7.

 

“We have come to take you into custody,” Ayae said. “You have—”

“Ger has died.” Bau spoke, ignoring her, while Fo’s scarred eyes drifted lazily over the men and women around her. “A god is dead. Do you feel the difference? It is as if a wound was drained and you can suddenly move that limb freely, again.”

She tried again. “You—”

“You can feel it, can’t you?”

Around her, soldiers and mercenaries began to encircle the room, Queila Meina falling in beside her. “I did not know it was that,” she said finally.

“The men and women beside you won’t understand what you felt. To them, Ger is already dead; he has been dead for longer than history records. But you and I know that is not right. He has been dying. Dying for thousands and thousands of years until he is gone. Just like that. In less time than the words itself take to speak. And we—you and I and Fo—are left with the absence. We, and only we, are the ones who can feel it. Only we can question it. We must ask ourselves what we will feel when one of us dies. Will we have that sensation of loss? Will our awareness of each other, so much smaller than our awareness of Ger, point to a similarity between us and him?”

She felt a flatness in herself, an emptiness in her stomach, and her hands—her warm hands—fell to the hilt of her swords. “There are rules,” she said. “You said so yourself. No immortal can attack another.”

“Little flame.” His smile was a knife’s cut in his handsome face. “No one even knows for sure if you are a god.”

“And besides,” Fo said, finally speaking, “who said you could judge us?”

Her reply was lost in the sudden push.

Meina’s command was a hand signal, a movement in the corner of Ayae’s gaze, her palm flat, her spread fingers tightening. The heavy shields in the hands of the soldiers from Steel led the way, the Mireean Guard following. In seconds, the room shrank, the walls no longer defined by brick, but by metal. Ayae watched as Bau took a single step backward, while the scarred, bald Keeper slid his gaze to those around him. His lips puckered as if he were going to speak … but with no apparent hesitation, he spat.

Onto the shield before him.

The shield that webbed with fractures, that began to crumble—

That the Keeper’s fists broke through, plunging through the suddenly exposed guard of the mercenary behind, and into the man’s face.

Meina’s order was sharp—“Face!”—but Ayae, unable to tear her eyes from what happened before her in drawn-out seconds, saw the man’s face begin to crumble, following the pattern of destruction that had afflicted the shield. It was not the force of Fo’s punch that did it, no; the impact after he broke through the shield was hard, but not enough to do what she saw. He screamed, falling back with one mercenary grabbing him as others swarmed Fo, shields smashing into him, the shape of each falling apart as he curled into himself, refusing to submit.

She started to call out, to shout that they had to attack not just him, but Bau, that Bau was important, that they couldn’t just let the other Keeper stand there, that nothing would happen if they did that, when Vasj vaulted over the shields. The words died on her lips and she shifted forward, aware that she was standing at the back now, that she was the last person in the room.

Vasj’s heavy sword leveled at Bau, intent to take his head from his neck … and he stumbled, the sword dipping, the strength leaving his body.

The floor erupted in a sickly green light, driving back those attacking Fo.

Slowly, the Keeper picked up the fallen man’s sword with his scarred hand. “Everything can contain a disease, a rot. Steel, wood, flesh: it matters not to me.” As he spoke, a faint green glow began to emanate from the blade. “Imagine, now that Ger has finally died, what will happen to the foundation of this mountain? As the rot sets in, even the ground you stand on will not stay safe.”

Green lines began to emerge around his feet, webbed from each step. She saw those who had fallen around him bloat, saw their flesh split and crack … and before any of those standing—the dozen that included the Captain of Steel—could react, Ayae found herself suddenly, surprisingly, next to Fo. Her swords led the way, thrusting high and low, forcing him to raise the sword in his grasp, to parry both her blows. Still, quick as he was in his defense, she was quicker, and her left blade sliced through his shoulder.

As she thrust again, as she pushed that wounded arm, she saw it heal.

With a grunt, she drove Fo backward. But with the rush of her emotions fading, she realized that she had made a mistake. She had stepped into his unhallowed ground, ignored the very advice she had given herself moments before. She could feel weakness in her feet. As she took a step back, the sole of her boot gave way, the leather splitting from sudden age, her balance lost and saw Fo’s sword—

—caught by another.

Meina twisted, thrust the sword away, and mercenaries and guards barreled into Fo, thrusting him to Bau, threatening to take both out of the window.

She could not watch. The pain in her feet was unbearable and she needed Meina to steady her. When she met the gaze of the mercenary, she saw a dark fatalism there. It was justified. The pain she felt was a fraction of what the guards and mercenaries who had led the attack felt. They lay in crumbled heaps, their skin sagging, their bones piercing their skin in angry, red protrusions.

It had taken only a handful of heartbeats for the two Keepers to accomplish that. The tiniest fraction in all their lives to kill them.

Ayae pushed away Meina, her anger fueling her, but as soon as she placed her weight on her feet, she screamed. The bones in each foot cracked, fractured. It was as if she could feel each break, as if each foot were on fire, as if she were on fire—

And she was on fire.

The pain of it ran through all of her, so suddenly and painfully, like burning liquid in her joints. The pain in her feet evaporated, her consciousness slipping for a moment. The world went dark. She could hear nothing. She felt nothing. And then—a sudden rush of noise, of crying, shouting, of steel clashing and voices calling out orders, calling out for Meina, the woman who had been forced to step away from Ayae by the heat that had ignited the floor of the tower.

A burning floor that she stood on without pain.

“Captain—”

“—where did—”

“The injured—”

“—Captain!”

“Ayae!”

She heard Meina cry her name, but her steps had already been taken, her path cleared by the flames around her. Flames that did not and would not terrify her. Flames that she could control, that bent to her desire and intent. As she ran, the flames bent to reveal crumbled shields and twisted swords, men and women who no longer looked as if they had ever been alive, who had been robbed of their humanity and their dignity. It was especially clear to her in the body of Vasj, of the man who had appeared so strong but now lay on the ground, curled in on himself as if his skeleton had lost all that it took to keep him straight.

It was Fo who saw the danger first, how close they had come to the window, and he cried out, too late, too late—

She broke through the glass with both men.