by K. Eason
“Oh, surprise that you agree with her.”
“Listen to me, Snowdenaelikk. Godsworn killed two of my brothers, and they tried to kill the third. When it’s time to clean them out of Illharek, my sword is yours. I swear that.” Pause, while Rurik caught breath, braced for interruption. When it did not happen, when Dekklis only stared at him, he continued more quietly. “But this isn’t the time. The Taliri are having their own problems. We need to move now. Capitalize on their division. We can clean up Illharek later. My word on that. We will clean it up.”
Dek hadn’t prompted that speech. Look at her: mouth gone flat and thin, eyes narrow in a web of thin lines that Snow didn’t remember. First Legate and Senator didn’t sit easy on Szanys Dekklis. Unwelcome pity crept into Snow’s gut, her throat. Tasted a little like guilt. She let her gaze slip sideways, over the edge of the Arch. “Problems. Tell me about the Taliri’s problems, yeah? Since we don’t have enough of our own.”
Dekklis found her voice, finally. “They sent an envoy. They want help. You want to kill Tal’Shik’s godsworn, then I’ve got one who need killing. Only, she’s not in Illharek, savvy that?” Dekklis ducked her shoulder and leaned in close. “Will you, or will you not, help me with this?”
As if they were friends. As if this were a favor. Szanys Dekklis, highborn, legion scout. Fucking First Legate now. “Is it you asking me, or Illharek?”
“Snowdenaelikk.” Dekklis pressed her lips tight. “Please.”
“I’m not your assassin, Dek.” Grudgingly: “But I’m listening.
* * *
Veiko worried whenever Snow went into the Tiers, but a man could not sit idle, or wear a path from one end of the flat to another. A man found work for his hands. A hunter needed arrows, in case he ever fired his bow again. There were smooth wooden shafts on the table in front of him. A basin of water and moose sinew soaking in it. A small knife, to split the feathers he’d already laid out on the table. It was a good place for fletching. Flat and well-lit and safe from wind, which his fireside had never been.
So: pick up the knife, and a feather, and split and trim it. Again. Again. Place them on the shaft. Take up a length of sinew, sticky now that it was wet, and wrap the feathers to the shaft. Wait, while the sinew dried and stiffened. Relax into the pattern, so that his greatest worry was the straightness of the feathers and the placement of the sinew.
Logi raised his head from his post between firedog and balcony shutter. Slapped his tail once and hard on the floor. Did not bother to get up, having recognized the visitor and decided he was neither threat nor worth the effort of rising. Logi was happy to take his rest when he could, which only meant that dogs were wiser than men.
That meant, too, that the visitor was one of two who might come and go without Logi’s concern. K’Hess Soren or Istel, and Soren would come from the door, not the balcony.
Veiko set the arrow down. Tilted his head a fraction and watched the other man ghost from the balcony door to open shutter and tuck his body in the folded shutter’s shadow while he looked out at the street. That was a legion scout’s training. That was bowman’s instinct, who looked for other archers in every window. That was Istel’s profile, etched against Illharek’s witchfire daylight. Istel’s scent, to Logi’s clever nose.
But it was sometimes the Laughing God, too, who had once been Tsabrak, inside Istel. And it was because of that Veiko let his hand slip to the axe he never took off his hip anymore, even in this house, even when Snow was here. An axe would not end the God’s existence, not in this world, but it would end his avatar’s usefulness. And Istel’s life, because those two things were the same.
Veiko made himself meet Istel’s eyes and the wrung-out smile. And it was that smile, more than anything, that said who it was looking out of Istel’s eyes. The God’s smile was hard and beautiful, even on Istel’s plain face, and cruel as winter. It was Tsabrak’s old smile. Veiko had seen its echoes in Briel’s memory. Saw its effects on Snowdenaelikk, who never flinched from Istel. Who never smiled back in quite that way at Istel, either.
Only a fool would be jealous of his partner’s dead lovers. Only a fool would resent the God he’d helped make. Only a fool would punish that God’s sometime-avatar, who had been, if not a friend, then at least an associate to whom Veiko would trust his back in a fight.
That associate said, in a tone to match his smile, “It’s me, Veiko.”
