She took a step away, suddenly fearful. But as she moved, her legs shuddered, her knees jellied. An ache throbbed throughout her belly. She felt a fresh trickle of blood flow down her thighs. Sobbing, she fell to her hands. The room spun. She vomited boiled cabbage all over the floor.
Pupp was there, nosing her, concerned.
It was all too much. She fell on her side and curled herself on the floor, crying, sobbing, and shaking. She stared across the chamber. There was no sign of Master Willet, not even a stain of blood. All had vanished into the darkness.
Had it happened? Had it all happened?
A fist lay curled between her thighs, holding back the ache. She tugged her hand free. Her fingers were covered with blood.
Pupp belly crawled to her bosom. She reached to him again. Her bloody hand found warm flesh to touch. Pupp pushed into her, rubbing into her stained palm. She could feel him! He was hard and warm, like an agate stone of a fire god, freshly blessed in blood.
The answer was clear.
“Blood,” she whispered.
The effect was brief. As the heat dried the dampness from her palm, her fingers fell through Pupp’s form. He was gone again.
Allowing the mystery to distract her, she sat on the floor and pulled her knees up to her chin. With her arms wrapped around her shins, she shivered and shuddered, rocking slightly. Occasional sobs broke through, but she focused on merely breathing. In and out. The Litany of Nine Graces echoed in her mind: blood to open the way, seed or menses to bless, sweat to imbue, tears to swell, saliva to ebb . . .
But she kept coming back to the first.
“Blood to open the way . . .” She stared at Pupp, now curled at her side, and wondered the meaning of it all.
A bell rang out sharply, rising from the courtyards below, announcing the ending of lessons.
Only now did she notice the brightness of the western windows as the sun settled toward the horizon. She had been lost to the world for most of the day.
One last sob shook through her. The reality of where she was and her situation could not be ignored. She carefully stretched her legs, rolling slowly to her feet with a groan. She stood for another long spell, dazed, at a loss in which direction to move.
Who could she tell? What could she say? How could she explain?
As these impossible questions and a thousand others rattled through her skull, her feet took over. She found herself at the bucket she had filled in another life. She bent and picked up the scrub brush. She stared down at it, knowing her body had already settled on an answer.
She was no longer pure. No one would believe the truth here. All that would be understood was that she was now spoiled, fouled for any god, unfit to walk these halls. She would surely be cast out.
But not this night.
After what happened here, she could not survive banishment.
Not this night.
Dart knew what she must do.
She shed her clothes and used the cold water and brush to clean her body. At first, she worked in a half panic, fearing being caught. Her hands trembled. But slowly her fingers gripped the brush more securely. She concentrated on the simple act of bathing, falling back on ritual. The cool water helped calm her.
Once clean, she dried herself with rags. She still bled, so she padded herself with her ripped undergarments and climbed back into her outers. She carefully inspected her skirts and rubbed dust and dried guano over any bloody spots, hiding all evidence.
She washed her hands in the pail and stared at her shattered reflection in the rocking waters. The girl who had climbed these steps was gone, vanished into the darkness as surely as Master Willet’s butchered form.
She stared at the spot on the floor. She would never return here.
Her eyes settled next on Pupp, sitting diligently, patiently. Like her, he had been transformed in this room, becoming a deeper mystery. She understood less about him, only that he had stood by her, protected her.
For now, that was enough.
Though an ache still lay buried deep inside her, where no scrub brush could ever reach, Dart put away her bucket and broom and broke open a bale of fresh hay. The smell of summer and pasture filled the room as she kicked a fresh layer around the chamber. She spread it thick to fully cover the floor.
By the time she was done, the windows to the east had gone dark and the sun was but a weak glow to the west. She could no longer hide up here.
She crossed to the door and pulled it open. The torchlight was blinding. As she blinked away the glare, laughter echoed up from far below, bright and cheerful.
It sounded brittle and brought an ache to her head.
Supper was already being served. No one seemed to remember the little girl up in the tower. No one missed Dart.
