Chapter Nine
Kai
The smell was the same as always. Stale breath locked in an airless space; herbs and wilting flowers and rot. The stench of illness, a sickbed, an acrid burning somewhere in the back of his throat.
Memory was an amazing thing.
“Mei vich,” the voice rasped in the dark, “Come, voirneen, let me look at you.”
Kai counted his fingers, checked his pocket watch, although seeing his father was indication enough that he was dreaming.
The room rocked, an incoming storm. Kai rubbed his eyes and pivoted, searching for a door, an old escape trick; his legs crashed into something and he cursed.
Da smiled up at him from the warped coffin, his chest rising shallowly beneath the blanket.
Moonglows bobbed overhead, making his face appear sunken, ghastly.
“Try it,” Da whispered. “I’ve seen you do amazing things, Kai.”
His eyes burned. Kai wiped roughly at them, trying in vain to remember where he had fallen asleep. “I wish you hadn’t encouraged me,” he muttered, striding, tumbling, into the darkness. “I’ve had to carry that ever since.”
Da followed. He always followed. "The healers have all given up, Kai. But I know you can do it." His smile widened, bisecting his bloodless face. "You've done it before."
"That was a rat, and – " Kai dug his palms into his closed eyelids and whirled, stalking away in the opposite direction. There was no point in arguing, no point in trying to save his father, in trying to undo the finishing knot in a healing ward of shaky, misguided threads.
The darkness thickened, ice-cold mud dragging each step. He would walk until he woke. He slowed his breaths, counted his fingers, checked the time. The pocket watch melted in his hands; he flung it, gelatinous, into the rising muck at his feet.
You're safe, he chanted. This is a dream.
"Have you prayed?" Saros asked, helpful as ever. Behind him, Da steered the Leviathos on choppy black waters, huge and hale and sun-browned as he was before he got sick. The Archpriest lifted both hands to the moonless night sky. "Menon will save you. Menon will save us all."
"I wouldn't count on it," Da said, his dark curls whipping in the wind. "Not with this storm coming."
Insects crawled beneath Kai's skin. His legs caught in the frozen mud, a familiar paralysis; he clenched his jaw, anxious breath lodged in his throat, and worked to move his fingers, his toes, anything.
Nothing can hurt you. You're safe. It was as close to praying as anything Kai had done in fifteen years, but the thing was, it wasn't true. The insects burrowed deeper, silkworms quickening in his gut, his lungs, the marrow of his bones. They gnawed.
"Don't fight it, son," Saros called as the Leviathos cracked apart around them all. Icy tendrils of open sea clung to the old man, pulling him down, down.
Thousands of tiny teeth, consuming, replacing; he was a whalefall, a bloated corpse turned fuel.
Nails dug into his arm and Kai screamed, the sound swallowed by the swarm of moths fluttering forth from his throat – and behind him, as always, Ione rose out of Llyr’s grave, small and white and faceless.
“Filth.” Her hair floated around her empty face. She too was drowning. “I wholeheartedly disapprove."
Even though she hated him – and gods, did he feel it – Kai reached for her, desperate for something to hold onto, to drag down with him. Ivory strands of hair like spider’s silk wrapped around his outstretched fingers.
The world rushed, brightened. He choked back another scream, letting air flood his lungs, banish the swarm. Kai blinked himself awake and jerked back, startled to find River's face across from his.
“Swords,” he croaked. Wiping his eyes – thank the gods, they weren’t wet – Kai scanned his surroundings, his body curled and sore from how he’d been laying on the old sofa.
The common room in the acolytes’ building gaped around him, bookshelves, a cold fireplace, furniture draped in blankets and cushions in violent primary patchwork.
They were alone. Kai must have made some sort of noise to draw River out.
Kai pushed himself up, the sofa groaning beneath him.
A book slid off his lap and thumped onto the floorboards, making him flinch.
River knelt before the sofa in off-day attire, soft linen sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
He watched Kai with preternatural patience, quiet and unmoving, waiting, staring, made Kai wonder if this was real, if he really was awake.
He counted his fingers, checked the time, made double sure by leaning forward, studying River for any distortions, any glimmers of falsehood.
There, a splodge of white on River’s cheek.
He touched his fingertips to it and jerked back, frightened to find him warm, alive.
He licked the powder from his thumb and frowned, not recognising it.
“For gods’ sakes, Kai.” River rubbed his forehead, parental disappointment. “It’s flour.”
