Chapter 20: Inject the Venom

(AC/DC)

King Vasilief hands her a tin. “Your jewels, my lady,” he says with a deep bow.

“Thank you, King Vasiliev.”

He stares at the surrounding carnage, sadness etched on his face and clear in the slump of his shoulders and tightly clenched fists. He sighs, shaking his head before looking directly in her eyes. “I told them they’d be wasting their time with all this.”

“I hated the proposal almost as much as I hate all this blood.”

He gestures to the field of death. “You should have seen their faces when they could find no weapons or poison on you. They underestimated you. So they did this, hoping that it would satisfy you. I knew it wouldn’t. You deserve vengeance. They should have left these men for you to kill or save, but now they robbed you.”

“Did you warn them?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“I did when they came up with the killing idea,” he says with a sigh. “But when Grigory started up with the back-up plan of marriage and a ring I just walked out. I can’t believe I raised such fools.”

“You want to come to The Farm with me?” she asks with a smile.

“Don’t even tempt me,” he says, winking at her.

“Well, you are always welcome. Come visit whenever you want.”

He holds out his arm to her, and she takes it. Together they walk to where the chair is standing. Boris helps her stand onto it, as if it is the stage in Carnegie Hall. She smiles at him. He is kind, and strong in a way completely different from Luka’s silver mouth or Grigory’s bulky muscles. His strength is in quiet wisdom. She understands now why Red King and the Devil both like him. He is growing on her too.

“Just so you know,” she says loudly, addressing the crowd. “I hate this mess. I hate all the blood. You should have left it to me. I do a cleaner job of killing. Please, don’t leave them here. Bury them with their families. I need no more specters following me around, and neither do you.”

A few heads nod at her words in appreciation. Whispers and tears.

“I came here with the purpose to kill you all,” she continues. A hush falls over them. “I wanted to claw at you like a wildcat. I wanted to inject you with venom, poison you like one does with rodents and rats. But it’s time that we stop. It’s time for someone to show mercy. If we continue to seek vengeance, this cycle will wipe both our people from the planet. It’s time to put the past behind us. I will start, even though I have lost the most.”

King Vasiliev kisses the fingertips of his right hand and blows the kiss to her. She playfully grabs it from the air, placing the empty fist to her heart.

“That doesn’t mean there won’t be any killing,” she says to the crowd. “In my blood is a poison designed to kill those who murdered my people. When my blood got exposed to the air, it released. My intention was to kill you all, but the partner who helped me design this weapon said I have another option. I choose this day to use the merciful version of Purple Airplane. Guilty people die. The innocent lives. If you’re still alive when the sun rises on the third day after you captured me, you are forgiven. Don’t follow me when I leave, because this poison will always be a part of me and it will be in the blood of all my descendants and those who take a Blood Oath with my people. If ever a Bykov comes near a Narthara with evil intent, it activates the poison.”

“This is what you call mercy?” Grigory asks, spitting at the ground in front of her.

She turns her eyes to him, a crooked smile on his lips. “There is no mercy for the wicked, even if they want it. No god will come down from heaven to touch us with forgiveness. No angels will carry us to the Pool of Bethesda for healing and cleansing. No matter how much we beg, or how much we need it, mercy will not come to those who are living in darkness. There is no mercy for me, nor you. The only mercy we have is the mercy we show each other. This is the truth I learned in the last two weeks. It was an expensive lesson. The cost was my clan’s lives. I don’t want you to pay that price before you grasp it too.”

“So, inject your venom,” he shouts, waving a fist into the sky. “C’mon, kill me. I don’t care. You think I’m scared of you and you poison? Well. Let me tell you, Blaire Nathara, I’m not. I won’t show you mercy just because you are the last of your people.”

“There has been enough death,” King Vasiliev says, placing a hand on Grigory’s shoulder.

She nods agreement. “On my side, at least. I am the only one of Snake Clan left. I want to live in peace. I want to rebuild in peace. I want to leave you here to do the same here. My vengeance is unsatisfied, but I will show mercy to the innocent.”

Grigory is angry. He comes to stand in front of her, eyes ablaze. “This entire thing was a set-up,” he shouts. “You planned it all along, didn’t you?”

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“This entire thing was a set-up,” she mimics. “You planned it all along.”

Boris snickers, shaking his head. He takes Grigory by the arm, pulling him away.

“I think it is fair,” King Vasiliev says. “And we thank you for your kindness. We all made mistakes in handling this situation. You shouldn’t have killed Luka, but when it happened, you should have come here. Once we heard about it, we should have asked for a meeting with the Snake Clan to discuss the issue.”

Boris nods. “We didn’t know about your son, or of his death. We didn’t know Luka was betraying you in the worst way a husband can, when you needed him the most. Any woman here, if they were in your shoes, would have done the same.”

Grigory looks at his granddad and then at Boris. “You can’t be serious. She’s just going to walk away free? As if nothing happened?”

“Tell no truth and tell no lies,” King Vasiliev says. “You don’t even know half of what happened between Luka and Blaire. Their truth is in their hearts and heads. No words can express what lies between them. There is not enough paper in the world to record all that happens between a man and a wife. I know this much. Others here do too. But you, Grigory, you is a clueless fool. Now you want to shout and raise your fists and fight. You scream words of war and revenge. You want to see her blood spilled. I warn you, here and now, never give what you can’t take back. Not in word or in deed. She offers peace and mercy. We deserve neither for what our people did to her. I, as the leader of Bull Tribe, accept her offer of peace.”

