Nemesis

by Kat Ross

  29

  The Beast at the Door

  “Where’s my daughter?”

  The words sliced through a haze of pain. Nicodemus’s leg throbbed with infection. He lay on a flat rock, a crude litter nearby and the endless blue sky of the Kiln overhead. His teeth chattered despite the heat, chills wracking his body.

  The last thing he remembered, Gaius was dragging him out of the burrow through the main tunnel and into the scorching sun. More Praetorians ran up and they’d beaten him until he passed out.

  He smelled Gaius’s breath, like rotten meat.

  “You were wearing her cloak. Where the fuck is she?”

  Nico’s head rocked back as Gaius slapped him.

  “Dead,” he muttered through cracked, swollen lips. “She’s dead.”

  Gaius’s expression didn’t change, but a muscle in his neck twitched. He leaned in until his face was inches away. His voice was deadly soft.

  “Did you kill her?”

  No, but she probably wishes I had.

  Somehow he met Gaius’s stare without flinching. “Do you really believe Domitia would let me?”

  Gaius didn’t reply, weighing him with those pale eyes. Suddenly, he reached out and squeezed Nico’s shattered knee. The pain nearly made him black out again.

  “Where are the talismans?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Gaius nodded. Without looking away from Nicodemus, he said, “Cut Aelia’s arm off.”

  Aelia was one of his wives, tall and sturdy with flaming red hair and a nose that looked like it had been broken a few times. Gaius had claimed her when she was fifteen and she must be nearly Nico’s age now, which meant she’d survived longer than most. A child clutched her skirts, eyes wide.

  Now she screamed as two of the biggest Praetorians grabbed her. They called themselves Romulus and Remus after some old legend. Like Nico, they’d been orphaned at a tender age and lived on their own until Gaius found them. Rumor had it they stumbled on the nest of a queen wyrm, but instead of eating them, she’d nursed them until they could fend for themselves. Nico always thought the story was a load of horseshit, but he’d never say that to the brothers’ faces. They were nasty specimens. One had burned the right side of his face, the other the left. It was the only way to tell them apart.

  Now Remus pulled out a long, mottled knife.

  “Please!” Nico begged, helpless rage and fear making his voice crack. “No, listen, please don’t. There was one. The Valkirin. She made the rainstorm. I don’t know where she is now, I swear it! You can cut me to pieces, just leave Aelia alone!”

  Gaius held up a hand and Remus paused with the dull blade pressed against Aelia’s shoulder. She licked her lips, staring straight ahead.

  “One of the talismans is in the Kiln?”

  “Yes, but she could be dead. I don’t know, we were separated in the Red Hills. The flood washed her away.”

  Some nameless emotion flickered across Gaius’s face. Hatred, and perhaps a touch of fear.

  “Is it Freydis Sigurdadottir?”

  Nico shook his head, sending a lance of pain through his temples. “Freydis died a long time ago. The power passed to one of her descendants. A woman named Katrin.”

  “What about the other two?”

  Nico kept his voice and gaze level. “We never found them. Too much time has passed. The bloodlines are hopelessly tangled. The only one still alive was Sakhet-ra-katme. She killed herself when I found her.”

  “Sakhet.” Gaius spoke the name like a curse. “If you’re lying to me—”

  “I’m not. I took her knife for a souvenir. It’s the one with the eel hilt.”

  Gaius gestured to Romulus, who produced the eel knife and brought it over. Gaius examined it closely.

  “It’s Marakai work. Maybe it belonged to Sakhet.” He tossed it into the air and caught it, then gave it back to Romulus. “Maybe not.” Gaius spat in the sand. “I should kill you slowly, but you’re the only one of us who’s been beyond the Gale in a thousand years. You might be useful.” He glanced at the litter and it erupted in flames, burning to ash in a matter of seconds. Gaius grinned. “But you’ll have to walk from here.”

  Nicodemus leaned forward and gingerly put some weight on his good leg. The world spun around him, a blur of sky and sand. He had a fever, a bad one. And he’d had his ass kicked too many times to count in the span of a few days.

