by K. Eason
“I’m not any Dvergir, skraeling. No mere ghost. But you know that.”
“So you say. And I am not here to speak to you. But you know that.”
The flames in his sockets licked higher, brighter. “Snowdenaelikk is dead.”
“Even so, I am here for her. Not you.”
“But you can’t have her. She’s mine, skraeling. Do you understand that? She broke her bargain with me. This is the price.”
A man’s heart could burst, beating so hard. “I will not leave without her.”
“I see.” The God spread his hands. “What shall we do?”
Veiko shrugged. Waited and said nothing. It was, Snow told him, a maddening habit.
The God was not a patient creature. He came out a little farther. Liquid shadows puddled around his feet, steamed blackly into the silver-skied twilight. “Surely there is something you can offer, skraeling, some payment for her release.”
Veiko frowned. Sucked his teeth and looked up, as if the sky might tell him what to answer. Swung sidelong and touched stares with Helgi. The dog bunched himself into a crouch. Watched Veiko intently.
The God drifted another pace closer. “Well, skraeling?”
Veiko looked at him. “I will offer my axe.”
“Your axe?” The God stared. Then he threw his head back and laughed. The rocks shivered. Melted. “What would I want with your axe?”
It was a fair question.
Step and swing, axe and body moving together. Cut and chop with all his weight behind the steel. Feel it cleave into godflesh, in the crease between neck and shoulder, and slice it loose on the same stroke, so that the blade did not drive too deep and stick there. Pivot and step again, axe held ready.
And hold. Wait as the God crashed onto one knee, his hand clapped to the wound. Blood like molten fire ran through his fingers and burned the stone to dust where it fell.
“I did not say you would want my axe,” said Veiko. “Only that it is my offer. And you have accepted. Now will you let her go, or shall I offer a second time?”
The darkness split. Narrow bands at first, and then whole sections peeling away like the skin on boiled fruit. A flat yellow-grey light crept in after it, brittle as glass, and shattered on the jagged vault overhead. Snow’s witchfire paled in that brightness. Smoked and flickered until she let it go altogether. No more need of it, not when she could see all the way to the cave’s gaping mouth.
The light showed the grey dog standing on that path, looking down at her. A grey dog several months dead, who put his ears back and grinned at her.
Snow clenched her fists. Didn’t run, fuck and damn, no. Walked, as steady as she could, while her nails cut crescents into her palms. Helgi would not be here without Veiko. Believe that.
And still, when she saw his tall silhouette, she let her breath out in a gust, and put her hand on the wall, and waited there while her heart tripped and stuttered relief.
Are you all right? jammed up in her throat. Of course he was. Here, wasn’t he, with Helgi prancing beside him. Strong strides, easy, as he came down the path, the axe swinging in his right hand. Coming for her, because he was a—
“Damn idiot. You shouldn’t be here.”
He didn’t answer. Stopped in front of her and raked that witchfire stare across her, face to feet and back. Then, Veiko-grim: “Nor should you. How did it happen?”
“The God,” simply. She thought of Tsabrak in the river. Wondered if Veiko could summon him out of it, and what she would say if he did.
“The God said you broke the terms of your bargain with him.”
“The God lies. I killed Ehkla. Carved her up, worse than what she did to Kenjak. Godmagic, yeah? To summon Tal’Shik and bind her into Ehkla’s body. She did die.” She held her eyes wide against that memory. “It just didn’t last.”
“So she is not dead.”
“She didn’t stay dead. I tried again. Conjured up fire, tried to pull the whole building down. But I don’t think it worked.”
Veiko was frowning at her. “That was not wise, calling Tal’Shik into a body.”
“What’s wise, Veiko? Tell me that. If I killed Ehkla the way the God wanted, Tal’Shik would’ve killed you over here.”
She expected argument. Protest. A flash of skraeling pride, like summer lightning. Got a grim stare instead, and a quiet, “That is likely. Instead, the God killed you.”
“But you sent Kenjak to me.”
“I did.”
