A_Shadow_in_the_Ember_Amazon

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  “Normally, I would say no. But you’re a god, and you said there wasn’t a decent bone in your body.”

  He faced me. “Just because I’m not mortal doesn’t mean I run around murdering people or allowing them to get themselves killed.”

  I sent a pointed look in the direction of the tunnel entrance.

  His chin dipped, his features sharpening in the silvery light. “I am not them,” he said, low and deadly soft.

  Hairs along the nape of my neck rose, and I fought the urge to take a step back. “I guess I’m lucky?”

  His gaze flickered over me. “I’m not sure how lucky you are.”

  My back stiffened. What in the hell was that supposed to mean?

  “And perhaps I do have one decent bone in my body,” he added with a shrug.

  I stared at him, and it took a moment for me to refocus on what was important, which wasn’t the quantity of decent bones. “The god that walked past… He couldn’t sense you?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  This god had to be very powerful. I’d read that only the strongest could hide their presence from others—very much like a Primal. I had a feeling that my early suspicions were correct. He hadn’t only been seeking to hide me but also himself.

  He started to turn from me. “You should go home.”

  “Are you?” I retorted, annoyed by how quickly and easily he dismissed me.

  He shot me an incredulous look. Mortals didn’t ask questions of the gods—especially impolitely. Tension crept into my muscles as I braced myself for anger or condemnation.

  Instead, a slow grin tugged at his lips. Standing under the fractured rays of moonlight, I saw that the curve of his lips softened his features, almost warmed them. “No.”

  He didn’t elaborate, and that was fine. I didn’t need to know. It was far past time for me to remove myself from this god’s presence before I became even more annoyed.

  Or worse yet, did something else impulsive.

  Besides, I had plans—ones that had changed from earlier.

  “Well, this was…interesting.” I stepped around him and started for the entryway. I could practically feel his stare boring into my back. “Have a good night.”

  “Are you going home?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you going?”

  I didn’t answer. God or not, it was none of his business, and I wouldn’t linger just for him to attempt to send me home again. Still, it felt…odd walking away from him. It was strange how wrong it felt, and that wrongness made no sense. He was a god. I was a failed Maiden. He’d stopped me from doing something rash. We’d kissed out of necessity, and it had been pleasant. Okay. It had been more than that, and I feared I’d inevitably spend my life comparing every future kiss to this one, but none of that explained the bizarre feeling I had that I shouldn’t be walking away from him.

  But I did.

  I walked away from the god, leaving him in the shadowy tunnel, and I didn’t look back. Not once.

  Chapter 3

  Once clear of the tunnel and bathed in the light of the streetlamp, I yanked up my hood and forced myself to keep walking, even though the strange sensation of wrongness lingered. I really didn’t have the mental space to even begin understanding why I felt this way. As I hung a right, I figured that was something I could dwell on later while trying to fall asleep.

  I drew in a deep breath. Nearing the edge of the townhome, I realized I no longer smelled of the White Horse or blood but of sweet pea and the god’s fresh, citrusy scent.

  Swallowing a groan as the courtyard of the townhome came into view, I prepared myself in case they hadn’t taken the bodies. I allowed that veil of emptiness to return, for me to go to a place where nothing could scare me, could hurt me.

  But in the pale shine of the moon, I saw that the courtyard was empty.

  Skin pimpling, I passed through the open gateway and headed down the stone walkway, a patch of ground snagging my gaze. I stopped. The area where the mortal man had knelt was scorched as if a fire had been lit there. No blood. No clothing. Nothing but burnt grass.

  “You going in there?”

  I spun at the sound of the god’s voice, hand halting above the hilt of my dagger. “Gods,” I spat, heart racing as he stood there, the hood of his black, sleeveless tunic up, creating a shadow over his face. I hadn’t even heard him follow me.

  “I apologize,” he said, slightly bowing his head. I saw then that he wore a silver band around his right biceps. “For startling you.”

  My eyes narrowed. He didn’t sound sorry at all. To be honest, he sounded amused. That annoyed me, but what irritated me more was the soft leap I felt in my chest, followed by the buzz of warmth and rightness.

  Maybe it was my near-empty stomach causing the sensation. That made more sense.

  He strode forward, and again, his height struck me. It made me feel dainty, and I didn’t like that. His hooded head turned toward the area I’d been staring at. “When Cressa used the eather and it touched the ground, this is what happened,” he said, bending down to run his palm over the grass. Sooty ash darkened his hand as he looked up at the open doorway of the townhouse. “You were going inside.”

  “I was.”

  “Why?”

  I folded my arms. “I wanted to see if I could find any reason for why they did that.”

  “As do I.” The god rose, wiping his hand on his dark breeches.

  “You don’t know?” I studied him, understanding dawning. This god hadn’t just happened along. He’d most likely already been in the passageway before I even walked past it, or he’d at least been nearby. “You were watching them, weren’t you?”

  “I was following them.” He drew out the word. “Before I decided to not let you get yourself killed—which you still haven’t thanked me for.”

  I ignored that last part. “Why were you following them?”