  Nico gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand. The Kiln spread out before him, an empty wasteland for hundreds of leagues in all directions. The burrow was far behind and so were the Red Hills. He took a step and nearly pitched onto his face when a hand steadied his shoulder. He looked up and saw dark blue eyes in a thin face that sagged on the right side.

  “Atticus,” he whispered.

  His brother had grown taller in the last two years, more man than boy now. Nico fought back tears. He’d been certain Atticus was dead.

  “Keep up or I’ll cut both your throats,” Gaius said amiably.

  He strode to the head of the column with Remus and Romulus. Altogether, Nico counted twenty-seven adults and nine children. The adults were a mixed bag. Nicodemus knew most of Gaius’s wives, though not well. Other than Aelia, they were all closer to Atticus’s age. The rest were Praetorians with shadowtongue cloaks and scarred faces.

  Gaius had abandoned most of the Vatras, the families who struggled to survive each day, to the Kiln. Nico wasn’t surprised.

  “What happened to your leg?” Atticus asked, putting an arm around Nico to support his weight.

  “Stabbed. I think my thighbone’s fractured,” Nico hissed between his teeth. “It’s healing, but not well.”

  “You’re burning up.” Atticus frowned. He rooted inside a small bag that hung around his neck and produced a handful of leaves. “Chew this.”

  They were bitter, but Nico managed to swallow them.

  “Are you a healer now?” he asked.

  “I do what I can.” Atticus lowered his voice. “Gaius only let me live because I saved two of his wives from dying in childbirth.” The rest of the party was already moving ahead. “Come on, lean on me.”

  Atticus had a limp himself, the result of a wasting illness when he was nine. His gait was awkward, but he managed to support Nicodemus over the uneven ground.

  I should have brought him with me in the first place, Nico thought, ignoring the bolts of pain shooting through his hip with each step. He’s stronger than I ever realized. He glanced at his brother’s profile, the lines around his mouth and eyes. Or maybe he’s just gotten tougher in the last two years.

  Remus turned to stare at them and Nicodemus waited until he looked away to speak again. “Do you know what happened to the friends I came with?”

  And they were friends, as strange as it sounded. Nicodemus prayed they’d escaped somehow.

  Atticus gave the barest nod. “The girl is dead. Gaius sent me in to make sure.” His voice lowered. “He wouldn’t go himself. I think he was a little afraid of her.”

  Dead. Nico’s fingers dug into his brother’s arm. The heat haze of the desert made the world look like it was swimming underwater. He struggled not to faint.

  “And the other? The Danai?”

  Atticus glanced around. Remus had turned away to laugh at some jest of his brother.

  “I told them he was dead too,” he whispered.

  Nico felt a spark of hope. “But?”

  “He wasn’t.”

  Nicodemus let out a slow breath. “You did right.”

  His eyes fixed on Gaius, walking at the head of the column in his bloody tunic. The urge to seize fire and char him to ash was overwhelming. But Nico had gotten a close look at that tunic when Gaius interrogated him. It had more than a dozen holes across the chest and abdomen—all large enough to have come from Nazafareen’s sword—yet Gaius had shaken off the wounds like they were insect bites. Now he showed no sign he’d been injured at all.

  You should have told her, a voice whispered. It’s
your fault she’s dead.

  Nico had truly believed Nazafareen could kill him. It’s why he had to make her believe Domitia was dead—so she’d go to the Kiln to vent her rage on Gaius.

  But he’d been wrong about everything.

  Once, he’d been driven by righteous anger at the other clans. He’d fantasized about getting revenge on them, making them suffer the way he had suffered. The way his mother had suffered when the queen wyrm got into their burrow.

  That turned out to be wrong too, but his hatred remained, a hot coal in the center of his heart. Only this time, it was focused on the man who had lied to him. Who had used him, just as he used the others, for his own gratification.

  If Nico attacked and failed, he knew they’d kill Atticus. So he’d bide his time until he discovered Gaius’s secret and then he’d kill the motherfucker himself.

