by Marcel the next day and without much apprehension or concern about learning that MaLeila had an older brother, Marcel agreed.

“We can have dinner at my place,”
he suggested over the phone.

“Your place?” MaLeila repeated.

“Sure. That way you can make sure I don’t have a room for any secretly depraved appetites,”
Marcel jokes.
“Bring your brother and Bastet and Devdan. Nina too if you want someone in our corner to even the odds.”

MaLeila told Merrick and Bastet immediately, and then told Nina about it the next time she talked to the girl which was at school the next morning. Getting Devdan to come would be tricky. Not only was he not talking to her, but he hated things like family dinners and gatherings, places where he had to make the effort to be social whether he wanted to be or not. The only thing remotely social they could get him to come to was if her mother asked him and the only time she ever asked him was during Thanksgiving.

After pondering it for the better part of the week, MaLeila finally decided there would be no safe way to approach Devdan about going, so she may as well just ask. Besides, MaLeila figured it was time to break the ice between them.

He wasn’t in his room, nor was he anywhere in the house, but MaLeila sensed him nearby which meant there was only one place he could be.

She went out the back door, turned to face the house and walked backward into the backyard, head tilted upward until she was far enough back to see Devdan sitting on the roof.