“Our fire god?” I echo sharply. “To spare you from our fire god?”
She whimpers, curling in on herself in agony. “Please. We want to live. Have we not suffered enough?”
Demetrios touches my shoulder. “Anjeni, move aside. We will treat them.”
I’m in the way. I rise from my crouched position, and two warriors take my place to triage the injured women. Demetrios draws me further back, even as a protest erupts on my lips.
“They are terrified. What if one of them lashes out at you?” he asks, his voice low in my ear.
It’s a possibility, if these refugees are desperate enough and believe that we only mean to slaughter them. But surely I should help regardless.
“Let us tend to them,” he says. “Return to the city. Help prepare our arrival there.”
“What if one of them lashes out at you?” I ask. I can’t be the only one in danger of an irrational attack.
Demetrios touches a thumb to my cheek, as though flipping away a piece of debris. “I’m expendable. You are not.”
And then he actually smiles at the full-fledged scowl that darkens my expression.
The lout. He delights in my worry for him, and even so I worry all the more.
Before I can turn away, he cups my face with his rain-chilled hand. Goosebumps chase down my neck. “Shall I return with you?” he asks, studying me as though at leisure.
I gather up what shreds of my dignity I can find. “If you won’t let me help here, you should stay to help in my stead.”
His thumb flicks across my cheek again. Is this how he shows affection? It’s more effective than I would have guessed. My lungs tighten and my heartbeat races.
Has he touched Aitana’s face like this?
On that thought I buck my head and turn away. “We will receive the injured in the city,” I call over my shoulder. “Be quick to bring them.”
Either he does not answer me, or the wind carries away his response.
Fifteen souls arrive within the city walls. Four die within the hour. Their injuries are extensive: missing limbs and eyes, puncture wounds, burns and brands. The Bulokai tortured these people to within an inch of their lives and then set them loose within our tiny pocket of land.
“An offering to the fire god of the Helenai.” Etricos studies me closely as he delivers this information. “The Bulokai told them each the same thing.”
“Agoros taunts us,” Moru says quietly.
We sit in counsel, I and the tribal leaders, in Etricos’s tent, with Demetrios to guard the door.
“To what end?” I ask. “What good does it do him to maim these people and deliver them to us?”
“He shows us his level of depravity and tests our own,” says Etricos. “We did not have to shelter these people, Goddess. We might have left them beyond our walls. They would not have survived the night. Most of them may not anyway.”
A sick anguish twists through my heart. “You would have left them out in the rain, to freeze as they slowly bled to death?”
“Agoros would have done so,” says Moru. “We sent him back the heads of his magicians. Perhaps he tests whether we respond with such force to any who come to our gates.”
I snap my mouth shut. If we had sent nothing back to Agoros, would these people still have suffered? Will he send others?
“We should be careful about who we take in,” Etricos says. “We have few enough resources to care for our own people. We cannot deplete them further on those who are dying already.”
I stare at him, disbelief flaring within me.
“Etricos is correct, Goddess.” Moru tips his head in apology, but several of the leaders around him nod their agreement. “If we spend our strength tending the deathly ill, we will be vulnerable when Agoros attacks.”
I understand what he’s saying. With a scarcity of resources, we cannot sacrifice for futile causes. That doesn’t override the moral necessity of assisting others—even if that assistance only amounts to giving them shelter where they can breathe their last with dignity.
“If we leave people to die without offering help, are we all that different from Agoros?” My voice catches on this question.
“We must honor our limits,” says Demetrios by the door. He watches me closely, his dark eyes always assessing. “Those who do not honor their limits will fall by the sword when the Bulokai come.”
He rarely speaks in settings such as this, usually deferring to his brother’s authority. This warning is more for me than for the rest of those assembled. Nevertheless, the tribal leaders nod.
Moru sees the misgivings upon my face. “We will do what we can, Goddess. Our first responsibility lies with the people already here.”
Reluctantly I agree. According to the legends, Etricos will liberate and unite the other tribes of this region. I must trust that he will exercise compassion when the circumstances do allow it.
After the meeting, Demetrios escorts me to my tent on the hill. Warmth envelops me as I pass into the interior. Huna attends the injured with Tora and will remain with them tonight, but she banked the coals of my fire before she left.
Demetrios ducks in behind me. “Will you be all right here by yourself?”
Is he offering to stay? Huna would have a fit, to say nothing of Aitana, should she hear such a tale. I’m half tempted to invite him for that spectacle alone.
“Is there another choice?” I ask, curious about how he might respond. I crouch beside the low flames of the fire and feed it from the store of fuel Huna keeps nearby.
Demetrios bends to assist me. “You might sleep among your priestesses.”
I meet his steady gaze. He’s serious. I cast aside the disappointment that flits through me. “I’ll take my chances by myself.”
“You always do.” He drops a length of wood on the flames and straightens as a shower of sparks crackles in the fire pit. “Remember to change into dry clothes before you go to bed, Anjeni. If you venture outside, don’t forget your shoes. But don’t venture outside.”
He’s treating me like a child. I rest my elbows on my knees and glare up at him. “I know how to take care of myself.”
