by Kat Ross
Nicodemus found the whole situation more than a little surreal.
He’d refused to stay at the Temple with her demented teenaged initiates, but the crowded inns held no appeal either. Then an alternative presented itself.
Nico turned at a tap on the door. The Archon Basileus peered through the crack. His face went pale.
“A thousand apologies,” he murmured, averting his gaze. “I’ll return later—”
“Now is fine.”
Nico took his time strolling over to the wardrobe. He flung the door open and selected a pair of trousers and soft linen tunic while the Archon fidgeted in the doorway. The Archon’s seamstresses were skilled and his new clothes fit well.
“My knives,” he muttered with a frown, looking around the chamber. It was a bit of a mess. An empty wine cup lay on its side next to a stack of parchment, now stained a deep red. “Where….?”
The Archon cleared his throat and cast a meaningful glance at the tapestry adorning one wall. It depicted a satyr frolicking with a bevy of nude nymphs. A pair of knives jutted from the satyr’s equine hindquarters.
Nico didn’t remember throwing them, but he must have. He walked over and eased them out of the wall. A fanged eel coiled around the hilt of one. The other was long and sharp and beautifully balanced, chased with silver on the handle. It still reeked faintly of fish guts.
Nico slipped them into his belt and turned to face the Archon.
“Breakfast is laid out in the dining room,” Basileus said, clutching a sheaf of parchment in his hands. “I must go to the Temple, but the servants will provide anything you require.”
“Why?”
Basileus blinked. His dark hair was neatly combed back, his crimson cloak resplendent, but shadows hovered beneath his eyes and his nails had been chewed to the quick.
“Pardon?”
Nico pulled his hair into a topknot and bound it with a leather thong. “Why are you going to the Temple?”
“I have reports to make to the Oracle—”
“You’ll give them to me.”
The Archon swallowed.
Nico pointed to a chair. “Sit down.”
Basileus sat.
“Let’s be perfectly clear. You’re mine now. You make all reports to me, and I determine which you pass on to the Pythia. It will be a mutually beneficial arrangement, I’m sure.”
A swift calculus ensued as Basileus weighed his options. His gaze flicked to the window and the outline of the Acropolis, then to the rumpled sheets. Nicodemus suppressed a smile. The man thought himself a master manipulator, but he was simple enough to read. He feared Domitia, but she wasn’t here, sleeping in his bed. And he’d been standing there when the Polemarch’s charred helmet rolled across the floor of the adyton.
“Certainly,” Basileus said smoothly. “Where do you wish to begin?”
Nico gathered his muddy thoughts. He really should eat something.
“Is there any news of the Breaker?”
“None. She vanished from Tjanjin with the Danai and their companions. They must have traveled by gate, but they have yet to resurface.”
So she could have gone anywhere. “What else?”
“The Marakai are gathering. It’s difficult to obtain reliable information, but my sources say their ships sailed from Tjanjin, every one. They say a Marakai girl conjured an enormous wave. One of the talismans, I assume.”
“I watched her do it.”
Nico thought briefly of Meb and what a peculiar girl she was. Having seen Domitia’s collars, part of him felt relieved she got away.
“Will they attack?” Basileus fingered his heavy gold chain of office. “Delphi is less than twenty leagues from the coast. Could she…?”
“Flood the city? Probably. But there’s not much we can do about it. What else?”
“The Danai are coming in force to liberate their captive kin. My scouts say they’ll be here in a matter of days.”
“And what is the Oracle doing about it?” He felt faintly ridiculous calling her that, but he didn’t think Domitia would like the Archon knowing her real name. And Nico wouldn’t make an enemy of her unless he had no choice.
“The army is readying to march out and meet them.” Basileus didn’t meet Nico’s eyes. They both knew a mortal force wouldn’t stand a chance on its own.
“Do the soldiers know what she is?”
“Not yet.”
“Who does?”
