But there they both were, riding toward him. A head dangled from Wrend’s saddle. Did that mean Athanaric should punish Teirn? Kill him and be done with it? He’d anticipated that the boys would fight over completing the task, and one wouldn’t live. He’d hoped for it. He loved them too much to kill one himself.
He turned his mount and ordered it to fly down to the army. As Cuchorack dropped down the cliff face, hot wind blew in Athanaric’s face and his stomach lifted up into his throat. Maybe he could do as Wrend wanted and choose one as heir and simply let the other live, become a normal demigod and serve the people for thirty years before dying.
Except, it was in their nature to excel, to be favored. If the loser lived, it would lead to conflict someday. One of them had to die. He just didn’t want to do the killing. He was tired of all the blood on his hands.
Cuchorack landed near the three generals and ten lieutenants, all demigods. They stood at attention, as did the rest of the army in its ten battalions of two thousand, each in ten groups of two hundred, in perfect rows and columns, each of them with a demigod at the head.
He hadn’t expected to have so many demigods with him during the battle. But Naresh and his promise that Athanaric would have to deal with the Hasuken honor guard had made it prudent to bring the demigods along.
“What news, the Master?” Alacker said. He was one of the generals.
Athanaric glanced at him, and looked across the army as Wrend led the others down the aisle, between the middle of the troops toward him.
“We go to parley. Prepare for battle.”
Alacker nodded and raised his eyebrows in the direction of the ten lieutenants. They saluted by touching their chins with their fingertips, and bringing their flat hand forward. Then they hurried off to their several battalions.
Athanaric dismounted, his full suit of plated armor clanking. He wore the armor only in extreme circumstances, for its weight required him to apply a constant stream of Ichor to not collapse—beyond what he already had to use to keep his body from aging. Yet, with its sharp angles, draegon-horned helmet, and blood-red paint, he knew it intimidated his foes. That, alone, was perhaps worth the Ichor cost.
He ordered Cuchorack to lie down, and waited with the generals as the four people most important to him approached. He would’ve preferred if they’d waited for him back at the caravan; he didn’t need this distraction now.
The cloud of dust rose behind the horses as they came down the slope, and it hung in the air around the paladins. They didn’t cough or sneeze; after all, they didn’t breathe.
Wrend reined in about thirty feet away, met Athanaric’s gaze with a somber look, and flipped one leg over the saddle to dismount. He turned and began to untie the head. The redhead sat tall in the saddle, looking like it took all her effort to not pounce and free her mate from an evil god’s influence. Teirn didn’t meet Athanaric’s eyes. Neither did Rashel as she dismounted. Calla looked at him with confidence as she lighted off the horse and fell to her knees. Rashel and Teirn did so more slowly.
Once Wrend had untied the severed head, he turned around and strode to Athanaric, throwing it down into the dirt. If Athanaric hadn’t known better, and if Wrend had not immediately fallen to his knees with his face in the dirt and his arms forward past his head, Athanaric would have thought his son had thrown the head down with contempt, as if delivering a foul prize. The head rolled to a stop at his feet, its face—or what was left of it—looking up at him from beneath a layer of dirt.
“Master,” Wrend said, “we’ve completed our task.”
He gave Athanaric a long, accusatory look, and Athanaric knew he would never convince this son to kill his brother.
That could only mean Athanaric would have to do the killing, instead.
Chapter 70: The past explained
Sometimes it’s best not to know the truth.
-Rashel
Athanaric’s boys would not do his job for him. He saw it in Wrend’s eyes and in Teirn’s posture. They wanted nothing to do with it. Such loyal boys. Such good friends. Letting them grow close had been a mistake.
“Who killed the leader?” he said.
Wrend shrugged, looked up, then back at Teirn, who knelt a few feet behind. Calla frowned at Teirn.
Athanaric hardened his voice. “Who killed the leader?”
“Wrend did,” Teirn said, not looking up.
“Then you’ve failed me, Teirn,” Athanaric said. He hated to say it.
“Yes, Master,” Teirn said. He kept his face down, but his voice cracked and his body trembled. “Wrend bested me.”
“You fought?”
“I only won,” Wrend said, “because . . .”
He faltered, clearly not wanting to continue. He glanced back at Rashel, but didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Athanaric understood. Rashel had somehow been involved.
“Wrend, tell me what happened.”
Agony and regret washed over Wrend’s face. He glanced at Rashel again.
“Wrend,” Athanaric said. “What happened?”
“Teirn had defeated me,” Wrend said. “But Rashel attacked him from behind, giving me the advantage.”
“Rashel, is this true?”
She looked up. As always, her face contorted with a hateful adoration. She loved him, had a temper that she didn’t hold back for him. How many times had she berated him, and he’d let her? Dozens? Hundreds? It didn’t matter. Afterward she always begged his forgiveness and worshiped him, and he let her. At first her tantrums had amused him, kept life interesting, and so he hadn’t killed her. By the time he’d thought to stop them, he’d grown to love her and her tainted adoration. She hated him, yet she loved him, and the combination dulled the boredom and apathy that life had brought him in the recent centuries.
