The Godswar Saga (Omnibus)

by Jennifer Vale

  The blond man frowned. “What, you aren’t coming? I’m talking about the Sor’sal, Jace. We haven’t been to one of their shows in what, six months at least? And that was with stolen tickets!”

  “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Oh, come on,” Tam pleaded. “They’re supposed to have some Izarian girls—you know the way they dance…and what else they’re into.”

  Jason smiled tightly. “In two hours you’ll be so drunk you won’t even know I’m not there. Go have fun.”

  Tam sighed and shook his head. “How about you, Sel? I know you like dancing.”

  She cocked a silver eyebrow in response.

  “You people are terrible friends, you know that?” Tam muttered, standing. “Sarina would go if she were here. If nothing else, she’d at least start a bar fight.”

  “You didn’t ask me,” Gor said.

  Tam paused for the briefest of moments, snorted, and then turned on a heel and walked out the door.

  “So what are you going to do with your gold, anyway?” Gor asked Sel a few minutes after Tam had departed. “You barely eat, you don’t drink, and you don’t attempt to buy mates with gold.”

  “She can do whatever she wants,” Jason said. “If she wants to throw them in the river, that’s her business.”

  Selvhara smiled faintly before reaching up and squeezing his hand. “There are worthy people who need it more than I,” she said. “I’ll make sure they get it.”

  Gor grunted. “So the river it is, then. At least tell me which one so I can place a net downstream.”

  Chuckling, Jason slipped away to get himself another drink.

  ***

  “So are you going to tell me, or do I have to guess?” Jason asked after a few moments of awkward silence. He was on his third glass of wine and well on his way towards passing out on one of the ridiculously oversized beds, but Selvhara had barely even twitched since Tam and Go had left an hour ago. She finally lifted her eyes up to meet his, and she was wearing one of her myriad motherly, borderline condescending expressions. He had known her for almost fifteen years now, and he still wasn’t immune to it—not even when he had a pile of gold sitting right next to him.

  “If you’re worried about Tam, you shouldn’t be,” he went on when she didn’t reply. “Even with a pocketful of gold the dancers will probably ignore him.”

  “A man you’ve known for nearly a decade sent a squad of men to kill us and retrieve that cube,” Selvhara said. “You might have distracted the others, but I want to know what’s really going on.”

  Jason sighed and unceremoniously gulped down the last of his wine. He had been putting this off for a while now, and he should have known better than to think she would let him get away with it. “I didn’t want to talk about it with Tam and Gor around.”

  “I know,” she said, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “So talk about it with me.”

  Setting his glass down, he stepped over to the bed and grabbed the small pouch resting atop the sheets. He pulled open the top and looked down at the mystery cube once more. “I’ve spoken with every remotely knowledgeable person in this city since we arrived, and not one of them had the faintest clue what this could be.”

  Selvhara glided over and sat down next to him. “Did they recognize it as Hassian?’

  “That’s just it,” he explained. “Most of these people are experts on antiquities and dead cultures. They could tell the difference between a 3rd and 4th dynasty Hassian vase, but they had absolutely no idea what this is. Two of them agreed with me that the engravings are writing in Nephilese, but neither of them could actually read it.”

  “So we still have no idea how Slaan knew it was there.”

  “Not a one,” Jason whispered. “It makes no sense. An Aether-infused relic from a time before there was Aether…”

  She nodded absently. “I’m not a historian, but I’ve heard plenty of stories about competing sages and scholars across the world. They can be as competitive as anyone, and this seems like it could be a truly remarkable discovery.”

  “One worth killing for, apparently,” he said softly. “The one thing I know for certain is that Slaan wouldn’t send thugs over a rumor He knew this was there, and I bet he even knows what it is—or at least what it does.”

  “We could try and find him,” she suggested. “He might even be in Lyebel for all we know.”

  “As long as we bring some of our own thugs with us this time, sure.” Jason twirled the cube in his hand again and pursed his lips. “The real problem is that I honestly don’t know if anyone in Lyebel will be able to help. Let’s face it: Galvia might have plenty of rich aristocrats interested in buying historical artifacts, but it doesn’t have a lot of people left who actually know things about them. Most of the sages and scholars fled across the border after the war.”

  “But not you.”

  He grunted. “I guess I’m just stubborn.”

  Selvhara smiled. “And addicted to the prospect of the ‘Big Score.’”

  “That, too,” Jason conceded. “When Slaan and I found all those maps years ago, I knew they would eventually lead to something. You can hardly blame me for following through.”

  Her silver brows furrowed. “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. To be honest, sometimes I still don’t understand why you spend time with us at all.”

  “I have told you many times.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess I always have a hard time believing it,” Jason whispered. “I know you loved my father, and I know you believed in standing up to the Crell, but the war ended a long time ago. We lost.” He closed his eyes and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Besides, I doubt the prospect of rummaging through old books and dusty ruins is as appealing to you as it is to me. You don’t care about gold or fame…”

  “I care about you,” Selvhara told him, squeezing his hand. “What other reason do I need?”

