Once clear of the tunnel and bathed in the light of the streetlamp, I yanked up my hood and forced myself to keep walking, even though the strange sensation of wrongness lingered. I really didn’t have the mental space to even begin understanding why I felt this way. As I hung a right, I figured that was something I could dwell on later while trying to fall asleep.
I drew in a deep breath. Nearing the edge of the townhome, I realized I no longer smelled of the White Horse or blood but of sweet pea and the god’s fresh, citrusy scent.
Swallowing a groan as the courtyard of the townhome came into view, I prepared myself in case they hadn’t taken the bodies. I allowed that veil of emptiness to return, for me to go to a place where nothing could scare me, could hurt me.
But in the pale shine of the moon, I saw that the courtyard was empty.
Skin pimpling, I passed through the open gateway and headed down the stone walkway, a patch of ground snagging my gaze. I stopped. The area where the mortal man had knelt was scorched as if a fire had been lit there. No blood. No clothing. Nothing but burnt grass.
“You going in there?”
I spun at the sound of the god’s voice, hand halting above the hilt of my dagger. “Gods,” I spat, heart racing as he stood there, the hood of his black, sleeveless tunic up, creating a shadow over his face. I hadn’t even heard him follow me.
“I apologize,” he said, slightly bowing his head. I saw then that he wore a silver band around his right biceps. “For startling you.”
My eyes narrowed. He didn’t sound sorry at all. To be honest, he sounded amused. That annoyed me, but what irritated me more was the soft leap I felt in my chest, followed by the buzz of warmth and rightness.
Maybe it was my near-empty stomach causing the sensation. That made more sense.
He strode forward, and again, his height struck me. It made me feel dainty, and I didn’t like that. His hooded head turned toward the area I’d been staring at. “When Cressa used the eather and it touched the ground, this is what happened,” he said, bending down to run his palm over the grass. Sooty ash darkened his hand as he looked up at the open doorway of the townhouse. “You were going inside.”
“I was.”
“Why?”
I folded my arms. “I wanted to see if I could find any reason for why they did that.”
“As do I.” The god rose, wiping his hand on his dark breeches.
“You don’t know?” I studied him, understanding dawning. This god hadn’t just happened along. He’d most likely already been in the passageway before I even walked past it, or he’d at least been nearby. “You were watching them, weren’t you?”
“I was following them.” He drew out the word. “Before I decided to not let you get yourself killed—which you still haven’t thanked me for.”
I ignored that last part. “Why were you following them?”
“I saw them moving about in the mortal realm and wanted to see what they were up to.”
I wasn’t sure if he was being honest. It seemed like an awfully big coincidence for him to have chosen to follow them the night they killed a mortal male and a babe.
His head turned to me. “I imagine if I advise you to go home, you will do the exact opposite once more.”
“I imagine you won’t like my response if you advise such a thing once again,” I returned.
A soft chuckle came from inside the shadowy hood. “I don’t know about that. I actually might,” he said. My brows knitted when he started forward. “We might as well investigate together.”
Together.
Such a common word, but it too felt strange.
The god was already at the steps of the townhome. For someone so tall and large to be so silent had to be the result of some godly magic. Avoiding the charred area on the grass, I quickly joined him.
Neither of us spoke as we entered the silent home. There was a door on either side of the small entryway and a set of stairs leading to the second
floor. The god went left, into what appeared to be a sitting room, and I headed straight, climbing the stairs. Only the creaks of my steps broke the eerie silence of the home. A gas lamp burned faintly at the top of the stairs, situated on a narrow table. There were two bedchambers, one outfitted with a single bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. Upon closer inspection, I found breeches folded and shirts hung, the size that would fit someone of the mortal male’s stature. There was nothing in the small bathing chamber of note. I backed out and made my way to the bedchamber at the end of the hall. I nudged open the door. Another lamp burned beside a tidied bed. The crib sitting at the foot of it turned my stomach.
That veil I imagined wearing wasn’t as in place as I believed it to have been.
Slowly, I entered the room. A tiny blanket lay in the crib. I reached in, feeling the soft fabric. I’d never thought about having children. As the Maiden, it wasn’t even a desire that could take shape as I grew and got older. It was never part of the plan because even if I had been successful and managed to make the Primal of Death fall in love with me, creation of a child wasn’t possible between a mortal and a Primal.
