House of Discord (The God Cartels #1)

Beginning

"Say something, El."

She doesn't.

Right. Right. She's dead. I keep forgetting that part. Not forgetting—knowing. But also forgetting. The two things at once.

Her spine presses against my throat. The vertebrae dig in when I swallow, and I swallow a lot—on purpose, to feel them shift. They wrapped her ribs around my wrists too. Small bones. I can feel where they broke them to make them fit, snapped the ends and shaped them.

You'd hate this. Being used as a leash. You'd say something cutting about it, something that would make me laugh.

Say something.

She doesn't.

I already tried that.

Nineteen drips of water. The last one hit my knee and I watched it roll down into the crease of my pants and disappear.

Someone took time with this. The bones. Craftsmanship. I wonder if they were proud.

I'd like to meet them. Not to kill them—just to ask. Maybe kill them after.

Twenty drips.

I could snap the bones. Her bones. Easy. So easy. The gods have no idea what I am. They think Titan is a title, a rank, something you earn.

It's not.

I don't care if I die.

I keep biting my tongue to check if I'm still here. The blood tastes flat. I bit it hard enough to bleed an hour ago and didn't notice until my throat got thick with it.

I want to do it again. Bite harder. See how much comes out before I feel it.

You're spiraling, Elyra would say.

I know. That's the fun part.

Twenty-one.

The guards changed. I've been watching the torch shadows move, and there's a new one with a limp. Left leg. Drags it slightly. I can hear the scrape every eight seconds.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Scrape.

He's scared of me. Good. He should be. Except I'm not doing anything—that's the joke. I'm just sitting here counting drips and listening to him limp and waiting for them to kill me.

I could have killed them all. When they brought her body. When they peeled the bones from her flesh and wrapped them around me while they were still wet. I could have pulled their spines out and given them to their children. Taught the children how to make leashes.

Educational.

But she was already dead, and killing them wouldn't make her less dead. Math. Simple math.

Twenty-two drips. The last one hit the same spot on my knee—exactly the same spot. What are the odds?

Kosh.

Her voice. In my head. Not real.

I answer anyway. "I'm not doing well, El."

Silence. Obviously. Corpses don't talk back. I checked.

Twenty-three.

I press my throat into her vertebrae. Harder. Feel them cut into the skin—not deep enough to bleed. Disappointing.

Harder.

There. That's—

Kosh, stop.

"You're dead. You don't get to tell me what to do."

Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Two at once. Interesting.

The execution is tomorrow. I think. Time doesn't—time. I'll know when they come for me. Then I'll die. Then I'll find out if there's anything after.

Probably not. But it'll be quiet at least. Unless I'm there with all the people I've killed. That would be loud. That would be—

Funny. I should tell someone.

There's no one to tell.

Twenty-six.

The pull hits without warning.

Something in the threads yanks and my whole body locks. I bite down on my tongue—hard, harder than before—and blood floods my mouth.

What—

The dripping stops. Did it stop? No. I stopped counting. When did I stop counting?

What is that.

Something is reaching through me. Doesn't exist yet. Can't exist yet. But I feel it out there, somewhere, somewhen—a thread I don't recognize, pulling back, pulling at me.

For me.

My skull cracks open from the inside. Not pain—pressure. Something pouring in where the nothing used to be. My lungs seize. My hands are shaking and I don't know when they started. Every nerve in my body fires at once, screaming one thing—

Stay alive.

Not words. Not thought. Just truth, slamming through me harder than anything I've ever perceived. Absolute. Undeniable.

Something needs me. Something that doesn't exist yet. Something that will.

I'm choking on blood. My blood. My chest is full—too full—pressure building behind my ribs and I don't want it, I don't, I've been empty for so long and this is—

I need it.

I need to live.

One heartbeat I'm waiting to die. The next one I'm not.

The bones snap.

Her ribs fall from my wrists and clatter on stone. I'm standing—when did I stand up?—hands at my throat, vertebrae crumbling between my fingers—

Wait. Wait.

My fingers close around the largest piece, the curve that sat against my pulse. Still warm.

I'm keeping this.

"You're coming with me, El."

She doesn't answer. I wasn't asking.

The door comes off the hinges.

Guards. The one with the limp is closest, his mouth open, surprised. He didn't think I could—

His throat is in my hand. I don't remember crossing the room.

