by ST Branton
“You eat like a true warrior,” he said.
I licked juice off my fingertips. “At least I do something like a damn warrior.” Under the comforter, I stretched my bad leg out in search of a comfortable position. The pain had eased but it did not disappear. “I’m about to sleep like one. That’s for sure.”
“A hero’s rest,” Marcus affirmed. He cleared the empty plates away and ran a cloth over the tray. The ladle of nectar was refilled.
“I feel bad watching you act like my butler,” I confessed and took a long draught of nectar. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s also amazing. But I can’t help thinking it’s, like, a step down for you.”
The soldier laughed. He turned down the edges of the blankets and tucked them in around me. “It is no matter. To have a corporeal form at all is an occasion to be savored. I would be grateful to do anything with these hands.”
I gazed at him. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I’m really, really glad to see you but I didn’t know this was possible.” I paused. “How is it possible? I thought bringing back the dead was usually number one on the list of things that are never allowed.”
Marcus shrugged his shoulders. “No more than the miracle of Carcerum,” he answered. “I am grateful that you are allowed to experience it in all its glory.” A shadow crossed his face. “Well, some of its glory. It wasn’t always quite so…hollow.”
I shuffled down into the bed and sighed as the luxurious mattress hugged my exhausted body. “I want to ask you something, and I need you to be a hundred percent honest with me,” I said. “No, more than that. Like a thousand percent.”
My eyelids instantly became heavy. I stifled a yawn. The million thoughts in my head slowed to a crawl.
“I have never been anything but honest with you, my friend,” said Marcus. “This will always be true.”
“Good.” I rolled onto my side and faced him. “Do you know what’s going on here, for real?”
He shook his head. “We are in the same boat, Victoria. My guess is as valuable as yours.” His eyes moved toward the half-draped window that caught the light. “But one thing I do know above all else is that if Kronin is alive, all will be well. I feel it in my very soul. He has not forsaken us.”
“Hmm.” I blinked slowly and fought the powerful force that drew me into sleep. “I’m not so sure about that.”
Marcus touched my arm. “Have faith, Victoria, and hope. Sometimes, in the darkest hours, these are what carry us through.”
His words followed me down into a dreamless dark. They made me think of Deacon in the moments before I drifted off. If only faith, hope, and love could be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cocooned in the finest, softest blankets I had ever felt, I slept for what might have been hours or days or weeks. All I knew when I woke up was that it was the most fulfilling rest I’d had in a long, long time. The feeling reminded me a little of life before the gods and waking up to go to work, or practice, or college classes.
Except I now woke up in Carcerum on the other side of the veil from the Himalayan Mountains. Someone had come in while I slept and dropped breakfast off on that same polished tray. I dug in and relished the sensation of being full of rich, nutritious food. Months of stews and preserved rations had dulled my taste buds, but they wasted no time and seemed to spring immediately back to life.
I leaned back on the pillows for a moment after my meal and absorbed the abundance of comfort. No wonder Marcus could never shut up about the place.
The bedroom had an adjoining bath. In my haste to fall asleep as quickly as possible, I had not used it. Now, I stood on the bath mat, stripped off my dirty, travel-worn clothes, and dropped them onto the pristine floor. The soles of my feet left smears in the basin of the tub, even though I’d worn boots on my way up the mountain. I twisted the knobs on either side of the faucet and realized they were golden. Everything here was golden.
Steam curled from the water as it swirled around my feet. I basked in the heat, my eyes closed, and grinned. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so pampered—or had the time and facilities to soak in a bathtub. My worries and fears washed away with the grime on my skin. For the moment, I felt free.
I lingered there, submerged up to my neck, until the water was gross and dingy. Then, I drained it, filled it again, and washed myself totally clean. As I lathered soap along my legs, I took a minute to inspect my sword wound closely for the first time since I’d received it. There was no more blood but it didn’t look healed, either. The skin around the incision was dark. I touched it lightly, winced, and jerked my hand back.
