The gibbet that stank the worst swung gently. Nora made herself look closer at the thing inside. It was a man, or what remained of a man. Folds of stomach fat rested on his thighs; he sat crouched in his cage, legs raven-pecked to the bone. Tufts of hair stood out from his scalp, but his eyes…he had no eyes left, just horror. She nearly turned away in revulsion, but then the man jerked up, sniffing. He grabbed the bars of his cage, making it swing wildly, disturbing the raven feasting on the neighboring gibbet. The bird flew away to the next rooftop, wary but not yet frightened away from the promise of food.
“Who goes there?” the man snapped, turning his empty sockets to the road below. “I hear you crawl. I hear you sneak away. Thorns in your feet. Curse you. Thorns, I say!”
He collapsed behind his bars and whimpered.
“I shall be good, I promise. I shall be good. Anything you want. Tell Iddo. Anything he wants.”
Nora took a few steps closer. She had a feeling she knew the voice.
“Master Caleddin? Is that you?”
“Blood and clay,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “That’s all we are, child, blood and clay. I shall be good.”
“You are the master at the Shrine of Hin. I heard your sermon. I recognize your voice.”
“You know me?” he asked, weepy. “You heard me speak at the shrine?”
“I’m Nora Smith. I traveled with Master Diaz and Prince Bashan. I’m the girl with the scarred face.”
His mouth opened and shut, gaps showing between the cracked lips. Then he grabbed the bars again, fiercely. “Pr-Prince Bashan? Master Diaz? I told them, didn’t I? I told them. But they wouldn’t listen. And now look! Look at me! Curse on their hands, curse on their feet. Curse their heads and damn their eyes. Look at me.”
He held the bars of his cage, rocking it, white-knuckled, hollowed eyes piercing the twilight. Nora took a step back.
“What happened?” she wanted to know. Or really she didn’t, but she had to ask all the same.
“What happened?” he echoed mockingly. “What do you think happened? I couldn’t pay. I couldn’t pay his blood price anymore. That’s what happened. And where was your precious Master Diaz then? Self-righteous bastard wight. Where was the Guardian of the North when we needed his protection?”
“Whose blood price? What are you talking about?”
But Caleddin raved on, ranting against Diaz and Bashan and the injustice of the world, howling out snatches of prayers to the prophetess over the wind, giving instructions on how to tally the riches of the shrine. He shook his cage, and Nora saw it crashing down to the ground, but it held. She followed the ropes and chains that held the gibbet’s construction aloft and wondered whether she could lower Caleddin’s cage gently, bring him down to the ground without crushing his legs. Leverage was the key. But she had none. She was alone. One girl with a knife, smiling grimly at the memories that brought. History always repeating itself.
She loosened the chains and slashed through the ropes, heedless of Caleddin’s fury. He fell with his cage to the cobblestones below, hard and heavy, and cried out, the bottom of his wooden jail lined with nails. His head hit the bars as they shattered, leaving a crown of blood on his forehead. He crawled out on all fours, sniffing, blind, broken, and weak. Dying.
Well, the whole world was dying. The whole world was broken. Why should it matter if one more person was suffering? Why?
He crept nearer, snuffling, bleeding.
“Girl? Are you still there?”
“I am.”
He groped for her among the dirt, his fingers like claws.
“Where are you?” His whisper made her step back, out of his reach.
“There are people coming, Master Caleddin.” Nora gazed down the Holy Road, thinking of Kenneth and his grandmother, and of all the shovels that would be necessary to bury those dead here. The tears. The horrors seen and never erased from memory. The loss. The terrible loss that drove you mad. You dug a hole, you dug deep, and covered the burn with clay, but that only made the fire blaze hotter within. “People by the wagonload. Women with children. Those you used to fleece. They are coming this way to seek protection at the shrine you sold. Pray that they have mercy on you, leech. Mine is spent.”
“I did what I could,” he wailed, still hunting for her. “I gave what I had. Not every pilgrim is a master warrior. Yes, I paid Iddo off, bribed him. And have I not been punished enough? He made me watch, you know? Watch him before he took my eyes. So what do you know? I bought time. I bought protection. I bought their lives with their gold and their prayers. I am the voice of the prophetess. No, I am the prophetess. I protected these people! Don’t you dare judge me, wench. How dare you judge?”
