Of the Divine

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Dedication

  Of the Divine is dedicted to Chivas, 2007–2017, and to the bluest pair of eyes I have ever seen. Chivvy, you have been part of my life, part of my work, and part of my heart since you came to me as a tiny kitten, and nothing is quite the same without you.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part 1 Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part 2 Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  The ocean that covered most of the Numen’s first level was clear and sweet. It lapped against diamond sand where tiny long-legged birds spread wings the color of honey as they raced back and forth, plucking drifting seeds from the air. The Numini—those perfect, beautiful sentinels who ruled the divine realm by might and decree—watched the birds’ antics with gentle amusement.

  One Numini looked past the white sands and crystal waters below to a realm where the ocean was cold and tasted of salt, where verdant green cascaded across rich earth, and where the mortal creatures lived.

  Soon, she thought. She was one of the three arbiters who ruled the Numen, second only to the high justice of her kind.

  “I am concerned about the Abyssi,” remarked one of her brothers, a lesser judge. “We have worked for generations to nurture these lines of power, and now they could all be—”

  “Have faith,” she assured him. “Abyssi scrabble at the mortal realm like dogs at a closed door. They always have. They lack the wisdom or discipline to do more than that.”

  “But do the mortals have the wisdom to keep the door closed?” he challenged.

  “Faith,” the arbiter said again. This time it was a clear chastisement.

  She knew their children in the mortal world were defenseless. Humans had minds barely capable of comprehending their own existence, and as a consequence lived short and brutal lives. They needed their divine guardians to guide and nurture them. The Abyssi—vicious, mindless beasts of the infernal realm—could fight for sovereignty all they wanted. In the end, it wouldn’t matter.

  In the mortal realm, all things served the divine.

  Part 1

  Spring, Year 3917 in the Age of the Realms

  Seventy-One Years Before

  The Events of Book I: Of the Abyss

  Chapter 1

  Verte

  “Back up,” Verte whispered. Tealyn was following too closely, her presence disrupting his ability to read the currents of magic in the area.

  “Sir, are you sure that is wise?”

  Verte paused, drawing air slowly into his lungs and then letting it out again so his impatience with the situation wouldn’t spill out in his words. Then he asked, “What exactly is your plan if we open this door and find a cabal of hostile sorcerers?”

  The door in question hung slightly crooked on the front of a run-down home at the outer edge of the docks district. It was one of the last places Verte had wanted to be that afternoon, but on the long list of responsibilities that came with the title Terre, responding immediately to reports of malevolent sorcery was near the top. The fact that his original plans had included an intimate dinner with the witty, powerful and beautiful sorceress whom he was courting, and not a criminal who might or might not be in command of potentially murderous magic, was not a sufficient excuse to neglect his duty.

  Tealyn reluctantly moved back a pace. “My plan is to stay behind you, sir, allow you to address the magical threat in the way you consider best, and only engage the subject if you signal me to do so.”

  She sounded as if she was reciting, which she might have been. Tealyn had only been promoted a week ago, elevated from the ranks of city soldiers to one of the prince’s personal bodyguards. She took her job seriously, and clearly wasn’t comfortable with the expectation that she should step back and let him face the danger head-on.

  If this had been a mundane situation, Verte would have trusted her blade to protect him, but Tealyn wasn’t a sorcerer. Like any citizen of Kavet, her primary defense against magical maleficence was him.

  Verte put his palm flat on the splintery wooden door and closed his eyes, blocking out visual distractions—and mental ones, like thoughts of how Henna would react when a messenger told her he would be late—so he could examine the power seething inside. He heard Tealyn shift behind him so she could protect his back. Certain she would be more than enough to warn off any would-be pickpockets, Verte gave himself over entirely to his magical sight.

  What he discovered was a chaotic soup of spells, old magic mingled with cold.

  As the name implied, old magic had existed in Kavet for centuries; its practitioners displaying skills ranging from healing to the ability to speak to plants and, rarely, even power over the dead.

  Cold magic, which was Verte’s specialty, had appeared in Kavet more recently; Verte’s great-grandfather had written of it as a strange new phenomenon in his journals. Some cold magic users used it to create light, or to sculpt stone or metal. Almost all could use it to manipulate and persuade.

  “Wenge,” Verte called, pushing with his power as well as his voice, “come to the door.”

  Verte’s magic struck the haze of half-formed spells inside. They writhed in response, trying to thrust him away from the sorcerer who was most likely equal parts their master and their prisoner.

  Wenge had been accused of maleficence—specifically, of committing fraud through a combination of spirit work and cold magic, which allowed him to manipulate the recently bereaved into paying him ridiculous amounts of money to speak to their lost loved ones. Few people really could speak to the dead; Verte had never met anyone who could do so with the regularity and reliability that Wenge claimed. Even if his séances were legitimate, using power to manipulate customers into agreeing to his price was itself illegal.

