The Gods of Vice

by Devin Madson

  Footsteps returned. An ink stone was placed on the floor beside me, and Katashi brushed the hair from my forehead. The ink was cold. I tried to focus on the shapes he formed, to read his words, but all I could think about was the hot blood dripping down my arm.

  When he had finished, he dropped the brush back onto the stone. “Take him to Kin,” he said, nodding to his guards. “Let’s see how honourable the Usurper really is.”

  Chapter 19

  Darius

  For the second time in my life, I woke with a mouth so dry it might have been filled with dust. It took a moment to recall why, but knowing didn’t make it any better.

  No horse this time at least, no swaying motion or bright, searing sunlight. She had laid me out on the divan, a show of kindness that left a bitter aftertaste. Gods only knew how long I had been out, but though fears for Kin poured in, I couldn’t bring myself to move. Beneath the crushing fatigue, nothing seemed to matter very much.

  After staring at the shadowy ceiling for a while, I managed enough energy to turn my head. The scent of Kimiko was all over the pillow, and I closed my eyes, only to find her in the darkness behind my eyelids, speaking her apologies over the top of my silent screams.

  Kin was walking into a trap. I ought to move, ought to do something, to fight, not just lie there, but every limb felt heavy and it was hard to focus, hard to even think what I ought to do. She could have a whole day’s start on me and had probably taken the horse and—

  “Endymion?” I forced the croaky word out and licked my dry lips with my dry tongue. “Endymion?”

  No answer came, not even an echo. Had I owned his strength, I might have been able to range my Sight over the house and know where he was, but my far lesser skills brought me nothing but silence. And a certainty born from knowing her that Kimiko would not have left him behind. Not when he could be so useful.

  Whatever his parentage, he was still Takehiko Otako.

  Eventually, I managed to roll onto my side and caught sight of the cup of water she’d left beside the divan. Had I been less thirsty, I would have exorcised some fury by knocking it over, but my mouth was too dry for rage. I heaved myself up onto an elbow and drank it all in one gulp before flopping back, exhausted.

  She would be taking Endymion and the crown and knowledge of Kin’s whereabouts to Katashi, and there was nothing I could do.

  I groaned and went back to staring at the ceiling, exactly as my young self had once lain just here and stared at that very patch of peeling paint, wishing for the strength to change the world. Wishing my father would come to see me. Would talk to me. Smile at me.

  So deeply did I fall into memory that I would not have been surprised by the sound of Avarice’s footsteps or his old songs echoing along the passage, but when footsteps sounded, they were not his.

  Still lying upon the divan, I turned my head to the door, and there stood the scribe I had hired from town, a couple of scrolls in his hands. “Your Excellency, I’m sorry to disturb your rest, but—”

  “But bad news doesn’t wait,” I croaked. “Bring them in.”

  “Oh, it’s not these, Excellency, it’s…”

  More footsteps, and emerging from the shadowed hallway, he stood, a silent figure at the edge of the light. He wore simple linen, his dark hair, dark brows, and deep-set eyes giving him the look of a creature born from the night. “Good evening, Brother,” he said and bowed, mockingly low.

  The scribe hovered, and for a mad moment, I considered telling him to throw Malice out or begging him to run for help, but with a weak smile and a wave of my hand, I dismissed him. The young man hurried away, leaving me to face Malice across the room. For a time, we just stared at each other, but when I made no move to speak or rise from my pillows, his mocking smile soured to a frown. “You’re unwell? I must admit that is not very sporting of you, yes? I did not come all this way to feel sorry for you.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was explain how he came to find me so, but just as Kimiko commanded honesty from my lips, so too would Malice, except he would take it by force if it was not offered.

  “Not sick. Borabark.”

  One of Malice’s brows rose. “Adversity?”

  “By Kimiko,” I corrected. “Yes. She is no longer yours to name.”

  “Ah, so I guessed. Where has she gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? You stole one of my strongest Vices and have just let her… wander off? Excuse me if I am enraged, yes?”

