Stranger Rituals

by Kali Rose Schmidt

  “Go ahead.” she said quietly. “Slit my throat. I dare you.” She flashed a smile.

  Silence echoed between them in the room, the only sounds that of the partying above.

  If he did, if he pushed that knife further, Scarko knew she would have seconds to conjure the blüdsvard before she herself lost consciousness, minutes before she died, but she would make those seconds while she was still awake count. She wasn’t sure her blood magic would work, with mindeta in her system—it might do nothing at all. But they knew nothing of her magic, and she spoke with conviction, daring Jalde to kill her. Still, he didn’t move the knife, the sharp pain uncomfortable against her throat.

  “Drop it,” a voice growled.

  It was Zephir.

  Immediately, the bearded man backed away, dropped the knife out of her reach to the floor with a clatter. Scarko glared at him, then slid her gaze to Zephir. He hadn’t moved, and he was still observing her. She almost regretted Jalde hadn’t tried to kill her, almost regretted she wouldn’t be able to force them to die with her.

  “I say we kill her now,” the bearded man said, gesturing toward her, looking at Zephir. “She isn’t going to tell us anything. She’s no good to us.”

  “I agree,” Ida turned to face Zephir. His eyes didn’t meet theirs, and instead, they stayed glued on Scarko, who stared defiantly back.

  “If you want me to go ahead just say the—”

  “Jalde.” Zephir’s voice sounded deadly, dangerous. “Ida. Next time I need your help murdering someone, I’ll be sure to ask. As I recall, that’s never been the case.”

  They stood silent, looking to him, waiting for direction. Scarko wondered how much he paid them to be so obedient. But they knew one another well. She knew that, too, from the familiarity that flowed between them. What were they to each other? She thought of Klaus.

  Zephir slowly uncrossed his arms, his hands in his pockets, and walked to Scarko, his features clearer now under the light.

  The thick black tattoo on his neck, the reaper holding a scythe, was more detailed in the light. His lashes were long, nearly grazing his cheeks as he looked down at her. She wished to pluck them one by one from his eyelids.

  “You’re a Vraka,” he said, and there wasn’t a question in his voice. “From the Order of the Saints?”

  Behind him, Jalde snickered and Ida frowned. Scarko felt cold fear run through her veins, but she said nothing. Instead, she thought of Vojtech, of protecting the Order, protecting him. She was still his guard, even this far away. She would not betray him. And besides, how would this boy know?

  The cloak. Just like with the man in the forest. It was her only giveaway, it was the only thing that could possibly have hinted at her magic. But how could he have known that? The horned man had seemed ancient. But this boy…

  Zephir sighed, his hands out of his pockets, flexing his fingers in his black, fingerless gloves.

  “Why were you at the fight?” he asked quietly, staring intently at Scarko.

  The way he asked…he knew she hadn’t come for the entertainment. But she vowed silently to give him nothing at all.

  Silence again fell between them, the thud of music continued above, people experiencing a totally different reality than hers. She could have screamed, could have prayed to Vojtech’s gods that someone heard her. But what would be the point?

  Zephir sighed and ran a gloved hand through his dark hair. Scarko thought grimly that if he hadn’t had her chained up in a basement, her knife just out of reach, she might have thought him handsome. She, who had never willingly laid with a man.

  If only Klaus could hear her thoughts; he might be impressed.

  “I guess our time together is done,” Zephir said, no emotion in his voice. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and knelt down before her. She clenched her jaw tight, her lips pressed together as she slid back further into the wall.

  His expression didn’t change as his hands reached for her, but a shudder came over her as she thought of his gloved hand on her face, his bright green eyes morphing into the Praeminister’s watery gaze. She gasped.

  He paused, his dark brows knitted together in something like surprise, or confusion.

  He didn’t back away, but he lowered the cigarette, the one Scarko knew contained the mindeta. His eyes trailed over hers, down to her lips, the scowl on her face.

  “Where are you from?” he asked, his eyes shifting back up, voice still rough, still cold.

