by Megan Derr
"I don't think my skin has ever done me favors," Culebra replied, amused despite himself.
"Oh, you're pretty enough that I think perhaps it's done you a few," Cortez said.
Culebra laughed. "I concede your point. And do not worry, I remember how much trouble it was the last time we were in a town."
Cortez laughed with him. "I know. Just—
"Keep my hood up, hold on to it if that is what it takes to keep it in place. If someone tries to mess with me, scream for you."
"Yes, exactly," Cortez said. "Clearly I must say that too much."
Culebra laughed. "Maybe a touch."
Cortez playfully flicked his ear. "Well, at least I can trust you are listening. You can probably hear and smell it, but we are approaching the town of Belmonte now. We will be at the Red Oak in a matter of minutes. All the trouble will begin very soon. Be ready for anything, highness."
"Understood," Culebra murmured, and he reached up to tug his hood down further before pulling his pale hands out of sight as well. After so many days of quiet travel with nothing more than the occasional animal and the rustle of the trees for noise, the overwhelming bustle and racket of the city made him flinch. Too many sounds, too many smells, and underlying all of it he could taste death, bittersweet and heavy. Even in the capital he did not feel so many deaths, but then again, he seldom smelled blood so often either and that smell stood out the strongest.
He itched to ask, but kept his mouth shut.
Finally the horse came to a stop, and Culebra bit back his fear as Cortez dismounted, leaving him momentarily alone on the horse. Then she reached up and helped him down. "Steady," she murmured.
"Oi!"
Cortez tensed, but kept hold of him as a pair of heavy, stomping boots drew close. "So you're her, then? I thought you'd be prettier."
"Who are you?" Cortez asked curtly.
"That the one we asked you to bring? Follow me, your highnesses."
"Shut it," Cortez snapped, but obediently got them both back on the horse.
They stopped again in a place that was much quieter, though he could still hear the thrum of the city not too far off. He heard a door open, and then shivered, not liking the smell that wafted toward him. It was sweet and sickly, like a poor imitation of a flower. Whatever it was, it made him nauseous.
"So I see my prince and princesa have arrived," said a deep voice with a strange accent. Culebra didn't like it. "I'm very happy to see you, your highnesses. Our other guests were beginning to grow restless waiting for you." He felt silent a moment before he said, "Bring them inside."
"We can bring ourselves inside," Cortez said coldly right as fingers landed on Culebra's leg. He felt Cortez shift, heard the unseen person grunt, and the fingers vanished. Cortez dismounted, and then helped him down, keeping an arm firmly around his shoulders as she guided him into a house that smelled like nobody had ever bothered to clean it.
What did the stranger mean by other guests? Fidel, obviously, but he had spoken in the plural. Who else would they possibly kidnap that had anything to do with the matter?
But his question was answered as he stepped through the door and a familiar voice called out, "Culebra!"
The voice ripped through him, deep and husky and warm, and it nearly sent him to his knees. "D-Dario?" he asked, and without thinking, walked toward Dario's voice. He tripped over something and fell to his knees. He heard men laugh, but ignored them as he stood up continued walking toward the voice.
"Three more steps, move slightly to your left," Dario's voice called out. When Culebra had obeyed, Dario said softly, "Kneel, caro. I'm afraid they've got me bound to the wall so I cannot murder them."
Culebra smiled at the irritated tone because of course irritation was all Dario felt; he had the patience of a raptor waiting for his prey to break from cover. He knelt, reached out carefully, and if he could have cried he would have to feel the man he had missed for so long. Dario had a beard and smelled in sore need of a bath, but underneath Culebra could still smell the musk and earthy tones of the man he still loved so fiercely. "D-Dario—"
"Shh, caro. All will be well, I promise. I am glad to see that you have not come to any harm."
"I'm fine," Culebra said quietly, reaching out to touch Dario's face again, grimacing at the beard.
Dario chuckled. "Yes, I am sorry I could not shave properly for you. These men, they do not like me to have sharp things. I do not know why."
