Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
A THOUSAND YEARS OF COLONIZATION
A commotion drew me from her home the day peaceful monks arrived, decades into their studies of the new world and its mother tongue.
I followed Hiso as the family slid open the door, walked past the cherry trees, and watched the newcomers pass under the city’s red arches.
White leathers, shimmering sword, and a nearly apologetic slope to his shoulders, Lucky stood in the middle of the road as the brown-robed Portuguese walked around him to spread the word of their god to Hiso and her villagers. We said nothing as the future unfolded before us both.
Golden eyes, rippling muscles, and a longsuffering expression—Lucky conveyed to me what a war table couldn’t.
Fool me once, so the saying goes.
Unfortunately for me, it took three lifetimes of horrifying arrivals, combined with the resigned tightness around Lucky’s eyes before I understood Heaven’s army wasn’t just spreading—it was following.
The time, the nation, the church’s sudden impulse to divide and conquer had a compass of its own, and I was its north star.
Heaven’s faithful and its marching orders: the continent, the people, the gods-damned villages, boiled down to Love and the demon that threatened their Book of Revelation. Any emperor, king, pope responsible for the decree was yet another string-tied doll plucked by hidden hands.
I’d known from our first encounter in Constantinople that Heaven would claim her when they could…but to tail me?
The only entities privy to my whereabouts were citizens of Hell.
And there was only one member of the Infernal Courts foolish enough to betray me.
When I’d told my sister to run, I’d been too generous.
It was a mistake I wouldn’t make twice.