In the Shadow of the Gods

by Rachel Dunne

  “What’s wrong with you?” Aro demanded.

  “I don’t like it here.”

  Aro puffed out his cheeks, blew air at her. “You’re being dumb.”

  “I’m not!” She rounded on him, trying to shake her finger in his face until the pain reminded her not to move her arm. It just fueled her anger anyway. “You don’t even know him. You shouldn’t trust him. You trust too much. We can’t trust anyone but each other.”

  “We trusted Kala.”

  “Yeah, and look what happened. She would’ve had us killed, and now she’s dead. That’s why you can’t trust anyone!” The tears sprang into his eyes, and guilt hit her like a punch. She went to him, wrapped her good arm around him, held him as he cried against her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Aro. That was mean of me.”

  “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  She hushed him gently, stroked his hair the way their father had always done in her dim memory of him. “I know, little bird, I know. But don’t you see? We’ve got each other. We don’t need anyone else. Other people just . . . they make things messy.”

  He sniffled, wiping his nose across his sleeve. “I thought . . . thought we could be happy here. I just want us to be happy.”

  Rora made herself smile. I’m a better actor, she silently taunted Nadaro. “We’ll be happy so long as we stick together, hey? I’ll always keep us safe.”

  She waited until it was dark and the house was quiet. Aro had fallen asleep, but he woke up easy enough. “Do you trust me?” she asked him as he blinked away sleep, and he nodded with all the seriousness in his little body. She grabbed a few trinkets that looked valuable, and then she and Aro ghosted down the stairs in the darkness. There was a door off the kitchen that Rora figured was their best bet, even though it meant creeping past the servant boy who slept in front of the kitchen hearth; he slept like a lump, so she wasn’t too worried. He wasn’t even there when they snuck by, probably gone to sleep with the other servants since the night was warm enough, and Rora thought how lucky they were.

  “Where are you going, little birds?”

  Rora near jumped out of her skin with fright, and Aro let out a small yelp. The fire was low, but as her eyes darted around the room, she could make out a shape in front of the kitchen door, blocking the way to outside. Nadaro, she saw as she stared hard as she could, sitting in a chair that was leaned back against the door.

  “Aro was hungry,” Rora quickly lied, and stomped on her brother’s foot before he could get a word in.

  Nadaro chuckled, a low sound that felt like it echoed all around her. “You’re a poor liar, Rora.”

  She bristled. Better liar than you are. “I’m not a liar.”

  “And there you go, doing it again. We’ll have to train that out of you, my dear, if you’re going to be any use.”

  The fire was low, but it gave off enough light that Rora could see his eyes, glowing in the darkness like they were the flames. Moving slow, she pushed Aro behind her, making sure she was between her brother and Nadaro. “What d’you mean?”

  “You owe me, Rora. Or have you forgotten already? You owe me your arm, and you owe me your life. What’s more, you owe me your brother’s life. No debt goes unpaid. How many favors is your arm worth? What value do you put on your life?” There was a low scraping sound, and though the fire was low, she saw its light gleam off metal. A long dagger, held across his lap as he dragged a sharpening stone across it. “You’re young still, of course, too young. But you’ll grow, and you will repay your debt, both of you.”

  Rora wanted to stand her ground, to show him she wasn’t afraid, but she was shaking inside, every part of her screaming. In the Canals, you listened to anyone with a knife or you got your throat cut out. Those were the rules. Even this far from the Canals, it seemed like a dumb rule to break, and that was the biggest dagger she’d ever seen, too.

  “I think we understand each other,” Nadaro said, and there was a smile on his face. His eyes were still made of fire. “I told you when we met that nothing was free. But allow me to give you some advice, little Rora. You don’t want to defy me. Now go back to bed.”

  She couldn’t see any way around it, so she started backing up slowly, pushing Aro back out toward the hallway, never taking her eyes off Nadaro. She was nearly back into the shadows when he called out softly, “Oh, and Rora? You might do well to remember that I hold your life—both your lives—in my hands still. Even if you did get out, how far do you think you would get once I started shouting that I’d spotted twins?”

