Naked now, Sequa opened her eyes against the God’s golden burning, and felt the power in the blood coating her skin fade and grow pale. She could see nothing in the blur of His radiance; the walls shimmered away until it seemed she stood encased only in His light. Her awareness of even the Shadow faltered then—as did her apprehension. It might have been a heartbeat or an age of mankind while she stood there, slowly calming under the God’s hand like a fretful pet being stroked to tranquility.
When the second presence joined her there, in that radiance, she was horribly afraid it was the God himself. But the soul-destroying weight of the attention of a deity did not come and when her heart and mind came together she looked at the man standing before her.
The Voice of the God. Backlit by his searing patron, she could still see clearly his face, his handsome, cheerful face.
He smiled one of those indulgent smiles he had so often flashed at her, this one like a teacher pleased but unsurprised by a clever student’s acumen. His skin unmarked, bone unexposed, hair not burned raggedly away as she had seen him last. He wore the same form he had worn in life but somehow more clear, more perfect.
This, she sensed, remained how the God saw him. She could only pray the Gods saw her in such a generous and loving image. They knew all her sins but still she had to confess them aloud. Bring them out into His light.
“I failed you, Voice of the God. I failed you once in not seeing the danger coming, twice in not protecting you in the courtyard, thrice for not freeing myself in time, I failed you four times in not reaching you quickly enough. I failed you as thoroughly as I could have failed. Failed at every step, every pass, every word. I failed so completely I cannot even ask your forgiveness.” Her throat closed again; she choked on Godslight.
Still smiling, he opened his hands to her. She flinched away, afraid of contaminating him. So he came forward and pressed his hands to either side of her face. He felt as real as the light around her. Through the bones of her skull it seemed she could hear his voice, faint and ethereal.
If you failed me, you did not fail in the greater enterprise. It might not have been the death I would have chosen—
“A bad death,” she said under her breath.
There are no good deaths. Bad or worse or however, at least fire remains a fitting death for the Voice of the God. And nothing can hurt me now. Let go, little Squirrel, little Champion, my not-love. It’s not my death—nor his—that needs your atonement. His phantom tone turned light, teasing. He almost made her smile. I forgive you, if you needed to hear it.
The light thrumming sound of his voice faded along with the bright wash of the God. Sequa found herself standing naked on warm stone with the Shadow of the Goddess gripping her face in blunt, cold hands.
“Him?” asked the Shadow. “Was he here?”
“He was. He…forgave me. For failing him. For killing him.” God-drunk, she wasn’t even sure which he she referred to at the end.
The Shadow used her palms to shake Sequa’s head back and forth a little in admonishment. “There was nothing to forgive.”
Sequa’s skin felt heavy and crusted over with blood, making her stomach turn suddenly. But at least it seemed to be just blood now, by some alchemy of the Godslight and avatars combined.
She gulped air and then reached up to disengage the hands clutching her. They stood like that for a time in silence. Then Sequa stepped away from the pile of her armor, took up the cloths and scrap end of scented soap and scrubbed away the coating on her skin.
Blood, normally sticky and stubborn on skin and hair, stripped away in the warm water like suds.
Clean, her armor lying scrubbed in the light of the God to dry, the Shadow again gave over her bed. Sequa slept without dreaming, curled around her own left hand and the tiny heartbeat nestled there.
~ * ~
Sequa woke slowly to the sound of voices arguing, the noise drifting through the slight crack in the door. One by one she sorted them out. Anem, annoyed; the Shadow, patient; Parri, frustrated; Cur, calm.
Stretching, feeling the tug and pull of strained muscles, barely healed adhesions, the dull ache of bruise and the sharp pinch of likely-broken small bones, Sequa slid out of the bed. On the low table at its foot had been placed some of her clothes: short, knee-length breeches and a light tunic. The air sweltered hot and still in the room but the leaden weight of blood magic had passed while she slept. The city felt alive again.
So it was over and not a fever dream of victory as she lay dying. She had wondered sometimes in the surreal Turns of healing inside this very room, bathed in pain and cool water, delirious with sorcery and guilt. Only the soft wind of the Shadow and the solid, stolid weight of Cur had held her to the world.
Those, and now the tiny beat of the heart returned to her hand. She curled her left hand into a protective fist around her thumb. Even in the possession of the mad monster, Jesan’s heartbeat had held her in the world.
Pushing open the door, the sound of conversation stopped, and she found all four of them looking at her from the group of furniture in the center of the room. Cur and Parri stood on either side of the furniture grouping, facing off against each other with the seated women in between. She nodded gravely at each in turn and looked last at Anem.
“Tell me the toll,” she rasped out as she advanced into the sitting area of the Shadow’s quarters.
The Commander had an odd not-expression on her face but she recited what Sequa wanted to know in swift, simple words. Only two of those she had led into the night, hunting, had returned alive. Both had fallen from the rooftops, one likely crippled for life.
Sequa closed her eyes for a long moment. “You will not believe me, but I am sorry.”
Parri snorted from behind her. “Neither of them had a word against you, Champion. Blamed themselves. I think we haveta believe you.”