She headed down the stairs. Each step hurt, reminding her of something she hadn’t wanted to face.
Someone had known she was up here. Someone had let Master Willet pass up the stairs, had let him know a girl was alone in the rookery.
Something darker than anger filled her. Whoever it was, they would pay. The dartweed that grew in the courtyard, her namesake, developed woody thorns as it aged . . . thorns that were seldom seen until they pierced the flesh.
“To me, Pupp,” she said quietly. “To me.”
3
DUNGEON
“IT AREN’T THAT BAD IF YOU IGNORE THE FLIES.”
Tylar studied the moving feast that was his meal. Flies coated the stew of gristle and fat. The crust of bread atop it looked to be milled more from mold than flour. But he’d had worse. He soaked the hard bread into the broth, trying to soften the crust enough to chew. Tiny worms used the bread as a raft, climbing aboard.
“What about these maggots?” he asked sourly, shaking the crust clean of the squiggling stowaways.
“Nothing wrong with ’em. Them’s the only thing that gives this stew any taste.”
Tylar bit into the bread and glanced to the ragged rat of a man who had joined him in his cell that morning, tossed in naked and striped with whippings across his back. A head shorter than Tylar, he was all bone and beard. He set upon the meal like a hinter-king upon a feast. From the gray hairs laced in his red beard, he was not a young man, but what little muscle on him was still hard. About a decade older than myself, Tylar judged.
The prisoner noted his attention. “Name’s Rogger,” he mumbled over the edge of his bowl.
“Tylar.”
“So how’s a Shadowknight end up here?” The man touched three fingers to the corner of his eye, indicating Tylar’s tattoos.
“Apparently I killed a god.”
Rogger choked out a gobbet of gristle. “You! So you’re the one!”
Tylar glanced up to the barred window high on the stone wall. He had been imprisoned here seven days. He’d not had one visitor until now.
“No wonder there were so many guards in the halls,” Rogger continued, his face buried in his meal, spitting out pieces of bone as punctuation. “I even spotted a pair of bloodnullers at the end of each hall, reeking and covered in shite.”
Tylar nodded. Bloodnullers were smeared in a god’s black bile, their soft solids. Such a blessing granted the power to vanquish the Grace of a person or object with the mere touch of a single finger. They were stationed to keep Tylar in check, in case he attempted to use Dark Graces to escape. Their continued presence seemed a waste since they had already run their hands over his entire body when he first arrived here in shackles. If he’d had any hidden Graces, they would have been abolished at that time.
Still, Tylar understood their worry. While occasional rogue gods had been killed, never had one of the Hundred been slain. No one was taking any chances.
Rogger coughed a piece of gristle loose from his throat and nodded at Tylar. “It seems they must crowd all their god-sinners into the same damn cell on this cursed island.”
Tylar returned his attention fully to the man. “God-sinner? You? What did you do?”
He laugh
ed. “I was caught sneaking into ol’ Balger’s place, trying to nick a bit from the bastard’s vault.”
“At Foulsham Dell?” Tylar asked, eyebrows rising. Balger was one of the seven gods that shared the First Land. His settled realm, Foulsham Dell, lay at the foot of the Middleback Range, bordering the wilds of a hinterland, where rogue gods roamed and no law governed. The Dell was a place of murderers, pirates, and scoundrels. And the god Balger was the worst of the bunch, known equally for his debaucheries and his cruelties. He was as close to a rogue as any of the hundred settled gods. His entire realm made Punt seem a tame and civilized place.
Tylar eyed the man, wondering what sort of thief tried to steal from such a god’s larder.
“And I would’ve made it out of there,” Rogger added, “if it hadn’t been for some handmaiden coming to the vault to deposit a jar full of her lord’s blessed piss.”
“A jar? You mean a repostilary?” Shock rang in his voice. Repostilary jars were vessels of a god’s humoral fluids, sacred beyond measure, handled only by handmaidens and handmen.
Rogger nodded and laughed again, spraying spittle out his beard. “Apparently ol’ Balger has trouble holding his bladder throughout the night.”
