by AB Bradley
No energy remained within him for an angry retort or argument. After a few silent moments, she sighed. “If it’s any consolation, the sorry state you and your friends are in will buy them time. The Goshgonoi like healthy prisoners, so they’ll plump them up before…well, I think you understand what a cannibal is. No need for me to broach the subject once again.”
Iron lifted his face and finally saw his rescuer. Her stature matched her tone; chin high, one brow arched as if in constant disapproval, lips ready to purse at a word that crossed her. Blond hair washed over her shoulders, framing hazel eyes shaded by long lashes. Freckles peppered her nose and cheeks, giving her a playful youthfulness that blunted her haughty stature.
Their eyes met. She painted on a smile and extended her hand, knuckles nearly to his lips. “Nephele Catrona, Priestess of the Gentle Lover, Patroness of Soft Caresses and Guardian of Unspoken Longings. You may kiss my hand despite the awful condition of your lips, as it is the proper way to greet a lady. Plus, I saved you so it’s the very least you can do, sailor.”
She wagged her fingers. For some odd reason, Iron lifted his chin and kissed her hand. “My name’s Iron.”
“No last name? You’re not really that poor, are you?”
He shook his head. “No last name and I really am.”
“Of course a prince would never wash up on these shores. Just my luck to be charged with saving the lowest rung of society’s ladder. You really should think up a last name for yourself. People without them never get invited to the nice parties.”
“You are…odd.” He just didn’t know what else to say. Not even Sander ever left him so speechless.
“So says the boy named after a metal.” Nephele huffed and came to her feet. She dusted off the knuckles he kissed and hummed her way into the cave. A moment later, she returned with a broken half of an odd fruit in one hand and a fistful of nuts and berries in the other.
She placed both before him and retook her seat. “I do miss a good cooked fowl. Honey glazed, roasted on a spit, seasoned with salt and just a hint of paprika.” Her nostrils swelled as her nose tested the air for her imagination’s desire. She pouted when reality answered her with the odor of wet stone and jungle. “Maybe now that I’ve got you around, you can catch me some? I’ve seen birds I think are fowl, but bless the Lover if I’d ever actually be able to catch one. I’m too pretty to hunt, you see. You though? You might be able to do the trick. They’re not so quick looking and quite remind me of an Athe peacock, which are very slow birds indeed.”
Iron gathered enough strength to sit beside her. He grabbed the large fruit. It had a hard shell coated in something like burlap and a soft, milky inside that smelled oddly sweet. The pulp squished between his fingers; he sniffed the scent and shrugged, gently taking a bite.
Thick like honey with a watering hint of sweetness, the fruit coated his throat in blessed, salt less moisture. He smiled and leaned against the rock. “It’s good.”
“They’re coconuts, I think. I went to the most amazing feast once that was themed for the tropics. They had these cut for every guest, but those had been soaked in an aged Hinean peach liquor. It was wonderful, Iron, simply wonderful. I don’t doubt it brought me closer to divinity. I could have touched the Six themselves that night.”
“I doubt it brought you closer to divinity.” He took another scoop of the coconut, and a line of moisture dribbled down his chin. “More like it just made you drunk.”
Nephele gasped and gave him the look of someone truly offended. “You are speaking to a Catrona. We don’t become drunk. We become divine. Many an honored guest has given up their seat just for the pleasure my company brings.”
Another quip came to him, but he held it back. She did save him, after all. “Thank you, Nephele. I owe you my life.”
She swatted the air and looked away. “It was nothing. I ran when I saw your friends captured. I stumbled on you quite by accident, flopping like a fish running from the terrifying sea. I nearly didn’t stop when I saw that sword swinging at your waist, but since both it and you were in such poor state, I thought the risk worth it. Why did you carry it through the sea anyway? It can’t do much but weigh you down.”
He glanced to his waist. Fang hung there as always, a line of light peeking from the scabbard. He hardly noticed that light these days, and really, the scabbard weighed more than the sword. He’d only kept the heavier part for fear of slicing his leg on the exposed blade.