Grigory nods at her. “You are free to go,” he spits the words at her, pointing at the road. “Take you sick soul and leave no more stain on our land. I’ll spill no more blood on your behalf.”

Blaire smiles. “I have always been free, Grigory. The Snake Clan are free people. I could have walked away any time I chose. You just didn’t know it.”

“Sure,” he mumbles. “That explains why you are still here.”

“Go back to your homes and your families,” Blaire says to the crowd. “Prepare dinner. Eat, Sleep. Rise in the morning. Be happy. Be healthy. Flourish.”

She reaches out a hand towards Boris. He assists her off of the chair. They wait in solitude as the Bull Tribe members trickle away. Boris doesn’t hold on to her, but he stands slightly to her left, hands folded across his chest. He guards her, like he did for King Vasiliev earlier in the day. Without a word between them, they all knew that his allegiance had shifted.

Twenty minutes later, four people stand in the clearing. Blaire and Boris. King Vasiliev and Grigory, who stare at her with the utmost hatred. This needs to be addressed before she leaves, or it will fester. When he becomes the leader, he might forget her mercy and her warning. She turns to Boris, smiling at him with a tiredness that taints even the soul. His eyes flicker toward Grigory and then back to her. She nods at the message. Yes, she needs to put out that fire, but her tank is running on empty.

He steps forward, leaning closer. She rests her forehead on his left shoulder, fighting back tears. Around them, the world falls away. He doesn’t embrace her, but she can feel his muscles tense as he holds back the urge. They both know that a hug will cut her off at the knees, strip her of all the power she has.

“You are a strong woman,” he whispers. “It’s almost over. Just this one last thing to take care of. I am confident that you can handle it by yourself, but if you need me to step forward, just say the word.”

She shakes her head slightly. No. This is her battle to fight. She is the last of the Snake Clan. She is the leader Red King appointed. Did he know then that this is how it would come to pass? The thought never crossed her mind, but now that it did, she feels assured that he knew her future. She inhales deeply, filling her body with the smell of Boris. Sandalwood and pine. Cherry tobacco. Meat grilled over open flames. Borrowing his calm, quiet strength, she turns around to face the last hurdle before returning home.

“What are you angry about, Grigory?” Blaire asks. “Is it because I’m going home alive, that I rejected your proposal of marriage?”

He glares at her. “You have no heart. You feel no pain. Everything inside you is dead. Stop beating a dead horse. Whatever was between us died when you married Luka. This proposal was only a ploy, nothing more.”

“Just because it was part of a crooked plan, doesn’t mean that your heart longed for it to happen. I never wanted a child. Hated the idea. But when the pregnancy was confirmed, something inside of me changed. Suddenly, this thing I hated before became my joy and happiness.”

He snickers.

She walks towards him, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry that we never talked about marriage before. I have blamed you for being a coward in love, but I could have reached out too. I knew you had the ring. I could have… I should have started the conversation.”

“It’s not that you rejected me,” he says, nodding towards Boris. “It’s the fact that you have picked another man instead of me again.”

“I didn’t just reject the proposal because the intention behind it was to placate me,” she says. “Or because you never had the courage to ask before your clan’s lives depended on it. It’s more than that. King Vasiliev is an old man. Soon he will step down and Bull Tribe will need a new leader.”

“So?”

“You are that leader,” she says, tapping an index finger on his chest. “I can’t take you home with me, and I can’t give up my home to live here with you. I’m the last of my people. You are the next king of the Bull Tribe. That is why I said no.”

“Who has the silver tongue now?” he asks, winking at her.

“We good?” she asks.

He shrugs, but with a lop-sided smile. “Sure. But I won’t lead the people. Once Pyotr heals, he will. I’ll be his second. I think it’s clear that my temper is awakened too easily to be responsible for the entire tribe. He has always been the better leader.”

“He lives?” she asks, looking for the answer to King Vasiliev’s face.

The old man smiles softly, nodding. “It was a powerful spell. H It’ll take a long while before his strength returns, but he is alive and healing.”

She exhales slowly, feeling a little tightness in her chest release. Not all of it, though.

She turns to look at Boris. “Red King and the Devil said you are the man for me. I didn’t want another man. I thought I’d just pick up a stray dude on the way home and get pregnant with a one-night stand. But now you are here and it’s obvious there is this energy between us. Some may even call us soulmates. Are you up for it?”

“Boris is a fighter by name,” King Vasiliev says. “But he is a builder by trade. Half of the houses in this compound exist because he made them. There really is no better man to help you rebuild your home.”

“Boris?” she asks.

“You’re an astute woman, Blaire. What do you think?” he asks, smiling.

“I think I’m tired,” she answers. “And I think I need a bath. A long one. And food. And a warm soft bed to sleep in.”

“I can do that,” he says, walking towards her. “Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”

King Vasiliev holds out his hands to her. She takes them and kisses first his left, then his right cheek.

“Go in peace, Battle Queen.”

“Stay in peace, Father of Fools."