by M. M. Perry
“You could die out there. I’ll never have the chance to say goodbye the way I wanted to.”
Viola pulled Julia into an embrace and kissed her. “This is not ‘goodbye.’ This is ‘come back soon.’ This is ‘I’ll keep the bed warm.’ This is ‘Don’t forget to bring me a souvenir.’ This is anything but goodbye. You hear me?”
Julia looked up and touched Viola’s hair, letting the bright red strands slip through as her fingers rested lightly atop Viola’s ear.
“No jewelry. Cartans have a terrible sense of style. Too gaudy,” Julia said softly.
They hugged once more, Viola chuckling a little as they parted. Then she turned and boarded the ship.
The ship was just beginning to pick up speed, the huge sails taut with wind. Viola watched as Cass attached a message to the large teeton bird perched on a railing nearby. She knew it was an update to Anya, letting the dragons know where they were headed and asking if they had any advice they were willing to part with. Cass knew it was a long shot, but she didn’t think it would hurt to ask. Viola agreed with her.
Viola turned back to stare off toward Faylendar, the docks slowly receding. She was unused to the cramped bustle of the ship. The last time they’d travelled by ship, it had been on Gunnarr’s sturdy boat, and it had only been five of them. A part of her missed the quiet comradery of that voyage, but another part of her felt more secure surrounded by so many warriors, even though she doubted any number of warriors would have helped in the fight against the kraken.
Nat came up alongside her at the railing, the wind blowing his hair forward dramatically. Viola couldn’t help but smile at the sight. He had grown so much since they first met, and was becoming more handsome by the day. It seemed ages from those early days when a shy, kind-hearted boy awkwardly tried to woo her, unaware of her preferences at the time. The sweetness within him had not hardened as his exterior had, and for that she was grateful. Gunnarr was a good man, but hard to get close too. Nat was always so open and sympathetic and his time as a warrior hadn’t changed that. Nat made friends easily, and she was constantly glad to be counted among them.
“You also looking for the speck that might be your girlfriend?”
Nat grinned at Viola’s teasing tone.
“Nah. I’m afraid such a life is not for me. It seems the ladies, while finding a fine young warrior like myself both dashing and heroic enough to spend a few nights with, tend not to consider us as serious lifelong companion stock. You’re lucky to have that. Julia wasn’t too angry with you, I hope.”
“Oh, she was. Livid when I first told her. But I’m hopeful we left it on a good note. I’ve been terrible to her really. I’ve been throwing myself into all this with so much gusto, I keep forgetting how hard it must be for her. I have so much to think on out here, it keeps me distracted from the things I miss. She is forced to take on the bulk of all the worry. I’m going to make it up to her when this is all over. The adventuring business is over for me after this.”
“Really? No more Nat and Viola stories to tell?”
“Yep, this is my last time. Going to help win a war. I think that’s ending on a high note, as they say. And the last time for this.”
Viola opened her large bag of personal belongings and pulled out a long vest covered in pockets.
“Hey, your enchanter robe! Haven’t seen that in a while.”
“I had it modified a bit. Has more pockets now, if you can believe it. But I’ve found since I don’t have the ability to actually enchant anything anymore, only the chemistry bits of my training are important. And some of those types of things I never carried. And certainly not in the quantity I have to carry now for them to do any good.”
Nat peered into Viola’s open bag.
“Got the little green thing you used to wear under it in there, too?”
Nat wiggled his eyebrows at Viola who jokingly punched him in the arm.
“You would bring that up. And no. That was never something I liked wearing. It was alright when I was a kid, easy to clean it and I mostly just looked like a little imp or fairy in it. As we grew up though, it was pretty appallingly apparent to me anyway that it was a little too sexualized. I remember thinking at the time it was made that way so we’d have an easy time with our assigned mates. A lot of the enchanters who started to get older complained about unwanted attention they were getting from the folks who hired us. But still, the outfit stayed the same. I eventually stopped taking my robe off altogether, simply to cover myself up more, even though it was a nightmare to sleep in.”