Nora walked away, letting him yell on, sheathing her knife. A drop of rain splashed on her nose as she took the road leading to the shrine. As the rain grew harder, she quickened her pace. Started running, splashing through the puddles, scattering the pale ghost light. That light that promised her deep fulfillment, set her chasing it, hunting for the blood of her blood. That light not meant to be seen by mortal men. Running through the downpour, her grin spread wide across her face, icy water beating down on her head. She ran through the silent guard of prayer trees, tattered ribbons like fingers seeking to catch her—and reached out for the light, touched it, sent it crackling. Set fire to those godsdamn trees as she passed.
Laughing as they hissed in the rain.
Chapter 7
The sweet sour stench of death hung like fog over the shrine. In the settling smoke, drear and gray and acrid, the shrine and its compound lay in ruin. The silence was the first indication of horror. The ravens were the second. One bird flew up from the courtyard beyond the Threshold, a long, lumpy morsel trailing from its beak. Dawn found Nora crouched in hiding, watching for signs of life, other than the men disturbing the ravens. Their silhouettes spread out among the ruins, vanishing into the morning mist like specters, reappearing in other places, voices distorted. They tossed the valuables of the shrine in an ever-growing hoard in the middle of the wet courtyard, gold and silver, coins, and rich furs, lampstands from the shrine’s most holy, even the copper candleholders, the scribes’ tables long since overturned. Clink, clink, it grew with every little piece. But that wasn’t the pile Nora was staring at.
Another pile was being raised just beyond the steadily growing treasure hoard. A pile of bodies, a heap of severed heads, women, children, pilgrims. And on top of them a chair draped in a summer-sky-blue cloth, a throne of death, surrounded by the man-high, jagged teeth of tinted glass from the shrine’s former domed window. Nora’s hand tightened on her hilt. She could dip into the magic pooling in the spilled blood of the rotting dead, in their fly-filled mouths, in the whites of their eyes. Draw the blue sparks into her one more time and torch the pyre. Torch the buildings. Torch the whole damn world. Her grin ached in her cheeks; it had been plastered on her face too long. She took a moment to wipe the sweat from her palm. Funny, she didn’t feel warm. She didn’t feel cold, either, though she was still drenched from the downpour. Numb. From using the magic? She did feel drained, as though she were standing beside herself. She looked down. Her hands. Ragged clothing. A map of bloodstains held together by mere threads, unraveling. Shit. It would be a smart move to stay hidden, stalk the perimeter, hunt down those beasts in manflesh one by one. Slit their throats. Before they could cry out in warning. One by one. But when had she ever been smart? That was Owen—and look where his smarts had got him. Killed. Or maybe not.
She clutched her head, feeling the dull pain unfurl like a fern behind her brow.
The knife. The steel cool against her forehead. It was real. She was here, and why was she even here? This wasn’t her fight. This wasn’t even her quest. Her quest was to find Bashan and the Blade and be reunited with her brother. One way or the other. And most likely, the other. And besides, she never even liked the shrine. Too many bad memories. So someone burned it. So? Hadn’t she always wished for it to be razed to the ground?
She had no commitment to this place. None at all. And she didn’t even know who this Iddo was Master Caleddin had mentioned. Or whether he was still here. Or how many of his men were here with him. This was fucking crazy.
But…
She was already walking toward the Threshold.
Dammit, legs!
The fog curled around her calves as she passed through it, tendrils seeking to hold her back. Two guards stood against the intertwined trees that shaped the entry to the shrine’s compound. One was at attention, staring at her in disbelief, a grin spreading slowly across his face. He nudged the other out of his doze. Both of them failed to arm themselves.
“Wotcha, girl. Come to pray at the shrine?” The first guard laughed. “Lots of kneelers here.”
To his credit, his counterpart rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and spotted the knife in Nora’s hand.
“Oi!” He grabbed for a spear leaning next to him.
Nora accelerated and jumped to close to the gap faster, her knife deep in the watchful waker’s side before his hand could grasp the shaft of his spear. She pulled the blade out and slashed it across his throat and turned on his comrade.