  The party walked east, the sun at their backs. When Gaius called a stop, Atticus made a poultice from the leaves and bound it to Nico’s leg with a scrap of cloth. It brought the swelling down and the bone began to knit itself together again, though he’d have an ugly scar. One more for the collection.

  The route they took was farther south than the one he’d trekked with Nazafareen and the others, which had been roughly parallel with Delphi. If he’d been alone, Nico might have simply laid down to die. But he had his brother to think about, so he kept going, fighting the pain and fever and guilt for leading Nazafareen to her death. He lost track of time, walking when he was told to and dropping to the ground when they halted. Sometimes Gaius would come over and ask questions and Nicodemus would try to keep his lies straight. He paid little attention to their surroundings, so it was Atticus who saw it first.

  “Look,” his brother said, wonder in his voice.

  Nico looked up wearily. They’d reached the edge of the Kiln, but only a few tattered rainclouds drifted along the border. The ground was torn up and muddy as a battlefield, with lakes of water in the low places, but there were no night-black funnels, no lances of lightning or screaming winds. Nico stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending.

  “Someone did something they shouldn’t have,” Gaius said with a delighted laugh. “A little mouse gnawed a hole in the Gale. And that hole grew bigger and bigger.”

  The children stared at the green fields a few leagues beyond with huge, hungry eyes. In the distance, the Rock of Ariamazes rose above the walls of Samarqand. Gaius stared at it for a long moment. Then he chortled.

  “Still standing after all this time. Who rules there now?”

  Nico was a second too slow to respond, and Gaius casually backhanded him across the face.

  “King Shahak,” Nico replied, tasting blood. “He just took the throne.”

  Gaius seemed to find this uproariously funny. He laughed until tears streamed down his face.

  “Poor bastard,” he said at last. “What rotten luck.”

  I’ll give him some crumbs of truth. Let him think I’m worth keeping alive.

  “They say he’s an alchemist,” Nico said.

  “One of those fools who tries to turn iron to gold?”

  “No, the mortals discovered something they call spell dust. It works magic of a sort.”

  Gaius laughed again, but without humor. “Where does it come from?”

  “No one knows.”

  “Someone knows.” He peered at the Rock. “I told them I’d be back. I told them that.” He turned to the Praetorians. “Our work was left unfinished,” he said in a loud voice. “That doesn’t seem right. Does it seem right to you?”

  Fists pressed to hearts in a salute. Burned and scarred faces cracked into feral grins.

  Nicodemus had never been to Samarqand, but he’d read accounts of what Gaius did there. A feeling of hopelessness nearly crushed him.

  “I’m tired and thirsty,” Gaius declared. “My feet hurt. I want a hot bath.” He laughed. “And afterwards, we’ll eat their fucking hearts.”

  His pale eyes turned to an ancient, gnarled oak and it exploded into flames. A singed bird fell to earth, one wing flapping pathetically.

  “Let’s go introduce ourselves to King Shahak.” Gaius gave a happy sigh. “Persian hospitality was always legendary.”

  Epilogue

  Nazafareen shuffled along next to an old woman with a kindly face. Dark pines shadowed the path through the woods, following the mossy banks of a stream. The light had no definite source though it was just enough to see by. She smelled the tang of saltwater.

  She didn’t remember coming here, but she knew one thing. She was not simply a visitor to the Dominion. Not passing through on a quick jaunt between gates.

  This time, she was well and truly dead.

  She knew because for the first time, she could see the other dead. They walked in clumps, not speaking but drawn inexorably toward the Cold Sea. Some were bloody and mangled from violent ends, others wasted from illness. A few paces in front of her, a mother carried an infant in her arms. They all had docile, vacant expressions like the old woman.

  Nazafareen, on the other hand, was furious—mostly with herself.

  Stabbed with my own damned sword.

  She remembered those final moments with perfect clarity. The ghostly crown flickering over Gaius’s head. Like a talisman that existed on two planes at once….

  Movement in the trees caught her eye. Shepherds. The great hounds were keeping pace with their charges, herding them along like cattle. They padded through the dusky woods, triangular heads swiveling, sawtooth mouths panting.

