The Warden

Chapter 55

Charlan basked in the shock that radiated from Masis' face. His lifelight must have danced and sputtered, spiked and dove, uncertain colors forming and mixing back into its mass, emerging as deviant tones. Though blind to that chaotic roiling squall, imagining it gave her some hint of satisfaction. Victory, triumph, whatever one wished to call it, lay squarely in her hands, waiting for her to seize it entirely, with no intention of relinquishing one iota.

So now you have everything you ever wanted, came Andsek's voice in Charlan's mind.

She breathed evenly, not rising to the barb that her own mind had provided. Yes, I have.

Complete subjugation, absolute control, an entire continent's population at your disposal. What else could you possibly want?

Nothing I suppose. She kept her features neutral as the Domrae whelp floundered in front of her. Her eyes jumped between him, General Biligrim, and Calla, illuminated neatly by the amplified moonlight.

But it wasn't your goal to begin with, her dead son's lingering shade observed. How long will it be until a continent is no longer enough for you? How much longer will it take for you to realize you need more? And more? And more ? How long until She convinces you that you need the world?

Charlan did not have to ask who She was. Even now, Manu tugged at her, pulled on her hunger, deepened it, encouraged it, made it nearly unbearable. Since her dealing with the trickster moon, that hunger had assailed her, bludgeoning her will with its insistent barrage. Feeding knocked it back for a time, but, inevitably, it came again and again. It had, over the centuries, become something she lived with, an itch one could ignore because its persistence had made it commonplace, a part of existence. But even with the mastery of ignoring that burrowing impulse, from time to time a particularly sharp tug would bring it back to the forefront of her appetites, insisting on satisfaction, refusing abatement until lifelight flowed into its fathomless maw.

I choose when I feed. Charlan lied to herself, quietly, so that the lie would not waken her mind's defenses.

You can't lie to—

I choose when I feed! She latched onto that still resistant portion of her thoughts. It struggled. She held her concentration fast with gritted teeth. I choose when I feed! I choose when I feed! I choose! I CHOOSE! ME! I do! No one else!

The lies had grown in volume in her mind, rattling her skull with their powerful wrong, her defenses to deception—even self-deception—overwhelmed before they could mount a proper counter-truth. With each belligerent thought, each more powerful than the last, that portion of her psyche wrapped in Andsek's guise struggled less and less, strangled in the hot confines of her falsehood. Only when it fell completely silent, entirely still, did she relax, letting it fall away into the mind's black abyss where thoughts were buried and forgotten.

A single thought came up from that pit, a thought that no mind could have kept from ringing into every conscious corner.

You are hers now, then.

The words trembled their way out of her mind into each limb, shuddering back to her core.

Charlan trembled, her hands shaking at her sides. I am myself.

* * *

Celebrating your victory already, thought Masis, noting the tremors that reverberated up and down her body.

He barely strung those words together before his mind's coherence fractured again.

If what the night queen said was true, he could not give her what she wanted. Haimlant would fall. There would be no way for the sovereigns to stand against what this creature would unleash. The mages would offer little to no help, their abilities rendered useless. If he gave in and yielded the Wardenhood to General Biligrim, he would be condemning other families to the same fate as his own.