Stranger Rituals

by Kali Rose Schmidt

  “You could’ve opened the window before you put your cloak on.” Zephir scrambled up, dropping unceremoniously onto the floor of her rooms.

  “You could have come in through the door like a sane person,” Scarko retorted, sitting back on her bed, pulling the sheet up around her neck, watching Zephir carefully.

  He dusted off his wool coat, closed the window back, and glanced toward her door. “There’s a heap of people down there. Didn’t feel like giving autographs.”

  Scarko saw the hint of a smile on his lips and she laughed. “You really are full of yourself. Did anyone ever tell you?”

  He shrugged out of his grey cloak, and she looked away from his taunt muscles, visible beneath the tailored black dress shirt. He draped his coat over the back of the chair at the desk, and then sat down on it, one leg crossed at the knee. He gazed at her on the bed.

  “Why’re you here?” she asked, refusing to let herself blush, tugging again on her cloak.

  “Well, judging by those shadows beneath your eyes,” and there went the blush, “you don’t sleep much.” He shrugged, brought his hands together over his bent knee. “Neither do I.”

  She stole a glance at the reaper on his neck, the scythe just grazing the underside of his jaw.

  “Maybe I don’t, but who said I wanted company?”

  “Who said I cared what you wanted?”

  Scarko fingered the knife she still held, looked at him beneath her lashes. “You’re in my room. Who said I shouldn’t gut you for being so damn rude?”

  “Probably no one.”

  A laugh bubbled in her throat, and she could have sworn his eyes sparked. But then he glanced down at the knife, suddenly serious.

  “Scarko,” he said, his tone quiet. She waited. “Don’t put that in my back just yet.”

  Scarko froze, the knife still in her hand, the blade glinting in the moonlight streaming through her window. Did he know? Did he know she planned to do just that, after the Praeminister was scrubbed from this life, sent to the 13th circle of hells? That she had to, because if Vojtech had seen a vision from the gods, it was probably crucial to the final battle that would come. It was crucial to something. And even Rhodri, full of pain and ominous warnings and a magic she hadn’t wrapped her head around, thought the fighter should die.

  She exhaled. He couldn’t know.

  “Ida told me about your mother.”

  His expression changed. She watched the pads of his fingers turn white as he squeezed his hands over his knee, his eyes dilated, his jaw set. Below them, there was commotion in the Cove, but in the room, it was eerily silent. Yet she would not backtrack; he knew too much of her own story, she could peel away some of his.

  “Did she now.” It wasn’t a question.

  “And yet you still fight her kind to—”

  “Her kind.” His green eyes had gone dark, his brows knitted together as he mocked her. “You think I should lay off them because my mother was a babswa?”

  Babswa. The word hurt more than it should have, but Scarko didn’t react.

  “You think you have me figured out now, do you?” His voice was cold.

  “I don’t think you have yourself figured out,” she countered, gripping her knife.

  “Isn’t that so poetic.” His eyes didn’t leave hers. “Were you surprised, Scarko? To find you weren’t the only one with demons?”

  She pulled her knees to her chest, flipped the blankets atop them, wrapped her hands around her shins, the knife resting against her blankets, limp in her hand. Her mind flashed to Klaus as a boy, the two of them running throughout the palace, wide-eyed and terrified, hiding from the Praeminister together. They could never run far enough. Never run fast enough.

  “Everyone has demons,” she agreed. “The difference is in how deep and how long they haunt you.”

  There was a pounding on the door that startled her. The knife slipped in her grasp and when she went to grab it again, she gripped the blade, the wicked sharpness digging into her scarred palm, the newest wound sliced back open, blood welling up in the gash. The pain was sharp, but her eyes stayed on the door, tracking Zephir as he opened it, his shoulders tense.

  The woman who had sold Scarko her stay in the room stood there, hands on her hips. Scarko breathed a sigh of relief it wasn’t Rhodri.

  The innkeeper licked her lips as she saw Zephir, her eyes darted then to Scarko on the bed.

