by eden Hudson
Behind me, BrightSights clicked on and slashed through the churning gray, but I had designed this smokescreen specifically to interfere with electronic aid. By just a foot away from the source, the piercing green Sights diffused into useless but pretty smokeballs of light.
I counted thirteen stairs before the top of my head bumped the thick curtain stapled over the boarded-up hole in the ceiling. I pressed my shoulders to what felt like thin composite paneling, and pushed. It crackled, bent, then snapped in half.
Icy rain soaked my head and shoulders as I slapped the broken paneling out of the way and pulled myself up onto the collapsed second floor. Smoke billowed through the hole, following me out.
I reached into the cargo pocket of my khaki pants and pulled out the soul jar I had lifted while Marinette focused on my knot untangling.
Still there, still intact. I swiped my thumb across the First Earth writing.
soldier
Somebody with silt for brains was going to be very, very sorry.
I stowed the soul jar again and took off across the decaying rooftops into the night.
TWENTY-THREE:
Carina
Time passed. Miyo went back to her duties. Her father recovered and never once regarded her with suspicion. The people of Miyo’s tribe sought her advice and favor more than ever before. She kept her mask firmly in place. She was the passionate and faithful high priestess of Envishtu, the loving daughter of the wealthiest man in Tsunami Tsity, the light of the temple, twice-blessed.
But she existed, that was all. Her spirit was broken. Envishtu had taken away the only friend and ally she’d ever had. Now she was completely alone. There was no hope of ever breaking free. Envishtu’s will would bring fire and blood. The tribe would grow and raid and kill and enslave. Nothing would change. This was her life forever, the servant of a cruel and bloodthirsty god.
In the first tithe ceremony after Yisu’s death, the tribe sacrificed every captive they’d taken to Envishtu, skins and all. In the second, they sacrificed only the best slave and its hide. By the third, they were back to only tithing the most flawless hide.
Nearly two months after Yisu’s death, Miyo sent the raiding party off on their fourth raid since, then went back to her home. The time before bed seemed to drag on forever, but finally Qiva excused herself for the night. Miyo hugged her mother, then slipped into her room.
Miyo took off the humanskin skirt and bustier she’d worn that day and let them drop where they would. She didn’t feel disgusted by the leather anymore. She couldn’t muster the energy for revulsion. Righteous anger was out of her reach. A flat nothingness was all she could manage.
As Miyo fell onto her bed, something pink glinted in the corner of her eye. For several seconds she didn’t want to turn her head. It didn’t matter what it was. Nothing mattered.
But that shade of pink niggled at her memory.
Finally, she looked.
Sticking from the pocket of a skirt she hadn’t worn in two months was the bright pink jar of axolotl venom Yisu had given her to neutralize the quatrefoil oil.
“Highly toxic,” Yisu had said.
Miyo felt something then.
She got out of bed and picked up the vial, tossing the skirt aside. If what Yisu had said was true, then just a swallow or two would be enough to end this. She could set herself free from this lonely prison of hateful work Envishtu had trapped her in—and just in time not to have to skin the slaves the raiding party brought in tomorrow.
“Not enough,” Miyo said. If she died here, alone in her room with no explanation, they would only raise another high priestess in her place.
Maybe she could use the axolotl venom, though. Maybe she could send another message. Not a false one from Envishtu, but a real one from Miyo, the high priestess of Tsunami Tsity.
Her last.
TWENTY-FOUR:
Jubal
By the time I made it far enough inland to find a cab, I was soaked, shaking from the cold, and exhilarated. Nick thought he could backstab with the big boys, but this feeble attempt was amateur at best.
“You don’t throw me out of the chopper, Nick,” I mumbled. “I throw you.”
I went into the SilverPlatter app and opened Carina’s messages. My message to her and the ones I’d already seen from the Guild were still unread, but now there were three new messages from Nick, all sent earlier tonight.
NB 19:30:01 Babe, we have to talk. I screwed up. I didn’t tell you the truth about what happened while you were in Soam.