But a babe was truly innocent and relied on everyone around it, including the gods, to keep it safe. Killing one was unforgivable. The back of my eyes burned. If I had a child, or if any descendant of mine had been harmed, I would burn through both realms just so I could flay the skin from the body of the one who’d hurt them.
Breathe in. I held my breath until the churning in my stomach stopped. Until I felt nothing. Once I did, I exhaled long and slow and turned away from the crib and the tiny blanket inside.
My gaze skipped over a deep green divan. Someone had draped an ivory-hued silk wrapper over the back. I went to the wardrobe and opened the doors. Gowns hung neatly beside brightly colored tunics. Undergarments were folded and placed on the shelves among other garments, but there was more than enough room for the clothing that had been in the wardrobe next door.
Could someone else be in this house? Maybe the mother? Or had she not been home? “Where is the—?”
“Downstairs.”
“Gods,” I gasped, nearly coming out of my skin as I whirled to where the god stood, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his broad
chest, the hood of his tunic still up. “How are you so quiet?” Better yet, how long had he been standing there?
“Skill,” he said.
“Perhaps you should alert someone to your arrival,” I snapped. “Perhaps.”
I glared at him, even though he couldn’t see my face.
“If you’re looking for the owner of those gowns, I imagine that is who I found downstairs near the entry to the kitchen,” he offered. “Well, I found a charred section of floor and a lone slipper, anyway.”
I turned back to the wardrobe. “I don’t think the man I saw and the woman shared a room here,” I said, gesturing at the wardrobe. An idea formed. “Is there a study?”
“There appeared to be one, to the right of the foyer.”
“Did you find anything?” I brushed past him, wholly aware of how he unfolded his arms and turned, following in that silent way of his.
“I only gave it a cursory glance,” he said as I reached the top of the stairs. “I wanted to make sure the home was empty first.” He paused. “Unlike some. And by some, I mean you.”
I rolled my eyes as the steps groaned under my feet. The god followed, close enough behind me that my back tingled, yet his steps made no noise
—while I sounded like a herd of cattle coming down the stairs.
“What would you have done if you’d discovered the home wasn’t empty?” he asked as we reached the first floor.
“I would’ve celebrated, knowing that at least someone survived,” I told him, walking to the study. Moonlight filtered in through the window, casting light over the small chamber.
“Would you?”
I glanced over my shoulder as I rounded the desk. The god had gone off to the side, checking out the mostly empty shelving units built into the walls. “Would you not have?” I looked down at the desk. The surface was cleared with the exception of a small lamp.
“I would think surviving while your child and someone you shared your home with are both killed would be a hard life to celebrate,” he said, pulling open the center drawer. Nothing but quills and closed ink jars.
I closed it and moved to the one on the right, a deeper one. “I guess you’re right. She would be in the Vale,” I said, speaking about the territory
within the Shadowlands where those who had earned peace upon death spent an eternity in paradise.
“If that is where they went,” he murmured, stopping to pluck a small wooden box off a shelf.
My heart skipped. Did he think they could’ve gone to the Abyss, where all beings with a soul paid for evil deeds they committed while alive—both god and mortal? There was no way the babe had gone there. But the adults? Well, they could’ve done any number of things during their lives to earn themselves several lifetimes of horror.
I thought of the Vodina Isles Lords. A horror I would likely become acquainted with when my time came.
I shook my head, closing the drawer and moving on to the bottom, finding a thick, leather-bound ledger. I pulled it out, placing it on the desk. Quickly untying the cord, I opened the cover to find scribblings on pages and several pieces of loose, folded parchment. What I’d been searching for was the second piece of paper I unfolded.
I turned on the lamp and quickly scanned the document. It was an entailment of the townhome between the Crown and a Miss Galen Kazin, daughter of Hermes and Junia Kazin and Mister Magus Kazin, son of Hermes and Junia Kazin.
“Find something?”
Unsurprisingly, the god had drifted closer without being heard. “It’s an entailment of the property. They were brother and sister. That is if that was who lived here.” Which also meant that if Galen Kazin was the child’s mother, she was also unwed. Among the working classes, that wasn’t exactly rare, nor was it considered shameful. But to afford a home within the Garden District, one had to be descended from nobility or have found wealth through business. It was less common to find unwed mothers here. “I wonder where the father is.”
