Chapter Thirty
Fauna balled a fistful of fabric from my dress into her hand, clutching me nervously. The gesture was just out of view from those around us so no one else could perceive her anxiety. I leaned into her until our shoulders touched, shielding her display from curious eyes. They wouldn’t expect her to have any emotional response to an angel. Even I was somewhat surprised. Her emotions ran so hot and cold, I hadn’t been sure how she’d feel.
Caliban led me beneath the low lighting to the stadium’s centermost seats—seats of honor I supposed. He was kingly in every regard and treated as such. I was extended courtesies for being on his arm and little else. It was for that diplomatic courtesy alone that I’d been allowed the human indulgence of bringing my dog.
I didn’t love that everyone insisted on dressing me in white wherever I went, but it evaporated from my mind. Music was playing, as it had been the last two days of the banquet. There was a vibrant buzz about the crowd as everyone celebrated the final day of festivities. I was reminded of the time my father had taken me to see the rodeo when I was young. It was one of the few days he’d been left alone to entertain me, and we’d ended up in a tin barn with a dirt floor and a number of horses, clowns, and cowboys.
The Phoenicians didn’t need the enormity of a Roman coliseum for human rulers. This arena was where gods quenched their bloodlust. It was dark, and despite the dim lighting, there was a wealth about the space. I expected a dusty theater spotlight to pop into the center at any moment.
I kept my face set with neutrality as attendants served wine. Poppy and Dorian were in the row just above us, her draping finery and his dark linens making me wonder if they’d brought their own attire. She’d offered me a polite wave, Dorian a kindly nod as we sat. I would have thought nothing of it, had I not remembered our conversation of ranking. Dorian, Zeus’s equal by blood, Baal’s equivalent in rank, was higher in the pecking order than a prince.
They’d been offered equal ranking with Baal and Anath. Baal’s finery was also airy in a way that denoted his status. It was only someone protected and royal who needn’t fear power or armies or weapons. Breezy garb was a luxury of those without enemies. At his side was the iridescent shimmer of Anath’s raven-black dress. Her night-dark hair had been swept dramatically to one side, the blue, purple, and silver smattering of galaxies decorating her eyelids like incandescent war paint.
Our eyes met for the briefest of moments. If she hated me, I couldn’t tell. Perhaps I was too insignificant for her to bother with a feeling like hate. I couldn’t answer the question, myself. I supposed she was doing precisely what I was. She stood firm in wanting justice for Astarte. I was fighting for my friends, too.
Even if I could empathize with her position, I sure as fuck didn’t like her.
Fauna was escorted in by a Canaanite attendant, Ella and Estrid trailing behind her. The servant ushered Fauna to the seat beside me. While she grinned with the excitement of someone about to see the midnight release of a favorite film, I knew her well enough to see that, though the skin around them crinkled, her eyes remained joyless. The moment she took a seat beside me, my suspicions were confirmed.
Fenrir sat primly between us, sable fur glossy in the dim lighting. He remained stoic and alert as he watched the world mill about.
Pork and cakes and wine didn’t need tables to be served. Attendants bustled about for our elaborate dinner theater. I looked down at the perfectly crisped skin of my dish, but felt anything I ate might come up at any moment. I knew what awaited us. And from Fauna’s nervous fist, so did she.
I kept my tone easy as I leaned over to Ella and Estrid. “I’m so glad I was able to make more friends from the Nordic realm! I hope to be able to visit your home on our next ambassador trip. Do you have excitement like this?”
Estrid attempted to play the role, but faltered.
I saw my mistake. Battle was not for actors and jokers, and she knew it. A valkyrie would find nothing amusing about the execution of an angel. She stumbled through a word or two before Ella took over.
“Oh, I keep things dull.” She winked. “All’s fair in love and war, right? She may be born for bloodshed, but I know a thing or two about lust, and we both know how much more sway it has over the heart.”
“I’d hardly call that dull,” I countered. And I recognized the voice speaking. Perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed the shift had it not been for the way I caught Fauna’s subtle glance. Maribelle was speaking. Maribelle, who could navigate horrid social situations, who could do what needed to be done to close the deal. Maribelle was at the stadium today, and it was her who would get me through this.
“Wine, my lady?” asked an attendant. I had been almost certain I’d been holding a glass. I wasn’t sure where it had gone, but nodded and accepted another. Beside me, I noticed Caliban throw back the first glass before returning to his normal chalice. I wasn’t sure how much more it took to get a god drunk, but he extended both glasses to the attendant.
“I’d appreciate it if you kept them coming,” he said.
