No Earthly Treason

by Genevra Black

  “Two traitors for the price of one,” she said mournfully.

  Around Marius, the dying sounds of battle became muffled in his ears. Only the thump of his own pulse and Ynga’s words reached him now. He had been forced prostrate, his forehead against the bloody flagstones.

  “I don’t understand,” the new vivid whispered, sounding like she was trying as hard as he was to stay upright and conscious, “how you could let this happen. Look at all of them … us … dead. Because of you!”

  From above him came a wave of heat and a whine. He didn’t have to look to know that she was raising her sword for the killing blow. This room was too small for him to unleash his aura. He would defeat Ynga, but hurt Edie and Cal and Satara along with her.

  He closed his eyes. If he could muster the strength to get up….

  Without warning, a desperate roar rose from somewhere in front of him. The skin on the back of his neck stung as a giant blast of radiant magic flew over him and slammed into Ynga. There was a loud clang as she hit the back wall and toppled over.

  Marius’s heart was pumping slower now, the stink of his own flesh in his nose. It was only through sheer force of will that he was able to look up to try and find his savior.

  The fighting had all but died. In the corner, Satara impaled Tiralda on her spear, digging the head of it into the wall so that the sorceress was pinned like a twitching insect. The Radiant army had fallen, but Cal was picking off the few vivids who had managed to survive Edie’s deathtrap. Edie herself lay on the floor, half-awake and breathing evenly.

  And in front of him … his father. Somehow, though he had been hit with the full force of the hellerune’s death magic, he was still alive. He lay on his side like a dying fish, tear-filled eyes staring at his son. Radiant magic still glowed in his palm as he dropped his left hand.

  Marius’s heart ached. His father, the traitor, the liar … in that moment, he couldn’t understand. He almost wished he didn’t know.

  Were they going to die here? Why all this fighting just to die? What had they gained? As Marius struggled to his knees and crawled closer, he didn’t know whether to slit his father’s throat or hold him.

  The vivid gripped the altar and pulled himself to his feet … but after a couple of limping steps, he stopped. A strange twinkling sound had filled the room, like a million little bells.

  Marius watched in awe as an arched doorway filled with glittering orange-gold light opened behind his father. Eirik searched his son’s expression, then craned his neck to glance at the doorway, too. When he saw it, his whole body relaxed. Marius watched his father’s profile practically glow with awe, surprise, and … relief.

  Eirik dragged himself up as if called by something unearthly and faced the doorway.

  Marius glanced between them, frantic. Father was trying to leave, to run. “Stop,” he rasped, his entire body shaking from the effort it took to keep standing up. “Tell me … tell me where Indriði is.”

  Eirik had turned to look at him, equally as ashen as his son. “She’s gone. Done with me, I imagine.”

  Marius shook harder. His eyes, cheeks, and the tips of his ears had become unbearably hot, almost matching the wound in his shoulder. Warm tears spilled. He didn’t want them, he hated them, but they didn’t care. They came thick and fast, burning his neck and wetting his collar.

  His father still hadn’t moved. Tears streaked his face, too, as he searched his son’s face, trying to find words.

  Finally, Marius ground out, “Why?”

  “I love you. I’m so sorry,” Eirik whispered.

  “No. That’s not enough. You made an oath. You have to … you have to pay, like a traitor pays.”

  His father took a deep breath and looked him dead in the eye. “Marius, your father is not a traitor.” He glanced over his shoulder at the doorway, then back, new tears welling in his eyes. “Thank the gods, I am not a traitor.”

  Marius’s heart beat hard in his throat as a wave of pain washed over him. The secret.

  He had to know.

  His voice was thin and wavering like heat. The darkness was closing in. “Who am I?”

  Eirik closed his eyes, turned away, and stepped through the portal.

  No! All at once, adrenaline surged through Marius’s body. The pain turned into panic, darkness into desperation; his vision tunneled to focus on the portal alone. The orange-gold doorway was enveloping him almost before he realized he was sprinting towards it.

