Chapter 32 #2
“So you see, divine ones,” he said, “I am no ordinary fallen one. Perhaps our desires even align.”
Kajmar snapped out of his shock and drew himself up to his full height. “All you have shown us is that you have traitorous fantasies.”
“Ah, I should clarify,” Septimus said. He reached into his jacket, as if for a cigarillo, only for his hand to come back empty. “That was not a fantasy at all. It was a prophecy.”
At this, the air shifted. The bright sky darkened, as if covered by a sudden influx of clouds. Ix straightened. Kajmar’s eyes flashed.
Strange, how even gods were so damned easy to read. I could see the expressions dancing across their faces. Hunger and fear. Delight and wariness.
“A lie,” Ix said. “The harp is not a tool of prophecy.”
“It’s the truth,” Septimus said. “Yes, the harp is no soothsayer. But my deepest desires are those I am already pursuing. Everything you saw has been confirmed to me by the most skilled seers in Obitraes.”
Kajmar’s lazy touches along Ix’s body moved slower now. She stiffened, leaning forward.
“A mortal cannot lie to a god,” I said. Something Zefiah had told me many times, when I was in my particularly cranky moods before a meeting with Shiket. I didn’t know where Septimus was going with this, but I prayed he did. “Surely you would know, if he was attempting to deceive you.”
Septimus inclined his chin. “So you see, I’m grateful our paths have crossed. Perhaps our interests align. It is just a shame that in the end, you may not both remain.”
And now I understood.
Septimus’s vision had shown the gods falling. But not all of them; at least, not yet. And he had made a point of making sure they saw it. Nyaxia would fall. The White Pantheon would fall. Whoever remained would tear each other apart, and no one could know which gods would survive.
Kajmar’s hand lingered at the curve between Ix’s shoulder, thumb pressing down around her throat. They both went incredibly still.
“So tell us, great divines ones,” Septimus said, “who shall we follow into this next unknown?”
Prepare yourself, Zef, I told her. I took one small step closer to her, so that when I called, she would be ready.
When everything shattered, it happened in seconds.
Kajmar and Ix rose at once, the two of them jerking apart. But Ix moved a fraction of a second slower than Kajmar did. Kajmar grabbed something from his lap, thrust it to Septimus, who staggered backward. One hand flew toward Ix, who let out a cry as chains of rosy mist wrapped around her.
“Your first task, fallen one,” Kajmar boomed. “Prove yourself.”
Zefiah flew against me with a force that sent me staggering. And I didn’t realize what Kajmar had given Septimus until he was already raising it, smoke pluming from his hands so thickly it nearly obscured the weapon:
Ix’s bow.
He moved so quickly it was like he had been preparing his entire life for this. In the time it took Ix to scream, to raise her hands in front of her, the arrow was flying, and a second, already poised, half a breath later.
TWACK TWACK.
The bolts of gold buried themselves in Ix’s heart.
She reeled, clutching at her chest. Metallic purple and red spewed from the wounds, streaking her skin in waves of grotesque color.
All the gods were most vulnerable to the weapons they themselves created.
And Ix, here in her own home, with her own lover, was most vulnerable of all.
“Kajmar!” she wailed. “Kajmar, what have you done?”
But her words were laced with fury, not heartbreak. Not because he had betrayed her, but because he’d done it first.
Kajmar watched her impassively. He leaned closer, caressed her face, as if he might kiss her.
He murmured into her ear, “You burn so beautifully, my love.”
Then he straightened and said to us, without looking away from her, “Again.”
Septimus attempted to raise the bow. But his arms shook violently. The smoky plumes were now thick black.
{It will kill him,} Zefiah warned.
So I moved before Septimus did, blade raised. Ix was already on the cusp of death. Her two blessed arrows were lodged in her chest. I had never known that gods mimicked mortality in their final moments. Now, her body seized as if trying and failing to suck in breath.
The first time I had killed a god, I had been outside of my own body. I did not remember making the decision to end Shiket, only that it was an inevitability. But now, as I lifted Zefiah, I knew exactly what I was about to do.
{Remember the night we met,} Zefiah hummed in her bloodlust. {Remember the night she failed you.}
I stood over Ix. Everything about her beauty now seemed grotesque—the pink of her lips and cheeks ruddy red, the shine of her eyes mucus thick, the white of her teeth like fresh bone.
The illusion was beginning to flicker. I could now see, beneath the superficial image of the marble floor, her blood sinking into the dusty dirt.
Ix had not spited me as Shiket had or hurt me as Nyaxia had. But she had abandoned me, and so many more had suffered immensely at her hand. I thought of all the women who had died in childbirth because of her distraction. All the babies lost because of her cold revenge.
I thought of myself, bleeding in the dirt, alone, and how I had prayed to Ix that night, had begged her for mercy, and she had ignored me.
Ix’s lip curled. When she opened her mouth, I thought she might try to sway me to her favor.
Instead, she hissed, “I lied to you, god killer. You would have destroyed your daughter, just like you destroyed the other one.”
I lurched back, as if struck. A wave of pain and rage surged.
And when it crashed to the shore, I plunged Zefiah straight into Ix’s heart.