  “Thought I heard someone in here. Better not be running a whore house in my inn, girl,” the woman growled, eyes still on Scarko.

  “That would be too upscale for this trash bin of a keep,” Zephir growled.

  The woman’s small eyes went wide, and Scarko saw with satisfaction a blush creep over her face. Scarko hid her bleeding palm under the sheets, satisfied her blood would stain them.

  The woman backed away and left without another word, turning just once to glare at Zephir. He slammed the door after her, locked it, and walked back to the chair. Scarko brought her palm out from the sheets, looking at her blood with disinterest. Her hand throbbed, but she relished in the pain, watched as it dripped down her wrist.

  “Let me help you.” Zephir gestured to her palm, not sitting in the chair he stood before. Scarko winced.

  At length, she shook her head. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Your blood is forming a puddle on your cloak,” he said coldly. “I don’t care to buy you a new one tonight, nor to have you working with me tomorrow morning in bloodstained clothes.”

  Scarko’s face flushed. “Wouldn’t that be an inconvenience,” she hissed. But there was, indeed, blood on her cloak. There was, it seemed, always blood on her cloak.

  Zephir said nothing.

  “Fine,” she said reluctantly, holding up her palm.

  He nodded, walked toward the bed, and examined her hand without yet touching her. Then he unbuttoned his shirt, and Scarko looked away, but not before she caught sight of his tight muscles, his brown skin gleaming in the moonlight, the scars that flecked his body. Her heart thrummed louder in her chest.

  “You’ll have to,” he gestured to the long sleeves of her cloak as he balled up his shirt in one hand. She shrugged out of her cloak slowly, carefully, and when her eyes met his, her brow furrowed and he looked away. She had on a black nightgown underneath, thin straps on her shoulders, hitting at her thighs. She adjusted the blankets higher over her legs and lay the cloak on the bed. He turned back to her, his eyes glancing first at the bird skull necklace around her throat, then at the scars that wound their way up her arms.

  Slowly, his gaze shifted back to her face, searching.

  Scarko turned up her bleeding palm.

  “I can clean it,” he said, his voice low. It was an offer.

  She shook her head. “It’ll heal fine.” He glanced at the litter of scars on her arm with a brow arched, and she smiled, but he didn’t argue.

  Instead, he took the sleeve of his removed shirt and pressed it to the blood. As the cloth made contact with her skin, she started to tremble, her hand shaking in his.

  She closed her eyes tightly, but she could only see her clothes on the ground in the candlelit room of the Praeminister, feel the sharp sting on her cheek, the sob in her dry throat.

  She gasped, eyes flying open, and Zephir stepped back, releasing her hand.

  “Scar—” he began.

  She shook her head. “It’s okay,” she lied.

  He took a step closer to her, but didn’t reach for her again.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “For whatever happened to you.”

  She felt tears prick in her eyes and a lump in her throat. She swallowed hard.

  “But if anyone ever hurts you again,” he said, his voice like gravel as he once more put his own shirt gently to her palm, “I’ll kill them.”

  She didn’t believe him. They were passionate words from a boy who had watched the most important woman in his life die trying to save him. But she said nothing as he finished with her palm, taking her kn
ife and cutting a strip of his shirt to tie around it, to help it heal. When he was done, he sank back into the chair at the desk, and Scarko found it very hard to keep her gaze on his eyes.

  “I cleaned up after you today.” He broke the silence abruptly.

  “What?” she tilted her head.

  “Outside the troomla den, the woman you drained.” There was no anger on his face, but Scarko felt a bolt of outrage.

  “Don’t you have something better to do than spy on me, Crista?” She tugged the blankets up to her neck. If it wasn’t him, it was Rhodri. She wondered, not for the first time, if they worked together.

  “Are we on formalities now, Kadezska?”

  Her name on his lips sent a thrill down her spine, but she shoved that thought aside, growing angrier that she didn’t despise him as much as she should. “Why did you follow me? How did you and your thugs know I was here anyhow?” She was nearly shouting, but the noise downstairs had heightened, and she didn’t care.

