by K. Eason
That was a clear get out, and Dek was out of reasons to argue. Snow’s sister had vouched for Soren’s safety. Best she could do was hope that Sinnike had her sister’s strange honor.
Her stomach clenched. What Soren knew could ruin whole Houses. Could lead to another Purge. Or it could die with him if the wrong godsworn got him.
There are right godsworn?
Better the heretics than the highborn right now.
That’s the way, Szanys. You’re getting it.
“You can trust Snow. And I’ll be back for you,” she told Soren. “Savvy that?”
“Yes,” he said faintly.
K’Hess Soren was too well bred, too well trained, to call after her. But his stare followed Dekklis out the door, pulling at her like a drowning man’s fingers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The path to the Laughing God’s shrine was unlit, unmarked. His godsworn carried a mental map. A visitor, even an ally, had to keep one hand on the wall, and one hand on Ari, and follow blind. Ari led her down a twisted path, turn and redouble and come back again. This darkness had no beginning to it, and no end. No moon to rise and set. No sun bleeding up the horizon. A woman got used to knowing when it was, just by looking up.
No witchfire down here. No candles. It might be tenth mark, or fifteenth, or a thousand years from now. All the Above, all the fields and the forests, might be blasted to stone and sand. Snow could imagine that place, clear on the back of her eyelids, as if someone had painted it. Familiar, as if she’d lived it. The Jokki burned off to a trickle, winding out of Illharek’s mouth and away through rocks and bleak dust—
And then she realized that she had seen it before, and where, and scared herself wide-eyed.
That trickle wasn’t the Jokki. It was the black river that didn’t have a name. Sometimes she still felt it sloshing around inside her, until she had to cough it out.
Be careful. Tsabrak’s whisper. Tsabrak’s crooked, bitter smile. Tsabrak pressed up against her. His familiar heartbeat against her ribs, as if there were only skin between them. The God’s treacherous, Snow, you know that.
And what are you?
Expecting him to vanish. To run, like Tsabrak always did, always had. But this time, the ghost stayed.
You could run, too, yeah?
Sure. She could run away, leave all this toadshit. Abandon Dekklis, Istel, Belaery. She could get Veiko and go—somewhere. Let Tal’Shik have Illharek. And then spend the rest of her life, and Veiko’s, waiting for that bitch to come at their backs.
Fuck and damn.
Without the God’s help, they’d fail. That was the truth of it. They’d lose Illharek.
The fuck do you care about Illharek?
The fuck do you care what I do?
Snow. He sounded so gentle, so sad, she could almost believe him, as if she didn’t know the Tsabrak he’d been, with all the sad and gentle burned away. His fingers gripped her arm, pressing against the wound and the stitches, damp and cold through her sleeve.
“Step and turn a sharp left,” said Ari, and she remembered where she was, what she was doing. What she was about to do, fuck and damn.
The first time, the only other time, she’d come to the shrine, she had walked out with a fresh godmark on her palm, the God’s sigil, inked blacker even than her skin. Not godsworn, because the God
has no use for women
did not take women into his service that way. Veiko would’ve shaken his head and told her foolish bargain, the God’s battles are not yours.
She’d thought it was. Her younger self, half-blood and angry, had imagined more kinship with Illharek’s lowborn and men, with its heretics and outcasts, than she had with its privileged classes. There was money and accent and address; there was fair hair and blue eyes. One of those things, either one, the Academy might’ve forgiven. But half-blood and lowborn, well, that was too much.
So her younger self had been a fool, but she hadn’t been wrong, and that was what Veiko wouldn’t understand. Veiko saw things in clear lines, hard edges, sunlight and shadow. But it was all shadow down here. Murk and gloom and soft edges. You learned to see grey.
“Here,” said Ari. “Mind the footing.”
She smelled the water. Heard it bubbling out of the rocks, giggling past her boots. She remembered this place. It had been lit last time, sullen oil lamps smearing the dark into twilight, showing her slime-slick pillars connecting floor and ceiling. She slowed down. Told herself it was for footing’s sake on the waterslick. But she strained for any lightleak on the stones. Please, that there was no one waiting ahead.