“Kneel.” She grinned, falling to one knee herself and cutting through the sinews of his calves.
As he bucked, slamming to the ground in a heap, he cried out. She sank her knife between his ribs, felt him arch his back against the pain. Then, release. She drew the blade out and rose. Other men were heading her direction. She welcomed them with spread arms, then sprinted toward them.
Shouts of alarm in the compound now. Feet running. The stench of rotten meat hung limp in the air. A man came at her with a spear. She dodged the sharp tip, ran a hand along the wooden pole, only to tug at it just before she reached him, making him lose his balance and take that fatal step onto her knife. She pushed him away, groaning, dying—who cared. Knife up to ward off a blow from a sword, she spun around, grabbing the attacker’s wrist, slamming the hilt of her blade against his elbow. Listen to it snap. Listen to him howl. Sword arm useless. She slashed across the back of his throat as he went down. Next.
Her arm rising and falling, blood spattered across it, streaked across her face. She ducked from another blow, twisting the arm to impale the man on his own sword. She let the warm body drop to her feet, and caught her breath a moment in the empty circle around her. Sweat stung her eyes, but when she wiped her sleeve across her face, the blood from her opponents made her vision blur more. Battle noises grew heavy in her ears, the ring of metal on metal, scuffling and groans, a man was shouting commands. Odd.
She blinked. Before her eyes, the world rippled in a wave of heat. Tinted red, the pressure building in her head, she would have sworn for a moment that her eyes beheld Owen, white clad, the way he had looked sitting on the shore of the lake at this very shrine. Not so long ago. As he stood among her attackers, he was facing away from her, but he seemed to notice her. Felt her presence, maybe, and started to turn.
“Owen.” Nothing more than a breath on her lips.
Nora reached out to touch his shoulder, turn him to her—and with the flat of her palm redirected the blade of another sword away from her face, fingers shocked by the icy touch of iron. Another stab, the rise and fall of her arm. It was tiring business, this slaughter, but still she fought on, the next attacker, and the next, as fire enveloped her, or so it felt, hot lines snaking through her arms and legs, burning away the trembling. Scorching. Fierce.
More men pressed around her—gods, how many fucking men did she have to kill to finally die? Only minutes had passed, but already she felt consumed by battle frenzy. Her body acting and reacting, blow, counter-blow, heat pulsing off her skin—she wanted to surrender to it. Let her hands drop. Give in. But joy blazed deep within her, a steady burn for life, belying the wish for death. Too stubborn to back down now. Yielding came hard to her in any form anyway.
A sword point arced within a hair of her nose tip. She jerked her head away as the backswing came at her and thrust out both arms, one hand on the hilt, one hand on the open blade, catching the hard blow as best she could and deflecting it. A ring and a cut, she was free and danced a step to the side, knife held at the ready. But her attacker did the same, giving her room suddenly.
“Nora?”
She knew that voice, that deep, soothing voice, always hoarse. Her eyes flickered to his face, focusing on it, drinking it in.
“Is it you?” Diaz asked.
He wasn’t even breathless. Asshole.
Her parched lips opened to form his name, but behind him, movement drew her eye. A lunge, angling between Diaz’s shoulders. She caught it head-on, jumping back into the fray with a wild roar of fury, splitting the man’s face before kicking his kneecap from under him.
Her back slammed against Diaz’s. She felt his warmth seep through his clothes, into her skin. Could feel him breathing calmly, paced, as though this were mere training. She felt him move, and for a moment she closed her eyes, inhaled his scent, and felt the fury drawing back, retreating, the flame snuffed out as swiftly as it had been ignited. One long exhale, and they fought together. Again. She blocked, dealt out, and deflected blows, while her free hand twisted wrists, pulling their owners onto Diaz’s busy blade.
A man called, and suddenly the fighting stopped, their attackers retreating into a wary circle out of their reach. Nora swallowed, painfully thirsty, bleeding from a dozen smaller cuts, hurting from bruises all over her body. She was half crouched, knife at her hip, Diaz at her other hip, her arm rubbing against his with every heaving breath. She squinted against the rolling sweat and blood to see a man standing before his makeshift throne of horror, one foot on the naked flesh of the dead, the other on the seat of the chair. When he had their attention, he clapped.