  “You’ll forgive me,” I said. “You love me too much.”

  Malice had been leaning against the doorframe and running the tip of his ponytail through his fingers, but he paused at that. “How well modesty becomes you, Darius.”

  “And how well walking across Kisia like a peasant becomes you, Malice. I take it the full cortege of Vices and your brightly coloured wagon would have been rather too conspicuous in lands controlled by Katashi.”

  He flashed me a humourless smile. “Indeed, and that’s something else I have to find it in my heart to forgive you for. I do not take kindly to having to chase you like some unwilling woman. I sent Vices to save your life after you so foolishly threw it away to make your honourable stand, and this is how you repay me? I am getting rather sick of your ingratitude, yes?”

  I laughed, the sound still dry and throaty from the borabark. “Shall I thank you for the knife wound too? And for getting me dismissed from one of the most powerful positions in the empire? Admit at least that you came chasing Endymion as much as me and I could accept some of your annoyance as warranted.”

  “Some of my annoyance as warranted,” he repeated, seeming to muse on the words. “That boy broke my mark, Darius. No one has ever done that before nor even come close. He is dangerous, yes? But I’m sure you recall me warning you of that, recall me telling you how important it was that we take care of this together.”

  “I know he’s dangerous. That boy, as you call him, followed me across Kisia, sniffing like a dog. One connection, and I had given him enough to seek me out from any distance.”

  His suspicion smothered me like a heavy blanket. “And why did he come to you?”

  “To learn control, what else? I made the world believe I was not an Empath for five years, or had you forgotten?”

  “Forgotten? How could I when you left me alone for those five years?”

  “Hardly alone.”

  “Without you, I am always alone.”

  That small room felt suddenly smaller, and with slow steps, he came across the floor. “You and I were made for one another, Darius, each the only one who can ever fully understand the other. Can fully love the other.”

  He sat upon the edge of the divan, his scent infiltrating the lingering presence of Kimiko’s. I struggled to rise to my elbows and failed.

  “My poor Darius,” he said, running his hand down my cheek. “Don’t tell me. Dear Kimiko abandoned you like this so she could take Endymion to Katashi.”

  The amount he had guessed without looking in my head shocked me enough that it must have shown on my face. “It is not so difficult to work out,” he laughed. “Did he tell her the truth or did you?”

  “I did.”

  This time he ran the back of his hand down my cheek. “Ah, my poor trusting little brother. How prettily she must have duped you.”

  The memory of her lifting the tea bowl to my lips flashed into my mind, only to be thrust away, as much for the pain it gave as the fear Malice might see it. “Indeed,” I said. “And as you find me feeling quite sorry enough for myself already, do excuse me from entertaining you with a quarrel.”

  He smiled down at me, one of his genuine smiles, his eyes half-lidded with lazy affection. “Oh no, my dear, I will wait until you are feeling rather better for that. It’s no fun otherwise, yes?”

  He got up on the words and began to move about the room, first filling my empty cup from the water bucket, then lighting the coals beneath the hot stone and washing some rice. They
were tasks I had once lain just so and watched Avarice perform day in and day out, and despite the fact it was Malice moving with ease about the room, it was oddly comforting. His forbearing mood was unlikely to last, but while I lay in a fog of fatigue, I couldn’t but be grateful.

  At some point while he worked, I must have dozed off, for the next thing I knew, he was running his hands through my hair. I opened bleary eyes to the sight of that same affectionate smile, while behind him, steam rose from bowls on the table. “You will feel better able to quarrel with me when you have eaten, yes?”

  The extra sleep had done me good, leaving me with enough energy to reach the table without help. Once settled there, we ate in silence while darkness closed over the house. Malice lit the lanterns, filled my water and my plate, all watchful solicitude. How easy it had been in the pursuit of hatred to forget all the kindness he had ever shown me. Would Kimiko so soon forget my every attempt to be a good man?