  He smiled and kissed her cheek. “I just feel like we’re wasting your time. And I’m a bit surprised Anvira hasn’t disowned you yet for frolicking around with a bunch of scoundrels.”

  “The Goddess is patient, and so am I. I’m two-hundred and fifty years old, Jason. I’m not in any rush.” She squeezed him again. “I’m also not human, which I think you forget sometimes. You father used to as well. You can’t just project your feelings onto me and expect to understand me.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “But I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever known. I hope you realize that.”

  “I do,” Selvhara replied, smiling.

  “Good,” he whispered, turning away before he started to blush. She was probably the only person in the world he felt comfortable opening up to, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still awkward. “But anyway, since we finally have some time to lounge around, do you think there’s anything you can do to figure out what this thing might be? A spell or ritual or something?”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I thought about it during our trip. I could try channeling some of my power into it just to see or if it will respond.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “I don’t believe so, but it’s impossible to say for certain since we don’t know its purpose.”

  “Hmm,” he mused. “Well, while I was out I did manage to scrounge up a few books on Nephilese ideograms. One of the buyers doubles as a linguist—he used to work for King Whitestone, and I think he knew my father.”

  Selvhara’s lip twitched. “You didn’t tell him that you were Ethan’s son, did you?”

  “I didn’t tell any of them my real name,” he assured her. “I’m a professional, remember?”

  “Of course,” she murmured. “Well, I’m certainly willing to help if I can. Let’s see what we can figure out.”

  Jason handed her the cube, and he shuffled over and rummaged through the foot-high stack of books he had collected. As a rule, dead languages weren’t the easiest things to translate, but since Nephilese had been the root language for most
current Torsian dialects, the process was a bit easier. He had generally ignored linguistics while studying at the university; he had always been annoyed when his professors would drop a phrase here and there that no one else understood. The whole discipline seemed pretentious at best and downright patronizing at worst, but right now he wanted to scold his past self for not paying better attention.

  “I’m pretty sure these are alphabetic symbols and not ideograms,” he commented after he had flipped through the first two books. “I don’t know if that’s relevant or not.”

  “Possiby,” Selvhara said noncommittally.

  “It seems like it has to be a container of some sort. I just don’t see any way to open it.”

  The druid’s violet eyes sparkled as she tapped into the Aether. “It still has a strong aura. It’s almost like Aether is leaking out of it.” She floated her left hand above the top section. “Imagine trying to trap smoke in a box.”

  Jason frowned. “Is the cube actually producing the Aether?”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible. The Aether is the blood of the Immortals spilled across the land.”

  “Allegedly, anyway. It’s not like we know that for a fact.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I wish I knew,” he muttered. “Maybe this should wait until morning. I’m tired and probably drank too much.”

  “Probably?”

  “I’m fine, mom,” he groused, leaning backwards. “Gor will have to sling Tam over his shoulder by the time they’re finished.”

  Selvhara glanced back down to the cube and held it up closer to her face. “Let me at least try something,” she said, her palm flickering with power. “We’ll see how it responds to direct stim—”

  Her sentence turned into a shriek as she convulsed backwards like she had just been hit with an arrow. The cube flipped across the room and rolled across the floor, but Jason barely even acknowledged it. Instead he watched in horror as Selvhara clutched desperately at her hand, and his nostrils curled at the unmistakable scent of burnt flesh.

  Reflexively, he tried to grab ahold of her arm and steady her, but she was thrashing so violently he couldn’t get a grip. Her right hand sizzled in invisible flame; the flesh was literally burning away before his eyes. Her flawless gray skin charred red and then black.

  Jason forced himself not to panic as he scanned the room for inspiration. They still had half a pitcher of water on a stand a few feet away, and before he even consciously realized what that meant, he had already grabbed it, run back, and doused her hand.

  She didn’t flinch or acknowledge it in the slightest. Her face had hardened against the initial shock, and her left hand emitted a faint green glow as she channeled a healing spell into the wound. Eventually the flame seemed to extinguish, but her hand remained a blackened stump.

  Jason wasn’t certain that he had ever felt so helpless. He had watched from a distance as soldiers died during the war; he had held onto comrades as they bled out in his arms. But this...this was something else entirely. Watching the horrors of unknown magic unfold in front of him made him feel five years old again. Suddenly he was listening to his father preach to him about why he had joined the Hands of Whitestone, why he had chosen to serve Galvia as one of the king’s Bound. The life of the Sightless was the life of the impotent, his father had always said. Those who could not perceive the Aether were powerless to combat it, just like they were ultimately powerless to shape the world around them.

  Jason swallowed, his eyes flicking desperately between Selvhara’s hands and face. He couldn’t imagine the depth of the pain, and he couldn’t understand how such a frail slip of a woman could possibly endure it. He doubted she could lift a sack of potatoes over her head, and yet here she was holding fast against a crippling agony that probably would have made Gor black out…

  “Sel? Can you hear me?” he asked in a whisper.

  She didn’t reply. He slid an arm around her and squeezed. It was a pathetic gesture, he knew, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He held her as tightly as he could for what seemed like an hour before she started breathing heavily. She blinked, her eyes still glowing with magic, and glanced down to her hand.

