Chapter Forty-Three
Forty-three
There are those followers that are fickle, moving from Storm to Shadow to Stone, with only one desire driving their choices: to bask in the presence of the divine.
—JOGUE’S DIARY OF A SUPPLICANT’S TRAVELS (RESTRICTED TEXT)
NEW GODS. I DON’T think I’ll sleep, gripped by the idea of them, but I’m startled out of twisted dreams by a pounding knock at my door a few hours after dawn.
It’s Nolan, looking probably as rested as I do. Which is to say, not at all. Mind and body, I feel like one big, living bruise as he pushes into the room, all tense energy. “Good, you’re dressed already.”
After last night’s outing, I never even managed to get my boots off. “Are we going somewhere?”
“We need to go see Caius. Another message”—he holds up a folded piece of paper—“was slipped beneath my door last night.”
Rion works fast. The mysterious appearing notes, Avery’s well-timed comings and goings… it all makes more sense now.
At the Silvered Pearl, Caius eyes the paper skeptically, Ramiro so close he might as well be curled up at the Arbiter’s feet. He glares. I give him a smirk that sends his hand to his sword.
Caius refolds the paper and flicks a hand at the Caerula leader. “Out.” Curt as the command is, Ramiro has apparently been well trained (or well bought) enough to obey promptly, though not without a last edged look for me. “You’re sure this is from the heretics who attacked our blood mother?”
“Yes.” Earnestness clings to Nolan in a way that unsettles my conscience. It isn’t as easy as I’d like, seeing him set upon on this fool’s errand while still believing what he desires is within reach. Even if I was always going to take the reliquary and run.
Of course, maybe he’s not the only one being played. I pick through the memory of Osiron’s offer, looking for traps or snags, for whatever it is they’re keeping close. It seemed sincere, the chance at freedom being offered… but then again, so does this note.
Dusk, the day of the Arbiter’s departure. Same location. —A
Clean and simple, with only a single requirement yet to be fulfilled: for Caius to get the hell out of Cyprene.
“They want to deal with us,” Nolan continues. “When you’re gone—”
“When I’m gone,” Caius echoes sourly. He tosses the note onto the table and leans back in his chair, letting out a sigh.
He looks tired. There are dark circles under his eyes, consort to a growing air of irritation.
Apparently, the distance from the Goddess is hitting him even faster than it did Nolan and me.
Or maybe his fancy feather bed simply isn’t as comfortable as he expected.
“One note. One line. And I’m supposed to believe that this is what you’ve been waiting for. ”
I scoff. “You expected a gilded invitation delivered on a silk pillow?”
Caius blinks at me with red-limned eyes, unamused. “I expected something more.”
“It’s a where,” says Nolan. “A when. And if you—”
“I have no intention of going anywhere.”
Nolan stiffens. “We had a plan. An agreement. The heretics—”
“Yes,” Caius cuts in. “The heretics.” He sits a little straighter. “Those particular, special heretics, not the common ones you laid at my feet to placate me. Do you think I’m a fool? That I’d been pushed away that easily?”
“I knew it.” Exhaustion and vexation turn my words acid. “We never should have tried to work with him.”
Caius frowns. “Don’t test me, Lys. The port may be reopened, but my guard still holds the towers. I am still the authority in Cyprene right now.”
“Exactly,” says Nolan. “Do you not understand what you’re doing by being here?
It’s more than the heretics. Cyprene is placated for the moment, but only because they believe you are leaving soon.
How long do you think it will be patient?
Before the people decide to push back?” His words tighten, come faster.
“The longer you remain in the city, the more likely it is something will go wrong. Something neither you nor we can control.”
The Arbiter merely stares, waiting for him to finish.
“Or this foul, cowardly city will do nothing. Because they know the Flame will come for them if they do. A tempting thought—burning Cyprene to the ground would certainly take care of the heretics you seem so determined to handle like porcelain dolls.”
A chill silence falls. Then:
“Caius,” Nolan implores. “Please.”
The sound of that word, the desperation in it…
My hand almost moves. Almost deals with the problem of Caius in a definitive, conclusive way.
As revolted as I am by Nolan’s casual damning of the Salt priests, even worse is Caius taking away what brutal, but strategic, justification there was for it, making their deaths pointless.
