Page 27 of Queen Takes Rook
One of the snakes stretched upward, winding around her knee. It was small and rather cute, a brilliant crimson color without the deadly king coral stripes, scales glowing like fiery rubies. It seemed offended at my thoughts and hissed at me, its tongue flicking out like it could taste me.
My cobra queen stirred, her scales slithering inside me, making me shiver. I wouldn’t be surprised if my eyes were slitted now.
“So many gifts,” Coatlicue whispered as she stroked her index finger down the small snake’s head. “Such cost.”
I swallowed, pushing the cobra back down inside of me. “I’ll pay that cost to keep my Blood and Mayte’s family safe.”
Coatlicue let out a low, sighing breath that sounded like a mournful wind. “So many lost. Queens wiped out before they could come into power. Entire Houses devastated. We call for blood, daughter. We call for an end to our queens living in fear, on the run, or trapped in their nests. We want our daughters to have many children as in days of old. A time when children ran the nests, learned our ways, and lived with love anywhere they chose.”
The lost little girl inside me nodded, aching for the childhood she’d never had. A chance to grow up in a nest, knowing full well what she was, without guilt or shame or regret. With a loving mother, who hadn’t been banished from living Aima memory in order to give birth to me.
“I have a powerful gift to offer you, but beware. I am Mother, which means I give birth, yes, but I’m also a destroyer. I am the womb and the grave. I defend my children vehemently, but I punish them even more harshly if they abandon my ways. Huitzilopochtli…” Her voice broke and tears of blood dripped down her cheeks. “He was my son. Ra’s influence contaminated him, twisting and ultimately consuming him, as he consumed many sun gods before him, until only he remains. My son is no more.”
She leaned forward, pinning me with Her gaze. My nape prickled, and my nerves quivered with sensation, as if an invisible breath swept over me.
“The Great One made you the queen of resurrection. I would make you a divine queen of death, the sole carrier of a grave so great that not even a god could withstand your power. In exchange, I ask for only one thing. That you kill Ra, and release Huitzilopochtli’s soul so he may return to me in Aztlan.”
I didn’t answer right away. She didn’t offer these gifts lightly. I’d be a fool to rush in without thought. A divine queen of death. That sounded… terrifying.
I would much rather be a queen of love and sex, pleasure and laughter, hope and lightness. Not grief and death. As Itztli had told me, it would suck to be a grim reaper of death, only so people appreciated my passing with relief that they were still alive.
I didn’t want to be the kind of queen who sacrificed a Blood on an altar and cut his heart out of his chest, something I had already done before Her gift. How much worse would this gift of the grave make me? I’d already killed with my gifts. I certainly hadn’t been sorry that I’d destroyed Greyson, the master thrall who’d killed my mother, nor his minions. I would have killed the golden eagle myself today if I could have caught it before Mehen snagged it in his jaws.
I would have interrogated the dog we’d captured after the attack. And yes, if I’d had to cut off a few body parts to get him to talk about Ra’s plans for Xochitl, or me, I would have. Gleefully.
I was already a fledgling monster, and I hadn’t even had the awful pleasure of dealing with Keisha Skye yet, let alone Marne Ceresa.
“You may indeed find it necessary to kill other queens,” Coatlicue said softly. “But that is not why I give you this power. You would find it easy enough to kill another queen without my grave. But not a god, and certainly not Ra himself. He absorbed all the other sun gods before and after him, taking their power for himself, and using the lifeblood of countless queens to fuel his obsession. He would enslave all women, but especially our queens. His purpose is why there are so few Aima queens still living. All queens are under constant attack. You may find it best serves your needs to ally yourself with them, rather than kill them.”
She laughed softly and sat back in Her throne, still petting the snake that slithered up Her thigh. “Though, I admit I would likely kill them, too, and be done with their convoluted plots.”
I stepped closer, eyeing the jaguars on either side of Her. They started purring, so I knelt at Her feet between them. They both rubbed their heads against my shoulders, and the black one lay its head in my lap, playfully rolling over and begging me to scratch its stomach. “What’s the cost for this power?”
“A life for a life.” She reached out to cup my cheek, Her eyes glimmering with regret. “It cannot be your own life, either. I know your heart, child. You would willingly die to save another, but it cannot be paid by you. You won’t have the choice of who pays the cost. If you call upon my grave to kill, it will claim another one you love at great cost to you.”
My throat swelled shut with tears, shredded with agony at the thought. Who would die? One of my Blood? My heart bled at the thought. Gina? Winston? Mayte? “I can’t bear it.”
“You must, if you accept this gift. But I will tell you truly that if you do not kill Ra, then he will kill many more. You will lose loved ones. You will die in great pain, and everyone you love will suffer. The only difference is that you will not have the responsibility of knowing that someone died because of your power.”
“If they die, can I resurrect them?”
She shook her head solemnly. “My grave is beyond even the Great One’s resurrection. It must be so to ensure Ra’s death.”
Tears trickled down my face, and I bit my tongue and lips, shredding my own flesh with my fangs. “Can you tell me who you’ll take?”
Silently, She shook Her head again.
The cost. So steep.
If I lost Rik…
Goddess. I couldn’t breathe at the thought.
Daire. Guillaume. My grumpy dragon. My silent, ghostly wolf. My poor, tortured dog.
I choked on sobs, splattering Her with my blood.
She shivered, Her eyes flaring with hunger. “Decide, child, so I may send you back unscathed. You’ve aroused my hunger, which is never wise.”
