Godfire

by Cara Witter

  Kenton swore under his breath.

  “What do we do?” Perchaya whispered. The guards were on the inside of the city wall, but there was a chance one of them would see Kenton and Perchaya climbing over the battlements.

  Kenton and Benick exchanged a look, but neither said anything. Perchaya found herself reaching for Kenton’s arm, more for comfort than for actual support. He didn’t pull away.

  The three of them hid in the shadows while the guards stopped at the drunken man and kicked him awake amidst more laughter. Perchaya’s pulse pounded in her ears. How much longer would the wall guards be tempted away by the phantasm? And what if the others saw it, but were too far away to be affected?

  The drunk toppled back to the ground, and the earthenware jug he had clutched to his chest shattered. A few more taunts, one last kick, and finally—blessed gods, finally—the guards turned down a side street and vanished from sight. Save for the man lying on his side in the dirt, the street was empty.

  Kenton wasted no time. “Now,” he hissed, and helped Perchaya over the battlements, carefully supporting her with his arms. “Ready?”

  Perchaya was certain there was no ready. She braced her boots against the outer wall and nodded. Kenton affixed his own harness to hers with a loop of the rope and wrapped his arm tightly around her.

  He hooked the grapple securely and swung out over the side, using one arm to hold Perchaya against him and the other to guide them down the wall. Benick let out the rope slowly, and they hadn’t descended more than a few feet when Perchaya heard the hoot of an owl.

  A desperate-sounding owl.

  “The mages,” Benick whispered. “We’ve lost our distraction. Go!” He let out another length of rope, and Perchaya lost her footing on the rain-slick wall, the toes of her boots scraping against it as they dropped another few feet.

  Above them, Perchaya heard a loud voice. “Hey!” a guard yelled. “Stop!”

  Benick stood to his full height as the sound of boots pounded on the stone steps, and he pulled out the long-knife at his belt. Perchaya’s heart raced; she could see the heads of the guards as they rushed onto the wall, and heard a growl followed by a clang of steel as the first guard up engaged Benick head on.

  The second guard raced past the melee, and Perchaya knew in a heartbeat what he was running towards.

  The bell.

  Kenton swore in her ear and braced himself against the wall with his legs. His arm looped once around her and grabbed the rope, freeing his other hand to reach for his boot. Out of it he pulled a dagger, which he drew back and threw.

  Perchaya winced as the blade flew toward the man, but she was unable to look away. Rather than burying itself in the guard’s flesh, it hit handle first against his head, just under the ridge of his helm, knocking him to the stones.

  But not soon enough. The hilt of the guard’s sword had already been on its downward swing and clanged dully against the bell just as Kenton’s blade did the same to his head. The sound of the bell, however, carried further.

  Steel skittered across stone and Perchaya looked up to see that Benick had disarmed his foe. The guard lunged at him with a roar, but Benick was stronger, forcing the man back against the low portion of the battlement just above them. For a moment, all she could see was the guard’s disheveled hair as his helm fell off, narrowly missing Perchaya and bouncing off Kenton’s shoulder on the way down. Then there was a grunt from above, and Perchaya felt a spray of something hot across her face, mingling with the chill rain.

  Blood. Oh, gods, it was blood.

  She dared not let go of Kenton to wipe her eyes, but instead did so against his shoulder. She couldn’t help but look up, seeing the guard’s head lolled to the side, limp and streaming blood from a gash to his throat. Benick stood against the battlement with a dark stain across the edge of his long knife, and he returned to letting out the rope.

  As they continued to drop, Perchaya stared fixedly above at the dead man balanced over the battlements, her body cold. She understood that they had to escape the city—that, under Tehlran’s rule, if they were caught, they would be delivered into the hands of Diamis for whatever fate Maldorath had in store for them.

  Still, she wondered if that man had a family who would have to be informed.

  Standing over the body on the wall, Benick raised his fist in a farewell salute to them before they lost sight of him over the battlement. Kenton swiveled around, clearly trying to spot guards who might answer the alarm, but no one appeared.