  “What?” he croaked. The flesh on her hand was red and raw, but he could see the color slowly returning to it. Even her fingernails had returned intact.

  “I’m all right,” she murmured. “I just need some more time.”

  Closing his eyes, Jason squeezed her more tightly. “Thank Anvira for me.”

  Eventually the glow in her eyes faded, and she glanced over to the cube sitting at the center of the floor. “That didn’t work exactly as I’d planned.”

  Jason snorted. “What the hell even happened? What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do much of anything,” Selvhara told him. “You could call it the equivalent of a tap on the shoulder.”

  “Tap it on the shoulder, get punched in the face,” he murmured. “Maybe this thing is secretly Asgardian.”

  “It was more than that. I almost felt a…presence.”

  “A presence?” Jason asked. “You mean like the aura you were describing before?”

  “No,” Selvhara said, shaking her head. “I mean a presence, like a person. It felt like it was telling me to leave it alone.”

  His brow furrowed. “You know how that sounds, right?”

  “Yes, but I know what I felt. Perhaps describing it as a conscious thought is too strong, but there was definitely something. Something more than a just a box holding onto some smoke.”

  “Maybe we should leave it there,” he said softly. “That or tell Gor to fetch it once he gets back.”

  Selvhara smiled. “It hasn’t reacted to you before, so I don’t know why it would start now. I’m reasonably sure it was reacting to the Aether, not to me.”

  “’Reasonably sure’ makes me think I’ll get my own hand burned off,” he muttered. “What if that happens?”

  “I’m ‘reasonably sure’ I can heal you,” she chided.

  “Fantastic,” he grunted, standing but remaining in place. They sat in silence for a moment, both staring at the cube but neither making a move to retrieve it. “Gor would tell me to throw a bag over it and try to sell it to the first collector we find. And I’m not sure he’d be wrong.”

  “Except that now you want to know what it is more than ever,” Selvhara pointed out.

  Jason sighed. She was right, of course. And that meant that sooner or later, he was going to have to pick up the damn thing. “If no one in Lyebel can help, I’m not sure what else we can try.”

  “Perhaps we should just continue our work on simple translations.”

  “Yeah, simple,” he grumbled, sucking in a deep breath and stepping over towards the cube. He paused for a moment, stared directly at it, then quickly scooped it up. To his mild surprise, he didn’t explode or spontaneously combust. Yet.

  “Very simple.”

  ***

  The dark figure glided through the northern streets of Taig. He had already been here for a day, but his prey was elusive. Mercenaries passed through this part of Galvia often enough that a small group of armed travelers wouldn’t attract any particular attention. The Mistress wasn’t even sure it was a group; his quarry may have chosen to go alone or split into separate teams. It was even possible that they weren’t in Taig at all. They could have traveled west to Selig instead or simply headed straight for Lyebel.

  The lack of certainty was frustrating. The Mistress rarely dispatched him on missions with so little information. He typically knew exactly who and what he was looking for, but this time the Mistress had only given him a single name: Moore. The man was carrying something important, and the Mistress demanded that it be retrieved.

  It would.

  Hours earlier, a local noble had informed the dark figure of a recently-arrived merchant attempting to sell rare Hassian antiquities. Several other wealthy collectors in the city had also been making
deals with an unknown traveler. In every case, the seller had traveled alone and gone under a different name…but his appearance was almost always the same.

  Moore’s face seared into the dark figure’s mind. As always, he wasn’t forced to rely upon the mere words of those he questioned, not when the Mistress’s power allowed him to rip the truth directly from their minds. Even those strong and willful enough to resist his first push rarely resisted his second. Pain had the remarkable capacity to open even the most resilient mind. Just a few minutes ago, he had been forced to shatter the knees of one of the informants to get what he needed, and after his departure, the informant believed she had simply tumbled down the stairs of her wine cellar. The local healers would probably tend to her wounds. If they couldn’t, she would spend the rest of her life believing she had become a cripple because of her love for rum.

  It didn’t really matter. None of them would ever remember the dark figure’s presence, nor would virtually anyone else he encountered. It was the Mistress’s will for him to remain invisible, and so he was…except for today. Someone in the city knew of his presence. He had only caught a glance of her once, but it was enough to touch her mind for a fraction of a second and glean the barest of her intents: she was hunting him.

  He was not accustomed to such a disturbing though. No one besides the Mistress herself knew he was here, and even if they did, tracking him was impossible. He was a specter of darkness, a ghost on the wind…and yet somehow, this woman—this huntress—had found his trail. He had spent hours trying to locate her and touch her mind once again but she was clever. She knew his capabilities. She knew what he was.

  Perhaps she was an accomplice of his quarry. She did not fit the description of his associates, but he could have acquired new allies. If so, then his quarry might have already gone to ground. That could not be allowed to happen. The dark figure would do whatever it took to—

  Hear me, servant.

  The dark figure froze as the Mistress’s voice echoed in his mind. My lady?

  Your quarry has been found. I shall direct you to it.