“Let me clarify,” Caius continues. “I understand my power here… and my part. I am willing to leave Cyprene… in exchange for one thing.” He speaks to us both, but locks those cold Arbiter eyes with mine. “Tell me what you’re really after.”
Shit.
Nolan and I trade a startled look, one that tells me he’s thinking the same thing I am: that Caius is more perceptive than either of us gave him credit for.
“It’s not just a few heretics,” he continues, “even capable ones. Those, the Goddess’s forces could have flushed out, given the time and resources. But they didn’t send Bellators and their legions, or even Arbiters. They sent you.”
Nolan shakes his head. “Ambition is making you see riddles and machinations where there are none. You’re imagining—”
“A weapon,” I say. Nolan turns sharply, but we’ve had enough delays. “A weapon that’s able to kill the Goddess. One that almost did.”
Caius’s arrogant facade finally wavers, a glimmer of alarm appearing. Self-centered ass that he is, I almost forgot that his devotion likely runs as deep as any of Tempestra-Innara’s children. “Impossible.”
“It’s not,” Nolan says flatly. “We saw it, saw what it was capable of during the attack at the Cathedral.”
“But,” I add, “we’re sworn to secrecy about the details, so that’s all you get. At least until we find it.”
“And what…” The Arbiter exhales. “What if you don’t?” He’s rattled by this new information. Good. “If I knew what it was—”
“Why?” I interrupt. “How many guards did you bring with you? A hundred? Two? You could close the port again, set every one of them to tearing the city apart, and yes, likely come up with more heretics. Or, like you said, burn it to the ground. But while you did, that weapon would disappear. And if that happens, none of us are gonna be rewarded.” As this logic seeps in, it’s clear he understands, if begrudgingly.
“You ever try chasing a rat? Not nearly as easy as baiting them to come to you. Which is what we were doing until you showed up and ruined the trap.”
Caius is silent for a long minute. The debate on his face is clear, weighing the indiscriminate thrashing of his approach against the targeted cuts of ours. His eyes search mine, a gaze I hold, forcing expectant impatience into them.
“Three days,” he says finally. “That’s as much as I’m willing to give you. If you don’t manage to find this weapon by then, well…” His folds his hands. “Then I decide how to proceed.”
“That’s not enough.” Nolan paces to the other side of the room, agitated. “We may need more to truly earn their trust, figure out where they are keeping—”
“Three days.” Caius isn’t about to budge. “The Goddess has confidence in you”—his mouth flattens into a cheerless, mocking smile, the Arbiter we know returning—“and so do I.”
The Golden Glory sails the next morning on the early tide.
Nolan and I watch as it slides from the docks, through the relinquished canon towers, and disappears into the passage that leads to open waters.
A crowd has gathered for this too, as if the whole of the city wanted to see the Arbiter gone with their own eyes.
If only they knew how short their reprieve will be.
Three days. We got what we wanted from Caius, just not enough of it. At least as far as Nolan believes. As for me… I already have what I came here for. All I need to do is accept the terms tied to it.
A god’s terms.
My skin itches as we wait for dusk to arrive, wandering the streets of Cyprene, almost aimlessly.
There’s an unmistakable air of relief, a sense of release that seems to highlight the little holy moments that play out all around.
The clasping of a reverie. The sprinkling of salt on a threshold.
A bottle of the briny liquor Tychus drank being shared among friends.
They captivate my attention. There is nowhere else I might see so many gestures of fidelity not directed toward Tempestra-Innara.
Is this what the world was like when the gods were young, their followers spoiled for choice about whom to pledge their devotion to?
Is Cyprene a glimpse of the world that Osiron would make again?
And would that world—could that world—ever hold?
I’m so deep in thought that I don’t register the plaza we’re passing through until I spot the stakes, pitted and blackened by fire.
An acrid tang of smoke still hangs in the air, touched by a hint of roasted meat.
But, thankfully, whatever remained of Marzela and her Salt priests has been cleared away.
And, at the base of the posts, little piles have appeared.
Shells, braids of seaweed, but mostly tiny piles of salt, starkly pale against the dark scars left by the flames.
I glance at Nolan, no hint in his face about whether there are any lingering feelings about having sent the priests to their deaths. But he knows the world he wants.
They learned eventually, of course. When they built empires around themselves—great, grand things that grew and grew until they were all pressed up against each other… when those armies of the blessed turned on each other… they learned.