by Rachel Dunne
Earlier, when Keiro had crawled beneath the ground to make his way to Fratarro, the Fallen had been leaving, finally, the great mass of them packing up and beginning the long trek back to Fiatera. From what Keiro had seen, it had all been going smoothly—there was anger, grumbling, but they all seemed to accept that they had no choice. Valrik had been supervising it all, along with his chosen leaders, the ones who didn’t call themselves Ventallo but were. Most of them would be staying, along with a complement of the black-armored mercenaries and a small cadre of mages. Only two score total, staying behind to guard the hills, to serve the Twins until they regained their full strength.
At a quick look, Keiro would guess there were close to two hundred people gathered now between the hills.
No. The despairing thought lurched through his mind before Keiro could stop it. And on its heels came a much harder thought, unforgiving, merciless: You should have known. Sororra had said she would be watching . . . and Keiro was her eyes and her ears. Of course she would know of his failure.
If you’ve crossed her, run and weep . . .
Keiro had been so focused on Fratarro’s capricious moods that he had forgotten that the world was swaying and lurching beneath his steps. In this new and singular world the Twins would see made, there was no room for failure, no allowance for missteps. Sororra would—
He had to fix this. If he didn’t, he was as good as dead.
He hurried forward, past Laseneo and into the throng. They parted for him, some with guilty looks, but many with open hostility. Keiro had not been well liked among the Fallen from the beginning, for all that he had found the Twins. He had been branded an apostate before that, banished, and he had done nothing since to be worthy of their good graces. Ordering the Fallen to leave their gods behind had only cemented their hatred. They wouldn’t listen to him willingly, not these who had already chosen to disregard his orders. They wouldn’t care that their disobedience would be deemed Keiro’s fault.
The shouting voices died as Keiro passed by, pulling a shroud of silence behind him. As he had expected, Valrik stood at the center of the crowd, waiting with his hands on his hips, his empty eye sockets pointed directly at Keiro. “Brother Keiro,” he said in his rumbling voice.
“What is this?” Keiro tried to make his voice authoritative, but it came out reedy and weak.
“Some of our loyal brothers and sisters have elected to stay,” Valrik said, and there were murmurs of agreement throughout the crowd.
Keiro shook his head, and felt fear-sweat eke down from his hairline. “My instructions were clear. Your instructions were clear. The Twins need time to rest and recover, and they cannot do so with so many people ar—”
“There aren’t that many of us,” Valrik interrupted, spreading his hands in an empty gesture of conciliation. “Surely the Twins will be heartened by the faith of these remaining few.”
Keiro thought of Fratarro, cloistering himself far beneath the surface—just a different kind of prison from the one that had held him for centuries. He didn’t want to show himself in his weakened, broken state, not with so many of his followers around; Keiro had seen the longing in his eyes when he had asked how long until the Fallen left. How long until he could climb free of his prison and walk beneath the sky once more. It should have been now. “I promise you,” Keiro said, “they will not be.” He turned his back to Valrik, facing the unhappy masses. “Leave, as you were commanded. A truly loyal follower would do as his gods have ordered.”
“How do we know they did?” The heated shout came from somewhere in the crowd, Keiro couldn’t pinpoint where. “We’ve only your word for that!”
“Now, now,” Valrik rumbled, stepping to Keiro’s side and reaching out to place a heavy hand on his shoulder. Keiro resisted the impulse to shrug Valrik’s hand off. How things had changed: not even months ago, Keiro would have thought it an honor to stand in the presence of the leader of the Fallen, the earthly embodiment of the Twins’ will. He knew better now, in so many ways. “Sororra and Fratarro have named Brother Keiro their voice; we must trust that he is serving them truly.” The words did nothing to soothe the grumbling, but then they had not been meant to. He spoke to Keiro next, though his voice was loud enough to carry. “Still, Brother, I hardly think a few dozen more of us will do any harm. No doubt we’ll raise the Twins’ spirits—a perfect reflection of Sororra’s own stubbornness, eh?” He shook Keiro’s shoulder in what was likely meant to be a brotherly way, but that was too much. Keiro twisted out of his grip, knocked away his extended arm, and the grumbling died into shocked silence. Who would dare assault Valrik Uniro?
