Aladdin Fan Fiction ❯ Antiphony ❯ Chapter 14 ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter 14

 

She stood up shakily, trying to clear the disturbing sound of the Mirror's laughter from her mind. Should she leave now? Did she even have that option?

 

Before she could think on it more deeply, she was blinded by a green flash of light. She waited tensely for her vision to clear, and saw she was surrounded by bookshelves and cabinets on all four sides. A dozen tables covered with scrolls, flasks of liquid, and all sorts of laboratory apparatuses were arranged in neat rows in front of her. She saw Mozenrath, now probably at least eleven years of age, standing in the very back, a long scroll spread out on a table before him. He was still thin, but seemed stronger, no longer sickly and malnourished.

 

She watched him, intrigued, as he cupped a glowing green orb in his hands. His fingers were bloody.

 

It was the same spell he had attempted in the previous memory, but this time it seemed he was finally succeeding. His face was a mask of intense concentration, his eyes riveted on the power he held as if one careless blink would extinguish it.

 

Perhaps…perhaps she would stay. To see the purpose of this spell that he had practiced for so long. After that, she would consider trying to leave.

 

He took several steps backward until he was about a meter away from the table. Then, with painstaking slowness, he moved his hands apart, still not daring to blink or shift any other part of his body. The green light began to float in midair, free of his hands, and showed no signs of fading. Its glow only intensified.

 

He spread his arms wide and the light began to stretch, flattening into the shape of a disc, growing longer and wider until it was large enough for a person to step through.

 

When his knees started to buckle from the physical strain of the spell, he uttered one word.

 

“Andraya.”

 

The name was familiar, but she could not remember where she had heard it.

 

The disc of light rippled like the surface of a pond, and its edges began to swirl. Jasmine watched in fascination as beams of light shone forth from the disc and danced around the walls of the laboratory, their unnatural green tint reflected in Mozenrath's eyes. It seemed he was anxiously expecting something to emerge from the pool of light.

 

A minute passed and the light began to dim. The edges stopped swirling and the disc started to shrink. Mozenrath collapsed down on one knee, desperately trying to sustain the spell before the light could vanish.

 

“You need to know when to give up,” the voice of his master sounded from behind her. Jasmine whirled and saw Destane casually leaning against another table, tendrils of smoke from his teleportation spell dissipating around his feet. He smiled nastily at the look of surprise and dismay on Mozenrath's face. “What, didn't expect me to be back so early?”

 

The green light had disappeared as soon as Mozenrath had caught sight of his master. He got to his feet slowly, his expression now sullenly defiant.

 

“I would have succeeded if you hadn't interrupted,” he said crossly.

 

“Succeeded in what? Relinquishing your soul to the underworld? Inviting a demon to possess your body? Or maybe blowing a hole in my laboratory floor?” Destane mocked. “You don't seem to believe me when I say summoning spirits is risky business.”

 

Mozenrath set his mouth in a tight line and did not respond.

 

Destane's voice grew more serious. “In terms of the technical part of things, that last attempt was nearly flawless. But I can tell you that no matter how well you master that spell, you will always fail.”

 

Mozenrath still said nothing. Jasmine found it odd that he would just accept his teacher's criticisms without protest.

 

“I know what, or rather who, you are trying to summon,” Destane said, his voice low and intent. “Have you not realized by now that her spirit will not respond to a dark mage such as yourself? Or do you still think you've got enough holiness in you to succeed?”

 

Destane smiled cruelly at the flush of resentment on his student's face. But Jasmine could see a haunted shadow of guilt underlying Mozenrath's anger.

 

“You cannot have the best of both worlds, boy. I thought you had come to terms with that a while ago, but apparently you haven't.” Destane walked forward and glanced down at the scroll Mozenrath had spread out on the table. “Stop wasting your time. Even if you could summon her, do you think she'd still want to see you after all you've done? That she'd somehow be proud of you, the precious heir she dedicated to her god of Light, who now lives and breathes dark magic and uses the temple's power to raise conquering armies of the undead?”

 

He shook his head in mock pity. “I've always told you that power comes at a cost. You want the power to take your revenge one day? Then you have to pay the price,” he said, baring his teeth in an unpleasant smile.

