by Kat Ross
“Exile?” Domitia called back. “That sounds severe.” She turned to cast an amused look at Nicodemus.
“If you do not, the Acropolis and the Temple of Apollo will be razed to the ground. You will die, along with all who follow you. The walls of Delphi will be broken and the Archons cast down.”
Basileus made a small unhappy noise in his throat.
“I see. Your position is clear then.” Domitia paused. “And what of your crimes?”
“She’s playing for time,” Jann Fiala snapped.
Tethys Dessarian glowered. “We have always treated you with respect and courtesy. We ceded you the sunlit lands—”
“You sentenced women and children to a life of brutality and want. You betrayed the ancient covenant and made a pact with diabolical forces to harness obscene power.” Domitia’s voice grew harder with each word. “You lusted for what was not yours.”
The Danai women exchanged glances. Nico saw they had no idea what Domitia was talking about.
Then a younger woman strode forward from the ranks. Wild black hair framed a long, mournful face. Her body appeared painfully thin, but Nico sensed deep currents of earth swirling about her. She stabbed a finger at Domitia.
“Enough of this. My name is Delilah Dessarian and you stole my son.” Her eyes flicked to Galen. It was only an instant, but Nico had the distinct impression of animosity. “Now you flaunt his half-brother, chained like an animal.” She shook with rage. “You dare.”
A slender thread of power lashed out. Nico heard the faint but distinct snap of bone. Domitia winced, clutching her hand. Her face grew very still. Nico knew that look. The calm before the storm.
“Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus,” Domitia said softly. “Do any among you remember that name?”
Tethys stiffened. She looked suddenly ashen, as did Raisa Baradel. The others merely frowned, glancing at each other with questioning looks.
“He is my father. And he taught me about you. There will be no bargains and no mercy.” Domitia drew herself up. “The heir is mine. He will atone for your sins.”
Heat built in Nico’s veins, weakening his knees. He felt the situation spinning out of control.
“Stop,” he shouted, striding toward the Matrium. “You must listen to her. Submit and you will be spared!”
Domitia looked at him, her pale eyes empty. She turned to Delilah, who stared back defiantly. Tethys laid a hand on Delilah’s arm, whispering to her, but the Danai woman shook it off.
“Crawl to me, Danai lizards,” Domitia said. “Crawl to me and I will give you the Kiln for your new homeland. Perhaps I will hunt you as we were hunted. That might make for interesting sport.”
The earth began to tremble. A crack opened at Domitia’s feet and she staggered back. Rage pinched her face. She raised a hand and Delilah was engulfed in flame. Long black hair blazed as she fell to one side, limbs drawing into charred sticks.
Galen made a strangled sound through the gag. Shock rippled through the ranks of the Danai, but they did not run. Instead, five hundred arrows knocked to bows.
“The Lost Clan,” Tethys gasped, staring at Delilah’s remains with an expression of horror. “They have returned.”
The other women seemed stunned, still trying to grasp what had just happened.
Nico reached Domitia and grabbed her arm, spinning her around. “Don’t do this,” he rasped. “It’s enough. You’ve had your fun.”
“Fun?” Domitia echoed, her brow wrinkled in a slight frown. “No, this is justice.”
She wrenched free of his grip, shoving him away. “Do you hear me?” she screamed. “This is the justice of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. King of the Vatras, survivor of the Kiln, and the new master of Solis and Nocturne!”
Tethys brought her arm down and the arrows loosed from their bows, flying in a deadly rain toward the camp. The Greeks raised their shields, hiding beneath as the missiles clattered down. One whistled past Nico’s face and he threw himself to the side, landing hard on his left shoulder. He caught a glimpse of Basileus’s crimson cloak streaming out like a banner as he scuttled for cover behind the wagons.
But the arrows were only a distraction. Screams erupted as the Danai sent wave after wave of bone-shattering power at Domitia’a army. Horses reared, throwing their riders. A hail of rocks smashed into the ground and the earth itself cracked and shifted as though an enraged giant strode among them.
All this lasted perhaps eight seconds.