Sequa looked over at him, more than a little startled. “That is…generous of you.”
Anem snorted now. “They told us most of it, and I had the rest from your co-conspirators here. A desperate plan, and I am less than pleased no one thought to speak of it to me but…it worked. In the end, it worked.” She spread her hands and shrugged, then leaned forward to snag a mug of wine off of the table.
The Shadow shook her head. “He bent his will toward you. I could only protect a few. He regarded you with fierce intent most of all.”
Sequa stepped over to where the Shadow reclined on a short couch. The avatar had regained some of her vitality, now that she no longer had to shield Sequa’s heartbeat, the thoughts of the former Children, from the monster. She looked much younger, her face round and smooth once more. She smiled as the little, scarred warrior moved toward her. Over her shoulder, Cur hovered, his eyes searching.
“Thank you for your healing, and the risks you took out there, Shadow of the Goddess,” Sequa said formally then bowed her head.
She felt a light, cool touch on her forehead, though the Shadow had not moved her hands. When she looked up, the avatar smiled still. “I had faith in you, Champion.”
“I led a large number of people to violent death last night, Shadow. I do not know that it is a matter of faith.” Despite the hisses from the others in the room, she could not accept such praise easily. Her contrary nature spat out the challenge almost unbidden.
In the back of her head, she heard a man’s soft laughter. One last time.
The Shadow seemed to have heard too for she shook her head a little. “You fought a war last night, Champion, doubly Champion now. We will mourn the dead, and honor them, and sing the songs of praise and thanksgiving for the end of battle. As long as I am Shadow, prayers for them will rise at every service.” Now she did touch Sequa’s face, her fingers thin and fragile but her touch firm. “And for you, Savior of Ressen.”
Sequa shied back, uncomfortable with both the words and the touch then sat down slowly on the edge of the table. The grievous wounds to body and soul had been healed by the will of the Goddess but still no
t four Turns from being burnt nearly to death left her weak and breathless.
Taking a deep breath, she met Cur’s eyes full on for the first time. He looked confused and worried and uncomfortable. He looked as dull and common as he always looked.
But he had guarded them both faithfully for four Turns and longer, never complained, completed every task she set him. Bathed her cracked and raw skin in cool water; changed her clothes when she soiled them. Spoken courteously to people who abused him; fought hard alongside her.
At least twice last night he had saved her life.
If she had a shred of mercy in her heart, she would release him. Ressen would succor him now; he would have a good place here with the Iron Quarter. Anem would hold him in esteem and he would carry some of the weight of her legend on his back. It would keep him safe, well employed, happy even.
Sequa twitched out her ghastly, little smile. “When can you be ready to travel, Cur?’
His eyes lit and he bounded like a faithful hound toward his own damnation. “Now, if you like. I Run light.”
They shared a fierce, feral smile, the wolves ascendant for a moment.
Behind her back, Anem coughed. “You can stay if you like. Both of you. There will be no words spoken against either of you now.”
Sequa turned and looked over her shoulder. “You did not see the faces of those in the street as I came here, Commander. Ressen may love me, but I think it will love me best at a distance. And I—we have unfinished business in the capitol.”
They shared a long look, former Child to former Child, eyes darting for every muscle twitch, every hidden meaning. They both learned very little but Anem saw enough to say gently, “You still intend…?”
“The wheels are still turning, though slower. I will go and give them a good, hard shove.”
“When?”
“A Measure, at least. More like two. I have more than one faction to dodge now.”
“The Rat still hunts you.”
“He can only hunt in darkness. I will walk in the light. I have faced the fire of the God, and it did not destroy me. Let him come. And he is not hunting him.” She gestured at Cur, palm up and flat to the ceiling before she twitched it away. Only Anem would have been able to see the embarrassed flinch around her eyes; she made the gesture of a Child to a mark.
She could not blame that unintended honesty on the Voice of the God. Covering sharply, Sequa looked from Anem to the Shadow. “Will the city hold to the pledge made in its making, Holy?”
The avatar of the Goddess settled back into her chair, her face serene. “The Goddess will move what she wishes, when she wishes. I will hear and obey her. The rest of it is up to you, Twice-Champion.”
“That is enough. Thank you.”
“Where are you sending Curran, Champion?” Parri broke in gruffly. “I would take him as my own Second, if he stayed. Good, steady hand, good, steady head.”
Cur grinned across the room, ducking his head in chagrined pleasure.
She would have to remember to praise him a little, once in a while.
“He has a job he can do for me, or at least begin. I will be following behind him directly.” She stood up, stretched, feeling the heaviest burn scars on her chest and upper back pull a little.
“You’re not coming?” Cur blinked at her in distress.
“No,” she said, starting across the room to the chest that held her armor, her swords. She had little more, once again, than her harness, her beautiful shoes, and the clothes on her back. She would have to place an order with the shoemaker before she left and have a spare set delivered to someone in the capitol she could trust. She would need clothes, traveling food…
Cur had said something else, and it took her a moment before the words made their way from her ears to her thoughts. “Why not?” She looked back at all of them and grinned once more, openly, broadly.
