Chapter 13 Hakara
Hakara
Langzu – on the road west of Bian
Although the seven elder gods were, for the most part, friendly with one another, that did not mean they were always friends or that there did not exist some competition between them.
Lithuas and Velenor once saw each other as sisters, but Velenor never taught Lithuas her famed fighting style, though Lithuas hinted on more than one occasion that she would very much like to learn.
This privilege Velenor always reserved for the Aqqilans she saw as worthy.
It was an awkward situation, to say the least.
Only one of the enforcers was dead; the rest of them lay groaning on the ground, clutching at wounds, unwilling to get back up. The grass bent beneath their weight as they writhed. In her natural form, Lithuas seemed to glow, a soft light emanating from her skin.
I had her where I’d wanted her. Only I hadn’t thought about who I might have to sacrifice.
For the longest time, I’d thought I only cared about Rasha.
But in this moment, with that sharpened edge to Dashu’s throat, I felt as if it were my skin beneath the blade, my heart catching against my ribs as though impaled by them.
“Really?” She didn’t even look at me, her silvery gaze focused on Thassir. “You’re throwing your lot in with them? Now?” Her head cocked to the side, her blade unwavering at Dashu’s neck. “What is it about you? You really get pulled into the most pathetic, desperate situations, don’t you?”
“And you,” Thassir said at my back, “thinking you will possibly have any power over this world once Kluehnn finishes his work.”
She let out an annoyed huff of breath. “It was never about power for me. It’s about change.”
“What’s the point of change if you’re making things worse?”
“Is it worse? What could be worse?”
They stared at one another. The blade nicked Dashu’s neck, a thin trickle of blood mingling with his sweat.
“It would be a shame to murder such an artist. I’ve rarely met a mortal who could stand against me for any length of time.” Her silver eyes were edged with steel. “What do they know about you? Do they know everything?”
Thassir’s jaw tightened. “They know the truth of who I am, what I am, in this moment.”
Her laugh was bright as a fingernail striking the edge of a bell. “You were always such a coward.”
The click of a crossbow sounded just behind me. A bolt whizzed past my ear. Before I could even understand what was happening, Lithuas had melted into the form of a hawk, the bolt taking out one tail feather before she surged toward the sky.
“Thassir…” I reached a hand for him, but he was too far away.
He only grunted. “She moves too quickly in that form. I won’t catch her like that.” He let out a breath, continuing before I could form an angry response. “But she will shift again. Lithuas could never stay in one shape for long.”
I watched the hawk follow the road eastward. Toward Bian.
Dashu was wiping a spot of blood on his cheek as Alifra approached, tucking her crossbow back at her belt. “Close,” he said, looking at his reddened fingertips.
She touched his cheek, her fingers light. “Can’t fault me for a little envy. Maybe I just wanted her to recognize me as an artist it would be a shame to murder.” Her smile faded as she looked skyward. “We’re near Bian, and it looks like Lithuas is headed there. That could be a problem.”
Dashu frowned. “How so?”
“I may have promised Guarin the money from one of the Unanointed stashes. I saw Mitoran depositing money there once. Kept it in the back of my mind. Just in case.”
He groaned. “Which means she knows where it is too, and she might very well be on her way to make a withdrawal. You should never promise something you don’t have in hand, Alifra.”
“And where would we be if I hadn’t?”
I glanced around at our little group. “You know what else is a problem? We’re missing a certain clan noble.”
Each of them cast their gaze about. Only stunted trees, boulders, injured enforcers, and desiccated plants. Alifra let out a low whistle. “We are really shit at this, aren’t we?”
They weren’t. I was. This was my responsibility now, wasn’t it? I pressed the heel of my palm to my forehead. “He can’t have gotten far. Thassir. Go find him. We’ll continue on the road.”
Dashu eyed the enforcers.
“Leave them.” The taste of death still lingered like bitter ashes at the back of my mouth. No need to choke on it.
We were less than an hour on the road when Thassir rejoined us, dropping Mull unceremoniously into the dirt in front of me.
The man watched me, his gaze defiant, as I let out a heavy sigh, lifted the flap of his satchel, and took his identification folio.
He’d managed to nick it back from the enforcers before he’d run.
“No matter what you take from me, I’m still Mullayne Reisun,” he said.