Then Domitia raised her hand and the Danai burned.
It started with a line of flame racing across the ground toward Tethys Dessarian. She saw it coming but didn’t flinch. Nico saw she’d known how this would end, yet she chose to fight anyway. To die on her feet.
It took only an instant for the blaze to spread through the Matrium, and to the first ranks of the archers, and the second, and the third, as they reached haplessly for the flames. The Fourth Element that no daēva could resist but only the Vatras could work.
Nico fell to hands and knees, his gorge rising. The stench of burning flesh filled the air.
The Greeks who weren’t injured from the Danai’s initial assault did try to flee then, but Domitia’s voice froze them in their tracks.
“Run and you share their fate!” she shouted. “Stay and you will get rich and fat from the plunder of the darklands!” She walked toward the cowering ranks of soldiers, kicking Tethys’s burned body aside as she passed. “You claim to follow the Sun God. Does he fear fire? Of course not. It is his birthright.” She pointed to the Danai. “They are witches, born of night, but the children of fire are the children of the god. Pure of heart and beloved of Apollo. And our task is not yet done. We march for the Gale!”
No cheers greeted this statement, nor did anyone try to escape. They simply watched her with wide, terrified eyes.
And then two women ran forward through the carnage, the only ones untouched by the flames. They looked young and carried staffs.
Domitia frowned. “What is this?” she murmured. “Mortals?”
The pair made straight for Galen and had covered half the distance before Thena shouted at the nearest soldiers. “Do something!” she screamed, seizing Galen’s hair and dragging him back. The Danai looked dazed, his eyes red and unfocused. He fell to his knees, retching through the gag, and Thena gave his head an impatient yank.
One of the commanders had the presence of mind to confirm the order and two dozen burly soldiers surged forward. This was a fight they could win at least.
Or perhaps not.
The two staffs whirled in blurring arcs and within seconds, half lay groaning on the ground. The women moved with almost inhuman grace and speed, using the length of their staffs to deadly advantage. Domitia watched with an unreadable expression, though Nico thought he saw a hint of admiration in the set of her mouth.
The pair fought with a brutal efficiency that reminded Nico of the warrior priests of Tjanjin. For a minute, he thought they might actually break through to the heir. But for every soldier that went down, two more joined the fray. Finally, a Hoplite used his shield to batter a path inside the smallest one’s defenses, sinking his sword deep in her side. With no one guarding her companion’s back, the other fell quickly.
Nico shoved his way through the swarm of panting, bloodied men.
The second was already dead, staring glassily at the pewter sky. The first still breathed, though he could tell from the bubbling hitch that she wouldn’t for long. Nico sank to his knees and touched her hand. Brown eyes fluttered open.
She looked like a child, hardly older than Atticus.
“You’re not Danai,” he said gently.
“I am parthenoi.” Her eyes lost focus. “He comes... the Father.” She smiled through red teeth.
“Parthenoi?” he echoed. “What is parthenoi?”
But no answer came.
Nico raised a shaking hand to his forehead. When he took it away, his palm was coated with a fine layer of white dust. Ash, he realized. It drifted through t
he air like snowflakes, carried on the wind. He scrubbed the hand on his coat sleeve. He felt soiled. The smell of death had sunk into his clothes, his skin. The girl’s insane courage suddenly made him want to weep.
He sensed Domitia standing over him.
“You’re angry with me,” she said. The storm had broken and she was composed again. “You want to pretend you didn’t know. But you did, Nicodemus. You knew.”
Her words cut like a razor. “Yes, of course,” he replied numbly. “None are to be spared. We will cleanse this land and make it our own.”
“Yes.” She seemed pleased. “That’s right.”
“And Nazafareen?”
“Let her find the bodies.” Domitia smiled. “I’ll make sure she can’t miss them.”
Nicodemus watched her walk over to one of her captains. The man visibly cringed at her approach, his head bobbing as she issued new orders. Half the horses had thrown their riders and galloped off. Wounded men lay everywhere. But discipline was slowly being restored, lines of command firming up. Those who could still walk were helping their injured comrades to the wagons. The rest moved to break camp and begin the march to the Gale.
