Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Septimus led me through the halls, back to the bedchamber, where he frowned at the broken door.
“I assume you did this? That was unnecessary. It was unlocked.”
I lay Zefiah against the wall, then took a seat in one of the three chairs by the fireplace. Her incoherent mumblings made it difficult to think. I placed her just far enough away that they faded to a manageable din, but close enough that I could reach her quickly if needed.
“I woke up in the House of Blood,” I said. “What did you expect?”
He let out a low laugh. “Dove, you are not in the House of Blood. Outsiders never are. You are in Glaea.”
Glaea. I’d heard the name before, but it took me a minute to place it.
A small island kingdom. The first human nation conquered by the vampires, more than a decade ago, before the sun fell and the great war broke out.
Rumors said that it was a kingdom populated by both vampires and humans, but it was hard to tell what was gossip and what was real.
It was within Nyaxia’s territory, which meant it had no communication with human kingdoms.
“Then I am technically in the House of Blood,” I said.
“Glaea is very much its own kingdom.”
“It’s still Nyaxia’s.”
Septimus sat in the chair across from mine.
His movements, even the mundane ones, were effortlessly graceful.
“In a sense. But Glaea is a useful kingdom. Isolated. Far from both Obitraes and the other human kingdoms. And with a convoluted history, when it comes to the gods. It’s a place of limited visibility. ”
Perhaps my face betrayed my confusion, because his eyes glittered with silent amusement.
“You killed a goddess, Kyrene. You thought you were famous before? Now you have far worse than the Shadowborn queen hunting you. Glaea is a rare place where most gods either cannot see or don’t bother to try. And thus, an ideal place for hiding . . . contraband.”
Of course.
My gaze drifted to the single small window, looking out at a dark, churning sky.
A chill came over me. Any mortal who managed to slay one god would be of great interest to the others.
I tried very hard to keep my face still, but fought a wave of dizziness at the staggering scale of what I’d done.
It meant I was a target for the gods themselves.
I didn’t regret it. No, I would never regret it.
A woman appeared in the doorway—the blindfolded woman in the red dress. She carried a tray bearing various golden cups and jars, and, oddly, a small cage containing a spotted rat. She placed the tray on the coffee table between us as she sat silently in the empty chair beside Septimus.
Her face turned to me, and though her eyes were covered, I had the distinct sense that she was staring directly at me. A magic wielder, clearly. Sorcery rose from her like steam from the surface of a hot spring.
“Kyrene,” Septimus said, “meet Queen Sylina.”
A faint smile passed over Sylina’s lips. “We’ve met.”
My gaze lingered on the circlet bound in her hair. A human queen for Nyaxia’s conquered kingdom.
I thought of the carnage the vampires had wreaked in Hegaella. Bloodshed for the fucking fun of it. I wondered if this woman sent her vampire subjects off to do Nyaxia’s bidding, too; to go torture and rape and murder humans whose blood ran red just like hers.
I said to the vampire, “I thought we were here to talk about a job.”
“We are. How familiar are you with the art of seering?”
“I know the Bloodborn like to kidnap human seers to do it for them.”
The memory of Valentina’s corpse, feet twisted backward, body broken in her desperate attempts to free herself before she was dragged away, was seared into my mind like scar tissue. A too-fresh reminder of what vampires did to those deemed too valuable to kill.
Nyaxia offered no magic for seering, which meant vampires could not do it.
What’s more, Acaeja lorded over half of the vampire kingdoms in opposition to Nyaxia, which made the skill even more scarce for the Houses of Shadow and Blood.
Some prudent humans even took up the art specifically because they knew the vampires did not kill seers.
“Seering is valuable,” Septimus said simply. “Of course we don’t waste the skill. Thus, why we’re so very fortunate to have Queen Sylina, who is a seer herself.”
Curious. A practitioner of Acaeja, yet she was queen of a kingdom taken under Nyaxia’s territory. That normally would have been more than enough for Acaeja to strip her of her magic.
“I see,” I said. “When did you kidnap her? How did she go from that to a queen?”
“A rude thing to say when I’m sitting right next to you,” Sylina said frostily. “We do not engage in those practices in Glaea.”
I glanced up to see her staring steadily at me, and I tore my eyes away, annoyed by what my face, or mind, may have revealed.
It was bullshit, anyway. No one got to keep their moral purity in this world.
Sylina rose, taking the tray with her, and kneeled by the fireplace. She began sprinkling powders and liquids into the flame, whispering beneath her breath. The flames surged, flashing purple, green, blue in a way that reminded me of the aurora skies of the far north.
Then her blindfolded gaze assessed me.
“She looks like shit,” she remarked to Septimus in Obitraen. “This may not be a good idea.”
“She can handle it,” Septimus said.
“If you insist.”
Sylina opened up the cage. The rat let out a meek squeal of protest, starkly silenced with a vicious crack as Sylina broke its neck.
Then she withdrew a dagger from her robes, unsheathed it, and gutted the dead animal.
The flames cracked and sputtered as she threw the rat in, hungrily consuming blood and innards, and then, finally, the corpse itself.
