Page 208 of Bedeviled

This command has to work. Memnon vowed his will to me.

And yet, this isn’t his will, is it? His mind isn’t wholly his own. It’s been given over to something else.

Or maybe it is working, but so slowly that it is functionally useless.

In the past, commands were never enough to bring my Memnon back from this state. There was only ever one thing that did it.

I step up to him now and touch his cheek. “Est xsaya, you are destroying friends as well as foes. Remember who you are.”

He turns those glowing, distant eyes on me. “I know who I am.”

I can hear the words in his head. Conqueror. Warlord. King. Soul mate. All this modernity, it cloaks deep truths: we were once warriors. Rulers. We made hard choices then. We must make them again now, even if it means absolute destruction.

My throat tightens as I stare at Memnon, who can’t be stopped. Who won’t be stopped.

Our surroundings are almost pitch-black, and now I’m positive this is the Bargainer’s shadows pressing inward. And it becomes profoundly clear: either I stop Memnon, or he will.

My mind flashes to the small grimoire the high priestess gave me, the one that may or may not have gone up in flames earlier this evening.

“If you are so certain about who you are, then let me tell you about who I am,” I say gently, as though we have all the time in the world and he’s in the state of mind to listen.

“I am the girl who first spoke to you in tongues when you only knew Sarmatian. I am the one you learned Latin for, just so you might know my thoughts. You remember that, right? Even though right now, your mind isn’t all your own, I trust you do,” I say.

“You learned my secrets,” I continue, forcing myself to ignore how the screams are beginning to quiet or how deep the shadows have become, “and my pain. You gave me my first true name—Roxilana, because it meant ‘blessed one’ in your tongue, and you thought it was fitting. You were in my mind when my magic Awoke, and I was in your mind when yours Awoke as well.

“You and I stared at the same stars for years, though we were nations apart, wishing that one day we’d be together.”

Though his eyes have that disconcerting hollowness to them, Memnon seems to be listening raptly.

“You crossed all that distance to find me,” I say, “and you brought me back to your people—our people. You crowned me queen.”

My throat tightens as that grimoire flashes in my mind again.

“We fought in battles together, lost children together, we have endured betrayals and death and ageless sleep for one another, all so we could be in this moment. For you and I are like those stars we gazed at—eternal. And I will save you now, just as I did long ago, just as you have saved me many, many times, Memnon. Because that is what we do. We save each other.”

I drop my hand from his cheek and back up. Memnon still watches me, and I’d say he was fascinated by my words if I didn’t feel the hold that all that rage has on him.

I used to believe all magic came at a price. That the cost of that magic, for me at least, was my memories, just as the cost of that power, for a sorcerer, was their conscience. But it turns out, it’s all more complicated than that. There may be a cost to power, but my memory loss—that was simply a curse.

What if sorcery, too, was just a curse? An elaborate one that is passed down from parent to child, but a curse all the same?

What if beneath every sorcerer was just another mage or witch, and the terrible tithe that increased their power at the expense of their conscience could be lifted? What if Memnon’s entire life he was under a curse, just as his father was and his ancestors before that?

Because if that’s true, and I now have reason to believe it is, then he does not have to lose his conscience to his power after all.

Because curses can be broken.

I draw on the words in that grimoire now, the ones I meticulously memorized.

“From earth our flesh was formed,” I begin. “To dust our bones be ground. What magic once forged shall thus remain bound.”

My magic churns inside me as it gathers.

“Blood of my blood, soul of my soul, two halves together again make whole. I invoketh my power as thy soul’s mate, to repay a tithe and alter thy fate.

I remember the battlefields, the bloody, contorted bodies. And I don’t need to remember the glow of Memnon’s eyes or the breeze in his hair. I can see it before me.

“The power thy claimed, through fire shall burn.”