No Gods West of Here (Mythcycle #1)

1. The Bodyguard No One Asked For

THE BODYGUARD NO ONE ASKED FOR

TALIA

I came to Valta looking for a faerie story. I found a monster.

On the third day at sea, Talia returned to find her cabin door ajar, which was impossible. She knew she’d locked it. She nudged the door with her toe and froze.

A man sat in her desk chair, elbows braced on his knees. The journal—that journal—lay open in one hand. His fingers hovered over the ancient text, a lattice of white scars across his knuckles. So he wasn’t a scholar then.

At least he couldn’t read it. Only a handful of people understood the dead language, and she taught most of them.

Her fingers gripped the doorframe, and she straightened her glasses before forcing herself to step inside.

“Excuse me.” She had to swallow to get the words out. “This is my cabin.”

He looked up with a flat expression, as if she were the one out of place. His eyes were pale gray, not even a color. How strange.

“You should’ve locked the door.” He glanced back down at the page.

He has to be baiting me. She bit back a sharp response and stepped farther into the room. His shoulders curled forward, just a little, shifting to cradle the book in both hands.

She stopped mid-step. “Who are you?”

“Riven Valros. I’m to escort you to Gateway.” He still acted like he was reading.

She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Right—so she hadn’t gotten away after all. Her family just made her leash longer and brought in this hulking stranger to hold it.

“You really shouldn’t have that,” she tried.

“Neither should you.” He closed the journal, making no move to relinquish it.

Her chest tightened. She shouldn’t have it. She needed to get it back, but she couldn’t call for help. Anyone who came would see the journal, and that little book could destroy her career.

The ship lurched. She pitched forward, grabbing the edge of the desk to steady herself. Riven stood in one smooth motion and caught her shoulder, feet planted wide against the tilt. The scent of cedar washed over her, clean and biting.

He cradled the journal gently in his other hand, like he knew what it was worth. Like he knew how to handle precious things. Heat rushed to her cheeks, thoroughly unwelcome, but he wasn’t looking at her face. He was looking down at her arm.

“Where’s your partner?” He picked up her hand and tipped it to the side, making the delicate silver engagement bracelet spin around her wrist.

“We were—I didn’t—” The words hurt. “It’s over.” Turns out, getting on a ship to cross the world without telling your fiancé first will do that.

His hand paused there, wrapped around hers. She waited for the usual rush.

Nothing came.

Skin to skin contact always brought emotion with it. An echo of whatever the person felt. This man gave her nothing. If he cared at all, she wouldn’t know.

He released her and, finally, set the journal in her hand. He moved past her to the door and paused with one hand on the frame. She caught herself noticing the strain of fabric across his shoulders. The blue silk was elegant, incongruous with his scarred hands.

“Turvamei, scholar,” he said.

Safe journey.

A formal farewell in flawless Starscript. How did a hired blade know that phrase?

“Teiti varlo tiesi.” The counter-greeting slipped out before she could stop herself.

And the stars light your way.

He gave a small nod. “Lock your door, boss. You’re a long way from the capital. Out here, if folks want something, they take it.”

The door clicked shut.

She lunged forward, her hands shaking so badly it took two tries to turn the lock.

Just what I needed. A bodyguard I never asked for. She never thought of comebacks in time.

She sank into the empty chair, too shaken to climb to her bunk. Her grandmother knew exactly where she was, which meant Holloway would too. How long until they sent someone to bring her home?

She hugged the journal to her chest. The leather was still warm from Riven’s touch.

She needed to complete her research, but that was going to be harder now with Riven Valros watching her every move, especially if he spoke Starscript and picked locks.

Talia sighed. This is going to be a very long voyage.

Sure enough, Riven was in the dining salon the next morning. In the library when she retreated to read. When she found him perched against the deck rail in the afternoon sun gazing at the horizon as if he wasn’t there waiting for her, she’d had enough.

“This is ridiculous. What could you possibly report back to my grandmother? ‘Still on a boat’?”