Iron lowered the coconut and nibbled on a few dried berries and nuts. His stomach thanked him with the ache of life returning. “I thought about tossing it, to be honest. I just—I don’t know. I haven’t decided what to do with it. It was a gift, I think, or maybe more like a curse. It’s confusing.”
“Poor people treasure the funniest little things. Then again, so do the rich. A poor woman might treasure trash and go to sleep with a smile while a rich woman who drapes herself in diamonds can fall asleep with a face full of tears.”
Iron paused his meal and turned to her. “You sound like you’ve been both.”
“Because I have been both women,” she said with a sad smile. “I fell in love with diamonds once and those diamonds broke my heart, and now you see the poor woman before you wearing sinewy binds instead of polished gems. Odd thing, though, being trapped on this island without so much a single gold coin to my name and cannibals prowling the jungle—I’ve never been happier!”
He eyed the fruits and nuts in his hand and the emptied coconut beside him. Maybe one of them had made her insane. Then again, he’d been happiest when he lived with little more than snow in the lower reaches.
“I actually think I know what you mean, Nephele.” He bit his lip and stared into the waterfall. “You said this island is full of cannibals, and they have my friends.”
“The Goshgonoi have captured them, yes. That tribe has infested the Rosvoi Islands like roaches in an unkempt kitchen, scurrying about, always scouting for unlucky sailors taken by the current and shipwrecked by the storms. They’re vile, wicked creatures, hardly even human. I simply can’t stand them. They’ve got their eye on Eloia I think. They’re building a fleet of catamarans on the southern shore. Maybe that gods-forsaken heretic king could finally do some good in the world and crush the vermin when they face a real world power.”
“Nephele, we can’t let them eat…we have to rescue my friends.”
Nephele’s brows pinched together and her chin dipped to her chest. “Rescue? We? Oh honey, I don’t think so.”
“It’s not a choice for me. If you won’t help me, then I’ll go alone. All I ask is that you tell me what you know of the Goshgonoi, and how I might save my friends without getting everyone killed.”
“But I was so hoping I’d have someone who could help me catch those fowl.”
“You don’t really mean that.”
The look he gave her melted her pouting lips into a sad sigh. She tossed her hair over a shoulder and wrung the water from it. “You’re right, I suppose. I can see you’d be an absolutely droll guest to a feast, what with your silly obsessions and moral compass and such. I used to gamble quite the coin back in the day, before, well, I played a bad hand so to speak, one thing led to another, and I ended up as a main course on these islands.” She straightened and nodded as if she’d just convinced herself. “Very well. Young man, let’s stop gambling our lives in a game with cannibals and get the hells off this island. You do know how to get the hells off this island, correct?”
Iron chewed on his lip. An idea sparked in that glittering sheet of water, and he grinned. “I’ve got a plan forming, but if you want to leave, we’ll need someone who knows how to sail. I’m no expert, but my friend is. She can get us from this island if we can get to one of the Goshgonoi catamarans.”
“Hmm. Then that’s that. We rescue your sailor friend and return to proper civilization. How exciting!”
Nephele motioned to the coconut. “We’ll rest for a few days, get your strength back. The Goshgonoi wi
ll do the same for your friends so they’re nice and healthy for the, ah, event. Thrallox likes plump food.”
“Thrallox?”
“Think of the tribe as a snake. You want to kill it, you cut the head off. The head of this particular snake is named Thrallox. He’s some sort of shaman chief. Thinks he’s chosen by the gods or some such and the tribe’s bought it. You kill him, and you’ll be the new god.
“Once Thrallox orders the feast, we’ll hear the drums. That will be our sign to move. They drink entirely too much of this foul-smelling island liquor, and it gets them entirely too drunk entirely too quickly. You move in, kill the chief, and in the chaos, I free the prisoners.”
“A simple enough plan.”
