His face was too smooth for a human, the lines perfect, the dark eyes tilted down at the inside corners. His hair was cut short and tousled as if he’d slept on it and hadn’t bothered brushing it for a couple of days, but it was a deep glossy black and looked soft. He was clean-shaven, without so much as a shadow of stubble on his jaw, but somehow managed to look unkempt. The color of his face was odd too, an even olive hue. When most people described skin as olive, they meant a golden-brown color with a slight green undertone. His olive wasn’t darker, but stronger somehow, more saturated with green. The hilt of a sword protruded over his shoulder, wrapped with a purple cord. The same purple showed beneath his coat.
The woman towered next to him. Easily over six feet, dark skinned, with broad shoulders, she wore chain mail over a black tactical outfit and carried a large hammer. The body beneath the chain mail was lean: small bust, hard waist, narrow hips. She was corded with muscle. Her hair, in short dreadlocks, was pulled back from her face. Shades hid her eyes. Her features were large and handsome, and fully human, although she looked like she could punch through a solid wall. A purple scarf, gossamer light, hung from her waist.
“On the wall, the pair to the right,” I said quietly.
Both Derek and Julie kept looking straight ahead, but I knew they saw them.
“That’s human skin on the left side of his coat.”
If things went sour, those two would prove to be a problem.
Forty feet above us, the door of the tower opened and my father stepped out onto the stone landing. Magic clung to him like a tattered cloak. He was reeling it in as fast as he could, but I still felt it. We’d interrupted something.
“Blossom!”
“Father.” There. I said it and didn’t choke on it.
“So good to see you.”
He started down the stairs. My father looked like every orphan’s dream. He’d let himself age, for my benefit, into a man who could reasonably have a twenty-eight-year-old daughter. His hair was salt-and-pepper, and he’d let some wrinkles gather at the corners of his eyes and mouth, enough to suggest experience, but he moved like a young man in his athletic prime. His body, clad in jeans and a gray tunic with rolled-up sleeves, could’ve belonged to a merc who would’ve fit right into Curran’s team.
His face was that of a prophet. Kindness and wisdom shone from his eyes. They promised knowledge and power, and right now they glowed with fatherly joy. Any child looking at him would know instinctively that he would be a great father; that he would be nurturing, patient, attentive, stern when the occasion required (but only because he wanted the best for his children), and above all, proud of your every achievement. If I had met him at fifteen, when Voron died and my world shattered, I wouldn’t have been able to resist, despite all of Voron’s conditioning and training to kill Roland. I had been so alone then and desperate for any hint of human warmth.
Julie was an orphan. She had me and Curran, but we were her second family.
I stared at that fatherly facade and wished I could pry her away from him. If wishes had power, mine would’ve brought down this castle in an avalanche of stone and dust.
“Have you eaten? I can have lunch served. I found the most amazing red curry recipe.”
Yes, come, have some magically delicious curry in the house of a legendary wizard hell-bent on grinding the world under his boot. What could go wrong? “No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”
“Come, walk with me. I want to show you something.”
I glanced at Derek and shook my head slightly. Stay put.
He nodded.
I motioned to Julie. She thrust her flag into the stand and followed me, keeping about four feet of distance. I was about to rub my father’s nose in the mess he’d made. He would show his ugly side. I’d seen it before once or twice and it wasn’t something one forgot. It was high time Julie saw it, too.
My father and I strolled across the yard, up the stairs, and onto the wall. A complex network of ditches crossed the ground on the left side and stretched out to hug the castle in a rough crescent. Hills of sand and smooth pebbles in a dozen colors and sizes rose on the sides. I tried to picture the lines of the trenches in my head as they would look from above, but they didn’t look like anything. If this was the layout of a spell, it would be hellishly complicated.
What kind of spell would require sand and stone? Was he building a stone golem? That would be a really big golem. Judging by the amount of materials, it would have to be a colossus. But why use pebbles; why not carve him out of rock?
Maybe it was a summoning. What was he summoning, that he would need a space the size of twenty football fields . . .
“I’ve decided to build a water garden.”
Oh.
“I told you of the water gardens in my childhood palace. I want my grandchildren to make their own treasured memories.”
The recollection hit me like a sudden punch in the gut: my father on a grassy hill, taking away my son as I screamed. I had seen the vision in the mind of a djinn. Djinn weren’t the most trustworthy creatures, but the witches had confirmed it. If . . . no, when. When Curran and I had a son, my father would try to take him. I held on to that thought and forced it down before it had a chance to surface on my face.
“We are diverting the river. The weather is mild enough and with a bit of magical prompting, I will turn this place into a small paradise. What do you think?”
Open your mouth and say something. Say something. “Sounds like it will be beautiful.”
“It will.”
“Do you think Grandmother would like to see it?” Stab, stab, stab.
“Your grandmother is best left undisturbed.”
“She is suffering. Alone, imprisoned in a stone box.”
He sighed. “Some things cannot be helped.”
“Aren’t you afraid that someone will free her?” Someone like me.
