by Kat Ross
Solis
Kat Ross
Solis
First Edition
Copyright © 2018 by Kat Ross
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Cover design by Damonza
Map design by Robert Altbauer at fantasy-map.net
Created with Vellum
For Laura
Contents
Map of Nocturne
Map of Solis
1. Mistress
2. The Maenads
3. The Gambler
4. A Scarlet Thread
5. The Hard and the Soft
6. The Stork’s Nest
7. Visions
8. The Viper
9. Psyche and Eros
10. A Handful of Dust
11. Apollo’s Vengeance
12. A Sickness of the Soul
13. Summoned
14. The Rock of Ariamazes
15. Njala
16. The Prodigal Son
17. Child of Night
18. Watcher in the Tower
19. The Fourth Element
20. Purified
21. The Adept
22. A Commission
23. Crossroads
24. The Serpent Crown
25. North Star
26. Nicodemus
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Glossary
About the Author
Also by Kat Ross
1
Mistress
Thena woke in a cheerful mood.
It was a lovely morning, with an easterly wind carrying cooler air across the Umbra from the darklands. The storm the day before had washed the dust from the Acropolis and left crystalline blue skies in its wake. From the window of her small room, she could see for many leagues. Farms and orchards dotted the countryside outside the city walls. A wide, lazy river meandered among the fields, its waters gleaming like the scales of a serpent. Far beyond, almost at the edge of sight, the fertile delta gave way to a tawny line marking the start of the Kiln, a trackless wasteland that stretched all the way to the western edge of the continent.
When Thena was a child, her mother told her stories about the creatures that stalked the dunes. Scorpions the size of hunting hounds whose pincers snapped bones, and great blind wyrms with armored hides that could smell a human breath from ten leagues away. Multi-jointed monstrosities armed with venom that burned like fire. Her father’s farm was one of the most remote and the stories always ended with dire warnings about little girls who wandered too far from home.
Once, her older sister, whom Thena worshipped, had dared her to bring back a bowl of pure sand. Unable to resist the challenge, Thena squared her shoulders and started walking down the dusty road, which was really just a track worn by oxen and wagon wheels, past the neighbors’ farms until she reached the last stand of olive trees. They were sad, withered things, clinging to life in nearly barren soil. She stood, bowl in hand, looking out at that great expanse of nothing. All the stories tumbled through her head. She thought she saw a flicker of movement—probably just the waves of heat distorting the air. But her nerve had crumbled and she turned tail and ran all the way home, to the hilarious laughter of her sisters.
Thena pulled a clean woolen shift over her head and gazed down at the rooftops below. The city of Delphi was a hodgepodge of mansions and hovels, teeming markets and grand edifices such as the Akademia, the Great Library and the Philosophers’ Guild, with the Temple of Apollo perched atop the Acropolis like a crowning jewel. She always felt important looking down from this high vantage point, like a queen surveying her domain.
Foolish creature, she chided herself. You may have come a long way for a farmer’s daughter, but you’re still a humble initiate. Don’t tempt the gods with pride and vanity.
Thena burned a handful of bay laurel leaves and silently asked for Apollo’s blessing in the day’s endeavors. She hoped the fugitive girl had been caught. The Pythia was in quite a temper about it. But finding her was the Polemarch’s task. Thena had a different one.
The Oracle favors me above the others because I am steadfast in my devotion. May the light of truth shine upon us all.
Thena left her rooms and climbed the worn stone stairs to one of the formerly empty chambers. She drew a deep breath and opened the door.
“Good morning,” she said brightly. “I trust you had a good rest.”
Its new occupant stared at her. Iron manacles pinned his arms above his head. She sensed stiffness in his shoulders but nothing else. Not a shred of emotion. Thena felt confident this would soon change. Apollo had arranged for this witch to cross her path. He was a gift from the god.
“I know you’re Danai.” She smiled. “You have the look.”
The witch appeared no older than twenty, though that meant nothing. The Pythia said they aged much more slowly than mortals and lived for hundreds of years. This one had short, wavy brown hair and blue eyes. They regarded her coldly.
“As I told you yesterday, your new name will be Andros.” She bustled over to the shutters, throwing them wide. He winced as the sunlight hit his face. “And we shall get to know each other very well in the coming weeks. Better than you’ve ever known anyone in your life. But first you shall tell me your old name. I need it for the records, you see.”
She studied him. He wasn’t as handsome as the exotic Valkirin witches, with their silver hair and golden skin, but he had a stern face some might find attractive. Thena cared little about such things. She was betrothed to the sun god. He even spoke to her directly sometimes, though she kept this secret. The Oracle might think Thena was lying—or worse, challenging her authority as the voice of the god on earth.
“I’m waiting,” she prompted, showing her dimples. “Tell me your name and I’ll get you a nice cool drink of water.”