“Yep,” I muttered. “It still hurts.” But it was better. I could stand and walk without too much of a problem. I had dealt with far worse than occasional shooting pains.
The towels were huge and fluffy and seemed to drink the moisture right off my skin. I found a comb and ran it through my hair. The mirror told me that the dark circles under my eyes had finally decided to vacate the premises. To be honest, I didn’t look half bad. Of course, the one day I looked super good, Deacon wasn’t there to appreciate it.
The simple act of thinking about him made my stomach squeeze uncomfortably. I finished getting dressed and left the bedchamber for a self-guided tour around Carcerum. The inside of my head remained amazingly quiet as I headed down the hall. It was almost weird not to have Marcus constantly chatting away in there. Still, I wasn’t about to take total independence for granted.
Beyond Kronin’s combination banquet hall and throne room, I found an atrium that opened into the wildest gardens I had ever seen. I took a peek at the throne as I passed. It stood empty and so did the hall before it. The fragrance of flowers struck my senses as I passed beneath a glass dome that filtered sunlight down to hundreds of multicolored blooms. The garden air was sweet and heavy. It was tempting to sit on one of the ornate benches along the path, but I walked on through a door on the other side of the glass-walled greenhouse. A whole world stretched beyond the confines of the palace, and I wanted to see as much of it as possible.
The land was gorgeous and sweeping, painted in every shade imaginable—plus some I swore I’d never seen. Every blade of grass, every drop of water, and every pebble beside the immaculate roads held a muted glow in its depths. The soaring sky blazed cerulean above my head. The sun followed wherever I went and caressed my skin with its subtle warmth. Winter was nonexistent in Carcerum and I didn’t miss it all that much.
I strolled along the footpaths that threaded through the kingdom until my leg began to act up a little. It was a simple matter to find my way back. I simply needed to check the horizon for the imperial outline of Kronin’s palace. I chose a straight path toward it and approached the grounds from a different angle to which I had left them. I ended up in a smaller set of outdoor gardens artfully arranged around the base of a burbling fountain.
Kronin sat on the side of the fountain’s basin—smoking, as usual. He gazed into the rippling water, deep in rumination. I slowed my pace. Food and sleep had cooled a lot of the searing anger I’d unleashed upon my arrival in Carcerum, and although I still had some burning questions for the guy, I harbored a pang of remorse for my actions.
“Good morning,” Kronin said suddenly. He glanced at me and smiled. “You’re feeling well, I hope.” If he thought I was an asshole for shouting at him, his grace never faltered.
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly. “Much better. Listen, I’m sorry for acting like a prick—like a jerk—when I got here. I won’t take back what I said, but I realize I could have said it better.” I scratched my head. “I was in a bad way. I guess you could probably tell.”
He studied me quietly. “There is no need to apologize,” he said. “Your anger is justified. There are many things that I would perhaps change if I had the opportunity. But the past is untouchable, and so we must look to the future instead.” He stood. “Please, walk with me. I want to show you the kingdom.”
We walked the land in silence for a whil
e, side by side as we took in the immeasurable majesty of the realm. Experiencing it with Kronin was a far different experience than it had been on my own. Miles seemed to slip by in minutes. We followed a path down to a point that overlooked a grand, sprawling city. The maze of streets lay below us, eerily devoid of life. Then, he led me in another direction through thick forests and rolling fields. Small, cozy hamlets dotted the countryside. These, too, were empty. I quickly lost count of the places we saw, and each one stood abandoned, waiting patiently for anyone to return.
“This place,” Kronin said as he stared out into the distance, “was once inhabited by beings much greater than the gods. They were the creators of all that we know today—the Earth, the gods themselves, even humanity. As you can see, they are long gone. They were gone even when I first arrived. Carcerum was empty then, the same way it is now.”
“Where did they go?” I asked.