“The best ones always are. Tie a plan up in knots and it’s bound to trip you. I’ve got to warn you though, Iron. Thrallox is a raving lunatic. The man’s a Goshgonoi but he’s not, if that makes any sense. He’s knows Common and he knows the Six, but his heart’s as dark as coal and he’s easy to anger. While I was imprisoned, he spoke to me.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “Spoke some blabbering nonsense about a broken circle, and how he would feast on the Six’s flesh once he came to power.”
Iron started at the familiar words. “A broken circle?”
Her brow arched higher. “Yes, does that a ring a bell?”
This woman rescued him, but Sander’s warning about keeping his vision close to his heart proved stronger than her kindness. “No, it doesn’t…” He shook his head. Thrallox knew something, and Iron needed whatever secrets that madman kept. “…It reminded me of something I heard once. I don’t know. Gods, my life’s as knotted as a complicated plan.”
“I’ll pray to the Lover this life of yours doesn’t trip you up then. I’ll need my bodyguard in good form if we’re to win the day.”
He actually laughed and swept his arm before the shimmering wall of water. “Look at where we’re having our chat, Nephele. My life’s already tripped me up and tied a noose around my neck.”
“Honey, I’ve got no intention of swinging from the gallows with you. Perhaps its time you untied a few.”
It was time to untie a few of those knots, and whatever Thrallox knew would untie at least one of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Paradise
Three solemn days passed on Rosvoi, Iron tucked away in the secluded sanctuary Nephele claimed for them. The morning came and crept into the day. Iron stretched and inhaled. For the first time since he arrived, nothing ached when he moved.
As she usually did, Nephele slipped through the falls to gather food for their dinner, leaving him and the rushing water to stare at one another while the jungle chirped and cawed with the creatures lurking, always lurking, just beyond his human sight. The falls shimmered like a transparent wall of liquid glass, sparkling in amber stars where the sunlight speared it.
Every day he listened for the drumbeat. Gods, how he listened. But one day gave way to another, and still no drums sounded through the jungle. Knowing his master, the man found some canny way to delay being roasted on a spit.
Sitting and staring blankly at a shifting veil no longer threatened Iron’s sanity. He had recovered, and now it was time to move. Fang swung at his hip as he stood. His fingers found the grip and wrapped around it.
Right now, Ayska and Kalila and Sander languished in a cannibal prison, staring at a spit built to cook a human over raging flames. He squeezed Fang—the Fang of Asgeron—the only artifact known to have survived three Suns aside from the titans’ bones littering the land.
What a powerful artifact it turned out to be. It could hardly hardly cut toast and so terrified Caspran, the alp laughed when he saw it.
Maybe Iron had gone insane. Maybe the Six toyed with him, wanted him and those he cared for to suffer before Sol wiped humankind from the face of Urum.
With a quick flick of the wrist, Fang’s blade licked open air. His feet slid into Shade Stride, but there he hesitated. Shade Stride was a fluid stance perfect for one with the luxury of bending, spinning, twisting, and flirting with the edge of battle.
Here on the shallow ledge behind the falls, it didn’t fit. Loyal Stance fit, and in a way, using it would bring Ayska closer to him. Maybe in that cage, she would even think of him.
Feet once in Shade Stride shifted to that of the Loyal Father and planted on the slick rock. Iron shut his eyes and breathed the humid air. Birdsongs intermingled with the shrill cries of larger animals. The breeze carried those cries to a sea of waves flapping into the horizon leagues and leagues until they met the land, and there, they joined the throng and call of creation. Iron might have been an insignificant fool hiding behind a waterfall while his friends awaited an agonizing death, but in his mind, he spread his arms and rode the thundersnow across the world.
He pressed his fingers against the flat of the blade as he lifted the weapon before him, eyes still closed to the world. Iron raised a foot and swiped, quickly slamming that foot upon the rock before his strike completed. His muscles cried with joy, his blood sang a thrilled melody.
Strong swings carved deadly crescents as he twisted and spun. Fang sliced through the falls and sprayed moisture on his cheeks. The wet invigorated him, reminded him of the sparks that showered his cheeks during his duels in the Everfrosts.
