Stranger Rituals

by Kali Rose Schmidt

  Her stomach rumbled and roiled at once, and she could not look away as Zephir wrapped his large hands around the boy’s throat. Even as the crowd’s roars grew louder, even as Zephir grinned down at the boy—who had grown strangely quiet, his eyes bulging—she could not look away. Even though she knew death when it came, even though it had been her constant companion in the two years at the Order, even as she had watched Vrakas die in the Royal Palace, watched her own parents hang, she could not look away as Zephir Crista turned to stare at her with a wicked grin as the life from the Vrakan boy left his body. Gone to the gods to be returned as another Vrakan in a different time, a different place. The hells were reserved for overgivas, the Order had taught her. And Zephir deserved to be sunk to the lowest pit, the thirteenth rung of hell.

  The rest of the strange ritual happened so fast, Scarko felt as if she were holding her breath. The crowd went crazy, Warskian soldiers withdrew their blades, pushing the crowd back, and the ref declared Zephir the winner, declared Thomas dead with no emotion in his voice other than cheer at Zephir’s victory. More zed coins went into the soldiers’ buckets, thrown from around the hot room. The two people who had flanked Zephir as he entered quickly helped him down from the ring, tugged back on his wool coat, pulled the hood over his head, and shoved him through the crowd.

  It took all of Scarko’s self-control not to gut him there.

  She looked back at the fallen Vrakan boy, no one hovering over him, no one to mourn his death. Did he have friends in the Palace, like she had had Klaus? Was someone waiting for him to return, hoping against hope? She swallowed past a lump in her throat, and then shoved her own way through the crowd, keeping an eye on Zephir and his minions.

  People streamed up the stairwell, jostling against one another, packed in tightly together. They made their way out into the foyer of the apartments, through the doors, pouring out into the cold air by the Furlan Sea, following Zephir and the man and woman flanking him. Scarko caught sight of the two soldiers who had let her enter and pulled her own hood over her head, easily blending in with the mass of fans.

  People called out Zephir’s name. No Warskian soldiers followed him or the crowd, their work done with the death of the Vrakan boy that would soon be forgotten, his body likely used for raptum.

  A woman in a tight white dress, a cloak thrown over her scrawny shoulders, reached out for the back of Zephir’s coat. The tall girl turned, eyes flashing as she unsheathed her knife and held it to the woman’s chest.

  “Leave us,” she growled. The woman in the dress stumbled backwards. Zephir turned then, too, and his eyes locked with Scarko’s several paces behind the affronted woman.

  He stopped walking, and the crowd that had spilled out before the apartment—some dispersing toward the Kezdan streets, others watching Zephir, others calling his name—seemed to still.

  Scarko’s eyes found the reaper tattoo, thick on his neck. She kept walking, determined not to fawn over him like the others. But as she passed him, his guards eyeing the crowd, he called after her, his voice low and raspy.

  “Do you have plans for tonight?”

  She stilled. Would it be this easy, she thought? Would he actually try to bed her, let her gut him as he hovered over her? She turned back to him. But perhaps he knew who she was. What she was. The horned man’s strange blue and silver eyes crawled into her mind. She shoved them back.

  “Do you?” she countered to Zephir’s question. People filed around them, the guards beside him not looking toward Scarko, instead watching the crowd. The woman still had her knife out.

  Did he do this after every fight, Scarko wondered? Pick someone to sleep with among his adoring flock?

  He smiled, white teeth flashing. “Have a drink with me.”

  Scarko thought of the knife in her grey cloak beneath her coat, thought of sliding it right across that damned reaper tattoo, watching as his blood spilled out into the streets.

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  It took them nearly half an hour to shake the crowd, the two guards guiding them quietly through the busy streets, ducking into alleyways, backtracking as they shook a group of giggling girls loose, shoving them under awnings when rabid fans came creeping behind them. But finally, they entered a dingy pub far from the port, dim inside with a handful of laughing customers. They took a seat in the back. Wood floors and wood walls covered every inch of the place. Scarko slid into a sticky booth, shrugging out of her outer cloak, and Zephir sat beside her, pushing the hood from his head.