“Well done. Very well done.”
He spread his arms wide, his cloak the same shade of blue as the cloth draped over his chair. A natural poser.
“You’ve managed to kill over half of my men, Master Diaz. I am impressed, though I doubt you’d be able to pull that off again, given your current…disability.” The man pointed at Nora. She spat as he laughed, too winded to speak her mind. As he moved, she saw a flash of gold on his ear, another at his hip. A gold dagger. A wave of heat flushed through her once more. The southern queen had her minions everywhere, it seemed. Nora glanced at Diaz. If he had recognized the ritual dagger of Shinar at the man’s side, he didn’t show it.
“Who are you? And how do you know my name?” Diaz scowled.
“They call me Iddo of Babuk, though now I call myself Iddo of Moorfleet.” He bowed low. “I’m naught but a lowly merchant’s son, seeking to bring peace and order to the ancient realm of Moran. Though over the last few centuries that task was ever that of the pilgrim masters at this very shrine, I fear you have failed, Master Diaz. Men and women have cursed your name in the exact spot you are standing, and they have died cursing you. So I know who you are. Though I’m uncertain of why you have returned here.”
Diaz clenched his teeth together and said nothing.
“Maybe you do not want to say.” Iddo smiled. His teeth were pearl white under his tan. “Maybe you do not even know. But I think I know.”
His gaze moved to Nora.
Her mind boiled. Like water in a pot, it bubbled forth, pressure building under the lid. She winced at the piercing stab of pain in her head, her knees suddenly giving way.
Diaz held her at the elbow. His dark face worried, eyebrows drawn together over those sole-black eyes. She saw her reflection in them, small and pale, but not yet broken. His lips moved as he spoke, but she couldn’t hear a word over the climbing squeal in her mind, reaching ever higher in pitch. She stared at him dumbly, tongue feeling too large for her mouth. The screech pressed into her ears, and clasping her hands over them did nothing to stop it eating into her. Then suddenly—silence. Her head snapped to Iddo. He too was speaking, making grand gestures, wearing a broad smile. He caught her looking at him and met her eyes.
> He doesn’t feel it. None of them do.
Bashan’s voice rang cold in her head, making her gasp at the intrusion. Underneath her knees, the stones were warm. They burned through the fabric of her woolen trousers, radiating heat. She felt the rush of power then. A rumble, faint in the distance at first, building in strength as the force of the Blade swooped down upon them. Upon all of them. Undistinguishing between friend and foe. Because what the fuck did the Blade know about friendship? What did Bashan know? Nothing.
And then she could feel Owen. One hand on her shoulder, the other cupping the back of her sore head. His face only inches from her own.
A speck of blue hung in the air just above his cheek, quivering as she reached for it. Trembling with anticipation.
She caught the speck a fraction of a second before Owen’s forehead touched her own. So tiny. A snowflake melting in the heat of her hand, clinging to her skin as it fought for its life. It faded, of course. Then vanished. Like all things do. Like Owen did.
But it was still there, a flash of blue in the angry pulse of her fist.
She thrust her hand up and braced against the incoming wave of destruction. One single cut of the Living Blade brought down the rest of Iddo’s men standing among the ruins of the shrine long before Bashan even made an appearance. White flame erupted around them, drowning them all in a thunderous crescendo of noise. In shrieks. The whiteout hiding their blackening bodies as they burned, burned, burned to ashes. Nora jumped to her feet, drawing more of the magic to her, keeping herself and Diaz safe from the withering waves of flame, watching with horror as the men around them died. Then the fire departed, snuffed out in an instant.
In the embers, what appeared to be Bashan stepped over the heap of bodies. He came to a halt next to the remains of the glass-enshrined throne, eyeing it with disdain, one hand toppling the tall shards surrounding it. Protruding from his other hand was a long silver sword, thin and lethal. The Living Blade had come, and drawing near, she felt its presence as Owen’s scent of leather and ink. A white blur appeared at Bashan’s side, snaking around the naked Blade like a wisp of cloud she could nearly recognize.
On the Wheel Page 24