“Well, you’ve come a long way since the Village of Light.”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“Did you have something specific in mind once you retire from the warrior life?”
Nat grinned at Viola as he asked the question and popped some sort of nut in his mouth. Viola noticed he had a little pouch of them that he opened up.
“Melody has set me up to study under some of the brightest advisers to the court. I’m to apprentice for a time. Eventually I’ll be appointed to a position of high advisor. Who knows, maybe someday the official royal advisor. She’s been so kind to me.”
“It’s not a kindness. You’re smart and good at making tough decisions quickly. She’s snapping you up before someone else does.”
Viola felt a little pride warm her at Nat’s words. He was being sincere, and she knew it. They leaned against the rail together for a while longer in companionable silence, watching Faylendar disappear over the horizon.
Chapter 7
The ships large boards were expertly crafted, joined with a precision that only master shipwrights could muster. Still, the planks groaned softly as the ship moved through the water, whispering of journeys over and yet to come. Cass enjoyed the sound, letting it lull her to sleep in the ample captain’s quarters she shared with Gunnarr. Her respite was shot-lived, though. Almost as soon as she had drifted off Oshia had come again to her dreams, his voice mocking her and her efforts.
“Not even your mother can save you from yourself. Your ineffectual attempts to change your fate only further prove your uselessness and stupidity. You could accept your fate and squeeze what little happiness you could from your futile life before it ends, like most mortals. Instead you’ll toil away in fruitless misery, frittering away what little time you have remaining with your northern stud, every moment sullied by the wretched state of your pitiful life. Never fulfilling your dream, always failing.”
Images of Gunnarr flashed into view, standing dejectedly in the background as Cass stubbornly continued fighting, all while Oshia persisted in berating her. Cass tore herself awake from the dream, gasping. It took her a moment for banish the imagery from her mind and focus on the real Gunnarr sleeping soundly beside her. She slipped from the bed still half-asleep, trying her best not to wake him, and moved to the private deck just outside the captain’s quarters. The wind filled her ears with white noise, calming her. She was still so tired, she could easily have let herself drift off to sleep, standing there, if she weren’t certain she’d find Oshia waiting for her in her dreams. Instead, she tried to make her mind blank, closing her eyes to the bright moon overhead and focusing on nothing but her breathing and the sounds around her—the boat cutting wake through the sea, the ropes of the rigging tensing and relaxing—and drifting on the edge of sleep, a practice she had found herself forced to perfect, of late. It wasn’t as good as truly sleeping, she’d found, but it was just enough to keep her going.
She startled when she heard a small cough beside her. Chort, the short and surly god of lightning, was sitting in a corner of the captain’s private deck, shadowed from the moon.
“How did you get here?” Cass hissed, surreptitiously checking to ensure she was adequately covered. She was glad to find she had unconsciously pulled on a robe as she fled the cabin, though she had no memory of it.
Chort raised an eyebrow at her.
“Ok, silly question. You used your god powers.
More importantly, what are you doing here?” Cass demanded as she quietly closed the glass doors leading back into the captain’s quarters. She really did not want to wake Gunnarr. He’d guess what had woken her, and she didn’t want him to carry any more of her burden than he already was.
“It is quiet here.”
Chort offered nothing else in reply. Cass spoke very little with the god since he joined their effort. He kept to himself at the castle and on the rare occasion they’d crossed paths, made it clear he did not care for Cass. She took some solace in the fact that she alone wasn’t the target of his distaste. Gunnarr was the only one he would really talk to, which made it difficult for them to depart. When it became clear that Chort was not going to respond to her, or anyone else’s, entreaties for him to join them on the trip to Ledina, they’d been forced to call Gunnarr away from more important tasks so he could spend a full day convincing the god to come with them on the trip. Cass had a suspicion this was in part due to her. She had been rude to Chort when their paths had crossed in the past, and was sure that his current churlishness was his way of extracting revenge. Since he arrived at the castle, he made it abundantly clear he was not interested in her apologies or obsequiousness, so she made an effort to avoid him so as not to displease him further.
