In the Shadow of the Gods

by Rachel Dunne

  She paused, then, with the shutter half open and the wind trying to push it shut, and listened. For any noise from inside the room, a sleepy question, an angry exclamation, a terrified shout. But it was quiet, safe as could be, so she stuck her legs in through the window and dropped down to the floor.

  Buildings in Iceblood always seemed to hold on to the cold wind that blew in off Lake Baridi, and it was colder inside than it’d been even with the wind always blowing on her outside. It was still quiet, though, so she reached up to slowly pull the shutter closed. That made it dark in the room, but Tare and Goat had taught her patience, making her lie in a pit of snakes—little ones, they didn’t have any venom, but they still had big teeth that hurt like a bitch—that’d get angry if she much as breathed wrong. So she stayed crouched low beneath the window, waiting till her eyes adjusted to the dark, and then she crept toward the dim outline of the bed. She pulled her dagger out as she went, the long knife with the blue gem in its hilt. She always felt calmer holding it, felt more like she was in control of everything, even if she had to use her left hand. Her right one, the whole arm, had never seemed to work right since it’d been stomped on.

  “Where’s your brother, Rora?”

  Reflexively she dropped into a low crouch even as she spun around, eyes darting in the darkness. Blackhands, that was her first thought, some kind of ambush, but then her blood went cold when she realized what the voice had called her. Her name, the name no one but Aro knew.

  There was a whisper of noise, and across the room in the fireplace, flames grew slowly to life—blue flames that hardly seemed to move, just flicker, an unnatural light. With it she could see a woman standing there, covered and cowled in a black robe, a small smile playing over her face, dancing with the light.

  “Who’re you?” Rora demanded, flexing her fingers around the hilt of her dagger. Something had gone awful here, but Rora would put up plenty of fight if it came to it.

  The woman’s smile widened. “I am the shadows,” she said, “and I know your name.”

  It hit her like a punch, the words from so long ago that always came back to her on dark nights, in moments of fear, the words she could never forget no matter how hard she tried. The darkness knows your name, Nadaro had said with a knife in his chest, and it never rests.

  “You didn’t think we’d forgotten about you, did you, Rora?” The woman asked it like they were talking about the weather. Moving careful slow even though she wanted to run far as she could, Rora moved one foot back toward the window, her best escape. Across the room, the woman stepped with her. “Don’t you remember? ‘To the ends of the earth.’ You are marked, Rora. We know your name.”

  There was the part she hadn’t even told Aro, the part that still gave her nightmares, jerked her awake covering her own mouth to hide the screams: My brothers and sisters will find you.

  “You are ours, Rora.” Another slow step toward the window, mirrored by the other woman. She was in front of the fire now, looking like nothing so much as a featureless shadow standing there, and a whimper crept up out of Rora’s throat. “You’ve always been ours.”

  It was cold in the room, so cold, the fire that wasn’t a fire not doing any good. Rora wanted to dash to the window, fling herself out through the shutters and drop three stories to the ground, anything to get out, but it was so cold her muscles were stiff, uncooperative. It was all she could do to take another crouched step toward the window. Through chattering teeth, trying and failing to use the tough voice Tare’d taught her, Rora asked, “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  “I already told you, Rora.” She stepped forward this time, toward Rora, shrinking the distance between them. “I am the shadows. I know your name.” Another step closer, the blue flames throwing her shadow across Rora. She flinched away, but the cold held her tight, immobile. “You have been given to us. Promised by blood. Promised by Nadaro Madri.” A step, another, Rora’s eyes fixed involuntarily on the woman’s blank face as she drew closer, towering above her, blotting out the light and the world. “I have come to take you home,” the shadow said, reaching out. “You belong to the shadows, Rora. Your life is ours.” Fingers brushed against her cheek, burning like red-hot iron, and Rora screamed.

  Somewhere, dimly, so very far away, a voice that was so like her own shouted, “Rora!”

  Her knife seemed to move almost on its own.

  There was the flash of it before her eyes, a silver blur, and then a burst of red, a scream to match her own. The hand bounced off her knee before it hit the floor, leaving a smear of blood. In the flickering blue light, Rora leaped for the window, flung herself through the shutters. She caught a clothesline halfway down, slowed her fall enough she could drop down the rest of the way with little more than a shot of pain from her foot up to her hip, but nothing that would slow her down now. She was running even as she landed.

  Her life, after all, had never really been her own.

  She ran all the way back to South Quarter, feet flying over the streets, gasping for air by the time she swung down into the Canals. She near leaped over the canals, didn’t slow till she got to the edge of Whitedog Pack territory, and only then because she couldn’t’ve answered any questions the eyes might ask. She made herself walk slow and calm, even though her heart was still screaming and she wanted to scream, too. She clutched at the hilt of her knife, held it like a prayer, and somehow made it to the den.

  Aro was awake when she found him, his eyes as big as she thought hers probably were. “You’re okay?” he demanded in a whisper. There was no one nearby, but you learned early on to whisper, just in case.

  “We have to leave,” she said for an answer, though the words came out more a scared sob than a whisper.