She nodded. Her body quaked.
“Yes. I was there.”
Athanaric nearly said that he didn’t understand. Perhaps his face already said it, but it was all he could do to not ask more questions. If he stayed silent long enough, one of them would speak further. Teirn and Calla kept their faces down. The redhead looked around like she had no idea what was going on.
But no one spoke. Not for nearly a full minute. Wrend stared at Rashel, his lips trembling and his jaw clenching over and over. She met his gaze with reproachful eyes that dared him in a way Athanaric didn’t understand. He had no idea what had passed between them, but clearly they disagreed on something.
In the end, Calla spoke. She flipped a hand at the head and sneered.
“She was visiting him.”
Again, Athanaric nearly asked for clarification, but again he held his tongue. A strange emotion gathered in his chest, and he had to clench his leg muscles to keep the tremors down. Rashel began to weep. Her body shook. She pulled her hands in to cover her face—but first glanced at the head, eyes full of sorrow.
And Athanaric understood.
The seventeen years she’d been his wife made sense. The hatred she held for him became clear.
When he’d chosen her, he’d taken her from a young boy she’d been in love with, pulled them apart. And for that reason—though she worshiped him as god—she also hated him.
He’d felt anger many times in his two thousand years, but never had he felt anger born of jealousy. Not until that moment. His vision blurred, even as his marriage to her became clear. Everything made sense. Her every word to him. Every curse. Every balled fist.
She still loved this man—this memory from her past.
Now, despite his best efforts, his legs trembled. He couldn’t contain them. Him, god. He couldn’t control his body for the rage boiling up in him. His armor clanked.
Satisfaction painted Calla’s face.
“Rashel,” he said. It was nearly a whisper. “I understand now. It’s all clear.”
Rashel glared at him.
“You took me from him.”
She lifted her body from the ground.
“I was his.”
She stoo
d, fists clenched at her side.
“I only ever wanted him.”
She rushed at Athanaric.
“I only ever wanted him, and you took me from him.”
It required all his control to not strike her down as she slammed into his legs and started to beat. Screaming, she pounded on the armor over his legs. He hardly felt it for the fury consuming his thoughts. Fury and jealousy.
And grief.
He’d loved her. Despite her hatred—which he’d always recognized—he’d loved her with every drop of blood in his body. She was his favorite wife. The one he wanted when he needed a friend; for more often than not, she’d returned his friendship, had been a lover and a companion to him.
But all these years, she’d loved another at the same time.
He balled a fist, but didn’t strike her. He couldn’t. Not his beloved Rashel.
“You betrayed me. I loved you, and you betrayed me.”
As always happened, her tantrum shifted. She ceased hitting him and collapsed against his armored legs, wrapping her arms around them and looking up at him with a tear-streaked face.
“No, I love you. I love you and worship you.”
As if to prove it, she fell to her knees and began to kiss his armored feet.
“I do love you. I do, I do.”
His rage softened, and his fist relaxed. The shaking of his legs faded. She did love him. She was devoted to him. She’d stayed with him for seventeen years, and she had loved him—while simultaneously loving another.
Could he forgive this thing? It all depended.
“You visited him?”
“Only this once.”
“What did you do when you visited with him?”
She stared up at him in horror, her face stricken.
The rage began to build again. His next question came out a whisper, meant for only her.
“Did you lay with him?”
She shook her head with such earnestness that he knew she told the truth. Yet such fear touched her eyes that he knew she hadn’t told him everything.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She shook her head and again collapsed to the ground, burying her face in his foot, bathing it with her tears.
He looked up to Wrend. He would tell. He could be trusted.
“What isn’t she telling me?”
Wrend swallowed hard. His face contorted in indecision and anger as he looked from Athanaric to the head. Athanaric’s heart paused as he waited for an answer. He held his breath.
“To my knowledge,” Wrend said, “she didn’t lay with him.”
Athanaric’s heart beat, and he began to breathe, again, not even aware his body had stopped functioning for a moment.
Calla spoke up. “This time. She didn’t lay with him this time. But she did before you wed her.”
Now his heart pounded, and the jealousy returned. His vision became cloudy, and all feeling drained out of his body.
“In fact,” Calla said, “she says Wrend is his son.”
Wrend gave the head such a look of fear and disdain that Athanaric knew he thought it might be true.
And in a moment of blind and utter terror, Athanaric realized that it could be.
Wrend had been born early, but had seemed fully developed.
Athanaric lost all control.
Chapter 71: The choice is made
To a child, there is nothing more terrifying than watching your parents argue. The two people who should be the most solid in the child’s life. The two people who should be united in all things. To see them quarrel terrifies a child. To see one harm the other is close to murder on the child.
-Wrend
The Master picked up Rashel, and for a moment Wrend thought he would wring his mother’s neck, simply twist the body one way, and the head another. But the Master didn’t. Instead, he gripped the back of her dress and lifted her face to his. Beneath her dress, her legs dangled limp, like the clappers to a bell. She kept her hands in her face, not looking at him.
“Look at me,” he said.
He shook her. Her head jerked back and forth and her dress started to rip in the back, where the buttons held it closed.
