by K. Eason
“You would be wiser if you did.”
Metal whispered a handslength out of its sheath. “Is that a threat against the First Legate, Toer Velaan?”
Velaan’s gaze shifted sharply. Her lips pursed. “There was a time an uncut man did not bear arms in Illharek. There was a time a man would die if he showed metal to a woman.”
“There was a time,” Rurik snapped, with all his old arrogance, “that Tal’Shik’s godsworn died because men killed them.”
Too much, too far.
Time enough to realize that, to wish Rurik silent. Then Velaan lifted her hand, palm up. There was a sigil inked onto her palm, blood-black, in a shape Dekklis recognized. Just as she recognized the violet fire that licked through Velaan’s fingers.
Godmagic.
Dekklis slung the wax tablet across the desk. Didn’t wait to see if she hit. Snatched up the stylus and came off her stool and dropped behind the desk. Wondered if mere wood and stone would stop godmagic, wondered what the hell a stylus would do against godsworn flesh, promised herself that this was the last time she’d conduct meetings in robes, and rot tradition.
Sure, Dek, because there won’t be a next time if you die now.
She hit the floor, hands and knees, as godmagic howled overhead. As Rurik did, a moment later—raw sound, half rage and half hurt. Dekklis saw his body fly up as if snatched from behind by a huge hand. Saw him twist and spin and slam, face and blade first, into the wall nearest the window, hard enough that the shutters rattled. He slid down, limp. Left a thick smear on the stone, red as Dek’s vision. She came over the desk, stylus held like a knife in her off hand. It felt like she was moving through cold mud, thick and slow. Battle-time. Too much time, to see Velaan turning toward Istel, to see Istel moving to meet her. He had empty hands,
draw a weapon
one arm out for warding, the other knotted as if he meant to strike her on the chin.
kill her, Istel
Time to wish it, that was all. Then Istel’s outstretched hand clawed and clenched and caught Velaan by the throat. Velaan arched and gasped. Came off her toes, slowly, as the muscles in Istel’s arm bulged and strained. Then his empty hand thrust forward, fingers stiff. Paused and then parted Velaan’s robes, her flesh. Fresh red, splash and coppery stink. And fast, oh foremothers, fast. Velaan had no time to shriek. She jerked like a fish on a line as Istel’s fist clenched somewhere inside her chest. Blood erupted from her lips, her nose, eyes and ears, what was he doing to her?
Her feet touched the floor then and time resumed. Velaan’s body—because she was dead, foremothers, yes—crumpled wetly to the tiles.
Dekklis dropped the stylus and went toward Rurik. Steady steps, because it would feel too much like she was running away from the mess behind her if she moved faster. He wasn’t dead. Bleeding from the scalp, and his headache would surpass hers—but no broken neck. Heartbeat fluttering in his throat.
She wished for Snow again, whose chirurgery knew more than Dek’s own battle-instincts. At least Rurik had landed on his back. She wouldn’t have to roll him over. Snow had told her once that moving a body could do more damage, sometimes, if there were things broken on the inside.
Dekklis eased the buckles on Rurik’s armor. Pushed her hands under the metal. Dented. Scarred. All that polished beauty gone and ruined, new work for the smiths and bondies. But his ribs felt solid under that. His chest moved, and there was no bubbling in his throat or lungs.
“Pyatta!” she yelled. The door slammed open. She didn’t look up, kept shouting orders, because that was what First Legates did. “Send for Adept Belaery.”
Pyatta must be gaping. Too quiet otherwise. No slapping feet, no breathless yes with or without a First Legate to follow. “Damn your motherless hide, go.”
That got a gurgled sir and the appropriate scrabbling sound.
“He’s all right.” Istel came around the desk. Looked down at her, Istel-cool. “It was a good throw you made with that tablet. You distracted her. Deflected the worst of the blast, or he’d probably be dead.”
Istel was empty-handed, dear foremothers, gore to his fucking elbow, calm as if he hadn’t just—
“The hell was that? What did you do?”
He raised a brow. “Saved your life. Killed Toer Velaan.”
“You put your hand through her. Grabbed her—what, heart? How did you do that?”
His eyes narrowed. “Leave it, Dek. Please.”