  He didn’t argue, bless him, he knew after all the years when to argue and when to just listen. There wasn’t time for packing, wasn’t anything to pack when it came down to it, but the screaming in her chest was making her desperate to get out. They took nothing more than what they wore, and they left. Back the way Rora’d just come and up the first ladder they came to. It didn’t matter whose territory they came up on, not anymore. Soon as they hit solid ground, Rora was running again, and Aro at her side. They left Mercetta through the small South Gate and didn’t stop running, because with every step Rora heard and reheard, To the ends of the earth. To the ends of the earth. To the ends of the earth.

  CHAPTER 21

  Work was hard to come by. Harder than Scal had expected. Though he could not fault himself, or the opportunities. It was late in the season, but there were always travelers. There were always men who felt the danger of the world, and chose to fight it with money and other men’s swords. Few travelers, though, would want a disfigured merra trailing in their wake. Few men would wish to hire a guard followed by a burned woman.

  He had made a decision on the ride to Sivistri. It had been partly because of the night when he had sung, though he did not like to think of it. Mostly, he told himself, it was because of the ride. With Vatri at his left and slightly behind, he had found his words easier, not having to look at her. He could answer the questions she asked. With few words, though. He always held on to his words, giving them out carefully. She had asked simple questions. Where he was going. Where he had been. What plans he had. She had not asked about his snowbear cloak, or the claw pendant, or how he had gotten his scars.

  In Sivistri, he had spoken to her as he tied Hevnje to a post, so that he would not see her face as the words came. “There are men who are made to walk alone in the world. There are men whose lives are made harder when there is another. I am not in the habit of traveling with a companion.” It was more words, almost, then he had yet spoken to her, all tallied. “I am not in the habit, also, of telling others what they must do. Or where they may or may not go.” He had tied the last knot, and then looked at her eyes. “I do not wish to travel with you. I will not tell you to leave.”

  He had not been surprised when she had followed him still.


  So she was with him, and he had said he would not tell her to leave. He was not a man to break his word. Yet, as a man keeping his word, he could not say that it was filling his coin purse.

  She had said he did not need to work, showing him the bag she had that was full of coins. “I’m here to help you,” she had said.

  It was not his way. He had been told, many different times, that such was the way of the North. A man did not take things freely offered. He did not know if he had learned that from Iveran, but it seemed the right way. He would not take her money, or let her use it on him. A man lived by his own means. When his own coins were gone, he slept outside instead of at inns. He hunted for his food instead of buying it. Hevnje grazed instead of eating grain. That was how things went, in the life of a wandering sword. The merra did not like any of it, but she was not as stubborn as Scal.

  They were west of Mercetta, the capital, and Scal was beginning to grow frustrated. Here, at the center of Fiatera, there would be few men looking for guards: most noblemen and merchants so close to the capital maintained their own garrisons. Scal did not wish to bind himself so fully as to join one of those companies. He traveled alone.

  “Where are we going?” Vatri asked, shifting uncomfortably in her saddle. She had said riding put an ache in her hips. Still, she did not complain of it often.

  Scal sighed. “We go north.”

  She made a face at him. “We just came from the north.”

  “There will be no work here. It will take too long to reach the trading cities in the south.” He gave her a glance, measuring. It was easier, now, to look at her. The hills and ridges carved into her skin grew easier to ignore, with time. “I go north. You should go to Mercetta. It is not so far.”

  She gave him a withering look. The same look she had given him each time he had suggested she leave. She did not need to say anymore that she was not leaving. The look spoke for her well enough. Still, he could try.

  They did not take the same path they had just traveled. Such would be foolishness. They rode through the fields and forests for a time, going east. Toward the capital, though it made Scal’s skin itch. He did not like cities. They seemed an unnatural thing to him. Too many men in too little space. Cities reminded him of a cold, walled-in place from another life, and the charred smell that covered those memories. The countryside gave way, though, to a road Scal knew. There would be a town, not too far away, with an inn where he had often found work. He had some coins left, from a barn he had helped a farmer to repair. Vatri, with her yellow hood pulled low, had blessed the farm without the man seeing her face. The farmer had counted himself lucky. They could stay at the inn for a night. Two, perhaps. He could make the merra stay in the barn, so that he could find a job for himself. The thought drew up one corner of his mouth.

  They did not make the town by the time the sun began to lower, and so they made camp. It had been an unspoken thing between them, since that first night. To have a fire made before the sun was gone.

  Vatri tried to read the flames, as she did every night. She had had little success. More success than Scal, who saw only red and yellow and orange dancing. This night, too, she ground her teeth in frustration. “It’s the same damned thing,” she said.

  She had as foul of a mouth as Parro Kerrus had had. Scal had asked her if they taught cursing, too, at the convents and monasteries. She had sworn colorfully, cheerfully at him.

  “White?” he asked.

  “White,” she repeated glumly. “All I see is white, with a lump of coal lying in the middle. It means nothing. It’s never been like this before.” She swore again, vehemently, and then growled a perfunctory plea for forgiveness to the Parents. “It doesn’t make any sense! How can I be any help if I can’t read what they’re trying to tell me?”

