Divine Scales

by Jennifer Blackstream

  The hunger was a distant ache, but holding Marcela in his arms went a long way to soothing him. The whole world had gone mad in the last twenty-four hours, but somehow he’d ended up with the sea maiden back in his embrace, and this time he was going to hold onto her. Even though what she was currently asking of him was nothing short of political suicide. He clutched Marcela a little tighter, reminding himself why he had to do this.

  “Wait, go that way.”

  Patricio looked at the cottage sitting inside the forest behind the manor. Its pointed roof was barely visible amidst the trees. “What’s that?”

  “That’s where the ‘wizard’ was, the one who gave Emiliana the potion to give to me.” Marcela fixed her eyes on the cottage with razor sharp precision. “Let’s talk to him before we speak to Emiliana, before she can threaten him to keep his silence. Now that I look back, I think he was hesitant about the whole thing.”

  “Have you ever met Prince Kirill of Dacia?”

  “No, why?”

  “You’d get along well.” Patricio banked to the right, flying in a loop and landing in front of the small cottage.

  Marcela scrambled to get out of his arms as soon as his feet hit the ground. He stumbled and nearly dropped her, managing to set her down gently. She charged up the lane. He worried she was going to barge in without knocking, but at the last moment, she veered to the side. He frowned as she went around the edge of the dwelling and started peeking in windows. He started to open his mouth to tell her to stop, but paused when she came to an abrupt halt outside a window. He raised his eyebrows as she furiously gestured for him to join her.

  “This is not appropriate,” he murmured as he approached.

  She glared at him and jabbed a finger at the window. Patricio sighed and leaned down to look in—and his jaw dropped.

  Emiliana was in bed with another man. Naked as the day she was born, she sat astride a slender stranger lying on a bed of silks and furs, her small breasts bouncing as she rode him, her face lost in pleasure. The man groaned and his hands tightened on her pale hips. He threw his head back into the pillow.

  Patricio was still trying to recover from his shock when Marcela ran around the house. Patricio chased after her, but he was too late to stop her from trying the door. He stared in dismay as she punched her fist through the window and reached in to unlock the door, heedless of the blood dripping from her knuckles. Too dumbfounded to think of anything else to do, he followed her through the modest cottage and into the back bedroom.

  Marcela threw open the door and Emiliana’s shriek echoed in the room. Patricio kept his eyes on Emiliana’s face as he entered, his brain still refusing to register what was going on.

  “Patricio,” Emiliana gasped. She scrambled to cover herself with a blanket. After a few seconds, she burst into tears and pointed toward the man lying there petrified with shock. “Thank the Goddess you’re here!” she sobbed. “He attacked me!”

  The man beneath her in the bed was long and lean, a softness over his muscles that said he was probably not a manual laborer, and pale skin that suggested he spent all of his time indoors. His brown hair and eyes were plain, and all in all he looked like any number of men in the kingdom. As Emiliana denounced him as a rapist, his jaw dropped. “My love…what are you—”

  “Don’t call me that!” Emiliana screamed. “You forced—”

  “Do you smell the sin now?” Marcela’s eyes flashed with triumph as she turned to Patricio. “Do you…”

  Patricio was vaguely aware she’d trailed off, but his attention had slid from the two women to the man going white as a sheet. The scent coming off of him…it was like nothing Patricio had ever encountered. Decadence, pure decadence. Sin darker than any he’d ever dared to dream of, darker than the ojáncanu, darker than the former prince of Meropis. Black as pitch, an endless pit of sin. It called to him like a sirena’s song.

  “Patricio, what are you doing?”

  Marcela’s voice echoed in his ears, but he couldn’t take his gaze off the sinner. Patricio’s hunger roared from inside him like a great beast crawling out of a cave, eyes flashing and jaws snapping, saliva dripping from its gaping maw. Before he realized what he was doing, he stood beside the bed, towering over the man, his sword in his hand. The blade hummed, the magic stirring in the presence of so much sin.

  “Patricio, what are you doing?” Marcela shouted.

  “Save me, Patricio!” Emiliana cried out, her voice thick with her tears.

  The man didn’t say a word, merely closed his eyes as if waiting for the blow. He covered his face with one trembling arm.

  A flash of ink on the man’s inner wrist caught Patricio’s eye. He blinked, trying to focus past the heat roaring through his blood, the adrenaline singing his veins as he ached to bring his weapon down to release the delicious flood waiting inside the man’s soul.

  It was the mark of the goddess Tlazolteotl. He jolted backward, his sword swinging as he let it fall to the floor. “You’re a sin eater.”

  “Sin eater?” Marcela took a careful step toward him.

  “Y-yes,” the man mumbled.

  Patricio closed his eyes. His hunger throbbed inside him, whipped to a frenzy by the feast in front of him. His greatest nightmare come true. An innocent man, covered in sin.

  “What is a sin eater?”

  “I-I am a servant of the goddess Tlazolteotl. It is my d-duty to p-p-purify the s-sins of the dying. S-so that they m-might go into the next world free from s-sin.”

  Patricio opened his eyes in time to see Marcela turn a harsh glare to Emiliana.

