Solis

by Kat Ross

  “So did I. Every single day. And when he finally did, he brought a new family with him. A new son.” Galen’s mouth twisted. “I might look like Victor, but Darius is the true Dessarian. Victor once told me that Darius was even stronger than he was. They may fight like cats in a sack, but Victor loves him best. It’s plain to see.”

  Mina sighed. “Do you hate Darius? Is that why you did it?”

  “No!” Galen picked at the acorn. “I don’t hate either of them and that’s the honest truth. But it seemed unfair. Darius had his mother. Why shouldn’t I have mine?”

  “How did it begin?” she asked quietly.

  He moved away, reluctant to look her in the eyes. “I heard Victor and Delilah talking. I didn’t understand everything, but it was clear Nazafareen had done something to the Valkirins. It occurred to me that they might wish to know her whereabouts. So I sent a kestrel to Val Moraine. Weeks passed and I thought the message had been lost. But then the assassin came.”

  “You killed him. Why?”

  “Not only to save Darius, though I didn’t wish him dead. I feared…. If they caught the Valkirin alive, he might expose me. So I shot him with an arrow. I hoped it would end there.”

  Mina shook her head. “Are you truly so naïve, Galen? Didn’t you expect Eirik to retaliate?”

  “Against her, yes. But she’s just a mortal!”

  “And the chimera?”

  He held her gaze. “I swear to you, I had no idea that’s what Eirik intended. After the attack, a Valkirin found me in the forest. He demanded a hair from each of them. If I did what they asked, he said Eirik promised to escort you back to House Dessarian.” Galen squeezed the acorn so hard it cracked in his fist. “I never imagined anyone would die. I didn’t even know what chimera were. Ellard was…he was my only friend.”

  He thought of Ellard constantly. Even saw him sometimes out of the corner of his eye, blood matting his silver hair. Ellard had been an outcast too. It took years for him to confess the reason Eirik had banished him to the Danai as a hostage. Apparently, he’d covered up for Eirik’s daughter Neblis when she’d stolen away to meet Victor. After Culach found them together, it all came out.

  When Ellard first arrived, he’d been quiet and sad. Galen recognized himself in the slender Valkirin youth. He’d taken Ellard under his wing. And eventually, his feelings had deepened to something more than simple friendship.

  It should have been me. I wish I were dead too.

  “You should leave this place,” he said to Mina. “Just go home. You’ve committed no crime. Victor wouldn’t make you stay.” His voice hardened. “Just go! There’s nothing for you here. I’m a man now. I don’t need my mother hanging over me.”

  A tortured look crossed her face. Was it only for him? Or for someone else? Was it possible she still had feelings for Victor? If so, he pitied her. It was plain that Victor was passionately in love with Delilah.

  Mina crossed the room, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. She barely came up to his shoulder.

  “I know you’re angry, and perhaps you have every right to be. But I won’t leave you again, Galen,” she said. “I swear it.”

  Since he’d realized he was severed from the Nexus, Culach had avoided dwelling on the loss of his elemental power, but it was easier when he’d had Mina to distract him. Sitting in the cell with nothing to do, he felt the anger and despair returning. He missed her desperately and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

  He wondered why Katrin wasn’t putting up more of a fight. Culach had been able to summon a respectable gale before his injury. Not enough to tear the stones of the keep apart—no Valkirin could manage that, or their enemies would have done it during the Iron Wars—but he would have made life miserable for his jailers at least. And whatever Katrin’s faults, she didn’t lack courage. He’d expected more from her.

  “Katrin?” he whispered through the grating.

  “What?”

  Of course, if he asked her about her power, she would likely ask about his, and he didn’t want to tell her his secret.

  “Never mind.”

  “Don’t say never mind,” she snapped. “What is it?”

  “I…Maybe they’re keeping you alive as a hostage. For when the other holdfasts come.”