“That is an excellent question.” He stopped to consider it and tilted his head back. The sunlight poured across his face to highlight his impeccable features. “Maybe they grew bored with their little pet project on your planet and left it behind for other, more interesting pursuits. Or they could have died, I suppose, assuming they had natural lifespans. It’s impossible to know.” He continued his walk without elaborating. I found his habitual vagueness annoying.
“Speaking of death,” I said pointedly, “I thought you were dead. And so did Marcus.”
The God-King’s smile was grim this time, and sad. “I am not dead,” he answered. “But I am dying. Delayed as its effects may be, the blow that Lorcan dealt was still a fatal one. I have survived this long thanks only to the sustaining power of this wonderful place. If not for my necessary forays down to your realm, I could have lived longer.” He shook his head. “It is not to be. The thread of my existence frays thinner as we speak. The nectar and the herbs can only do so much.”
I smirked. “I wondered how you could stand to chain-smoke like that.”
Kronin chuckled. “Yes. In fact, the smoking is what lent me so much borrowed time. The element of disguise was simply a necessary side benefit. To reveal my true identity would have been to invite an even more powerful danger upon the world. The gods’ efforts to end me once and for all would have reduced the human realm to dust.”
I chewed my lip. “Why did you do it, Kronin? It seems…” I didn’t finish the sentence.
“Stupid?” he suggested. “Naïve? Foolhardy? Perhaps it was all of those things. I wanted to ensure that the sword fell into the right hands.” He looked at me. “I believe that particular mission has been accomplished. You still have the raw strength to triumph over Delano’s plague of evil.”
“I used to think that,” I said. “Then he trounced me, and now, I’m not positive anymore. I know I need to go back but it might not be enough.”
“I doubted myself once, too,” Kronin said.
Our route meandered in a wide, lazy circle around the palace. No matter where I looked, the scene was utterly breathtaking. Sparkling waterfalls cascaded over violet, clean-cut cliffs. Verdant forests swayed in a gentle, floral-scented breeze. Birdsong floated past my ears. I had always thought Marcus was pretty full of it, the way he went on and on about Carcerum. Now that I knew it was every bit as idyllic as he’d said, a seed of resentment began to fester.
“Why the heck did you bring the gods to this place?” I demanded. We now angled gradually back toward the palace grounds. Immediately outside the garden perimeter, Marcus appeared and fell into step beside us. I spoke again, unable to suppress my irritation. “The way they whined about it, I pictured a prison.” I scoffed. “It turns out it’s more like a paradise. Too good for them.” It pissed me off to imagine scum like Lorcan being allowed to exist in this beautiful realm. He never deserved to look at it, much less live in it.
“I had no choice,” Kronin told me sadly. “Without Lorcan’s help, I could never have defeated the other gods and won the war in the first place. We both knew that, and so we made a deal. The gods were granted life in Carcerum in lieu of death on Earth. I thought it was a good bargain, one that they would accept, if not embrace.” He pressed his lips together. “Obviously, I was mistaken.”
Marcus looked pained but he remained silent. Kronin went on. “I believed with all my heart that I would be able to give the gods everything they wanted, everything to keep them happy. I failed to understand that they didn’t want to be happy. They wanted control. Lorcan had known that all along. He’d planned, bided his time, and Delano never wavered from his side.”
“Hold on.” I held up my hand. “I still don’t understand why you had to make a deal with that idiot in the first place. You’re Kronin the Almighty, wielder of the Gladius Solis. The original God-King. Why bother making deals with Lorcan or anyone else?”
“What else was I to do?” he countered. “I am only human, after all.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Marcus and I both halted abruptly and stared dumbstruck at Kronin’s back.
“Human?” Marcus murmured, disbelieving.