  “I saw them moving about in the mortal realm and wanted to see what they were up to.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was being honest. It seemed like an awfully big coincidence for him to have chosen to follow them the night they killed a mortal male and a babe.

  His head turned to me. “I imagine if I advise you to go home, you will do the exact opposite once more.”

  “I imagine you won’t like my response if you advise such a thing once again,” I returned.

  A soft chuckle came from inside the shadowy hood. “I don’t know about that. I actually might,” he said. My brows knitted when he started forward. “We might as well investigate together.”

  Together.

  Such a common word, but it too felt strange.

  The god was already at the steps of the townhome. For someone so tall and large to be so silent had to be the result of some godly magic. Avoiding the charred area on the grass, I quickly joined him.

  Neither of us spoke as we entered the silent home. There was a door on either side of the small entryway and a set of stairs leading to the second floor. The god went left, into what appeared to be a sitting room, and I headed straight, climbing the stairs. Only the creaks of my steps broke the eerie silence of the home. A gas lamp burned faintly at the top of the stairs, situated on a narrow table. There were two bedchambers, one outfitted with a single bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. Upon closer inspection, I found breeches folded and shirts hung, the size that would fit someone of the mortal male’s stature. There was nothing in the small bathing chamber of note. I backed out and made my way to the bedchamber at the end of the hall. I nudged open the door. Another lamp burned beside a tidied bed. The crib sitting at the foot of it turned my stomach.

  That veil I imagined wearing wasn’t as in place as I believed it to have been.

  Slowly, I entered the room. A tiny blanket lay in the crib. I reached in, feeling the soft fabric. I’d never thought about having children. As the Maiden, it wasn’t even a desire that could take shape as I grew and got older. It was never part of the plan because even if I had been succes
sful and managed to make the Primal of Death fall in love with me, creation of a child wasn’t possible between a mortal and a Primal.

  But a babe was truly innocent and relied on everyone around it, including the gods, to keep it safe. Killing one was unforgivable. The back of my eyes burned. If I had a child, or if any descendant of mine had been harmed, I would burn through both realms just so I could flay the skin from the body of the one who’d hurt them.

  Breathe in. I held my breath until the churning in my stomach stopped. Until I felt nothing. Once I did, I exhaled long and slow and turned away from the crib and the tiny blanket inside.

  My gaze skipped over a deep green divan. Someone had draped an ivory-hued silk wrapper over the back. I went to the wardrobe and opened the doors. Gowns hung neatly beside brightly colored tunics. Undergarments were folded and placed on the shelves among other garments, but there was more than enough room for the clothing that had been in the wardrobe next door.

  Could someone else be in this house? Maybe the mother? Or had she not been home? “Where is the—?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “Gods,” I gasped, nearly coming out of my skin as I whirled to where the god stood, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his broad chest, the hood of his tunic still up. “How are you so quiet?”

  Better yet, how long had he been standing there?

  “Skill,” he said.

  “Perhaps you should alert someone to your arrival,” I snapped.

  “Perhaps.”

  I glared at him, even though he couldn’t see my face.

  “If you’re looking for the owner of those gowns, I imagine that is who I found downstairs near the entry to the kitchen,” he offered. “Well, I found a charred section of floor and a lone slipper, anyway.”

  I turned back to the wardrobe. “I don’t think the man I saw and the woman shared a room here,” I said, gesturing at the wardrobe. An idea formed. “Is there a study?”

  “There appeared to be one, to the right of the foyer.”

  “Did you find anything?” I brushed past him, wholly aware of how he unfolded his arms and turned, following in that silent way of his.

  “I only gave it a cursory glance,” he said as I reached the top of the stairs. “I wanted to make sure the home was empty first.” He paused. “Unlike some. And by some, I mean you.”

  I rolled my eyes as the steps groaned under my feet. The god followed, close enough behind me that my back tingled, yet his steps made no noise—while I sounded like a herd of cattle coming down the stairs.

  “What would you have done if you’d discovered the home wasn’t empty?” he asked as we reached the first floor.

  “I would’ve celebrated, knowing that at least someone survived,” I told him, walking to the study. Moonlight filtered in through the window, casting light over the small chamber.

  “Would you?”

  I glanced over my shoulder as I rounded the desk. The god had gone off to the side, checking out the mostly empty shelving units built into the walls. “Would you not have?” I looked down at the desk. The surface was cleared with the exception of a small lamp.

  “I would think surviving while your child and someone you shared your home with are both killed would be a hard life to celebrate,” he said, pulling open the center drawer. Nothing but quills and closed ink jars.

  I closed it and moved to the one on the right, a deeper one. “I guess you’re right. She would be in the Vale,” I said, speaking about the territory within the Shadowlands where those who had earned peace upon death spent an eternity in paradise.

  “If that is where they went,” he murmured, stopping to pluck a small wooden box off a shelf.

  My heart skipped. Did he think they could’ve gone to the Abyss, where all beings with a soul paid for evil deeds they committed while alive—both god and mortal? There was no way the babe had gone there. But the adults? Well, they could’ve done any number of things during their lives to earn themselves several lifetimes of horror.