“So you were caught?”
As he ate, the man tilted to the side, baring his right buttock. A brand, long healed, had been burned into the flesh:
Tylar eyed the sigil. It was ancient Littick. “Thief,” he read aloud. “I don’t understand. How did you end up in a dungeon on the Summering Isles, a thousand reaches from the Dell?”
Rogger finished his bowl and gingerly settled back against the wall, wincing from his whipping. “Because of you, now that I crank on it.”
“Me?”
Rogger lifted his arms and exposed the undersides. More Littick sigils lay burned into the thief’s skin, aligned in neat rows.
From his training as a Shadowknight, Tylar recognized them: all names of gods. “Balger’s punishment . . .” he mumbled, sickened.
“A pilgrimage,” Rogger conceded sourly.
It was a cruel judgment, and not unexpected coming from a god of Balger’s ilk. As punishment, Rogger had been marked and exiled, forced to travel from god-realm to god-realm, sentenced to collect a certain number of brands. Only after you were properly marked could you return to your home and family.
“How many gods were you assigned?”
Rogger sighed, lowering his arms. “Remember. It was against Balger I sinned.”
Tylar’s eyes grew wider. “He didn’t . . .”
“A full pilgrimage, no less.”
“All the gods?”
“Every blessed one of them. All one hundred.”
Tylar finally understood why Rogger was imprisoned here. “And with Meeryn dead, you can’t complete your punishment.”
“Once I learned of her death, I tried to escape, but that’s hard to do when you’re standing between two guards, knocking on the damn gates to Meeryn’s castillion. They snatched me up, whipped me thrice for the rudeness, and tossed me in with you.”
“What’re they going to do with you?”
“The usual choices I imagine: hanging, garroting, impaling.”
They were the three standard punishments meted to a pilgrim who failed in his journeys and tried to settle somewhere else.
“I think I’ll go with hanging. Garroting is too slow, and as for impaling, I’d prefer not to have anything shoved up my arse.” He shifted uncomfortably. “ ’Course, I have a couple days to think about it. They’re still attending Her Highness up there, seeing if she’s truly dead.”
Tylar sat up straighter. “Is there hope?”
“Hope is for the rich. All we have is shite and piss. And speaking of that . . .” Rogger climbed and crossed to the pail that served as the room’s privy.
As the day wore on and his thievish companion stretched on the floor snoring, Tylar considered his companion’s words. Could Meeryn still be alive? If so, she could clear his name, attest to his honor, what little he still had left. But in his heart he knew better. He had seen the light fade from her eyes.
Voices echoed down the dank hall of the dungeon. Guards arguing, then the stamp of boots sounded on the stone floor. Tylar climbed to his feet, hearing them approach. Rogger continued to snore in his corner.
Shadowed faces appeared at the small barred window. “Open it!” a familiar voice ordered.
The bar was slipped with a scrape of wood, and the door swung open.
A cloaked and masked figure filled the threshold.
“Perryl,” Tylar said, trying his best to stand tall when naked and covered in filth. Healed of his hunched back, Tylar now stood a fingerbreadth taller than his former squire. He kept his arms folded, not in defiance but to half-hide the black palm print, Meeryn’s mark, that rested in the center of his chest.
Perryl’s eyes narrowed at his condition and turned to the dungeonkeep at his side. “I thought I left orders for the prisoner to be treated with care.”
“Aye we have, ser knight. We’ve not beaten him once.”
Perryl pointed to Tylar, his eyes never leaving the guard. “Give him your shirt and breeches.”
“Ser!”
“Do you defy the word of a blessed knight?” A hand settled to the diamond pommel of his sword, aglow in the sooty torchlight.
“No, ser . . . right away, ser.” The dungeonkeep hurriedly stripped down to his underclothes and passed the outerwear to Tylar.
“I think I was less soiled when I was naked,” Tylar grumbled as he pulled the sweat-stained jerkin over his head, but it did feel better to have some clothes on his body.
