It’s my father, Xeraxet thought to him. He is tainted by madness. Already he has turned too many of my kind to his cause.
“Zi?” Paendurion said. The Veil’s kaas had been a companion, too, once, during their first ascensions. “What cause?” Then he remembered Axerian’s warning: The Veil had been reborn. Surely she meant to revenge herself on the champions who had imprisoned her.
No, Xeraxet thought. Not you. Zi has betrayed us all, champions old and new. He serves Death, and urges the chorus to do the same.
“Impossible,” he said. “The kaas are bound to the Goddess, the same as the leylines.”
Even so, Xeraxet thought. I am Zi’s child. I know his heart. In the moment of victory, he means to see the world remade in shadow.
PART 4: WINTER
ONDAI | DEATH SPIRITS
58
SARINE
Ruins of the Ranasi Village
Ranasi Land
Three fires burned in clearings, between the places where tents had collapsed, eroded by weather and beasts. She’d left to walk through the ruins on her own as they stopped to make camp, but she could see the smoke rising in the moonlight, obscuring the night sky, from three separate flickering lights.
This village had been a home, once, but for now it was caught between life and death, halfway between what it was and what it would become. People had died here. The corpses were gone, picked over by scavengers or scattered by storms, though perhaps some of them still remained, hidden under boughs of leaves and the first dusting of winter snow.
She brushed a rock clean and sat, wishing she had her papers and charcoals to capture the scene.
Almost home, Anati thought to her. It will be a great honor, to see your birthplace.
Anati had appeared, standing rigid, formal, her long body extending straight while her neck tilted her head up to look at Sarine’s rock.
“My birthplace,” she said. “Anati, I have no idea where I was born. Somewhere in the Maw, if my mother even survived it.”
My father says we are twice-born, Anati thought. Once when we are brought into being, and once when we find our purpose. The first, for you, is somewhere to the south and east. The second is yet to come, though it is coming soon.
“You know where I was born?” she asked. “And … you know my purpose?” It seemed a silly question, the sort of thing a child would expect, but then, she’d spent her life in Zi’s company and never ceased to be surprised by his nature.
No, of course not, Anati thought. We can’t know a thing until we see it.
“Let me know when you do, then,” she said. “Gods know it would be nice to understand what I’m doing, for once.”
I will, Anati thought.
With that, Anati fell quiet, moving to rest in coils around the base of the rock. They’d had to fashion thick cloaks from animal furs for the rest of the party, but she’d kept her loose-fitting shirt and trousers, wearing her shirt open around her neck and collarbones as she might have done in summertime. Tigai had expected to be able to take them anywhere they’d been before, and been rebuffed. She’d seen the starfield herself, since: Whereas in the Tower of the Heron it had been a mass of almost-infinite swirling stars, here on this side of the Divide it was blackness save for a handful of points of light. The nearest star had taken them to what Ka’Inari had recognized as Jintani land, and the rest had been done under the shaman’s guidance. He’d insisted they come here, to the Ranasi village, on their way back home.
The dead quiet of the village hung over her as she watched the campfires burn in the distance. She’d tried to build something herself, with her journey through the Divide—a vision for her future, a way to fight the battles she seemed predestined to fight—and failed utterly. The seed of the Veil’s emotions smoldered deep inside her, a burning coal that threatened to ignite, and would take her with it, when it did. There had to be another way. She was more than a body for a hateful, twisted soul. Zi had believed in her. She could find a way.
You didn’t fail, Anati thought to her. Why do you think so?
She gave a start. “You can read my thoughts,” she said. “Can’t you?”
Of course.
“Gods damn it,” she said. “Do you know how long I wondered whether Zi could do that?”
A wave of bitterness rose, and unexpected tears came with it. She knew nothing at all. The most basic truths, about herself, her kaas, her place in the world. She knew nothing. All she’d managed was to keep the Veil caged and locked away, and doubtless caused more harm than she’d prevented, in doing it.
How do you expect to learn, without starting from a lack of knowledge? You were not born knowing any things. Neither was I, or my father. Neither was the Veil.
“You sound like my uncle,” she said. “I know all about the virtue of humility. But what difference does it make, when people are counting on me to know what to do?”
Their counting on you doesn’t make you understand any better than feeling sorry for yourself does.
“I wasn’t …” She let it fade, unsaid. Anati had said she could read her thoughts. Little point in protesting when it was more than likely true.
It is true.
“All right,” she said. “But if you don’t give me time to form my thoughts, don’t complain when they’re rushed, or rude.”
Anati bobbed her head up and down, then skittered up the face of the rock, relaxing as she laid her head in Sarine’s lap.
You’ll find the way, Anati thought.
The suddenness of Anati’s movements took her by surprise; Zi had always been slow, deliberate, even lazy at times. But the sentiment was warmth she needed to hear, and she traced a finger over Anati’s scales—a pale gray in the waning light—as she reclined atop her rock. They’d be home soon. Her uncle would be beside himself to see her, and she needed his steadiness, now more than ever.
