Celp smouldered.
At the entrance to the town, at the broken wall Refuge had ridden through nearly a week ago, Heast and Aela Ren dismounted. Both horses baulked at entering the ruins. At first, Heast thought it was because of the warmth that lingered in the ground, the heat that was kept alive by the dull orange that threaded through the ruins like worn veins. But after he stepped through the break in the stone, he realized he was mistaken: the two horses had not responded to the warmth, but to the coldness that caused his skin prickle.
There was no wind, but yet it felt as if the cold was swirling around him. His good leg could feel it most strongly, the chill biting through his boot.
‘How strange,’ the Innocent said from beside him. ‘I half expect it to snow.’
He had never seen it snow in this part of the world. ‘Is this your god?’ Heast asked. He began to walk forwards, leading the other man towards the centre of town. ‘Is she watching you?’
‘No.’ Ren did not hesitate in his reply. ‘But this is her doing.’
Ahead, the remains of Celp’s buildings lay in broken arrangements on either side of the road: the roofs of houses had fallen in and exposed splintered, blackened framework. The houses built from brick were the ones that remained standing, pieces of the walls like strange maps that threaded up from the ground to the roof. In other buildings, the black framework rose from ruins and ended in sudden, snapped pieces.
The chill increased with each step Heast took and, halfway along the road to the centre of the town, he passed a wide open space of rubble. It was close to where he and Oya had charged through a building, to emerge on the other side. Around the ruins lay blackened bodies and, though they had been dead for nearly a week, Heast could not smell any hint of decay. Yet, gazing at their remains, the Captain of Refuge could not believe how he and Oya had survived the fires and destruction around them. He could not believe any of them had, in truth, and the thought reminded him briefly of the cold haunts in Mireea, the white-lined figures of the dead who had stood around him and the others after the Leeran siege.
‘My soldiers have been in here twice since we fought,’ he said, pushing the thought from his mind. ‘They said the cold was only around Waalstan’s body. They said that no decay touched his body and that he still bled from the wound that killed him.’
‘Could they lift him?’ Aela Ren asked.
‘No.’
‘He has been made a saint, then.’
‘A saint?’ Heast could not remember when he had last heard the word. ‘Why would a god make a dead man a saint?’
‘You look for reason where there may well be none.’ The street narrowed: the ruined, burned buildings closed around them. The still-smouldering stone and wood appeared stronger here, but the coldness was more pronounced. ‘The gods had saints before the war. They were, by and large, servants such as priests and soldiers. After they died, the gods would trap their souls in the body. In a fashion, they were still alive, though the men and women had no control over their bodies. They could not move, could not speak, could not partake in any of life’s joy. I do not know if they could see out of their eyes, or hear, or smell, but the soul being so trapped ensured that the body did not decay. Their bodies could only be moved by the gods’ faithful.’
The centre of Celp opened before them, suddenly. The huge square was surrounded by black rubble and dominated by bodies in various states of stalled decay. The cold had stopped that, just as it had stopped the smell of rot. In addition to that, it gave a sheen to the dirty, silver armour that encased Ekar Waalstan’s body.
On his chest a faint circle glowed, as if a part of the sun was trying to burst from him.
‘Does it bother you that a god would do this to a loyal servant?’ Heast asked.
‘Ask me instead if I am surprised.’ The Innocent walked around Waalstan’s body, stopping at the broken shape of his skull. ‘The blood still runs free, here.’
‘What has she done to win your loyalty?’ Heast asked. ‘I would not accept this in any man or woman I served.’
‘I have done worse, have I not?’ When Heast did not reply, Ren shrugged. ‘The answer is not a complex one, Captain. She is a god. She will redefine this world. She will take away our anarchy.’
‘Our freedom?’
‘If you had been alive when the gods had walked this world, you would not compare the two. A god does not take away your freedom, I assure you.’
‘What would happen if your gods returned?’ The cold had begun to numb Heast’s good leg, but he did not move away from Waalstan’s body. ‘Would you be loyal to your master again?’
‘Look around you, Captain. Not just at this city, but at the world. How in this world can any of the old gods return? Their bodies are broken, their divinity scattered, their creation scarred like I am.’ The Innocent held out his hands, palm up, to emphasize his point. ‘They will not return. They cannot. Time draws to an end for all of them. Ger’s tomb has crumbled. The mountains are in ruin. More gods will follow him into nothing. You and I stand in the final acts of their divine existence. We stand in their destruction.’
He bent down, then, and lifted Ekar Waalstan from the ground. Heast was prepared for him to stand again, for him to be unable to lift the body, but Ren raised the General as if he weighed nothing. The coldness that had spread through the square, through all of Celp, broke as he did. A light spread from Waalstan. It poured from his head, from the wound that had been bleeding but a moment ago. It was light, now, a whiteness, and purity, that filtered over Aela Ren, highlighting his scars, the violence that his body embodied.
The Innocent did not say another word to Heast. Quietly, he carried Se’Saera’s saint down the street, the light a nimbus surrounded him until he reached his horse.
Refuge waited there. They waited at the edge of Celp, mounted on their horses as if they, like the two horses Heast and Ren rode, had baulked at the entrance of the town. Lieutenant Lehana sat at the head, her bastard sword unsheathed and held across her lap. Heast did not believe that she would attack Ren. He did not know why he thought that: he had no sign from her, or from Taaira, or Anemone, who sat beside her, but he knew that Lehana would not. Instead, she allowed Refuge to part, to create a path for the Innocent to leave.
Aela Ren did not take it immediately. Instead, he laid the saint’s body over the saddle of his horse, and took the reins in his scarred hand. For a dozen heartbeats, he met the gazes of Lehana and the soldiers around him, as if he was gauging them, as if he was committing their faces to memory. Then, after a brief nod, Aela Ren walked down the aisle they had made for him.
Heast did not give the order for any to follow the Innocent. He did not need to. He knew where the scarred man was going, knew that he and Refuge would be there, soon enough. He pulled himself onto his horse and, in the silent company of Refuge, rode back to their camp.
He was halfway to the camp when Kal Essa’s scouts found him.