Cass was certain this was the first time the two of them had been alone together, and was unsure what to do. She didn’t want to offend the god any more than she already had, but she also wasn’t going to retreat to the captain’s cabin.
This was her space, she decided, and right now she needed it more than she needed Chort’s good will, Selina’s vision be damned. The thought of the vision drew her attention to Chort’s staff, ever by his side. She tried not to watch it too covetously, and didn’t let her gaze linger long. She hadn’t the foggiest idea how she would ever get to hold it as Selina had seen. She was sure Chort would never give it to her freely. So far as she knew, no one save Chort himself had ever touched the staff. She asked Viola about it, who told her that the staff was likely a corporeal manifestation of the power he wielded, or at least, once wielded. Cass couldn’t imagine a god letting even their most trusted disciple grasp a manifestation of their power, let alone her, who he clearly disliked and distrusted. She decided that was a problem for another day. Right now, she wanted to forget about her problems and let her mind drift near sleep. She sat down in one of the chairs opposite Chort, choosing to remain silent and sit in peace. She thought Chort might do the same, and was surprised when after only a few minutes, he spoke up.
“You probably don’t remember too much about our first meeting, do you?”
Cass turned to Chort, wondering what he wanted to hear.
“No. I mean, I know I was terribly rude, oh great and powerful one.”
Cass tried to sound sincere, but it was difficult.
“Not here. Not with that. Not with just the two of us. You clearly don’t recall.”
Cass was confused.
“You’d prefer me not be reverent?”
“I’d prefer you not pretend reverence. I’m not the praise-seeking fool you take me for. It is an act. As I told you once before, it is how I get by without being killed, yet you seem to have no memory of that conversation. I find it rather ironic that you don’t remember a thing I told you, yet here you are, having done exactly what I asked. Perhaps some of it stuck in there somewhere.”
“Now I am truly confused,” Cass said rubbing her eyes.
“You made an alliance with the djinn. Just as I asked you too.”
“Perhaps a little enlightenment is in order,” Cass said, her attention now fully on the small god.
“I knew you for what you were the moment I saw you. I knew you were half god. There was no other explanation for it. You are not attractive enough, not witty enough, not charming enough to have held the attention of the entire room when you entered, yet there they were, all eyes on you as you told your mundane story. It helped that I knew your sister well. Birds of a feather, as they say.”
Cass was speechless. This well-spoken, sly sounding Chort was not at all the blowhard little imp of a god she remembered, or that everyone spoke of.
“My sister,” Cass said, “you spent time with her?”
“Yes. Not surprising if you think about it, really, given that both of us were cursed and in exile. Though she for a much shorter time than I. But she sought me out, thought she might be able to use me I expect. Someone who she might still have some sort of power over in her weakened state. She was wrong, but it served my own purposes to appease her ego for a time. I learned a lot. One thing I found out about being worthless in the minds of your peers, they don’t fear you much, tend to say and do things in your presence without fear of reprisal. She spoke of you, which, in turn, meant I knew her mother was necessarily free, and had been for some years, in order to sire a half breed. I prodded gently enough, but Issa never knew where her mother was. She thought Timta must be cursed as she was, without her amulet, powerless somewhere in hiding. She didn’t know who or where you were either, but she knew of you. Called you… well, a great many things. She’s quite good with the insults, that one. I’m guessing she finally found you, and that is why all of this has happened.”
“She did find me. You told me all this when we first met?”
“Not precisely. I told you I knew who you really were. I told you if you helped me I would wed you, make you powerful. I was foolish to think you wanted power. I had no idea you were a warrior. You laughed at me and ordered more ale.”
“You offered to marry me?” Cass asked first, but then decided Chort’s revelation left her with a more pressing concern. “In exchange for what?”