  Memories of the Praeminister, of the palace, of the blind eye the king turned to the bruises on her skin, on Klaus’s, the fear she always carried before his spiritual advisor.

  “A village no one knows. Close to Visla.” She didn’t know why she answered, why she told the truth, but Zephir was so close, too close. She could barely breathe, and she blinked, willing him not to turn to the Praeminister again.

  Ida drew in a breath. Jalde was silent.

  Zephir didn’t react for a moment, merely stared at her without blinking, unnerving her.

  “Your parents. Where are they?”

  “Z, you know it doesn’t matter—”

  Slowly, he twisted around to stare at Ida, and a flash of unease crossed her face. She looked down, and Zephir turned back to Scarko.

  “Dead,” she nearly spat in answer to his question.

  A flicker of something crossed his face—anger, grief, it was hard to tell. He stared at her a moment longer, as if trying to find something familiar in her face.

  “Open your mouth. I won’t hurt you, but you can’t be awake for this.”

  Scarko clenched her jaw.

  Zephir sighed, glanced down to her knees between them, his lashes grazing his cheeks. “Those scars on your palm…how’d you get them?”

  Scarko’s mouth hung open in surprise, and before she realized she had been duped, he shoved the mindeta cigarette between her teeth.

  And then once more, quicker than the last time, the world went very black.

  *

  When Scarko woke again, the moon still hung heavy in the star-strewn sky, visible from her window. She scrambled to an upright position, and realized she was in her room at the Cove, her black pack in the open closet, her knife set on the desk in the room. She threw the covers back, made to lunge for the knife, and then she stopped, twisting her head to the door.

  “Good to see you again, princess.”

  The man with the dark blue horns stood, blue and silver eyes blazing, arms crossed as he leaned against her door of the inn, dressed in a tailored deep blue tunic.

  Silence. All she heard was silence downstairs, and the thud of her own heart in her chest.

  She glanced to the knife on the desk again, wondered how fast he could move, if she could get to it before he did.

  His full lips curved into a sensual smile. “I’ll beat you to it,” he glanced at his tunic, picked at an invisible speck of dust, and then flicked his gaze back to her.

  “What are you?”

  He frowned. “What?” he echoed, blue eyes narrowing. He brushed a lock of his thick black hair from his face, the elegant, smooth golden planes of it. “Don’t be rude. Vojtech has these, too, doesn’t he?” He dipped his head so she could see his horns again.

  She glanced at her left palm. It wouldn’t take much to reopen the gash from the woods, mingled with all of her other white scars, perhaps the blüdsvard would affect him even when her blood alone hadn’t. Painful, reopening a fresh wound, but…

  The man snorted by the door. “Let me guess. Penance is pain? Tell me you don’t believe that bullshit?”

  Scarko started. She didn’t. Not quite. But to hear someone speak of it so foully…

  “The Holy Writ was written by a man not even a thousand years ago.” He shook his head, as if a thousand years was something to scoff at. “Hells, for all I know, Vojtech could have written it himself.”

  But she had seen Vojtech break his own bones for the gods. For penance. He wouldn’t have.

  “Probably from all
the guilt he carries,” the man said, reading her frown correctly. Her skin crawled as she wondered if he could read her mind. “Leaving his people to be buried beneath that palace.”

  She blinked at him. At his words, and at how he guessed her thoughts.

  A slow smile formed on his face. “Did he tell you nothing of why you’re here?” He shook his head mockingly.

  She willed her heart to calm as she spoke. “He told me what I needed to know. Who are you to him?”

  His brows rose. “Not quite what you are, I’d wager.”

  The way he said it, she wanted to squirm. But she resisted.

  He sighed, lazily, as if bored. “You think he needs you to guard him? He didn’t tell you all you needed to know. Vojtech has always been in the habit of telling half-truths.”

  “How do you know him?”

  If she could keep him talking, perhaps she could distract him just enough, just enough to reach for the knife. Had he brought her back here? Had Zephir? How had either of them known where she was?