"I missed you," Culebra said.
"We will have to speak of it later, but if you were going to miss me you never should have sent me away."
"You didn't want to be there anymore."
Dario did not reply, but Culebra still knew him well enough to know it was because he was angry. "Later," he said softly, and he felt Dario nod in agreement.
"Sweet though this reunion is," the man with the odd accent said, "there are more important matters to address. Highness, if you please."
Culebra tried to jerk away as rough hands grabbed him and snatched his away from Dario, but all it got him was a hard shake that left him feeling as though his organs had been shaken free of their moorings. "Unhand me at once."
"Yes, highness," the man said and shoved him backwards, his captors all laughing when Culebra cried out in panic.
Dario snarled at them. "Leave him alone, you corpse-eaters!"
The sound of someone striking Dario was unmistakable, and Culebra flinched.
His captors made a few more remarks to Culebra, clearly just to rile Dario. Culebra ignored them the way only a lifetime of such moments had taught him to ignore them. "What do you want with me?"
"Death, of course," the man replied.
"Who are you?" Culebra asked, ignoring the fear that made his skin prickle.
Rough fingers touched his cheek, and Culebra smacked them away, skin stinging against skin. The man only laughed and touched him again. Culebra grabbed hold of his arm and yanked it closer, sinking his teeth in hard and fast, letting go only when the man used his free hand to smack Culebra's head.
Culebra wiped blood from his mouth with his sleeve, and then said, "Do not touch me."
"Like the taste of blood, do you?" the man asked.
"You still have not told me your name."
"My name is Jorge, highness."
"Jorge who seeks Death," Culebra said. "Well, you have me so I suppose you are at least halfway to obtaining it."
Jorge laughed, the sound making Culebra shudder. "Bring the woman," he said, and Culebra heard Cortez swearing and cursing before she suddenly was next to him on the floor.
"Are you all right?"
"Fine," Cortez bit out. "They have me bound, and Fidel looks to be unconscious."
"We'll figure something out," Culebra said softly.
"Let me go!" Cortez snarled.
Culebra flinched when he heard someone hit her and Cortez's soft grunt of pain, the sharp smell of fresh blood mingling with the lingering scent of Jorge's blood. "What are you doing?" Cortez demanded. "Get that knife away from me!"
"Be quiet," Jorge said.
Cortez hissed in pain, and then suddenly what he realized was her wrist was pressed into Culebra's hand, wet and sticky with blood. "Drink it," Jorge ordered. "My men have a knife to your bodyguard's throat, and we are more than happy to take his life to make you cooperate."
"Dario?" Culebra asked softly, fear blooming when he did not reply.
"I'm afraid they're right," Cortez said grimly. "He can't speak because they've gagged him, and the knife has drawn some blood. But if I am reading that angry expression on his face, then he is telling you not to drink my blood. I tend to agree with him, highness. Whatever they are about—"
"What would you do if it was Fidel?"
Cortez sighed softly. It was all the answer Culebra needed. "Why do you want me to drink her blood?" he asked.
"Just do it," Jorge ordered.
Grimacing, Culebra obeyed, lifting Cortez's wrist and, after a moment of fumbling, wrappin
g his lips around the wound and sucking. It knocked the breath out of him, made the world go white hot before it all went suddenly black again. When his awareness returned, Culebra realized he was curled up on the floor. He felt dizzy and hot, as if his heart was going to burst at any moment. "What—" It hurt to speak, his throat raw and sore. "What did you do to me?"
"Patience, highness," Jorge said and roughly sat him back on the floor. He then grabbed Culebra's wrist, and Culebra felt a sharp sting followed by the feel of his blood pooling, spilling.
"Drink," Jorge ordered, and Culebra felt Cortez's fingers wrap around his arm, felt her lips close over his wound, and then the bizarre sensation of her drinking his blood.
It was something he hoped he would never feel again. Then that white hot pain struck again, and he realized he was screaming, that Cortez was screaming.
And then the earth began to shake.