“Toadshit.” There wasn’t air left in the room. She tried to breathe, tried to fill lungs gone dry and empty. “Tell me what you did. Tell me how. Did Snow teach you that?”
“No. Not Snowdenaelikk.” He sighed. “It’s not conjuring, Dek. It’s godmagic.”
“She taught you godmagic?”
“Not her, no. The Laughing God.” Almost Istel’s old smile. Except that wasn’t Istel looking back at her. His face, his voice—but not him. A partner knew it. “I’m his avatar, Dek.”
Avatar. She knew the word. That was what Ehkla had aspired to be, what Snow had almost made her. The living vessel for a god.
“How did this happen? Hell and damn, Istel—”
“Snowdenaelikk—”
“I will kill her.”
“—saved my life last spring. When the godsworn took Veiko, I was with him. Took a gut wound, yeah? She couldn’t save me. The God could, but this was the price. He can borrow me sometimes. Or we share. Anyway. If she hadn’t agreed, you’d be dead right now, right along with me.” Tight little smile, weirdly both Istel and not. “Shut it, Dek. Listen, and I’ll tell you everything.”
She wasn’t at all certain she understood, when he was finished—gods devoured, ghosts stitched into flesh. That was Veiko’s sort of toadshit. Snowdenaelikk’s. Not hers, hell and damn. She was legion, scout, soldier. But she had walked the ghost roads. Had fought beside her dead friends in Cardik’s streets.
“Heresy,” she muttered. “Hell and damn, Istel. —I can still call you that, yeah? Or do you prefer a different name?”
That hurt him a little. The wince settled between his brows, twisted his mouth down at the corners. “I am Istel.”
“And Tsabrak. And the Laughing God.” She rocked back on her heels. Watched Rurik breathe. She envied him, missing all this. Cursed him, too, because she’d have to repeat it all later. “Would you have told me if this hadn’t happened?”
“No. Maybe. I hadn’t figured out how.”
“So, this.” She waved at Toer Velaan. “This wasn’t the God’s plan, to kill her.”
“No.”
“Because you just killed a Senator’s daughter. That’s not going to disappear.”
“She was godsworn, and she would have killed you.”
Truth. Dekklis shook her head anyway. Pressed both fingers to Rurik’s throat to give herself something to do. Steady heartbeat. Slow. She willed her own to match it.
Istel took Velaan’s hand. Rolled it over, palm up. The ink seemed like fresh blood against her black Dvergir palm. Livid. Wet. Tal’Shik’s sigil.
Gently, softly, Istel’s voice, but not quite Istel’s accent: “If she’d tried to kill you with plain metal, I’d still be plain Istel to you. But godmagic’s not fair, Szanys Dekklis, and I can’t let you die.”
Dekklis stared at the corpse on the tiles. Pretty little thing, Toer Velaan. Death stripped her back to a very young woman, face still soft on the edges, adult bones sheathed in baby fat. A woman who hadn’t spent years in the legions might be fooled by that youth. Might feel a tweak of remorse in her chest, and doubt.
She tasted the bitter in her throat. “Pyatta will have to check hands now, before anyone comes in.”
“Keep a supply of wax tablets on your desk, should you need to throw them.”
“Hell and damn, Istel.” Because that was her partner, arid and deadpan, hip propped on the desk. “Let me see your hands.”
He showed her both. “Not godsworn, Dek. Snow wears that mark. I don’t.”
“No. I suppose the
God has no need to mark himself.”
“I’m not the God,” he began. Stopped, as there came knocking at the door, and Pyatta’s voice.
“First Legate, the adept is here.”
“Let her in.”
Belaery had a way of coming into a room, all sweep and arrogance. Started to come into this room that way, too, and got exactly one step. Pyatta couldn’t even shut the door behind her. Belaery couldn’t shut her mouth.
“Come in, Adept,” Dek said. “K’Hess Rurik needs your help.”
Dek wished for Snow, who would not waste time staring at carnage. But grant Belaery some praise that she recovered quickly. Quick breath, in and out, and she came and knelt at Rurik’s shoulder and did the same things Dekklis had.
“Nothing broken.” She peeled his eyelid open. “No concussion.”
Dekklis folded her arms tight across her ribs. Squeezed until the bones creaked. “Where is he?”
Almost comical, the look Belaery gave her. “What? He’s right here.”
