by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 77
The smell of thousand-glories buoyed Abass. He floated on dark waters, but as he watched, light bloomed, white and hot. It raced through the waves, scorched his skin, and passed into him, coursing through his veins like a stream of starlight. White light burned through sky and waves until the only distinction was the swell of the horizon. Flower petals rained down on him, velvet and heavy, forcing him down, down, down, until the incandescent water pressed the last air from his longs.
Abass jerked upright. The heavy layer of dirt, dry and powdery, crumbled and rasped his skin as he broke free. Air, sweet and perfumed with a thousand different smells, broke over him. Brushing more loose dirt from his shoulders and arms, finding only smooth, unmarked flesh where the claws had taken him, Abass struggled to his feet. He felt good, strong. As though awaking from a long illness. Huge mounds of dirt—cracked, shifting with his every movement—surrounded him, but beyond the dirt, in a widening ring, flowers blossomed.
In the darkness of the cavern, the soil never touched by light of sun or moon, where rain had never fallen or wind carried seed, grew more flowers than Abass had ever seen. Roses and lilies, amaranths with bloody petals, carnations like a sunset against bluebells. As he watched, slender saplings poked their way free of the matted flowers, putting forth deep green leaves. A forest and garden grew before his eyes in a matter of heartbeats.
Normal heartbeats, Abass realized. No labored attempt to ease the effects of the dew. No frenzy of stolen life. The brachal was cold against his arm, and his belly was empty of the fire that the dew brought. For the first time in weeks, Abass felt like himself. The Abass who had drunk tepid wine in the eternal summer heat, enjoying the breeze of the Perch. The Abass who had a made a life for himself without family, without dew, but with friends. With people he loved. People who were gone now.
A sudden, hushed murmur filled the air. Abass looked over. Men and women in the cages stirred, their eyes confused. Wisteria, its flowers the color of too-early dawn, climbed the iron bars, and in a few heartbeats the cages were covered bowers. He could hear the questions begin. Abass shifted and looked for a path away from the cages. He did not think he could handle questions.
With a grimace, Abass climbed through the crumbling remains of the last god-made-flesh. More than once his foot broke through the powdery dirt to strike the packed earth beneath. The flowers did not bloom here. Perhaps they mourned the god who had given them life. Perhaps the soil was simply too dry.
A god dead. And by his hand. Abass felt something rise at the back of his throat. How did a person live after that? He shook his head. He would take responsibility for his actions. That was the only way he could live. He made it to one of the uneven slopes that led away from the altar and started up the path in darkness.
“Where will you go?”
Abass turned. His body was strong, healthy. Too healthy, perhaps, considering the flowers that grew with abandon around him. But he felt tired nonetheless. Maq stood a few paces behind. The disi hung from Maq’s hand, its massive blade smooth and impeccable. No sign that it had been used to slay a god.
“Somewhere,” Abass said. The Perch. He did not want to say that out loud. Naja’s shrine. He could not say that either. Not after what Serhan had done. What Maq could do. “Why did you kill them?” He was surprised to find that his anger was cold and hard, contained in a way he had not thought possible. “I would have helped you anyway. They had Isola.”
“It wasn’t me,” Maq said. “Serhan was supposed to find them, protect them. Voramancy, though . . . it makes the mind unstable. The more it is used, the more imbalanced a person becomes. Consuming human dew grants unbelievable power, but all power comes with a price.”
“He was your tool,” Abass said.
Maq nodded. He looked better; the terrible wounds had closed, although the rents in his clothes still showed the scarred flesh where the tair had held him.
“Your responsibility.”
Maq nodded again. “I did what I must to free this people. They will need someone to guide them now. Someone strong. And you, you will not be left alone. People will come for you, hunt you. When you stabbed the tair with its own weapon, as you lay, impaled on its claws and dying, you Renewed yourself. You Renewed yourself with the blood of a god. That blood is a treasure, a well of power.”
The words made no sense. Abass shook his head and turned. Too late, he saw Maq dart forward, disi swinging in a long, wide arc. The man moved more slowly than he once had, but he was still Renewed, and Abass had no dew. The blade hummed as it flew toward him.
