Divine Scales

by Jennifer Blackstream

  Patricio dragged his gaze away from Marcela, not wanting to see the accusation or the hurt in her eyes anymore. Her words attacked him like falcons fighting over prey, dragging up memories he’d tried to repress.

  The early days. His first kills. The hours after his victim’s death, hours he’d spent sitting in a puddle of blood, staring at his hands and at the corpse with the glowing symbols carved into its magically knitted flesh. Pleasure buzzing in his veins as he sat like a drunk, sitting in a pool of his own vice and swimming in guilt. Zeus had always found him eventually, always sat with Patricio and quietly explained his true purpose. He killed because divine purpose drove him to do it. It wasn’t hunger for pleasure, wasn’t some hedonistic urge. It was pure and good and made the world a better, safer place. For a moment Patricio wished he’d never left Zeus’ service, never struck out on his own without the god’s guidance. He would give anything to hear the thunder god’s whispered words of reassurance right now.

  Hunger stabbed at his gut like hot pokers, sharp and vicious. Patricio closed his eyes, swayed on his feet. How long had it been since he’d fed?

  He whirled around and stalked toward the window. Air, I need air. His heartbeat thundered in his ears and he couldn’t think past the aching pit in his stomach, the desperate hunger urging him to find the blackest sinner the kingdom had to offer. Behind him he heard Emiliana cry out, but he didn’t turn around. He couldn’t face Marcela, not yet, not when his head was full of doubt and her face was full of hurt and rage. He needed to get out of there. To think.

  The wind slammed into his body as he leapt off the balcony. Beating his wings against the updraft, he sailed over the kingdom. With every passing second, his hunger twisted his nerves a little tighter, urged him forward a little faster. Heat flared deep inside his body, building until it filled every limb, scalded his face. Coward, you’re a coward. His hands trembled, and sweat broke out on his forehead. Zeroing in on a spot in the thickest part of the forest covering the mountain, he dove down, searching for the prey he knew must be there.

  The ojáncanu had been quiet for some time, but the broken trees and shattered boulders still marked the path of the giant’s last rampage. The red-haired beast had destroyed a farm before anjanas had managed to get him under control. Normally, Patricio would respect the fairies’ territory and leave the ojáncanu to them, but right now he needed a sinner—and there was no greater sinner in the kingdom than the ojáncanu.

  Patricio soared through the trees, gritting his teeth as the branches of the towering oaks whipped at his wings and sent white feathers raining down into the forest. He registered the sting of fresh blood, but he fed the pain into his need, his desperation, using it to push himself farther until he saw the cave of the ojáncanu. He drew his sword and as he sailed over the cave, he struck the opening with his weapon. Silver sparks rained down as his blade made contact with the rock.

  “Come out, or I will come in after you!” Patricio bellowed. He whirled around and struck the cave again as he flew by. “Come out!”

  Just as he was turning to do another pass over the cave, something solid slammed into Patricio’s body. Pain exploded along his side as he was knocked out of the air and sent crashing into the arms of a waiting tree. Broken wood stabbed at him from all angles and leaves fell around him, obstructing his vision.

  “You’re a noisy birdman,” a craggy voice rasped. “Go home or I’ll eat you for supper and spit out your bones.”

  Blood trickled from the corner of Patricio’s lip and he chuckled, dropping his head back against his shoulders. He sucked in a deep breath, moaning at the thick taste of sin on his tongue. The air was full of it, saturated by the aura of the ojáncanu standing outside his cave, a wooden club the size of an adult tree still grasped tightly in his fist. Patricio thought he saw the red stain of his own blood coloring the wood.

  Patricio slowly shifted in the tree, easing his aching wings from where they’d been pinned underneath him and carefully balancing on a thick branch. Adrenaline sang in his blood and he relished the burn. “You are guilty of murder and mass destruction,” Patricio called out, his voice wheezing slightly as pain seized his body. He bared his teeth in a feral smile. “I’m here to see you pay for your crimes.”

  “Bah!” The ojáncanu waved his club. “I have already spoken with the anjanas. I haven’t killed more than the animals I need to eat to survive in seven moons. Go back to your palace and leave me alone.”

  The ojáncanu turned back to his cave, but Patricio launched himself into the air. This time he was ready and when the ojáncanu whirled around, swinging his club over his head, Patricio dove down. As he flew past the giant, he swung his sword, running a jagged gash under his arm at the top of his ribcage. The giant roared in pain and swung again, his wild attack missing Patricio, but only barely.

  “You’re lying,” Patricio shouted, satisfaction sizzling up his spine as he took another deep breath. He looked down at the ojáncanu who glared at him from the ground. “I can see your soul, you miserable creature. There’s human blood on your hands, and it’s not seven moons old.”

  The ojáncanu grinned, more a baring of teeth than an actual smile. “If someone wanders into my forest without a care to my privacy, then can you blame me for defending myself?”

  “You will die tonight,” Patricio promised him, giddy with the saccharine scent of sin and the sizzle of adrenaline. “And by my hand.”