“Good thing, yeah?” Her voice dried up. Safer, easier, to look at her hands, than to hold that stare. She rubbed her thumb across the God’s mark on her palm. It ached like an old bruise.
“There’s blood on your axe, Veiko.”
“The God and I reached an agreement concerning you.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Those were not the terms.”
As soon argue with that logic as reason Briel off a flatcake. “That was not wise, Veiko.”
An almost-smile that faded as fast as winter daylight. “I did not want a dead partner.”
Now the shakes started, damn them, settling in voice and knees and hands. “Isn’t that what you’ve got? Kenjak pulled me out of the river. I think that means dead.”
Veiko folded his hands over hers. Warm fingers, strong and steady. “It will not last.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
His mouth pulled up on one side. “No.”
“Good.”
“But among my people, it would make you a noidghe.”
“Dvergiri don’t have noidghe.”
“Perhaps,” said Veiko, “they do now.”
Clear dawn, with the battle sounds drifting in on the river mist. Dekklis shared space with Briel on the windowsill and watched the bruised sky over the Warren. It had glowed through the night. Still did, proof against any light out of the east. But the fire had not crept across to the Bridge, and neither had it jumped across to the Hill.
Ask if that meant Tal’Shik was contained. Ask if that meant Snow had managed, after all, to kill Ehkla. Ask if Snow were really dead, for that matter. Her eyes were closed. Her skin was cold. No breath that Dekklis could find. But Teslin and Barkett said she wasn’t.
Dekklis couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Oh, she was reasonably certain that she herself was alive. That Istel was. And so was Aneki, who had met them at the back gate. Who had not asked why two of the four troopers that brought back Snow’s body were as insubstantial as mist. Who had not asked why, in a rainstorm, Dekklis and Istel were frosted with ice. Who had not asked how they’d got through the fighting on the Bridge. Aneki had only opened the gate and led them inside and up here, where Veiko was already stretched like a corpse on his blankets.
Not dead, Teslin had said. Not him, and not Snow.
I should know, Dek. I’m telling you.
Dek hadn’t argued the point. Had sent Teslin and Barkett back into the streets, twice and three times, to bring back news. They reported fighting still in the Warren. The Bridge fires gone out. Fighting at the east and south gates of the city, where bands of Taliri were massed outside in what had been Cardik’s farmland.
A lot of dead out there, yeah. A lot more dying.
She should be out there herself, with the Sixth. Should be sticking metal through someone living, instead of watching the varying definitions of dead. She’d made an attempt, when they’d got Snow back here, to turn around and go out. Aneki had stopped her. Spread arms in the doorway—
Want to get killed, is that it? Safer here.
—and argued. Aneki would have moved if Dekklis insisted. A sword could be very persuasive.
But only one sword, because Istel meant to wait, like the dog or the svartjagr or Aneki, until something happened. So she could argue with that stubbornness or go with it. Sit. Wait. Watch.
And so the night crawled past, and the rain changed to ice, and then snow, and then stopped altogether when the sun poked cold fingers into the sky. Pale, heatless ye
llow, smeared against smoke and the violet glow off the Warren.
Teslin touched stares with Barkett. Cleared her throat. Got to go, Dek.
Will you come back? clogged in the back of her throat and burned there. Couldn’t bear a yes, hell and damn, couldn’t face a no. Bad enough to grieve once and know someone was gone. Worse, far worse, to know that it wasn’t true, that they went on somewhere, some place she couldn’t reach.
“You be careful, yeah?”
Teslin nodded. Clapped a hand on her shoulder. The touch might have bruised her once. Now it only chilled her down to bone. Ask if that was pity in a dead woman’s eyes. Ask if it was grief.
Dek had no shortage of either. Clamped her teeth shut on the sound she wanted to make. Turned back to the window and leaned out as far as she could. Told herself it was cold stinging her eyes, that was all. Behind her, Istel swore until he ran out of breath.
Briel chrripped. Snaked her head around and looked at Snow, who was sitting up and looking down at a shirt on which the blood and rain had long since dried. She brushed at the stains. Frowned. “My skin feels tight.”
