Chapter Eighteen
River
Menon’s timely appearance changed everything. Their expectations were higher, their outlook, brighter; no more were they refugees cowering in the newly-restored Caelos Shrine, waiting for the next raid, smoke still burning their lungs. War was imminent, and now they glorified it.
They had Menon. They would survive.
They still mourned their losses, made each night both a funeral and celebration, aided by enough liquor – donated by the Tannos; thank you, Hilo – to kill an average-sized whale.
River joined them whenever he needed a break from his parents’ paltry attempts to reconnect with him, raising his glass and grieving his home of the past eleven years.
He drank to the life he’d lost; to his belongings, his books and piano and memories, all a smudge of ash on the flagstones.
He drank to Ione, who slinked into a small room at the end of the dormitory, refusing all visitors but Cynthia.
He drank to Kai, whose new mantle came with a guilt he didn’t know how to cope with.
With Kai unreachable, it was up to River to be awake, aware, the voice of reason.
The one dragging Kai out of his room every morning and into attempted talks with the high priests, River, hungover; Kai, already on his third drink.
Now that Menon had manifested, River’s own status increased.
Holy Seleneschal, a leader, the role he thought he wanted.
But what he wanted was support. Guidance. He wanted Kai back.
River monitored him on their fourth or fifth night in Caelos, the banquet hall sweltering despite the early autumn chill and pounding with music and drunken uproar.
With a high table near the bar the only thing keeping River upright, he tuned out the pulse of drums and trill of flutes and fixed his gaze on Kai, spinning in endless circles with endless sycophants in the middle of the floor.
Watching Kai was his job, but that didn’t make it fun.
“How you holding up?” came Hilo’s voice behind him. He leaned his elbows on the table, a bottle of wine clunking against the wood. “Kai seems fucking cured. Typical.”
River nodded, his mind flashing to the other night, when Kai learned that Menon would heal him automatically if he was hurt.
Look!, he’d shouted, his hand drenched with blood but unscarred after he’d accidentally broken a glass.
He grabbed another shard, despair trumped briefly by discovery. I wonder how far She’ll let me go?
Very, as it turned out; Saros, once told of it by Nalu, surmised that as long as Kai’s heart still beat, Menon would save him. Kai considered himself a scientist, but to the high priests, he was more a creature pinned beneath a magnifying glass.
“Try not to worry,” Hilo said, although his voice darkened. “It’s not my first crisis minding the prick. ’Least as drunk as he is, he’ll have a hard time making a killing shot.”
River rubbed the memory from his eyes and necked his drink, some liquor that tasted like chemicals and depression. “Let’s not let him get to that point,” he grumbled, thumping the empty glass back down.
Hilo half-smiled, weary, and rested his chin in one hand, both of them taking in the sights and sounds of another night of debauchery.
Holy priests danced with uncouth Tannosi; traumatised acolytes sang through tears to celebrate their immolated loved ones; rowdy Leviathosi challenged uptight guards to drinking games.
And all the while Kai floated amongst a cloud of enamoured priests, all vying to touch his hands and arms and face, to be the ones to refill his drinks, to win a dance from him.
Not from him. From Menon.
“You’re in charge of him tonight,” Hilo said, like River wasn’t already. “Mam’s arriving on the Cetos tomorrow and I’m not losing another night’s sleep babysitting the cunt.”
River saluted, but his eyes were still on Kai, who was growing annoyed with one priestess who clung to him. He held up his hands and said something, shook his head, I don’t want it; she pulled at him and kissed his cheek, his lips.
“Oh, no,” Hilo said blandly when Kai jerked away, teeth bared. “You’d better step in.”
River was already moving when the high crackle of glass resounded.
For a moment Kai looked like he was being swallowed, priests pawing futilely at him as though he needed a healer, the priestess smoothing his hair back, oblivious to how close Kai was to biting.
He stilled, relaxing, when he saw River weaving through the throng to get to him.
“My seleneschal,” Kai announced, casting for River’s sleeve. “Here to save the day.” He waved the priestess, the rest of them off and placed River between him and them. “So g’way with yez, ye fucking pack of spiders.”
Faced with their goddess’s handler, the spiders retreated, Apologies, Holiness, apologies. River merely sighed and pushed Kai back towards the bar. “Let’s get you some water, Kai.”
“Water! Coming right up.” He held up his hands and frowned like he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. River clapped his hands over Kai’s and held them down.
“No magic. If you flood the hall again, Hilo will eat the head off me.”