I felt something strange as he nodded at the helper and took another swig.
Caliban was in pain. Once more, his hands were tied. He’d chosen time and time again to insert himself in realms where his reach was limited. He’d struggled through the mortal realm as he’d watched me destroy myself and push him away, yet he’d refused to leave. Even if Azrames took three thousand lashes, I understood that he intended to be present. Every crack, every cry, would be his guilt to bear. Silas was another in a long line of responsibilities he’d shoulder.
I inhaled the rich spice of the red wine. The chalices were a dramatic gold. Maribelle was fine with red wine. She’d drink anything. She’d wear Louis Vuitton, laugh at the unfunny jokes of tech bros, and keep her pretty face neutral and alluring. Marlow, however, wanted to put ice cubes in her white wine and put on her pajamas. She wanted to be alone in her bed, using her laptop as a television. She wanted these horrors to be in her imagination, just as Caliban had been.
But I was far past that now. I could be neither, or I could be both.
“Have you been to an event like this?” came the spring-like tinkle of bells from above me. I turned around to see Poppy’s kind smile. She was making conversation, and she wasn’t. I knew a distraction when I saw one.
“It’s my first,” I said miserably.
She nodded, slipping her fingers into Dorian’s as she did so. He broke whatever conversation he’d been having with Baal to regard his partner, looking down at her delicate hand and giving it a squeeze. He returned to his chatter, but I knew he’d left more than half of his attention with her.
“I’ve attended a few,” she said. “Dorian wasn’t exaggerating. I don’t care for blood. We all make our concessions in partnership.”
“What concession did you make?” I asked.
She chuckled and looked at me knowingly.
Ah, yes . Persephone famously abandoned the spring, the sun, the flowers, the sky. She’d left her mother, the Olympians, and the world around her for her life with Hades. That was a promise made long before they’d become Poppy and Dorian. I wondered what their true names were before legend had dubbed them Hades and Persephone. I wondered if they spoke them to each other in the quiet of their home, in the secrecy of their realm. Or perhaps they gave themselves a fresh start by choosing rebirth with each new name.
I’d given Caliban several names, so I’d been told.
But for me, he’d offered only one. No matter what my birth certificate said, what language I spoke, or what my friends and family had called me throughout the ages, I remained unchanged.
I scanned the crowed, curious if I’d be able to piece together bits of lore from the various beings scattered about. I thought I’d spotted a djinn until the dark hair attached to the horns turned and I caught the unmistakable profile of a perfectly gray nose. I hadn’t expected Azrames to be invited to the gruesome festivities. Given the armed escort surrounding him on the lowest level, I suspected that he was there to watch as warning, not as a guest.
“Honored guests,” boomed a voice from overhead. I turned to see Baal, smile glistening, hands open as he gestured to the arena. While Baal was charm and candor, the son beside him grinned with muscles and pride. I was liking Baal more and more every moment I had to be around his family members. He continued, “We haven’t reveled in such pleasure in centuries. Not only have we been granted the return of my father and a most esteemed goddess of our realm, but the chance to host this ambassador mission with our friends and allies.”
A smattering of toasts, cheers, and revelry came from those in the stands. The Nordes, the Grecians, Caliban, and I gave our politest smiles, but contributed to none of the jolly noise. Only the esteemed members of the Phoenician realm, major and minor gods and goddesses, prominent entities, and powerful beings celebrated the accomplishment. The crowd was unnervingly intimate. It was a sacred event, meant only for those worthy of its attendance.
“And it is with these friends that I offer retribution for our beloved goddess’s death: the gift of justice against our shared enemy.”
The audience erupted into earsplitting cheers. I swallowed as Fauna’s fist twisted the fabric of my dress. She channeled her energy well, keeping her face as happy and unbothered as I’d ever seen. I didn’t dare look at Estrid, but I suspected everyone in the audience would be understanding of any expression worn by a valkyrie.
I stifled a gasp as a true spotlight appeared, whether through torchlight or magic. I’d been certain such a thing would be impossible among gods. It was too much like an unholy circus. To my horror, the music did not stop. The band adjusted their song, interlacing the minor chords of their plucked strings with anxiety-inducing percussion.
The orchestra was going to score the battle.
I heard the grunt before I saw the angel. He stopped upright, refusing to stumble. He was battered and bruised, but kept his shoulders back and chin high. He clutched an unimpressive sword, but they’d offered him no shield. He raised his forearm in a defensive position to act as its counterpart. A glittering cloud of dust, interlaced with whatever bits of mica and pyrite might set a pantheon’s arena to starlight, sparkled in the beam of light. I lost my breath as Caliban failed to suppress his words beside me. I could just distinguish the low sound of his disbelief amidst the crowd.