“Only myself and Thena.” The Archon wiped his forehead with a scrap of silk. “The secret is perfectly safe with me, of course. But the girl…. I don’t know. She strikes me as unstable. She was always a zealot. She despises the wi—” He cut off with a strangled noise. “Pardon, my lord, but that is what we were taught to call the daēvas.”
“Witches, you mean?” Nico shrugged. He’d been called worse. “I’m surprised the Oracle hasn’t silenced her.”
“She brought the Danai talisman back from Val Moraine. She followed him through the shadowlands and collared him when he tried to free another Danai. So she has proven her worth. And more importantly, she has the talent to wear the bracelets.”
This was news to Nico. “So not all mortals can control the collars?”
“No. Only a select few. And most of the other experienced acolytes are dead.” Basileus ticked them off on his fingers. “Let’s see, Maia was attacked by her captive Valkirin and died in her bed. Korinna never returned from the mission to Val Moraine. A brain fever, apparently. And Phoebe had her head bashed in by Nikias, a Danai.”
Nico digested this in silence. “So Thena is the last one?”
“Not the last. There are a few girls with the talent, but none have ever broken a daēva. Thena has…a reputation.”
“For what?”
“Utter ruthlessness.”
Nico vaguely remembered a mortal in the adyton when he arrived. She had stood next to the Danai heir, a bracelet on her slender wrist.
“Long black hair, olive skin?”
“That’s the one.”
He sighed. “Keep an eye on her. We’ll move on for now. What else do you have for me?”
Parchment shuffled. “The Archon Eponymos has fled, but we will find him, never fear—”
“I don’t give a shit about that,” Nico snapped. His temples throbbed. “What else? Something interesting.”
Unruffled, Basileus sorted through the pile.
“Here’s something. A shepherd boy claimed he saw a wind ship headed in the direction of the Gale.”
Nico leaned forward. “A wind ship?”
“I’d dismiss it as fantasy, but it’s corroborated by other reports, on other days. A barge captain, a merchant caravan on the river road. The ship had no insignia.”
“Where exactly?”
“All between ten and twenty leagues north of Samarqand.”
Nico thought for a moment. “Send some men to the area to ask questions and spread coin around. Not Shields of Apollo, they’ll attract too much attention. Ones you trust to be discreet. I’m sure you have a few on the payroll. They should send on their reports, then stay and keep an eye out. Find me immediately if you get word of another sighting.”
Basileus nodded. “It will be done, my lord.”
“I’m not a lord,” Nico replied absently. He found his boots under the bed and pulled them on. “Is there any legitimate reason a ship would fly west?”
“None that I can think of. There’s a few farms, but they’re along the river. The land beyond is barren, of course.”
He cleared his throat, eyes shifting away. Mention of the Kiln obviously made him uncomfortable.
“Could a wind ship cross the Gale?” Nico persisted, more than a little intrigued.
The Archon frowned. “I don’t think so, no. I’ve never seen the Gale myself, but I imagine the winds would tear the ship apart.”
“Yet someone has tried. More than once.”
Basileus looked skeptical. “It could be related to the current political situat
ion in Samarqand. A new king has been crowned at the Rock. Prince Shahak succeeded his father, Cambyses. They say he is a fearsome alchemist.” Basileus gave a dry cough. “No doubt stories planted to build his reputation.”
“What are the stories?”
“That he slaughtered half the royal guard and turned his mother and brothers into grotesque animals.”
Nico laughed. “How inventive.”
“Indeed. Spell dust is common there, but it does seem far-fetched.”
“What are his intentions?”
“No one knows, but I have sources within the palace. I will uncover them soon enough.” Basileus droned on for a while about the various noble factions among the Persians, the strength of their army, and the effects of the trade embargo imposed by the Pythia. He appeared relieved to be back on safer ground. Nico tuned most of it out. He had no interest in mortal intrigues. He just wanted his brother back. And to have some breakfast.
“That’s enough,” he said finally. “You can tell the Oracle everything except for the part about the wind ships. We’ll keep that our secret for now.”