Kai cackled. “Eat the head offa ye! You’re a real southern man now.”
River dumped him at the bar and waved over the charitable soul who’d agreed to play bartender. “I’m learning all your stupid phrases.” He slid a pint of water in front of Kai. “Drink. You’re mangled.”
“Oh, mangled, am I, mate?” Kai challenged, putting on River’s Sterlingdale accent, or an approximation of it. “Mangled doesn’t even cover it, mate.” He drained the water and slammed the glass down. “I’m off my tits, mate. Bloody ossified, mate.”
“I have literally never called anyone mate.”
“And well bloody chuffed about it, too, mate. Anything to numb my brain against these gormless fucking spiders, all – ” Kai gestured helplessly. “ – spider-ing all over me.”
River pressed his fingertips to his eyelids. He felt himself sway, his ribs crashing against the bar. “Are you done?”
Kai righted him, beaming. “You’re drunk, too, you flaming gobshite!” He threw an arm around his shoulder. “What’re ye at? Verdure?”
River’s stomach protested the very word. “I’m not drinking that shit again.”
“Again?”
He shoved him off. “Kai, if you really don’t remember me fucking myself up with you and everyone else in this room all week, then I’m genuinely concerned for what you’re doing to your brain.”
Kai blinked, blatantly confused. “One, so?”
“No.” River tugged at him. “You’re going to bed.”
The music filling the hall lifted: an accordion player – Hilo, actually; hello, Hilo – had sat with the other musicians and joined in.
“Oh, shit, that bellend’s got tunes.” Kai grabbed River’s hand and snaked an arm around his waist. “S’go dance.”
“Kai.” Some stupid, hopeless instinct had him cupping Kai’s face, holding him so that he looked River in the eye.
“Your mother is coming here tomorrow, and Saros is going to want you sober.” He brushed a smudge of snow from Kai’s cheekbone, his heart kicking when Kai lowered his eyes, his good mood flatlining. “You need sleep.”
“I know.” Kai tilted his head, capturing River’s hand between his cheek and shoulder.
“But whenever it’s quiet, my skin… buzzes,” he went on, grappling for the words.
“My skin, or my veins. I dunno. Menon…” He grimaced, scratching at his arm, his wrist; River glimpsed blood and wrenched his arm away.
Kai watched ruefully as the skin knitted itself back together, red marks washing away until only his older scars remained. For no other reason except that it felt right, River brought the backs of Kai’s fingers to his lips.
Don’t, he thought. Prayed, maybe. Don’t fall apart on me.
“I wanted it to be me,” Kai whispered. “My power. My hard work. My intelligence.” He nodded at the churning crowd, dancing and crying and praising Menon, the moon, the tides.
“These people don’t give a shit about me.
And what kills me is the goddess they’re worshiping doesn’t give a shit about them, either. ”
Kai clenched his fist, his jaw. River gently took his face, shushed him, waited for him to come back from one of the many moments of rage that punctuated these nights.
In time, the heat of his loathing diminished and he bowed his forehead against River’s, drained. “Ineen hates me. Blames me. Maybe it is my fault, telling her I’d take over for her. Menon heard me, and gods play pranks and all. Only a god’s prank ruins people’s entire fucking lives.”
River took his hand. “Ione doesn’t hate you.”
“She does.” Kai peered down at the ring he still wore, even when Ione no longer wore hers. “I see her, sometimes. All bloody, hating me, and I can’t even save her.”
River shook the memory away, tamped down the desire for another drink, himself. One good hit was all it took, and then he was floored, scrambling to hold his own organs in. Helpless, useless, as Ione stood against Castor. As Ione turned a knife against herself.
“Bed,” he said, steering Kai through the crowds. The room was too hot, too loud; Kai waved half-heartedly at every Praise Menon and let River lead him to the exit.
“Good seleneschal,” Kai muttered, shivering when the cold, night-dark air of the outer passage hit them. “Wrangle your rebellious goddess. While you’re at it, yank Her out of this wad of meat and bones.” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together, miming a pair of tongs.
River’s gaze flitted to the open balconies as he dragged Kai with him to the dormitories, at the lavender sky outside shimmering with rain; at Oseidos, distantly, a black mark in the sea.
A heavy listlessness dropped into his stomach.
Tomorrow the Cetos would arrive, adding scores of soldiers to the Leviathos’s veritable army, all of them restless and hungry for battle.
Saros would have his war, and Kai, drunk and dark and angry, would be expected to lead it.