  “What a mopey bore you are, yes?” Malice said as he watched me eat. “What is troubling you, sweet love? Shall I fix the world for you?”

  Fix the world. I could use the power I had been born with, use the power we were capable of together, could harness everything the Vices were and ever could be to make everything right again. The urge was there, calling to me with the fervour of desperation and the ever-yearning remembrance of how good it felt to be powerful. To be in control.

  “No,” I said before I could voice the yes that ever hovered on my tongue. “I will find a way to fix it myself when I feel less like I’ve been put through a wine press. Why did you come?”

  “You know why. What have I ever wanted but my brother back?”

  “An empire?”

  Tea bowl in hand, he gave me a meaningful look over its rim. “When was that my ambition?” He set the bowl down slowly, the deliberate click of it upon the table hollowing my gut with anticipation. “I’ve only ever wanted what was best for you. To make you happy.”

  “Did it never occur to you that I was happy serving Kin?”

  His brows lowered and his gaze searched my face. “No, you weren’t,” he said with a slowly spreading smile. “Content to be a miserable martyr, but not happy. You thought that was your due, yes? That you deserved no love and satisfaction in life, that you ought only to serve.”

  Content to be a miserable martyr. The truth of those words struck me with such force I just stared at him across the table. I had hated having to control my every thought and emotion and expression and had pushed everyone away except for the man whose position meant he could have no true friends.

  Malice picked up his tea again. “I want my brother back, yes?”

  “Even against my will?”

  He sighed, closing his eyes in a moment of pain. “You’re breaking my heart, Darius, yes? Where are you hiding my Mastery?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “You’re lying. With Hana’s pretty face upon the throne, you were going to rule the empire from the shadows, the power–”

  “Enough.”

  Malice’s fine eyebrows rose. “Denial, Darius?”

  “I did not stay to talk about me. It’s Endymion we need to do something about.”

  “Very well, and after that?”

  I held his gaze. “We go our separate ways.”

  “To slowly grow old? To wander the world telling the story of our glorious battle? You intrigue me. What do you propose I do when we… part ways? Again.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  “Whatever I like. Almost you have me convinced, Brother. I sacrifice my time and skill to protecting Kisia and all its fine peasants from Endymion’s wrath and, I assume, fight to end the civil war, letting Kin keep his blood-soaked throne, only to leave the battlefield with nothing. Shall I disband the Vices too? Shall I send them back to the families who cared so much for them that they sold them to me?”

  “That’s up to you. Those are my terms.”

  He pushed his empty tea bowl to the centre of the table, lantern light dancing on its finely painted surface. “You are expensive, my dear,” he drawled. “I do not like your terms, yes? Do you hate me so much that you would bargain a future without me?”

  The lie stood on my tongue and made itself fat, paralysing speech. I forced it out. “Yes,” I said, the word tasting wrong.

  Throwing out his arm, Malice swept the bowls from the table. They flew from its edge and smashed, thin shards of porcelain scattering to every corner of the room as he lunged forward, gripping my arm. “Something has changed,” he said, eyes roaming my face. “You’re using your Sight, but you’re still not my Darius.”

  He pulled me forward, the edge of the table digging into my stomach. My pulse thrummed in my ears as his fingers crept toward my hand, every moment he wasn’t touching my skin like a hellish eternity. Slowly, he peeled back my sleeve. There, my birthmark. There, my skin. But he did not touch me. His hand hovered, teasing, the urge to make the connection myself almost overwhelming.

  At last, he clasped his fingers around my wrist, opening the path between us. It was well travelled, a little overgrown perhaps, a little strange from so many years apart, but beneath the new growth beat the old, so natural, so true. I could not hide, not from him. He held the keys to every door.

  But now there was Kimiko. Her taste, her smell, her curls against my cheek. Her love and her anger and her stubborn insistence on drawing from me every truth. Her betrayal was there too, like a great scorched scar across my soul, but it was not that which made Malice drop my hand with a hiss, real shock twisting his proud features. “You’ve let her mark you as much as you marked her.”

