Chapter 55 Rasha
Rasha
Langzu – inner Bian, the Sovereign’s castle
King Wallam of Cressima was convinced that the hot peppers eaten in the south of Langzu were poisonous to one’s health, unless one was Langzuan.
He was so taken with this idea that when a woman on the street insulted him, he sentenced her to death by consuming one such pepper.
It took quite some time to obtain these peppers in Cressima, by which time King Wallam’s wrath had waned, but he insisted the execution be carried out.
She did not die after consuming one pepper, nor did she die after the second, nor the third.
Frustrated and bored, Wallam declared that she must have Langzuan blood running in her and pardoned her.
She went on to marry a Langzuan woman and together they made a healthy living importing hot peppers to Cressima and incorporating them into traditional Cressiman dishes.
I caught only glimpses of Sheuan before we left the castle, tastes that lingered, crumbs on the tongue of someone starving for more.
But I could not find any way to beg some time to myself.
Even had I been able to, I wasn’t certain I could find Sheuan alone, or even if I should, given that her husband had caught us in an embrace.
I might only cause more trouble for her.
There was nothing I could do in Bian, so I climbed into the wagon with Kluehnn and began the long trek back to the den.
He was more irritable than on the way here; when he wasn’t sleeping, he snapped at me, telling me I should have looked harder in the castle, that I should have followed the other cohorts instead of searching only one room.
I bowed at each criticism, urging him to see only what I wanted – soft Rasha, obedient Rasha, who had grown used to following others, to being their reason and never her own.
He tired himself out on these occasions, and I escaped the confines of the wagon, walking beneath the night sky, grateful for the sight of the moon for at least a little while.
One day blended into the next, and I found myself yearning for the conversations I’d had with Mull, or even the crow.
The other cohorts avoided me, never addressing me by name.
A messenger arrived as we approached the foothills. He came running toward us, never stopping or slowing down, his antlers stark against the early dawn sky. Kluehnn was asleep in the wagon, so I’d taken the chance to slip away again, my leg sore but holding.
All six godkillers drew their blades, gems lighting their faces from below in soft violet. I reached for my belt and found the space empty again, tried to turn the movement into brushing my palm against my robe – as though it didn’t matter to me that I was the only godkiller here without her blade.
He stopped short of us, and one of the godkillers raised her hand to bring the wagon to a halt.
The altered leaned over his knees, breathing heavily.
“I have news,” he said. This close, we could see the gray convert’s clothes he wore, the eye stitched onto the chest. The cohorts slowly sheathed their blades.
I waited, my shoulders tense. I’d left that chalk mark on the stone.
I’d let the gods know that the den would be vulnerable.
What had they done?
“We were attacked,” the messenger gasped out finally. “The gods. There were more of them than us. They ransacked the den.”
I wasn’t sure if Kluehnn had heard the messenger’s voice, or if the stopping of the wagon was what had woken him, but he poured out the back, his filaments waving, the extra mouth just below his neck baring its sharp teeth.
“What did they do?” he hissed. “What did they take?”
The messenger fell to his knees, bowing before the aspect. “They went into the deep places. They took the bodies your godkillers bring back to the den.”
The sky had lightened in the time we’d watched the messenger approach, as we’d waited for him to catch his breath. I could see the smoke now, rising from the mountains.
Kluehnn let out an echoing howl. All the hairs on my neck and arms stood on end. I’d caused this. I’d loved Kluehnn and I’d betrayed him, because I loved my cohort too. Because nothing was making sense anymore and I was grasping for a buoy at sea, trying to find reason again.
I squinted at the smoke, trying to figure out where it was rising from.
Not the den. The gods had taken the bodies, and they were burning them.
Something in my head clicked into place – it all made sense, though I couldn’t quite see how.
They had to burn the bodies, and it wasn’t just to honor their dead.
They had another reason. I could feel the reason burgeoning on the back of my tongue, like a word I couldn’t quite remember.
Kluehnn roared again. He hadn’t eaten this entire time.
He hadn’t eaten.
The girl with the horns, a meat hook through her shoulder. The sucking sound of a mouth and teeth working flesh from bone.
I wasn’t sure exactly how I knew, but I knew that he needed those bodies to eat, and they’d taken them and burned them and now he was so terribly, desperately hungry.
He climbed back into the wagon. “Get us back to the den as quickly as possible. Rasha, with me.”
I followed him inside, my stomach roiling. As soon as the curtain shut behind me, he spoke again.
“There is a traitor among us. Someone told the gods we would be gone. That I would be gone. You must find that traitor. And while you do that, I will deal with the gods. We will attack now, and I will call for more godkillers from other dens for a second wave. The gods cannot hide forever. If there are shifters, they will have to take other forms again to fight us unless they want to watch all their comrades die.”
“Kluehnn.” I let his name roll off my tongue with reverence, though all I felt now was fear.
“They have done this to provoke you. Shouldn’t you wait for more godkillers and then attack?
” The messenger had said so himself – there were more gods than the den had accounted for.
If Kluehnn sent the cohorts against that army now, so many godkillers would die.
His barbed tail lashed, and I stiffened. “We must kill the gods, enough to replace the bodies they took. I cannot let this attack go unpunished. Are you questioning me? Your faith?”
I bowed, pressing my face to the floor. “No. Of course not.” Even as I said the words, I doubted. He wanted to replace those bodies so he could eat them. He would make mistakes. Terrible mistakes. Ones that might cost Khatuya and Naatar’s lives. “I will find the traitor.”