  “Only the dying?” Marcela pressed.

  The man looked at Emiliana and Patricio flinched at the hard glare she shot him. There was no mistaking that look for anything other than what it was—an order to remain silent.

  “You’ve been eating Emiliana’s sins.” Patricio rubbed his temple with one hand, trying to think over the clamor of his own need.

  “That’s why her soul was still so clean even after what she did to me,” Marcela accused.

  Emiliana snarled and leapt out of the bed, an angry flush coloring her pale, naked flesh. She snatched something from the pile of clothes lying on the ground—a handkerchief. She pressed it to her face, under her nose. “Patricio! Are you going to let her speak to me like that!” she cried.

  The sin eater cowered before Patricio, his eyes showing too much white. His sword was a cold weight in his hand and he realized that he’d raised it again. His stomach tightened and his arm trembled. He could taste the sin already, feel it seeping into his pores. The sin eater would fill him, maybe he’d never have this dark craving again. Maybe it would finally be enough.

  “Patricio, don’t do it.”

  Marcela’s voice forced Patricio to drag his gaze away from the sin eater. She was facing him, her face calm and her hand extended out as if to calm him. He focused on her hand, desperation seizing him, squeezing his throat until he couldn’t breathe. If he didn’t look away, if he didn’t look back at the man crawling with sin…

  “Patricio, can’t you see that this is exactly what you wanted?” she said gently, in a voice you would use with a skittish horse. “You’re worried that you’re a monster, that your hunger for sin makes you as evil as the men you kill. Well, look in front of you. Here’s a man soaked with the sins of others. A man who bears the mark of sin for wicked acts he didn’t commit.” She turned her attention to the man trembling on the bed. “How long have you been a sin eater?”

  “T-twelve years,” he mumbled. “Since I was th-thirteen.”

  Twelve years of sin. Patricio lurched forward, his sword wavering as he prepared to bring it down, to release the ecstasy waiting for him in the soul of the creature in front of him. His stomach felt torn open like a wound, gaping, hungry, painful.

  “Patricio, stop.” Marcela took a deep breath. “This is your chance, Patricio. Your chance to find out what really drives you.”

  He lowered his sword until the tip rested
against the sin eater’s stomach. The man sucked in a breath through his teeth as Patricio pressed hard enough to draw a small drop of blood. Slowly, he trailed the blade down, leaving the tiniest slice in its wake.

  “Patricio—”

  He held up a hand to silence Marcela, his gaze locked on the blood beading on the sin eater’s skin. The blood shimmered and turned silver. Like ink drawn by an invisible pen, the droplets swirled around, flowing into delicate script too elegant for human hands.

  Sins appeared on his flesh, etched out in simple terms by the hand of whatever force Hephaestus had imbued in the sword. Patricio read the sins, part of him desperately hoping that the blackness was his, that he truly was as evil as the thick scent of sin suggested. His spirits fell. None of the sins etched on the man’s flesh were enough to cause the blackness he saw on the sin eater’s soul.

  “The sins are not his.” Patricio closed his eyes and drew in a deep, calming breath. The scent of the sins weighing on the man’s soul perfumed the air, swirling in a sweet cloud of ambrosia that called to Patricio. His gut clenched with hunger and his hands trembled with the desire to cut into the sin eater’s body and release that glorious wickedness.

  Patricio’s heartbeat sounded loud in his ears. He wanted to kill the sin eater, wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. The sins weren’t the man’s own, he wasn’t the sinner. Lead filled Patricio’s gut as his hunger throbbed. He had his answer then, didn’t he? He knew where his hunger came from.

  “It’s not just about who you are, Patricio,” Marcela said suddenly. “It’s about who you want to be. There’s always a choice, if you’re strong enough to make it.”

  Patricio tore his gaze away from the sin eater and looked to Marcela. He had the odd impression that he was standing in a deep pit, surrounded by black shadows pressing down on him while Marcela stood outside the pit above him, framed by brilliant sunlight. The former mermaid stood there, red hair a brilliant fire licking down her back, emerald eyes shining. He blinked and the imagery of the pit vanished, but Marcela remained, beautiful and calm. She met his gaze with a steady one of her own.

  “You are what you are, but that’s not all you are. You can make your own purpose if you can find the strength to believe in it.”

  The throbbing in his head receded to a dull beat, but still it remained. The hunger that he’d felt all his life had grown sinister now, turned into something evil. He was evil.

  “Control it. I know you can.”

  Anger rushed through him, spraying up from the struggle to lower his blade. The flames tried to burn away the guilt, the struggle against what he wanted so desperately. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know how hungry he was, how much he needed this. Who was she to tell him to control it, to back away? His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. It felt so familiar, so comfortable, so right. This was the world he knew.

  She’ll walk away. She’ll walk away and leave you to your gluttony.

  The thought was as sudden as it was unwelcome. His anger dwindled like a candle flame in a sudden breeze, though it sputtered and sparked in a desperate attempt to stay alive. He looked into Marcela’s calm green eyes, took in her confident stance. He wanted that confidence, damn it. He wanted to be right with his world, to be comfortable in his own skin. He needed her to show him.