 

There was no answer Mozenrath could give to that. He had trapped himself in a paradox, having forsaken light magic in favor of darker crafts that lent him more power, all in the name of revenge for his parents and city. But in doing so, he had cut himself off from them forever.

 

Was this the true moment of his `fall,' she wondered. The fall from light to darkness that was at the center of so many tales she had heard and read as a child. At this point it had to be obvious to him that taking revenge on Destane would not bring back his parents or his city. Vengeance was the precipice from which one could easily fall into a vicious cycle, a trap that made one believe causing more harm to others would somehow fill the emptiness inside that had initially been carved by the enemy.

 

But she was beginning to think there was no single moment, no definitive point in time where a person `fell' from one side to the other.

 

People were not as simple as the paradigms from her childhood stories. Perhaps Mozenrath wasn't completely on one side or the other, not even as an adult. In the past two weeks she had seen the glimmer of something other than dark ambition and malice in him. She had debated whether his unexpectedly merciful actions toward her were just a clever ploy to manipulate her toward his ends. But now she was open to the possibility that within him there were still remnants of his childhood, the lessons he had learned and the kindness he had known in his home city.

 

She had to stay. She had to stay to find out whether her suppositions were true. There was so much more she had to see in order to understand how he had become the man he was today. And she was a long way off from seeing him formulate the supposedly invincible plan that had started her on this tortuous road in the first place.

 

So she would have to pay the price, then, as Destane had first told his apprentice, and Mozenrath had subsequently told her. The Mirror could frighten her, shock her, throw her into paranoia—she would bear it. If Mozenrath had been able to survive so many years under the hand of the most powerful dark sorcerer in the world, then she could survive one experience with an instrument of dark magic.

 

The sand returned as Destane finished lecturing Mozenrath and began pulling books off the shelves to teach him something else.

 

Predictably, she found herself in the palace once more. It was night, her bedroom lit only by the moonlight filtering through the windows. Her younger self hummed as she combed her hair, twirling in a slow circle in front of the mirror on her vanity. Jasmine leaned against the wall as she watched her eleven year old self at the end of another uneventful day. Compared to Mozenrath's life, hers was painfully mundane.

 

She set down the comb on her dresser and opened a drawer, seeming to hesitate for a second before she reached inside. There was a break in her wordless song as she stood still, perhaps listening to make sure no one was approaching her room.

 

Then she drew out two long blades from her dresser. They gleamed sharply in the moonlight, the handles studded with small emeralds.

 

Jasmine had been taking sword dancing lessons for over a year at that point. She could seldom find time to practice, since there were always servants hovering around her. The only free time she had was at night, when the only people nearby were the guards in the hall.

 

She wrapped the blades in thin cloths to prevent them from making any whistling sound, and began her dance in silence.

 

Jasmine had to admit she had been pretty talented at that age. She made scarcely any noise as she twirled and threw the swords again and again. Though there was no music accompanying her movements, she could sense the rhythm pulsing through each step and maneuver of her hands. Often she would pause and repeat certain motions with a determined frown on her face.

 

This was not a memory that was important to her, and as far as she knew, there was nothing much left to see of this night. Her younger self would soon tire of dancing and go to bed. Jasmine turned and headed for the door, hoping that she could exit this memory.

 

She paused as she reached it. It was already open a crack.

 

A distinct sense of unease seeped through her, as she knew someone was on the other side watching.

 

Just the guards, she reasoned. They were always there, usually half-asleep by now, but they stood watch outside her room every night.

 

But if the guards were there, they would not be so careless as to leave the door open. She took a cautious step forward, holding her breath even though she knew logically that no one could sense her presence here.

 

In the next second, her breath was stolen from her as her vision turned smoky black and her feet left the ground. She had no time to scream, dreading what the Mirror had in store for her this time.

 

Then suddenly she could feel the floor beneath her once more, and she could breathe and see. The room was tinted dark red by the strange coloring of the torches on the walls.

 

Jafar's laboratory.

 

She bristled and drew back instinctively as she saw him, the tall, sinister man clad in black who had deceived her father for years and tortured them both during his brief reign of terror. He stood with his back turned to her, tendrils of black smoke curling around his feet—the signs of a teleportation spell. It must have taken her along with him.

 

He had been outside her room. She shuddered and curled her lip in disgust. Why had he been watching her?

 

“Our little princess is indeed proving herself to be a great asset.”