  “Oh ho,” he chuckled sardonically. “Ida will be most upset when she hears you’re calling her a thug now.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ve got to keep an eye on my cohorts.”

  “I’m not your cohort.” She slung the blankets off the bed, and she saw Zephir glance at her bare legs, but she didn’t care. She stood before him, looking down on him for once. “And what did you clean up, exactly? Did you kill that guard, bash his brains in?”

  Zephir’s nostrils flared, Scarko watched his chest rise and fall. “What kind of monster do you think I am?” he asked. “Of course I didn’t bash his brains in. I slit his throat.”

  Scarko felt fury rush through her veins like a living thing, and she pushed him, tipping back his chair. But he was quick, and he stood, his arms going under hers, gripping her by the shoulder, looming over her.

  “And after that, I dumped both their bodies in a street bin.” He leaned down so his face was inches from hers. His own body was pressed against hers. She could smell the sea, the salt. “Hopefully the worms will get to them before the beggars do.” His breath caressed her skin.

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Says the girl who drinks blood for every meal.”

  She stumbled backward, her knees knocking into the bed, as if he had struck her.

  He smiled wryly. “That’s the thing that shocks you?” he asked. His eyes searched hers, his stare hard, unrelenting. “Does it make you feel any better to think that boy would have fought you, your priest, too, that the boy would have turned you in to the Warskian soldiers? Does it make you feel good to know they might have killed you? Because if it does,” his eyes narrowed, a finger pointed in her direction, “even a little, Scarko, then save your righteousness for a time when you actually deserve it.”

  Without another word, he grabbed his coat from the desk chair, opened the door to her room and slammed it closed behind him, leaving his bloodied shirt on the floor of her room.

  13

  Upon the Roof a Bloodletter Waits

  By the time the noon bell rang throughout Kezda to announce the start of the Martyr’s Day festival, Scarko was in position. She had settled atop the roof of St. Jerilo’s cathedral, a saint of Krys she knew nothing of nor cared to learn about. Flat on her stomach, she had her blade tucked close beside her. From this angle, she could see the emerald green of the Warskian soldiers scattered about the plaza, some with swords, others with arrows, only one with the mindeta blower. And interspersed among them were the local Vokte police in blue, some speaking to the Warskians, others with scowls in their faces. They all looked tense, and Scarko couldn’t quite blame them, considering her position on the roof.

  The wind was gusty on the cathedral, and she had put her hair in a messy braid before she set out that morning. Her hands were in gloves, stolen from a crowded store before the sun had risen hours before. She would cut through the leather when it was close to time for the blood-sword, which she would use to take the head off the Praeminister when Zephir gave the signal: a single, green firework. What would happen next, she didn’t know. Nor care. Someone else would die at Zephir’s hands, and all she knew was she would make sure it wouldn’t be her.

  She had stopped every single thought of Rhodri’s warning through her head all night and all morning long.

  Earlier that morning, across from the inn, she had seen Zephir in his black coat, hood pulled over his head. He had nodded at her, and that was it. His expression had been shrouded in shadows. They hadn’t spoken since he slammed the door to her room the night before, and she imagined they might never again, not until she held a knife to his throat to finish the job she had been sent there to do.

  She watched the people gathering below with idle interest. The King’s emerald green carriages hadn’t yet arrived, but there was a rumble of anticipation through Mill Square, and Scarko wondered what those people would think if they knew she planned to assassinate their holy man right above their heads. Babswa indeed.

  The thought made her smile.

  Jalde and Ida were nowhere to be seen, and Scarko had no idea who would send up the green firework, or what response the military and police would have to it…if any. The king had enjoyed relative safety the past few years. Perhaps they weren’t worried about someone like her at all.

  A flash of light caught her eye, and she gripped the knife on the shingled roof, as she cautiously surveyed her surroundings. No one down below was looking toward her. Children held serpent streamers in their hands, parents smiling fondly at them. Some were bundled, others in rough spun, worn clothes. But there was no one in the square trying to get her attention. Rhodri was, thankfully, nowhere to be found. She would deal with him when this was done. When Zephir was dead. When Vojtech had her back.

