Amber and Ashes - Margaret Weis [14]
No face of a dead queen.
Mina lay back on the soft, down pillows that surrounded her and gazed into the darkness. She did not know where she was—certainly this was not the hard, cold floor of the desert on which she had been sleeping. She was too warm, too comfortable, too lethargic to care to try to find out. The darkness was soothing and scented with myrrh. The myriad candles around her bed burned with unwavering flames. She could see nothing beyond the bed. For the moment, she had no care for that. She was thinking of Chemosh, the words he had said to her yesterday.
When she died, some part of you was glad.
Mina was a veteran warrior. From where she had been standing on that fateful day, she could have never reached the elf in time to stop him from hurling his lance at the goddess whose punishment for stealing away the world had been mortality. Mina did not blame herself for her queen’s death. Mina blamed herself for having—as Chemosh said—felt joy that the queen was dead.
Mina had slain the elf. Most thought she had killed him in retribution. Mina knew differently. The elf had been in love with her. He had seen, with the eyes of love, that she was grateful to him for what he had done. She saw that knowledge in his eyes and, for that sin, he paid with his life.
Her joy over her queen’s death was immediately subsumed in grief and very real sorrow. Mina could not forgive herself for that initial burst of relief, for being glad that the decision to give up her life for her queen had been taken out of her hands.
“What would I have done when she came to kill me? Would I have fought her? Or would I have let her slay me?”
Every night, lying awake in front of the hidden entrance to the Dark Queen’s mountain tomb, Mina asked herself that question.
“You would have fought for your life,” answered Chemosh.
He drew near the bed. The silver that trimmed his coat glittered in the candlelight. His pale face had a light of its own, as did the dark eyes. He took Mina’s hand, resting on the cambric sheet that wound around her body, and raised it to his lips. His kiss made her heart jump, tore at her breath.
“You would have fought because you are mortal and you have a strong need to survive,” he added, “a struggle we gods never know.”
He seemed to brood over this, for she felt his attention leave her, shift away from her. He stared into a darkness that was endless, eternal, and awful. He stared long, as if seeking answers, then he shook his head, shrugged, and looked back at her with a smile.
“And thus you mortals could say,” he added, with a tone that was part mocking, part deadly earnest, “that the all-knowing gods are not so very all-knowing.”
She started to reply, but he would not let her. He bent down, kissed her swiftly on the lips, then he strode in a leisurely manner away from the bed, took a turn around the candlelit room. She watched his walk, strong and masterful.
“Do you know where you are, Mina?” Chemosh asked, turning to her abruptly.
“No, my lord,” she answered calmly. “I do not.”
“You are in my dwelling place.” He watched her intently. “In the Abyss.”
Mina cast a glance around her then returned her gaze to him.
He regarded her with admiration. “You wake to find yourself alone in the Abyss, yet you are not afraid.”
“I have walked in darker places,” replied Mina.
Chemosh looked at her long, then he nodded in understanding. “The trials of Takhisis are not for the faint of heart.”
Mina threw aside the cambric sheets. She climbed out of the bed and came to stand before him. “And what of the trials of Chemosh?” she asked him boldly.
The god smiled. “Did I say there would be trials?”
“No, my lord, but you will want me to prove myself. And,” she added, looking up in the