Keiro would. He had faced the Twins, and he had nothing else to fear. “There is stubbornness,” he snarled, “and there is stupidity. You are fools, all of you, if you think the Twins will be pleased with disobedience—and you, Valrik, are more the fool for encouraging it. If you are wise, you will leave. The others can’t have gotten far, and a group your size will move faster. You can likely catch them up before the moon rises. Listen, and go.” His voice broke on the last word, his throat thickening unexpectedly. He knew already that it was hopeless.
He could not face them any longer—not without screaming or sobbing. So Keiro turned, and pushed through the crowd until he broke free of them. As he walked through the hills, the murmur of their voices followed him, and a smattering of laughter, of jeers.
If you’ve crossed her, run and weep . . .
Laseneo found him, jabbering and plucking at his sleeve, his voice like knives through Keiro’s skull. Keiro spun on him, and his hand stung—and he did not realize until two breathless moments had passed that it was because he had struck Laseneo. The smaller man stood there, staring and quivering, tears already welling in his eyes, and guilt and fury surged within Keiro, so strongly that he could not tell them apart, could not tell which was stronger, could not tell which was real. He fled, hillsides looming in the darkness, his feet clumsy on the uneven ground until he stuttered to a halt only long enough to yank the ill-fitting boots from his feet. They had belonged to a dead man. He left them behind as he continued racing through the hills, bare feet firm and confident against the ground, his toes pressing into the cool dirt. He ran and ran until his breath was like rocks in his throat, and the ground reached up to grab him. It was not quite falling, but it was not so very far off.
Sitting beneath the slow-spinning stars, Keiro wrapped his arms tight around his churning stomach. He wanted to stand and keep walking, to choose a direction and let the stars guide his feet, but that was hopeless. There was nowhere else in the world left for him, nowhere he belonged, nowhere he would be safe. When Sororra returned, she would mete out the punishment for his failures, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Was there?
Sororra had no mercy for those who opposed her. She was strong, and she respected that same strength in others. She would not stand for disobedience, and Keiro was her hands and her eyes and her voice. He would not stand for it either.
Keiro’s racing pulse slowed by steady beats. The lump eased from his throat. As he stood, his hands were steady.
Keiro made his way toward the largest hill under which the Twins had been buried for centuries. He walked at a slow and measured pace, and his thoughts were empty of everything but his singular purpose.
The mages weren’t allowed to congregate, weren’t allowed to even be near each other, and so the ones who had been chosen to stay behind had each carved out their own space. Keiro hunted down all of them, ten in total, said to each of them, “Come with me,” and they did because of the drug that ran through their veins. He hated using that against them—it made his stomach churn, to see their faces go slack with mindless obedience—but there was no choice left to him. His life hung in the balance, and Keiro had never wanted to be a martyr.
Perhaps the mages would thank him, when it was all done. The thought was cold comfort, and little enough even of that.
He gave them more tremulous orders
as they went, telling them what to do and making sure they knew the signals he would give them. They retained commands so well, even in the throes of their madness. Keiro simply had to hope they wouldn’t falter.
With the ten mages stumbling along behind him, Keiro climbed to the top of the tall hill on the side opposite from where the remaining Fallen had gathered, walked around the crater gouged into its center until he could look out over them all. The few who had been asked to stay, and all the ones who had chosen to.
Keiro made a motion to Terstet—he would always know the mages’ names, always—and saw the man’s hands weaving a spell in response. It was the same spell he had used the last time Keiro had addressed the Fallen, the spell that made his voice loud enough to reach thousands of ears. For the two hundred left, Keiro’s voice would be like thunder over the hills when he called, “Valrik. Ventallo. Blades for the darkness. To me.”