  Katrin snorted. “The other holdfasts probably hope we’re all dead so there’s no one left to complain when they occupy Val Moraine. The Dessarians just have some strange sense of honor, I think. They came for you and Eirik. Eirik’s dead and you’re a blind cripple.”

  Her words didn’t even sting. Mostly, Culach felt a profound sadness. His clan, which had survived even the atrocities of the Vatras, had been wiped out in a matter of months by its own arrogance. By his arrogance.

  “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have sent the chimera. It was a mistake.”

  One of a great many.

  “You should be sorry. But I helped make the damn things, so I guess I can’t be too mad about it.” He heard her pacing up and down. “If Halldóra comes first and I live through it, I’ll ask to join Val Tourmaline. I have some distant cousins there. This place is dead.”

  “She’ll take you, Katrin. You’re a valuable fighter.”

  She grunted. They were silent for a moment.

  “Do you really love her? The Danai?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s honestly the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Culach smiled. “Have you never been in love?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  He stretched his legs out. They listened to the wind for a while.

  “I’m really hungry,” Katrin said.

  “Me too.”

  “Eirik should have put a watch on all the tunnels, but we didn’t have enough people.” She paused. “You know my sister was burned that day at the gate. I saw it happen. She was halfway into the water when her hair caught fire.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry, Katrin.”

  Despite all the time they’d spent in bed together, Culach hardly knew her. He wondered if anyone did. Beneath her bravado and sharp tongue, Katrin was guarded. She never talked about herself, not in a way that revealed anything personal. But the cold cells changed you.

  “Why did we go through the gate?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

  Once, he would have said they went for fortune and glory.

  “Madness. Greed.”

  “No, that’s not right. I think I just wanted to see the shadowlands. And whatever lay beyond it.”

  Culach remembered his moonlit ride with Ragnhildur.

  “Yeah.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Sometimes I wish—”

  He heard boots coming down the corridor. Katrin moved away from the bars. Culach wondered what she’d been about to say. He’d probably never find out.

  “Stand up and face the wall,” a Danai barked through the grill.

  Culach rose stiffly and turned his back.

  “Put your wrists together.”

  He heard the cell door open. Manacles snapped shut around his hands.

  “Where are we off to?” he asked lightly.

  “Shut up.”

  “Assholes,” he heard Katrin mutter.

  Two guards marched him down the corridor. Culach assumed they were bringing him to Victor, so he was surprised to find himself led straight to Gerda’s tower.

  “Have fun,” they told him, removing the chains and pushing him inside so hard he stumbled.

  The chamber was warmer than his cell, though not by much. Culach had never expected to see her again. It suddenly occurred to him that the only reason Victor would unbend enough to let him visit was if she were dying. Poor Gerda. The shock of all that had happened must have been too much.

  “Grandmother?” he asked tentatively.

  He heard the rustle and creak of Gerda’s leather gown as she swept down on him.

  “My dear Culach! What have they done to you, poor boy?”

  As before, he found himsel
f forcibly steered to one of her excruciating chairs, although this time, she pressed a goblet into his hand.

  “You look even worse than the last time I saw you,” she said. “Have some wine. It’ll warm you up.”

  One sip, particularly the hair-raising aftertaste, dissuaded him from drinking any more, though he supposed it was a sign he’d risen in Gerda’s favor that she offered him anything at all.

  “I expected you’d be…upset,” he ventured.

  “With you? It’s not your fault.”

  “Actually, it is.”

  “Don’t let those idiots get under your skin,” she said dismissively. “The Danai always had it in for us. It was only a matter of time before they pulled something sneaky.” She patted his hand. “So, who else is down there with you?”

  “Just Katrin. I haven’t heard any others.”

  “Ah, sweet Katrin. You should have married her a long time ago. Before you got so messed up.”

  “I don’t think Katrin has any interest in marriage, grandmother.”

  She sniffed. “Well, it’s too late now.”

  Culach waited. She obviously wanted something or he wouldn’t be here.