  Rora went cold all over, and behind her Aro made a strangled little whimper. “She knew, she knew, she knew,” Aro sobbed from the middle of a puddle of blood. “We’re not—”

  Nadaro cut her off. “Yes, you are.” The smile almost reached his eyes as he said, “You could at least try to hide it better. Do you even know what your names mean?”

  Girl and boy in the Old Tongue, their father’s favorite joke until his laughs turned to coughs and he didn’t wake up. She just stared at Nadaro, numb with fear.

  “You will stay with me,” he went on, “and serve me, and in return I will keep your secret. I’ll keep the whole city from tearing you both limb from limb. But only if you pay off your debt to me. Do we understand each other, Rora?”

  Her stomach was spinning in knots and it felt like her throat was closing up, like someone was squeezing a hand slowly around her neck. All she could do was nod and shove Aro away, pushing him ahead of her as they fled back up the stairs. It took a while, but she got the big desk pushed in front of the door before she went to sit on the bed where Aro was curled up in a miserable, crying ball. “I can’t do the bad thing,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry, Rora, I can’t, I can’t . . .” She hushed him, stroked his hair, soft and clean, and told him she would take care of things, to trust her. He fell asleep eventually, but she stayed up staring at the door until light peeked in through the windows. Aro woke up puffy-eyed from so much crying, but Rora’s cheeks were dry, and though it felt heavy as a chunk of metal, her heart was hard and full of purpose.

  She left Aro sleeping in the room when she snuck out the next night and retraced her steps, tiptoeing down to the kitchen. The servant boy was in his usual place before the low-burning fire, but he slept hard, snoring, not so much as twitching as she moved through the kitchen like a ghost. She glanced at the outside door, just once, but she couldn’t leave Aro behind.

  The cook was a very organized woman; everything had its own place, and the Parents help anyone who didn’t know her system. Rora’d only been in the kitchen once, outside of these two nightly trips, but she hadn’t needed more’n a moment to memorize the location of the most important things. She had to climb up onto the chopping block to reach, but her groping fingers found a bone handle and pulled. The sharp-pointed carving knife came free from its slot with a whisper, a sturdy blade twice as long as her hand, and Rora looked at it with awe, a slash of her face reflecting back at her, one brown eye, the side of her nose, the corner of her mouth. She’d never held a real knife before, never held any weapon more’n a sharp piece of metal she’d found half buried in the Canals. It was dangerous, and intoxicating. It was power, pure and simple, something else she’d never had before.

  The fingers on her right hand were still a little stiff, not moving too well, and with the arm in a sling it wasn’t like she could do much with it anyway. So she kept the knife in her left hand, awkward as it felt, and curled her fingers tight around the handle, holding her new power with reverence and excitement as she crept back up the staircase.

  Nadaro’s room was the one place in the big house she’d never been into, but she didn’t hesitate outside the door. It was unlocked; all the doors except the ones outside were always unlocked. She nudged it open real slow, just far enough so she could slip in all quiet, the knife held out in front of her. Her heart was pounding fast, so fast inside her chest, a mix of thrill and terror. The door closed just as quiet as it had opened.

  The fire had burned
down to coals, giving off a dull red glow. A bit of moonlight leaked in through the window, enough light that she could make out the furniture, not too different from her and Aro’s room. Big bed, taking up most of the space, and deep sleeping breaths coming from it. She moved forward on the balls of her feet, fingers twitching nervously on the knife’s hilt.

  Sleeping, he didn’t look so bad. Just a getting-old man with a stern face, and even that wasn’t so mean when he was sleeping. But he was mean, she told herself, said it over and over in her head, called up all the things he’d said last night, all the threats. He’d kill them, maybe not soon, but one day, and treat them worse than slaves up until he put a knife in them. He’d kill her sweet Aro, unless she did something about it. She lifted up the knife, clumsy in her left hand, and stared at a spot on his chest, the spot right above where she could almost swear she could hear his heart beating steady. For Aro, she thought.

  But the knife wouldn’t move. Her hand started to shake and she felt that awful pressure behind her nose, the one that meant she had to fight back the tears. Crying was for weak people. Aro was weak, she knew that, but she had to be strong for him. She clenched her fingers tighter around the bone hilt. For Aro!