Slowly at first, almost easy to miss, but then with more force, more violence, until all he heard were things falling, crashing, people crying and screaming. He and Cortez toppled over, unable to remain sitting up right, and wound up in a tangled hip huddled on the floor.
"Stop," Culebra whispered, not sure to whom he was speaking. But a minute or forever later, the shaking slowed, faded, and finally stopped.
"That was—that was wrong," a voice gasped out, choked with tears. "We shouldn't be mucking with the gods this way."
"Douse it," Jorge snapped, and Culebra wondered how in the world he had picked up the Pozhar way of telling somebody to be quiet. Culebra listened to his footsteps draw near, heard the rustle of his clothes as he, presumably, knelt—a theory backed by the way he forced Culebra to sit up. "How do you feel, Holiness?"
Holiness? "Awful," Culebra said. "Why did you make us do that? What is going on?"
"Don't you feel any different?"
"No," Culebra snapped. "All I feel is—" he stopped when he realized that wasn't true. The buzzing in the back of his mind that he had attributed to the quaking was a sharper awareness of the deaths all around him. People had died in the earthquake.
He also knew, he realized, that a couple of men in the room were slowly dying. They were sick. One would not die for years, but the other would be dead in a matter of weeks. The others, he realized in the next breath, would die of violent deaths someday. Possibly the next day, possibly in several years, but their life threads did not fray out—they were cut.
It wasn't until Cortez gasped beside him and clutched at his hand that Culebra realized those thoughts of violent death had not come from him.
"What's going on?" Cortez asked, and the fact she sounded tearful terrified Culebra. "What have you d-done to us?"
Jorge laughed and then replied, "It's pitiful how much of its own history Piedre has forgotten. The books in the library of Unheilvol hold more information than your entire country. It's really quite pathetic."
"What has that to do with your torturing us, waking my powers—because I can see that is what you have somehow managed to do, though I do not know what Cortez has to do with any of it."
"Has the Black Princesa never wondered why she had such a knack, such an instinct, for violent deaths? You are legend for taking only certain jobs—those that you say feel right. Because you only kill those who were meant to die violently and whose violent deaths were close."
Cortez's hand fumbled, found Culebra's, and squeezed it painfully tight; Culebra found himself squeezing back just as tightly. "What's going on?" Cortez asked again.
"Once upon a time," Jorge said, "there existed two types of priests under the Basilisk: the Holy Order of the White Rose oversaw the ceremonies for those who died natural deaths the Holy Order of the Black Rose oversaw the ceremonies for those who died unnatural deaths. Very different ceremonies and spells were required to see the souls returned to the arms of Holy Zhar Ptitsa. But all those priests still fell under the Brotherhood of the Stone Rose."
"Would you please come to your point?" Culebra snapped, though he had a horrible, sneaking suspicion that he knew what revelation Jorge was leading them toward.
Jorge laughed again and said, "Have you never thought it strange, highness, that you are so weak? The only power that marks you as a god is your eyes. Otherwise, you might only be a man with a skin condition. You are weak, helpless."
"I am not entirely without power," Culebra said softly.
"No, but you lack the courage to tap it, to use it. Most of that is because part of your soul is missing—the part of you, of the Basilisk, that oversaw unnatural deaths. Violent deaths. Your powers are woken now because you have shared blood with the missing piece of your soul. The White Prince and the Black Princesa reunite at last, and the true power of the Basilisk wakes with the trembling of the earth."
Culebra had never wanted to rip his bandages off so badly in his life. If he did it, he could destroy them all, leave no one alive. End the matter right there.
But he also risked killing people who did not deserve to die. All deaths came in their time, and to steal a life before its time was up was cruel. He was a god of death, but he was not cruel.
"Hastiness is always a mistake anyway," Cortez said softly. "We will need your eyes later; for now, keep them covered."
Could they read one another's minds? He could not read Cortez's, though. Yet even as he thought it, he realized he could. Perhaps it only took his realizing it. He would have smiled, amused and confounded by it all, if he was not so busy being terrified about why Jorge wanted the Basilisk's powers woken. "What are you going to do with us?"