Iron swung slowly first. Each motion followed a line flat as the horizon or straight as a marble pillar. He tightened his grip on the weapon, and the thrusts quickened with his heartbeat.
Ayska depended on him. She needed him. She’d turned from the Six, hated them for the life they gave her and punishments she received for crimes she never committed. She bore the scars of slavery. She witnessed the slaughter of her friends. She would watch her sister die when the drums beat. She would reach through her cage and scream at the flames, tears blinding her vision as Kalila wailed.
Sander would follow next. He would try and use magic, but the Sinner’s Oath that buried Iron’s power also sealed his master’s. Trapped amongst a throng of Goshgonoi with blood on their minds and hunger on their tongues, not even a man of the Slippery Sinner could escape death. Their spears would tear through his chest. He’d gurgle, blood on his lips before he too suffered the fire, his last thought of the boy he raised and what might have become of him.
They would come for Ayska next. Pain and punishment always came for her last. It was her fate to be a witness before she suffered.
Hot tears rolled down Iron’s cheeks. Instinct guided his arcs and shepherded his feet. Sweat mingled with his tears and soaked his shirt. He rode the storm. He was the storm. Gods were avalanches, but Iron was a storm, and he soared above them. He would save her. He would save them. He would end this king’s reign and end Ayska’s suffering. In his heart, he knew this was his destiny.
The last swing sliced the falls and kissed him with a chill spray. Iron lowered his aching sword arm and opened his eyes.
Nephele lingered near the grotto’s dark mouth, her bright eyes fixed on Iron. They blinked, and her lips slowly peeled apart. “What in all the gods of Urum was that?”
“It’s the fighting style of the Loyal Father. Ayska calls it Loyal Stance. She’s teaching me.”
“She’s teaching you? Iron, have you seen yourself? I’ve never seen someone move like that. You—you were incredible. Frighteningly so.”
He sheathed Fang and wiped his brow. “You’re too kind for your own good. Frighteningly so.”
The priestess laughed and shook her head. “Well, if you’re a novice then I’m the Empress of the East.”
“There’s no Empress of the East that I know of.”
“Exactly.” She laid out their meal on a palm leaf, and they sat to eat their fill. “You’re clearly feeling nice and hale today. Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself? It’s so rare I have a nice conversation these days, and you’ve been so dejected until now.”
“I wish there was something to tell.” Iron popped a berry in his mouth and savored the sweet juice rolling
over his tongue. “My master raised me since infancy in the lower reaches of the Everfrosts. Not long ago, wolves came. I’d never seen a wolf, so like a fool, I went searching for it. It wasn’t one but four, and they murdered a doe. I rode a thundersnow. We ended up in the ruins of a sunken city. All my friends were murdered save the three being planned for it now. Then, I met you.”
Short and simple without a hint of godly interference. No need to involve the Six when they weren’t needed.
Nephele held a few berries. She had opened her mouth to eat them, but now both her hand and wide mouth froze. For the second time that day, she blinked in surprise. “Did you say you rode a thundersnow? As in the famed thundersnows of Skaard, the titans’ roars and sky breakers? Those things can kill men in seconds! How by the Six’s grace did you survive?”
He nodded and popped another berry into his mouth while he crafted a careful reply. “It was luck more than anything. Sometimes, I wonder if I really did ride the storm. Sometimes, I think I’m going crazy. Maybe I’m already there.”
“We’re all a little insane. It makes life interesting. So your master raised you? Tell me more about this enigmatic man who would take a boy named for metal to the edge of creation and hide him from the world. Has he been your master since infancy?”
“Yes, although I don’t think it’s the life he wanted.” Iron folded his hands into his lap. “He’s used up his youth raising me in the wilderness. He never wanted that. He wanted adventure in cities with gold and fame and women. Instead, he got rock and snow and a child.”
She chewed on a berry for a moment. “You know the Gentle Lover is the patron of all loves, correct?”
“Of course. I was raised in the wilderness but learned plenty. My master loves to teach, or at least he loves to make me study.”