 

She jumped, thinking absurdly that he was talking to her. But the familiar squawk of a parrot relieved her fear.

 

“Why, `cause she's got daddy spun around her little finger? Could she get him to quit it with the crackers?” Iago flapped his wings on his perch near Jafar's head, as insolent as ever. It was strange to see him as an enemy again after they had been friends for so long.

 

“She has taken on sword dancing without her father's knowledge,” Jafar said thoughtfully. He sat down beside a long drawing table, now facing Jasmine.

 

“I wouldn't trust a woman with any kind of sharp object. What's she thinking?”

 

“Princesses don't think,” Jafar said with a smile. “Especially not this one.”

 

Jasmine narrowed her eyes. She had always hated that sycophantic smile.

 

“She rebels at every turn, refusing to follow proper convention. Imagine her behavior when her first suitor arrives…” he mused. “Imagine how much trouble she could give her father. How much of a distraction she could be. The sultan can hope to forge no alliances through his daughter's marriage. She is more likely to start a war than to maintain peace.”

 

“All the better for us, right?”

 

“I must give it more thought. But it is indeed amusing to watch her.”

 

How often had he watched her? The thought of the sinister wizard standing silently outside her bedroom each night made something inside her curdle.

 

“She is much easier to deal with than her mother.”

 

Iago shifted on his perch and preened his scarlet feathers indifferently. “Come to think of it, you never told me what exactly happened to Mrs. Sultan."

 

“Ah, how careless of me. It was the first step in destabilizing the power structures of this kingdom. She was far too intelligent for a woman, and had far too much of an influence on her idiot of a husband,” Jafar said casually.

 

“She fancy sharp objects too?”

 

“She almost revealed my plans to the sultan.”

 

Iago whistled. “I'll take a wild guess and say you killed her?”

 

Jasmine's hands flew to her mouth. She had been told that her mother had died of an incurable illness.

 

Her hands were shaking against her lips. She bit her finger to check the surge of fury within her. She needed to hear his reply.

 

“`Kill' is such a strong word, Iago.” The vizier's wicked smile widened.

 

Jasmine did not hear him speak again after that. The sands were swirling, turning the dark red tint of the laboratory to an earthy shade, sweeping over Jafar's long black robes and obscuring his evil smirk from view.

 

She was moving forward, fixated on the quickly disappearing visage of the sorcerer, fighting the pull of the sand this time with all her strength. His cruel laughter echoed around her.

 

He had killed her mother.

 

Her mother, who was too intelligent for him to allow her to live. Too dangerous of an obstacle to his plans to take over Agrabah. So he had found a way to engineer her death and rob her father of his true love, and Jasmine of a future with a loving, wise, and capable mother. And he was still laughing about it.

 

She lashed out with her arm, trying to reach the sorcerer's vanishing form, to rake her nails across his twisted face, to do something before the sand took her away. Rage propelled her forward, straining her muscles against immutable gravity, but even the fire that had seized her was not strong enough to resist the sand. Her scream of frustration was cut short by the sand that filled her mouth, suffocating her, dragging her downward.

 

The logical part of her knew that Jafar was dead, that this was a scene from the past and could not be changed. And she cursed the Mirror for showing it to her. She cursed it as the familiar tone of its voice wove seamlessly into Jafar's laughter, echoing within the granules of sand.

 

Of course it would let her keep this memory as well. But what was its purpose? To make her suffer? To throw her into bitterness?

 

The sand released its grip on her with seeming reluctance this time, as if savoring the tense fury coiled just beneath her skin. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe evenly, reminding herself of her purpose here, that she would not leave the Mirror until she had accomplished what she had come for.

 

She would not let this inhuman object have victory over her.

 

When she opened her eyes, she was in the dining room of the Citadel, a vast room with a black crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. Destane stood at the head of a long polished table covered with dozens of steaming dishes. Mozenrath, already in his teenage years, stood at his side.

 

Seeing him there jarred her out of her icy cage of hate.

 

Hatred was what Mozenrath lived for. And he had had to live with the object of his hate every day of his young life. She couldn't imagine having to stand in the shadow of her greatest enemy, to serve his every whim and remain silent throughout it all. Jasmine stared at him in disbelief mixed with respect.