  Not yet. Perhaps the bell hadn’t been loud enough, or perhaps the others were merely running from farther away. Whatever the cause, Perchaya was glad when her feet finally hit the muddy ground below, and she scrambled out of the ropes.

  “Come on,” Kenton said. Perchaya followed him as they ran away from the city walls, keeping to the trees to avoid further run-ins with the guards.

  And as they did, Perchaya couldn’t help but hope that the worst was behind them.

  Eleven

  Business in the Fish Hook Inn was especially slow, and so Nikaenor Alwyn initially attributed the strange feeling to boredom. He swept the fallen remnants of several patrons’ dinners toward the door, trying to ignore the odd prickling along his spine and the even odder need to go outside and keep walking until he reached the shore.

  And then, maybe, keep going.

  He shuddered. He hadn’t wanted to leap into the ocean for years, not since he’d been afflicted with the curse. Never again, he thought, remembering the water surrounding him, pulling him under. Remembering the pain, like a thousand tiny blades growing out of his flesh.

  His sister Aralie put a hand on her hip. “Haven’t you finished yet, slowpoke?”

  “Just about,” he said. He opened the door, and the muggy air sent beads of sweat along his arms. He could hear waves breaking against rocks in the distance, and he paused for a moment, listening, imagining diving into the dark depths of the deep shelf that fell off beyond the shore.

  Goosebumps rose over his arms like scales.

  Aralie barely looked up from piling dirty bowls onto her tray. “Mum’s on me to get the pots washed before the next group comes in, and you owe me about ten chores.” The three patrons currently occupying the tavern and nursing their ales were regulars, and the hour was growing late.

  “Next group?” Nikaenor cocked an eyebrow. “Is Mum claiming to see the future again? Because if she’s got the sight, she really should start charging.”

  Ulan, a scruffy-bearded fisherman with his feet propped up on the table, chuckled at this. Aralie gave them both a stern look that would have done their mother proud, and Ulan put his feet back on the floor. “As long as it’s not more soldiers she’s seeing in the future,” he said.

  The other men grunted in assent, and Nikaenor nodded. He hated the Sevairnese soldiers’ presence as much as any of them, despite their ready money. Their little fishing town was fortunate—Ithale was only considered important enough to warrant a handful of soldiers quartered in town at any given time. Not like Berlaith, the capital of Foroclae, where Diamis worried of rebellion.

  But still, they all fretted. The soldiers stationed at garrisons near bigger cities could fancy themselves an occupying force at any time.

  “She’s being hopeful,” Aralie replied. “Besides, we’re about due for another merchant ship to arrive. The last came in two weeks ago.”

  Nikaenor leaned on the broom, a habit which made his mum fume, as it often bent the rushes beyond recognition. “Hopefully they’ll have some good tales to tell. Like that last fellow from Jekti, remember him? He said he actually saw the bones of a Great Northbeast. Fresh.”

  He said the last with a significant look towards Ulan, who nodded back gravely, obviously remembering the tale himself.

  Aralie rolled her eyes. “If all that was left was the bones, it wouldn’t be freshly dead, would i
t?” She shook her head, sending a few strands of blond hair loose from her bun. “Sometimes I think you’re more gullible than Tam.”

  That seemed like a low blow. Tam, their younger brother, was only four years old. “You’re just bitter because you fancied him, and dad made you spend the night washing dishes instead of batting your eyelashes.”

  Aralie grabbed the broom from his hands. “I did not fancy him! I was just—”

  “Mirilina’s salt! Is it too much to expect my children not to fight in front of the customers?” They both jerked to attention at their mother’s voice and looked guiltily towards the kitchen door. There Mum stood, drying her hands on her apron, her expression mildly amused despite the stern tone of her voice.

  “Good ale tonight, Noreen,” commented another of the local fishermen, a man named Raenak who had a daughter around Nikaenor’s age. A daughter who had once asked Nikaenor to dance at festival, despite the curse. It had probably just been an act of charity, and Nikaenor had made up an excuse. People in town were nice enough to him, but few had the courage to actually touch him, as if his skin might sprout scales at any moment.