  The two guards sat opposite them.

  They stared at one another. They hadn’t spoken more than whispered directions and commands the entire time they had walked. The girl with the shaved head pulled something out of her long beige coat pocket, leaning toward the burly boy as she did so. Scarko tensed at the table, but it was a cigarette, pale white, hand rolled. The girl’s blue eyes flashed, and with the cigarette hanging from her thin lips, she ran a hand over her short brown hair.

  “You seem jumpy.” That raspy voice brought images of the Vrakan boy doomed to die in the basement of an apartment building by the port, of the life dimming from his scared eyes, into Scarko’s mind. Of Zephir’s hands around his throat.

  Would the Vraka be in a raptum den now, his throat slashed open, strung up from an alleyway building, raptum for the Kezdan overgivas? For Warskian soldiers?

  Scarko turned to Zephir, his eyes searching hers.

  “I’m Zephir Crista,” he extended his hand, still in fingerless gloves, the same ones he had wrapped around the Vrakan’s throat.

  Scarko forced herself to shake it with her good hand, the one she used for her blood magic unused to any touch aside from the blade of a knife. She had shed her gloves, placed them atop the coat beside her.

  “Scarko,” she said. No reason to hide her identity. Perhaps when she left the palace there had been a scandal, but Vojtech had sent his Missionaries to scope it out, listen for rumors. There had been none. Probably didn’t want to scare the Warskians, didn’t want to admit to their lapse of control.

  Zephir raised a dark brow. Scarko saw a thin scar above it. “Just Scarko?”

  “Kadezska.” Her surname would give away nothing in this kingdom, just a name from a broken, traitorous village.

  “This is Ida,” he gestured toward the girl, who nodded, cigarette still dangling from her lips, “and Jalde.” Jalde reached his dark brown hand across the table, his skin like Klaus’s.

  “Nice to meet you,” his accent like Klaus’s faint Beheni one.

  “Likewise,” Scarko murmured, taking his hand. He stared at her as if she could still be a potential threat. But he was the body guard for a street fighter, she reminded herself. He couldn’t possibly know anything about her.

  The girl called Ida slid out of the booth and Jalde followed.

  “Ale?” she asked Scarko, her voice girlish in a way that surprised her. Ida took the unlit cigarette in her hand from her lips, let it dangle by her side. Her face was unreadable. She could have been happy to have Scarko keeping them company, or she could have wanted to slit her throat with the knife that hung at her hip.

  “Vin.” The thought of it almost made her mouth water, and she shoved the desire aside. She couldn’t drink too much tonight; she was working, she reminded herself. Vojtech might kill her if he knew she was here now, with Zephir still alive beside her. Had he seen that, too?

  Ida nodded, and Jalde lumbered after her to the counter of the pub.

  Zephir turned to her. He smelled of sweat, and Scarko didn’t let herself look beyond the reaper tattoo on his neck, where he still wore nothing but his fighting trousers.

  “Where do you live?” he asked, leaning back in the booth, surveying her with an appraising eye.

  “Here,” Scarko said without missing a beat. It was a big city. How would he know the difference?

  He smiled, dimples flashing. “First fight?”

  Scarko returned his smile with a scathing one of her own. “Not quite.
” She had seen death before, had fought before, had lost underneath the hands of the Praeminister before. “First time bringing a girl along, after you’ve killed a man?”

  Zephir shrugged. “Not quite.”

  Despite herself, she felt a flush creep up her neck, and she averted her eyes and cleared her throat.

  Saving her from anymore embarrassing questions, Jalde and Ida slid back into the booth, carrying three pints of ale and a glass of vin. Jalde slid it across the table and she took it in both hands, drank deeply as they all did. She noticed the cigarette was behind Ida’s ear.

  “A Skuggmat,” Ida said, the girlish voice seemingly at odds with her tough persona, “didn’t affect you?” she asked Zephir.

  “Because last time you fought a Skuggmat, you went to your knees, mate,” Jalde added, his eyes twinkling, a wide smile on his round face.

  Zephir narrowed his eyes. “That was last time.” He took a drink, looking to Scarko.