NB 19:30:28 I’m in Crystebon right now with your breaker buddy trying to fix it. I’ll explain everything when I get back.
NB 19:31:00 Sorry I’m an idiot. I love you.
So, right around the time Nickie-boy had ostensibly been meditating and checking his weapons, he’d had an attack of conscience and decided to come clean to Carina. Hell, he’d probably spent most of our time apart plotting with the Enforcers downtown—which would explain how he’d come up with a bloody shark-dick roll even Cryst Riders wouldn’t use as chum.
Handing the Guild the greatest thief in history and the leader of the Forsaken at the same time—two money shots for the price of one. Nick wasn’t cunning enough to have been planning this from the beginning, but like any dumb animal, when he saw opportunity float right past his face, he’d jumped on it.
I giggled and shook the twisting treble hooks out of my shoulders. That homemade blood capsule he’d tried to get me to swallow had probably contained just enough blood to hide a tracking device. Good thing I’d seen through that.
I deleted all of Nick’s messages to Carina, then set up the SilverPlatter app to block any others he might try to send her.
With that done, I got myself a seat on the red-eye to Soam with a reserved Helicab back to Courten. My next step wasn’t going to be subtle, but it would still have everything that meathead’s artless double cross had lacked. Including success.
Besides, it could be argued that there’s a certain elegance to brutal, spur-of-the-moment retribution. Especially when it comes from the mind of a genius like me.
TWENTY-FIVE:
Carina
With the rising of the sun came the distant buzzing of waterbikes. Miyo craned her neck to look out the window. She saw the beauty of her swamp—the red-black water turned to lava in the bright orange sun, the leaves and limbs and trunks of the huge six-hundred-year-old cypresses that had protected their ancestors lit up as if the dawn had caused them to combust. Even the clouds in the sky above were tinged with bloody orange fire.
Today was a beautiful day to die.
“Miyo?” her mother called down the hall. “Are you still in bed? It’s well past sunup.”
Miyo knew. She had watched it rise.
“Miyo!”
“Coming,” she answered.
“For Envishtu’s sake, if you’re looking for your favorite shirt—”
“I’m not,” Miyo called, smoothing her hand across the leather stretched over her breasts. “I’ve already found it.”
As Qiva’s footsteps retreated to the kitchen, Miyo could hear her mother grumbling about how her parents never would have let her keep her bedroom in such a state. That was the sort of job they had slaves for, after all.
The semitransparent lettering ran Miyo through the whole list of morning objectives—dress, makeup—but she had already accomplished them all while it was still dark out. There was only one thing left to do, and she felt certain that the lettering didn’t know about it.
Miyo picked up the little pink jar of axolotl venom and spun off the tasseled cap.
***
“That shirt suits you so well, Miyo,” Qiva said.
“Thanks.” Miyo gave her mother a kiss on the cheek before sitting down beside the fire pit.
Qiva blinked in surprise, then smiled. It dawned on Miyo that her mother really was the most beautiful woman in the village. She’d heard that said her entire life, but somehow had never seen her mother’s beauty f
or herself until this morning.
Qiva shook off the rare moment of affection as if embarrassed by it.
“You should eat,” she said. She clinked her finger blades at a slave waiting silently behind Miyo’s back. “Bread.”
Outside, the sawing of waterbikes had risen to a roar.
“Sounds like I’m too late to eat,” Miyo said, standing. “I’m not that hungry anyway.”
“Take a piece with you, Miyo,” Qiva demanded. “You’ll have a hungry morning ahead of you.”
“Next time,” Miyo promised.
As she hurried out onto the porch, there were no flashing red lights or alarms, and no solidly gleeful letters proclaiming CAUGHT IN A LIE! YOU FAILED! because it didn’t know that there wasn’t going to be a next time.
***
Miyo poled across Tsunami Tsity to meet the raiders. Other women and children had gathered to welcome the raiding party home, to see what new flesh their men had brought them to work with, and to watch the Tithe of the Gods. Miyo’s nerves sparkled and popped under her skin as she watched for her father.