“I asked you to befriend the djinn. Get them to come out of hiding and… it doesn’t matter,” Chort waved his hand in front of his face dismissively. He scowled as he looked out at the sea.
“You laughed it off, and treated me like the powerless buffoon I pretend to be. Before the night was over, you ended up sitting on me like a stool, and I played right along. I honestly thought you were being clever, feigning your contempt for me to keep anyone from thinking you were assisting me. Now I think perhaps I never even needed to ask for your help and debase myself that night. It seems greater forces are at work here.”
“I’m listening now.”
Chort turned to look at the tall woman. Her eyes were focused now, unclouded by the frightened haze that had fogged them when she first came out onto the deck. Her posture was different as well, solid and straight. It was then he realized there might be more to this half god than he had originally appraised. He could practically smell Oshia all around her when she had first woken. It took no divine insight for Chort to surmise that the god was clearly tormenting her. She was singled out for his ire, worthy of his special attention. When she first appeared on the deck, Chort considered simply vanishing before Cass saw him, not wishing to involve himself in that matter. Chort knew Oshia was not a god to fool around with, and he could ill afford to tangle with him. But Chort’s curiosity got the better of him. The djinn left Xenor, after all. Things were in motion. It was not a chance he was willing to pass up.
“Do you know of my story, Cassandra, born of Timta and Magnar the Mighty?”
Cass did not answer. She was too shocked by Chort’s casual revelation of her paternity, something she’d never been able to discover despite years of trying.
“Magnar? My father is Magnar? How is that even possible?” she asked. Cass, of course, knew the name. Magnar was legend among the warriors. Even outside of the warriors, many still knew his story, though he had lived more than a hundred years ago.
“Gods do not obey the rules of time as mortals are forced to. Timta had you when she needed to have you. It is how the gods are.”
“But…” Cass was cut off by the wave of Chort’s hand.
“I am not here to discuss your lineage. If what I have to say is of no importance to you, child, then I will go. I’ve no patience for the irrele
vant questioning of curious mortals.”
Cass closed her mouth and put her hands in her lap, nodding to indicate she understood.
“Yes I know of your story,” Cass replied.
“Tell me then, mortal. What is the story your people tell?”
“Chort and Hadra are twin sons of Sala, goddess of wind and storm, and Kepsos, god of stone. It was an old affair that even the gods themselves make little mention of. It is said the gods joke among themselves that Sala accidentally blew the stony seeds of Kepsos from the Razorback Mountains all the way to her home in the skies over the sea. From there the grains of sand implanted in her belly and created her sons, as even the gods could not imagine Kepsos mustering enough passion enough to woo another. Before they were even born, as Chort and Hadra were forming in the womb of Sala, so also began the war between them, Hadra claiming most of the womb for himself, confining Chort to a small space. Hadra flourished in the womb, growing large and strong, while Chort was forced to remain small and stunted. When they were born, and were at their mother’s breast, Hadra drank first and deep, leaving but a few drops for Chort. As they grew, Hadra constantly found ways to keep Chort in the shadows of Sala’s affection. Finally, when they were grown, outright warring began, Hadra sending his followers to hunt down any who might worship Chort, or consort with him.”
Chort sniffed at the retelling.
“Is that it?”
“Well,” Cass hesitated. She was sure this next bit was required simply to sate the ego of the god. “It is said in some stories that it is Chort who will have the last laugh. He was given a small jeweled cane at birth by Apsos, who pitied him. Apsos told him the cane held great powers of destruction, but could only be used once, for when used, it would destroy everything. Apsos told Chort if ever Hadra became too powerful and dangerous, that Chort could resort to using the cane to destroy the world as he knew it, and begin a new one where all would be on equal footing.”
Cass allowed herself to look at the cane again then, as it seemed fitting to her story and wouldn’t appear suspicious to the god. Though she and her fellow warriors often jokingly called it Chort’s stick of death, something she certainly would not be sharing with Chort, the cane’s craftsmanship was undeniably otherworldly. It was the only thing about Chort that was remotely godly.