“What’s yours?” he asked hoarsely.
“Mistress.”
He laughed.
Thena nodded serenely. She’d played this game before. They were still in the opening moves. The very beginning. If he’d known what was in store for him, he wouldn’t be so cavalier. But they never did. The witches all thought they were hard until Thena taught them differently.
“Do you know how many daēvas I’ve broken?” she asked calmly. “Five so far. I’m the best at it. Everyone says so.” She fingered the thin gold bracelets around her wrist.
“And yet you have doubts,” he said.
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“I sense it in your heart.” The sun caught his eyes, turning them a blazing sapphire. “You’re scared.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she snapped.
“Is it? The bond cuts both ways, you know.”
“It’s not a bond, it’s a leash. And I’ve had enough of your impudence. First lesson: Mind your manners.”
She gave him the sensation of fire on the soles of his feet. His eyes widened, but that’s all. Absolutely nothing came through the bracelet. She held it for a count of ten, then released the flow.
“What’s your old name, Andros?”
A long moment passed before he replied. When it came, his voice was tinged with mild curiosity.
“Are you afraid of the Oracle? That she’ll punish you if you fail? I suppose I don’t blame you. Five�
�s not bad, but it sounds like you’re still new at this. If I were you—”
Thena stepped forward and wrapped a leather strap around his mouth. She struggled for composure, only speaking when she was certain she matched his calm.
Remember your rules.
“I’m sorry we’re getting off on such a bad foot,” she said. “Truly, I wish it were otherwise, mainly for your sake. All I needed to know today was your name, but since that’s apparently too much to ask, I’m forced to give you a proper demonstration of what your collar can do.” She paused. Her pulse thudded in her ears. “I want you to remember, you brought this about. This is your doing.”
No fear from him. No anger. Not even quiet defiance.
Nothing.
Her mouth set.
“Someday, we’ll be very good friends,” she said, reaching into the bracelet where his spirit lived. “But for now…Well, I’m sorry, Andros.”
And she was. More than he would ever know.
Darius watched her leave some hours later, only slumping in his chains after the door shut behind her. He felt so tired. It was the only thing he allowed himself to feel, but the exhaustion was too great to block out.
Darius wasn’t new at this game either.
He could sense his power, an ocean of it, tantalizingly close yet on the other side of a high, thick wall, and that wall was her.
She did feel remorse—not much, but a little. If the collar worked anything like the cuffs he’d worn as a Water Dog, she would suffer an echo of his pain. By the time she’d left, her emotions had been a furious, red-hot tangle he hadn’t cared to decipher. Darius steeled himself when it began, fleeing to hiding places in his mind he hadn’t visited in a very long time. It helped him to dull some of it. Some, but not all.
The pain isn’t real, he whispered through cracked lips. Not real.
She’d been surprised at his ability to read her and didn’t seem to fully grasp what it meant, or be able to shield herself from him. A small advantage, but Darius would use it.
He rested his head against the wall and tried to arrange his thoughts. The cult of Apollo had taken him prisoner. Somehow, the Oracle had discovered the secret of bonding a daēva. She used a collar instead of a cuff, but the mechanism must be the same. And she already had others. The woman said so and he didn’t think she was lying. He’d felt a swell of satisfaction through the bond when she said she’d broken five.
Darius shifted in his chains, muscles screaming.
Your own stupidity got you into this mess. You underestimated them because they were mortals.
Delilah warned him, but he hadn’t listened.
How long did you last in Delphi before getting caught? Two hours?
Darius remembered the woman’s face when he’d caught her pitcher. Shock, quickly masked. He’d been so impatient to find Nazafareen, he let his guard down. Only for an instant, but there you had it.
She’d taken the griffin cuff away. He might never find Nazafareen now.
Darius severed that train of thought, locking it away in a dark corner of his mind. Too dangerous. He wouldn’t give his captor a single shred of emotion.
And he wouldn’t give her his name.
2
The Maenads
Sharp knocking roused Nazafareen from a deathlike slumber. One eye cracked open. Her hair felt glued to the side of her face, probably by drool, and her mouth tasted of wet ashes. She groaned and sat up. A clay jar painted bright turquoise sat on a table next to a window. Outside, a flock of blackbirds erupted squawking from orderly rows of grapevines bound to stakes. It took several long moments to remember where she was.
“Hang on,” she mumbled, as the knocking carried on without pause. “I’m coming.”
A low sun slanted through the window, pooling on the wood floor and warming it beneath her bare feet. Nazafareen used the stump of her right arm to push open the door. Her left hand worked on unsticking the clump of hair.
“Oh good, you’re awake,” Kallisto said pleasantly, as if she hadn’t just been pounding on the door. The wife of Herodotus and leader of the cult of the Maenads looked like a plump housewife except for a hard and knowing gleam in her dark eyes. Braids streaked with grey formed a pile on top of her head. They’d been combed with oil that gave off a sweet, smoky scent.