  He found himself looking in the direction of the ocean again, hearing the sound of it in his ears, feeling that prickling along his skin.

  And something else. A thought, but the kind that pressed in his mind and wouldn’t leave him.

  Mum was right. Someone was coming.

  Which was ridiculous. Even his mother didn’t really believe that Mirilina had blessed her with premonitions. Luckily, his mother hadn’t noticed anything amiss with him. She was busy glaring down Raenak. “Same ale as every night, and your wife will blame me if you don’t put down that mug soon and go enjoy her company.”

  “Aye, before some other man does!” Ulan said, earning a resounding laugh from both himself and the third patron, while Raenak chuckled good-naturedly.

  “And you two,” Noreen said, turning her gaze back to her children and pointing to the kitchen. “Pots.”

  Aralie groaned. “Can’t Esta—”

  “Now. And no talking back unless you want to be gutting tomorrow’s batch of redeye with your dad in the morning.”

  Both of them grimaced—scaling and de-boning redeye was the most miserable of chores, smelling as they did like the rotting flesh of a Northbeast—and headed back grudgingly to the kitchen, where the hearty smell of fish stew mingled with the sweet aroma of the cherry sauce for tomorrow’s breakfast biscuits.

  When they were out of earshot of their mother, Nikaenor couldn’t help but mutter, “Besides, just because the beast was all bones doesn’t mean it wasn’t fresh. The meat could have been eaten by scavengers. Lots of really hungry scavengers.”

  “Oh, will you leave it already?” Aralie hissed back, and Nikaenor smiled to himself. His sister might be a year younger than him, but at sixteen, she had the tendency to think she knew everything, despite the fact that she had never left Ithale. Nikaenor never had either, but he at least understood that there was a great big world out there, full of things they couldn’t even imagine in this little fishing village. Things he dreamed of seeing someday, unlikely though that was. So he wasn’t ready to rule out Great Northbeasts or any other kind of story that Mum or Dad called “big fish tales.”

  Perhaps not even a Someone who might be coming tonight.

  Nikaenor carried some sauce-crusted pots to the wash bin, already filled with dirtied bowls and mugs. He looked down into the water—frothy with the stinging lye soap. He asked himself for the thousandth time in the last five years why Mirilina would choose to curse him, who not only lived in Ithale by the ocean, but also had been born to the task of washing the dishes of half the souls residing in town. Nikaenor felt the prickling along his arms even before he placed them in the bin, and not because he was dreading it. Almost as if his body was anticipating it.

  Wanting it.

  His hands moved furiously, scrubbing at a stew-caked pot with the thick boar-bristled brush, trying not to cringe against the pain as his hands sprouted hard, rigid scales that glowed with an iridescent, bluish-green sheen.

  Aralie, beside him, turned away from the door so she couldn’t be observed and dipped two of her fingers in the water, then traced a circle on her forehead. Her lips mouthed the quick and silent benediction to Mirilina to protect her from Nikaenor’s curse—a motion that was second-nature to his family, though they had to be extra careful not to do it in public.

  Nikaenor wiped his hair from his eyes, wincing at the prickle of pain that caused a smear of scales to appear above his eyebrow. After five years of dealing with the curse, Nikaenor knew he should have grown a—ironically—thicker skin about it.

  A bell chimed at the front door of the tavern, and Nikaenor turned to look through the kitchen doors.

  And then she walked in. The girl’s face was concealed nearly entirely by a hood, but beneath it, Nikaenor could see dark eyes watching him from beneath heavy black hair. Her skin was a deep brown color—darker than the residents of southern Mortiche, which meant she probably came from the island nation of Tirostaar, far to the west of Sevairn.