  Over and over, Patricio struck the ojáncanu. The giant bellowed and returned each strike with a blow of his own. Each of them took damage, but after several hours, the giant had yet to succumb to Patricio’s attack.

  Patricio weaved in the air, a little too slow to dodge the ojáncanu’s latest blow. Pain etched his body and with every drop of his blood that fell to the ground, he grew a little weaker. He crashed down to earth, dirt and grass spraying up around him as he skidded several meters away.

  “No more playing around,” the ojáncanu bellowed.

  Patricio lay on the ground, peering up at the giant as he raised his club over his head in preparation for delivering the final blow. He looked up into certain death…and waited.

  Suddenly, there was a flash of light in the ojáncanu’s beard. The giant froze, his entire body going rigid. Then the hulking monster fell over backward, crushing a boulder beneath him, and lay still.

  “Stupid, angel, very stupid.”

  Patricio looked around. Seeing nothing, he sat up to get a better look. A groan escaped him as every muscle in his body protested, his wounds screaming in agony.

  “Serves you right,” muttered the same voice. “Taking on an ojáncanu. That’s none of your business, is it?”

  “Justice in the Kingdom of Meropis is my business,” he snarled, not caring who he was speaking to. “I am the prince, and I—”

  “You would have been dinner if your friend hadn’t fetched me,” the voice interrupted. “Ojáncanu are the business of the anjanas. Angels need not bother.”

  An anjana. Perfect.

  A light landed beside him and Patricio stared down in resignation at the fairy glaring at him from the ground. The anjana was no more than six inches tall, seven if he was being generous. Her transparent wings fanned behind her back, making her long black braids sway against her hips. Her white skin glowed in the moonlight and her slanted black eyes shone like obsidian from her slender face. A red silk bow wrapped around her body, looking like a swath of blood. She waved a stick of hawthorn at him, the tip glowing a bright purple.

  “Do I go around Meropis chopping people up with a sword? No. I don’t. I mind my own business, and if you don’t learn to do the same, you’ll be no more than a feathery puddle in the mud.”

  Patricio opened his mouth to tell the miserable pixie to take her loud mouth back into the forest when something she’d said earlier popped back into his aching head. “My friend? You said my friend came and got you?”

  She tapped her foot. “Yes. And don’t think you’ve done yourself any
favors associating with a vampire. He may be handsome, but I don’t trust anyone that smooth, and neither does anyone else in this forest.” She crossed her arms. “Besides, he always has one hand in his cloak. Not to be trusted, that one.”

  “Did he have a Dacian accent?”

  The anjana rolled her eyes. “Don’t they all?”

  Patricio rubbed a hand over his face. The ache in his stomach was now a dull throb, most of his anger exhausted in the battle. The rush of adrenaline had taken the edge off, but he still didn’t quite feel right. He certainly didn’t feel up for what he knew was coming.

  “I do hope you’re going to be my last visitor?” Patricio knew the answer even as he asked the question.

  There wasn’t a sound, and yet Kirill now stood in front of him. Wrapped in a black velvet cloak, all Patricio could make out of the undead prince was his pale face and bottomless eyes with a hint of red shining in them.

  “If all that I’ve heard is correct, I believe you still have one visitor after myself,” Kirill corrected him. “A mermaid, if I’m not mistaken?”

  Patricio looked down, pushing thoughts of Marcela out of his mind. “I doubt she’ll want to see me tonight. She’s quite angry.”

  “I think you will find that a woman is most likely to seek you out when she’s angry,” Kirill observed. “They are quite notorious for it.” He brushed an invisible speck of lint off his shoulder. “Not to make too fine a point of it, but you do yourself a disservice sacrificing the goodwill between yourself and Marcela for the sake of political face with Lady Emiliana. Marcela is a princes, Emiliana merely a lady. The political math is elementary.”

  “Why are you here?” Patricio eased himself back onto the ground. The cool grass was a soothing balm against his battered body and he blinked. He hadn’t realized darkness had fallen.

  “It has been brought to my attention that our arboreal benefactress has found you a match. Congratulations, by the way,” Kirill added with a small bow.

  Anger flared inside Patricio and he shot to his feet, snatching his sword from the ground as he did so. Kirill’s face didn’t betray a hint of emotion, but Patricio didn’t have to see inside his cloak to know the vampire was holding his own weapon.

  “Go back to Dacia, Kirill,” Patricio snarled. “My life is none of your business—”

  “Oh, I think we both know that is no longer true.” The vampire’s eyes flared brighter red for a moment.

  “Forget the prophecy.” Patricio glared at Kirill and tightened his grip on his sword. “I won’t fall into bed with Marcela just because—”

  “Fall into bed?” Kirill scoffed. “My friend, you would be lucky if you could crawl into her bed at this point. From what my sources have told me—”

  “Go. Home.” Patricio stomped away, shifting his wings to see if they were all right to fly. Pain radiated from what he suspected were a few broken bones, but he’d flown in worse shape.

  “Deny your hunger, and you will become the monster you are so afraid you are.”