“I mean his...” Foremothers. Alien word, that felt strange on her tongue. “Soul. Spirit.”
Belaery stared at her. “I’m an adept. I am not a, a—”
“Noidghe,” Istel said. He was looking like someone else again. Tsabrak, maybe, in those twin arched brows. “You’ve been talking to Veiko, Dek.”
“Snowdenaelikk, not Veiko. And I’ve been reading.” Dekklis pulled a breath and held it. “Toer tried to kill me, Adept. Motherless godsworn tried to kill me and Rurik both.” That was anger, hot and welcome. Like armor, against the greater wit of fear. “I want him back.”
“The hell do you want me to do?” Belaery said, exasperated. “You sent the experts on that particular heresy north.”
“I didn’t think I’d have godsworn in my office!”
But Snow had warned her, hadn’t she. Snow had said, strike first.
“Shut it, both of you.” Istel came around the desk. Squatted beside Belaery and touched Rurik’s forehead with two bloody fingers. “He’s not—lost. He’s there. But you’re wrong, Adept. He is concussed. He’ll be sorry to wake up. —Careful, Dek,” and Istel heaved Rurik onto his side, just as the other man to choked into consciousness and promptly vomited a thin stream of bile that barely missed Dek’s boot.
Hell if she minded. Hell if she didn’t want to shout like a child and clap her hands and thank forbidden gods for K’Hess Rurik’s life. Well. One of those she could do.
“Thank you,” she said to Istel, who shrugged.
And to Rurik, “Are you all right?”
A stupid question, but it was the best way to gauge truth. Rurik squinted as if he stared into full sun. Grimaced and spat. “The fuck happened?”
“Toer was godsworn. She hit you with—something. Istel took her down.”
Rurik dragged a cool gaze across Istel, that was all, taking measure.
“My thanks, Second Scout.”
Istel bowed, as was proper, fist to his shoulder. “My pleasure, First Tribune.”
“Huh.” Rurik had moved to sitting. Tried to stand now, and grimaced as Dekklis took his arm. “What now?” as she pulled him upright. Level stare, like Veiko might look at her. His breath was sour, one more offense in a day full of them.
Her hands shook, post-battle tremors. She made them into fists. “Toer’s not the only tainted House.”
Rurik shrugged. “We’ve known that.”
“I arrest them, the godsworn will see it as war. They’ll hit back.”
“Then get them all, or as many as you can, in the first strike.”
Proscriptions, he meant. Send the legions into the Tiers, which hadn’t been done since the Purge, and scour the Houses.
“The Academy will support that decision.” No sign of weakness now. Hard-eyed Belaery, whose ears glittered with rings. “The Council of Adepts will aid the First Legate in any way that we can.”
Istel cleared his throat. “I can give you names.”
She couldn’t look at him. Held her chin straight, kept her eyes pinned on Rurik. “Oh. I bet you can.”
His voice shifted, Istel-cool turning cold, sharp, razors under ice. “Or not, First Legate Szanys Dekklis. Your choice. But next time, you might not be so lucky. I might not be here. Or.” And Istel again, that fast. Istel’s half-smile. “You could have me arrested. Hell. You could have me executed. I’m no highborn.”
She’d be an idiot if she cast away the best
partner
weapon she had.
She went to the door and pulled it open. Scared Pyatta, who had the grace to pretend she hadn’t been pressed against the wood, listening.
“Optio. Send a summons to the garrison. I need the praefecta and First Spears Neela and Per.”
She locked eyes with Istel. Told herself it was honest dark eyes looking back, and not flickering flames.
“We’re going to war.”
PART TWO
CHAPTER SEVEN
They came at Cardik from the forest to the north and west, hugging the mountains and the hillsides and staying well above the valley and the neat Illhari road. It was hard going, even in summer. Slow. Quiet, because the Taliri traveled in silence, except for meals, and then conversation was spare. They traveled single-file, too. Kellehn had moved Snow and Veiko to the front, directly behind him. That left the bulk and balance of Rhostiddir behind them, yeah, and that made Snow’s shoulders itch.
