Ninth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
Red Gods’ temple, temple district, First Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
‘Holy Gosfath, Red Father, I have come to serve you. If it is your will, tell me your desires and let me fulfil them. I am yours, Lord.’
The god was propped in His throne, His eyes dull with apathy and world-ending grief. He didn’t bother to look up as she spoke, or answer when she finished. The walls of the Waystation were lit with a red light that glowed from everywhere and nowhere, while the brighter gold of fire licked around Gosfath’s legs, sparking from His talons, His horns.
Again she had summoned Him to the temple and again she had been brought into His presence instead. But it had felt different this time. He’d approached, she was certain of it, had drifted right to the edge of Gilgoras, ready to set foot inside, before retreating. Perhaps next time He would honour them with His presence in the temple. In the circle. Another step in the spiral path to resurrection.
Lanta approached the throne and the massive red form slumped upon it, nerves fluttering in her belly. ‘Holy Gosfath, Lord of War, I have come to you. I, Lanta Costinioff and your Blessed One, have come to offer you succour. We are lost without you, Lord, and we are doubly lost without your Sister-Lover.’
Gosfath twitched, and His head swung slowly until those black eyes were spears impaling her.
‘Gone.’
Gosfath’s hurt swept over her like a black wind and Lanta shuddered, a sob escaping the prison of her lips. Her own pain was as a leaf bobbing on a torrent when compared with what He had lost and her hands ran across His calves and knees, giving – and taking – comfort. Yes, His grief was immense, but so was Lanta’s. As was her determination to reverse the horrors of the Dark Lady’s loss.
‘We are doing much to bring Her back, Father. In the temple in Rilporin, dedicated to you and to Her, we pray and sacrifice and commune. In the temple, Father.’
‘Gone.’
Gosfath twitched His leg from beneath her hand, the loss of contact an unexpected blow, a rejection that stung. This is your fault, it said. You did this, you left me here alone.
Lanta forged on, needing Him to understand. ‘She is gone, Father, but not forever, I swear it. I work tirelessly, day and night, to bring Her back to you and to us, to all Gilgoras. And when She is returned, we will wreak such vengeance on the world as has not been seen in millennia. You shall have blood and screams as your bounty, my god. We need your mighty strength in Rilpor, in the temple, if we are to bring Her back. We … need you to come to us, Lord. There is flesh there to slake yourself on, flesh for pleasure and flesh for pain.’
Tentatively, Lanta reached out and touched Him again. His skin was hot, a slow increasing heat like a pot put on to boil, but she didn’t pull away. If this was a test, she would not fail it. If her hands were to be the sacrifice Gosfath demanded, she would burn them in His fires and glory in it. She took a slow breath. ‘May I serve you, Lord? In the temple? Will you come?’
Gosfath leant forward and ran a finger down the soft skin of her neck, the talon scoring a bright line of blood. She didn’t flinch, though the muscles around her eyes tightened at the sharpness of it. And then He sat back. He licked the drop of blood from His talon, and then sighed like wind howling through a tree canopy.
‘Gone.’
There was no warning, no way to prepare herself; Lanta was flung back along the pathway from the Waystation to her body, thrust back into it like a man attempting to stuff an eel in a jar. She reeled on her knees and Gull, taken by surprise at her return when he’d expected her to be lost in the rapture of communion, failed to catch her as she collapsed. She lay there, sucking in the scents of old blood and damp stone, her thoughts whirling.
Rejected. He does not want me, not as servant, nor as vessel. He is undone, and so are we because of it. He will not come.
Lanta wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand; her palms were newly blistered beneath the bandages, burns upon half-healed burns, a gnawing insistence that ate at her mind.
‘What happened?’ Gull demanded, pale, the pulse jumping in his throat.
‘The god did not desire. Gone, He said. The same word three times, to every question about the Dark Lady and about our efforts to bring Her back. I asked Him here, more than once. He did not acknowledge it.’
She stared sightlessly past Gull’s shoulder as a sick dread swamped her. ‘If we cannot summon Him here, the Dark Lady will have no guiding light to steer by. She won’t know that we have a host for Her, a life for Her to take and use to remake Herself. We could fail.’
Gull licked his lips and pressed them, wet and cold, to her cheek. ‘We will not fail. We cannot. We must not. If it is not pleasure our Lord seeks, I will go to Him. I mean no offence, Blessed One, but I have served the god directly for years. We are old acquaintances. Perhaps I can use that.’