The laughter that kissed the back of her neck was not Tsabrak’s. Older, smokier, terrifying and familiar.
The shrine had a solid door, metal and wood, dragged from the God knew where, bolted into the surrounding stone. There had been locks once. Tsabrak had let her in with the key he’d worn on a chain. As part of her bargain, proof that she brought useful skills to the God’s service, she’d warded the door. The sigils eliminated any need for keys or locks. She could see them, faint lines sketched into the iron. Ari couldn’t. He knew the prayers to pass them.
Laughing God, Smiling One, Svartjagr’s Brother. By these names I know you.
She didn’t need any prayer. Snow moved her hand across them, smelled dry lightning and smoke. Audible click and the door swung open, sent air like a body’s last breath rolling over her.
She stepped inside. Let Ari close the door and whisper the wards back to life while she called up a witchfire. She set the blue fire gently into the brazier nearest the door. It licked among the coals and oil. Cast lazy blue across the room, smeared the carpet’s geometry into blurs of red and gold. Then it hopped from brazier to brazier, spreading itself until the shrine throbbed and flickered blue. Dust puffed, settled silver on the toes of her boots. There was a trail worn across the carpet from the door to the tiny firedog in the corner. It was cast in a svartjagr’s shape, coiled on its tail, wings flared for balance. Smoke had greased the ceiling over it. Lingered in the stale air. Its eyes burned with real flame, tiny wicks in tiny lamps.
“Snow.” Ari licked his lips. “You sure this will work? Because after what you did back there, if it doesn’t—”
“If it doesn’t, they’ll gut me. And you. I know. It will work, Ari.”
Snow wore the God’s marks, more than the godmark on her palm. She had silver-shine scars winding from shoulder to hip, a lover’s trail made with Tsabrak’s god-ridden mouth and the God’s malice. The God had been trying to break her. She wasn’t sure that he hadn’t. She still twisted up out of sleep some nights. Scared Briel and woke Veiko, who never said anything. Who looked at her with those witchfire eyes, and held her if she could bear it, and watched over her until she went back to sleep.
This is not your fight.
Oh, but it was. Burned into her flesh, it was her fight. Assuming that soul-stealing toadfucker was still able, the God would answer her. They had a bargain, never mind he’d dropped most of his end. He’d promised, so he owed her, and she’d hold him to it. Veiko had taught her that much about being noidghe.
Snow peeled the firedog’s chest open. There were cold coals inside, and the remnants of some small dead offering. She squatted back on her heels. Rummaged through the pouch on her belt for some jenja. She laid the sticks across the coals. Conjured fire out of air and stone and sent it twisting among the coals. The jenja caught. Smoked. Flared and burned and helixed out of the firedog’s open jaws.
Then she reached a little deeper and pulled out a tiny sack of dried bluestar. It was a restricted substance, reserved for Academy chirurgeons. The stem and roots were good against fever, but the leaves and flower itself were toxic. Hallucinogenic in small doses. Deadly in larger ones. A challenge for students to get the dose right. A test. Fuck it up, and you died or spent the rest of your short life drooling. Do enough of it, and often enough, and you built up a tolerance for it.
She pinched off a couple of flowers and crumbled the
m into the flames. Held her breath as the smoke rolled off the coals, closed her eyes. The first puff was the strongest. You learned that. Take little bites of air until the smoke cleared a little.
Ari got between her and a witchfire brazier, threw a blue-tinged shadow across her. “What is that?”
“Incense,” Snow said. “Special stuff. Bluestar. Or witchtit if you’re an Alvir.”
“Damn, that’s . . .” Ari trailed off. Coughed, weakly. “Strong.”
“You should sit, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He did, gracelessly. Just folded his knees and thumped. Shook his head. Took a deep swallow of air, which he probably thought would help. “I’m fine.”
Snow latched the firedog’s belly again. Bluestar and jenja swirled out of its mouth. She was feeling the effects now, too. Light-headed, her bones buzzing like wasps. It wouldn’t get much stronger, not for her. She’d done too much across the years. But that first time, hell, she’d damn near come out of her skin.
Ari looked like a man afraid he’d fall off the floor. He groped at the carpet with both hands. Shook his head and damn near tipped over. “The fuck,” he tried to say. It came out da fug.