Around the last twist of a final hill, and there: the S’Ranna River coming out of the mountain, splitting the city. Cardik had mountains at its back, barren rockface and crags and cliffs. It had been a fortress, when the Alviri had lived there, wooden walls to shore up the stone, a thin swath of clear-cut in the valley. But there had been peace for so long, Illhari peace, that the clear-cut had spread. There were farms in the valley now. Neat squares divided by stone fences and strategic trees.
Or there had been. Nothing growing down there now but bones and weeds in the rubble. Black trees. The black skeletons of farmhouses. Bones, real bones. White if the body had died by violence. Black if by fire. Only the river was clean, rushing and tumbling through its banks, turning whole fields into lakes where the canals had broken. Snow guessed what lay at the bottom of those waters, yeah, and how much more had been carried away in the spring floods.
The Illhari built in stone. Their first improvement, when they took Cardik from the Alviri, had been to turn the wood palisades into conjured, seamless rockface. They had laid bricks for the road, paved over the dirt. The roads remained. Not so, the walls and the gate. Of the north gate, the narrow one, there was only rubble remaining, a pile of stone indistinguishable from the buildings behind it. The southern set, the main pair, was still standing, by some reckoning of stand. The guard tower lay in shards, and one massive wooden door reduced to splinters, but the stone arch was still there, and a narrow stripe of road showed through the debris.
Dear Laughing God, there couldn’t be survivors in that ruin. Snow wasn’t sure whether the pain in her chest meant she was glad of that or sorry. She had told Aneki to get out, hadn’t she? But stubborn Aneki wouldn’t. Refused to leave Still Waters and her staff. Please, their deaths had been quick.
They stepped away from the forest, from the shadows, into a golden summer afternoon. Clouds wisped overhead. Piled grey behind the peaks. Summer storm, like a half dozen others they’d met already, except this one they’d meet among the ruins. The wind teased her topknot. Brought her the smells of river and char and rot. She strangled an urge to cough. Scanned the ridgeline instead. The naked rocks. The trees crowding the slopes.
“We’re exposed out here,” she said. “If there’s anyone watching, they’ll see us, and we’ve got nowhere to run.”
“There is no one.” Kellehn did not turn around. “The scouts are certain of that.”
“Well. As long as the scouts are certain, I guess it’s all right.”
Kellehn peeled her a scowl. “Ask your svartjagr, if you have doubts. Or your dog.”
<
br /> “Right. Excellent conversationalists, both of them.”
Truth was, Snow could guess where any stray enemy Taliri were hiding, without Briel’s help: in that silent forest, where the holes in the trees said there had been camps, even if there was no sign of life.
But what they were waiting for now, that she didn’t know, and no toadfucking Talir scout of Kellehn’s could tell her that, either.
Nor could Briel, even if Snow had bothered to ask. Briel didn’t speculate on anyone’s motives. Described what was in svartjagr details. And what was: safety in the forest. Darkness. Shadows. Briel did not like this quiet, open Cardik. Had her own memories of the city, food smells and people and blots of color. Noise. Cats. Her distress leaked into Snow’s head and ached.
Go, Snow sent, out of patience. Maybe there are cats left, yeah?
Which made Briel a little happier. Got her out of the trees, anyway, and into the day-bright that no wild svartjagr would choose. Black shape against the blue and white and grey, cutting circles on the wind.
Veiko said something under his breath. She glanced at him. Grim-faced Veiko, witchfire eyes flat and focused on nothing and everything at the same time.
“No,” he said, still not-staring straight ahead, one foot following the other on the straight, flat, indestructible Illhari road.
Her mouth fell open, to ask what and did you say something. His glance intercepted her asking. Blue flicker from deep sockets, sideways and down. “The dead have many questions.”
“The dead.”
“Fields full of them. On the walls. Waiting. Calling out.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. On his cheeks, above the beard. “The ghost roads are very close. If I step wrong, I may—slip.”
“Wait!” pitched for Kellehn’s ears. And softer again, for her partner: “We go back, yeah? Into the forest.”
“What is it?”
Motherless toadshit Kellehn had a habit of soft-footing she didn’t like. She turned and glared. “We need to go back. Too many ghosts here.”
“We cannot go back.” Kellehn looked at her as if she were a particularly stupid child.
One breath, two, seven, to get her voice steady. To convince her hands to stay at her sides, away from the seax, away from Kellehn’s neck. “Listen, toadshit—”