“How long have I been sleeping?” Nazafareen asked with a jaw-cracking yawn.
“Three days.”
“Three days?”
“I tried to wake you.” Kallisto shrugged. “You clearly weren’t dead so I decided you needed the rest. But time grows short. We must speak of certain matters involving the Oracle and other things as well.”
Nazafareen’s temples started to pound.
“Have you heard any news from the city? Has the Pythia…burned anyone?”
“No, child.” Kallisto gave her a reassuring smile. “I won’t claim your friend is safe, nor my husband, but she’s keeping them alive to stand trial. I don’t think she’ll harm either of them until judgment is passed. Why don’t you come down and meet me in the kitchen? And try not to fall asleep face-down on the table this time.” She strode off, her ankle-length wool gown billowing behind her.
Nazafareen nodded distractedly. Alive was better than dead, but Javid languished in the Polemarch’s dungeon while she’d been dozing away in a soft bed. It was all her fault, though she didn’t know what she could have done differently. They’d been trapped on the stairs between the Temple soldiers and the chimera. She remembered killing the beasts—or perhaps unmaking was a better word. Then Javid had slipped in the resulting mess and the soldiers carried him off.
Nazafareen picked up the jug and was grateful to find it filled with clean water. She downed the entire thing in one long draught and immediately discovered other pressing needs, which another, larger pot in the corner took care of. She wanted to wash but the water was gone, so she made her way down to the kitchen, feeling vaguely grimy but somewhat more alert.
Kallisto had already laid out a breakfast of grilled fish, golden apricots soaked in honey, and a loaf of yeasty brown bread on the scarred wooden table. She added bowls of olives and grapes, and a soft slab of goat’s cheese. Nazafareen tore into the food like a starving dog, eating until her pants felt uncomfortably tight. She washed it down with a cup of heavily watered wine.
“Thank you, that was excellent,” she said, stifling a small burp. “I’ll clean up.”
She felt Kallisto’s gaze on her back as she rinsed the plates and stacked them on the counter. Through the kitchen windows, she could see several mudbrick outbuildings nestled in groves of trees. Movement near one of them caught her eye. Four young women stood at the edge of a dirt yard watching as two others sparred with staffs. They wore short fawn-colored dresses that exposed muscled thighs and calves. The combatants fought with a controlled ferocity that impressed her. Faint cracks carried across the yard as they parried each other’s blows. The staffs whirled in deadly, blurring arcs that must have been eight or nine hands in length. One of the women lunged, sweeping the staff at her opponent’s feet. The second leapt over it, nimble as a cat. Another flurry of strikes and counterstrikes ensued and Nazafareen, utterly enthralled, forgot all about the dirty dishes. She feared they’d take each other’s heads off, or at least shatter some bones.
“I’d like to learn how to do that,” she murmured as the two finally broke apart and clapped each other amiably on the back.
“Why would you need a weapon?” Kallisto sounded puzzled. “You can work magic.”
“Not very well.” She returned to the plates, rinsing them from a clay pitcher. “And it carries a price.”
“You killed the chimera.”
Nazafareen gave her a sharp look. “What were they?”
“Old darklands magic. Very nasty.” Kallisto tilted her head. “Someone sent them for you?”
“I think so, yes. Javid and I escaped them in the Umbra, but they must have found me again.” Nazafareen sank into a chair. “I suppose
I ought to tell you everything.”
“That would be a great deal indeed,” Kallisto laughed. “Let’s start with how you came to Delphi.”
Nazafareen did so. The story wasn’t a very long one, since her memories only began a few months before.
“Ashraf isn’t my real name,” she admitted. “I think it was my sister’s. You can call me Nazafareen.”
Kallisto had listened in silence while she dried the plates with a cloth and replaced them in a cupboard.
“So, Nazafareen, you’ve angered the Valkirins. They’re a touchy bunch, from what I know of daēvas. And you traveled through the Underworld?” Kallisto made a sign with her hand, extending the pinky and forefinger like a pitchfork. “Herodotus would pester you for hours if he knew. He has all sorts of theories about the gates.”
“We had no choice,” Nazafareen said simply. “It wasn’t so bad really, except that the first gate we found opened into the Kiln.”
“You saw the Kiln?”
“I think so. It’s rightly named. The place felt like an oven.” She shifted in her chair at the memory. “Javid said it was the hottest part of Solis, where the sun sits at high noon all day.”
“It is that,” Kallisto replied thoughtfully, sipping from her wine cup. “But it’s something else too. The prison of the Vatras.”
“Prison?”
“The other clans sealed them away. That’s what ended the war. Few remember anymore, but we Maenads do. The Gale pens them in from the east. An impassable line of storms.”