  “Ever fought a Vraka?”

  Scarko frowned. “No,” she said coldly.

  “Got something against it?” Ida asked, an edge to her voice.

  Scarko willed herself calm and took another drink of vin before she answered. “Not a fair fight, if what they say is true.” She looked to Zephir.

  Jalde chuckled. “It’s true.”

  Vojtech’s gods had gotten that right, too, just as they had gotten the port right. Did they exist merely to torment the people of their gifts?

  “Fair?” Zephir’s raspy voice sounded amused. “Nothing is fair in Kezda, Scarko Kadezska.”

  When he said her full name, she wanted to choke him. “But surely you can’t be proud of yourself,” she taunted, “killing a boy who isn’t trained for fighting? Whose Vrakan gifts you’re immune to? There’s nothing honorable in that.”

  Darkness flashed across Zephir’s face.

  Good, Scarko thought. Let him be angry.

  “Let’s leave her here,” Ida nodded towards Scarko. “We’ll pay and leave. Don’t follow us.” She made to stand.

  “We’re not going anywhere.” Zephir’s voice was low, dangerous. He turned to Scarko, leaned in so close she could smell the sweat of him, mingled with the scent of the sea. “Vrakan gifts, as you call them, could decimate entire cities, entire towns. They did once, you know? Or are you not familiar with Warskian history? And don’t think Warskian Vraka aren’t trained for battle. He wasn’t as helpless as he appeared to be.”

  They were trained, Scarko knew. Even so, Zephir was a fighter. The Vraka had been little more than a boy.

  Ida pulled the cigarette tucked from behind her ear and handed it to Zephir. For a moment, he only stared at Scarko, then he took the cigarette without looking at Ida. He held it in his fingers between them.

  “But you’re not here to flirt with me about fairness.”

  And then so fast, she didn’t have time to reach for her knife, Zephir forced the cigarette into her mouth, even as she tried to back away, slamming her head into the wall by the booth. She tasted something sickly sweet, familiar. It had been put in their food at the palace, their drinks, she had gotten her own from Klaus’s blood, the plant highly dosed inside of him.

  She made to fight back, to keep her eyes open against the mindeta.

  But her body slowed, her mind grew fuzzy, and then everything went black.

  7

  Rhodri Speaks Some Truth

  There was a dull ache in Scarko’s head as she came to, her eyes still closed tight, the sound of soft murmurs around her, and something beyond—muffled music, heavy footsteps, cheering, screams. Her thoughts went to the basement fight, the dead Vrakan boy, the one she had watched Zephir choke right before her eyes as she did nothing to stop him. And then, just as quickly, her thoughts changed—to a room gilded green with flecks of gold, a large bed with soft sheets, the Praeminister looming over her as she cowered in the corner of the room.

  Panic like molten lava roiled through her. She pried one eye open and then the other, blinking in her surroundings. Instinctively, she tried to reach for her knife, but her hands were chained behind her. She turned, saw they were bolstered by the cement wall she sat on her knees leaning against.

  “She’s awake,” a girl’s voice hissed.

  Scarko turned back quickly, heart racing.

  She knew that girlish voice.

  Ida.

  They had poisoned her, and she had been careless enough to let them do it. Had been so eager for vengeance that she hadn’t considered Zephir’s motives in asking her for a drink.

  Don’t be stupid, Kadezska. The voice in her head was hers, but it was someone else’s, too. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She had heard it so much at the Palace, every mistake, every displeasure by the Warskian teachers, the Praeminister.

  You don’t have time for a pity party, Kadezska.

  She blinked in her surroundings.

  There were dim lamps lit throughout the cavernous space, but it was empty, save for wooden crates full of vin bottles, deep purple within the glass, and three people—Jalde, Ida, and though she couldn’t see him clearly, hidden in the shadows she knew was Zephir.

  She blinked as she noticed her knife on the cement floor before her, just out of reach.

  But the bird skull was still warm beneath her grey cloak, in her chest. No gloves, no fur-lined coat, but at least the bones were there, as a reminder.