  This was the second time Wenge had been accused. The first time, he had gone to court, paid the fine, repaid his duped customers, and agreed to cease the illegal practices. This time, if he were found guilty, the penalty would be harsher.

  “Who’s there?” a voice finally rasped.

  Wenge was supposed to be in his mid-thirties, but the voice sounded like a frail old man’s. Working with the dead could suck the moisture from a person, leaving him hoarse and trembling.

  “Terre Verte.”

  Silence answered him, and stillness.

  “Sir?” Tealyn asked sof
tly. “Do you want me to go around—”

  “Hush,” Verte snapped softly. He would need to apologize for the sharpness later, but just then he needed all his concentration in case Wenge wasn’t as docile as he seemed.

  He heard the snick of a bolt pulling back, and then the door opened slowly. Verte wasn’t surprised to see that Wenge appeared gaunt and pale. His lips were chapped, he had bags under his eyes, and his body trembled as if he was recovering from the flu.

  It wasn’t the flu. It was power exhaustion—maybe even addiction.

  “Do you know why I’m here?” Verte asked.

  “You’re here to help me,” Wenge answered. “Aren’t you?”

  “Do you need help?”

  “They talk to me all the time,” Wenge whispered, his eyes wide. “I can’t get them to be quiet. I just want them to go away. I want them all to go away.”

  He looked up with watery gray eyes, bleached of all color by the time he had spent staring past the mortal veil.

  Verte shuddered inwardly. Though a child of magic users tended to inherit at least some form of power, most sorcerers in Kavet were born from otherwise mundane families, their power unbidden, its strength and type decided, as far as anyone knew, by a random toss of divine dice.

  Supposedly, many of the Terre ancestors had claimed incredible power over the dead, but Verte was glad to have little of that skill. He had seen what it could do to a person.

  “You’ve been accused of maleficence,” Verte said formally. “You have the right to a trial, but it is also your right to forego a trial and take the brand, at which point all charges will be dropped.” More gently, he added, “It will make the ghosts go away.”

  The brand, crafted on a spell-imbued forge deep under the palace, severed a sorcerer from his magic absolutely and permanently. Most practitioners saw it as a mutilation; even without the stigma, the long-term effects of stripping all magic from a body used to wielding power were unpredictable, potentially including long-term physical or mental damage.

  Wenge, however, appeared overjoyed at the suggestion. “It will? You’re sure?”

  “I swear it.” Verte’s heart went out to the poor, desperate man. According to Verte’s sources, Wenge had refused three offers from the Order of Napthol to help him study and control his power. Verte didn’t know why, only that the evidence was irrefutable. If he insisted on going to trial, he would be found guilty, branded anyway, and face additional criminal penalties.

  “Can we do it now?”

  “Creating the brand takes some time, but we can start now. Will you come with me?”

  Wenge nodded. Verte tried to show only assurance and compassion on his face, and keep his relief hidden. There was always a potential for violence during a visit like this.

  They crossed through the docks district, drawing only moderate attention. Tealyn wisely kept back, keeping a wary eye on the crowd without drawing Wenge’s attention to her.

  At this late-afternoon hour, the busy shipping port bustled with people trying to get their work done for the day so they could enjoy the evening, so no one paid much attention to Verte. His fair, fawn-colored skin—at its palest this time of year, after the long, bitter winter—marked him as a local, unlike the tawny-gold skins of the Tamari and the deeper brown and ebony skins of the Silmari, but there were enough Kavetans around that he didn’t seem out of place in the crowd. The sharper-eyed merchants would notice that the cut and fabric of his clothes were a bit finer than average, but there was nothing that obviously identified him as the prince of the land. The few people who might have intercepted Verte paused when they saw Tealyn, whose tan and white regalia made her stand out in a crowd even before she was close enough for her sword to be visible.

  Uninterrupted, Verte ushered Wenge past sailors, hucksters, craftsmen, bards, musicians, and the rest of humanity that continually filled this area. As they headed uphill to the city center, the smells of salt water, fresh and old fish, liquor, sweat, and perfume faded in favor of occasional wisps of smoke from wood stoves and forges.

  Verte skirted the central market and approached the palace from the side, where the guard barracks were attached.

  Wenge’s steps started to drag. He whispered, barely loud enough for Verte to hear, “They say this is a bad idea.”

  “You cannot live your life as a slave to those who have gone before,” Verte replied. “You need to let the living and dead alike move on.”

  Wenge glared up at him. Verte paused, keeping his stance and expression neutral as he raised magical shields against a possible attack. His gaze flickered briefly to Tealyn, just long enough to signal her to move closer and be ready if she needed to step in.