  Her hand dropped, bearing the knife down with it, and fell dangling at her side. Her head drooped forward, those damned tears pricking at her eyes. She couldn’t do it. She was weak, too.

  “Do it!”

  Nadaro’s eyes were open, shining black in the darkness, and his face was all twisted up. It was a smile, she realized, taking a scared step back. A smile that actually reached his eyes, and it was awful.

  “Do it, you coward,” he hissed, baring his teeth at her like a wild animal.

  Even though her mouth tasted like fear, she still held the knife tight in her hand, still had power. She tried to summon any courage. “I could,” she said, her voice like a frog’s croak. She forced her back straighter, glaring with a bravery she was nowhere close to feeling. “But I’m sparing your life instead. A life for a life, that’s how we do it in the Canals.”

  “My life,” he said slowly, “for yours?” That horrible smile stretched back over his face, made her knees feel like jelly. “Then go, Rora. Leave. Your life is yours. But I only have one life, silly little bird. You need two.”

  Aro. She could go, but Nadaro would keep her brother. That was no kind of choice at all. “No. Aro comes with me. I—I could still kill you.” She shook the knife at him, as if that was any kind of threat.

  He moved fast as a snake, sitting up to face her, grabbing her hand that held the knife. She squawked in surprise, but he brought the tip of the knife to rest against his own chest. “Then do it!” His fingers were tight around hers, both his hands wrapped around her hand wrapped around the knife. She gaped up into the black pits of his eyes. “Kill me,” he hissed. She tried to pull her hand back, pull the knife away, but he was too strong. “Kill me, or I’ll go kill your brother.” One of his hands let go of hers and suddenly there was a second knife, the long dagger he’d been sharpening in the kitchen last night. He pointed it right between her eyes, then waved it in the direction of the hallway, the blade flashing a hairsbreadth from the tip of her nose. “Could you live with that for the rest of your life, Rora? Knowing that you’re the reason he died?”

  His hand squeezed around hers, around the carving knife. She couldn’t breathe, panic pounding through her whole body; her hand would’ve shook if Nadaro hadn’t held it steady. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” Aro sobbed, except it was her voice.

  Nadaro’s face twisted with hatred, and he started to stand.

  The panic flowed through Rora, a burst of mindless alarm—Aro!—and her hand moved.

  The dagger dropped from Nadaro’s fingers, clattered to the floor.

  His fingers slipped from hers, hers slipped from the carving knife, and she scrambled back. The knife stayed where it was, in the middle of a spreading circle of red.

  Nadaro looked at the knife in his chest, looked at Rora, and started to laugh. A high, crazy sound, the sound of every bad thing in the world, a sound that wasn’t really human.

  “The shadows know you, girl,” he gasped in between spasms of laughter, blood dripping down the knife’s pale bone handle, plopping to the floor. “The darkness knows your name, and it never rests. My brothers and sisters will find you.” He slumped forward, falling onto the floor, falling into the pool of his own blood, and still he laughed. Still his black eyes stared into her. “They will follow you to the ends of the earth. The darkness never sleeps. You will never find peace. The shadows know your name.”

  The dagger was in her hand. She couldn’t remember picking it up, but it was in her right hand, the hand he’d saved. It barely even hurt as she planted the tip into his neck. The mad laughter stopped, cut off, changed to gurgles. She pulled the dagger free and stared down at him, watched the light go out of his eyes, waited until the breath stopped wheezing out through the hole in his neck.

  Her fingers flexed around the hilt of the dagger, and she held it up in front of her. A slash of her face, reflected for just a moment, until Nadaro’s blood leaked down the blade.

  She went to wake Aro, and smashed a window open with the big blue gem set into the dagger’s pommel. They climbed out of the window into a moonless night, and ran.

  CHAPTER 9

  Valastaastad seemed to hang in the empty air. A floating island held up by a broken cliff of stone and ice—a jagged arm of the Faltiik Mountains, reaching out to cup the clan-home in its palm. It was like something out of the fairy tales Mora the cook had sometimes told him and Brennon when they were younger. Valastaastad would be the home of an evil ice-giant who, through ancient magics, had raised his fortress high above the earth so that no one could rescue the princess he had stolen. For a brief, sweet moment Scal could imagine himself as the avenging warrior in shiny clothes, come to scale the impossible heights and free the beautiful princess.