“Look at me!”
Wrend tensed. This was his mother. The Master would kill her. Could he let that happen? Could he stop it if he wanted? The Master was god. He had the right to do as he pleased.
But was this right? Was it right for the Master to punish her for a secret she’d kept since before they’d been married? She hadn’t even known at the time that her god would choose her. It seemed unfair and ridiculous that she be punished for something she’d done before becoming accountable for it in this way. Of course, going back to the man implied unfaithfulness of the heart. Did that merit death?
Like so many other things relating to the Master lately, it seemed wrong. Unfair. But the Master was god. He had all power and authority in his country.
But as Naresh had said, who made sure the gods were just and right? Did no one? Those questions had kept Wrend’s mouth shut when the Master had asked about Rashel. Those doubts had made him keep Rashel’s secret. Those, and his love for her. He could not, he’d found, betray her. Not even to his god and father.
The Master shook Rashel again, and the dress ripped open as buttons popped off. Her arms flailed as she plummeted, but the Master caught her before she hit and lifted her back up to his eyes, his hands closed around her shoulders so she couldn’t cover her face again.
“Is this all true?” he said.
Wrend stared in disbelief that the Master would even verify the truth. He’d always killed in his rage—which he was in now. His face contorted as if he endured great agony.
Rashel didn’t answer. She still didn’t look at his face.
He roared, long and loud. It beat Wrend’s ears, and continued as the Master lifted Rashel over his head, turning her body parallel to the earth. Calla shouted something unintelligible over the Master’s scream.
The Master slammed Rashel down onto the ground.
Wrend had seen violence. He’d seen his brothers and sisters killed before his eyes. But he’d never seen violence directed toward his mother. He rushed toward her, where she lay in the dirt, dust rising around her still body. He jumped over her and stood facing the Master.
“Stop!”
He didn’t dare glance down to see if she were dead, but kept his eyes on the Master’s. The Master loomed, his face red. His fists clenched at his waist.
“Out of the way, son.” His voice was pained and raspy.
“You are my father. No one else.”
“I’m well aware of that. You can use Ichor—which makes you my son. But her infidelity cannot go unpunished.”
“Then you’ll have to kill me, too.”
He, too, felt anger at his mother for the things she’d done, but she didn’t deserve to die. She deserved the freedom to choose.
All people did.
In that moment, as death towered over Wrend, he knew for certain that he could do better than the Master. He could be a better god and could treat the people more fairly. There would be none of this—no killing people because of a single word of disagreement, or for a single act done in poor judgment. Under him, when he was god, people could choose the way they lived. They could choose to worship him or not, and would not suffer if they didn’t.
Rashel hadn’t chosen to be the Master’s wife. She hadn’t wanted it, and as a result she’d lived nearly two decades wishing to be with another man. If she’d had the freedom to choose, none of this would have happened.
“Master, you love her,” Wrend said. “Don’t kill her, now. Don’t waste seventeen years for something done many years ago.”
“She went to him.”
He was softening. He didn’t want to kill her, or he already would have.
“She only talked with him. She said so herself.”
He glanced at her. She lay in the dust, still. Perhaps she’d died, already. A wave of ire swe
pt over the Master’s face and he leaned in close to Wrend, roaring. His hot breath beat against Wrend’s forehead, and his hands shot out and pushed Wrend aside. Wrend flew away, rolling over the ground and grunting. By the time he stopped, lying with his legs and back twisted, and could orient himself, the Master had picked up Rashel again, and held her over his head.
Leenda dismounted and started toward Wrend.
“No!” Wrend cried, struggling to stand.
The Master froze, his face hard, Rashel high overhead. Her arms and legs dangled. His armor clanked as he trembled—certainly not from the strain of holding her up.
“Don’t kill her,” Wrend said.
He found his knees. Leenda reached him, helped him to his feet. Athanaric looked at him, his face pained. He didn’t want to kill her. Wrend could see it in those eyes. Yet he could also see the fury, the desire for utter dedication.
Calla stepped forward, past Teirn, who still knelt. She kept her face calm and cool.
“Dear god,” she said, her voice smooth and tempered. “She is my sweet sister-wife. I beg you to not kill her. Though she has proven unfaithful and unworthy, don’t kill her, despite how she mocks you with her infidelity.”
With those words, Wrend understood Calla. Just as she wanted Teirn to be god, she wanted to be the favorite wife. She’d revealed Rashel’s secrets, and now her tone had no passion in it, no real plea. If Rashel died, it would be Calla’s fault for revealing Rashel’s secret—which Wrend had decided he couldn’t do. He would have stood there forever, not telling the Master about his mother’s secret.
But not Calla. She wanted to be the favorite.
The understanding conceived hatred in Wrend—hatred for her and the things her ambition had driven her to do.
The Master looked at Calla. His face grew calm, and for a moment Wrend thought that Calla’s words had back-fired.
“You make it clear,” the Master said. “You wouldn’t do this. You are true and faithful, as the wife of a god should be.” His head swiveled to Wrend. “I’m sorry. She’s worthy of death.”
The Demigod Proving Page 34