  “You don’t know where the dead go,” Wenge accused. “We talk of the realms beyond, of the Abyss and the Numen, but no one really knows for sure what happens once our shades pass out of the mortal realm. What if we just go screaming into the void? What if—”

  Verte took the man’s frail, trembling hand in his own. He wished he could use his magic to urge him to keep moving, but Wenge’s decision whether to demand a trial or to take the brand willingly needed to be made without magical coercion.

  “Even the royal house, with all our strength and training and resources, does not practice death sorcery. Maleficence or not,” Verte said, hoping the words would pierce the man’s sudden anxiety, “if you continue to let your power use you this way, it will kill you before the year is out. Of that I am certain.”

  Wenge’s body sagged. He waved a hand next to his face as if to chase away a buzzing fly—or in this case, a whispering spirit. He flinched at whatever the ghost said, then muttered, “I do not know what to be without it.”

  “We will help you,” Verte said again. “Counselors at the Order of Napthol will help you learn how to cope with the side-effects of giving up your power. Once you’re ready, an agent from the Ministry of Health and Prosperity can help you find mundane employment.”

  This time, Wenge allowed Verte to lead him the rest of the way inside, through a side door into the palace and downstairs into the row of cells kept for those accused of sorcery-based crimes.

  The place wasn’t quite a prison. The rooms had sturdy doors with good locks on them, and wards cast upon them to dampen power, but they also had clean, serviceable bedding and an alcove for the necessary. Guards on the hall monitored movement and controlled who came and went, but those who came willingly, like Wenge, were allowed a reasonable amount of freedom, provided with sufficient food, and given access to reading material and other simple pastimes.

  It would take at least two days to craft the brand that would strip Wenge’s power from him, and in the meantime, he would be treated as a respected though potentially fractious guest.

  Verte took leave of Wenge, gave the information he had to the sorcerer-smith who would craft the brand, sent a messenger to the Cobalt Hall to request a counselor for Wenge, and instructed Tealyn to update the other guards.

  Then he took winding back hallways from the barracks to his private quarters on the second floor, hoping to make the trip without interruption no matter how much it scandalized the servants to see him skulking back there. The formal areas of the palace were packed with visiting aristocrats from Tamar and Silmat who had come for the impending Apple Blossom Festival, and they tended to stop him to chat any time he passed. But he had spent all day looking forward to his rendezvous with Henna, and he had just barely enough time to clean up and still meet her at a vaguely reasonable dinner hour. He wasn’t about to let another matter of “utmost importance” that would “only take a moment” delay him.

  Nobles from Tamar and Silmat, who tracked their bloodlines back generations, thought it odd and quaint that Kavet’s only prince would court a woman with no known family background, but Kavet’s monarchy had never cared much about lineage—only magic. Verte’s mother had been a refugee from the distant country of Ilban before she came to Kavet. She had brought with her a new kind of sorcery, generally ref
erred to as hot magic. Henna was a sorceress of the same ilk.

  Unfortunately, though he could safely avoid the thronging nobles, he couldn’t ignore the page sitting in front of his door. The boy looked like he had been half dozing, but as Verte approached he came to attention and stood with a start, biting his lip as if chagrined at his drowsiness.

  “Terre,” he said, greeting Verte respectfully by title and with the half-bow appropriate for a longtime servant at home. “The emissary from the Osei requests your time tonight.”

  The word emissary was elevating Kegan’s station quite a lot, Terre thought. He suspected the word request was also an embellishment. Though clearly a slave to the Osei, relaying their words and carefully refraining from any mention of his own thoughts or opinions, Kegan spoke with all the authority his masters believed they had.

  “I will see him,” Verte sighed. It couldn’t be helped. His parents had other obligations that evening, which meant it was up to him to coddle the Osei emissary, even if Verte was quite certain it would be nothing but a reiteration of the arrangements they had already made in preparation for the Osei’s actual arrival in another three days.

  Like any Kavet native, Verte had seen the Osei in flight off Kavet’s shores, and marveled at the way their massive, serpentine bodies and immense wings sparkled in the light of sun or moon, but he had only ever spoken with their human messengers. This would be the first time the creatures themselves had visited Kavet since the last treaties had been signed almost seven centuries ago, and their slave was insistent that preparations be made exactly as his masters commanded.

  The last “urgent” summons had been about the formal dinner, and the fact that the flatware must be sterling silver made of a copper alloy and not an iron one. Verte had assured the slave it would be done despite not knowing the first thing about how the forks had been made. Sepia, the head housekeeper, had been livid that, weeks after they had been told that there must be absolutely no iron at the dinner or ball, the slave would think she was be stupid enough to set the table with it—if there even were such a thing as sterling silver made with iron.