Basileus bowed and withdrew. Nicodemus moved to the window and watched the muscular litter bearers lift the Archon to their shoulders and whisk him off to the Temple. He supposed he could demand similar treatment, but he preferred his own feet. They’d worked well enough in the Kiln, where he might range thirty leagues to find supper and a skin of water.
He went down to breakfast in the airy, elegantly appointed dining room. The servants were well-trained enough to pretend nothing was amiss, though one plumply pretty girl kept glancing at him through her lashes. Nico pretended not to notice. He forced down a meal of barley bread and olives, leaving the wine cup untouched, and made his way down the hill into the city. The stench of the place filled his nostrils—dung both human and animal, rotting fish, the cloying perfume the rich wore to cover the fact that they rarely bathed. It still amazed him the way marble palaces practically rubbed shoulders with mudbrick hovels.
He tossed some coins to a boy who sat in the street entreating passersby in a piteous voice. The child looked a little like Atticus, but with a large growth on the side of his neck. Nico expected he’d just hand the money over to the hard-faced man watching from a doorway across the street, but the poverty here was much worse than Tjanjin and his pockets were full of the Archon’s gold.
A few wind ships floated over the rooftops. Even from a distance, he could sense the fires burning in their braziers. Nico eyed them speculatively. If a wind ship could cross the Kiln, he’d take one and find Atticus himself. He could walk away from Domitia, from the talismans, from all of it.
But Basileus was probably right. Crossing the Gale was impossible.
The long walk helped to clear his head. He found the weather pleasant, even a touch cool, though a pair of farmers who’d stopped their wagons to gossip were complaining about the heat. They should see the western reaches of the Kiln, he thought. Nothing grew there, not even scrubgrass or the thorny bushes that offered shade and camouflage elsewhere. The sands appeared devoid of life.
Appeared being the operative word.
He reached the steps of the Acropolis and jogged up two at a time. A few supplicants waited in the plaza outside the Temple, hoping for an audience with the Oracle. They eyed Nico without interest, faces set in lines of weary determination. He’d questioned Basileus when he first took possession of his palace and learned that since the massacre of the Ecclesia, Delphi’s populist assembly, the number of visitors to the Temple had declined dramatically. The Sun God was still a beloved figure, but most people chose to leave their offerings at the smaller temples scattered throughout the city. They knew the Pythia was behind it even if the Polemarch gave the order.
From all that Nico had since heard about the Polemarch, he had no regrets for roasting him alive.
Nicodemus gave a wide berth to the fountain with its stooping eagle. The sparkling waters hid the shattered gate below, but it still made him uneasy. The Shields of Apollo guards knew him and let him pass. Scorch marks blackened the flagstones around the fountain. Basileus said one of the Maenads had done that with her staff.
He found Domitia in the adyton, sitting on her tripod like a spider at the center of its web. As always, she wore a white gown, the virgin bride of the god. The serpent brooch pinned at her shoulder was a talisman that created the illusion of dark hair worn in a braid that hung over one shoulder. Only her pale blue eyes looked the same. Distant, yet calculating.
Nicodemus slouched against the wall. Between the incense and the fumes wafting from cracks in the floor, his hangover was seriously contemplating a comeback.
“It’s like a sewer down here,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “How do you put up with it?”
“I find the holy miasma conducive to my visions,” she replied serenely.
“Your visions.” He studied her with a frown. Nico wondered if Domitia had finally lost it.
Then she laughed, a sudden, hard bark. Her old laugh.
“Just kidding. We can go to my chamber if you prefer.”
She leapt gracefully from the tripod. For an instant, he saw her as she used to be, the cloak blending with the desert sands, bright red hair roughly hacked at chin length, thigh-bone spear propped over one shoulder. He wondered what the adoring masses of Delphi would think if they saw the Oracle as she truly was: A dirty scavenger who tore the legs off giant crabs and ate them raw. No doubt they’d run screaming in the other direction.