"I am going to let the two of you show me the way to the Lost Temple," Jorge said.
"We have no idea where to begin looking," Culebra replied. "It's called the Lost Temple for a reason."
"It's somewhere in the Azul, and now that your powers are woken you will be able to find it again. If I am correct in my theories then that is where the last of your power remains locked away."
Cortez swore. "What do you mean, the last of our power? We have no more power."
A lie, Culebra knew instantly. That was a lie. He hadn't killed himself. He had been murdered. How he knew that suddenly, he did not know, but he knew it as well as his own name.
He had died all those years ago after someone had tried to take his power—not just because he had dominion over Death, but because he had dominion over Death and Destruction.
Chapter Fourteen: Azul Mountain
"Grab them, bind them, and get them out to the horses. You two will remain here and guard the captives. If you see my mark, kill them."
Cortez recoiled when the men tried to grab her and slammed the heel of her boot into one man's shriveled dick. Bolting from the couch, she raced across the room to where Fidel still lay prone on the floor. "Fidel! Fidel! I will never forgive you for being asleep, you bastard!"
His eyes jerked open, but before he woke up enough Cortez was grabbed from behind and something hard slammed down on her head. She fell on top of Fidel, vision going gray for a moment. She couldn't pass out. If she passed out, all was lost.
A hand grabbed her hair, twisted painfully, and yanked her to her feet. She was turned roughly around, and as she faced the bastard who had grabbed her she slammed her head into his face. He roared in pain, and she shoved him away as she stole his sword—
And froze when she saw the violet-eyed monster had a knife pressed to Fidel's throat. "Surrender, Princesa. You have no choice here. What do you think will happen if you try to flee? Your powers have been woken now. You are the piece of the Basilisk's soul that calls to and controls violent deaths. You are the soul of destruction. If you try to flee, those powers will eventually grow increasingly unstable. Is that what you want? For your temper to someday cause an earthquake? No, you will eventually be called to the Azul where the last piece of you is hidden away. Without that piece, destruction will eventually get the better of you."
Cortez gritted her teeth against an angry retort, but let the sword fall, withdrawing to sit once more w
ith Culebra. She felt infinitely better when she was touching him. Steadier, stronger.
Holy gods, how was she a piece of a god? Everyone knew the Basilisk Prince was the only reincarnation of the Basilisk. No one had ever said anything about their being a stray piece. How had some violet-eyed bastard known what her entire country did not?
She held reluctantly still while they bound her hands, but going along meekly when they led her outside and secured her to the saddest looking horse she'd ever seen was much more difficult. "This horse will not make it to the mountains, never mind go up them."
"Once we reach the Azul, we will be going on foot," Jorge said. "The forest is too dense for horses. Now douse it, or we will gag you."
"Fidel will be all right if we cooperate? Dario as well?"
"Yes," Jorge said. "I don't care about them except that they get you to cooperate. If you obey, they live. If you don't, they die."
"But if we don't and they die, you have nothing left to force us to cooperate."
"That is when innocents will start dying," Jorge said. "I can guess how much you will approve of that."
Cortez bit back a curse and reluctantly subsided.
"Why are you doing this?" Culebra demanded, but Cortez could feel his thoughts on the matter. They couldn't share every thought, or maybe they just didn't know how, but she knew what he was thinking in regards to Jorge and the Lost Temple.
Jorge wanted their power, wanted to steal it. He was going to take them up the mountain and sacrifice them in the temple to steal the power of the Basilisk. But why?
Culebra had no theories on that, but Cortez did, sort of: his eyes were violet.
He's a shadow child?
Yes
What are we going to do?
Cortez shook her head, conceding she had no idea. Whatever they did, it risked killing Fidel and Dario. While the cold part of her said those deaths were reasonable given that the only other option was to let Jorge take their power, it simply was not a price she was willing to pay. However selfish that made her, she did not care.
