Anna Stephens - Bloodchild

Dom sat up. Holding his breath, he jabbed the tip of the knife into the scar tissue this time. More lightning, searing up his arm and into his heart until it seemed to skip in his chest and pump delight and darkness. A bead of blood formed along the knife tip and he stared at it with unblinking intensity, fascinated by the firelight reflected in miniature in the crimson. He pushed harder, a little deeper, more blood welling and with it relief. Purpose. All the promises he’d told himself and Crys – all the lies – fell away to reveal the red, sharp-toothed truth.

The words came of their own volition, words of power and ecstasy and glorious surrender. ‘Dark Lady, beautiful goddess of fear and death, accept this my offering. Holy Gosfath, Lord of War …’

And there He was, the God of Blood looming over Dom in the sudden echoing darkness of the Waystation between Gilgoras and the Afterworld. Dom’s breath stuttered, mingled longing and terror freezing his thoughts. How was he here? How had Gosfath summoned him with such ease, such swiftness? And for what?

Yet Gosfath ignored him, sitting in the flames of His own burning, wrists resting on His bent knees as He watched His own shadow writhe and dance across the cavern’s wall. Tongues of red fire licked His red skin; He paid it no more attention than He did Dom.

Dom took a stealthy step backwards, and then another, but however he’d arrived, that path was closed to him. He was here until Gosfath said otherwise. Trapped. Bladder clenching, Dom eased himself to his knees. ‘I am here, Lord.’ The god didn’t respond. ‘Holy Gosfath, Red Father, what is your will?’

Now He did move. The great horned head rose ponderously in his direction, and small black eyes, dancing fire reflected in their depths, met Dom’s. If the god recognised him as the murderer of His Sister-Lover, Dom had no doubt he’d be killed, slowly, over months or years, for Gosfath’s pleasure.

‘Gone.’

The word was so loud and huge, the meaning behind it so vast, that Dom struggled to process it. All the loss and hurt that filled Dom to the brim was as nothing; Gosfath’s pain would drown the spaces between the stars, His rage hotter than those distant points of light, His loss a winding-sheet black enough and big enough to cover the face of Gilgoras itself.

Gosfath raised both hands, palms up in an expression so human, so lost and bewildered, that Dom’s throat constricted with shared grief. ‘Gone.’

‘We’ll bring Her back,’ he said impulsively, his hand extended towards Gosfath’s, finger to black talon. It was razor-sharp and Dom sealed the oath with blood.

‘Gone,’ Gosfath repeated, as though Dom hadn’t spoken, and the pain tore his heart into shreds.

‘What are you doing?’

Ash’s voice was so sudden, the return to the firelit room in Green Ridge so unexpected, that Dom yelped and the knife scored a deep cut through the remains of his arm as he stumbled to his feet. He yelped again and dropped the blade.

‘Gods, you scared me,’ he said shakily, pressing the hem of his shirt to the cut and backing rapidly behind the table.

‘I said, what are you doing?’ Ash demanded, following him. ‘Who were you speaking to? You were making promises. Which lord?’

Dom blushed and retreated again until his back was against the wall. ‘I didn’t, it wasn’t, it’s not what you think,’ he tried, but Ash reached out a long arm and hauled him close so that Dom was forced to look up at him.

‘You better not have been doing what it sounded like you were doing,’ he snarled. ‘I came back because Crys sent me to fetch you, because he wants to find a way forward, a way for you both to live with what you did to him – aye, and what he did to you. Though if he hadn’t cut that hand off, it would’ve killed you. But he sent me here because he’s not healing and neither are you and we need you both if we’re to have any hope of winning this. And I was starting to think we had a chance, that today was the beginning of something, and then I walk in here to find you cutting yourself and praying to the Red fucking Gods .’

Dom couldn’t meet his eyes. Shame and the hollowed-out emptiness of grief churned uneasily together. His vision blurred with tears and he kept his head down, blinking savagely. He brought me into His presence. So desperate is He for companionship that He’ll snatch at anything offered Him. Even me.

Ash’s arms came around him, one hand pressed to the back of his head, an embrace Dom neither expected nor deserved. He hesitated, snatched out of his thoughts and into this most surprising of moments. Gingerly, he hugged Ash back. More tears, and a wrenching pain deep inside that would never go away.

‘I’m broken, Ash,’ he whispered, and the confession was a catharsis. ‘There’s nothing left of me, nothing inside but hurt and hate and death.’ He tightened his arms, wanting to hold Ash to him even though he knew the archer must be disgusted. ‘I crave Her, Ash, Her touch, the … delight of the agony She brought, as wrong as I know that is. I don’t know how to live without Her. Everything the Dark Lady did to me was cruel, evil, but … I still love Her. I always will.’

He heard Ash swallow, felt him lean away, just a finger’s width, but one that threatened to become a chasm they could never bridge. ‘But you have to live without Her,’ he whispered. ‘Because She’s gone and She’s not coming back, no matter what crazy plans that blue-clad bitch has. We’re going to stop the Mireces, stop Lanta, and then send Gosfath into death after His Sister. And you’re going to help us do it, because that’s what we do, it’s who we are.’ He pushed him away to arm’s length, hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s who you are, as well, deep down.’

‘Is it?’ Dom whispered, the remembered expression in Gosfath’s face mirrored now in his own. ‘When all I can think of are ways to help the Blessed One? When every night is haunted with dreams of Her even though every day all I long for is to see Rillirin again? There’s even a part of me that would offer up her and our child if it would bring back the Dark Lady, and I hate it, I hate myself, but I can’t stop.’

Revulsion flashed across Ash’s scarred face and now he did let go, took a decisive step away. To the other side of that chasm. ‘Yeah? Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?’ He touched the notch in his jaw, another scar just visible through the open neck of his shirt. ‘I got killed by Galtas; didn’t want that. Crys got tortured – by you; he didn’t want that. The man I love above all others is a fucking god, and one that you prophesied would have to die to end this war, or have you forgotten your own words? “And the godlight will lead us, to death and beyond.” Do you really think either of us want that ? Because Crys knows this will kill him, he knows there’s no coming back from this, and he’s doing it anyway. Because he understands.’

‘Understands what?’ Dom whispered across the gulf, trying to reach his friend. Failing.

‘That sacrificing his life to save Gilgoras is worth it. That doing everything he can to spare innocents from the horrors of the Dark Path is worth it. That’ – Ash swallowed again, thickly this time – ‘that me losing him is worth it.’

He cleared his throat and blinked hard. ‘You killed Her, which was the only good thing you did in those months of your madness, and you’re not going to return there no matter how much you want to. I’ll kill you myself rather than see you lost to Blood again. So you’re going to help us make sure She stays dead, and you’re going to repent for the lives you took and the betrayals you perpetrated, because otherwise—’ He broke off, perhaps knowing that no threat he made could ever scare a man who wanted to give himself, body and soul, to madness.