Chapter 13 #3
I thought of all the different people that “she” could refer to. Mirie. Val. It might as well be true.
Too many are, I said to her. Shiket deserved to pay for letting them die. That is Retribution, Zefiah. Your purpose.
A violent shudder through us both. {My purpose was not to slay the one who held me for thousands of years.}
She let her followers die. She let Mirie and Valentina and Marko die.
Together, Zefiah and I relived those memories. Burned ourselves over the raw, open flame of their mutilated corpses.
They deserved vengeance, I hissed. Don’t ask me to regret what we did.
Zefiah was silent. I sensed her struggle. She could not lie. And the truth was shameful—the truth that she didn’t regret it, either.
{It is no small thing to slay a god,} she said. {The consequences of our actions will run deep.}
Funny how only now did I consider this. The call of my bloodlust was so loud.
When Atroxus was killed, the sun shattered.
But Shiket was a warrior goddess. She didn’t make the sun rise or the rain fall or crops sprout.
Her death would mean that any acolytes using her magic or leveraging the gifts she offered—most of them soldiers, judges, or enforcers of what little law remained—would feel the effects.
Though clearly, some of her magic still persisted, because Zefiah was still here, with me.
We are already living in a world without justice, I said.
Zefiah considered this. She sipped my rage like a vampire sipped blood.
{I am the Blade of Retribution. Older than the being that bore me for so many millennia. I do not regret—}
I choked a laugh that sounded a little like a sob. That’s my girl.
{—I do not regret. But I fear for the future. Be wary of the vampire’s visions. He speaks of a world of great darkness. A world of lawlessness.}
Her revulsion was clear. She was a blade of justice and as such, she hated nothing more than the prospect of a world with no moral code.
{And yet,} she said, {you sell yourself to him.}
He is a means to an end.
{He is telling his people the same about you.}
I don’t give a shit what he’s saying. He’s used to thinking he’s holding all the strings in the puppet show. He doesn’t know that you and I cut ours long ago.
{And what does that mean for us, Kyrene? For you? It means there is nothing to catch you when you jump.}
I thought of myself, standing at the edge of the balcony, looking down into that swirling dark water.
I have never had that safety, Zefiah. I’ve carved my own path from the beginning.
We have. You and me. You are a weapon forged for the purpose of justice.
What greater justice is there than slaying the gods who allowed this suffering to happen?
Than slaying the goddess of vampires herself? Imagine that.
She did imagine it—I could feel the rush of pleasure, thick and sweet as a mortal orgasm. Just as much a biological pleasure for her as sex was to us mortals.
I expected her agreement at that. Yet, instead, I felt a wave of sadness.
{You are not a weapon, Kyrene.}
There was a surprising tenderness in those words. It occurred to me, perhaps for the first time, that Zefiah might actually care about me—care about me even more than she cared about doling out justice to the greatest game a mortal had ever hunted.
“Yes, I am.” The hoarse scratch of my own voice startled me. I hadn’t intended to speak aloud. “I have been from the moment I picked you up. You know that as well as I do.”
I readjusted my grip around her hilt, squeezing tight—squeezing like the hands of old friends I’d never get to hold again, hard enough to keep me from thinking about the first night I’d met Zefiah.
How many times have you told me to be something more? You have told me to fight for justice. So fight with me. Help me skewer the hearts that deserve it. Imagine how good the blood of the vampire goddess will taste.
She wanted it. I knew she did. It was her nature.
Yet she said nothing.
Fear bolted through my heart—because it never had occurred to me that Zefiah, for reasons I did not understand, might refuse to help me on this quest. In her silence, childish words sat on the tip of my tongue: Please. I need you. I’m nothing without you.
I swallowed them, but Zefiah heard them anyway.
I said instead, You made me a vow the night we first met. Do you remember that? Don’t break it now.
{I do not break vows.} The words were strong, immediate. Then, softer, after some thought, {Yet it occurs to me only now, after millennia of life, that there are so many contrasting ways to fulfill them.}
Well, don’t back out on me now, Zef. You still have the most important one to fulfill.
Zefiah, of course, could not smile. But sometimes, I could feel the warmth of her amusement. It reminded me of the way the sun used to feel peeking through the clouds.
And now, too, I could feel it in my heart when her decision was made.
{Be calm, Vindica Ultis,} she said, the title doused in sarcasm. {I will follow you on your quest. After all, no one will get to end you but me.}