Nico forced himself to look at what remained of the Danai army. Burnt husks heaped on top of each other, so many of them, limbs drawn into tight fetal positions. In the smoky twilight, it was a scene from nightmare.
He remembered how the young ones would gather in Gaius’s burrow, hanging on his every word. He told them stories about the Vatras’ glorious past and how the other clans’ jealousy had led to the long banishment. They thought he was a god—or as close to one as you could find in the Kiln. Gaius was disfigured in the fire that destroyed Pompeii and had swathes of bare skull where no hair grew. But it hadn’t touched his face, which was deceptively mild. Nico had learned to avoid looking into Gaius’s eyes for too long. The man could cast a spell on you.
The captain assembled a group of soldiers. They wrapped cloths around their noses and mouths and started dragging the Danai bodies into lines. It was a grisly task and more than one of them doubled over to spew up their breakfast.
Maybe she’s right, he thought dully. Maybe I did know. And if I didn’t, I should have. She is her father’s daughter.
Nico followed her into the tent. Rugs covered the ground, but the only furniture was a simple cot. Iron gleamed from the mouth of a half-open sack in the corner. Collars. He flicked his gaze away before she saw him looking.
Domitia bent over the cot, rummaging through a small chest. She straightened as he entered and glanced at him over one shoulder. When he saw what she held in her hands, Nico froze.
“You kept it,” he said. “After all this time.”
She shook out the long lizard skin cloak. It was the exact color of sand, with darker blotches of pointed scales like a miniature mountain range. A matching shirt and trousers sat folded on the bed. Domitia gazed at the cloak with fondness.
“When I face Nazafareen, it will be as myself. I will walk into the Kiln as Domitia.”
She unwrapped a length of linen from a narrow object about three hands long. Nico guessed what it was even before he saw the sharp flint lashed to the tip. Her thigh bone spear. There was no wood in the Kiln, so Domitia had scavenged the leg from a desiccated corpse and turned it into a weapon. She always said it was better than his shitty knife, which Nico couldn’t really argue with. It was such things that set Domitia apart. She held the spear gently, reverently.
“And what of you?” she asked. “I remember when you stitched your first cloak together. You were clumsy with a needle. The hem was too long, always dragging in the dirt. But you were so proud of it.” She eyed him teasingly. “When you put it on, you became a man. Or thought you did.”
Nico remembered that day well. It wasn’t long after his mother died. He was determined to be Atticus’s protector. To show Gaius he could take care of them both. And to hunt, he needed a cloak. That meant catching at least a dozen of the poisonous lizards that lived in cracks in the ground. Domitia didn’t help him do it—if you couldn’t make a shadowtongue cloak on your own, you didn’t deserve one—but she gave him his first weapon. The jagged tooth of a wyvern. And she taught him how to skin them in one piece and safely remove the venom sacks without contaminating the meat.
“Where’s yours?” she asked, running a hand along the horny scales.
“I burned it.”
“Well, to each his own.” Her gaze raked his embroidered coat. “But the Kiln still lives inside you, Nicodemus. It always will.” She turned her back. “Since you’re such a fine gentleman now, perhaps you’d prefer to leave while I change.”
Nico frowned. “You’re putting it on now?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
Because I need to get you alone. Because this must be done at the Gale.
“I don’t know,” he said, pretending to think. “But the army hangs by a thread. They’re terrified, but they still believe in the Oracle. She is a symbol. The voice of the god.” He shrugged casually. “Do as you wish, but they might need that symbol for a while yet. Until the final moment comes.”
Domitia was silent for a moment. “Perhaps you’re right. I don’t have time for a rebellion.”
He let out a breath as she balled up the cloak and thrust it back into the chest, along with the shirt and pants. A hesitant voice trickled through the tent flaps.
“Oracle?”
“Enter,” Domitia said, closing the lid.
A young man in the garb of a wind ship pilot sidled inside. He kept his gaze firmly on the carpet.