“Listen,” she said. “I should’ve told you about this. Asked your permission. But if you’d said yes, you’d know what was coming. Better if you’re surprised, yeah?”
Eyes pooling wide and black, sweat beading on his skin. “Don unnerstan.”
“I know.” Snow took his hand. Flipped it over and spread the limp fingers. No resistance as she pulled his knife out of his boot.
You asked for the God’s favor. You offered and hoped that he came. She reckoned that Ari had done that. She bet that Ari had got on his knees and begged.
Veiko had taught her better. Spirits liked blood.
She traced the godmark on Ari’s palm. Once. Then again, a little harder. Pushed the tip of the blade into his skin. Drew the sigil a third time and left blood in the wake of the blade.
Snowdenaelikk looked at Ari’s face. “I want to talk to you. Hear me, Laughing God? We had a bargain, and you broke it. Now I want an accounting. I brought you a skin, yeah? So come put it on and talk to me.”
Ari shuddered. Tilted sideways, as if he’d turned to liquid inside his skin, until her grip on his wrist was the only thing holding him upright.
“A bargain,” she repeated, and tugged sharply on Ari’s wrist. The blood welled up and dripped. “Oathbreaker, I’m calling you. Answer me.”
Ari’s head rolled on his neck. Then his head snapped upright, and he looked at her. Flames burned where his eyes had been.
Rattle-skip heartbeat, cold sweat on her skin. Blame the witchtit, yeah, and ignore the
panic
fluttering in her chest. That smile didn’t change, no matter whose face the God wore. Last time it’d been Tsabrak’s face grinning while she smelled her own skin burning, the blisters rising and bursting, as if her flesh itself wept.
The God’s voice rumbled through Ari’s lips, a little rougher, a little lower. “Snowdenaelikk. What do you want?”
“You owe me a debt.”
“Toadshit.”
“Then why are you here? Ari said you wouldn’t answer him. But you answered me.”
The God bared his teeth. “Curiosity.”
“Compulsion. Toadfucker. I kept my side of our bargain, yeah? And you fucking killed me.”
The God hissed like a hundred Briels. “You were making deals with Ehkla.”
“Which didn’t cross what I’d promised you, yeah? Ehkla died under my knife. Coming back was her arrangement with Tal’Shik. Not my problem. So you do as I say now, and you settle your debt.”
“Or what, Snowdenaelikk?”
She pulled Ari’s hand to the carpet. Flipped the hand, palm down. The words were old, Purged and forbidden, but Bel had helped her find them. The reading, she’d managed on her own.
“Laughing God, Smiling One, Svartjagr’s Brother. By these names I know you. By these names I bind you.”
She jammed the tip of the blade between the ridges of tendon and bones, through the sigil, the carpet, until the metal stopped hard on the stone.
A man would’ve recoiled, screamed, wrenched himself into real damage. The God merely looked down at the wound. Frowned when the hand would not move, or the elbow, or anything from fingertips to shoulder.
“Snowdenaelikk, I don’t know what you think you’ve learned, but.” The God reached for the knife with Ari’s other hand. “This won’t wo—fuck and damn.”
There was a popping sensation in Snow’s ears, the spreading smell of lightning. The shrine faded until it seemed as if Snow could see through the firedog and the walls and the floor. Until it seemed as if she knelt on the banks of a black lake under a stone sky.
Then the shrine came back, with its witchfires loyal to her. The God shivered like a wet dog. The fires in his eyes had gone pallid and yellow, like a lamp on the last of its oil.
“I am the Laughing God.” He sounded aggrieved.
“A god’s just a spirit with ambition, yeah? And spirits follow rules.”
“Is that skraeling wisdom?”
“No. It’s in the Illhari Archives. So is the binding I just used. The woman who wrote it died. You want to guess who killed her?”
“Other women, no doubt, seeking favor from another ambitious spirit. Very well. You’re clever. I’m just a spirit. Now take this fucking knife out of my hand, yeah? It keeps me in one place, here and in the ghost roads. Makes it easier to find me.”
