The Gods of Men

by Barbara Kloss

  Hagan struck her across the face. The force of it knocked her to the ground, but before she could right herself, Hagan grabbed her arm and hoisted her to her knees. Behind him, the Head Inquisitor stood still and silent, eyes narrowed.

  “You will do whatever I ask, when I ask it,” the king snarled, so close his spittle landed on her nose. “Or you will suffer.”

  “I’ve already suffered,” Sable growled. “All my life, I’ve suffered. Kill me, I don’t care. You’d be doing me a favor.”

  He glared at her, and the madness roared. It called on him to act, to hurt, but necessity diffused his urge. He released her arm with a shove and barked out a name she didn’t recognize. Two Corinthian guards entered, dragging a woman between them.

  No, a girl, probably no older than nine or ten. A Sol Velorian slave girl.

  Her small frame showed severe malnourishment, her cheeks too hollow, eyes too deep, and her black hair was stringy and matted. She stood on unsteady legs, despite the two guards holding her up.

  “Suffering means different things to different people,” Hagan said sharply.

  “What are you doing?” Sable demanded, standing and wiping the blood from her lip.

  Hagan eyed the girl. “She was born here. Her mother was a Scab. Her father… most likely one of my guards, but it’s impossible to know which one.” He gave Sable a vicious smile, and for the second time in Sable’s life, she knew what it was to want a man to suffer.

  He stopped before the girl, grabbed a clump of her hair, and forced her to look up at him. There were no tears. Sable expected this little girl’s tears had been beaten out of her a long time ago.

  King Hagan slit the girl’s throat.

  Sable gasped. She lurched forward as the girl toppled to the ground, wide-eyed, while her blood spurted on the ground.

  “You…” Sable hiccuped on shock. Her hands curled into fists, and she lunged for Hagan, but a guard shoved her back against the wall. Everything inside of her squeezed. Demanding justice. “She was just a child!”

  “She was a halfbreed and a bastard,” Hagan replied simply, handing his bloodied dagger to the other guard. “I’ve done her a favor.”

  “You rutting—” Sable started, but the king pushed the guard aside, gripped her chin, and ground her skull against rock, forcing her to look at him. She hated every angle of his face. She hated the icy blue of his eyes, and the superior curve of his brow.

  She hated that this thing was the Wolf’s brother.

  “I will kill one,” he continued sweetly, “every single day you don’t cooperate. Do you understand?”

  Sable’s teeth ground in fury.

  “Do you understand, Imari?”

  Sable’s gaze fell to the girl whose only crime had been existing. “Yes.” The word fell like a curse.

  Hagan wiped the blood from his hand across Sable’s cheek. “Good,” he said, then he let go.

  Sable sagged against the wall and used her dress to wipe the blood from her face.

  “Clean this up,” Hagan ordered his guards. He glanced back at Sable. “I’ll see you tomorrow. I hope you make the right choice, surina.” And then he ducked through the door.

  The Head Inquisitor lingered, eyes fixed on the girl, and then his gaze found Sable’s. She couldn’t read the look there. Without another word, he turned and left. The guards picked up the girl’s body and dragged it after them, leaving a smear of blood behind. The door latched closed; locks clicked into place. Sable stared at the bloodstain. Fury churned within her, but then her fury morphed into something else entirely, and Sable slumped to the ground and cried.

  32

  Sable didn’t know how much time had passed. She’d fallen asleep to her tears and woken in an awkward position upon the stone floor. Her jaw ached where Hagan had struck her, and when she touched it, the skin felt tender. The lantern still burned on the floor, but she’d rather the darkness so it could hide the bloodstain.

  She spotted a cup and a plate of bread near the door, and her stomach growled. How long had it been since she’d eaten? But eating now felt like a betrayal to the girl who’d lost her life upon the floor.

  Sable sat up. Her head spun, but that wasn’t from nightdew. This weariness was from a basic lack of nutrition, exacerbated by her recent loss of blood. Her body was starved and severely dehydrated.