 

How was it that he hadn't tried to kill Destane yet? How could he continue to stand so calmly beside him without trying to strangle him with his bare hands? If she were in his place, she would surely have tried to snap his neck within the first month, if not sooner.

 

But she knew the answer. Nothing had mattered more to him than his overarching goal of revenge, and he had subjugated everything under it, including any impulses to lash out before he grew powerful enough to accomplish his purpose. Despite the quick temper he displayed in encounters with her and Aladdin, he was actually more patient than anyone she knew. He had to be, or he would not have survived under Destane.

 

At the moment, his customary scowl was lined with confusion. She followed his gaze and noticed the three strangers already seated at the dining table.

 

They were children, one boy on the left and two girls on the right. The boy was dressed in a dark green tunic and pants, a royal insignia stitched onto the front of his vest. Long wavy brown hair framed a solemn, tanned face with quiet gray eyes and a narrow chin. He looked about Mozenrath's age. The girl farther from Jasmine was perhaps a year younger than him, clearly frightened by the situation she was in. She was pretty in a childlike way, the pearly white skin of her cherub cheeks flushed in agitation, her long-lashed eyes staring fearfully at the grinning sorcerer. She wore a light yellow frilled dress that complemented her flaxen hair. Jasmine guessed she was from one of the more northern cities. The dark-haired girl who sat closer to Destane was older, her beauty more mature. Clad in a long, high-collared black dress, she watched the sorcerer without expression, her deep midnight eyes shifting toward Mozenrath for a moment as if just noticing him.

 

“I was concerned you were getting a bit too antisocial, always shut up in this dreary Citadel with just me and my undead servants,” Destane told Mozenrath conversationally, taking a seat in his elaborately carved chair. “So, my dear apprentice, I thought I'd add a little spice to your social life. I found some miniature royals to keep you company. I told them you'd play nice. You will, won't you?”

 

Mozenrath looked at his master with contempt. “What is the real meaning of this?” He glanced coolly at the three children whose attention was now on him. “Who are they?”

 

“Sit; let us talk over dinner before it grows cold,” Destane said with a lackadaisical wave of his hand. Mozenrath watched his mentor warily for another moment before taking a seat on his left, next to the brown-haired boy.

 

“Now,” the sorcerer said, pouring himself a glass of wine, “I suppose it's only proper for me to introduce our guests. The young man sitting beside you is Prince Xerxes from the kingdom of Galareon. The young lady there is Princess Laila from Mariste. And the lady dressed in black is Princess Raniye from Chyrilis. Xerxes, Laila, Raniye—this is my apprentice, Mozenrath, also of royal blood, though his kingdom met an unfortunate demise.”

 

Xerxes? Jasmine looked at the unassuming young prince incredulously as the image of an ugly mutant lamprey flashed through her mind.

 

She was already thinking far into the future, considering what could have possibly happened to these three children. She wondered if they were still alive; as far as she knew, Mozenrath lived by himself in his Citadel. Perhaps he would later name his eel familiar after the boy.

 

The barbed reminder of Mozenrath's lost heritage seemed to draw a reaction from all the children, not just Mozenrath, whose icy glare at that moment could have shattered glass. Xerxes' posture stiffened, while Raniye turned her gaze demurely away from the sorcerer's. Laila's lower lip trembled as if she were on the brink of tears.

 

“But you've left their kingdoms intact,” Mozenrath remarked. He regained his composure quickly, his sudden anger smoothed over by a mask of placid indifference. His expressionless eyes swept across the three adolescents. “For the moment,” he added with a cruel half-smile. “What have their parents agreed to?”

 

Destane looked pleased at Mozenrath's perceptiveness. “Oh, just modest tribute payments each month to help build up my army. The first shipment will arrive from Galareon next week and will be stored in the dungeons, awaiting your attention.”

 

Mozenrath eyed him skeptically. “Galareon is too far away for the corpses to be fresh.”

 

“Who said I asked for corpses?” Destane countered, smiling at Xerxes' paling face. “They'll be alive and healthy, probably slaves; can't get any fresher than that. I imagine that Mamluks made this way will be much more durable.”

 

Laila let out a small sob of fear, while Raniye remained still as a stone, her eyes downcast.

 

“And you accepted her as a down payment from Mariste?” Mozenrath questioned, glancing at the younger girl with scorn as she appeared to be on the edge of a complete breakdown. “Why?”