  “I was afraid they’d harmed you,” he said when she kept silent. “The Danai guards won’t tell us anything.”

  “They’re stupid,” Gerda said. “But that’s no surprise. Besides, I told Victor where the food was.”

  “You what?”

  “How do you think you got here, boy? We made a trade.”

  Culach frowned. His own regrets didn’t extend to Victor Dessarian. He still despised the man with every fiber of his being and fully intended to put an end to him someday, even if it meant hiring the services of a Marakai mercenary. Victor had seduced his sister Neblis and then, when their illicit affair was discovered, fled like a coward into the Dominion. Culach himself had been the one who found them together, swimming naked in a pond. Normally, he wouldn’t interfere with Neblis’s choice of lovers. She had the right, as all Valkirin women did. But Victor Dessarian? He was a preening rooster who only wanted her to tweak Eirik’s nose.

  Culach’s temper had got the best of him and he tried to kill Victor on the spot, but Victor’s close friend, Lysandros of House Baradel, gave Culach the winding scar on his face instead.

  Then there was Victor’s treatment of Mina. In his rational mind, Culach would not admit to jealousy. After all, their dalliance had occurred more than two hundred years before. But the thought of Victor touching her still made him itch for the man’s throat in his hands.

  “You should have let those bastards starve,” he muttered.

  Gerda lunged closer. Culach tried not to flinch as she put her mouth next to his ear.

  “They’re listening.”

  “I know,” he mouthed, rolling his eyes.

  “I have things to tell you.” A moist whisper. “About the Vatras.”

  Culach nodded to show he understood.

  “Oh, my ancient bones are so weary!” Gerda exclaimed in a loud voice. “I must lie down for a spell. Watch over me, Culach, in case the butchers decide to make an end of me.”

  “Yes, grandmother,” he replied in a dutiful tone.

  “Come,” she hissed.

  Gerda seized his wrist and led him away from the door to the far side of the chamber, where the wind swept down in all its howling fury from somewhere high on the battlements. She shoved a hard stool behind his legs and clamped down on his shoulder until his knees bent and he sat down.

  “That’s better,” she whispered. “Now I can look you in the face. Are you still having the dreams?”

  “Almost every night.”

  “Tell me about them. Every detail.”

  Culach was in no hurry to return to the cold cells, but nor did he feel like reliving the dreams to satisfy Gerda’s curiosity. “What for?”

  “Don’t question me, boy. I have my reasons and you’ll hear them soon enough.”

  He sighed. “They began a few weeks ago, with the death of a man called Farrumohr. He was the Vatra king’s closest advisor. Your grandmother was wrong. It wasn’t the king they called Viper, but Farrumohr. Everyone seemed to despise him. The king was named Gaius.”

  “What did Gaius look like?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing special really. Except for his strange light eyes.” Culach remembered the look in them, cold as a glacier.

  “And the advisor?”

  “Narrow-faced, like a fox. Short red hair styled into spikes. What does it matter? They’ve been gone a thousand years.”

  Gerda sucked her teeth. “How did this Farrumohr die?”

  “Rather horribly. He was fleeing the burning of the Vatras’ capital and he fell into some kind of sinkhole in the sand. I don’t know how long it took before he finally suffocated, but it wasn’t quick. Days. Weeks possibly.” Culach caved in and took a gulp of wine. The liquid burned a molten path down his throat and into his gut. It tasted like oblivion wrapped in rotten fruit. But a moment later, he grew pleasantly fuzzy and managed to find his voice again. “That was the first dream and it still comes to me sometimes. But the ones since are different. I saw the destruction of the Vatras’ capital, and before that, a gathering of all the clans. Things were different once, grandmother. The clans were on good terms.”

  “Until the Danai brought war!” she hissed.

  “But they didn’t. It was all the doing of the king’s advisor. He hated the Danai—”

  “For good reason, I’m sure,” Gerda interrupted. “So you have seen nothing of what happened to the Vatras after they were banished to the Kiln?”

