by Kat Ross
“How?” Mina demanded. “She’s a fireworker, Victor. A Vatra. There is no defense against her.”
Heavy footsteps approached and Culach tensed. Victor no longer smelled like his mad father, but now he had a different stench. The madness of despair.
“Do what you will,” he spat. “I’m going to Delphi.”
“Then you’ll die too,” Mithre said wearily. “Culach is right. We must find Nazafareen.”
“Get out of my way!”
“Don’t be a bloody fool.”
They began shouting at each other. It occurred to Culach that whether or not Victor was consciously aware of it, he wished to die. Culach had felt the same when he’d lost his ability to touch the elements. Yet here he stood and it was partly thanks to Victor Dessarian.
I should just let him go and be grateful to be rid of him. He screwed my sister, killed my great-great-grandmother, threw me in the cold cells of my own fucking keep. He’s my worst enemy and an arrogant prick to boot.
“Victor?” he called.
“What?”
“Can you come over here for a moment? I have something I meant to give you. It’s from your son.”
Victor stomped over. “Make it quick,” he snarled. “I’m leaving in—”
Culach’s fist shot out and clipped Victor on the jaw. He dropped like a stone.
“Find something to tie him onto Njala. He might try to jump when he wakes up.”
“Nice shot,” Mithre murmured.
Culach smiled. “I might be blind, but I can still hit things if they’re close enough and talking.”
The three of them hauled Victor over to Njala and wrangled him across her back. A gentle rain pattered down and Culach tipped his face to the sky. How long since he’d tasted rain on his lips? A hundred years?
“I’d follow Nazafareen,” he said, “if I had any idea where she went.”
“We could return to the forest. Some of the Danai must have stayed behind,” Mithre said. “They might have news.”
“You can,” Culach replied. “But I doubt they’ll welcome Eirik Kafsnjór’s son on their lands.”
He thought of his own humiliating weakness—blind and unable to touch the power that was his birthright—and not for the first time wondered what was left.
I am still a Kafsnjór. Still a rock-stubborn bastard who doesn’t know when to roll over and die.
He thought of what Nazafareen said to him in the catacombs about a young girl named Meb. He thought she should know about Farrumohr—about all of it.
I’m not completely useless. A sardonic smile twisted his lips. I have a dead man’s memories from a thousand years gone, which doesn’t sound like much except that he might not be dead after all—or at least about as dead as Gerda.
“We need strong allies,” Culach said. “Somewhere safe, until Victor comes to his senses. I’m all for revenge, but I’d prefer to live to enjoy it.”
“Makes sense,” Mithre grumbled.
“So where then?” Mina asked.
Culach’s sightless eyes turned east, back toward the darklands.
“To the Isles of the Marakai,” he said. “To the Five.”
23
A Drop to Drink
The sun floated a few hands above the horizon, trailing long, slender shadows from the six figures who trudged across the sands. They walked southwest in single file. The sky was a cloudless blue. A smudge of low hills rose in the distance, or perhaps it was simply a trick of the heat.
Nazafareen lifted the water skin and shook it over her mouth.
Bone dry.
Her rucksack had started out as a heavy burden, most of the weight consisting of water. She’d done her best to ration, but that was the last of it. Nicodemus said he knew where to find more though it was still a half day’s journey.
She wiped a bead of sweat away. Soon I’ll stop sweating altogether and shrivel up like an apple left in the sun, Nazafareen thought darkly. With each league, the heat grew more blistering. The few scraggly plants that grew at the eastern edge of the Kiln were long gone. Out here, there was nothing but dunes of fine, broiling sand.
Nicodemus said that when the sun reached its zenith overhead, they would be in the lands of the Vatras. When she asked why his people chose to live in the hottest part of the Kiln, he gave her a flat stare.
“We didn’t choose,” he said. “This region is too unstable for digging.”
She looked at him blankly and he sighed.
“We live in burrows.” He pointed at the sand. “You need hardpan or the walls collapse.”