“Yes.” Veiko forced his breath out. Made his hand relax, finger by finger. Made his hand return to the tabletop. He might’ve helped Tsabrak kill the old God and ascend to his place, yes, but it was Snow who’d become godsworn after that, to save Istel’s life. She’d asked him before she’d sworn anything. He might’ve said no. Invoked a partner’s veto. But he had not. And so it was his doing, as much as hers.
“You worried?”
“Yes,” Veiko said, before he realized he was not entirely sure what Istel thought he should be worried about. The God. The Taliri. Snowdenaelikk’s long absence.
“So’m I.” Istel came back to the table. Tucked himself on the bench opposite Veiko. Brushed a careful finger along the new fletching. “I just got done telling Soren that Snow would be fine. I think he’s afraid she’ll come back in the same condition as Yrse. These’re owl feathers, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Nice. Legion always used blackhead goose. Or swan, sometimes. I told Soren, no way Snow will go that quiet. She gets in trouble, we’ll all know it. Half the Tiers will come down.”
Ancestors forbid. “So, you came here to—what?”
“See if you were still here. I reckon something goes bad, you’ll know it first.”
Through Briel, of course. Which begged asking: “Does Briel not send to you anymore?”
“No.” Istel’s mouth creased.
“Tsabrak never liked her.” Snow had told him so. Briel had, too, in a svartjagr’s torrent of image and emotion. And his own impression: “The old God did not like Briel, either.”
“I do,” Istel said, carefully neutral. “Always have.”
There was no answer for that. Veiko did not try to make one. Picked up his latest arrow instead and pretended great interest. Tested the sinew’s wrap on the shaft. Still damp. Still loose. Of course.
He put it down again. “Briel’s last sending showed them on the Arch.”
“They?”
“Dekklis and Soren’s brother. Your former First Spear.” The Illhari words felt strange on his tongue.
“K’Hess Rurik.” Level voice, blank face that said Istel did not approve of the association. “I don’t like that.”
“Why not?”
“Dekklis doesn’t need an escort, does she? Walk all over the Arch, all over the Tiers, she’s safe.”
“Dekklis has enemies. Perhaps this K’Hess is there to protect her.”
“Snow has enemies. Maybe Rurik’s one of them.”
Veiko pressed his hands flat on the table. Hoped to all his ancestors Briel did not feel his agitation. “Do you believe that?”
“Hell, Veiko. I don’t know. Dekklis wouldn’t do anything to Snow besides yell at her. But I don’t know what the First Legate will do. Or the Senator. Arrest her, maybe. She’s carrying a woman’s head in a sack.”
“A criminal’s head.”
“Snow’s a criminal too. You are. I am.” He carved a half-circle in the air with his hand. “This whole house, everyone in it. Most of this neighborhood.”
“She would have nothing to gain by arresting Snow now.”
“Sure, she would. She could bargain for me.” Istel had been staring out the door and up, as if he could see the Arch from this angle. Now he looked at Veiko again. Perhaps it was the angle of his face to the firedog that made it seem there were flames where his eyes should be.
Tell yourself that.
Veiko frowned. “You would not trade yourself for Snowdenaelikk.”
“You would, though. Me, Soren, whoever you had to. The First Legate knows that.”
&nb
sp; Veiko snorted. “Is it your habit to see enemies where you have friends?”
“Szanys Dekklis is not my friend,” coldly, too coldly. The firedog shivered. And when it steadied, yes, there, the pretty smile that did not belong on Istel’s face. The flames leaped and flickered where Istel’s eyes had been. “And she’s not yours, Veiko, and not Istel’s, and sure as toadshit not Snow’s. Not anymore. She belongs to Illharek.”
It was easier, somehow, to face the God outright than to imagine him lurking under Istel’s skin. Veiko leaned back on the bench. Drew up a casual foot and draped his arm across the knee. “If you were so worried, you could have forbidden the meeting.”
The God’s laugh popped like crockery on tile. Startled Logi out of his nap. “You’re Snow’s partner, and you say that. You don’t forbid Snow to do something.”
“You’re her God.”
“She’s godsworn, yeah, but she’s no bondie. She made sure of that. Didn’t she tell you, skraeling, the terms of our bargain?”
“It is enough to know you asked her to swear at all, to save Istel’s life. You bargained well, I think.”
