Anna Stephens - Bloodchild

‘We will have a rebellion on our hands, Blessed One. Slaves and Mireces will die in that rebellion.’

Lanta gritted her teeth. ‘You swore that everything you did was for the glory of the gods. They need more than glory now; They need an act of faith so enormous that it returns the Dark Lady to us. All other considerations are as nothing in the face of that. What we are attempting has never been done and I will not have you jeopardise it. I will not, so I don’t care where you get it from, just find the food and keep my sacrifices alive until I need them.’

Corvus’s hand was squeezing the hilt of his dagger, but not in threat, she thought. ‘You ask too much.’

‘The gods always ask too much, Sire,’ she said softly. ‘And we always provide Them with what They demand. We are Mireces; sacrifice is in our blood.’

He had no answer to that, of course, as she’d known he wouldn’t. It furthered his frustration and added another crack in the bond that had united king and Blessed One thus far in their great conquest. Corvus stalked from the temple without another word, and when he was gone Gull detached himself from the shadows and joined her.

‘You are concerned?’ he asked.

‘He was the perfect king to lead us to victory – even a victory such as this, that cost us our Bloody Mother. But is he the king to rule Rilpor in the gods’ names? Is he the king who will do all that is necessary to see Them ascendant?’

‘You doubt his loyalty?’ Gull was surprised.

‘Never,’ Lanta responded instantly, and was a little surprised to find it was the truth. ‘I doubt his … ability. Corvus is a killer and a leader of men, but is he a governor? Can he provide for his people and keep the slaves in their places? When he killed King Liris, he took over an established and stable world. This one he is building from scratch and I don’t think he knows how. I don’t think he really wants to.’

‘He wants to go to war.’

Lanta rocked her head from side to side. ‘He knows war, but he knows subjugation too. Sending the East Rank rather than Mireces to occupy the towns and villages was a master stroke – it’s easier to give up your liberty to people who look and sound like you. But taxes and crops and laws? Where’s the glory and excitement in that?’

‘Do you want him removed?’ Gull asked.

Lanta pursed her lips. ‘Not yet: we need stability, at least for now. Corvus understands the importance of keeping the slaves alive; despite his frustration here, he will not risk the great rite out of pettiness. But he needs aid, someone who can teach him what he needs to know, provide answers to the questions he doesn’t know how to ask.’

‘I may be able to help with some of the governance,’ Gull offered. ‘I was a silk merchant here in Rilporin for a decade. I understand trade, supply and demand.’

Lanta turned away from the door through which Corvus had exited. ‘Your offer is generous, but I need you here. Corvus will monopolise you if he thinks he can pass such things into your hands. But if there are others among the slaves who would suit …’

Gull nodded and left her, understanding her moods well enough, and Lanta wandered through what had once been the Dancer’s temple and was now sworn and blooded to Holy Gosfath and His absent Sister-Lover. Not dead. Absent. It was the only way she could bring herself to think about it despite the great work they were preparing, despite her every waking – and some dreaming – moments being dedicated to it.

She passed the godpool, sanctified now with the blood of scores of sacrifices so that the once-clear water was red-tinged and thick, clotted and reeking. It was unpleasant, but the last of the Light needed to be chased from this newly hallowed place. Besides, it served as a potent reminder to any slave who thought to raise the defiant eye to their betters.

As always, her footsteps led her outside and into the temple square, to the wooden, open-sided shelter that had been erected over the place where the Dark Lady had been taken from them, the ground still stained with Her divine blood, much as Lanta was herself. There was someone in the shrine, kneeling on the unmarked stone and staring fixedly at the black droplets just in front of him. He looked up at her approach, and scrambled to his feet.

‘Second Valan, forgive me. I had no wish to intrude on your prayers.’

He bowed, his eyes running hungrily over the marks on her skin. He wanted to touch them, as he wanted to touch the stains on the stone. He didn’t dare. ‘It is I who should beg forgiveness. If this place belongs to anyone, it belongs to you.’

Lanta sat on one of the benches circling the shrine and gestured for him to join her. ‘It belongs to us all, Second. You are welcome here whenever you wish, but if you are looking for Corvus, he has left.’

Valan was silent for a while. ‘I was not,’ he said. ‘I came here to pray for my family. Their journey is long and may be perilous, and Ede is only three.’ He met her eyes briefly and Lanta noted the flash of indecision. She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘I worry my daughters won’t remember me,’ he confessed in a rush. ‘What will they have been through while I was here fighting? What trials or sicknesses that I could not comfort? They might not even be alive now.’

Lanta was surprised. Valan rarely spoke of his family and she couldn’t even remember his consort’s name. Such open love was rare among Mireces men, such loyalty even rarer. ‘Their lives will have been what the gods decreed for them,’ she said. ‘Be at peace knowing that if they suffered, they did so to prove their devotion. But there is no saying they did,’ she added.

They sat in silence for a while longer. ‘You are a good man, Valan,’ Lanta said and he blinked in surprise. ‘I hope Corvus knows how lucky he is to have you as his second.’

‘The honour is mine,’ Valan said automatically. ‘My life to serve.’

‘Yes,’ Lanta said, examining him in light of the idea sitting fresh and a little shocking in her mind. ‘We are all put in Gilgoras to serve the gods and do Their will, whatever it may be.’ She stood and he rose with her. ‘I will pray for your family,’ she said and strode back towards the temple before he could respond.

Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

Green Ridge, Southern Krike

They’d given the three of them a small house to sleep in, the Two-Eyed Man and his faithful companions. Or faithful companion, singular. Dom wasn’t sure he qualified. Dom wasn’t sure Crys and Ash would allow him to qualify, regardless of his own opinions on the matter.

As the sun went down, the others had gone to the town’s council house and Dom had stayed behind. He lay on the floor, head pillowed on a pile of blankets, and watched the flickers of orange light dancing among the roof beams and spiders’ webs. He’d managed to untie and retie the laces of his trousers eleven times, each one a victory against the memory of the crushing embarrassment at asking Ash – a man he’d once considered a brother and who now hated him – to help him in the first days after the loss of his hand.

But being able to take a piss unaided and being able to fight were two different things. Dom hadn’t managed to scavenge a weapon when they’d fled Rilporin, but he’d found a reasonably sharp knife in the kitchen that might break the skin of an enemy if they didn’t mind holding still for a while.

He snorted and spun the blade awkwardly in his fingers, his right hand so less nimble than the one he’d lost, and fumbled it so the hilt knocked against the stump of his arm and sent a bolt of lightning through the twisted nerves and flesh. He yelped at the pain, and then did it again because it felt, in some indefinable way, good, opening a well inside him he hadn’t realised was there and demanding he jump in.