  She crawled to the plate, grabbed the stale bread, and leaned back against the wall as she took a bite. She picked up the cup with a shaky hand, sniffed it, then washed down her bite with water. Her eyes fell to the stain. Over and over again, she saw the knife, the blood. She picked up her cup and started tilting it over the bloodstain to rinse it clean, but stopped.

  She shouldn’t forget the sort of man she was dealing with. She set the cup down.

  The girl had been born here. This shouldn’t have surprised Sable. After all, Corinth was notorious for its harsh treatment of Sol Velorian slaves, and that didn’t limit itself to construction and household chores. The girl had lived a miserable life, and maybe now she could be free of it, of them. For that, Sable even envied her.

  Sable turned the bread over in her hands and squeezed. It exploded; crumbs flew everywhere.

  Why should death ever mean freedom? Why did some get to determine a person’s value, or who was cursed or who was blessed?

  Yes, the Sol Velorians and their Liagé had almost succeeded in taking over the Provinces, but were there not extremes in every people? Hagan was an extreme. Did that make all Corinthians monsters?

  She thought of the Wolf.

  He’d acted under his sense of right, his sense of justice, according to his people and his gods. And he had been… well, not kind, exactly, but he’d eventually treated her with respect. And she… she’d trusted him with her life, before she’d discovered who he was. The Wolf was a predator, but he was no monster. Men like Hagan and Ventus were monsters, because they didn’t possess the compassion that made one human.

  She was not like them.

  Sable pushed herself upon shaky legs. She stood there for a moment, gazing at her flute, which glowed dimly, and then she stepped forward. Step after step. Over the cold stone, across the stain of blood.

  The stain of one whose blood wasn’t so different from her own.

  A halfbreed and a bastard.

  Sable didn’t know her mother, but now she wondered more than ever. Her papa would know. Little Imari never would’ve demanded an answer, but Sable was not little Imari. And if she wanted the chance at getting answers, that meant she had to return. She had to live.

  A man imprisoned is also alive. But that does not mean he lives.

  Tallyn had not been born Liagé, yet, by no design of his own, he’d been given power and had used it to help. To fight a battle against an evil that Sable was only beginning to see and understand.

  No, birth did not make man a monster. Choices did.

  She picked up her bone flute and sat on the edge of her bed, turning the flute over in her hands, watching the glyphs pulse with her touch. One symbol she recognized, with some surprise. It’d been etched onto one of Skanden’s wards. What it meant, she had no idea, and she wondered at the complexity of it. The power inherent to each stroke. An entire language had been lost with the Liagé. An entire people. A land, a god. Because the world had been afraid. She had been afraid right along with them.

  And now she wondered at their god—not Ventus’s version. But Tolya’s, and Tallyn’s.

  The Maker.

  Sable trailed her fingers over the glyphs. “I can’t believe you’re evil. You gave us wards, which protected Skanden for years.”

  And wouldn’t it benefit her to know her power? Before it took her as the Head Inquisitor had claimed would happen? He hadn’t lied about that part. She could feel the power there, slowly building behind the cracks and fissures, ready to explode out of her.

  But.

  But.

  Did she dare attempt to channel that power?

  She saw little Sorai l
ying on the floor, forever frozen in youth because Sable had stolen her future. Sable squeezed the flute. She’d give anything to go back in time and trade places with her—give Sorai her life. Why had Sorai been taken and Sable left behind?

  And…

  What would Sorai think of Sable now, if she could watch from the heavens? Would she accuse her of wasting her life—something so precious? Would she blame Sable for spending all of these years hiding away like a coward, trying to atone for her sin with herbs and poultices? With petty thievery?

  Sable shut her eyes. Her next inhale trembled.

  Keys jangled at the door.

  Sable opened her eyes just as the door opened. King Hagan entered her chamber, followed by two guards and a young Sol Velorian man with wiry limbs and clothing covered in a black, soot-like substance. A mineworker.

  Maker’s Mercy. Had a day passed already?

  “Well?” Hagan asked without preamble.