I squeeze. The sound is wet, crunchy. I hold on longer than I need to because I want to know if his eyes will burst.

They don't. Disappointing.

Two more guards. One is screaming—high-pitched, annoying.

"That's very loud," I tell him.

He gets louder. I fix the problem.

The third one runs. Smart. I let him go because—no, actually, I don't let him go. I catch him in the corridor. He falls badly and cracks his skull on the stone.

That wasn't me. That was gravity. Technically.

Kosh.

"I'm busy, El."

Left. Left. Up. No—bodies. Mine. I made those. When? Doesn't matter. Turn around.

A god appears at the end of the hall. One of the bright-eyed believers. She was there when they killed Elyra. She watched.

"You can't—"

Her jaw breaks before I hear the sound.

I stop walking and look down at her. She's crying, trying to crawl away. Her jaw hangs wrong and blood runs down her chin.

"You watched them do it," I tell her. "You didn't even flinch."

She makes a noise. Can't form words anymore. Shame.

I should kill her—that's the logical thing. She's seen my face. She knows I'm out. But the pull is humming under my ribs, dragging me forward, and I want to know what's at the other end more than I want to watch her die.

Priorities.

"Tell them I said hello."

I step over her. She's still crying, and I start counting her sobs. One. Two. Three. Four—

I round the corner and lose count.

More shouting behind me. Alarms. Bells. Someone is screaming about chains and someone else is screaming about blood. Everyone is very upset.

Good.

Outside.

Air. Night. Stars.

There's blood on my hands, under my fingernails. Some of it is mine. Most of it isn't.

I don't stop.

The pull fades to a hum as I get further from the cells. Quieter now, but still there. Waiting.

Elyra's spine digs into my palm. I grip it tighter.

"I'll figure it out," I tell her. "I'll find whatever this is. And then—"

My tongue is still bleeding. The wound throbs when I swallow. I should deal with that.

Later.

I run. Fifty-three steps before I lose count.

The village is already dead when I leave it.

Smoke. Bodies. My work. They saw me pass through, and I can't leave witnesses. Simple math. The pull is still humming north, faint but persistent, and I need to keep moving before the gods realize I'm out.

I'm walking through what's left when I see him.

A child sitting in the rubble.

I stop walking.

He's small. Ten, maybe. Covered in ash and someone else's blood. There are four bodies around him—two adult, two smaller. Family. His family. He's not crying. Not screaming. Just sitting there with his knees pulled up, watching me approach with eyes that have already seen too much.

I know that look. I've worn that look.

"You're one of them," he says. His voice is flat. "The Titans."

"Yes."

"Are you going to kill me too?"

I consider it. Quick. Easy. Merciful, even. He's seen my face. He could identify me later. The smart thing would be to—

The pull hums. Faint. Insistent.

I crouch down. Put myself at his level. His thread is bright, undamaged, which means he hasn't started lying to himself yet. Unusual. Most people start the rot young.

"Do you want to live?"

He thinks about it. Actually thinks, not the reflexive yes most people give. His eyes move across the bodies. His mother. His father. The two smaller ones—siblings.

"If it's not too inconvenient," he says.

I laugh.

It comes out wrong—cracked, sharp, the kind of sound that makes people flinch. He doesn't flinch. Just watches me with those flat eyes, waiting to see what I'll do.

"What's your name?"

"Renan."

"Renan." I roll it around. Taste it. "I'm going to do something stupid, Renan. I'm going to let you live. And then I'm going to take you with me, because I think you might be interesting, and I haven't found anything interesting in a very long time."

"Okay."

"You're not going to ask where we're going?"

"Does it matter?"

No. It doesn't. Nowhere is safe and everywhere is the same and the only thing that matters is the pull humming under my ribs, dragging me toward something I can't see yet.

I stand up. Hold out my hand.

He takes it. His fingers are cold and sticky with blood.

"I'm going to teach you things," I tell him. "How to fight. How to disappear. How to find the joke in catastrophe. And in exchange, you're going to keep me company while I figure out what I'm surviving for."

"That sounds like a bad deal for me."

"Probably." I start walking. He keeps pace. "But you'll get used to it."

Elyra's spine digs into my palm. The pull hums north.

I don't know what's waiting for me. Don't know why it matters. But I'm not alone anymore, and that's—

Something. It's something.

Sixty-four steps before I lose count again.