“Sit beside me,” Sylina said.
Her hands were covered in rat blood. It wasn’t the most inviting request. Still, I did as she asked, eyeing the flame warily. Up close, I could now see that tiny engravings covered the hearth—glyphs, which were commonly used in sorcery. “What is this?”
The corner of Sylina’s mouth quirked. “Are you ready to see a future, Kyrene?”
“A future—?”
But before the question made it out of my mouth, Sylina’s bloody hand wrapped around mine, and she thrust it into the fire.
I drew in a shuddering gasp. The pain was exquisite and sudden and all-encompassing. Instinctively, I tried to pull away, but Sylina held firm. The flames wove around our intertwined hands, dancing in purple, orange, blue.
I watched in horror, unable to make myself move, as the fire surged up my arms, my shoulders, my body.
I was burning alive.
And yet, I couldn’t move at all as the blaze embraced me, and then all I saw was white.
Silhouettes emerged in the blinding light. At first, they were nondescript shadows in the flames, jumping and writhing. They blurred before me. I no longer felt anything but pain—no physical sensation, not the floor beneath my knees, or my own clothing or skin or heartbeat.
Then, slowly, the shapes grew more defined. A woman bearing a glowing blade. She looked like a collection of paint strokes rather than a clear image of a person, but I recognized the blade immediately, despite the lack of detail. Zefiah. I’d know her anywhere.
Above, ink arced across the sky—writing, in a language that I did not recognize, and yet I still heard the words so clearly in my head:
Here is the mortal chosen by the Lady of Justice
Wearer of the title Vindica Ultis
Bearer of the Blade of Retribution
Should she choose, on a night eternal
The pieces lie in wait, ready for a breeze to knock them free
A single soul to topple a Pantheon of marble
The image melted, re-formed. Another figure took shape in the flames, rising high—gold armor and five bladed wings, three on the left and two on the right.
Shiket.
Her own maker would be the first to fall
Undone by the blade that was once a part of her
Justice felled by just hands
The figures collided, the blade tearing. Shiket rose and rose and rose above the warrior’s silhouette, and then screamed as Zefiah pierced her breastplate, armor shattering. I found myself cringing against it, even though I had no body.
Was this, I wondered, what it had looked like when I’d killed her? Like the world was ending?
Smoke burst from the ground, the sky, obscuring my vision.
So would end the Lady of Machinery
Gears falling and machinery cracking
A thoughtless army unraveled
Another figure rose from the puffs of mist. This one was a collection of gleaming metal and ticking gears. Srana, goddess of machinery and science, grinned down with a copper-plated face.
The warrior ran through the flames with all the grace of a leaping deer.
Zefiah was still in one hand, glowing white, but in the other, she held something else—a spear?
I couldn’t quite make it out through the flame.
And there was little time to, anyway, because moments later, the warrior clashed with Srana, and the goddess burst into countless shards of shattered metal.
The pain was growing unbearable; as if, even formless, the blaze was eating me up. But I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t move, or do anything but watch.
The smoke cleared. Another figure rose from it now, somehow even greater than the last—a figure so beautiful that even in a breathless world, it left me gasping.
Kajmar, the god of music, art, and illusion. He had long silky hair that danced in rainbow colors and a form that could have been created by only the most skilled artisans. He laughed, and though it was cruel, it sounded like music.
Next falls the god of pleasure
Sweet lies dissolving into sugar
Delight into darkness
Again, the warrior appeared in the mist. Still, she bore Zefiah in one hand. In the other, now, she held something small and unfamiliar. I realized, as she approached, that it was a harp.
A flash of light. A puff of purple, pearlescent smoke. The warrior lunged at Kajmar, and the sky turned pink, blue, purple, green, a rainbow of colors, before drowning in white.
And when the smoke cleared, Kajmar was gone, dissolved into flower petals.
But this time, the lightning did not stop. It continued flashing, drenching the world in light and darkness. The images were harder to make out now, flickering behind the flames. Every form became a distant silhouette. Every action smeared in misty blurs.
I could see figures in the distance, great and powerful, and I was certain that they were gods, even if I couldn’t make out explicitly which ones. All I could see was that they were at each other’s throats.
The flames melted, like candles left out too long.
Slowly, they formed one more image—the elegant towers of a golden skyline, hanging upside down in the heavens.
It was, even in abstraction, the most stunning kingdom I had ever seen.
I knew, intrinsically, that I was witnessing Ysria, the home of the gods of the White Pantheon.
The warrior stood before it, Zefiah burning in bright white light. She streaked through the sky, just as the city fell like leaves from a withering tree.
One path of many, and only one may lead to this
Every kingdom breaks
Every ruler kneels
The fire consumed me. The pain was unbearable, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe—I had no body at all. Massive figures moved through the flames, though I couldn’t make them out. Their faces, blank, turned to me, and I could feel their stares piercing me like accusations.
One final line etched itself into the sky, and I heard the words hot and breathy in my ear:
This is how a pantheon falls.
And then I fell, too.