“Had it been you, Veiko, whose life hung in balance—there is no price she would not have paid. You know that.”
Coldly: “She is no fool.”
A second laugh, sharper and shorter. A man could cut himself on the edges. “No, she is not. But she has her blind spots, yeah? Szanys Dekklis is one of those.”
“Snow believes we are allies.”
“Is that what you believe, too?”
“I believe we share an enemy in Tal’Shik.”
“That is not the same thing.” The God rearranged Istel’s features into a scowl. “Szanys Dekklis serves Illharek with a godsworn’s zeal. A republic. A city. An idea. Illharek cannot bargain. Illharek cannot hear prayers.”
“Illharek is the name given to a great deal of stone and too many people,” Veiko said. “Dekklis has no reason to harm Snowdenaelikk, because Snowdenaelikk does not threaten Illharek. Tal’Shik does. So, until that mutual trouble is gone, yes, I do believe we are allies.”
“And after that?”
After that, Veiko reckoned, they would be as safe as Logi’s supper, and last just as long.
Logi’s head came up and pointed at the balcony. That was all the warning Veiko got.
A pair of boots dropped into view. Long legs, in northern leathers. And then the rest of Snowdenaelikk, one liquid drop. “And Dek asked why I didn’t bring Istel along. Because he’s never there, is he? Tell me, Tsabrak, where does Istel go when you’re in residence?”
“He is here.” The God snipped the words close.
“Aware?”
A shimmer of discomfort. “Yes. Lately, more and more.”
“Huh.” Snow quickstepped through the door, into the shadow of the shutters. Tucked in close and peered out again. One breath, two. Then she held up an arm. Briel gusted over the balcony and wrapped tail and talon around her forearm. “I didn’t bargain for Istel’s life so I could watch you wear his skin, yeah?”
“I had business with Veiko. I didn’t plan to be here when you came back.” The God slid a cool look sideways. Said, delicate and accusatory, “I was told you were still on the Arch.”
“She was. She is no longer.” Veiko shrugged. Would not protest his innocence to the God, no, because it was not his duty to report on his partner’s changing location. But he should have known, because Briel should have sent—ah. There. An ache behind his eyes, that he should have noticed and had not. Briel had been trying for his attention, and he had blocked her. Small wonder she hissed at him now, needle teeth white against black gums and tongue.
“I was distracted,” he told the svartjagr. “You see why.”
“Chrrip.” She stretched her wings. Flapped once and made the lamp gutter near to dying, and launched the short distance between Snowdenaelikk and the ceiling beams. She settled among the shadows, two hot coal eyes in the dark.
Snowdenaelikk looked from the God to Veiko and back, long and measuring. Oh ancestors, he could hear the thoughts tumbling through her head. Felt them slithering through Briel’s awareness. Only a fool would interrupt them. Even Logi was too wise to rush at her. Stayed on the floor, tail thumping and sweeping, ears flat, until she bent to greet him. She took the long way around the room, kept the table deliberately between herself and the God. Folded herself onto the bench beside Veiko and slid close, so that her knee and hip touched his.
Then, softly, “What business, exactly? Veiko?”
“The God wishes to warn us that Szanys Dekklis is not our ally.”
“No? Then what is she?”
“Illharek’s,” said the God.
Snowdenaelikk strangled a laugh to death and coughed out its remains. “And stone is hard, yeah? Water is wet? Tell me something new. And give me Istel back, yeah? He knows her better than I do, and I want his opinion.”
“He hears this,” the God said. Sounded sullen, like a child caught in some forbidden activity. He held up his hands, palms naked and spread. “But have it your way.”
And there, oh ancestors. A ripple across Istel’s face, like the bones themselves were moving, like the skin had its own life and breath. Then the features resettled, exactly the same as before. And not, because the eyes were Istel’s again, weary and creased at the edges. The smile was Istel’s, too, crumpled in the corner of his mouth.
“Istel.” A stranger would see Snow, and hear her, smooth and hard as glass. Veiko saw the fine cracks. Suspected that Istel did too.
“Snow. How’d it go up there?”
“Dek wasn’t happy about the head. But she was more worried about me adding highborn to the collection.” Snow’s summer-midnight eyes swept toward Veiko. “She’s got something else in mind for us, yeah? And you won’t like it.”