They came slowly, all two score of them—but they did come. Keiro made a mask of his face as they approached. Perhaps they would thank him for this, later—when they began to see how precariously their own lives perched along a dagger’s edge.
Keiro had to make them see.
Keeping his expression masked, Keiro said, “You were asked to stay.” His voice still boomed loud, and he saw some of the two score gathered before him wince, but he did not signal to Terstet to break the spell. He wanted to be sure they heard him, even if it meant shattering their eardrums. “Only you. You were chosen for your loyalty, and your faith, and your usefulness. You were deemed worthy of trust.”
“The Twins handpicked us, did they?” It was one of the youngest among the Ventallo, his voice dripping with scorn.
“No,” Keiro said flatly. His voice had all the authority he had wished for it earlier, drawn up from the dark and desperate place within him. “The Twins wouldn’t waste their time on you. They chose me, and I chose you.”
There was silence, long enough for a dozen heartbeats. Silence, as they waited to see who among their number would be the first to refute him. He gave them those moments, to see if there were any who were exceptionally brave or exceptionally foolish. If any of them were, they hid it well. Fools did not survive long among the Fallen, and the brave did not survive long at all.
Into their waiting silence, Keiro’s voice boomed once more: “You all were there beneath the hill, when I showed you the faces of our gods. You heard when Sororra pardoned Valrik for the sin of declaring himself a leader among men.” Keiro turned his eye to Valrik, whose jaw was clenched, tendons and muscles dancing stark around his eyes. “Do you remember what she said to you?”
“She said the Fallen would need guidance,” Valrik rumbled, and it sounded as though each syllable pained him. “She said I would continue to lead the Fallen.”
“She said more than that, Valrik.”
Keiro imagined that if Valrik still had his eyes, he’d be giving a truly formidable glare. Even if he could, Keiro still would have levelly stared him down. “She said,” Valrik ground out, “that I would lead, with you advising me.”
“You will heed the voice and the hands and the eye of Keiro Godson.” The words flowed through Keiro, empty and easy. “Does that sound familiar?”
“Yes.” Reluctance clipped the word short.
Keiro skimmed his eye across the others, the Ventallo who had cowered before their gods and babbled praises. He knew them, knew their names and their histories—but he couldn’t let those matter. They would understand, soon. “You should all remember Sororra’s words . . . but it seems you are in need of a reminder. You will be our voice, she said to me, and our eye, and our hands. Your word is as our word, and silence shall fall at your speaking. Your actions are as our actions, and none shall doubt you. All of you were there when she said this. Do you remember now?” They didn’t answer, but they didn’t need to. Their hatred was a sharp stench in the night air, their silence answer enough.
Keiro stepped past them and faced the gathered hundreds, the willful Fallen who had thought their faith was more important than their obedience. They should have known better, should have learned the lessons buried so shallowly in all the old stories passed through the Fallen. Sororra had no tolerance for betrayal, no mercy for traitors. My actions are their actions. My hands are not my own.
They all watched, as silent as the Ventallo, for they’d heard Keiro’s words just as clearly. From so far away, Keiro couldn’t make out individual faces, couldn’t see whether they gaped with fear or with fury, couldn’t tell if they were on the edge of fighting or fleeing. It didn’t matter, either way. “You have an excuse, all of you. You did not hear the Twins speak, did not hear them name me their voice. You can be excused your doubts—after all, it’s a poor servant who never questions the reasons for doing his master’s bidding. The Twins are kind, and merciful, and they will understand why you doubted that my words were truly theirs.” They must have been at least a little frightened, for Keiro could almost taste the relief that now washed through them. He quashed it. “They will not understand your disobedience, though—that’s one thing they cannot abide.”
Without turning away from the gathered Fallen, he called to one of the mages, Enil, to create a shield, watched the lines of its power crackle along the crown of the hill, surrounding Keiro and the Ventallo and the mages and the black-armored mercenaries. A line, drawn definitionally between those who obeyed and those who did not. He called on the other eight mages, called them each by name. With his voice still loud as thunder, and flat as a dead man’s gaze, Keiro commanded the mages, “Kill them all.”