  Ida had her arms crossed, and she wore the beige wool coat, sheer black leggings, and thigh-high boots. Her blue eyes were full of malice.

  Beside her was Jalde, amber colored eyes looking down on Scarko in amusement. He scrubbed a hand absentmindedly over his beard. He wore the tight black shirt he had worn leading Zephir through the crowd of the basement.

  “How now?” he asked with something like amusement.

  Scarko looked past him and saw in the shadows the fighter, leaning against the opposite wall, his arms crossed over his black coat, gloves still on. His light brown skin was exposed beneath, taunt lines of muscle visible, the reaper tattoo on his neck just a shadow from so far away.

  His expression was stern, his lips set, his light eyes glittering in the darkness he stood in. He had one foot against the wall, the other on the cement floor.

  Scarko surveyed the three of them, calculating. They couldn’t know who she was, why she was there. She would be dead if they did. But they knew something. And the horned man in the Skov, he had known, too. But a creature like that, he wouldn’t work with a street fighter.

  “Why am I here?” she asked when no one spoke, keeping her tone steady, not daring to look at her knife again. The thud upstairs was growing louder, people laughing and screaming to the beat. The basement of a music hall. Basements in Kezda were used for the strangest things. The thought made her shudder.

  “Why are you here?” Jalde repeated, squatting down in front of her. Zephir was blocked from view, and Ida scowled at her.

  “The cigarette,” Scarko began, then clamped her mouth shut. The cigarette. Panic flashed through her again. If they knew…

  The bearded man laughed, a truly amused sound. “Yes, the cigarette. Useful, huh?” He twisted around to glance at his friends, and just for a moment, Scarko could see Zephir, still motionless against the wall, glaring at her.

  Jalde turned back to her. “Considering what you are.” He whispered the words, and as he did, he picked up the crimson hilt of the knife, turning it over in his large hands. Scarko’s stomach lurched. She ached for the knife, but didn’t react. They might know she was Vraka, the cigarette had been full of strong mindeta, she knew that now. It would only have affected a Vraka. But they couldn’t know her blood magic. Let them keep guessing, she thought.

  Jalde’s eyes slid from the knife, back to her. “This is a beauty.”

  Scarko didn’t speak. Vojtech had once told her when a person wanted something too much, they created of themselves a hostage. He had been speaking in metaphor, explaining his reasoning for waiting so many years to attack the Palace. But the
advice seemed applicable now.

  “You’re a Vraka,” Ida hissed, and her voice radiated loathing.

  “When will I be released?” Scarko demanded.

  Jalde laughed again, short, abrupt. His eyes flashed to her as he held the knife in his hand. “You won’t.” He turned the knife over. “Until you tell us why you’re here.”

  Scarko rolled her eyes. “I live here.”

  “You don’t,” Jalde said. A statement, not a question. He glanced at her cloak, and Scarko wondered, for a moment, if he knew of the Order like the horned man had.

  He sniffed. “This place reeks.”

  It smelled of vin and urine, Scarko thought. No blood to be had, except from her three tormentors. When she was out of those chains, she would rip them apart, make them her dinner.

  “Why am I here?” she asked.

  The bearded man shrugged. “You should be grateful to us, you know, letting you live. Bringing you here at all. We could have dumped you at the feet of the Warskian soldiers, let them have their way with you. A Vraka not in the service of the King is a dead woman.” His eyes lit up as he looked at her, a smile on his lips. “So, I’ll ask you again,” and he came closer but Scarko refused to back down, refused to scramble toward the wall she was chained to. He held her knife in his hands as he edged closer to her. “Why are you here?”

  He pressed the knife to her throat, and she looked down at his large hand for a moment, holding her knife, and let out a loud, maniacal laugh at the feeling of the cold steel against her neck. Vojtech would rip this man limb from limb if she didn’t do it herself before she killed Zephir and got back to the Order.

  Jalde thrust the knife further towards her throat, a sharp gasp of pain stung across her neck, but he didn’t touch her himself. It took a lot of blood to conjure the sword, and it would come more freely from her throat. She turned her gaze to his amber eyes, darkened now with fury, and sneered at him.