They walked to her quarters and Nico felt a sense of relief to leave the adyton. The smell was bad enough, but it was a lightless place, almost as bad as a burrow.
“I spoke to Basileus,” she said. “There’s no word of the Breaker.”
Nico nodded thoughtfully, as if he didn’t already know. “She’ll turn up.”
“If you hadn’t lost your globe, we could find her easily.”
“Where’s yours?”
She jerked her chin at a rock shelf in the corner. Nico picked it up and turned it over in his hands. The runes at the base had been partly melted.
“I might be able to fix this,” he said. “I spent a fair amount of time studying the talismans in the emperor’s collection in Tjanjin.”
“I already tried.”
“Yes, but you’ve never had a light touch, Domitia.”
For once, she didn’t seem offended. “I made the collars.”
He’d always wondered about that. They must be complex and frankly, way out of her league.
“How did you come up with the design?” Nico kept his voice casual. If she thought he really wanted to know, she’d refuse him out of spite.
Domitia stretched her slender white legs. “Before that woman broke my gate, I took a few trips into the Dominion. On one of them I met a mortal wandering lost in the forest. He wore leathers made of human skin.” She said this in the same tone one might observe that a cloak had flowers embroidered on the collar. “It wasn’t difficult to extract his story. He claimed to be a necromancer who had served a woman named Neblis. He wore a ring around his wrist that connected with a chain to several iron collars. A talisman, but one that drew the life force from its victims. I took it from him and adapted the basic design.”
“And what happened to this necromancer?”
Domitia gave a merry laugh. “I peeled him like a piece of fruit. I’d thought to make my own cloak from him, but it turned out to be messy and not worth the trouble.”
Nicodemus eyed her. The tale made him uneasy. “Where did he come from? Are there others like him?”
“Not that I’ve seen.” She shrugged, losing interest. “Fix my globe if you can. We need the Breaker. But if you cannot, I will her make come to us regardless.”
“And how do you plan to manage her? If we caught her on the dark side, it might be possible. But if she’s in Solis, she’s untouchable.”
Domitia grinned. “You’re scared of her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
>
“Yes, you are. She bested you.” Domitia sighed, her gaze softening. “It’s strange, but the woman reminds me of myself sometimes. She has courage.”
“She’s vicious.”
“Nothing wrong with that. She has her task and we have ours.” She paced, humming with nervous energy. “We’re so close, Nico. So close. A thousand years the Gale has stood, and we’re the ones we’ve been waiting for. You and me.”
“We haven’t done it yet.”
She gave a secret smile. “We will.”
He shook his head. “And what about the Danai?”
“They’re the key. I’ll admit, I didn’t plan it this way, but the escape of the captive has worked to our advantage. The clan is coming to us. Once they realize what we are, they’ll have to surrender. We’ll trade them to the Breaker.”
“I don’t know if she’ll go for it.”
“She has a temper, yes?”
Nico remembered those amber eyes, shining with malice.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“All Breakers do. It’s why they die young. They end up picking a fight they can’t win.” Domitia stopped in front of him. She looked pretty and full of brash enthusiasm, like she used to be. “I know her better than she knows herself. We’re kindred spirits.”
Nico said nothing. Perhaps they were.
“Do you remember the time we ranged all the way to the south coast?” she asked.
“I remember.”
The southern peninsula of the Kiln was a no-man’s land. He’d hoped they would find something—anything. The ruins of fabled Pompeii maybe, though Nico would have settled for a single tree. But it was just like the rest. Empty and punishing.
It took three days to reach the Austral Ocean, which was wild and stark with combers twenty paces high breaking in clean lines.
“You went out too far and almost drowned,” she said.
“And you hauled me back to shore. Shook me until I puked.”
She laughed. “I’ll never forget the color of that water. Like the sun through a piece of green glass.”
Atticus had begged to go, but he’d left his brother behind with another family. They were all dead now.