  There was no time to think. This man’s life hinged on her cooperation. Sable fumbled awkwardly with the flute. Hagan watched her with those sterile and unblinking eyes, and Sable lifted the flute to her lips.

  The motion felt… false. Like being told to kiss a stranger before an audience and convince them of love. Her fingers twitched over the openings, unsure. They’d once held the object with such care and confidence, doting over holes they’d intimately known. But now they were just holes, and her fingers wandered a foreign landscape. Even her ears betrayed her, failing to hear melody. Failing to give her fingers direction.

  The seconds stretched into a minute, and her arms trembled. Sable drew in a breath and formed her lips above the mouthpiece, though her jaw ached where Hagan had struck her. Her fingers found purchase, but the exhale would not come. It lodged in her chest, unwilling to release itself. Unwilling to commit.

  Sable gulped down her breath and pulled the flute away.

  Hagan’s eyes narrowed. “I see.”

  “I’m trying,” she said. “It’s just… I haven’t played in years. It’ll take time.”

  He turned back to one of his guards and jerked his chin.

  The guard pulled a knife.

  “No, please… wait.” Sable lifted the flute back to her lips.

  Before she could inhale, the guard sliced the Sol Velorian’s throat open.

  Sable turned her face away, flute clutched tightly in her hands as the guards dragged the body away. Her anger became a living thing inside of her—one with teeth.

  “You monster,” she snarled. By the wards, she would kill him.

  King Hagan touched her cheek and turned her head to face him. His palms were clammy and soft, unlike his brother’s warm and callused ones. And then he kissed her.

  Sable squirmed, revolted, but he held firm and shoved her to the wall. So she bit down on his lip hard enough to break skin. He hissed, pulled back, and slapped her.

  Her face snapped to the side, and her cheek burned.

  “Don’t ever do that again.” His eyes scathed over her once, and then he left the room, slamming the door after him.

  33

  Jeric raised his sword with a yell and swung. It hit the tree hard and sank into the bark. The force of it rattled up his arm, jarring his bones. He gritted his teeth, jerked the sword free, and hacked again and again, chunks of bark flying. When he could no longer grip the sword, he threw it aside and struck the tree with his fist, over and over, until his knuckles bled, and then he growled and started kicking it.

  “Jeric…” said his mother’s voice.

  His body ached, but he didn’t stop. He would not stop until he had nothing left.

  “Jeric,” she said quietly, grabbing his arm.

  He threw her off, but she did not reprimand him. That wasn’t why she’d come. She knew the pain he felt—had often felt—and she’d come to bring him back.

  But he didn’t know if he could come back from this. It was too much. Hagan had done many awful things to him over the years, but this trumped them all. It was only when Jeric sagged back against the tree that his mother approached. She didn’t speak as she drew him into her arms, and now he was too exhausted to push her away.

  His sobs broke against her chest. His hands curled into fists, pressed against her back, and she held him, let him rage, let him grieve. Only when he finished did she unwrap her arms from him to grab his shoulders and hold him steadily before her.

  She was crying too.

  “Don’t let him break you,” she said firmly. “He sees what I see, and it threatens him.”

  Jeric gritted his teeth again and looked away.

  She touched his cheek, turning him back. Her eyes moved between both of his—eyes he’d inherited from her. “He is my flesh and blood, and for that, some part of me will always care for the infant the gods entrusted to me. But hear me, Jos…” She looked fiercely into his eyes as she spoke the nickname she had given him. “I know he’s a monster. Eventually, all of Corinth will know it too. There’s too much Angevin in him. But you… you are mine, Jos, and you have to be smarter.” She squeezed his shoulders. “You have to be cunning. Resourceful. Do not show him your heart, because he will use it to control you. People like Hagan… they feed off of others’ pain. Do not feed him yours.”

  Jeric trembled in her grip. “I hate him.”

  Deep sadness filled her eyes—one that had more to do with her monstrous son than Jeric’s hatred of him.

  “I know, darling.” She squeezed his shoulders one last time and let go. She tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear that’d loosed from her braid and glanced around. “Where is he?” she asked quietly.