His former squire waved away the dungeon guard and waited until he was gone. Rogger had grumbled at the commotion, then curled away and was already snoring again.
Alone and private, Perryl freed his masklin, exposing a worried face. He eyed Tylar up and down, the glint of Grace bright in his gaze.
Tylar crossed his arms again. “I heard there was a deathwatch.”
Perryl nodded and paced the floor, parts of him slipping into and out of shadow as his cloak reflected its owner’s agitation. “Seven days. It ends this night, when the lesser moon’s face touches the greater moon.”
“And there is no hope of her reviving.”
Perryl shook his head. “Her heart is gone. The finest alchemists have tested her remaining fluids. There are no signs of Grace in any of her humours. She is as empty as any man or woman. Even decay and corruption have set in, bloating her body.”
“Then she is truly dead.”
Perryl stopped his pacing and stared hard at Tylar. “This story of some Darkly Graced beast . . . you swear this is the truth?”
“Yes, but I have nothing left to swear upon except the filthy body I’m wearing.”
“An unbroken body.” A twinge of suspicion laced Perryl’s words.
“Unbroken and marked.” Tylar parted his jerkin enough to expose the black fingers on his chest. “This is not a curse. Meeryn blessed me for some reason known only to her.”
“But why?” Perryl began to pace again. “It’s all impossible.”
“As impossible as a slain god?”
Tylar read the dismay in the other’s eyes. For four thousand years, ever since the time of the Sundering, none of the Hundred had ever died. Every child knew the history of Myrillia, of the madness and destruction that followed the arrival of gods to this world. It lasted three centuries until the god Chrism chose the first god-realm and imbued his Graces into the region, sharing his powers to bring order out of chaos. Other gods followed, settling various lands, bringing to bear their unique Graces.
Thus the Nine Lands were formed.
Beyond these god-realms lay only the hinterlands, spaces wild and ungoverned, where rogue gods still roamed, as untamed as their lands. Occasional rumors and stories spoke of the death of gods out there, stories of great hinter-kings who slew maddened rogues, raving creatures of dark power.
But
never had one of the Hundred been slain . . . until now.
Perryl stared up at the lone window. Night fast approached. “Already the Isles have judged you. The word godslayer rings through the streets. Only my cloak protects you from the gallows or worse.”
“And I thank you for that.”
Perryl turned back to Tylar. “But that protection cannot last forever. A single knight’s cloak is only so thick. As the sun sets, I will board a flippercraft headed to Tashijan, to seek the counsel of the full Order on your behalf.”
“You waste Grace on such an effort,” Tylar scoffed. “The Order has no love for a fallen knight, especially me.”
“I know of your past crime. Selling repostilaries to the Gray Trade, lining your pocket with gold marches. All preposterous lies.”
Tylar shook his head. “The accusations were true.”
Perryl blinked, looking a surprised boy again. “What? How . . . ?”
“I had my reasons. But I did not kill that family of cobblers on Esterberry Street.”
“Your sword was found there.”
Tylar faced Perryl. “Do I look a child killer to you any more than a godslayer?”
“No, but then again, I never imagined you a trafficker in repostilaries.”
Tylar turned his back on the Shadowknight. With even that one crime, he had broken his knightly vows. It was reason enough to have been stripped of his Graces and cast out of the Order, but the crime of murder carried a heavier sentence: to be broken on the wheel, then sold into slavery.
“The caste of Gray Traders at Akkabak Harbor knew I was about to expose them. They sought to discredit me.” He glanced back to Perryl. “And they succeeded.”
“So you claimed before the adjudicators, but the soothmancers said you spoke falsely.”
He lowered his head.
“And they were not the only ones,” Perryl whispered. “Kathryn—”
Tylar swung around sharply. “Do not speak her name in my presence, Perryl. I warn you.”
The young knight did not back down. “She said you were gone from your bed that night and returned bloody to the sheets. And when asked if she believed your claims of innocence, she denied you, a fellow Shadowknight and her own betrothed.”