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Ebba resolved into his form that looked almost like a person. “You are reckless to bring me here. I cannot stop once people have set chaos into motion… and not even the gods can keep humans from their chaos.”
“Not easily,” Kallus said. “But you helped my niece.”
“Honor is chaos herself. She is made of the old magic. That was the only way her parents could have a child.”
I filed that away for later to try to understand.
“So Honor can control the chaos?” Kallus asked the question that I desperately wanted to. “She has as much power as you do?”
“Now that you have summoned me, I am going to let my assassin finally finish his work. I am not going to answer your questions.”
“Not so fast.” The king who always sounded in control sounded alarmed now. He looked haggard, deep circles under his eyes. He hadn't slept, I imagined, always watching for death’s sleight-of-hand since Honor played her trick. “I have a body to offer you.”
“And for that, you want me to take the curse off you? I already made a deal.”
“So the chaos god can be so easily controlled now?” Kallus asked. “Honor has no intention of keeping that deal. She has no intention of having a child. If she made her end of the deal without good intent, then you should be free of it.”
“How do you know she does not intend to keep her end of the bargain?”
“I've been talking with my niece.” Kallus sounded delighted with himself. “She is terrified of having a child. Of bringing an innocent being into the chaos of this world.”
How had Kallus been talking to her?
“Given the slaughtered pregnant woman lying at your feet, it seems her fears are not unfounded,” Ebba said dryly. He seemed to consider. “But you are right. If she entered into the bargain with no intention of keeping it, then it is void.”
“So you can call off your assassin.”
“I could,” Ebba said. “Except... your niece is pregnant. Her power will be returned to me... as will yours, Kallus.”
Kallus had some of the chaos god’s powers? How?
And Honor was pregnant?How?The memory of her lips on mine, her body pressed against mine, rose like a specter.
The child couldn't be mine. It probably belonged to one of those men she loved.
“And of course, there's no child you would value more than Honor’s.” Kallus sounded disappointed.
“No one carries as much of my magic. No one else will make such a wonderful vessel.”
“Oh, fuck right off talking about my incredible niece as yourvessel.She's not just someone's vessel. You want Honor because she's powerful enough to defeat you. Because as the true queen, once she unites all of her people, she can draw all their magic. And then even you won't be able to stand against her.”
“I will be able to once I have my body.”
Kallus had a pensive look, and I would’ve bet money he’d already devised a new plan before he even started speaking. “You'll have to make sure she'd never realizes what she's capable of. The only way you can do that is if you can convince her of another story. To keep her from ever finding out the truth.”
“And I suppose you're going to make a case for how you can be useful to me.”
“I can be very useful to you. I appear to the girl as her mother. She believes she can trust me completely. She needs to believe what I feed her.”
A long silence fell. Then Ebba said, in a syrup-slow tone, “How delightfully chaotic.”
“I do what I can.”
“I think you might be useful to me yet. I will delay my assassination,” Ebba said. “I vowed I would kill you at some point, Kallus. But I did not say in what time frame. Death comes to us all eventually… and there’s chaos’s power in every birth and death.”
“I suppose I'll take what I can get.”
Kallus looked at the woman lying on the ground.