“If someone were to try to enter Mishmar, I would know and I would come looking for them. They would never leave.”
Thanks for the warning, Dad.
“She isn’t alive, Blossom. She is a wild force, a tempest without ego. One can only speculate what damage she would cause if unleashed.”
Aha. Of course, you buried her away from everything she loves because she is too dangerous.
We resumed our strolling along the walls, slowly circling the tower.
“How go the preparations for the wedding?”
“Very well. How goes the world domination?”
“It has its moments.”
We strolled down the wall. That was probably enough small talk. If I let him run the conversation, I’d never get Saiman back.
“A resident of Atlanta was brought here. I’m here to take him home.”
“Ah.” Roland nodded.
We turned the corner and I caught a glimpse of Julie’s face as she walked behind us. She was looking at the empty field beyond the eastern wall. Her eyes widened, her face sharpened, and her skin went two shades whiter. I glanced at the field. Beautiful emerald-green grass. Julie stared at it with freaked-out eyes. She definitely saw something.
We kept moving.
Don’t burn bridges. Stay civil. “You kidnapped Saiman.”
“I invited him to be my guest.”
I pulled a photograph of Saiman’s brutalized body out of my pocket and passed it to him.
Roland glanced at it. “Perhaps ‘guest’ was a bit of an overstatement.”
“You can’t snatch Atlanta citizens any time you feel like it.”
“Technically I can. I choose not to, because you and I have made a certain agreement, but it is definitely within my power.”
I opened my mouth and snapped it shut. We’d stopped at a square widening in the wall that would probably become the basis for a flanking tower. In the field, on the right, a man hung on a cross
. Bloody, his clothes torn, his face a mess, he sagged off the boards. I would’ve guessed he was dead, except he was staring straight at Roland, his eyes defiant.
“Father!”
“Yes?”
“A man is being crucified.”
He glanced in that direction and a shadow flickered through his face. “So he is.”
It was the same look Julie gave me when she thought she had gotten away with stealing beer out of the keg but forgot about the empty mug on her desk. He had forgotten about the man he was slowly killing.
Julie glanced behind her, at the empty field. Okay, that’s about enough of that. I had to get her as close to the exit as I could now.
“I require privacy,” I told her. “Go back and wait with Derek, please.”
She bowed, turned, and walked away.
“You give her too little credit,” Roland said.
“I give her all the credit. I also never forget that she’s sixteen years old.”
“A wonderful age. Full of possibilities.”
Possibilities that you have no business contemplating. “What did he do?”
Roland sighed.
“What was so bad that you decided to torture him?”
Roland looked after Julie. “The problem with warlords is that the position is fundamentally flawed by its very nature. A general who is unable to lead is useless, but to lead, he must inspire loyalty. When the troops rush the field, knowing they may lay down their lives, they look to their general, not to the king behind him. Sooner or later, their loyalties become divided. They abandon their king and look instead to the one who bled and suffered with them.”
He looked at the human wreck on the cross.
“Is that one of Hugh’s men?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He refused my orders. I told him to do something and he told me that he was a soldier, not a butcher. The great hypocrisy of this pseudo-moral stance lies in the fact that if Hugh had given him the same order, he probably would’ve obeyed. I merely reminded him that he draws his breath at my discretion.”
And he’d ordered him tied to the cross. So the death would take longer. “That’s barbaric.”
Roland turned to me with a small smile. “No. Barbarism usually produces swift death. Cruelty is the mark of a civilized human. I still have a hundred Iron Dogs in this location. He’s an excellent visual aid.”
And that was it right there in a nutshell. Nothing was off-limits as long as it let him accomplish his goal.
“How long has he been up there?”
“Five days. He should’ve been dead by now, but he’s using magic to keep himself alive despite the pain. The will to live is a truly remarkable thing.”
I wanted to march down there and take Hugh’s man off of it. I wasn’t kind. I could be cruel. I had used my sword to punish before, but at my absolute worst, the punishment I delivered lasted minutes. The man on the cross had been there for days. The Iron Dog might have belonged to Hugh, but there was a line between good and evil, and that kind of torture crossed it. This was bigger than Hugh and me. This was about right and wrong.
“And if Hugh returns?”
“He won’t. I purged him.”
“You what?”
“That which is freely given can also be taken away. I’ve severed the link between us. He still has the benefit of our blood with all its power—that, unfortunately, I cannot strip without taking his life—but we aren’t bound. The light of his gift is no longer precious to me.”
The small hairs on the back of my neck rose. My father no longer cared if Hugh lived or died. “You made him mortal.”
“Yes. Even with his healing ability I expect he won’t last the next century.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes.”
Hugh had been my father’s wrecking ball. Roland would point at a target, and Hugh would smash it, until only blood and ash remained. Then my father would sweep in to rein in his cruel violent Warlord, and Hugh’s victims would rejoice, because anything was better than Hugh. Roland was Hugh’s reason for living. And now his god had rejected and abandoned him.