Lanta rebelled against the idea, but she knew it made sense. It wasn’t about pride or position or power, not any more. They were so far beyond such things now, a thought Corvus would no doubt be shocked to learn. The truth was Gosfath was attuned to His priest, as the Dark Lady was attuned – had been attuned – to Her Blessed One. It might be that Gull could persuade Him where she couldn’t.
‘Go, my friend. See if you can learn anything; see if He will speak with you. I have another matter to attend to. Will you need me?’
‘Thank you, Blessed One, but no.’
‘Then I will leave you to your rapture.’
And as for me, it is time to move the pieces on the board.
The battered slave flinched when she opened the door before jerking into a curtsey. ‘Blessed One.’
‘Where is your owner?’ Lanta pushed past without waiting for a reply, into a suite lit with bright sunlight from the empty windows. The rooms were fresh and clean, luxuriously appointed, but she knew instinctively that this was left over from Rilporian occupation. As King’s Second, Valan had resources and opportunity to surround himself with wealth and had not done so. The man was a good son of the gods and a devoted bodyguard.
Valan stood when Lanta swept into the room and inclined his head. ‘Blessed One. An unexpected surprise. Is everything well? The king is not here.’
‘I’m not here to see Corvus,’ Lanta said. ‘My days are trying enough without his carping.’
Valan ducked his head again, unspeaking, and gestured her to a chair. ‘Tara. Food and wine for the Blessed One.’
Lanta raised an eyebrow. ‘You gave it a name? Did you also give it those cuts?’
Valan had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘I was blessed with a large allocation of slaves,’ he said when she was seated. ‘All of them new. It seemed reasonable to use their names until their talents – or otherwise – were established. Tara is … different. Clever, for a Rilporian. Organised. She runs my household and anticipates my needs. When she converts, I will free her. She will cast off the soldier she professes to still be married to and make a fine consort.’
The woman in question carried a small table to Lanta’s side and placed a cup full of dark wine on it, handed another to Valan, and then put a platter of plums, cheese and sliced pork on the table. She curtseyed and moved to stand by the fireplace, her every action neat and silent despite her bandaged hand and the sweep of bruising curling up from the neckline of her gown.
‘Consort? To you?’ Lanta asked with the smallest touch of alarm.
Valan made a wry grimace. ‘I mourn Neela and will do so for some time. I doubt this one will still be available when I am ready to take another, not once she has placed her feet upon the Dark Path.’
‘She could warm your bed in the meantime,’ Lanta pushed. ‘You have been alone too long, Second. A bed-slave would ease your cares.’ She didn’t give him time to respond. ‘You, slave. Anything the second wants, anything at all, you provide. If he honours you by taking you to his bed, you will pleasure him as you pleasure your consort, do you understand?’
The woman gave a jerky nod, her ridiculous hair – cut short on one side, long on the other – bobbing into her eyes. ‘Yes, Blessed One.’
Valan’s face twisted, a hint of revulsion, a hint of embarrassment, as though the idea wasn’t new. As though he both wanted it and was repulsed by it. Lanta wasn’t surprised – the woman was pretty in a way, strong-featured and broad-shouldered, bred for hard labour, but nothing like the spite-filled waif she remembered as the dead Neela. And besides, Valan was well known for his strange, un-Mireces-like prudishness, a source of much amusement among his fellow warriors. Something else that suited her.
‘Your hands, Blessed One. You are hurt?’ he asked, a clumsy changing of the subject that she allowed. She’d got the information she needed, after all.
‘The rigours of my calling. It is nothing to concern yourself with,’ Lanta said easily as she made a show of grasping her cup and sipping. ‘Now, to the purpose of my visit, Second. I have doubts, grave doubts, and must share them with you.’
Valan put his cup down and shifted to the edge of his chair. ‘I am yours to command, Blessed One.’
‘Doubts about Corvus,’ she said, not bothering to break it gently. How Valan reacted now would determine everything, her actions in the coming months, the coming years.
His face went still, wary but not angry. He folded his hands in his lap and sat straighter. ‘I am King’s Second, Blessed One,’ he began and she felt a flicker of doubt; perhaps she had misread the situation after all. ‘I am a good son of the Red Gods. My feet are on the Path, and all I do is dedicated to Their glory. My king acts in the gods’ best interests – to my knowledge. And it is to the gods that we ultimately must answer, Their judgement higher than that even of kings, for kings make mistakes and gods do not.’
Mistakes like your dead consort and children, Valan. Mistakes like letting the greater proportion of our blood be wiped out so that we must dilute it by rutting with these heathens. Yes, King’s Second, yes. I know your heart.
Valan took a breath, knuckles turning yellow. ‘How may I serve the gods, Blessed One?’