  Then a ragged cheer went up from the Northmen, and Einas leered at him, rotten teeth thrust out from his matted beard. The moment broke. If anything, Scal was the princess who had been captured by the foul ice-giants. It was a dampening thought.

  “Welcome to your home,” Iveran said. Beneath the shaggy yellow beard, his cheeks were bright and a smile stretched his lips.

  Scal shook his head. “You burned my home.”

  “That was no home for no one, ijka. Just a prison. For you especially.”

  One of Scal’s former jailors, Uisbure, threw his arms wide. “Breathe the freedom!”

  Iveran nodded wisely, drew in a deep breath. “You will see one day,” he said to Scal. “Soon, I hope. That is all this is. Us setting you free. You will see, ijka.”

  Scal shook his head and, out of pure stubbornness, held his breath for as long as he could, until spots danced at the edges of his vision and his feet stumbled on the crunching snow. Iveran was there to steady him, grinning, as his lungs reflexively filled themselves.

  “You understand,” Iveran said.

  Scal had used every way he knew of telling the man he would never understand. Never accept. He just shook his head and stared at the ground, refusing to look as they drew nearer to his prison.

  He could not help but look, though, when they came to the solid wall of ice.

  Staring straight up, the cliff dwindled away to blend almost perfectly with the grim sky. And hovering between the icy peak and Scal’s craned neck was Valastaastad. Not floating in the sky, but built on a shelf of ice that hung out dangerously far into the open air. It must have been at least a dozen lengths up to it, and the shelf looked no more than a few lengths thick, with houses clustered all along it. Scal could not help gaping. It was a mind-bogglingly stupid place to build a village.

  “Impressive, eh?” Iveran said, grinning.

  Scal shook his head, groping for the right words to describe just how foolish it was. “The ice will break,” he said. “It is a miracle it has not already. The whole shelf will cru
mble away.”

  A full-bellied laugh boiled up out of Iveran’s throat. “Have some faith, ijka! Valastaastad has stood such for five generations. We may have thick skulls”—he rapped his knuckles sharply against the forehead of a passing Northman, who grinned in return—“but the ice is thicker.”

  Scal shook his head in mute denial, but Iveran and the others were already moving away, tramping under the ice shelf. The dogs raced ahead, barking eagerly. The sledges jouncing dangerously across the rough ground. The dog handlers racing alongside and laughing with the joy of it. Only Uisbure remained, bushy eyebrows raised high. He held a long spear in one gloved hand, its tip glimmering like a fallen star as he waved it toward the backs of the clan. Scal hunched his shoulders, fixed his eyes on the ice, and set his feet one before the other. Into the wide pool of shadow cast by the ice shelf. Trying not to think about the weight of ice above him. Wishing it were more so it would crumble and fall. Wishing it were less so that it would not crush him so bad when it did fall.

  He ached still, from the beating two days ago. Each breath sent jabs of pain through his chest, from the bruises and a few cracked ribs. He had to breathe heavily through his mouth, his nose broken and useless. With every breath he could hear a strange, faint whistling noise. It had taken him a while to understand that: the ragged edges of his new convict’s cross were starting to knit on their own, but his tongue could not leave the bloody edges alone, keeping the X in his cheek open enough for the wind to whistle through.

  His legs felt like the bones had been replaced with fire-fresh iron pokers, burning with every step. They let him walk, at least. Pain was better than the shame of being carried like a trussed pig. Pride is a fool’s refuge, Kerrus whispered at the back of his mind, and his body wanted to agree. But he would not give Iveran the satisfaction. The cold was starting to seep into his skin, too, and he walked hunched over with his arms wrapped futilely around his chest to hold the heat in. To hold himself together. The rest of the Northmen had thick furs to fight off the cold, and even their cheeks were rosy. None of them had offered him anything warmer than his own clothes. He was not about to ask for any. We endure, Kerrus had said. Sometimes just getting by is a great accomplishment.