“I was so sure we had it right,” she said. “If we could go beyond the Divide, stop the Regnant’s champions before they ascended … isn’t that what Axerian said he and his companions had done, here? But all we did was attract the attention of that … thing. Anati, if that creature is our enemy I have no idea how to fight him.”
Who would?
“Who would?” she repeated. “Do you mean no one knows?”
No. I mean what I said. Who would have the knowledge you’re seeking? The best way to gain understanding is to ask someone who already has it.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Axerian might have known, but I killed him. Zi knew more than he could tell me, with whatever blocks there were between us. Though now, with the blocks gone …” A thought sparked, almost too obvious to ask, but then, Anati had been offering the simplest wisdom as though it were novel truth—and perhaps it was. “Anati, can you ask Zi what I need to do to face the Regnant?”
Yes.
Anati vanished from beneath her fingers, leaving her alone atop the rock.
Gods, but the kaas were difficult.
She returned to watching the village, and the camp Tigai, Acherre, and the rest of them were making on its outskirts. Three fires as proof against the night, and the winter cold. It seemed somehow fitting that the weather didn’t touch her—part of the beast spirits’ gift, so Zi had said. She missed his insight, missed the trust she’d always had in him, though he’d always been cryptic past the point of understanding. At least Anati spoke clearly, though they seemed to be learning their place in the world together, side by side. It made for a weak pairing, when she was expected to carry the mantle of Godhood on her shoulders.
“Sarine? May I sit with you?”
Ka’Inari’s voice startled her; he’d approached from behind, through the ruined tents and pathways rather than the fires glimmering outside the village.
“Yes,” she said, moving to make room. “Yes, of course.”
The shaman laid down his walking stick and sat beside her. He, like her, hadn’t sewn himself a fur cloak, though his clothing was heavy enough to occupy t
he rest of the space at the top of her boulder.
“They’ll be coming soon,” Ka’Inari said. “Tonight, perhaps. Or in the morning, if not.”
“Who will be?” she asked.
“Ka’Hannat has seen our return. A party of our hunters will meet us here, with news of what has passed in our absence.”
“Ah,” she said. So that was why he’d insisted they come to this village. “Do Acherre and Tigai and the rest know? There might be misunderstandings, if we’re not there to translate.”
“They know,” Ka’Inari said.
She fell quiet, watching the smoke from the fires.
“Sarine,” Ka’Inari said. “You are troubled. Will you speak of it with me?”
“What’s to speak of?” she said. “We failed, on the other side of the Divide. I have the Veil inside me, clawing through my emotions and threatening to kill all of you if I slip. And all of this—champions, ascensions, wars—it’s all on me. It’s more than I ever wanted. I’m terrified I’m going to fail. I’m terrified of what it will mean, if I do.”
Ka’Inari nodded, joining her in looking out toward the camp.
“Sometimes,” Ka’Inari said, “when a new guardian is chosen, they will go into the wild for many days. They bring no provisions—it is the way of the guardians, to live from the land—but neither do they announce where they are going, or why. They will go, and sit, and reflect on the burdens the spirits have placed on them. It is a heavy thing, holding the fate of a tribe in one’s hands. These guardians will stay in the wild, alone, even after the shamans receive visions of threats approaching. It falls to the shamans to track them. This takes many more days, sometimes full turnings of the moon. The guardians are masters of the wild, but with the spirits to guide us, the shamans find them. And when they do …”
A rush of cold pelted her across the face, spattering ice across her bare skin. She flailed and lost her balance, slipping down the side of the rock and landing sprawled in the snow. Body came, and she sprang to her feet, pivoting to find the source of the attack.
“In warmer seasons, we use waterskins,” Ka’Inari said. “It works best if we can approach while the guardians are sleeping, but any sort of surprise will do.”
It took another moment—and chunks of ice and slush sliding down her open shirt—before she realized what he’d done.
“Did … did you just throw snow at me?”
Ka’Inari nodded gravely. “I did.”
She stared at him, though her incredulity waned as he scooped another patch of snow from atop the rock into his hands, packing a second ball.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Why would you—?”
This time she ducked, and his snow went over her head, piffing onto the ground behind her.
“Ah,” Ka’Inari said. “You see why we need surprise.”
The last vestiges of her shock melted into the beginnings of laughter, and she stood ready, watching for signs of more projectiles.
Instead the shaman pushed forward, sliding down the boulder’s face. “You are not so different from our wayward guardians. The burdens on you are great, but you must believe you are strong enough to meet them. Even if you aren’t, weighing yourself down with worries will not make you any stronger.”
“I understand,” she said. “Though the truth doesn’t change because we wish it to.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.” He paused, kneeling to retrieve his walking stick from where he’d discarded it in the snow. “But I hope you’ll remember this, next time you are tempted to despair.”
“I’m not like to forget,” she said. “You soaked through my shirt.”
Ka’Inari shrugged and smiled.
They walked together through the ruined village, returning to the outermost of the three fires without fanfare from their companions. Tigai and his brother were arguing near one of the fires, while their man, Remarin, was packing enough wood in the pits to keep them going through the night. Acherre and Mei were sitting together, exchanging words in each other’s languages, and she and Ka’Inari took places beside one of the pits, watching the rest. Lin and Yuli were the only ones to take especial note of her return, Lin rising from where they’d been cooking elk meat on skewers to offer one to her.