“See that you do.” His voice was a low growl. “And quickly.”
The converts were walking among the injured when we arrived back at the den, checking bandages and offering up the white steamed bread with its grainy paste – Kluehnn’s sustenance. I noticed, with relief, that there were no bodies laid out on the ground.
The crow had kept his word. I wasn’t sure how much of my relief was because that meant he was still alive.
Kluehnn’s aspect slid from the wagon and past the various injured godkillers, retreating into the deeper parts of the den.
The sun had risen fully now, and sweat gathered in the small of my back as I squinted against its light.
I hadn’t been away from the den for that long, but everything felt different.
I should have gone first to Khatuya and Naatar, to regroup with my cohort, to find out what had happened during the skirmish, but I found my feet instead moving toward the archives. The room was quiet but for the scratch of pens and the turning of pages.
He was there, behind his screen, fingers moving over the lines of a book, looking as though he’d never suffered from aether sickness at all. The fur on the back of his neck was smooth; he’d not heard me approach. He leaned his head into his palm, and then he saw me.
“Rasha!” He sprang to his feet. We stood there, both unsure of exactly what we should do. Then he extended a hand. I took it, and he wrapped both our hands in his ink-stained palm. “We should talk.”
“Yes, we should.” The sweat on my back had cooled, my robe sticking uncomfortably to my skin.
I was the traitor. I was the traitor Kluehnn wanted me to find.
I couldn’t see any reasonable way out of this.
If I didn’t hand in the traitor, he would punish me.
If I did, he would kill me. “Not here. In private.” I had to think of a way around this, and maybe Mull could help.
I knew I’d have to make a choice at some point – between my faith and the relationship I’d begun with the gods, but I didn’t know enough yet.
I didn’t know the truth, and Khatuya and Naatar were still here. How could I leave them behind?
He followed me from the archives toward the room I shared with my cohort.
Kluehnn would be gathering the godkillers in the nave, and they’d be getting ready to fight.
I had a moment, and our room should be empty.
“I gave your letter to Sheuan,” I said as we turned through the tunnels. “I told her you were well.”
He scratched at the fur on one arm. “Well enough.”
I opened the door to my room and froze.
It was not empty.
Kluehnn’s aspect took up nearly the entire space.
It loomed over Khatuya and Naatar, who bowed before it.
All its terrible eyes swiveled toward me.
“You think I’d leave you to root out the traitor?
You think I could trust you that much after I had to take away your blade? That I wouldn’t ask my own questions?”
One clawed arm shot out and seized Naatar.
He let himself be dragged to his feet. “This one told me who the traitor is.” Kluehnn’s gaze landed over my shoulder, to where I could feel Mull’s presence, his breath quick against the back of my neck.
“Someone who came here as a convict and immediately started digging in places he did not belong. A spy.”
Everything was falling apart. I hadn’t been able to choose, not yet, and so my choice had been made for me. Naatar was pale, the brown scales standing out against his cheeks. I caught a glimpse of fear in his eyes before someone seized Mull.
Another cohort of godkillers, here to take him away. And I couldn’t speak out, couldn’t say anything, lest I be dragged away too.
“Enter, Rasha, and close the door behind you.”
I obeyed, my mouth dry, wondering exactly what Naatar had told him. If this was my fate, I knew I’d go to it willingly, unsure of what else to do.
When the door had shut, Kluehnn let go of Naatar’s arm.
The three of us stood there uncertainly.
I wanted to reach for them, to take comfort in my cohort, but it had been so long since I’d last done that.
We’d saved one another’s lives, we’d come out of the trials together, yet we’d still been drawn apart. I’d thought our bond immutable.
Time could change anything.
Kluehnn’s lower mouth licked its lips. “I know you helped him. The spy.”
I fell to the floor. “Forgive me, Kluehnn. I did so only because I was worried for my cohort. You’ve been sending them out without me.
There are two of them and there should be three to stand against a god.
They are strong, but I… I am not. Not without them.
” I didn’t understand myself – how I could go from searching for the truth to this sniveling, obedient creature who cared only for the safety of her cohort and nothing else?
“You think that trip to Bian was the test? You think I would give you back your blade for simply sitting alongside me and searching a castle? After you betrayed me by letting your sister go free? No.”
He turned, lifted something from the table at my bedside. It was another godkilling dagger, the glow of the gem dim by lamplight. “This is yours. Rise. Take it.”
Confused, adrift, I pushed myself to my feet. I nearly expected to feel the sting of his tail as I took the dagger from his grasp. Why would he give me a blade again if he saw me as helping a spy?
“Your reasons are good, Rasha. Your heart is in the right place. But you’ve allowed yourself to be led astray.
You want to keep your cohort safe? You want to ensure they keep their lives?
” He moved so he was between me and Naatar.
Khatuya stood next to me, though I didn’t dare look at her face.
Not right now, when I couldn’t know what my expression might betray.
“You want so badly to be sent out into the world, to prove yourself through violence? You’ve grown so restless here that my answers are no longer acceptable to you and you’ve sought out others?
Then let me give you a task to calm your busy, busy mind.
You will go out into Langzu with Khatuya.
You will find your sister, no matter what it takes.
You will kill her and bring back proof.”
One hoof tapped the floor. He rose onto his four hind legs, his head scraping the ceiling. “And if you fail, I will kill Naatar.”