The rumble of waterbikes shook the air as the flesher men drove into the village. Slogging along behind them, tied to dripping ropes, were wet, mud-splattered men and women. Teenage boys circled the group, herding the new slaves like cattle.
At the head of the formation was a man with silver-flecked black hair. Barrel-chested, sun-darkened, and proud. Miyo’s heart filled with the same measure of love and pride she’d always felt for her father. It didn’t matter that he was the one who led the raids, the one who handed her the ropes attached to the slaves who would be tithed; he was her father and she loved him. She wished she could kiss him goodbye.
The lettering popped up.
Showtime, Miyo! As you’re the twice-blessed chosen servant of Envishtu, they’re all waiting for you to begin the flaying!
Objective: Take a slave from your father’s raiding party and hang it from your flaying hook.
Below, Unan had dismounted. He waited for his daughter, holding the rope of a tall male captive.
Miyo slid down and glided through the water to him.
“Daughter of my blood, favored child of our tribe,” Unan intoned as Miyo approached, “we place the tithe in your twice-blessed hands. May Envishtu look down upon your work and be pleased with his people.”
Her Appearance and Conduct scores were so high that she could afford a little deviation. Miyo’s feet sunk into the muddy bottom of the swamp as she rose up on tiptoes and gave her father a quick kiss.
He smiled indulgently and handed over the slave’s rope.
The slave fought, as always, but this time instead of an apprentice who shrank away at the sight of the slave being brought to the flaying, the old apothecary was close by, ready to administer the glistening aquamarine Draught of Envishtu herself.
It was the same color as Yisu’s eyes, Miyo noticed.
Miyo led the drugged slave to her flaying platform. He fell into place with nothing more than a push. From there, it was short work to slice holes behind his tendons and suspend him on the gambrel.
As she climbed up onto the flaying platform, Miyo noticed that the slave’s respiration had stopped. The last bit of tension bled from between her shoulder blades. That axolotl venom worked even faster than she had hoped.
No time to celebrate, Miyo! It’s time for everybody’s favorite ceremony!
Objective: Begin the Tithe of the Gods
All around her, the tribe watched. They couldn’t tell that the slave was already dead. Her father stood a ways off with the raiders, her mother up on a porch, at a respectable distance for a lady of her wealth and status. Miyo knew some part of her should care that they were watching, that she should want to spare them this next part, but no twinge of guilt or second-guessing came. This was the way it had to be. The only way it could have ended.
She reached down and cut the slave’s throat. Hot blood poured from the wound onto her feet and flaying table.
Gasps. A few men cried out, confused. One of the slaves screamed and tried to run, babbling and thrashing against the ropes that bound her.
“What is the priestess doing?” someone whispered.
“Miyo?” Qiva asked, confused.
“Why is the priestess—”
“This is the blessing of Envishtu!” Miyo shouted over them. “The blessing of a cruel god who is never satisfied with our offerings. Blood and suffering is what Envishtu pours out on his chosen, and his approval is as hateful as his wrath. I have tasted them both and they burn my tongue.”
You are no longer Worshipped by the tribe.
You are now Angering the tribe.
“Why is she saying—”
“She’s gone mad.”
“Envishtu save her!”
“Save me from Envishtu,” Miyo retorted. “Save me from any more of his blessing, for I have suffered all I can stand at his hand!”
“Miyo, stop this!” Unan shouted, taking a step toward her.
Miyo raised her hands, her bladed fingers coated in the colorless venom of the axolotl. “Stay back! I warn you all now: whoever touches me will die. I won’t be taken by anyone less than our god himself. If he can even hear me up there.”
The tribe no longer regards you as Holy.
The tribe now regards you as Profane.
“Stop your blasphemy!” a woman shouted.
“Shut up or we’ll shut you up!”
Miyo raised her voice to the early morning sky. “Pour out your wrath us on, Envishtu, and see if we can tell the difference from your approval! You are a hateful god, full of scorn. Your only desire is to see us bleed and weep and burn. You torture your blessed ones for your amusement.”