I hated Hugh for a list of things a mile long. His people murdered Aunt B. He used magic to throw me into my father’s prison and slowly starved me to death, trying to break my will. He murdered one of my friends in front of me. But I understood Hugh. He was an instrument of my father’s will, as much as I had been an instrument of Voron’s. Voron pointed and I killed, without question and, worse, without doubt. It took his death and years on my own before I broke free. I knew exactly how much that rejection from the man who raised you like a father could hurt. I had thought Voron cared for me. When I found out that he’d been training me so he could watch the pain on my father’s face as Roland killed me, it nearly broke me, and by then Voron had been dead for a decade.
“You were everything to him. He committed all those atrocities for you, and you’ve stripped him of your love, the thing he cared most about.”
“Hugh outlived his usefulness. His life had been a series of uncomplicated tasks and eventually he became his work.”
And whose fault was that? “You plucked him from the street. He was raised exactly the way you wanted him to be.”
“He had potential,” Roland said, his voice wistful. “So much magic. He was like a fallen star, a glowing meteor. I melted it down and forged it into a sword. You are right, it’s not truly his fault, but the fact remains—the world is becoming more complex, not less. Some swords are meant to be forged only once. It’s better to start fresh.”
Julie. Julie was a glowing meteor too, young and malleable, easy to melt down and reforge. You fucking asshole. You cannot have Julie. Hell would sprout roses first. I unclenched my teeth and forced my voice to sound even. “It would’ve been kinder to kill him.”
Roland’s smile never faltered, but for a moment, the warmth in his eyes cooled and I glimpsed the icy steel beneath. “I am not kind, my daughter. I am fair.”
I had to get out of here before I did something I would regret. But I also had to spring Saiman free and avoid a war with Roland.
“Return Saiman to me.”
“The frost giant left the borders of your city voluntarily. My people didn’t trespass.”
So they lay in wait and nabbed him while he was traveling. Damn it. “It doesn’t matter. His residence is in Atlanta. His business interests are in Atlanta. He owns property, he employs people, and he pays his taxes in Atlanta. He’s mine.”
Roland pondered it for a long moment. “No. I need him.”
Right. Obey the letter of the agreement but not the spirit. “You’re forcing me to act.”
“You don’t even like him.” Roland’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the harm of me keeping the creature?”
“It’s the principle. I would do the same thing if I had never met him before. Return my frost giant, Father.”
“Or?”
“Or I’ll have to retrieve him. I won’t abandon my people.”
“I hate when we fight.” Roland tilted his head. “What if I offer you that life?” He nodded at the cross. “A consolation prize. It bothers you. I can see it in your eyes. You may take Hugh’s second-in-command, daughter. Do with him as you will.”
“Thank you. I will take him since you’re giving him to me. But I still need my frost giant.”
“Do not raise your hand against me, Kate. All you have to do is walk away.”
All of his promises went right out the window as soon as there was something he wanted. The urge to scream in his face was getting to me. Screaming would accomplish nothing, except plunge us into a conflict we weren’t ready for. “Not going to happen.”
He sighed.
“You’re not giving me a choice. If I follow your logic, then any of the people who leave th
e boundaries of my city are fair game. Since you’re parked right outside the city border, Atlanta is under siege and a siege is an act of war. You’re in breach, Father.”
Roland laughed quietly.
“This is solved very simply. Give back what you’ve taken. You started this. I’m merely reacting.”
“You’re not ready to oppose me. Don’t open this door. You don’t have the ruthlessness to fight me.”
I’d had enough. “Father, when was the last time you killed someone? I don’t mean with magic, I mean with your hands, close enough that you could look into their eyes? I killed a woman a week ago to keep her from sacrificing her children to some forgotten god. I have killed so many, I don’t remember all their faces. They blend. The door is already wide open and you were the one who opened it. Are you ready for me to walk through it?”
A shadow crossed his face. I felt the magic rise within him like a brilliant new star being born from the empty darkness.
“My proud daughter, my sensitive, kind child, compassionate toward her enemy, you have saved one man from his fate. But what will you do about them?”
Magic rolled from him. The empty field to the left of us shimmered. Crosses appeared, like a mirage in the desert manifesting in the wavering hot air. Men and women, young and old, hanging from the wood. Oh dear God . . . There had to be thirty crosses in that field. The bodies sagged, completely still. Nobody moved.
The odor reached me, the awful polluting stench of human flesh rotting. They were dead. All of them.
Ice rolled down my back. The horror of it was too much.
Roland looked at the lone survivor on the cross. The face of the Iron Dog contorted. His cross was facing the others.
“You made him watch.” They died in agony, one by one, and the Iron Dog saw it all.
“You have no idea of the things I’m capable of. You cannot stand against me. When I ordered him to kill these people, it was a kindness. He disobeyed and would not give them swift death, so I showed him what his defiance cost.”
The ice reached the small of my back and exploded into an inferno. Roland was watching me now to make sure I got the message. Oh no, Father. Don’t worry. I’ve got it.