All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [279]
Louis bowed low—but not so low that he took his eyes off her.
Sealiah blinked and turned back to her knights.
Louis cleared his throat again and gestured to Eliot, as if presenting him to the Queen for the first time.
Sealiah seemed to understand this and smiled.
Eliot shifted, uncomfortable under her smoldering gaze.
Sealiah said, “And what treasure do you wish, my young noble born?”
“What do I want? I don’t—”
Louis poked a sharp fingernail into Eliot’s back.
Eliot stood straighter. That hurt, but it’d been a clear warning. Something was going on here that he did not understand . . . something Infernal.
What did Eliot want? Sealiah had already told him she would heal Jezebel. That’s what this had all been about: him and her. Right?
But it wouldn’t just be him and Jezebel; she would always be Sealiah’s protégée—her slave, actually.
Eliot felt sorry for Jezebel. He loved her, too. But the magnitude of political intrigue and her Infernal ties meant that they could never have a normal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. If Sealiah ordered her later to stab Eliot in the back, he wasn’t sure Jezebel could refuse.
Why was it so complicated?
He was missing something, though, right in front of him. He could feel it just out of his mental reach . . . at his fingertips . . . in the air around him . . . in the dirt under his sneakers.
Yes, the land.
He cocked his head back to his father. “Why did you want land?”
Louis smile seemed to melt from its usual mocking crookedness to something genuine. “Land is everything.” He gave a theatrical wave of his hand. “If I were you, I would pick a Dolorous Archipelago on the Mirrored Sea, next to my city.”
“Quiet your wagging tongue, Louis.” Sealiah’s hand rested on the pommel of Saliceran. “Or I shall cut it out and feed it to my dogs.”
Louis shut his mouth with an audible clack of teeth.
“You do not want land, Eliot,” Sealiah told him as if he were a child about to stick his finger into a light socket. “It’s a tremendous responsibility, one that would be impossible to manage while you were at school.” She tapped her lower lip, considering. “Why not let me give you a mansion in San Francisco? One with swimming pools, game rooms, a kitchen, and a full staff?”
She sounded worried. Eliot had definitely stumbled onto something.
“Or a yacht,” Sealiah continued. “Or a real, living band and a recording deal. You would be the next big thing. The whole world would flock to your concerts.”
While Eliot had grown to appreciate having a band to play with, the thought of tens of thousands of people in an audience made his stomach churn.
What was he missing? Was what it about land that had everyone so worked up?
He knew it’d look strange, but was drawn to the earth, so he knelt and touched the dirt. There were worms and beetles and tiny bell-shaped flowers with blue veins that uncurled in the soil.
He remembered when he had touched the dirt through the Gates of Perdition—when Uncle Kino had ditched him and Fiona there. That earth had been dead, lifeless for a billion years . . . but there had been a “malleable” quality to it. It was hard to explain, just a feeling that he could make something out of it if he put his mind to it.
What Louis had said about land came rushing back to him: “We are monarchs of the domains of Hell, the benevolent kings and queens over the countless souls who are drawn there to worship us. Without land, we would be the lowest of the low.”
“So,” Eliot said, “if you own land in Hell, you’re the king or queen of it? You control the souls there?”
“Land,” Sealiah replied, “is what defines an Infernal Lord. And yes, the souls belong to you . . . but the damned are far more trouble and time than they are worth.”
Fiona wandered back to where they stood.
“What’s going on?” Fiona asked, concerned. She must have sensed the same “something” about to happen as Eliot had. The change in the land, and more than that, the change about to happen in Eliot.
He almost had all the pieces put together. What he wanted. How to save Jezebel. And,