“Did you find the Breaker?” she asked.
“We did, Oracle. She was with a small party of witches. We used the spell dust as you commanded.”
“Where is she?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Her mount went down—”
Instant rage flared. The temperature in the tent rose a few degrees. “I told you not to harm her, only delay her!”
The man looked green with fear. “It was an accident. She collided with another abbadax. But she took only minor injuries, we made sure of it.”
“How many others survived?”
“The Danai who rode with her. Four mortals and two Valkirins.” He paused. “One wore a collar.”
“Demetrios.” She smiled. “Good. Let him return to my tender care. Who was the other?”
“A female.”
Domitia looked at Nicodemus with a frown. “Could they have found the heir?”
“She gave no sign of that, but it’s possible.”
“That would complicate things.” She thought for a moment. “Even if she is the Valkirin talisman, we no longer need her. We’ll burn her on sight.” She turned back to the pilot. “Where are they now?”
“Licking their wounds, Oracle, but at least three of the mounts are uninjured. They will come.”
“Prepare the ships to leave,” Domitia told the pilot. “A second unit of Shields awaits us west of the river. Captain Leonidas will give you the exact location. How fast can you get us to their camp?”
“Less than an hour.”
She nodded in approval. “That should be ample time. Nicodemus, you will travel with me. There are things to discuss. You have ten minutes to be ready. We cannot delay.”
He inclined his head in assent.
She pointed to the chest. “Load that into one of the ships,” she told the pilot.
Domitia strode outside and conferred with a clutch of her commanders, who waited near the wind ships floating at anchor above the Umbra.
“That too,” Nico told the man, indicating the sack of collars in the corner. “And the rugs. She might want it later and you wouldn’t want to explain that you’d left it behind, would you?”
“No, my lord,” the pilot said fervently.
Nico slipped out of the tent. A line of wagons was carrying the injured back to Delphi. Most of the cavalry had already departed, riding hard for the Gale.
After making sure that Domitia wasn
’t watching, Nico set out to find the Archon Basileus. He’d last seen the man running for the wagons and hoped he hadn’t decided to sneak away on one. For all that Basileus had twined his fate with Nico’s, the man was still a snake.
Nico needed him. He still carried some degree of authority. And Nico couldn’t be seen pulling Thena aside. Domitia would surely notice that.
Then he saw him standing next to one of the wind ships. He had a blank-eyed look, but it cleared a bit when Nicodemus clapped him hard on the shoulder, raising a puff of dust from his red cloak.
“We need to talk,” Nico said. “Come to my tent.”
Four soldiers were about to take it down, but Nico waved them off and ducked inside. He’d brought few possessions. The clothes on his back, a skin of wine (still full), the pair of knives—and the bag of talismans he’d taken from the collection of the emperor of Tjanjin. He rummaged through it and took out a small gold chalice.
“This induces a deathlike slumber if one takes liquid from it. Even the tiniest sip.”
Basileus eyed the chalice. “I presume you mean this for Domitia.”
“The massacre of the Danai is just the prelude. When Gaius comes through, this land will burn, Basileus. From the White Sea to the Austral Ocean.”
The Archon licked his lips. “Yes, I see that.”
“But there is one person who might be able to stop him.”
“The Breaker?”
“That’s why I like you, Basileus. You’re quick. Yes, the Breaker. We need to offer her something. An olive branch.”
Basileus arched an eyebrow. “An olive branch, my lord? After what just occurred?”
“I know. But there might be a way.” Nico cocked his head. “Have you ever wondered why only certain mortals can wear the bracelets?”
“I have. It seems an innate talent. But the girls have nothing in common otherwise.”
“Are you certain of that?” he paused. “What if they have daēva blood?”
Basileus looked shocked and Nico laughed.
“Come now, Archon. You’re a man of the world. The races might live apart, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been…secret liaisons. These things happen. The powers of the resulting offspring would likely be weak. They might be unaware of them. And no one would know, except that Domitia came and started testing for the ability to wear the bracelets.”