“That feeling fades,” Veiko said from his pallet. He rolled onto an elbow. Patted Logi’s head.
“What are you talking about?” Dek blurted at the same time Aneki said, “Rot you both, scaring me like that.”
Snow held out a hand to the svartjagr, who minced and fluttered from the windowsill as if she hadn’t been keening and fretting the whole night. “Sorry. Didn’t plan that.”
“You were dead,” Dekklis said.
“Well, she’s not now,” said Aneki.
Maybe Aneki didn’t see the problem with a corpse sitting up and talking. Maybe Aneki hadn’t spent the balance of her adult life dividing the world into living and dead, enemy and ally, and never worrying about what happened after. Dead was dead, that was all, and now it wasn’t.
Snow swung her feet over the edge of her bed. Winced and closed her eyes and touched the back of her skull. “Did you drag me back here by my feet, Szanys?”
“Should have, yeah? You’re welcome. Could’ve left you up in the Warren.” Dekklis had to sit down, suddenly. Landed hard on the hearthstones, palms and ass together. “Teslin carried you. We walked through this fog that came out of nowhere. Five steps, I swear that was all we took, five, and we went from the Warren to Still Waters’ back gate. There was ice on my armor. You tell me how?”
Snow was watching her. Not smiling now, not even a smirk, eyes narrow and knowing. “I can’t.”
“It is the ghost road,” said Veiko. He was sitting up now, bare to the waist, sifting his braids through his fingers. Maybe his hands shook a little. Maybe that was the uneven firelight. Shadows under his eyes, purple as the sky over the Warren. “It is how the dead walk between worlds.”
“The dead shouldn’t walk at all.”
“What should be and what is are not always related.”
“They’re gone. Teslin and Barkett. Just gone.”
“No,” said Veiko gently. “They are only dead.”
And what could she say to that? Throw her hands up, spin and stalk the too-short distance between window and hearth. Lean against the cool sill, fold her arms. Feel her heart beating hard in her chest.
“So what now?”
Expecting—hell and damn, what? A plan. An idea. Words, of which Snow never had any shortage. Got only silence and Snow looking deliberately somewhere else. At the floor. At the table. At her partner, finally, for a long moment.
Veiko said nothing, either. But he shrugged into a shirt, and a sweater after it. Found his pack and began to fill it, with the efficiency of a man used to moving.
“You’re leaving?”
Snow squinted at the window. “Before the sun gets much higher. Yeah, Szanys, we are. This city’s not safe.”
“You reckon? You maybe think you had something to do with that?”
Istel grunted. “Not fair, Dek.”
“You shut up,” she told him. Damn near choked on the words, on the anger.
Aneki slid into that silence. “I’ll give you what provisions we can. Don’t you argue with me, Snow.”
“I was going to say you should come with us.”
Aneki shrugged. “Still Waters is my place. Not going to leave it.”
“If the legion fails—”
“We’ll survive an occupation. Brothels do.”
“The Taliri might come looking for me. Ehkla, maybe, if she’s still alive.”
Dekklis snapped, “How can you not know that?”
Snow wheeled around. “Because she was turning into an avatar when I dropped the roof on her and set the place on fire. I don’t know how well avatars burn. I don’t know if they do. Wasn’t going to wait, was I? Any more than you did.”
“Doesn’t matter now.” Aneki shrugged. “You won’t be here, will you? Whoever comes looking, they won’t find you.”
“Tell them where we have gone,” Veiko said. “If they ask. Do not try to protect us.”
“Protect you? I’ll tell them I sold you to the legion. Not that far from the truth, is it? Just be seen leaving with them, yeah? Out the front door.”
It was like listening to people discussing the quality of their wine while their house burned around them. Dekklis chopped her hand at the window. Sent Briel hissing up Snow’s shoulder, startled a yip out of Logi. Even Aneki flinched from the motion.
Snow only looked at Dekklis and smiled, very faintly. “Something to say?”
“You didn’t ask, but let me tell you, since no one else has. Your revolution is still out there in the streets.”