Cur stepped back hard, hands rising. Anem and Parri both put their hands on their weapons and then visibly restrained themselves. The Shadow sat up straight and gave her a look of pure horror.
“Why not?” Sequa repeated again, then slowly unclenched her hands that had become fists, forced the predator’s smile from her lips. “There is something I have to do first.”
EPILOGUE
Sequa, four days walk north of the city, ventured deep in the evergreen woods that stretched to the ice waste of the north. She had left from the south gate, walked a day in that direction—Anem offered her a horse, which she refused in undisguised horror. On her best day, she remained a terrible rider. She could push herself harder than any expensive, skittish, fragile animal. It had taken two more days to circle around through the trees on the edge of Ressen’s plain, moving mostly at night under the eye of the Goddess. The few tails she had gained—two from the Quarters and another in plain, peasant clothes, doubtless spying for the Rat—had not been able to match her pace the first day and once out of sight they had no hope of following.
Now deep in the unpeopled land on the edge of the tallest mountain in the range—it was too steep for farming, too many wolves, great cats, and hunting predators to make logging profitable. Ressen left these tangled woods alone almost as a wall on its northern flank. Only the river valley held any settlements, though those extended along its entire meandering length to the northern outposts of the kingdom; if she had stalked the foaming water long enough, she would come to the only other city in the northern province, sister to the one that now held her…family…in honored captivity.
She climbed steadily through the long afternoon and into the twilight, staying always a little ahead of the God, so it seemed he hung motionless in the sky above her. About halfway up one of the more substantial foothills at the base of a very high and craggy peak, Sequa came across a broad, flat, open meadow. It looked almost as if someone had trekked up here, cut down all the trees in a roughly oval shape perhaps thirty of her body lengths at its widest point and strewn the ground with thick grass and wildflowers. A small stream bubbled and murmured into a pool off to one side and then spilled down the mountain, chucking to itself.
Ridiculously bucolic. Near the center of the space she found the stump of some great tree, blackened and burnt, weathered into iron by Measures of sun and rain. It made a convenient seat and so she settled down to wait, gnawing on a strip of very dry cow meat.
The God marched onward and when He had passed the ring of trees and left her out of the direct light, Sequa lay back and slept a little, fitfully, woken time and time again by the ceaseless noises of the wild.
The Goddess rose into the clear patch of sky above her, halfway to new and bright as a reading lamp.
When she woke again the clearing had filled with birds, mostly small, fearful things, flitting from place to place in ceaseless, panicked confusion. Scattered here and there a great, black raven, sleek as the Empty dark, stood and stared at her in baleful concentration. Something on long, thin legs, its motion both graceful and stuttering, stalked the pond silently. Twice she saw its wide beak snap down and then back up, something soft and wriggling clamped there briefly.
She stood up, leaving her pack on the stump, her swords hanging loosely from their straps on her wrists. In a great collective shudder of cloven air, the birds fled skyward with a noise like the deadly wind that brings trees crashing down on someone’s home.
One of them remained, perhaps three body lengths away from her. It seemed huge in the half-light of the Goddess, she could make out dark feathers over a powerful frame, wings tucked back and claws digging into the turf. Its massive beak glowed white, hooked, and cruel.
Somehow, it appeared almost half her size, all muscle and sharp points, though that seemed impossible. She knew little of the great hunting birds, save only in the abstract form of the Great Hawk. Clerics of the Son kept houses of the smaller hawks, half-wild and given free run of their temples and home spaces. Anyone living near an Aerie grew used to losing cats and chickens on a daily basis. She had heard once that a baby had been sna
tched from its cradle and carried away by someone’s pampered captive eagle.
This creature before her looked as though it could pick her up and drag her into the sky.
Sequa opened her hands, letting the swords dangle and swing. “I think I know what you are. Show yourself.”
The raptor dropped its head to the side as though it had lost control of all the muscles on the opposite half of its skull and simply stared at her for a long time. The air grew stagnant and the forest noises petered out, wrapping the clearing in silence and stillness, some great, pregnant pause.
Hunching forward, the huge creature flung its wings out, radiating menace and power.
Then it changed.
Watching, breathless with awe and horror, to Sequa it seemed like a great crumpled sheet of dark material unfolding, stretching, fading in and out in odd, sickening patterns.
Feathers lengthened and lightened, growing pale and hard. Talons flattened out against the ground, contracting backward as though being sucked into a hole in the flesh. The dark chest, speckled here and there with golden marks, broadened and thinned. The thick, cruel beak grew teeth and stretched wide, its hooked end turning into the blunt tip of a nose.
In the space of a few heartbeats, Sequa stood facing a tall, naked man, his hair pale and shining in the Goddesslight, his hands cupped modestly over his manhood.
“Hawksblood,” she breathed. Since the Goddess’ first Shadow had walked the muddy riverbanks at Ressen-that-was there had been stories of the shape-changers. The Gods walked the mortal world then, creating the first Avatars. The Great Hawk had taken men and women and shaped them to his image, to do his bidding. The Hawksblood, long fallen to mystic legend.
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