Page 151 of Of Serpents and Ruins
The Gola Resh just laughed. "Oh, consider is the best I can do. I want to see you suffer. And you can’t follow her in, Brandt. I want you to watch her burn and know she is in agony because you could not protect her. In fact, I changed my mind. You are the one who must do it. Kill her, Brandt. Kill her, and I’ll consider freeing half your people. That’s what you wanted all along, wasn’t it?"
"You have proved yourself untrustworthy." Brandt’s voice shook as he glared at her. He shook his head. Sweat rolled along the sides of his face, highlighted the long scar that cut down the left side of his face. They might as well have been tears. "Why should we believe you?"
"Stella dies," the Gola Resh chortled. "She dies again, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it."
Elias’s teeth clenched as he glared up at her. "I have been nothing but faithful to your demands, Gola Resh. I brought you what you needed time and again. Yet you would break your word so easily? Stella was to be spared!"
The Gola Resh sneered. She flung her hands up in the air. "Fine. I don’t care. One of you will push or cast the other into the lava below. And I’ll guarantee that I’ll spare all of the people of Sepeazia. As long as one of you dies and the other watches. Just do it!"
"If my death will satisfy you and you can give proof that you will spare Sepeazia—" Brandt started.
I sprang forward and grabbed his hand, eyes blazing. She’d overplayed. "No! This—it makes no sense. She wants vengeance, but…" I spun to face her once more, my mouth as dry as paper. A thought had been forming in my mind since the beach. Now it wriggled into clarity. "Your illness—the whole reason you came here and began to devour Sepeazia’s life force was becauseyou were dying. Neither you nor the Babadon wished to be separated."
"Yes. All we came for was my healing." She said it so simply, almost mockingly. As if we were being the unreasonable ones.
"And eternity together," Kine pointed out, still holding the spear tight.
Her breath hissed through her knife-like teeth. "There has never been any dispute about this. What is the purpose of your questions now?"
I glanced back at Tile, hoping he knew that I was asking him as much as confronting the Gola Resh. "Magic is not precise. It is not something that can be measured like water or stone. It is a type of energy. How do you store it? You don’t use heartstones to embed your deepest incantations, Gola Resh. And you didn’t stop once you were healed, even though you could have escaped without being seen. No, you decided to take everything. To destroy all of us and become true immortals."
Tile gave a nod of assent. His frown deepened.
"I have no need of heartstones or to store power," the Gola Resh said with dry amusement. She stalked closer. Her eyes narrowed, and the air around her grew more oppressive as she loomed over Brandt and me.
"The Babadon—once you bring him back—he is going to be weakened. What will replenish him? Not Sepeazia’s life force. If it was enough for when you needed healing and for both of you to gain eternal life together, how can there be enough now that he must be restored in full? Or do you intend to go back to being ill so that he can be alive long enough for you to share a few years before you’re separated once more?"
She paused then. Her jaws snicked together with such a sharp click I almost thought she broke her teeth. "There are other worlds, little girl. Other realms. Your little kingdom isn’t that special."
I pressed my advantage, hands balled into fists. "Except something about us is. Because you stayed even when we fought back. Maybe you were just so arrogant you didn’t think it would make a difference. But I think it’s something else. It’s like your curses. Until they are completed, the line of energy remains open. And if that is the case, you cannot actually spare anyone from the destruction you will bring. Not all. Not fifty. Not ten. Not two. Not even one. You’re drinking from a fire hydrant and pretending you can fill a teacup without spilling it. You have to take all of the life away from us or else you will lose everything you have taken." I cast my gaze to Elias, my voice hardening. "The Gola Resh would have perished along with the Babadon the night you attacked. The mortal wound she inflicted upon herself…were you there before she inflicted that or after?"
Elias’s jaw set. "She was transferring her life force into a new form, trying to change things with those shifter rings. It was a new form that transcended what we knew. She swore so much torment and destruction upon our people. She offered freedom, life, and salvation for the Kairos Faction and all who would join with us up to a third of the population. A guarantee that none of us would die. We could have saved a third of our people."
I refused to look away. The words burned in me. "You gave her more shifter rings. You allowed her to start siphoning off their strength and energy as well."
"The Gola Resh turned our ancestors’ gift into a curse," Lorna growled, her dark eyes hard as obsidian.
"Gifts into curses are my specialty," the Gola Resh preened. "But now I am offering you your precious people back. I’ll take what we need from the animals and the plants. You won’t get a better offer than that."
Buttercup huffed.
I placed my hand on her snout, glaring at the Gola Resh. "Really? You haven’t really responded to my assertion. WasI wrong before? Maybe. It’s remarkable how abundant and plentiful the life force of Sepeazia is. A life force that you desperately need. So let’s go back. You needed all of it to start. Everything from our plants to our beasts, to our lives, to our land and sea. But then, suddenly, you don’t need everything. Were you just greedy before, or are you only now realizing how much you need? It doesn’t seem like this follows how your magic works."
Tile’s brow lifted. He gave a determined nod. Lines of strain still bracketed his narrow mouth, but there was a fierceness in his gaze. Yes. I was right. This wasn’t how her magic worked.
Brandt cast a look back at me. A hard one. But one with a faint smirk. One that said "brash seer." I lifted my chin, steeling my expression but sent him back my own glance to say, "brilliant king."
Pressing my advantage, small as it was, I continued, "You have made multiple offers time and time again. You’ll spare one. No, two. No, ten. No, half. No, all! But what I have seen of your magic at every stage is that it is forceful and full of movement. It has its own momentum, like a tidal wave or a volcanic explosion, and you act as if you can just slow it or change its course at any time you choose. But you can’t—can you? Even if you could, you think we are nothing. You despise us. You simply want our pain."
The Gola Resh hissed at me. "You said you wanted a guarantee for your pathetic little nation. I give it to you, and now you argue with me?" She slashed her hand through the air. The shadows that formed her body darkened, the skeletal frame intensifying in boldness. "All you have is my word. That is all that will be granted. I give you a chance for all to live. And you spit in my face?"
"Your word means nothing," Brandt growled. "You have proven yourself treacherous from the start. "Why should anyone believe you?"
"Elias," I called out, stepping forward and searching for his gaze. Brandt’s eyebrow arched. Kine scowled. Neither made any move to stop me, though I suddenly felt the weight of their gazes upon me.
Elias’s attention snapped to me. Anger filled his eyes—anger and something like regret.
My fingernails cut into my palms as I forced myself to look at him and not turn away in disgust. "Elias, you and your faction must know now that this is all a lie. The Gola Resh desires only vengeance against us. She wants us to suffer. But she will not spare anyone. She will drain us all till we are husks and cast us aside. Auntie Runa saw death. You were there with me when she told us. Whenever I have tried to see the end to this, that is all that I have seen. All any seer has seen. The Gola Resh and the Babadon bring death. The only choices they have offered us have been those that torment us and bring us suffering. They treat us like pawns and toys for their amusement, and they will throw us away after they have stripped away every choice from us they can."