“Tell me,” he said, while Istel waited.
“She said they made contact with a Talir envoy outside of Illharek. He spiked a bunch of other Taliri as some kind of gesture.” Snow fumbled a stick of jenja out of her pouch. Called fire to the tip, conjured flash and flare. Put the other end in her mouth and pulled deep. Then, in a curl of smoke: “He says there’s a split among the Taliri godsworn. Says that’s why they haven’t come at us yet. Infighting. And he says the leader’s up in Cardik and he thinks we can settle her. He asked for us by name, Veiko. You and me.”
Veiko sighed. “It would not be unwelcome, to breathe clean air.”
“Hard to breathe with metal in your lungs. Or a godfucking pole. We’re talking about Taliri. You know what they do. You’ve seen it.”
Istel snorted. “And you agreed to go? —Give me one of those, yeah?”
She looked at Istel. Got another stick out without breaking eyelock, lit it, stretched her hand across the table. “If this Kellehn is telling truth, then someone has to check the story. The dragon has devoured the north. I speak Taliri. Veiko speaks ghost. Makes sense it’d be us.”
Veiko heard something unsaid. Saw it in the unhappy line of her neck and shoulder, in the way her free hand wandered over the arrows. The jenja burned, forgotten.
Istel made a spitting noise. “Dek threatened you, didn’t she? Or Veiko. Which?”
“Dek doesn’t make threats. She’s just saying no civil war, not yet. She wants me out of Illharek before I start doing your—the God’s work.”
Istel studied his jenja’s smoldering tip. “All right. Then you go north.”
“That Istel talking? Or Tsabrak?”
“That’s sense. You know Dek’s not bluffing. You cross her, she might not kill you, but she’ll do something. Arrest you, maybe.”
“Reckoned that.” Snow blew a long plume of smoke. “Here’s my worry. This Talir toadshit’s not telling the whole truth. The dragon, he said. Well, what if it is a dragon? What if that’s why they’re asking for me? Except I didn’t kill a toadfucking avatar up there in Cardik. I pulled the building down on Ehkla before she finished changing.”
Veiko did not often
see fear on his partner’s face. Did not like the matching twinge in his belly or the cold fingers reaching into his chest. He had faced Tal’Shik in her wurm-shape, but only in the ghost roads, and she had nearly killed him then. A wurm in true flesh and blood was legend-stuff.
“Then you be careful,” said Istel. “Dek won’t bend on this. She needs eyes she trusts up there, yeah? That’s you. That’s me saying it. I know Dek.”
“Right.” Snow leaned over and poked the jenja stump through the firedog’s grate. “You feel him up there? The God?”
“More now than I used to. It’s like.” Istel tipped his chin up and frowned. “Like Briel, a little bit. Only he’s more solid. More there. He speaks. She was just impressions.”
Snow picked up one of the feathers. Twirled it between her fingers, so that the plumage stood away from the quill, and smoothed it flat again. “I didn’t know that would happen, Istel. Swear it.”
“It’s better than bleeding out, yeah? I mean that. Both of you, listen. I saw Teslin and Barkett after they died. I walked the ghost roads with you, Veiko. And I saw you come back from being dead.” He stabbed his jenja at Snowdenaelikk. “Saw the look on your face when you sat up. Whatever’s over there, it scared you. This is better. Living. Even with him in there with me—it’s better.”
Snow’s knee slid into Veiko’s and stayed there. He could feel every ridge and bony knob in it. He glanced sidelong. Reached and took the feather from her. Smoothed it and set it back among its fellows. A little ragged already, from all its abuse.
“So, then we leave for Cardik. When?”
Snow twitched a shoulder. “End of the week. It’ll take me that long to settle Ari into playing boss. Dek’s going to miss me. Mark it. We’re gone three days, Ari will be hunting in the Tiers, and in five he’ll be dead.”
“Ari won’t.” Istel crossed to the table and put a foot up on the bench. Crossed both arms on that bent leg and leaned forward. It was not a very Istel gesture. “We’ll be smarter than that.”
“We, is it? Who’s we?”
“You said Dekklis wondered where I was. Maybe I should go see her. Show her I’m fine. Talk to her. Maybe convince her to change her mind.”