“Who’s to say the man outside wasn’t the father? Maybe it wasn’t the brother.” He paused. “Or, he could’ve been both.”
My lip curled. Even if that were the case, it was an unlikely reason for why the gods had killed them and the babe. Based on the stories I’d read about the gods and Primals, I doubted they would even bat an eyelash at that.
There was nothing else to be found in the study to give any indication as to why the gods had killed them. Though I wasn’t exactly sure what I
could’ve found that would have answered that. A journal chronicling their misdeeds?
“You’re frustrated.”
I lifted my gaze to where the god stood at the window overlooking the courtyard, his back to me. “Is it that obvious?”
“It’s not like this was fruitless. We know that they were likely siblings and that one was an unwed mother. We have the parents’ names.”
“True.” But what did that even tell us? I closed the ledger, retying the cord. “I have a question.”
“Do you?”
I nodded. “It might seem like an offensive thing to ask.”
The god had glided forward. That was exactly how he moved—as if his booted feet didn’t touch the floor. He stopped on the other side of the desk. “I have a feeling that won’t stop you.”
I almost grinned again. “Why are you curious about the gods killing mortals? And I don’t mean to insinuate that you don’t care. Although you did say you weren’t decent—”
“With the exception of the one bone,” he interjected, and it sounded like he smiled.
“Yes, with that exception.”
He was quiet for a long moment, and I could feel his stare, even though I couldn’t see it. “Let me ask you the same question. Why do you care? Did you know them?”
I crossed my arms once more. “Why do I care? Besides the fact that they killed a babe?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t know them.” Blowing out a breath, I looked around the study, seeing books that would likely never be read again, and knick-knacks whose value would no longer be appreciated. “When a god kills a mortal, it’s because of some offense,” I started. That was the tricky thing about the gods. They decided what warranted consequence, what was an offense, what was punishable, and what the punishment would be. “And you all like to make an…example out of such things.”
His head inclined. “Some do.”
“The act is to send a message to others. What the offense was is clearly known,” I continued. “Gods don’t kill in the middle of the night, take the
body, and leave nothing behind. It’s almost as if they didn’t want this to be known. And that is, well, not normal.”
“You’d be correct.” He drew a finger along the edge of the desk as he walked, the silent slide of his fingertip catching my attention. “That is why I am so interested. This isn’t the first time they’ve killed like this.”
I dragged my gaze from his hand. “It isn’t?”
He shook his head. “In the last month, they’ve killed at least four others like this. They took some of the bodies with them, and a rare few were left behind. But with not a single clue as to why.”
I racked my brain to see if I remembered hearing anything about any mysterious disappearances or strange deaths, but I hadn’t.
“Now we’re at seven mortals.” He drew his finger up the glass globe of the lamp. “Most were in their second and third decades of life. Two females. Four males. And the babe. As far as I know, they have never killed one as young as the child tonight. The only thing they had in common was that they were all from Lasania,” he said, curling his finger around the beaded chain. With a click, he extinguished the lamp, returning the chamber to the moonlight. “One of them was someone most would consider…a friend.”
I hadn’t expected that. It wasn’t that gods couldn’t make friends with mortals. Some had even fallen in love with them. Not many, though. Most had simply fallen into lust, but friendships could be formed.
“You’re surprised,” he noted.
I frowned, wondering exactly what had revealed that. “I guess it surprises me that gods can be bothered by the death of a mortal when they will outlive us no matter what. I know that’s wrong,” I quickly added. “A murdered friend who happens to be mortal is still a…friend.”
“Yes.”
And it had to be hard to lose one. I didn’t have many friends. Well, come to think of it, if I didn’t count Ezra and Sir Holland, then I didn’t have any friends. Still, I imagined losing a friend would be a lot like losing a part of yourself. I felt the emptiness begin to leave me with an aching pierce to my chest. I didn’t try to bring it back. There was no reason to at this moment. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
In the blink of an eye, he’d rounded the desk and was only a handful of feet from me. The urge to step back hit me at the same moment the desire to step forward did. I remained where I was, refusing to do either.
“As am I,” he said after a moment.