The wind was brisk, tugging curls out of her braid. She fought to look serious while clawing them back out of her face.

“Who said I’m reporting back?” was all he said. It was an infuriating thing to do, answering a question with a question. She decided to ignore him from there on out.

Riven didn’t seem to care when she glared or gave him the silent treatment. He just matched her silence as he trailed her around the ship. Days passed that way. The standoff was ridiculous, but she wasn’t going to be the one to break it.

Since she couldn’t study the journal during the day, she’d taken to interviewing prospectors instead.

Twenty years since Valta was discovered, eighteen since the first flux claim, and the relic rush was in full swing.

Half the Lower City seemed to be crammed into steerage.

That’s where she was, mid-conversation with a fortune-seeking clerk, when a loud boom rocked the ship.

Her stomach lurched, and she reached to catch herself on a pile of crates, which slipped under her hands. Riven was beside her before she saw him move. He reached down and helped her to her feet.

“You seem to fall a lot.”

Talia had no idea if he was joking or not. She hadn’t seen him smile once.

“It’s not me, it’s the ship,” she said, brushing herself off. “What happened?”

A shout went up from the passageway. A group of prospectors was crowded together, and the first mate elbowed through.

Instead of pulling back, Talia pressed forward for a better view.

The crowd parted, and a man was carried out on a stretcher.

A tan arm hung over the edge, veins black as ink spreading under the skin.

Talia pressed herself against the wall to let them by, and when she did, a small round stone fell off the stretcher.

It rolled to her feet; she picked it up. The moment her skin touched it, energy surged through her. Emotions hit her in rapid succession. Panic. Then euphoria. Then something vast and hollow, like falling. Stabbing pain shot through her arm.

Riven’s large hand closed around her wrist. “Drop it.”

She held on. He yanked her back, and her shoulder slammed into his chest. The stone slipped from her grip and hit the wood floor. He kicked it away, sending it skidding under a crate.

“We should get abovedeck.” His tone didn’t invite her to argue.

“What happened to that man’s arm?” She was so shaken, she forgot that she wasn’t speaking to him.

“You’ve never seen burnout.” He seemed almost surprised.

“Obviously not. That was a flux stone, right? What did it do to him?” She hated admitting when she didn’t have an answer, but she needed to know. “What’s burnout?”

Riven glanced at her hand, then back at her face. He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure how much to say.

“When you channel too much flux,” he said, “it can hurt you. Or kill you.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but a term flashed in her memory. Flux channeling. She’d seen it in one place only: Vael’s journal. The heretical one she had in her satchel at that moment.

“What does that mean, to channel flux?” Say more, you infuriating man.

“What do you call it?” he asked. “Burning flux?” Not an answer.

Prospectors clawed flux from the earth, then lamps and furnaces burned it for fuel.

A person couldn’t burn flux. The verb didn’t make sense, and she’d never seen anything like the damage on that man’s arm.

Could that have happened to her too? But Riven had gone quiet again.

Done being helpful, apparently. This was exactly why she was supposed to be ignoring him.

Her palm was tingling. The sensation was fainter now but still noticeable. She went back to the dining salon and played a solitary card game while he hovered in the corner.

Later that evening when she was finally alone in her cabin, Talia cracked open the journal. She knew the exact page.

Stars and fucking moons, this voyage was meant to be our salvation, but this continent will be our grave. Flux channeling was the foundation of civilization. Now we are surrounded by mortals, and we grow more like them by the day. Disgusting.

The journal had been written by a god, Vael, the Divine Navigator, but it didn’t read like scripture. This was one of the tamer passages. Laced with profanity and scenes of debauchery, it made all thirteen gods out to be frauds and petty assholes. That was heresy, even if it was true.

Vael called channeling “the foundation of civilization,” but she’d never heard of it. And yet a hired blade recognized the word?

Nothing about Riven Valros made sense.

And now that he knew she had Vael’s journal, her life was in his hands.