  Beyond the doorway, there was nothing but warm, coruscating yellow light. It was so bright that he couldn’t make out anything around him, but every muscle instantly relaxed. He could feel the heat skate across his skin and become absorbed, healing all his injuries. A sweet, ghostly hum filled his ears. Welcoming. Right. Home.

  He started to close his eyes.

  Then, something blossomed from the light. A figure. It was broad and wore a winged helmet, but the features were washed out, obscured in the blinding light. A glowing man.

  The man took him by the upper arms. For a moment, Marius thought he was going to embrace him.

  Then, with inhuman speed, he pushed him away. Marius was lifted off his feet by the force of it. In less than a second, the light and the humming disappeared, and he was soaring backward out of the portal.

  He hit the stone floor next to Edie. The last thing he heard before he was swallowed by darkness was the clamor of the temple guards bursting into the chapterhouse.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Warm light bathed Marius’s face, and the smell of clean, fresh linen surrounded him. His limbs were heavy after a dreamless sleep that felt like it had gone on for a year, and he kept his eyes closed, hoping to drift back into it. He didn’t want to wake up. He didn’t want to face whatever came next.

  Then—something warm stirring beside him. Someone, in bed with him, their back barely touching his bare arm. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know who it was. Like always, when he turned and reached for her, she was there. He hugged her close to his chest, perfectly content.

  Slowly, however, the memories began to come back; and with them, dread. It shook him, making his heart beat faster. His eyes flew open, and he sat up.

  He was in his bedroom. At first glance, everything looked normal. Was it possible that all the horror had been a bad dream? But no, his aching muscles told him otherwise. Ynga’s fiery blade had seared his flesh to the bone, and though whoever had grabbed him within that portal had healed him, they’d still hurled him onto a stone floor after. He had so little energy that his muscles trembled as he sat up straighter and moved to get out of bed.

  He stopped short when he noticed that things were out of place. The drawers of his dresser were pulled out; the trunk that belonged under his bed had been opened, its contents strewn along the floor. A weight settled in his stomach when he glanced over at the small table adjacent to his bed and saw a solitary issue of Rolling Stone smacked across its surface. They’d gone through his things.

  As he stood and crossed shakily to his dresser, someone knocked on the door—a forceful knock that demanded an answer. He pulled on a shirt and called out, “Come in.”

  A man in gold-and-bronze armor entered, and for a brief second, Marius thought it might be his father. Then his eyes darted to the man’s face. He was white but tan, with piercing blue eyes and a trim gray beard. Familiar—they had met before.

  “Radiant Oddfreyr.” Marius bowed his head. After everything, he didn’t know what else to say.

  “Marius,” he grunted tiredly, crossing to the small table and sitting without being invited. He gestured sharply for Marius to take the seat across from him.

  He did. The fact that he hadn’t called him Vivid was a bad sign.

  “A bit of light reading?” Oddfreyr asked flatly, picking the magazine up between his thumb and forefinger. “Did your new friends give this trash to you?”

  Marius said nothing.

  The Radiant’s nostrils flared. “You know why I’m here.”
>
  “You are the Radiant of the Mid-Atlantic Divine, sir,” Marius replied slowly, trying to keep his voice calm. “But I assume you’re here on behalf of the Divine Assembly.”

  “Indeed I am.”

  The international council of Aurora would not be pleased—about any of this. Marius hadn’t thought about what might happen after he fought his father. Then again, he hadn’t been expecting his fellow vivids to attack him. He closed his eyes, a sudden wave of grief washing over him. Ynga had been right. All that death, all those warriors. Gone, because of him.

  “Do you understand the gravity of what you’ve done, Marius, or shall I remind you?” When he didn’t answer, Oddfreyr continued. “Bringing a hellerune on hallowed ground. Bringing undead on hallowed ground, for that matter. Stealing and destroying holy relics. You killed forty people—that cuts the number of vivids in this province by nearly half.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Ynga Widearms. One of the only ones you didn’t slaughter.”

  “She lives?” Marius asked.

  A snort. “Barely.”