I searched the shadows gathered inside his hood, unable to make out even a single feature. “But you…you knew exactly what they were doing. That’s why you followed them. Why didn’t you stop them?”
“They got here before me.” That finger of his had returned to the desk, trailing along the corner. “By the time I found them, it was already too late. I had planned to capture at least one of them. You know, to chat. But, alas, my plans changed.”
My heart turned over heavily as I craned my neck to look up at him. “As I said before, I didn’t ask you to step in.” I glanced at his hand, at the long finger gliding over the smooth surface of the desk. “You chose to change your plans.”
“I guess I did.” He dipped his head, and I wondered exactly how much of my features he could see now. A shivery awareness danced over my skin. I wondered if he would— “To be honest, I find myself quite annoyed with that decision. If I had allowed you to continue on your merry way, it would’ve most certainly ended with your death, but I would’ve accomplished what I set out to do.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. “Like I said, I guess I’m lucky.”
“And as I said before,” he replied, his idle touch of the desk replaced by a tight grip, one that bleached his knuckles white. I unfolded my arms, senses alert as my pulse ticked up. “Are you really?”
The same reaction swept through me. I stiffened as the keen awareness vanished. A long gap of silence reigned, wherein he lifted a hand and lowered his hood. When his face had been hidden, I’d felt the intensity of his stare. Now, I saw it.
“I know you’re curious about why those gods did what they did, but when you walk from this house, you need to leave this alone. It doesn’t involve you.”
His demand dug into every wrong cord inside me. What little control I had over my life, I owned. Tension crept into my neck as I held his stare. “Only I get to determine what does and doesn’t involve me. What I do and do not do is of no concern to anyone. Not even a god.”
“Do you really believe that?” he asked in that same too-soft voice, the kind that stretched my nerves.
“Yes.” Slowly, I inched my hand toward my dagger. He’d shown no ill will toward me, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“You’d be wrong.”
My fingers brushed the hilt of my dagger. “Maybe I am, but that doesn’t change the fact that you have no say about what I do.”
“You’d also be wrong about that,” he replied.
I was totally wrong. In reality, no one superseded a god. Not even Royalty. The authority of mortal Crowns was more for show than anything else. The true power lay with the Primals and their gods. And all Primals, all gods, answered to the King of Gods. The Primal of Life.
But that didn’t mean I had to like it, nor the predatory way he looked at me. “If you’re trying to intimidate or scare me into obeying you, you can stop. It’s not working. I don’t scare.”
“You should be afraid of many things.”
“I’m afraid of nothing, and that includes you.”
In one heartbeat, he was standing several feet from me. In the next, he towered over me, and his fingers were curled around my chin. The shock of how fast he’d moved paled in comparison to the jolt of static that followed and erupted across my skin at the contact of his hand. It was stronger. Sharper now.
His flesh was so very cold as he tilted back my head. He didn’t dig his fingers in, nor was his hold tight. It was just…there, cold and yet burning like an icy brand.
“How about now?” he asked. “Are you afraid?”
Though his grip wasn’t firm, I found it difficult to swallow as my heart fluttered like a trapped bird. “No,” I forced out. “Just mostly annoyed.”
A beat of silence passed, and then, “You lie.”
I did. Kind of. A god had his hand on me. How could I not be afraid? But strangely and inexplicably, I wasn’t terrified. Maybe it was the anger. Perhaps it was the shock of what I had seen tonight, the unnerving feel of his touch, or the fact that if he wanted to harm me, he would’ve done it by now a dozen times over. Maybe it was the part of me that didn’t care about consequences.
“A little,” I admitted and then moved. Fast. Unsheathing the dagger, I brought it to his throat. “Are you afraid?”
Only his eyes moved, flicking to the hilt of the dagger. “Shadowstone? Unique weapon for a mortal to have. How did you come upon such a
weapon?”
It wasn’t like I could tell the truth. That it had been located by an ancestor who’d gain the knowledge of what a shadowstone dagger could do to a god and even a Primal once weakened. So, I lied. “It belonged to my stepbrother.”
The god arched a dark brow. “I sort of borrowed it.” “Borrowed it?”
“For the last couple of years,” I added. “Sounds like you stole it.”
I said nothing.