  I thought of the Vodina Isles Lords. A horror I would likely become acquainted with when my time came.

  I shook my head, closing the drawer and moving on to the bottom, finding a thick, leather-bound ledger. I pulled it out, placing it on the desk. Quickly untying the cord, I opened the cover to find scribblings on pages and several pieces of loose, folded parchment. What I’d been searching for was the second piece of paper I unfolded.

  I turned on the lamp and quickly scanned the document. It was an entailment of the townhome between the Crown and a Miss Galen Kazin, daughter of Hermes and Junia Kazin and Mister Magus Kazin, son of Hermes and Junia Kazin.

  “Find something?”

  Unsurprisingly, the god had drifted closer without being heard. “It’s an entailment of the property. They were brother and sister. That is if that was who lived here.” Which also meant that if Galen Kazin was the child’s mother, she was also unwed. Among the working classes, that wasn’t exactly rare, nor was it considered shameful. But to afford a home within the Garden District, one had to be descended from nobility or have found wealth through business. It was less common to find unwed mothers here. “I wonder where the father is.”

  “Who’s to say the man outside wasn’t the father? Maybe it wasn’t the brother.” He paused. “Or, he could’ve been both.”

  My lip curled. Even if that were the case, it was an unlikely reason for why the gods had killed them and the babe. Based on the stories I’d read about the gods and Primals, I doubted they would even bat an eyelash at that.

  There was nothing else to be found in the study to give any indication as to why the gods had killed them. Though I wasn’t exactly sure what I could’ve found that would have answered that. A journal chronicling their misdeeds?

  “You’re frustrated.”

  I lifted my gaze to where the god stood at the window overlooking the courtyard, his back to me. “Is it that obvious?”

  “It’s not like this was fruitless. We know that they were likely siblings and that one was an unwed mother. We have the parents’ names.”

  “True.” But what did that even tell us? I closed the ledger, retying the cord. “I have a question.”

  “Do you?”

  I nodded. “It might seem like an offensive thing to ask.”

  The god had glided forward. That was exactly how he moved—as if his booted feet didn’t touch the floor. He stopped on the other side of the desk. “I have a feeling that won’t stop you.”

  I almost grinned again. “Why are you curious about the gods killing mortals? And I don’t mean to insinuate that you don’t care. Although you did say you weren’t decent—”

  “With the exception of the one bone,” he interjected, and it sounded like he smiled.

  “Yes, with that exception.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, and I could feel his stare, even though I couldn’t see it. “Let me ask you the same question. Why do you care? Did you know them?”

  I crossed my arms once more. “Why do I care? Besides the fact that they killed a babe?”

  He nodded.

  “I didn’t know them.” Blowing out a breath, I looked around the study, seeing books that would likely never be read again, and knick-knacks whose value would no longer be appreciated. “When a god kills a mortal, it’s because of some offense,” I started. That was the tricky thing about the gods. They decided what warranted consequence, what was an offense, what was punishable, and what the punishment would be. “And you all like to make an…example out of such things.”

  His head inclined. “Some do.”

  “The act is to send a message to others. What the offense was is clearly known,” I continued. “Gods don’t kill in the middle of the night, take the body, and leave nothing behind. It’s almost as if they didn’t want this to be known. And that is, well, not normal.”

  “You’d be correct.” He drew a finger along the edge of the desk as he walked, the silent slide of his fingertip catching
my attention. “That is why I am so interested. This isn’t the first time they’ve killed like this.”

  I dragged my gaze from his hand. “It isn’t?”

  He shook his head. “In the last month, they’ve killed at least four others like this. They took some of the bodies with them, and a rare few were left behind. But with not a single clue as to why.”

  I racked my brain to see if I remembered hearing anything about any mysterious disappearances or strange deaths, but I hadn’t.

  “Now we’re at seven mortals.” He drew his finger up the glass globe of the lamp. “Most were in their second and third decades of life. Two females. Four males. And the babe. As far as I know, they have never killed one as young as the child tonight. The only thing they had in common was that they were all from Lasania,” he said, curling his finger around the beaded chain. With a click, he extinguished the lamp, returning the chamber to the moonlight. “One of them was someone most would consider…a friend.”

  I hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t that gods couldn’t make friends with mortals. Some had even fallen in love with them. Not many, though. Most had simply fallen into lust, but friendships could be formed.

  “You’re surprised,” he noted.

  I frowned, wondering exactly what had revealed that. “I guess it surprises me that gods can be bothered by the death of a mortal when they will outlive us no matter what. I know that’s wrong,” I quickly added. “A murdered friend who happens to be mortal is still a…friend.”

  “Yes.”

  And it had to be hard to lose one. I didn’t have many friends. Well, come to think of it, if I didn’t count Ezra and Sir Holland, then I didn’t have any friends. Still, I imagined losing a friend would be a lot like losing a part of yourself. I felt the emptiness begin to leave me with an aching pierce to my chest. I didn’t try to bring it back. There was no reason to at this moment. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

  In the blink of an eye, he’d rounded the desk and was only a handful of feet from me. The urge to step back hit me at the same moment the desire to step forward did. I remained where I was, refusing to do either.