  Marius took a long, deep breath and exhaled through his mouth. “Then what happens now?”

  “No decision has yet been made. I leave for the Alltemple this afternoon. There, we will review and discuss whether you should be exiled, or executed, or….” Oddfreyr paused, tipping his head strangely. “Or made Radiant of the Rising Divine.”

  Marius clamped his jaw shut to keep it from dropping open. “What? Why would you do that?”

  “I never said there was a good chance of it, but the chance is non-zero.” Oddfreyr huffed. “You did root out and kill an oathbreaker. A Radiant, no less. Then again, he was your father. You could become the most powerful man on the East Coast … but chances are your family will languish in dishonor.”

  “Where is my father?” Marius asked tersely.

  “As far as anyone knows? He has been exiled.”

  He knit his brows. “But that’s not true. I saw him leave through some sort of portal.”

  The Radiant looked at him pointedly. “You saw nothing.”

  Marius’s body tingled with anger. There was an explanation. There was more to the story, and the Aurorans were more interested in covering it up than telling people what was going on. How could it be that the very people who preached speaking the truth were such heinous liars?

  “And the hellerune?” he muttered.

  Oddfreyr clenched his fists tighter. “She and her friends escaped, unfortunately—and left you behind, at the mercy of the Aurora, I might add. But there’s what you get for trusting Reach scum. They have no conviction. No loyalty.”

  Marius’s heart sank. They had abandoned him? Of course, the temple was a wildly dangerous place for them to be, but he would have pulled any of them out were he in their shoes. He’d have found a way to bring them with him.

  Still, Oddfreyr thought Edie was evil, and Marius knew that wasn’t true. “The hellerune isn’t a threat to you.”

  “Hellerunan are a threat to everyone.”

  Marius kept every muscle in his body tightly controlled. “I don’t understand why. They were created by Hel. She’s a goddess; the Old Ways revered her.”

  “Yes,” Oddfreyr snapped back, “she is a goddess. Her hellerunan are mortal, and too powerful. We’ve seen time and time again, for centuries, that their power drives them to evil. They can’t be trusted and don’t belong in this universe.”

  Finally, Marius stood. “How you can say that when the Aurora uses necromancy, too?”

  Oddfreyr crossed his arms tightly, remaining seated. “Oh? Enlighten me.”

  “The bodies in the Golden Crypt were animated. They came back to life.”

  A pause. “That is not necromancy.”

  “Necromancy by another name, then! I saw them come to life, and she was able to save us by taking control of them. That’s death magic.”

  The Radiant stood abruptly. He had been speaking at a normal volume before, but all at once, he was shouting in Marius’s face, cheeks red and spit flying. “Keep your dirty mouth shut when you don’t know what you’re talking about! It is not the same, and if you can’t understand that, you aren’t fit to be Aurora!”

  Marius took a step back. The yelling was a shock to his system. His father never yelled, and he hadn’t had a mentor yell at him in years. For a brief moment, he wondered if Oddfreyr would draw his blade and kill him right then and there. No one would be able to do anything about it. The look in the Radiant’s icy eyes said he knew that.

  But thankfully, Oddfreyr pulled back. He regarded Marius with disgust as he spoke. “During the review and investigation period, you will be confined to this room. Good day.”

  He left quickly, and Marius was alone, his chest slowly filling with dread. He had found the tarnished underbelly of the Aurora’s golden facade. After an argument like that, he had little doubt as to what his sentence would be.

  Oddfreyr was right about the Reach. They had abandoned him. He had nowhere to turn. But he wasn’t about to sit here, imprisoned and waiting for death.

  There was only one thing he could do.

  As he crossed to his dresser again, there was another knock on the door, softer this time. He turned and mumbled for them to come in.

  A young servant entered the room. She didn’t look at him, didn’t say anything as she walked to the table and set a tray down beside his magazine. The tray was stacked with clean linens, of which he already had plenty. She left before he could say anything to her.