Maq stiffened, suddenly off balance, and staggered to one side. The blade flew clear of Abass, and with a start of his own, Abass saw Fadhra standing behind Maq, a dagger in one hand. She blurred and flitted away.
Abass stumbled back, crushing snowdrops and peonies beneath his feet. Maq lurched forward another step and regained his balance. The old man whirled, disi carving the air, and caught his balance.
“You stupid woman,” Maq shouted. A stout woman in purple silk near the cages let out a scream and pointed at Maq. More people began to gather, the flowers forgotten at the sight of battle. Maq paid them no attention; his eyes roamed the cavern, seeing through the darkness the closed around Abass and the sacrifices.
With inhuman speed, Maq raised the disi and flitted toward Abass. Flower petals burst in the air behind him, a stream of fluttering life that marked his passing. Abass threw himself to the ground, grunting as rose thorns bit into his forearms, and grimaced as petals whirled into the air around him. A crash and Maq’s muffled oath told Abass that the tun-esis had been foiled again.
Abass rolled to his feet, pulling thorns from his arms, and then grabbed at the pouch at his belt. He could use the dew in there, reactivate the brachal, and kill Maq. Perhaps. Maq had the disi, after all, and Maq, when at full strength, was far faster than a man with dew. He was wounded, and the dew was so tempting. Abass could almost feel the surge and pulse of it along his veins, the fire of strength and speed. The ecstasy of losing himself in the frenzy. He hesitated as something caught his eye.
A woman with hair the color of Qet gold—like sunlight with a coppery sheen—knelt next to a man in the grass. Her face was turned away, but Abass’s heart gave a leap. Isola. It had to be. He let a cube of dew slide from his fingers.
A cry, low and urgent, caused Abass to whip his head to the side. Fadhra knelt in a patch of thousand-glories, the wide, soft petals stained with crimson drops. Maq swung the disi, but Fadhra blurred and vanished. The smooth, yellowed blade clove through the white petals, which crumbled to ash as the blade passed.
Face set, Maq turned and darted toward Abass again. Abass threw himself back, hand going to his belt. He dug out the piece of cold pork and clawed the salt-metal from its hiding spot, wincing as the square of metal sliced his finger. Blood glistened on the rainbow-white surface as Abass tossed it into the air.
Maq slowed suddenly, his blurred form becoming clear as his speed returned to normal. With the salt-metal near, he moved no faster than any other old man. The disi dropped in his arms, too heavy without his Renewal, and Maq staggered as the weight pulled him off balance.
Abass flipped himself up as Maq fell to one side. The old man scrabbled to his feet and struggled to run away from Abass and the salt-metal, to regain his Renewal. Abass watched him for a single heartbeat.
Responsibility.
His heart slowed, the air tightened—not from dew, but from focus and training. Abass’s hands went to his belt, and he drew the twin throwing daggers Fadhra had left him. The hilts were long-forgotten friends. The balance perfect.
For an instant, Abass remembered when he had almost killed his sister. The pain and shock in her eyes. His father’s anger. Abass’s own grief that had almost driven him to take his own life. He was responsible for all of it, and he let the weight of it fall on his shoulders, steady his hand.
To love was to care for someone more than yourself.
He threw the daggers. They flipped through the air, end over end, dull in the distant light from the braziers. The first took Maq in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. The second caught him in the back as he turned, near the kidneys. The disi fell from his hand, and Maq tottered back, face white as his hair.
Maq fell into a tangle of poppies, their blossoms drinking in his blood as he fell. Abass watched as Maq’s Renewal exerted itself. Even as blood poured from the wounds, Abass watched them close, flesh tightening around metal, trying to heal.
With a single kick, Abass sent the salt-metal chip skidding between flowers toward the tun-esis. Maq gave a great heave, his back arching, and clawed at the poppies, trying to pull himself free of the salt-metal’s influence. A dozen heartbeats later he jerked once more and fell still.
Abass walked over to the last tun-esis of the last of the gods-made-flesh. Tears in his eyes, Abass pulled a dagger free from the corpse and slit Maq’s throat, letting the stolen blood of the Renewed flow back into the thirsty earth.