  Nikaenor had always been partial to girls with light hair and freckles and button noses. But as he watched her enter, striding in with a confident step and surveying the patrons with a sharp eye, the prickling spread over his body, without water or the growth of scales. And Nikaenor couldn’t help but think that, even concealed beneath the dark cloak, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

  Nikaenor jerked his hands out of the water, hastily grabbing a towel to dry his skin and rid himself of the scales. “That girl,” he said. “Have you seen her before?”

  “You mean the one you’re gaping at like a gutted fish?”

  “Yes, that one.” Nikaenor wiped at his arms with the cloth, getting the last of the moisture off. Already the scales covering his arms were starting to soften, the blue-green fading back into the usual tanned tone of his skin.

  Aralie scowled at him, and Nikaenor did his best to ignore her, wrapping the cloth over his arms in case the girl happened to look in his direction as he stepped into the doorway.

  Which she did. For a moment, their eyes met, and she frowned beneath her hood.

  Then she strode through the room toward him, staring straight at him.

  Nikaenor panicked. He stumbled backward, his arms—now returned to flesh—tangling in the towel. Aralie jumped to the side as Nikaenor careened into the wash bin, sending a wave of water over the back side of his pants, which soaked his skin, causing it to burn and sting. Nikaenor cried out and his feet slipped out from under him on the now-soapy floor, sending him down hard on his rear end.

  Aralie shook her head at him. “There’s definitely something wrong with you.”

  Nikaenor scrambled backward, failing to get his footing on the slick floor, as the girl charged right into the kitchen—not usually the destination of customers—and pressed her back to the wall next to the door frame.

  “Excuse me,” Aralie said. “If you’d like to order, you can take a seat right by the—”

  “Hush,” the girl said, her voice weighted with a heavy Tirostaari accent. “Pretend I’m not here.” She continued to stare down at Nikaenor, as if she, too, couldn’t take her eyes off him. Nikaenor struggled to stand without touching the floor—or the wet table where the wash bin rested—but only succeeded in sliding around on his heels in front of the open kitchen door. He supposed he must be quite the sight, sitting in a puddle, but he dared not press his palms to the wet floor and risk growing scales in front of her.

  In places she could see, at least.

  Sailors came charging through the door across the tap room—four of them, all tanned and muscled, with angry looks on their faces.

  “You,” one of them said, pointing at Ulan. “You see a girl come through here?”

  The girl stiffened and stepped gin
gerly toward the back door. Nikaenor finally got his feet underneath him and straightened enough to see Ulan shake his head. “Ain’t seen nothing. You, Raenak?”

  Raenak grunted. “Nothing but the bottom of my tankard all night. Aralie? Where’d you get to?”

  Aralie gave Nikaenor a wide-eyed look and stepped over him and out of the kitchen. “I’m here,” she said. “What’s all this fuss? I hope I’m not the girl you’re looking for.”

  Nikaenor ducked out of the doorway. The sailors must not be familiar with Ithale. The locals would gossip the night away about everybody’s business, but none of them was going to rat on a girl in favor of four burly sailors, especially since they were all from out of town.

  The girl took another step toward the back door, and Nikaenor shook his head at her, pointing instead down the stairs. She looked into the dark stairwell, then glared at him, like he might be laying a trap for her.

  “I’ll help you,” he whispered. “Come on.”

  Hitching up his trousers to be sure no scales were showing at the small of his back, Nikaenor headed down the stairwell, holding his breath, half afraid she would bolt out the door. There was something about her that made Nikaenor want to keep her close. He’d never been particularly great at talking to pretty girls, but with this one, he wanted to try, even if he made an idiot out of himself.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and Nikaenor led her past the ale racks without lighting the wall sconce. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  The girl surveyed him like she wasn’t sure if she should divulge that information. “Saara,” she said finally.

  “Saara,” Nikaenor said, aware that his tone reflected a reverence usually reserved only for the name of his god. He felt flushed. “What do those men want with you?”

  “I stowed away on their ship,” she said. “I imagine they want to bring me to justice.”

  He paused at the bottom of the stairs. The best place to hide in the house was just beyond the wall to his right—a place that under normal circumstances, Nikaenor would have denied existed, especially to someone he just met.