  With all the effort of a drunk stumbling past a pub, he stepped away from the bed, lowering the point of his sword to land with a resounding thud against the floor.

  “You’re a better man now than you’ve ever been.” Marcela’s eyes shone. “How do you feel?”

  Patricio realized he was smiling and shook his head in bewilderment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. The sins clinging to the sin eater’s soul were still a tangible presence in the air, coating Patricio in their sticky aura. His smile melted away and he fought off a grimace. “But I think I’d like to leave this place now.” He turned to look at the sin eater who was still lying on the bed, cowering. A rush of hunger met him, but he was ready for it and he shoved it down. “Before we go, you will tell me. Have you been eating Emiliana’s sins?”

  The man shot a look to Emiliana and Marcela rushed to stand in front of the lady of the manor. “Oh, no you don’t. Don’t look at her, look at your prince. Answer the question.”

  The sin eater’s eyes widened even farther. “Yes. I ate her sins, but I did it willingly. I love her.”

  “Shut up!” Emiliana snarled.

  He flinched. “I’m sorry, my lady. What would you have me do?”

  Fury rose like a quiet tide inside Patricio. Marcela had been right, Emiliana had tricked him. Her lies had nearly cost him the woman he loved. “Emiliana,” Patricio said, a deadly calm in his voice as he turned back to her. “Come with me. We must discuss the serious accusations standing against you.”

  There was a flash of silver next to Emiliana’s ear, and a strange movement under her hair. The noblewoman tilted her head as though listening to something. Patricio could have sworn for a moment he’d seen a hint of bluish-white scales, but before he could make out what it was, the flickering silver was gone and suddenly Emiliana sneered.

  “I am not the only one who will have to face your judgment,” she announced.

  Patricio shouted as she charged forward, grabbing at Marcela. The sash tied around Marcela’s waist ripped and gave way, falling to the floor in a flutter of red cotton. Marcela growled and jerked away, raising a hand as if to slap Emiliana. The noblewoman didn’t continue to attack, but merely retreated a step, holding something out like a trophy.

  “Your precious little mermaid has to stand trial too,” she declared. “For conspiracy to murder the Prince of Meropis.”

  Marcela’s face drained of all color. Patricio shook his head, certain he must have heard wrong. He peered at the object Emiliana was holding. It was a dagger, heavily encrusted with all manner of sea debris, its smooth, warm cream blade shining with an ominous play of light. “What is that?”

  “Ask Marcela,” Emiliana taunted. Her blue eyes shone with malice, her lips twisted into a sneer. She stood there, naked, holding the dagger aloft like some goddess of vengeance come to wreak havoc.

  Marcela’s chin trembled. She bit her lower lip as she turned to Patricio. “I wasn’t going to use it.”

  “Weren’t going to use it?” Emiliana scoffed. “You mean you weren’t going to use the dagger your sisters bargained with the sea witch for to kill Patricio and get your fins—and your voice—back?”

  Patricio’s lips parted and he gaped at Marcela. “Marcela?”

  “My sister saved my life after Emiliana left me to drown. I told her what happened, why I couldn’t come home. I told her everything,” Marcela said miserably. “Adelina told the others and they went to the sea witch to bargain for a cure. They brought me the dagger tonight, when I was sitting on the beach, after you left.” She wrung her hands. “I was hurt that you didn’t believe me, angry because I thought you’d lied, but I never would have done it. And my sisters never would have suggested it if they knew you.”

  “You know me. Did you tell them about me?” His voice sounded flat even to his own ears. The room seemed darker than it had a moment ago.

  Marcela shook her head. “I didn’t know you then, not really, not until tonight. You only just opened up to me—to yourself too. I’ve seen your true colors tonight and I’ve never witnessed a personal victory of this magnitude before.”

  “Oh, please!” Emiliana’s face twisted with disgust. “She’s lying. She would do anything to go back to the sea!” She stared at Patricio and her eyes teared up, her chin trembling ever so slightly. “She would have killed you.”

  Patricio watched Marcela for one more moment. It didn’t take longer than that, not this time. He turned to Emiliana. “No. I believe Marcela. If she says she had no intention of using the dagger, then that is the truth.”

  Emiliana let out a scream of rage. She charged at Patricio, the dagger held out in front of her. Patricio r
aised his sword, but he was too slow.

  The world narrowed down to the point of the dagger. Patricio swung his blade out to block it. Emiliana was too fast, he hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t thought her capable of it. She was too close. He braced himself for the bite of the blade.

  Marcela screamed. Patricio’s eyes widened in horror as she threw herself to the side—into the path of the dagger. The blade entered her stomach, sliding past flesh and bone, and the world moved in the slow-motion of a nightmare.

  Marcela fell to the ground, gasping as her hands hovered over the blade sticking out of her stomach. Emiliana stepped back, but not far enough. Patricio’s blade cut through the air, lopping her head from her shoulders in one, clean stroke. He released the sword to fall to the floor as he dropped to his knees beside Marcela, heedless of Emiliana’s head as it hit the floor with a dull thud, her eyes frozen in surprise, glazed over with death.