  Jeric wiped his face on his sleeve. He nodded for her to follow and led her to the sack he’d dumped upon the riverbank. The cloth had turned completely red. Jeric didn’t know the wolf’s body had so much blood.

  His mother crouched beside the sack and pulled it back just enough. Her face paled, and her eyes hardened with anger as she closed the sack again. “I’ll help you bury him.”

  “I forgot to bring—” Jeric started.

  “I brought shovels,” his mother said, anticipating his words. She stood and started for the horse she’d left beside a tree.

  A twig snapped nearby, and Jeric looked.

  He sensed it before it happened: the snap of string, the whir of flight. In those few seconds of premonition he would never be able to explain, he cried out to his mother. But he was too late.

  An arrow sank into her back. Her body jerked from impact and she cried out, staggering against the horse. Another arrow hit, then another. Jeric ran to her as she collapsed to the ground with three arrows sticking out of her back. A Scab appeared between the trees, his arrow aimed at Jeric.

  Something inside of him snapped.

  At the last second, he dove. The arrow whizzed past. He rolled fast, grabbed his sword as he lunged to his feet, then rose up behind the Scab and shoved his sword through the Scab’s belly.

  Somewhere in his mind, he knew this wasn’t right. That wasn’t exactly how it’d happened.

  The Scab fell, and more appeared in his place. Jeric fought them all. His mother faded away, and the scene shifted from forest to field to canyon. The sun was high. Sometimes the moon. Scab after Scab. First warriors, then villagers, then their flocks. Their children. Then the Istraans who harbored them. It was a steep slope slick with blood, and he was tumbling down it too fast to stop himself.

  And then he saw her. The Istraan.

  The Liagé.

  She grabbed his ankle and held him fast—suspended between light and the infinite abyss spreading at his feet, calling out his name. If it swallowed him, he knew he’d never emerge. But she gripped him tight, her song holding him firm, her eyes demanding he stop. Demanding he toss his sword into the pit so that he could climb out and live. For a split second, her face morphed into his mother’s, and then it became hers again.

  But he couldn’t let go of his sword. Her people had done this to him, made him this. She shared th
eir blood, their curse.

  He raised Lorath to her throat, and her song silenced.

  What have you become, my darling Jos? his mother’s voice echoed grievously in his mind.

  And then he was gazing down upon his own face—a face slowly being cocooned in darkness. His teeth stretched into canines, his eyes yellowed, roving and crazed, and he snapped powerful jaws at the blade. Jeric then slipped in the blood, lost grip of her hand, and tumbled into the darkness.

  Jeric woke with a start, covered in sweat, and a sharp pain pulsed in his side. He lifted the edge of his tunic where Gerald had clawed him. The scars had healed into three clean, black lines, but they ached. They’d ached ever since he’d left Skyhold. He didn’t know what it meant, and he’d abandoned the one person who might.

  He pushed his tunic back into place. A bird chirped above as night’s shadows brightened with predawn light. Jorvysk—a fellow Stryker—slept just a few feet away, his back to Jeric, and the horses stood beside the tree where they’d left them. Jeric’s stolik snorted softly.

  What have you become, my darling Jos?

  He jumped to his feet, gathered his things, and arranged them in the stolik’s saddlebags. Jorvysk stirred a few minutes later.

  “You’re eager this morning,” Jorvysk said with an undignified yawn.

  Jeric filled his flask at a nearby stream while Jorvysk collected his things. Jorvysk had been a Stryker for two years, which, in Jorvysk’s opinion, made him an expert in… everything. Jeric wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

  “I’m not comfortable sending you alone right now,” Hersir had said, shortly after Jeric had taken his vows. “You know what’s happening out there in those woods.”

  “I also know what’s happening inside Skyhold’s walls,” Jeric had said. “Don’t you think I’d be better served here, keeping an eye on the city?”

  “What you think no longer matters,” Hersir had said sternly. “You’re my Stryker, and if I ask you to investigate the Blackwood, you’ll investigate. Do you understand?”