“Like caverns?”
Nicodemus gave her a mirthless smile, made even more ghastly by the spectacular bruises on his face.
“No, like holes in the ground.”
“Does Gaius live in a burrow?”
“Yep.”
She had a sudden image of a blind creature with sharp teeth digging in the darkness.
“What are the defenses?”
“Pairs of Praetorians guard the entrances.”
“Armed with?”
“Spears, mostly. A few tooth knives.”
“How many Vatras are there in the whole Kiln?”
He thought for a moment. “About a hundred, give or take.”
Nazafareen was surprised. “That’s all?”
“Kiln won’t support more than that.” Another hollow laugh. “It has its own methods of population control.”
“What do you mean?”
“The magic binding this place warped the native desert creatures. They evolved—rapidly. Almost without exception, every species became deadly in one way or another. There’s not a single snake or reptile or insect that isn’t poisonous. Just pray we don’t meet some of the bigger ones.”
She frowned. “You make it sound like the other clans did that on purpose.”
He shook his head and walked a little faster.
“They wouldn’t have,” she insisted, hurrying to catch up. “They only wanted to wall your people away so you could do no more harm.”
Nico rounded on her, his face cold. “How do you know? Were you there? Have you spoken to the ones who sundered the world?”
“Well, no. But—”
“This place.” He flung an arm out. “It’s not just a prison. It’s hell. And I find it hard to believe that was done by accident.”
Nazafareen fell silent, letting him walk away. Part of her wondered if he was right.
The list of potential dangers in the Kiln was not short. He’d already warned them about rock spiders (small, brown, seemingly harmless) and something called a shadowtongue. Disturbing one was a bad idea, so you had to watch for the spines on its back, which were the only warning as the rest of the lizard was usually submerged in sand. At first, she’d placed each step with care, scanning the ground ahead, but it made her head ache. Now she simply tried to follow in the Vatra’s footsteps.
His cloak was made from the skin of shadowtongues. Sometimes he left them to scout ahead and after a few steps, he practically disappeared.
Darius watched her curse softly and give the empty water skin a last futile shake.
“Here,” he said, rooting through his pack. “I have one left.”
“Sure?” she croaked.
“You look ready to keel over.”
She suspected he’d gone without on purpose, knowing she’d drink hers faster. The water was the same temperature as tea, but it was wet. Her terrible thirst receded a little.
“I saved some,” she said, handing it back.
“Finish it. I’m fine.”
From the cracked state of his lips, this was a blatant lie. But Darius would just dig in if she insisted. Nazafareen glanced longingly at the last of the water, then trudged over to Katrin.
“There’s a little left,” she said.
Katrin took it without a word, draining it in three gulps. Her fair skin was red and peeling. The Valkirin suffered the most, stumbling along with slumped shoulders and glassy eyes.
“Thank him,” Nazafareen replied, looking at Darius.
Katrin caught his eye and gave a brief nod. The fact that he was Victor’s son did not endear him to Katrin and she’d largely ignored his presence. But water was a precious commodity.
Galen took up the rear, walking with the hood of his cloak raised against the sunlight. He held himself apart from the others, which was fine with Nazafareen. She was starting to regret letting him come, but it was too late now.
Only Nicodemus seemed unaffected. He constantly scanned their surroundings, quick flicks of his dark blue eyes. There was something of both predator and prey in him, the alert stillness of the hunter and the wariness of the hunted. They were still far from the lands of the Vatras, and Nazafareen wondered uneasily what he watched for.
The low hills turned out not to be hills at all, merely undulations in the desert, like a rumpled blanket. In places, she saw scattered piles of white stones. Closer inspection revealed that they were bones, bleached from the sun, but the shapes looked strange as if they belonged to creatures whose bodies moved in alien ways.
The horizon stretched out before them, flat and blurry. It was hard to believe anything survived out here. The Valkirin range had a stark beauty and Nazafareen supposed the Kiln did too, with its sea of golden sand against an azure sky. But she found it hard to appreciate, plagued by thirst that grew more maddening with each hour.