  Patricio halted, his spine stiffening at the vampire’s cryptic observance. Slowly, he turned around, facing the vampire again, tightening his grip on his sword more for composure than any real intent to use it. “Please tell me you’re not about to offer me advice based on the ridiculous notion that I am anything like you?”

  “You are nothing like me. But you could learn.”

  Patricio bristled. “You don’t even know what I am, so don’t pretend—”

  “You are the son of a Fury. You are also the son of a—”

  “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it.” A cold fluttering erupted in Patricio’s stomach. “How…” Realization dawned and Patricio curled his lip in disgust. “That miserable incubus told you.”

  Kirill inclined his head slightly. “He did. He also told me that Hephaestus himself fashioned that sword for you so that you could channel the hunger for vengeance you inherited from your mother into something good.” Kirill glanced at Patricio’s sword, his eyes sharp and shining a little brighter as he observed the weapon. “As I understand it, when you use the sword to kill, it etches your victims’ crimes into their skin and wipes the sin from their soul. If you were to kill without it, you would drink the sin, but your victim’s soul would reap no benefit. Of course, I have spoken to some who believe you are capable of drinking sin in moderation, without ending your victim’s life.”

  “I—”

  “Lesson one—never interrupt someone who is offering to tell you what they know without asking for anything in return.”

  Patricio glowered at him. “I am not your student.”

  “You would like to believe that you kill because it is your purpose, it is what you were created for.”

  “I—”

  “In reality, you were born with a desire to kill, a hunger for the souls of sinners, and the gods gave you a purpose to allow you to balance your own karmic scales.”

  Patricio’s jaw dropped and his stomach bottomed out. “No, that’s not true.”

  “You show a distinct lack of gratitude, by the way,” Kirill observed, “claiming that you were born with the purpose that was so graciously given to you.”

  “I was born to balance the scales of good and evil,” Patricio choked.

  “Such a poetic way to say you like to kill bad people. I should have you write my public speeches.”

  “I do this because I have to.”

  “And I drink blood because I have to, but you don’t see me leaving a trail of corpses behind me,” Kirill pointed out. “It simply is not practical.”

  “We are nothing alike!” Patricio spat. “I fulfill a purpose, not a need.”

  “Then throw down your sword. Get rid of it, see what happens. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you’ll throw it down and be able to walk away from all this killing. Perhaps you could become a judge, or sit on the jury in a nice courtroom where people are tried by their peers and perhaps sentenced to sit behind bars for a bit to think about how naughty they’ve been.” Kirill shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the hunger inside you won’t grow. Won’t grow stronger and stronger, until it’s all you can think about. Until you need a taste so bad you can’t resist it anymore. Until you don’t even have the strength to wait for a truly black soul and you find yourself willing to have a little snack…one grey soul…”

  “It is my purpose.” Patricio’s voice sounded far away, even to his own ears. Kirill’s face remained so calm, so unnervingly calm. How could he be so calm?

  “You speak as if your purpose and your hunger are the same thing, and they are not,” Kirill said gently. “Patricio, Eurydice has demonstrated a gift for giving each of us what we need. Somehow, Marcela is going to help you. I will admit, I don’t know how. As much as I know about you, I do not know how to help you or how Marcela will help you. But I can tell you, if you do not give Marcela a chance, if you do not work to connect with her,” he shrugged, “you’ll never find out.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Marcela lay on the beach as the last of the sun’s setting rays faded from the sky. A wave broke, the sound echoing in her ears seconds before a rush of foamy water washed over her, soaking her clothes and hair and then receding. If she held very still and didn’t think about it too hard, she could pretend she had a tail again. Could pretend that she’d never seen Patricio, had never fallen victim to his curse. Hadn’t broken the curse only to fall in love with him again anyway. She could pretend that her life hadn’t gone horribly, horribly wrong.

  “And the stories accuse us of luring sailors to their deaths on the rocky shore.” An image of Patricio’s face leapt into her mind, filling her brain with the memory of his bright blue eyes and rare, but beautiful smile. “Angels are the real threat. There’s a face that lured me over the rocks and straight up the cliff.” She looked off into the distance at the palace as if she could see inside. Had Patricio returned yet?

  “Sssuch a ssseriousss face. Looking for your prince?”

  The co
rner of her mouth quirked up as Marcela looked down her body to find the cuelebre slithering up her stomach. It raised its upper half off her chest and peered down at her with its beady black eyes.

  “I am, but only because I owe him a bloody nose.”

  The snake tilted its head a full one hundred and eighty degrees. “Bloody nossse?”

  “Yes.” She clenched her hands into fists. “His deranged would-be fiancée tried to kill me and he had the nerve to accuse me of bearing false witness. He lied to my face, said her soul was too clean for what I said to be true.” She punched the sand, relishing the bite of pain as grains of sand and particles of long shattered crustaceans bruised her skin. “If he is what he says he is, then he had to have seen I was telling the truth. That woman should have been dripping with sin after what she did to me. Well if he wants to marry the little tart so bad, he can have her.”

  “Emiliana isss not what ssshe ssseemsss.”