  I slid back off the table, straightening my robe as I stood, even so simple a movement an effort after the borabark. “She’s gone now. Leave it be.”

  “Leave it be?” Malice rose and came around the table with a predator’s soft steps. The door was behind him, but I repressed the urge to run. “Leave it be?” he repeated as he stepped close, the smell of him unchanged by so many years. “You are mine, Darius.” He leant forward to breathe the words into my ear. “I will not share you, yes?”

  He gripped my hair, dragging back my head. “You think she will be hard for me to find? Perhaps my Vices would also enjoy getting to have their way with Otako’s spirited little sister.”

  I thrust my palm into his chin, pushing back his head. “She’d kill them first,” I said as his grip tightened in my hair. “She’d slit them from groin to throat for even thinking about it.”

  His wet tongue darted across my fingertips and I slammed his head back so hard his teeth snapped together. Hair ripped from my scalp as he fell back. “You think they couldn’t hold her down?” he said, grinning. “They—”

  “Like you held me down?”

  Anger flared across his face. “That was different.”

  “No, it was exactly the same!” I thrust him from me, and he hit the edge of the table and fell heavily, his head slamming back. His ribbon snapped, sending little shards of bone scattering across the worn tabletop. And while he lay stunned, I snatched the pot off the cooking stone. It was heavy, its base made of iron. I swung. Malice rolled and the pot hit the table, splitting down the middle, spilling cold rice like an army of maggots.

  Malice pushed to his feet, panting, his hair falling around him like a veil. His eyes gleamed. “So angry, Darius,” he said. “Did dear Kimiko tell you that you deserved better? That you weren’t the monster you’ve always been?” He picked up the book she had been reading from the divan. “Did you let her read the horrors committed by others so you wouldn’t have to tell her about yours?”

  I was breathing fast, pressed lips keeping back words I could not trust.

  The book slammed down upon the table and Malice stalked closer. “Did you tell her the truth, Darius? Did you tell her that you made the first Vice? Did you tell her that it was you who pushed to perfect the process with experimentation? That it was you who stole people from their homes and ordered their bodies b
uried in the back field when you were done? Did you tell your dear Kimiko how much blood was on the hands you touched her with? No?” He was smiling again now. “Perhaps you should do that the next time your fingers are so far up her cunt you can’t see them. Tell her you made the Vices. Tell her you made me.”

  A monster would be easier to hate. A monster would be easier to leave.

  Malice shook his hair back from his eyes like a mane. “It sounds like fun, yes? Maybe I’ll do it myself. Do you think she’d like that? The little whore has a taste for Empaths, perhaps.”

  Too easily could I imagine her moaning at his touch instead of mine, digging her claws into his shoulders, tugging on his hair and biting his lip. He knew how to be charming when it suited him, knew how to touch people in ways they would never forget. In ways they would never want to forget.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” he said. “How loud did she scream for you, Darius? How loud will she scream for me?”

  My pulse pounded like a war drum and I lunged, wanting nothing more than to choke the words from his throat. He ducked and came up grinning.

  “Too angry, Darius, too angry.” He gripped a fistful of fabric at my throat and pulled me in. His skull slammed into my brow bone sending white lightning across my eyes. The room spun and I staggered back, blood dripping down my face.

  “Did you tell sweet Kimiko about our father?” he said, the words ghosting past my ear. “Did you tell her about your mother? Did you tell her that every time she begged for it, she was begging for the chance to die?”

  His sharp fingernails cut my cheek, shredding the skin like a handful of knives. Hot blood bloomed.

  “Do you think she’ll still love you with your pretty face all cut up?” he crooned, his hand on my other cheek. “Such a fool you are, Darius. Did you really think someone else would love you, truly love you, knowing everything I do?” He chuckled. “No, you’re too clever for that. That’s why you never told her the whole truth.”

  “Vatassa matas!”