As she walked, Nazafareen slipped into fantasies of the sweet, chilled concoction distilled from cherries called vissinada they sold in the agora at Delphi. Of bathing in the cool ponds of the Danai forest. Who cared if there were snakes? She’d happily wrestle a python for five minutes of blessed darkness and the taste of fresh water.
“Almost there,” Nicodemus called over his shoulder, shaking her out of her reverie.
She squinted ahead, seeing nothing but a jumble of rocks. As they got closer, Nazafareen saw they were too regular in shape to be natural. They’d reached the foundations of a rectangular stone building. Only the bottom half remained and it was filled with sand.
“What was it?” she asked.
Nicodemus shrugged. “No idea. It dates back to before the sundering. The walls and roof were likely made of wood.”
He walked through a gap that must have been the doorway and led them to the rear, where a hole yawned, stairs winding down into darkness. Sand covered the steps in drifts, the surface smooth and undisturbed. Still, Nicodemus paused at the entrance, head cocked to one side.
“Domitia and I found this place on our way to the gate,” he said finally. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here since.”
“What’s down there?” Nazafareen asked.
“Water.”
She started forward and he held out a hand.
“Wait here. Let me check it out first.”
He disappeared down the stairs, his cloak trailing behind him. Katrin sank down and leaned against the foundation wall, dropping her pack with a sigh. Rhea stood beside her, peering into the hole. Nazafareen studied the Maenad’s dewy, unblemished skin with irritation.
“You don’t burn like the rest of us, do you?”
Rhea smiled. “It’s warm for my taste, but Apollo holds no sway over me.”
Katrin barked a dry laugh. “That’s a nice trick. Perhaps you can move a little to the left. I might just take a nap in your shade.”
Rhea did so with a gracious smile, and Nazafareen bit her lip to keep from laughing. If anyone could thaw Katrin Aigirsdottir, she’d put her money on Rhea. The Maenad was striking to look at and nearly of a height with Katrin, but she also had a generous heart that might soften the Valkirin’s hard edges.
Nazafareen turned away, leaving them to their banter.
“What do you think this place was?” she asked Darius.
“A house, perhaps. If it’s as old as the Vatra says, these lands must have been different then.”
Before the sundering, the sun moved across the sky. From what Nazafareen understood, the Kiln had always been desert, but there were also oases here and there. Perhaps this place had been green once.
She felt a twinge of anger. Culach said the clans had coexisted in peace until Gaius and the Viper came along.
“Do you think the three talismans could reverse the sundering?” she wondered aloud.
Darius frowned. “Who knows? Perhaps. Or perhaps in trying to fix it, they might make it worse.”
“Of course, I’d have to break Galen’s ward. Two of them could never manage it alone.”
They glanced at Galen. As usual, he hung back from the others, appearing lost in gloomy thoughts. He’d barely spoken a word since they entered the Kiln and Nazafareen was glad he hadn’t tried to seek her forgiveness. Easing his guilt was the last thing she was in the mood for.
Nicodemus returned a few minutes later and beckoned them down the stairs. Sunlight trickled in from above, illuminating a series of stone chambers connected by wide archways. The ceiling seemed too low for living quarters and Nazafareen guessed it had been a root cellar. She imagined twine sacks of onions and garlic hanging from the ceiling, casks of wine stacked neatly in a corner. Perhaps it had been a grand manor with servants in livery and gay parties. She scanned the naked stone, searching for some sign of life, but of the former occupants no trace remained.
She followed Nicodemus to the second chamber, wrinkling her nose. The air was cooler underground, though it had an odd, musty smell. Tiny holes honeycombed the walls as though something had been burrowing there.
“Get out your skins,” he said, rooting through his rucksack. “That bucket is rusty but serviceable.”