“They didn’t unbind his wings.”
We weren’t the only ones who were horrified. Estrid’s controlled grunt of protest interjected into the stadium’s murmur. She and the Nordes had no allegiance with the angels, but she knew a warrior who’d been unfairly disadvantaged when she saw one.
“And now”—wicked amusement colored Baal’s declaration—“our champion!”
Silas was no deity, nor should a god sully themselves by facing him. Instead, he was to face a soldier in their pantheon. She was the night owl, preying on the blood of anyone who worshipped rival pantheons. He was the falcon, the unclean bird of the Old Testament lore, tangling with monsters.
A second beam of light cut through the arena. The estries stepped a single foot dramatically into the pooling floodlight, then another. The light took its time crawling up her frame, exposing her boots, her leather pants, the hardened leather of her top, the sharp, glittering sword in one hand, the hair slicked into a long, dark, high ponytail that dripped down her back in a single braid, and the enormous expanse of bat-like wings that flared at her back.
Caliban and Estrid weren’t the only ones making noises of disapproval.
If this was to be their only blood fuel in centuries, the people wanted a good fight. Perhaps their disappointment was only in knowing their banquet would end early today as the estries expunged Silas from the realms before they’d finished their third glass of wine.
The estries turned toward the people and smiled, the unmistakable gleam of vampiric fangs visible even from where I sat in the audience. She was every bit as beautiful as I’d imagined a succubus might be. I didn’t remember enough of her lore to know if she was meant to be so unfathomably beautiful, or if this was an extension of Fauna’s gift to see wrongly.
The estries lifted her hands to incite the crowd, and they responded to her hunger for attention. The band swelled with dramatic enthusiasm, giving their deadly heroine a theme song. I slipped my hand toward where Fauna’s had gone bloodless and white from tension on the now-wrinkled part of my skirt. She took my hand without looking at it and offered no mercy as she squeezed my bones until my knuckles cracked. Fortunately for us both, I savored the pain. It was a grounding exercise, reminding me that I was here, the problem was now, and everything was real.
To my surprise, it wasn’t Baal’s voice that carried on facilitating the battle. The goddess of war stepped up to bellow through the crowd. “Are you ready?”
The audience responded with feral enthusiasm. The clink of metal on stone echoed as some lost their wine goblets. Screams from men and women tore through with the joy, the vengeance, the need of centuries of neglect, for justice over Astarte’s death. Their cries told me they believed they were owed this sacrifice. Seeing Heaven’s accountability was their birthright.
The orchestra remained low, building anticipation with each minor chord of a string instrument, each reverberation of a bass drum.
The estries smiled a brilliant, terrible smile. She had strolled off the set of a vampire novel, her model-esque beauty meant to lure, to disarm, to stun. Yet she was an agent of death, and she needed us all to know that she would deliver. She brandished her fangs, grinning at Silas as her wings flared behind her.
“His wings!” Estrid shouted out. I’d heard the same frustrated anguish in football fans at bad calls, at coaches when their players had been benched, and now as a valkyrie watched an angel cut off at the ankles. This was not a fair fight.
If Silas was afraid, he didn’t show it.
I’d been too anxious to truly regard him after catching the purple of his bruises and the ropes that restrained the two gilded, feathered appendages that might have leveled their playing ground.
His expression should have reassured me, but instead, it cracked my heart.
Silas’s face was neutral. His jaw was set. His sword was raised. Everything about him said he was ready to fight to the death, because that’s exactly what this was. He tensed in preparation for his last fight. There was a finality about his aura that chilled me.
“On my count!” came Anath’s proud, happy battle cry.
The warriors fixed their footing. The drumming increased. The crowd began to pace their cheers with the thrumming percussion.
“Three!”
My sight flitted, hornet-like in its stabbing lurches as I looked between Silas and the estries, his jaw ticking, her grin glistening. The drum beat quicker and quicker, its roll swelling, nearly about to break.
“Two!”
Two of my knuckles popped as Fauna tightened her grip on my hand so hard that my fingers ceased to belong to me. My lungs burned as I refused to inhale or exhale. The crowd could barely keep up with the frantic percussion as the beats became so fast that they were scarcely indistinguishable.
“One!”
Half the audience went wild at the musical feat of the hummingbird thrum of constant drumming. The other half of the audience froze. We watched in collective, breathless anticipation. Tension rippled through the multitudes, from the excited onlookers to the horrified ambassadors, as we strained to watch the two on the ground.
“Fight!”