 

“For you, of course. I thought you fancied light-colored things,” Destane quipped. Mozenrath scowled irritably, not appreciating the joke. In spite of her pity for the three royal children, Jasmine inwardly smiled at Mozenrath's discomfort.

 

So Destane was holding the children here as insurance against attack from the rulers of Galareon, Mariste, and Chyrilis, who must have been well aware that their cities could go the way of Helinth if they crossed him in any fashion. As for the tribute payments…she shuddered. Tribute in the form of human beings, brought to Destane's doorstep to be killed `afresh' and made into Mamluks. It reminded her distinctly of a myth Thanon had once told her when she had requested a scary story as a child—a tale of a Greek king who kept a Minotaur in a labyrinth and sated its hunger with a yearly sacrifice of youths. The rulers of the three cities had effectively given their children over as hostages to such a monster, but still had to sacrifice more lives to keep the children from becoming appetizers themselves.

 

The cities could never break out of this paradigm, then. It was a lose-lose situation for them. If they refused to cooperate and give over their children, and the sorcerer would make short work of them with his undead army and a storm of black sand. If they appeased him, they would have to bend to all of his whims thereafter, as he could easily dispose of the children without a second thought. But then, the tribute payments would only add to his army, making it even more impossible for them to fight against him.

 

Jasmine now understood where Mozenrath had learned his powers of manipulation. Whenever she and Aladdin had gone up against him, his plans had always been carefully crafted in a way that they had no choice but to follow his wishes—except for the time she had dressed as a guard and completely humiliated him at Dagger Rock. Strangely, she felt no self-satisfaction as she remembered that victory. The question of what Mozenrath's life could have been like if he had not started on the road to revenge still weighed heavily on her mind. At this point he was on the cusp of adulthood, the age where wrong decisions could no longer be pegged on immaturity or ignorance.

 

Was he accountable for the immense hatred within his heart—the hatred Destane had sown and tended for years, beginning with the destruction of his city? Wasn't his desire for revenge justified? Didn't he have a right to it, even?

 

Thinking of Jafar, she felt another black wave of loathing sweep through her, answering her own question without words. Vengeance was the entry point to a cycle of evil. But to a person who desired it, that didn't matter. Everything else was irrelevant.

 

The meal began in a tense fashion as Destane urged the three children to eat and drink to their hearts' desire—as if they could possibly have an appetite after being taken as hostages and informed of the fate of the human tribute payments from their cities.

 

Mozenrath picked at his food, staying silent as his master chatted away at the four of them. Jasmine had observed his mannerisms enough to know that he was masking his true emotions. Beneath the impassive expression he had first learned to wear when he had lived on the streets, there was a sort of hidden intrigue, perhaps even excitement. She realized that in the past several years, he had probably had very little contact with any living people other than Destane and the dying prisoners in the dungeons. Even in his single-minded devotion to his studies, he must have felt at least a twinge of loneliness. In his childhood he had always been around many people, whether in the temple or on the streets of a foreign city. It must have been a jarring change to move to a dead place where he was one of two living beings in the entire surrounding desert.

 

He was somewhat similar to her in a way. Jasmine hadn't had any friends her age either, but that was because her peers had always excluded her. Mozenrath hadn't had any friends simply because there had been no one around for him to talk to.

 

But from this memory onward, maybe things would change. Jasmine already expected Mozenrath to grow close to Xerxes, close enough that he would later name his eel after him.

 

Sadly, that probably meant Prince Xerxes would die.

 

Destane was starting to ramble more and more as the meal wore on, no longer drinking from his glass but directly from the bottle. “You know, Mozenrath, I've been thinking about how to reward you for your improvements on my Mamluks.” He smiled crookedly at Raniye, who was seated near his right. “Maybe I'll take you to visit Raniye's city sometime. It's quite something, isn't it, Princess?”

 

“It is as you say, my lord,” she said quietly. She had hardly touched her plate, her hands now folded neatly in her lap.

 

“Indeed. I've never seen a city where beauty is more abundant. And I'm not talking about the architecture,” Destane said. He eyed Mozenrath shrewdly. “When you're old enough, my dear apprentice, I'll have to find a woman for you from there.” He laughed as the boy's pale skin flushed pink.