“Flowers?”
“Flour. For bread.” He sighed and said, slowly, like Kai might bite him, “I think you need to see a healer.”
The watery midmorning light chilled him. Kai craned his neck over the back of the sofa, searching. If he focused he could make out the faint outlines of people, ghosts, watching him. Judging.
“A healer,” Kai echoed, rousing himself. He summoned a frail laugh. “What for? I’m only tired.” His cup of Saros’s Finest sat half-empty on the side table, cold. Kai finished it in one gulp, felt the insects quieting within him, blissful slumber.
He registered he was up and walking only after bashing his shoulder into the doorjamb on the way out. He could sense River staring after him, torn between following and returning to his bread or flowers or whatever he was doing.
Kai wished he would follow, talk to him, distract him. He wished he would leave him alone.
Oseidos felt darker with his brothers loitering around the place.
Of course the weather didn’t help, overcast and gloomy as it had been the past few days.
Kai shoved his hands into his pockets and kept his head down as he walked the noisy halls of the acolytes’ building, nodding at whoever demanded greeting, ignoring most. Outside the windows, the Leviathos’s huge form loomed like the shadow of a reaper.
Saros adored Etan and Nalu, naturally. Kai’s brothers had undertaken small tasks in the past, had proven themselves efficient in delivering cargo or handling problems; now, as Saros’s newest pets, they met with the Archpriest often, discussed this person or that who could be convinced to donate to Saros’s war effort, amendments and additions to Hilo’s repairs in Caelos, rumours about Soliz Shrine and Castor Almenara.
Kai couldn’t stomach attending their little meetings.
They had to be good, lie low, until the right moment. That left Oseidos lousy with Leviathos crewmen careening around the island like drunken ants, enjoying their shore leave and unnerving the locals.
Kai skulked into the refectory, intending to boil an egg or something.
A meal fit for kings. Ha! He’d normally hang around River until whatever he was making was finished – it was shocking how much food one could earn from washing a couple of dishes; splashing water on things was Kai’s fucking specialty – but after storming out of the common room, he could hardly somersault back in and ask to be fed.
A gaggle of sailors laughed and shouted and pounded on a table at the far end of the room, raising his hackles and making him clench his jaw.
Soon. Soon, they would be gone.
He’d just made it to the cupboards and located the basket of eggs when a voice nearly startled him into dropping it. Ione stood on the other side of the counter, her arms crossed like a reproachful mother. Behind her, Disciples A, B and C milled about.
“Warden,” Ione called him again, mulish. She waited until Kai abandoned his lunch and moved closer. She pointed blatantly behind her at the sailors. “Ask them to leave.”
As though in response, a glass broke and the sailors all laughed and jeered. Ione’s eye twitched.
Kai laughed mirthlessly. “You make them leave, Princess.”
“They’re your people.”
“They’re not my anything.” He could feel their eyes on him, sense the subtle nudges and nods. There’s Warden Almighty, too good for us now, little shit. “My people,” Kai muttered, “will be much better.”
As though it made any difference to Kai, Ami gestured weakly at a small round table nearby, upon which sat a tea set. “We’re trying to have tea. The priests said the Leviathosi aren’t even supposed to be in here, but – ”
“Have tea in your own flat,” Kai suggested. “Problem solved.”
Ione rolled her eyes. “Mother has a headache.”
“It’s best to stay away,” Cynthia added sagely.
“And it’s not just about tea,” Ione griped, leaning on her hands over the counter. She pointed at him. “These people – your people – are a nuisance. They’re loud, and crude – ”
“Preaching to the penitent.”
“ – and they’re distracting me – ” Here Ione laid a hand over her heart, looking forlorn. “from my training. Which, I remind you, is important.” She hung her head in a dramatic sigh when someone else broke a glass. “Gods help us, I’d thought you were intolerable.”
It was as close to a compliment as anything she’d ever given him.
Cynthia and Ami added to her complaints, stories of late-night card games turning violent, crewmen scamming sellers at the market out of their wares, nothing Kai had never heard of. Behind them, Lina kept her head bowed, flinching at any rise in volume from the sailors.
She had been even dodgier than usual since the Leviathos docked. While she’d never warmed to Kai, she at least spoke up now and then, managing to find strength in her lady and her friends when they were near. Now, she was like a ghost.
She was hiding something. Kai knew it now more than ever.