The chamber had a well with a winch and chain. Darius hooked the bucket and dropped it down into darkness, hauling it back up brimming with tepid water. They crowded around, even Galen, dipping their hands in and using cupped palms to drink. Nazafareen splashed some on her face, rinsing off a day’s worth of sand and sweat. When it was gone, Darius filled a second bucket. Nicodemus moved with brisk efficiency, filling each skin and stacking them to the side.
“If there’s water, why hasn’t anyone reclaimed this place?” Darius asked.
Nicodemus slapped at his neck, leaving a smear of red. He held up the offending insect between thumb and forefinger.
“Blood fly. They’re a nuisance, but the main thing you need to know is that they only hatch in the dung of wyrms.”
Nicodemus flicked it into the shadows. Something pale was wriggling out of one of the holes in the wall. It wasn’t large, about the length of his little finger. He strode over and stomped on it.
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” He nudged the remains with his boot. “No teeth. No bones. But they can squeeze through pinprick holes. Once they latch on, they excrete a digestive acid.” He pulled up his pant leg and braced his boot against the wall. The calf was puckered with tiny circular scars. He lifted his shirt. More scars pocked his stomach. “I ran into a nest when I was thirteen.”
He let his shirt fall. “Wyrms are only dangerous in swarms. The one to fear is the queen. She’s big and she can birth a thousand wyrms a week. Queens are blind, but they have vestigial eyes. Maybe they used to be something else, I don’t know. It’s rare that one will leave its nest. The offspring do the hunting. When they return, bloated from whatever prey they found, the queen devours them. Then she births more.”
“Have you ever seen a queen?” Nazafareen asked, horrified.
Nicodemus turned away. “One killed my mother,” he said quietly, gathering the full skins of water and handing them out. “That’s why we won’t be spending the night here. This isn’t the nest, but it can’t be far off. They’ll sense the vibrations in the earth. Trust me, you don’t want to be here when hundreds of those things come out of the walls.”
Rhea shared a look with Katrin. They were both hard women, but his tale—and the scars—had its intended effect. Everyone hoisted their packs and climbed the stairs. The heat fel
t worse after the cooler cellar, but Nazafareen had no desire to linger. Once the house was far behind them, Nicodemus called a halt.
“We can rest here for a few hours,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”
He climbed to the top of a dune and sat with his back turned, the shadowtongue cloak merging seamlessly with the sands. To Nazafareen’s surprise, Galen joined him, sitting a few paces away. Nicodemus glanced over but didn’t object.
“He’s your brother?” Katrin asked Darius.
“Half-brother,” Darius replied. “We share the same father.”
Katrin scowled. “Victor Dessarian.”
Don’t start up now, Nazafareen thought wearily.
“I know you don’t believe it, but Victor didn’t kill Halldóra,” she said. “Gerda did. She wanted the Valkirins to ally with the Vatras. Halldóra wasn’t having it.”
Katrin looked ready to argue, then subsided. She took a long drink from her water skin.
“I didn’t see what happened,” she conceded. “Halldóra and Gerda were already dead when I entered the room. I heard them arguing through the door.”
Nazafareen tipped her chin toward Nicodemus. “Just ask the Vatra. He spoke to Gerda through the globe.”
Now Katrin’s jaw dropped. “How do you know this?”
“He told me himself.”
“I can’t believe it.” Katrin sighed. “Actually, I can. She would have done anything to restore Val Moraine to its former glory.” She glanced at the baldric slung over Nazafareen’s shoulder and barked an amazed laugh. “So Culach gave you Ygraine’s sword. What the hell did you say to him?”
“The truth. That I never meant to burn his army.”
Nazafareen told her what she’d seen that day at the lake and about the creature called Farrumohr who whispered in Neblis’s ear. How Culach had been possessed by it.
“I was only trying to save myself. The flames got away from me.” Nazafareen paused. “I’m so sorry about your sister.”
Katrin gave her a long look, then nodded. “I sensed it too,” she admitted. “Culach seemed strange after he came through the gate.”