 

He reached toward Raniye's face with one hand and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. Jasmine's stomach curdled at the sight.

 

“I wonder if your people will make pretty Mamluks, too,” he mused, his sharp blue eyes watching Raniye's fair face intently. To her credit, she had not cringed at all from his touch, maintaining an emotionless mask similar to Mozenrath's. As the oldest among them, she had presumably received the most training in royal etiquette, which included being able to maintain a pretense of normality under duress.

 

The tension in the room eased minutely as Destane finally turned his gaze away from the princess. Jasmine noticed the slight breath of relief that escaped Raniye's full, rouged lips. Beside her, Laila looked plainly terrified, as if she would be next to receive the sorcerer's attentions.

 

“Mozenrath, why don't you show Xerxes and Laila to their rooms?” Destane said pleasantly. “Oh. That's right, I didn't tell you they were coming in the first place. Well, just find somewhere that won't be too harsh on their pampered royal dispositions. That probably rules out the dungeons, but I leave it to your judgment, trusty apprentice.”

 

Mozenrath merely rolled his eyes while the boy and girl in question stiffened reflexively, no doubt wondering whether the sorcerer was really joking. He regarded them with a bored expression. “Are either of you allergic to anything? Embalming powder? Giant man-eating plants?”

 

Laila shook her head, too scared to differentiate sarcasm from seriousness. Xerxes, on the contrary, was quick to adapt. He returned Mozenrath's question with a disarming smile. “Only man-eating dogs. Plants are tolerable.”

 

Mozenrath stared at him for a second as if recalibrating his estimate of his intelligence and, consequently, his worth. A slow smirk curved his lips—the possible beginning of a friendship between them, Jasmine thought. “I'll keep that in mind.”

 

He turned back toward his master, and whatever additional thoughts he had been about to voice died silently at the sight of the older man leaning close to the Chyrilian princess and brushing her ear with his lips. His hand was entangled in her ebony hair as he drew her to him.

 

Without thinking, Jasmine swiped at his arm, only to feel nothing. How dare he touch her! Jasmine's fury was lined with anguish at the sight of tears glistening in the beautiful young girl's eyes and the dreadful knowledge of why Destane had ordered Mozenrath to find accommodations for the other two only.

 

Destane was a monster. How many times would that be affirmed before he would literally become one by Mozenrath's hand?

 

Mozenrath abruptly stood, breaking his gaze away from what was happening to the princess, and removed himself and the other two children from the room with a teleportation spell.

 

You ran, Jasmine accused, although logically she knew he couldn't have helped her even if he had tried. She only saw the fading trail of his spell, evidence of his cowardice, his failure to stand up for what was right, as the sand returned.

 

The sand was blocking everything from sight once more, but the fury she felt inside overshadowed her vision even more than the thick granules swirling in her face. It was a fury tied closely to her own experience, a memory she longed for the Mirror of Fiereve to purge from her mind. The feel of Raeven's lips capturing hers, his hands caressing her waist—she cut off the image there, feeling unbearably filthy.

 

The mere thought of what Destane would do to Raniye—that night and perhaps many nights to come—while Mozenrath had just turned away and left...!

 

She forced herself to calm down and think rationally. Mozenrath hadn't stood up for the princess. But then, he hadn't stood up for the countless prisoners dying in the dungeons either. He hadn't stood up for the unseen masses that would soon be shipped here like cattle to be slaughtered—by his own hand, no less. He hadn't even shown sympathy or disgust when his master had told him about the tribute payments.

 

And he hadn't stood up for himself. In her mind's eye she saw him dashing for the door, tripping in his attempt to escape the living corpse Destane had ordered to beat him unconscious. He hadn't uttered a word of protest, only accepted his master's whims as law. Because Destane was simply too powerful.

 

Mozenrath's words from one of their nightly conversations, all of which seemed like distant memories now, sounded clearly in her mind. They were no longer such an enigma to her.

 

Power comes at a cost.

 

She opened her eyes, ready to pay the Mirror's price, steeling herself to face whatever unsettling or plainly nightmarish scene that was in store for her next. Before the Mirror was through with her, perhaps she would pay with invaluable memories and her sanity. But she held fast to the thought that she was not the only one who knew suffering at the hands of evil.

 

“You better save that girl, Mozenrath,” she whispered. “Whatever it costs you.”