  The light flashed again, making her blink. A sliver of unease sunk into her chest, and it took all of her willpower not to back away from the roof and abort the mission. If someone could see her from this angle and she couldn’t see them, she was in trouble. But as she swept her gaze once more through the square, something snagged on the corner of her vision. The light flashed again.

  Straight ahead, opposite St. Jerilo’s, was another cathedral with a flat roof adjacent to the steeple. And a lone figure stood atop it, holding a mirror, the sun reflecting in its surface.

  The figure waved.

  Scarko’s heart unclenched. It was Ida, poised to behold the happenings with the detonator to the ships’ bombs in her hand, should the need for a distraction arise.

  Scarko inclined her head, unsure if Ida would see her, but she didn’t want to do something as careless as wave and draw attention to herself. She looked away from the girl, once more attune to the happenings inside the square.

  Nothing had changed, but more people had filed in, finding spots beyond the wall of soldiers and police. Somewhere in the distance, a drum began to beat. Scarko swept her gaze around the courtyard and beyond it, more alert now that she had missed Ida right across from her. They stupidly hadn’t discussed the possibility of soldiers themselves atop the roofs of the buildings clustered around the square. But Scarko saw, with no small amount of relief, no one atop any of the surrounding buildings. She wondered with a flash of panic how many other oversights there would be before she got to slide her blood into the Praeminister’s brain.

  The drumbeat grew louder.

  Scarko looked beyond the square, to the street that led directly toward it, the very one she and Zephir had seen the king’s caravan enter on the day before. She wondered idly where he had stayed, what his own room had been like compared to hers at the Cove.

  And there it was again, the man of the hour, several carriages of emerald green and gold, the silver serpent flag flying high from the one in the middle. From her own guard of the Djavul, she knew the King and his family would not be in that one, that the flag was merely a decoy.

  Warskian soldiers and Kezdan police trailed beside the slow-moving group, shoving some people roughly away if they got too close. A swell went up from the cr
owd gathered at the square, people cramming in tightly—wealthy and poor alike—craning their necks to watch the King’s slow procession. The drumbeat grew louder still, and Scarko saw the source of the noise—a little drummer boy decked out in emerald green, bringing up the rear of the royal processional.

  They entered the dead grass courtyard, and a few soldiers unsheathed their swords, forbidding the onlookers access to the long podium that had been erected for the king to give his speech. The carriages filled up nearly two thirds of the lawn, and the soldiers did their best to keep the growing crowd on the edge of it, closer to the streets.

  Scarko risked a glance across the expanse, saw Ida with the mirror still in her hand, looking down on the crowd. Scarko shifted slightly, easing the ache that had begun to settle into her knees from being jabbed against the roof.

  The drumbeat fell silent. A hush went over the crowd. A wall of soldiers opened a carriage door—not the one with the flag—and helped a man out, a golden crown glimmering on his head, emeralds sparkling in the winter sun. He wore a robe of velvet green, his hands in black gloves as he waved at the cheering crowd. He had thick coils of golden red hair, and while Scarko couldn’t make out much detail in his face, her blood still froze at the sight of him.

  King Sixten Olofsson, the man who had condemned her parents to die. The man who had turned the other cheek at the obvious signs of abuse from his right-hand man, the one who taught weekly sermons and listened to prayers from children and adults alike within the palace walls.

  The crowd’s roar grew as the Warskian soldiers helped the King’s wife, Queen Heidi Olofsson, from the carriage, dressed much like her husband but with a gleaming green gown beneath her fur-lined coat, her red hair twisted into a crown on her head, beneath her real crown, dainty and golden.

  For a moment, as the soldiers escorted the Olofssons to the platform, Scarko wondered if Zephir had a score to settle with either of them, and if so, which one. Would he really assassinate the King or Queen of Warskia today? Or was his target someone lesser?