“Thank you,” she said as Lin sat beside her and Ka’Inari bowed, retreating to help Remarin.
“That one is sweet on you, though he’d never admit it,” Lin said.
“What?” she said through a mouthful of venison. “Ka’Inari?”
“He’s the sort to be there, waiting for you to notice him. In my experience it doesn’t tend to work. How long have you been traveling together?”
“Six months,” she said, frowning. Ka’Inari had never looked at her twice, for all he’d been there to guide and help her through the worst of their troubles. She’d never considered the possibility of any interest beyond traveling together. Then again, it was hard to see any prospects beyond fighting, chasing down Gods and magi and whatever other manner of threat.
“Well, you’re as blind as he is,” Lin said. “A shame; you could have been keeping each other company all this time.”
Before she had time to compose a reply, Anati appeared on the edge of the firepit, her scales a bright silver that reflected the fire’s orange glow.
“Anati,” she said instead. “Were you able to find your father? Did he—?”
Yes, Anati thought to her. He said it’s time for you to learn to travel to the Soul of the World.
59
ERRIS
Street of the Cobblers
Gardens District, New Sarresant
The thrum of boots marching on snow rang through the street. Officers’ horses added their hooves, clopping over cobbled stone, but few of her soldiers spoke, and quiet prevailed. Trails of smoke rose from chimneys, and eyes watched their passage from rebuilt townhouses now peopled by whoever had moved in when the nobles had been driven out. If there was to be resistance, it would be mounted at the bridges over the Verrain river, giving her the opportunity to sweep south and flank them if they tried to hold too long a stretch of ground. A tactic she’d learned from Paendurion in his assault. But so far the city was quiet, without sign of militia or priests.
Jiri carried her at the head of the 81st Regiment, the vanguard of the 1st Corps, whose binders had been given pride of place beside her on the march. She’d seen to it her officers spread her message with efficiency and cold fact: that seizing New Sarresant was not a restoration of the monarchy, nor of any privilege associated with the old regime. Traitors had attempted to place themselves at the head of the Republic, traitors who would weaken the state and hand its reins, unwittingly or no, to its enemies. Her soldiers understood. Every general—every single one, without exception—had accepted Need, proving beyond doubt their loyalty to the cause. Dozens of colonels, majors, captains, and more had volunteered to submit to the binding, more than she could have found time to accept. But the division was clear. There were soldiers, the men and women of her army: loyal, brave, understanding of the virtue of sacrifice. And there were cowards at the heads of the Assembly and among the priests, all of whom would soon learn the price of their treason.
A scout rode toward their line as they advanced, slowing and saluting as he approached her flag.
“Sir,” the scout called. “The way ahead is clear. All clear, from here down Canopy Street and past the Exarch’s Basilica.”
She dismissed him with a counter-salute, and the scout rode off, doubtless due to deliver the same information to commanders of units farther up the line. She and Royens had planned a five-pronged attack, the fingers of a fist. She’d planned the movements down to each unit on each street, with logistics and supply trains, engineers in case the roads or bridges fell to sabotage, and gun batteries set to move in and deploy to fire at close range mixed in with the soldiers.
“Stay alert,” she called to the soldiers around her. “Clear for now doesn’t mean clear forever.”
It wasn’t an order, strictly speaking, but whispers of the scout’s report were already spreading through the line. Better by far for none of her planning to be needed. But lax discipline was the bane of every army, everywhere. Little as she liked thinking of her countrymen as enemies, for now they were nothing less, and a militiaman’s decades-old musket killed as sure as a newly minted rifle. Until every man or woman with the thought of violence against the army was put down, imprisoned, or killed, her soldiers had to maintain focus, and in return she would deliver them a city pacified and returned to order, with the single, unifying purpose of defeating their enemies.
“Sir,” the next scout called. “Clear for you to move, sir, all the way to the district boundary.”
“Steady on,” she said for her soldiers’ benefit when the scout had gone. “Press forward, and keep alert.”
The column marched, turning down the broad lengths of Canopy Street. The other four columns would be encountering the same quiet on their approaches, else she’d have heard musket shot, shouting, all the signs of battle. Yet the sounds of the city were absent, too: The streets had been emptied, with lookers-on safely hidden from view. Even the Exarch’s Basilica, the great dome looming over rooftops to the west, held no more than reverent silence.
They’d made it most of the way to the iron gate that marked the district boundary when a procession of brown robes turned onto the street.
Three hundred paces off, and with no warning from the scouts, but then, they were expecting militia armed with muskets and massed in ranks. Instead this was a procession in truth, the sort more suited to a festival or a day of mourning. A hundred men and women in brown robes, some of them even carrying holy books as they walked a slow, steady pace, joining arms to block the street from end to end.
“Hold,” she called, hearing the cry repeated by officers behind her. “Binders, with me.”
She spurred Jiri forward, and fifteen of her binders marched behind. Entropy binders, Shelter, Body, and Death, all trained to combat and willing to do their duty.
Blood of the Gods Page 55