“But you don’t always apply the knowledge.” He sounds tired, like I exhaust him. I straighten to my full height, still so much shorter than him.
He brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes. “If Baba were here I would stay longer.”
My patience for his mixed signals has long since vanished. “I’m sure you can find her easily enough if you want to see her so badly.”
One corner of his mouth quirks in a rueful smile. He shakes his head as he moves to the exit. “Good night, Anjeni. Sleep well.”
I murmur a reciprocal sentiment, though probably not as sincere. Demetrios passes into the rainy night, leaving me alone in the orange glow of my meager fire.
He never lingers when only he and I are here. I would have liked his company for longer tonight, but I know better than to ask such a favor. Listless and morose, I change my clothes and huddle beneath the blankets on my cot.
Sleep flitters in and out. Tired though I am, my body and mind cannot sync their rhythms tonight. The fire dims to a faint glow as my thoughts drift toward elusive dreamscapes.
But instinct draws me back. I open my eyes to darkness, to the sound of rain on the fabric ceiling overhead and the unmistakable sense that I am not alone.
Whoever—whatever—has come moves with incredible stealth. My every muscle clenches in terror as gradually I slide my gaze toward the low-burning coals in the fire pit. Beyond them, beside the tent’s opening, a shadow shifts.
My breath hitches in my throat. Keen, piercing eyes stare at me through the darkness—eyes that burn like embers, that stand out in an otherwise nebulous phantom.
“How interesting.” The words spoken aloud crack my stupor. I sit up, flinging aside my blankets, half-coiled and ready to attack this intruder.
My voice comes out in a rasp. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I have come to
pay my respects to the fire god of the Helenai,” the phantom replies. His keen gaze flits into the shadowed corner of the tent. “Does he sleep elsewhere? I expected to find more than his concubine here.” He looks me over from head to toe. “Fire gods have strange tastes in women, it seems.”
Throughout this speech, an icy grip clutches my heart and squeezes it tight. The Bulokai refer to me as a fire god. But how—?
“Agoros.” The name falls from my lips. The specter’s attention had strayed elsewhere in the tent’s interior, but it snaps back to my face. He glides toward me in the darkness. Lightning-quick I unleash a fistful of magic.
The projectile passes straight through him, splattering against the far wall in a luminous cascade. I cancel the spell before it can cause any lasting damage.
“Oh,” the specter says, looking down where the magic should have hit him. “This is even more interesting. The fire god is a fire goddess, but one that does not recognize astral projections. Where did Etricos of the Helenai discover such a novelty?”
I clamp down on my rising terror. He is here, but he is not here. Through the shadows I discern facial features that drift in and out of focus, as though a pattern of rippling water overlays them: a square chin, a scar that runs from jawbone to temple, a crooked nose. In all of my years of magic lessons and supplementary studies, never have I encountered even rumors of such a technique. If I can’t harm him, he likely can’t harm me either.
Except that the seventh intermediate converges all space into one point. Distance is an illusion, just like this spectral Agoros.
“Did you like my offering, Goddess?” he asks, a crazed smile twisting up one side of his face. “If I had known you were a woman, I would have sent you more. I have plenty more to send.”
My blood runs cold at the threat. “Is that what you do with those you conquer? Are they playthings to torture and dispose of?”
He reaches a hand toward my cheek, but I jerk away. A chuckle erupts from his throat. “I shall make you a plaything when I come in the flesh.” His sharp eyes almost devour me whole.
“I will kill you if you come in the flesh.” The ferocity of these words as they cross my lips surprises even me.
Agoros, far from being intimidated, only laughs again. “You can’t touch me, child—not now or ever.”
My mind races. If he could perform this astral projection all along, why has he not come sooner? Why did he not show up at the city gates himself instead of sending his dozen magicians? An untouchable Agoros would have struck more terror into the hearts of the Helenai than any band of warriors. Why would he not scout our city, walk among our people, observe our fortifications or lack thereof from every possible angle?
Only one answer satisfies these questions: this brand of magic must come at a high cost.
“You make yourself vulnerable by coming here,” I say. His mouth curls in a sneer, but apprehension flashes through his eyes. I press on, gesturing toward his shadowed figure. “This requires more focus and more energy than you would have your enemies know. How long will you sleep when you return to your body? That’s it, isn’t it? You have to overextend your limits to accomplish this feat. Otherwise you would have come here many times before now.”
I can feel it: from a great distance, the power of the seventh intermediate builds. It’s more firm in my mind than in the physical world, as though a thread extends between this phantom and his physical location. He can strike at me, but as long as I trace that thread, I can strike at him as well.
I build my own seventh intermediate, focusing on that pinpoint of energy a hundred miles away, forcing myself to remain calm, to become the aggressor instead of the victim. “Will you really attack? You use a technique that drains your strength, yet you want to test your control against mine?”
Agoros gnashes his teeth. “You will die, Goddess, and the Helenai will die with you. I will destroy every last soul and burn this pathetic refuge to the ground.”
Before I can respond, a breath of wind courses over him. The phantom Agoros disintegrates into ash and shadow, his tattered remnants swirling into the glowing coals of my dying fire. The pinpointed energy from afar winks into nothingness.