If you’ve crossed her, run and weep . . .
They all doubted him, Keiro thought, all of them—doubted him even until the fires began to blossom among the gathered Fallen.
The Ventallo shouted, though their cries were not louder than the ones from below that rose shrieking into the night sky. With face fixed in a mask of impassivity, Keiro watched the fires spread—eight fires, tendrils reaching and joining and growing. A hand grabbed at Keiro’s shoulder, and without thinking, Keiro grabbed the offending wrist, twisted and yanked so that a wet pop registered briefly below all the screaming. No one else touched him. Some of the Ventallo battered themselves against the shield, straining to be free, but not so many of them. Fools did not survive long among the Fallen. The brave did not survive long at all.
Somewhere in the conflagration would be nervous Laseneo, who had wanted only to serve. But Keiro had not asked him to stay, and Keiro could show no mercy, and no remorse.
Sororra would not tolerate disobedience, and she would not tolerate those who allowed it. If the disobedient Fallen were here when she returned, she would kill them anyway. Was it so terrible, then, to take their lives sooner? Take them, to spare his own? The end result was no different, save that Keiro might survive it this way. He couldn’t—shouldn’t—wouldn’t be held accountable for their foolishness. They had chosen their fates.
A few of the Fallen broke free of the spreading inferno, stumbling shrieking into the surrounding hills. The mages—ever obedient—sent tongues of flame skittering after these runaways without even being told. Kill them all, Keiro had said. He could as well have shouted, Save me. Help me. Please.
He watched, his face an impassive mask, as a hundred and a half of his sworn brothers and sisters burned. It would surely draw Sororra’s eye, and the righteous fire of vengeance would drive all other thoughts from her mind.
It had to.
Once all the screaming had stopped, and the fires had turned the bodies to ash upon the scorched dirt, Keiro made a motion with his hand. His hand didn’t shake at all, the mask spreading like a creeping vine to hold him steady. The fires, never anything natural to begin with, died quickly as snuffed candles. The shield fell away, though none of the Ventallo made any move to pass beyond where its line had been drawn. Hot air rushed forward and hit Keiro like a slap, but his toes curled into the soft earth, and he didn’t stumble or sway. He made himself draw a dozen deep
breaths, the heat and the burned-meat smell tearing at his throat, until he could speak without choking. Speak without letting the mask shatter.
“I am their voice, and their eyes, and their hands,” he said, and his voice still shook the air atop the hill. He had not asked Terstet to dismiss that spell. He needed to be sure they heard him. “My word is their word, and my actions are their actions.”
Finally he turned to face the Ventallo, looked at them without looking at them. He didn’t want to see their fear or their hatred or their horror. He didn’t want to see what he had done, reflected back to him in the emptiness of their eyes.
I’m so sorry, he whispered into the blank mouth of the mask.
“Heed me,” he said, “for I am the voice of the night.”
Chapter Ten
Anddyr pressed his ear to the chest below him, listening to the fluttering uncertainty of a heart trying so desperately to fight. It was almost a physical ache for Anddyr, to watch Rora struggling to stay alive and not be able to do a damned thing to help.
They’d bound his hands exceptionally well: wrists flat together, fingers tucked around each other with strips of fabric wound between each digit. His hands were of little more use than a club at the end of his arms, and it kept him from shaping his fingers into the sigils necessary to cast any spells. He couldn’t heal Rora, couldn’t help her at all. He didn’t think she was close to death—though without his magic, he couldn’t be sure—and he’d guided Aro through as much healing as he could . . . but healing was complicated, and Aro had had so little time to learn even the basics. He could have done more harm than help, his magic stumbling through Rora’s battered body, and they wouldn’t even know it until blood started bubbling from her lips, or her eyes were bulging from the swelling of her brain, or . . .