  She watched as a shadow crossed the man’s handsome face, blue eyes flickering. Watched as the muscles strained beneath his dark shirt as he shifted against the door. A lock of blue-black hair fell over his brow again, and in the moonlight streaming through the window, she saw the faint spray of freckles on his handsome face. She had never seen anyone that looked like him, the midnight blue horns curling away from his face aside.

  His lips, the top one fuller than the bottom, pulled again into a smile, as if he knew what she was thinking.

  “You don’t have time for a history lesson, princess. Not right now. But have you ever heard of the Nacht Lands?”

  She nodded, slowly, imagining the map in Vojtech’s war room.

  “Mountainous terrain, too dangerous for—”

  “A human to traverse,” she cut him off, keeping her voice steady. “I’ve heard. What of it?”

  “I live there,” he said simply.

  “What does any of this have to do with me? Why are you in my room? How are you here?”

  His face cleared and he straightened, taking a step toward her. She made herself stay still, made herself not flinch on the bed beneath his gaze. “You’re lucky I watched them take you back here. Lucky I know they won’t kill you yet.”

  She stiffened. “How do they know I stayed here?”

  An icy smile. “Zephir, little I know of him, has eyes everywhere. As he should. As you should, princess.”

  Panic threatened to engulf her, about who Zephir Crista really was, who Ida and Jalde were, what they wanted with her, and why they hadn’t turned her in yet, hadn’t killed her. And this man…

  “You’re Scarko.” He said the words before she could get her thoughts together. “I heard you. In the basement.”

  Her stomach clenched. “And you did nothing?”

  He shrugged. “Was I supposed to save you?” An arrogant smile. “Besides, you’re alive, aren’t you?”

  “Who are you?”

  He was one step away from her bed, between her and her knife. She placed a fingernail on her palm, and his eyes gleamed at the movement. “I’m Rhodri. And your blood wouldn’t be enough to kill me.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  His eyes raked over her, came to rest on her own. “I’m not sure yet.” And as quickly as he had come, he vanished.

  *

  The streets were quiet, but people still straggled around the dirty narrow cobblestone drive and in the alleyways where burly men still guarded dark, hidden doors. But she found an empty alley, tucked herself inside, and waited, shivering under the cold sky, her outer coat gone, left behind in the pub where she had first been put under—her gloves gone, too.

  She had left the inn as quickly as she could, hunger coursing through her. The sun was beginning its sluggish rise, and she needed to eat before she could think of Rhodri, of Zephir.

  It didn’t take long for a meal to come to her.

  A man turned down the alley, dressed in brown rags, leering at her with missing teeth. His hair was unkempt, oily, and he was old enough to have been her father.

  “Pretty girl,” he sneered, stepping toward her, the stale smell of ale wafting down the cold alleyway.

  She smiled at him, took a few steps back, leading him deeper into the darkness.

  He frowned, grunted at having to walk so far to reach her. But when her back was against the building behind her, a satisfied leer stretched across his pockmarked face. He lunged for her, his hands fumbling for her cloak.

  She pulled out her knife, not bothering with her magic, and angled it deep into his chest, past the hilt of the short blade, piercing his lung. He groaned, and she placed a bare hand over his mouth, revulsion crawling through her at her hand on his lips. He sunk down to the cobblestone alley in her arms. She squatted down with him, easing him to the street, blood bubbling from his mouth, warm and wet on her skin.

  Scanning the alley, ensuring they were still alone, she leaned over him, darted her tongue over his wounds, pulled the knife from his chest with a wet thunk, and drank of him, the blood sour in her mouth, but better than nothing. She would give Vojtech an earful when she returned, she thought, make him corral Warskian soldiers to the Order for her to feed off of, after this shit him and his gods had put her through already. His visions be damned.

  She let the man slump to the ground when she had her fill and licked her lips, savoring the iron tang of the blood and the alcohol that was heavy within it. She wiped her knife on his threadbare clothes and put it back in her waistband. When she stood, toeing the body away from her, she saw a figure striding toward her, down the alley. She reached for her knife.