“No,” I said, waving the leather wallet in front of him before lifting my shirt and tucking it into the waistband of my pants. “You’re dead. Best you remember that. Don’t forget how well it went for you the last time you told someone who you were.”
Maybe it would have been better to ransom him to his family, to take the money and run. But I had to think bigger than that.
We arrived at the outskirts of Bian just as the sun was setting, a hot breeze at our backs carrying us into the city as if we belonged there.
A few gazes lingered on us, but there were plenty of unsavory folk in the outskirts; what were a few more?
Thassir peered past the buildings as though he could see through walls.
“She changed again. She’s in inner Bian. ”
I felt all eyes move to me. There it was again, the weight of responsibility. “The safe house is on the way there. With luck, she won’t have stopped in yet. Where’s the money?”
Alifra chewed on a corner of her lip. “In the basement. In a hole behind the head of Barexi. You have to move it a little.”
“There are god gems in the safe house,” Thassir said. “In a lockbox. I can open it.”
“Fine. Thassir and I will go inside. Alifra, you and Dashu keep watch. Dashu, watch Mull.”
The house itself didn’t look any different from when we’d left it.
A sad, sunken building at the edge of the outskirts.
Thassir took a quick glance down the street before putting his shoulder to the door.
A creak, a break, and it opened. Alifra and Dashu took up positions at opposite corners, Dashu’s hand on Mull’s arm as he led him away.
We entered.
Dust had accumulated in the shadows. The curtain at the window stirred with the breeze. The fading sunlight reached tentatively into the room, limning the furniture in gold. I tensed as something moved in the far doorway.
A calico shape hurtled from the shadows before her head encountered Thassir’s shins. I swore I could hear her purr rattling the floorboards.
“Rumenesca!” He knelt to pet the animal. She hissed and swatted at his hand.
To my surprise, the cats hadn’t completely trashed the place. There were a few more scratch marks on the chair legs, some tufts of hair stuck to the cushions, but nothing more than that. “They’ve not ruined too much here, but they’ve probably pissed all over the bedrolls upstairs.”
Thassir frowned at me. “Cats are fastidious animals.” He put a hand out to Rumenesca again and got only one lip-curling sniff from her.
You would have thought I’d insulted his favorite child. He might have kissed me, once, but I barely understood him at all. “Why the cats? Of all the things to care about. You’re a god.”
His wings curled around his body, the useless protective gesture of a child pulling a blanket over their head.
“I told you once that I lost everything. I could only lose everything because I had everything. I was in love.” As though unbidden, a corner of his mouth curved into a smile.
“He was a shapeshifter. He liked to be a cat.”
I took a tentative step toward him, felt the loosening of our bond, an undercurrent of relief. “What happened to that god?”
Black eyes found mine. “He was murdered. Along with our son. Hakara, I have not been honest with you.”
As soon as he stood, I felt as though I should not have come as close as I had. A cat. A god who liked to be a cat. Even now, I could see flashes of the elder gods in my mind, the few paintings I’d encountered, the carvings in stone. “Why are you telling me this?”
He reached out, and I flinched away, felt like I should hiss. But I had no breath left in me. “Because I want to be honest with you. Because Lithuas is right. I am a coward. I have always been a coward.”
I’d never wanted to be the bearer of such secrets. Such terrible, world-breaking secrets. But I knew what he was going to say before the words left his mouth. I wasn’t sure how long I’d known for, why I’d wanted to keep pretending.
“I am not the son of one of the elder gods.” He’d tucked his wings behind his back, but even there I could see the shape of them, the way the dying sunlight cast the black feathers in gold. “I am one of the elder gods. Or I was.”
Nioanen. Defender of the Helpless. I couldn’t say the words aloud.
They felt like a joke, a cruel joke. He’d barely managed to defend me.
I held so many pieces in my less-than-capable hands.
The remains of the Unanointed in my care, a corestone in my body, and now an elder god bonded to me by magic.
Do something, a voice within me urged. Make this all right.
I couldn’t even make things right for Rasha. I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “You know that only makes things worse. You’ve done nothing. For so many years. You…” I stopped, my voice breaking. “You were supposed to do something.”
He stood there, and if he had any reaction to my words, it was buried deep. “Everyone dies. Everyone has left me. Everyone will leave me.” Finally, he looked away, and I felt the bond tighten again as he moved for the stairs. “Get the coin. I’ll get the gems.”