“Not mine. Tsabrak’s. And he’s dead.”
“You armed them. You did, as much as him. And there are Taliri at the gates.”
Snow grimaced. “Reckoned. Those’re Ehkla’s so-called sisters.”
“More godsworn? Hell and damn, Snow—”
“I didn’t know before, yeah? Ehkla told me. But I should’ve reckoned it. Both of us should have, Szanys. So much for childhood lessons.”
“I did reckon it. I said—”
“Dek.” Istel put his hand on her arm. Squeezed. “It’s done, yeah?”
“Right. Done.” She raked the remnants of her queue out of her face. “How will you get past all of them? More ghost roads?”
Snow looked at her as if she were a particularly slow child. “I’ll conjure us past. Same way we got in. Once we’re out, though, we’ll need your skills. Can you get us around the Taliri? Get us to Illharek?”
“Get you around—? This city’s under attack, you savvy that? We’re not leaving.”
Snow looked at Veiko. “And you think I’m stubborn.”
“It is a Dvergiri failing.” Veiko turned those pale eyes on Dekklis. “Your oath is not served if you die here.”
“And what would you know about oaths?”
Veiko laughed, dry as old bones, damned if she could tell why.
Indignant now, feeling as if she’d already lost the fight: “You don’t need us. You got away from us once. You can dodge the Taliri once you’re out.”
“Perhaps.” Veiko shrugged. “But I do not know the way to Illharek.”
“Your partner does.”
“His partner knows the roads, not the woods. And his partner can’t get an audience with the Senate. I’m a half-blood. Think the senators will listen to me if I say Tal’Shik’s come back?”
“You’re a heretic, too. Don’t forget that.”
“Reformed. Listen, Szanys Dekklis. It has to be you who tells them what happened here. If they’re not warned, if they don’t act, the Taliri burn their way to Illharek’s gates and this happens again.”
“Now you love the Republic. Toadshit. I think you’re worried for your own skin.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m thinking of you and Istel, too. Don’t want you to end up on a pole on the Market Bridge.”
“You know what the legion does to highborn deserters? The pole might be kinder.”
&n
bsp; “They won’t touch you. Your mother’s a senator. You say Tal’Shik’s back, they’ll listen.”
Like walking into a blind alley and finding yourself surrounded. Know how it’d end, yeah, and fight anyway. “Maybe she isn’t. You might’ve killed Ehkla. You said—”
“That I wasn’t sure. I’m still not. That there’s not a dragon burning Cardik right now says I did something right. But whatever happened to Ehkla, Tal’Shik’s not finished. You know that. Lessons, Dek. She’s going after Illharek.”
Dekklis looked at the rings glinting high in Snow’s ear, at the rain-draggled topknot. “And you will be doing what in Illharek? Examining the Academy’s archives? Finding new poisons? New heresies?”
Snow glanced sidelong at Veiko. Whole conversation in that look, which ended on Snow’s grim “Something like.”
Veiko didn’t look any happier. Lips tight, eyes narrow. But he wasn’t arguing as he traded bloodstained silk trousers for worn leather.
At least someone’s partner stayed faithful. She could feel Istel’s eyes on her. Knew what he wanted. She could test his loyalty, sure, order them both back into the streets. She’d have to cut him down when he refused or watch him walk out with Snowdenaelikk. Or admit that Snow had a good point, ever and always.
“Illharek,” Dekklis said. “We’ll go with you. Damn you, Snowdenaelikk.”
The half-blood grinned like a midwinter sunrise. “I think you’re too late for that.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
So many thanks! In no particular order:
To Lisa, for being a fabulous agent.
To Tan, for reading every draft, even when there was a baby on the way.
To my parents, who always kept me well supplied with books and who taught me how to use my powers of epic stubborn for good.
To Stephanie, who helped with query letters and synopses.
To Colleen, who wouldn’t let me quit.
And finally to Loren, for being the most metalhead cheerleader ever, my partner in all things, and for making all the coffee.
Without these folks, this book wouldn’t be here. Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