Thank the fates.
My knees buckle. I crumple but catch myself on my palms as my pulse thuds in my ears and stars dance in my vision. Sweat breaks across my skin. For several moments I gulp deep breaths, seeking to calm my frayed nerves.
Footsteps and voices sound outside. The tent flap parts.
“Goddess, is everything all right?”
I look up at the silhouette of Etricos framed against the lowering rainclouds in the nighttime sky. How did he know to come?
“Were you practicing your magic this late at night? The guards said a spell erupted inside your tent.”
My failed attack—of course someone outside would see it.
“Agoros was here,” I say, my voice hoarse in my throat. “He was here, but he wasn’t. He projected his image into my tent and spoke with me.”
Etricos regards me through the dim light, unsure of how to respond. “It was a dream, perhaps…?”
“It was no dream. He was here, and he will attack us. I need to know that technique.”
Was it a variation on the seventh intermediate? If magic converges all space into one point, why should a person not be in two places at the same time? Technically, one could be everywhere at once.
But it can’t be the seventh intermediate.
The ninth superlative of magic is that it is everything and nothing converged into one universal whole. The true master governs all.
The scholars of my day consider the ninth superlative to be an unattainable ideal, the epilogue to the more practical series of principles. Agoros, it seems, lies closer to that ideal than I do. If that projection technique is an indication of his power, he lies closer than any person I’ve ever heard of.
If I can’t rise to his level and quickly, the Helenai will perish.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The first rays of dawn cut through the edges of a low cloud cover. I sit outside my tent, swathed in the gray morning mist with only a blanket around my shoulders to ward off the chill. Sleep tugs at me, but my thoughts are too active to give in.
Through the night, I have rifled through all the theories I know to find one that might match Agoros’s astral projection. Nothing aligns. The principles of magic overlap and intertwine, but this pattern of projecting one’s consciousness out into the world defies the boundaries I have always understood.
But then, my inner beast defies the boundaries as well. I should know better than anyone that the principles cannot specifically account for all variables.
Two figures approach through the low mist: Huna and Demetrios. He supports her elbow as they trudge up the hill together. She looks like death warmed over. I gather my blanket close and rise to my feet as they pass between my guards.
Demetrios regards my bare feet with silent disapproval.
“Have you slept?” I ask Huna.
“It has been a long night, little goddess,” she replies, her voice hagged.
“How many still survive?”
For a breath she does not answer. She looks askance at Demetrios as though seeking his approval. When he gives no gesture either to speak or withhold information, she says simply, “Three.”
Shock suffuses me. Huna brushes past, into the warmth of the tent and the comfort of her own bed. Demetrios watches her go, concern knotted in his shoulders.
The savagery these refugees faced at the hands of Agoros looms before us all. He will repeat his torturous acts upon us if he triumphs. I box my emotions, wary of succumbing to instinctive despair. “Is Tora getting some rest?”
Demetrios looks me over from top to toe. “Yes. Moru sent some of his tribe to tend the survivors. Did you rest?”
I guess he hasn’t spoken with his brother yet this morning. If he spent the night in Aitana’s company, I might scream.
“No,” I say, h
olding his gaze.
“Why not?”
“Don’t you share a tent with Etricos?”
Demetrios blinks. “Cosi was with Baba and Tora last night, helping with the injured. What does that have to do with you resting?”
I had not considered Etricos to be the nursing type. More likely he was stealing time with his betrothed while her grandmother played chaperone. “It’s nothing,” I say, feeling suddenly foolish. In the light of day, my phantom visitor seems ridiculous.
Except that I know Agoros was here.
I step away, intending to cross around to the back of the hill where I can observe the Eternity Gate through the morning haze, but Demetrios catches my arm.
“Why did you not rest, Anjeni?”
“If you wanted me to rest, you should have stayed with me.” I speak the words lightly, but they fall flat. Truly, if Demetrios or any other man had been in the tent last night, Agoros would have assumed him to be the fire god of the Helenai. It’s better that he was elsewhere, for a multitude of reasons.
“It would not be proper for me to stay with someone to whom I am not married,” says Demetrios.
My lack of sleep and the stress of my nighttime encounter together loosen my self-restraint. “Are you married to Aitana, then?”
He bucks his head, rolling his eyes skyward. “That was not what you think.”
I almost laugh. Death and destruction lurk, and I’m needling a man for whom I have ambivalent feelings. It’s surreal, but I desperately want to hear his defense. “What do I think, then?”
“Tora was there, along with the children she cares for. I made the mistake of sitting in a corner while she coaxed Aitana into cooperation, and I fell asleep there. And they left me like that.”
I can picture the scene: Tora allowing her betrothed’s little brother the rest he had more than earned after a horrific day. If his presence made Aitana more cooperative, that was all the more reason not to disturb him.
And I have been nothing but petty to him over it. “I’m sorry.”
“Why would you believe the worst of me?” Demetrios asks.
I can’t explain to him that I came here expecting the worst of him. I know how the story goes, so it will be my own fault if I get hurt. When I get hurt. That seems like more of a certainty every day. After facing my mortality so many times already, though, a broken heart seems trivial.
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