  “And you dared to shame me?” A throaty laugh followed. Then Zephir Crista came into view, his green eyes gleaming. “We’re all sinners, Scarko. Some of us just,” he glanced down at the dead body, drained dry, the man’s skin growing blue, “sin differently than others.” His eyes met hers once more.

  8

  A Fight, A Pub, An Offer

  They sat across from one another in the back corner of another pub, utterly silent save for the occasional swish of the barman’s dirty rag against the counter. Zephir had a swollen lip, worse than when she had first seen him, and a black eye. Scarko still tasted her own blood in her mouth, courtesy of the punch Zephir threw at her after she punched him first, and then they had tangled in the alleyway. She had tried to conjure the blood-sword when he sauntered toward her, had split her palm open with her knife.

  But while he had stared, open-mouthed, at the crimson sword that hurtled for his throat, it had merely dissolved when it touched his skin, useless, harmless. Scarko had blinked past her surprise and taken advantage of his, lunging for him, punching him square in the face, raining down blows like hail. Eventually, he had recovered from his surprise at her magic and began to fight back in earnest, every bit the skilled fighter the people of Kezda seemed to adore him as.

  Reluctantly, they had come to a stalemate, and they sat across from one another now, having made their way to the nearest bar. She sat with a glass of vin before her, him with a mug of ale. She could almost hear Yezedi’s voice in her head: It’s too early for vin, Scarko. But the monthly Sacrament at the Order was held at sunrise…was it really too early, Yezedi?

  “I know what you are.”

  She took a gulp of the deep purple vin, relishing the taste that washed the blood down her throat. Penance is pain, said the Holy Writ. She brushed aside any thoughts of Rhodri and his words on the holy book. Sitting with Zephir Crista, a man she was supposed to have killed hours ago, was pain. Vojtech had thought the gods intended for her to destroy him with her sangva gifts. The gods had been wrong. Vojtech had been wrong. And Rhodri…

  “I doubt you have any idea what I am,” she hissed back. The swelling around his eye had turned a hideous shade of purple, but it only served to bring out the green in his eyes more. And, she thought self-consciously, the bruise was probably not much different from the he
avy bags that were ever-present under her own eyes.

  “You escaped from the Warskian palace two years ago. They think you dead.”

  Scarko stilled, the blood draining from her face. He said the words so casually, as if they didn’t mean she could be put to death if Warskian soldiers, crawling throughout Kezda, found out who she was. If someone overheard him. How did he know so much of her? How did Rhodri?

  Who, she thought, was hunting whom?

  “Don’t worry,” Zephir murmured, “I don’t plan to have you killed just yet.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” She was too surprised to deny it. He couldn’t have pulled that from thin air. He wasn’t bluffing.

  He drummed his brown fingers on the table, smirking. “I know a lot. Ida’s father works for King Olofsson.”

  There was more; Scarko could see it in the way he averted his gaze, just for a second, when he spoke. He didn’t get information solely from Ida’s father.

  “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

  “I think you could be useful to me.”

  Silence spread between them again, thick and heavy. The quiet of the pub nearly unnerved Scarko, and she spun the blade on the table, round and round, the wicked sharp steel flashing in the dim lighting. The fact that people in Kezda could drink vin and ale so early was testament to the sin in the city.

  She drank again from her glass. For now, the sin served her.

  “Regardless of where you were born, you’re from the Order. Considering the Order has never been a friend of mine, I assume you’re here to kill me.”

  Scarko didn’t blink, didn’t respond.

  “Unfortunately for your priest—”

  “Djavul.” she corrected in a hard tone.

  He ignored her. “I’m more skilled than he is, or your gods for that matter.”

  She wanted to say she wasn’t so sure the gods were skilled at all. Vojtech had thought Zephir wouldn’t be immune to her blood magic, but there he sat, unharmed by the blüdsvard, still very much, unfortunately for her, alive.

  “You know nothing,” she growled instead. He was a street fighter with a strange gift, but no one was more powerful than Vojtech was. Zephir didn’t possess immortality; he had one thing going for him, nothing more. But even so…she thought of the pain that had brought her to her knees in Skov, thought of Rhodri.