  “No. I only see things through the eyes of Farrumohr and he died as the remnants of the Vatras fled into the desert.”

  “Too bad.” She sounded disappointed. “Still, I think these dreams are a sign. I didn’t tell you everything about the talismans.”

  Culach’s hand tightened around the goblet.

  “What else do you know?”

  “They were daēvas, for starters. One from each clan.”

  “I saw them,” Culach said. “They turned back the Vatras’ fire somehow. Immolated the whole city. But where did they get such power?”

  “Who can say? But their descendants will be marked.”

  “How?”

  “My grandmother said they would be weak in the element of their own clan.”

  Culach frowned. “That makes no sense.”

  “Well, it’s what she said. You know anybody like that?”

  For a moment, Culach wondered if Gerda had discovered his secret. But he wasn’t only weak in air. He couldn’t touch any element at all.

  “No. But why does it matter?”

  “I just thought if some of them were still alive in the Kiln after all this time…well, the Vatras might be the answer to our problems. It’s the Danai they hate. They only punished us because we made the wrong choice of allies.”

  “What are you saying, grandmother?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You know what I’m saying. Let them get their revenge. We have nothing to do with it. When it’s over, we’ll have the holdfasts and they can have the rest.”

  Culach laughed in disbelief. “I despise the Dessarians as much as you do, but you haven’t seen the Vatras. Their king is a madman. They’d kill us all.”

  “So will the Dessarians.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I do.”

  “You’re out of your bloody mind—”

  Culach’s voice had been steadily rising. Now he heard the door creak open.

  “Nice work, nitwit,” Gerda hissed. “They probably heard us.”

  Culach wished he could see just to be able to shoot her a dirty look. A firm hand closed around his arm.

  “Let’s go have a chat with Victor, shall we?” a voice said softly.

  9

  Psyche and Eros

  Thena raised the cup of water to her lips. Her hand trembled so badly the liquid slopped over the edge, soaking her white
acolyte’s gown. Tears sprang to her eyes. She angrily wiped them away and threw the cup across the room.

  He’s stronger than you are, a dark voice whispered. You’ll end up killing him.

  She covered her face with her hands and bent over, letting the sobs take her. Then her mouth hardened in an ugly grimace. Thena slapped herself across the face. She did it again, harder. It shocked her into calmness.

  I mustn’t cry. He’ll know. And he’ll crawl into my head again.

  She rose, fighting off a wave of dizziness. It had been two, maybe three days since she’d last eaten. She couldn’t remember. The Pythia had summoned her to the adyton, concerned about Thena’s appearance. She’d lost weight and barely spoke anymore. Whatever was the matter? Was she still upset about Maia? Don’t worry, she’s with the god now in a place of honor, and every war has its casualties. It wasn’t the witch, was it? Perhaps he should be given to Korinna.

  The Oracle’s kindly tone had not reached her blue eyes. She knew. And she was not well pleased.

  Thena should have agreed. Let Korinna wear his bracelet. Let Korinna feel his pain and coldness. His terrible pity. But she couldn’t stand the thought of another acolyte owning Andros. He belonged to her. Apollo had placed him in her hands. So Thena had lied for the first time since she’d come to the temple as a novice.

  She lied to the Oracle of Delphi.

  The shame still scoured her.

  She said she was ill with a stomach upset. The Pythia sent her to her chambers to rest.

  You have one week, daughter. One week to learn something useful.

  Thena tossed and turned for hours but couldn’t sleep. So she’d gone to Andros’s room, where she made him scream until his throat was raw. He still wouldn’t tell her his name.

  No other witch had ever lasted nearly as long. Complete obedience took time, she knew that. Weeks at least. But there were always glimmers of vulnerability. Cracks in the façade. The name, for example. It came quickly, usually within hours. And the look in their eyes would change when she entered the room. A tacit understanding of where the power lay.