He stared down at me. “Do you know why such a dagger is rare in the mortal realm?”
“I do,” I confessed, even though it would have been smarter to feign ignorance. But the urge to prove I wasn’t some helpless mortal who could be intimidated was far stronger than any wisdom.
“So, you know that the stone is quite toxic to a mortal’s flesh?” he asked, and of course, I knew that. If it touched a mortal’s blood, it would slowly kill them, even if the wound itself didn’t. “And do you know what will happen if you try to use that blade against me?”
“Do you?” I countered, my heart pounding. The incandescent white light flickered behind his pupils, seeping into the silver in wispy, radiant tendrils. It reminded me of how the eather had spilled and twisted in the air around the Primal of Death.
“I do. I bet you do too. But you’d still try.” His gaze drifted down to where I had the dagger pressed against his skin. “Is it strange that knowing that makes me think of how your tongue felt in my mouth?”
Heat surged through my body, even as I frowned. “Yes, a little—”
The god moved so quickly, I couldn’t even track it. He grabbed my wrist and twisted, spinning me around. In a heartbeat, he had the dagger pinned to my stomach. His other hand hadn’t even left my throat.
“That was unfair,” I gasped.
“And you, liessa, are very brave.” His thumb brushed over the curve of my jaw. “But sometimes, one can be too brave.” His voice, dusky and smooth, wrapped around me like silk. “To the point where it borders on foolishness. And you know what I’ve discovered about the foolishly brave?
They often rush to meet death instead of having the sense to run from it. What is your reason?” he asked. “What drowns out that fear and drives you to run so eagerly toward death?”
His question caught me off guard, sending my pulse racing. Was that what I was doing? Rushing eagerly toward death? I almost wanted to laugh, but then I thought about that part of me that…just didn’t care. The part that overruled caution and sound judgment. “I…I don’t know.”
“No?” The word rippled from him.
“When I get nervous, I ramble. And when I feel threatened or am told what to do, I get angry,” I whispered. “I’ve been told on more than one occasion that my mouth would get me into trouble one day and that I should take heed.”
“I see you took that advice to heart,” he replied. “Always meeting a threat with anger isn’t the wisest of choices.”
“Like now?”
The god said nothing as he continued holding me against his chest, his thumb slowly sweeping back and forth, back and forth. With his strength, he wouldn’t even need to use the eather. All it would take would be a sharp twist of his wrist.
It was then that I realized I might have come to the end of whatever goodwill this god had regarding me.
My mouth dried, and the dread of what was sure to come settled heavily in my chest. I was teetering on the edge of death. “You might as well get on with it.”
“Get on with what, exactly?”
“Killing me,” I said, the words like wool on my tongue.
His head lowered a bit. When he next spoke, his breath coasted over my cheek. “Killing you?”
“Yes.” My skin felt inexplicably tight.
He drew back his head far enough that I could see that he had one eyebrow raised. “Killing you hasn’t even crossed my mind.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Surprise flickered through me. “Why not?”
He was silent for a moment. “Are you seriously asking me why I haven’t thought about killing you?”
“You’re a god,” I pointed out, unsure if he was being truthful or just toying with me.
“And that is reason enough?”
“It’s not? I threatened you. I pulled a dagger on you.” “More than once,” he corrected.
“And I’ve been rude.” “Very.”
“No one speaks to a god or behaves toward one in such a way.”
“They typically do not,” he agreed. “Either way, I suppose I’m not in a murderous mood tonight.”
I search his tone for a hint of deception as I stared at the window. “If you’re not going to kill me, then you should probably let go of me.”
“Will you try to stab me?” “I…hope not.”
“You hope?”
“If you try to tell me what to do or grab me again, I am likely to lose that hope,” I told him.
A quiet laugh rumbled from him—through me. “At least, you’re honest.”
“At least,” I murmured, trying not to notice the cold pressure of him at my back. The feel of him. It didn’t scare me. It didn’t even disturb me, which made me wonder exactly what was wrong with me. Because I was fighting the muscles in my back and neck that wanted to relax into him.
His hand slipped away from my chin, and I immediately whirled. He stepped back and, in the blink of an eye, was on the other side of the table.
“Be careful,” he said, lifting his hood and sending his features into the darkness. “I’ll be watching.”