Snow took the knife’s hilt and twisted the blade. The God screamed with Ari’s voice. She waited until he ran out of air, plus a handful of heartbeats. Then she sat back on her heels.
“You don’t dictate terms to me. You listen, yeah? And you settle your fucking debt to me, with that steel in your hand, or you can fucking rot until Tal’Shik finds you.”
“You motherless half-blood.” The hatred came off him in waves, prickled hot and dry across her skin. “What do you want?”
Oh, the temptation to say nothing except you leave me and Veiko alone. But that would be like throwing a sharp sword down a well because you were afraid it’d cut you. There was a trick to handling any weapon. Just had to learn it. Had to practice. Had to know what it wanted, yeah, and use it accordingly.
“Tal’Shik’s got people in Illharek. It’s not just the Taliri.”
“Of course she does.”
“Then you know what they did to Stig.”
“Of course I do.” Smoke curled out of his nostrils, through his teeth. “I couldn’t help him.”
“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?”
“Ask your skraeling.”
“I know he cut you. I know you’re hurt, and weak.” She paused while the God glared at her, and peeled her own lips back. “But I think you’d let every last one of your godsworn die before you’d face her yourself. You’re Tal’Shik’s toadfucking ally. You betrayed all of us.”
The God’s eyes flared white. She smelled Ari’s singed eyebrows. She squinted through that brightness, at the God’s face where it pushed against Ari’s bones.
“Fuck you, half-blood. I would bind Tal’Shik to her own altars with strips of her godsworn’s skin.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
The fires damped back to orange. “Because she’s too strong for me. She’s always been too strong.”
“That’s too bad, yeah? Because I want you to find her and pick a fight. Keep her too busy to answer her godsworn so we can deal with them. That’s how you pay your debt.”
The God leaned toward her. Yellow light mixed with the witchfire’s blue, bleached Ari’s face grey. For the space between blinks, Snow saw a dead man looking out at her.
“Are you sure? Because if I throw myself at Tal’Shik for you, if I slow her down, she will kill me. Then she will steal my power, and you will have no help at all.”
“So don’t die.”
“It isn’t that fucking simple. You’re not stupid
.”
“That’s why I don’t believe you.”
“Tsabrak’s right hand. Clever woman. I always liked you.” The God stared hard at the firedog. Ran a finger along the edge of its belly, raising blisters on Ari’s skin. “You’re right. I owe you. And I will do what you . . . demand.” His lip curled. “But if you want anything except simple revenge on me—if you want Tal’Shik dead—then I need something from you. Another bargain, yeah?”
Sweat ran down her ribs. “Meaning what?”
His eyes smoldered now, coals nearly gone out. “Repair the damage your partner did to me. Make me strong again. Become my right hand, Snowdenaelikk, and I will kill Tal’Shik for both of us.”
Feel the trap, smell it, hear it. And step into it anyway, eyes open. “I’m listening.”
Veiko did not need the drum to walk the ghost roads. Did not need the poisons, either, anymore. Needed only to close his eyes, and breathe, and loose his spirit from his flesh. It was, Taru had told him, a rare talent.
Very few noidghe can do this. You are fortunate, Nyrikki’s son. The look on her face said she wasn’t sure how much he deserved that good luck, or how long he might live to enjoy it.
It was a reasonable concern. Luck had its limits. It was skill that saved a man. But he had little of that, playing noidghe. Had only talent to guide him, and Helgi, who was waiting when Veiko stepped onto the glacier. Who put his ears back, teeth bared in a happy dog’s grin.
Then his ears flicked a warning, forward and sideways, and he fixed a stare past Veiko’s left shoulder.
Veiko sighed. Someone else must be here to greet him, and she would not be so pleased to see him.
“We agreed,” said Taru, “that you would return in three days. It has been only one. You must take more time between visits. Remind your spirit that it is bound to your flesh.”
“My spirit knows that.” His leg throbbed where Ehkla had cut him. It had not done that in a long time. He rubbed the muscle. Rubbed Helgi’s ribs, too, where the wurm’s tooth had gone in. Wondered if Helgi’s wound ached, too.
“The dog died,” Taru said. “You did not.”
“I wish you would not answer questions I did not ask.”