  Scal shrugged. “Things will happen as they are meant to.” It was a thing Parro Kerrus had told him, long ago.

  Stubbornly the merra shook her head. “It’s not supposed to be like that.” Her eyes narrowed at him, as if she were thinking. “I told you I was godmarked. Do you know what that means?” Scal shook his head. It was not a word he knew, nothing the parro had taught him. Vatri touched her neck, where the skin had formed hard bubbles. “I was born with the mark of a flame here, a darker spot on my skin. It means I was claimed by the gods, destined to be their servant. To serve them in ways no other could. That’s why Metherra speaks to me, so that I can do the bidding of the gods.”

  Scal frowned into the fire. He had revered the Parents for most of his life, since Parro Kerrus had shown him the everflame and told him all the old stories. He had followed all the teachings. Said a prayer each night and morning. Carried their flame in and next to his heart. But never had he thought of himself as a servant of the gods. He could not imagine that the Parents could care so deeply about the life of one mortal. It was hard, sometimes, to understand what Vatri was trying to tell him.

  “I can’t help them,” she said, still angry, “if I don’t know where they want me to be, or what they want me to do! It’s impossible. And you”—she jabbed a sharp finger into his chest—“are no help at all. I found you, but you’re not doing anything! You’re useless.”

  It was not the first time she had said such things. Scal did not bother to respond. He poured her a bowl of onion broth with the last stringy chunks of a rabbit he had caught some days ago. She ate, still growling angrily into her food.

  There had been a space between them, in the beginning. A space as wide across as one side of the fire to the other. The space had gone, piece by piece. Even angry at him, she sat at his side. The days and nights were growing colder. Winter beginning to wrap its fingers around the trees, sink its toes into the ground, blow a small cold laugh into the wind. Vatri had only a threadbare cloak. She would sit with him, under the snowbear pelt, to share the warmth. She would not share it with him at night, nor let him give it to her. He would, though, once her eyes drifted shut, laying the pelt over her small form. She would protest, in the morning. He would do it again the next night. His blood was warm enough to stand the cold.

  Twice more that night she tried to read the flames. Each time she threw up her hands and swore so loudly it woke birds, chattering down at them. Which only made her more furious. It made Scal laugh, to watch her screaming at the birds. He did not remember the last time he had laughed. She screamed at him, too, for the laughter, and then she went to sleep. It was her way, he believed, of spiting the Parents. He would never claim to understand her ways. He laid the pelt over her shoulders when she began to shiver.

  They came to the town before midday on the next day. It was warm within the inn, too warm almost, though the merra huddled happily near the hearthfire. There was a fresh-cooked lamb whose flank they shared, and a strong, heavy ale that made Scal think of the ice and the snow and two bodies burning. They spoke little. Vatri did not like inns. Rather, she did not like the people one found at inns. Scal could feel the eyes on them. She would be feeling the looks more than he. She had said once, defiantly, that she did not care if people stared at her. It was not true, though. That was clear from the way she grew so quiet. Grew so small.

  A hand touched Scal’s shoulder. Shaking. So delicate so as to hardly be a touch at all.

  Turning, Scal saw the man. He was tall, maybe taller than Scal even, though it was hard to tell when sitting. Hook-nosed, black-haired, pale-faced. There was a strange staining on his lips, black smudges and smears. Beneath the travel stains, the robe he wore looked to be black. A dangerous color. His entire body was trembling. Eyes huge as he stared at Scal.

  “You’re a fighter?” he asked. His eyes flickered to the sword hilt poking over Scal’s shoulder, and he gulped.

  Scal sized the man up. The same way he did every potential employer. He could not claim to be impressed, and he did not like the black robe. Still he said, “I am.”

  “And are you”—another hard swallow, a tremor that momentarily rocked him—“for hire?”

  “I
am,” Scal said again.

  “Would you please come with me?”

  Scal nodded and rose. Vatri touched his arm. It looked as if she might have been trying to raise her eyebrows in question. He shrugged. He knew she would follow whether he asked her to stay or not. If she did not go with him, she would hide around a corner or crouch outside a door. She rose. Together they followed the shaking man up the steps, to one of the small rooms the innkeeper rented for much more than they were worth. The room was cold, the window wide open to the wintry breeze. A single man sat in a chair in the center of the room. Seeing him, Scal had cause to wonder what he had done to so vex the Parents.

  The man waiting was burned. Not so badly as Vatri. More recently than Vatri. Still, it was not a pleasant thing to see. His hair was missing from the right side of his head, the skin beneath and around red and angry. He had recently shaved away a beard, for the skin where it would have been was pale where it hadn’t been touched by flame. His left arm hung in a sling, the lump of clumsy bandages visible under the black cloth that covered his shoulder. His black robe was cleaner than the other’s, a more obvious black. When his eyes flicked to the merra, his face curled. It was a look Scal had seen often, on the faces of those who saw her. His eyes did not stay on her long, though. The shaking man knelt next to his chair, mumbled words Scal could not hear. The burned man pressed a jar into his hand, and he retreated to a corner, cradling the pot.