  She didn’t see Darius or Nicodemus, so perhaps they were still alive. The thought of Darius was a knife to the heart—far worse than the wound she’d suffered from Gaius—and Nazafareen buried it quickly. She couldn’t think of him now. If she did, her anger might weaken and it was the only thing she had left.

  Then the trees thinned and she saw the Cold Sea ahead. A flat grey expanse, the far horizon obscured by mist. A line of boats waited on the shore.

  Had the Viper come to this same place after he drowned in the burning sands? Had he stood and gazed at the shore, just as she did now? He must have. And yet he’d escaped the Shepherds and gone to ground.

  Restless dead.

  She could feel the tidal pull of the boats. A gentle voice called to her from the other side of the sea. The promise of peace. An end to pain and strife. Perhaps even a new beginning. Another name, in another place.

  Bullshit.

  She wouldn’t try to return to the world of the living. Some part of her knew such a thing was impossible. The gates wouldn’t let her pass. But she could do what Farrumohr had done.

  And she knew where to find him.

  Nazafareen slowed her steps, trying to look blank and biddable like the others. The old woman moved on ahead, a serene smile on her face.

  She waited until a group of six newly dead plodded along, momentarily hiding her from the Shepherds. Then she slipped behind a towering spruce tree, pressing herself against the trunk until they’d passed. One of the hounds paused, sniffing the air. Nazafareen froze. After a long minute, it padded on.

  Stupid creatures.

  Death was a curious thing. She had no pulse to pound. No breath to catch in her throat. Yet she could still feel fear.

  And a burning desire for retribution.

  She slipped into the gloaming of the forest and ran, boots silent on the carpet of needles. She knew the shape of the mountain she sought and what lay in the valley beyond.

  The House Behind the Veil.

  When I’ve put an end to the Viper, I’ll cross over, she thought. But not before.

  Nazafareen ran and she didn’t look back, not even when the Shepherds began to howl.

  About the Author

  Kat Ross worked as a journalist at the United Nations for ten years before happily falling back into what she likes best: making stuff up. She's the author of the dystopian thriller Some Fine Day, the Fourth Element fantasy trilogy (The Midnight Sea, Blood of the Prophet, Queen of Chaos), the
Dominion Mysteries and the new Fourth Talisman series. She loves myths, monsters and doomsday scenarios.

  Sign up for her newsletter so you don’t miss Inferno, the next book in the series. And if you have a moment to leave a review, they're a huge boost for authors and so appreciated. :)

  Also by Kat Ross

  The Fourth Talisman Series

  Nocturne

  Solis

  Monstrum

  Nemesis

  * * *

  The Fourth Element Trilogy

  The Midnight Sea

  Blood of the Prophet

  Queen of Chaos

  The Fourth Element Trilogy Boxed Set

  * * *

  The Dominion Mysteries

  The Daemoniac

  The Thirteenth Gate

  * * *

  Some Fine Day

  Characters in the Series

  Mortals

  Archon Basileus. The head of civic religious arrangements in Delphi.

  Archon Eponymos. The chief magistrate of Delphi.

  Herodotus. A Greek scholar and former curator of the Great Library of Delphi.

  Izad Asabana. A wealthy merchant and dealer in spell dust.

  Javid. A wind ship pilot from the Persian city of Samarqand.

  Katsu. A Stygian thief-catcher.

  Korinna. An acolyte at the Temple of Delphi.

  Leila Khorram-Din. Marzban’s daughter.

  Marzban Khorram-Din. Asabana’s alchemist.

  Nabu-bal-idinna. An eccentric alchemist of the golden age of Samarqand who claimed to have traveled in the Dominion and met the Drowned Lady.

  Nazafareen. A wielder of negatory magic.

  The Polemarch. The commander of Delphi’s armed forces.

  Prince Shahak. Heir to the crown of Samarqand.

  Savah Sayuzhdri. Javid’s old boss at the Merchants’ Guild.

  Thena. An acolyte at the Temple of Delphi.