Something clipped Miyo’s ear and splashed into the water. A stone.
“She’s a traitor just like the cursed one!” Pozu shouted. “I told you she was lying about Envishtu’s will! I told you we should’ve burned them both!”
“I did lie about Yisu’s burns,” Miyo yelled over him. “Yisu was the only one of you who could see! You’re all blind!”
“Traitor!”
“Burn the traitor!”
“Miyo, please!” Unan shouted.
“Heretic!”
“Burn her before she curses us all!”
Something heavy hit Miyo in the back of the neck. White jags of lightning leapt around her vision, but she didn’t fall.
Miyo spun around and slashed the hand holding the heavy wooden club before the raider could hit her again.
“Now you attack me like you attack the people you enslave!” Miyo shouted. “Good! Better to die like them than to serve Envishtu one more day!”
The raider whose hand she had cut dropped.
“He’s dead!”
Miyo cackled. “Only because my hands are twice-blessed!”
They surrounded Miyo, lashing out with clubs and other blunt force weapons made for raids. She thought she could hear her father shouting her name and see her mother trying to fight through the mob, but a blow to the side of her head made everything go dim and fuzzy.
Hands grabbed her. She slashed at them with her venom-coated finger blades, opening them up, spilling their blood into the swamp, and introducing the axolotl venom into their bodies. As men and women died, new ones took their place.
Soon, the deluge of blood she was drawing had washed the axolotl venom from her finger blades. The owners of the hands and arms she slashed weren’t dying anymore.
They dragged her out of Tsunami Tsity to a hastily built pyre. Someone tore at her hair, forcing her to her knees on the muddy ground. Another pried open her jaws with the butt of a knife. One of her teeth broke off in a bright yellow flare of agony. Tears coursed down her cheeks.
A glint of glowing aquamarine caught her eye. Envishtu’s Draught.
Miyo struggled and fought like a newly captured slave. She wouldn’t go to her death placidly. She wouldn’t allow them to drug the horror away. She would make them liste
n to her screams, watch her writhing in the fire.
They brought the Draught to her face.
She bit down, wailing at the pain in her broken tooth, but she couldn’t close her mouth around the knife. She thrashed, trying to turn her face away, but finger blades dug into her cheeks and thick hands held her still.
BOOM!
A wall of fire exploded off of Miyo.
The vial of Envishtu’s Draught shattered, sending shards flying. All around Miyo, voices howled in agony. Everywhere she looked, people were burning, flailing, shrieking, a few clawing their way to the water.
“Miyo,” a soft voice said.
Kneeling beside her was a body made of flame, the orange-red tongues churning and twisting in on themselves in the shape of a teenage girl. A girl with wide, aquamarine eyes.
“Yisu?” Miyo choked. “You’re…a…”
“It’s okay.” Yisu held out one burning hand. “You’re safe now.”
Miyo took Yisu’s hand and stood.
The mud on her knees and shins dried and cracked, then flaked away as Miyo’s body turned to fire. The humanskin clothing she wore burned to ash and blew away.
Behind her, shadowy figures were throwing a limp and broken body onto a pyre. At the edge of the swarm, one large, barrel-chested shadow held a beautiful one, both shuddering with sobs.
Yisu pulled Miyo away from that dark scene. “It’s time to go.”
As they left, everything faded to black. A spinning razorblade appeared in the darkness. Glints of aquamarine light flashed off of the blade’s shiny surface.
Then a splash of blood.
TWENTY-SIX:
Jubal
This time, Het led me down to the catfish hole. Re Suli was lying on the muddy riverbank, hair spread out in a wild red halo around her head, a fishing line tied around her big toe. It didn’t look like she was trying to catch anything so much as take a nap.
Without opening her eyes, she drawled, “Now, thief, didn’t I tell you if’n you come back without somethin’ pretty for me I’d have to turn you into a fetch-it-to-me like Het?”