Kronin nodded. “I had a family, once upon a time,” he said. “A lovely wife and sweet, innocent children. We lived in a house on the outskirts of a little village. I ran a forge and made pots and horseshoes and other useful things. It was a good and simple life, and yet I still allowed myself to be pressured by a god into leaving it behind.” His face darkened briefly. “The god’s name has long since been lost in the annals of history—that’s how inconsequential he was in the end. Nonetheless, I knew no better. I packed my things up and rode out to battle in service of this tiny deity. I witnessed many horrors then, but none compared to what I found upon my return.”
“Oh, no,” I said softly.
“The gods were gone from my village,” Kronin said. “Who knows if they even made it there. It was their creatures who found and destroyed it. They burned the houses down and reduced everything to broken piles of rubble. I rode as fast as I could, hoping against hope that they might have turned back before they reached my home.” He shook his head and kept it lowered. “My wife, my children—they weren’t spared. In my grief, I made a furious vow to cleanse the world of these murdering vermin. I wanted to make sure they were indeed forgotten. I merely didn’t know how to make it happen.”
“My liege.” Marcus’s voice was full of sorrow. “I had no idea.”
Kronin continued his story, seemingly heedless of any interruption. The sentences poured out of him as if they’d been held hostage behind a dam for centuries. “I gave up everything I knew to travel the world in search of any scrap of information that could help me bring about their demise. I wanted a mass Forgotten extinction. No lead was too small, too strange, or too insignificant. I began to push the boundaries of human experience. This is what led me eventually to Carcerum.” He paused. “And Carcerum, in turn, gave me its two greatest treasures—the nectar and the Solis Stone. One granted me life from a well I perceived to be limitless. The other allowed me to forge a weapon like none other. An inimitable sword which carried in its blade the power to slay the beasts that had torn my world asunder—and the gods who had shaped their existence.”
Kronin shook his head. “With my gifts in hand, I returned to humankind and convinced them to rally behind my godlike strength. We rose up as one, millions strong, to fight back against the invasion. The war reached a fever pitch. Our clashes with the gods were brutal and bloody. Human life was lost in droves.” He gazed at his hands and his voice lowered. “I came to realize the sword alone was not enough, and neither was my iron will. The army I had amassed was no match for the gods and their Apprenti. They were too formidable, and we were severely outnumbered. Every victory of ours came with a dozen setbacks. The gods constantly replenished their forces. I thought the war would rage forever until the Earth was nothing but a dead husk of a planet.
“Then, an emissary arrived in our midst. His name was Delano, and he had been sent by his master Lorcan, a death god. The offer he pr
esented was undeniable. If I had dared refuse, all of humanity would have been extinguished. It was only a matter of time.” He rubbed a hand across his face. The lustrous color in his skin had started to fade slightly. “The deal was struck. The war ended and I brought the gods here to Carcerum.” His mouth turned down into the shadow of a scowl. “We left the other riffraff behind. The threat of serving time in Asphodel was enough to force them into hiding their true natures. And that was how we kept the balance for thousands of years.”
“Wow.” I whistled. I had no idea what else to say.
Kronin walked a few more yards and sat heavily on a bench. He was definitely paler and his fingers fumbled slightly as he withdrew a cigarette. He lit it, leaned back, and dragged on it. “I need not say again that my days are numbered,” he said. “I am sorry that I won’t be able to finish the fight I started. My burdens have at last become too much for me to bear alone, and that means they have fallen to you, Vic. All those years ago, I never dreamed it might one day come to this.”
I looked at him. “Kronin, I can’t carry your burdens. I’ve already failed. Delano has the sword now.” A lump stuck in my throat although I tried to push it back. “There’s nothing more I can do.”
The God-King puffed out a lungful of smoke in perfect rings. He watched them float away before he turned back to me and grinned. He struck me as awfully serene for a guy who was steps away from dying.
“Why does it matter so much that Delano has the Gladius Solis?” Kronin asked.
I arched my eyebrows. “Uh…because that’s the sword you forged from the magic stone. I listened to that whole thing, man. You can’t pull some trick question crap on me.”
His grin widened. “Sure, but who said the Gladius Solis was the only one of its kind?”