  Marius turned back to his dresser, grabbing an oiled bag from nearby and starting to fill it with what few street clothes he had. Something gave him pause, though, and he slowed. After a moment, he turned to look at the tray of linens.

  Everything about them was strange. The time of day, the fact that the servant hadn’t stayed to change the sheets, the fact that they were on a tray. He set his bag down and went to the table.

  It only took a moment of searching to find what he was looking for. Tucked into the folds of the middle sheet was a leaf of notebook paper, folded in half. Hope lifted his heart as he opened it.

  Marius,

  I hope you’re okay. The temple guards pulled you out before we even knew what was happening, and we had to run out the back way. I wouldn’t have left you if I had the choice.

  Cal wants you to know he shot four of them, though. He says “you’re all right by me, Sparky” :)

  You know where to find us.

  -Edie

  He stroked the note with his thumb thoughtfully. Maybe there was still somewhere he could go. After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, he picked up the issue of Rolling Stone and shoved it into his bag.

  Chapter Forty

  Edie squealed as some of the water from Sissel's hose overshot Augustus's back and sprayed her in the face. She hadn't expected to be up and about so soon after an exhausting magical battle, but the sun was out, the snow had melted, and she felt like celebrating being alive.

  Almost everyone had congregated in Tilda’s rooftop garden. Edie and Sissel were hosing down their new drake friend and watching him dance around in the water. Nearby, Mercy was trying to salvage the snow-dusted flowers in a big planter while Fisk wove her a spring crown with flowers from another. Cal was sulking inside, and Satara was using Matilda's computer to translate the papers he had stolen from Indriði.

  Most notably, on the morning deck, Tilda and Nils, Sissel's dad, were discussing his daughter's future over coffee. With a Venomgut drake dropped in their laps, Nils needed help—and with no errands to run, Sissel needed something fun and independent to occupy her time. Tilda had some ideas, and it was good for Nils to meet Sissel’s new, safer friends.

  Well ... slightly safer friends.

  Nils glanced over at Edie and Sissel and waved. Edie thought he seemed like a nice guy, if a bit cautious when it came to the supernatural—but she supposed that was probably a normal reaction, especially when you had a kid to worry about. Ex
tra-especially when that kid had a penchant for getting into trouble.

  Edie spritzed Augustus's face with the hose, smirking as he snapped at the water. "Your dad seems to be getting along well with Tilda." She glanced up at Sissel.

  The teen scratched the drake's side. "Yea! But she's been dead, like, a billion years and she's still the most normal out of all of you, so I'm not surprised."

  "You think she'll be able to change his mind about the couriering thing?"

  "I dunno." She wiggled her nose thoughtfully. "He was trying really hard to pretend we were normal before, but now that that's off the table...."

  "With a drake living with you? Yeah, I'd say so."

  Sissel's eyes lit up. "Oh, bro, maybe he'll join the Reach! He's really good at languages and research and a bunch of other random stuff. I bet he could really help."

  "We'll see," was all Edie said, though the thought of having a researcher on their team was pretty damn appealing. If Astrid being dead forever meant Edie was now the Reacher, maybe it would be her job to convince him—but who knew how that would go?

  Edie sat on a nearby bench, turning her hose off for the time being. As she watched Augustus and Sissel play, she thought of Astrid. It had only been a few days since she had watched her die, but somehow, it felt like years. So much had changed since then. The wound still hurt, of course. When Edie wasn’t sleeping the dreamless sleep of exhaustion, she lay awake at night, replaying the scene in her head; otherwise, nightmares woke her. Astrid’s face, her pain, her desperation toward the end … warriors weren’t supposed to die like that. The images were burned in Edie’s mind forever.

  She couldn’t imagine being in Satara’s shoes. Not only had she lost a friend and mentor, she had lost her connection to the valkyir. None of them had any idea what the next step to becoming a valkyrie was, and Satara only had a limited time to sort herself out before those wings turned her into a twisted, evil demon. Edie assumed Marius’s offer to help them had been rescinded—she doubted he’d still have access to his father’s library. They’d have to figure it out themselves.