The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (26 page)

Suddenly, Damian slapped him. It was a slap a father might use to discipline a petulant child. It was humiliation perfected into physical form. Senari brushed his cheek as if bitten by a snake.

“You are nothing but a whore. You expect me to show mercy after you banished me to the Abyss? After all of you deprived me of life for ages? And what did you do? You abandoned this world, all of you. Cowards. You ruined me, and then you shat on the world. If you had no intention of running it, then why did you fight me? Was it fear? Was it jealousy?”

Damian seemed to be on the verge of tears himself. His face was hot with rage. He wanted to leap across the table and strangle Senari, just as he had killed Nannath. He wanted to sink his fingers into the soft flesh and squeeze it like clay. But he endured. Not today. He kept his wrath on a leash. He had promised himself to behave. This execution must be flawless.

Ah, he could stay and argue with Senari, but it was futile. The old god remembered reality the way he wanted, not how it happened. They had all wrapped themselves in the madness of denial and let destruction roam free.

Soon, he would hunt down the very last of them. Then, Calemore would complete his part of the bargain. And Damian would be finally and completely free again. Free to rule the world that rightfully belonged to him. Every single human bore in their soul the seed of his passion, the storm of emotions and love he had given them. They were his creation, his people.

“If you had any decency, you would have killed yourself. Why did you flee the City of Gods anyway?”

Senari kept his eyes downcast. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Something snapped inside me.”

Damian shook his head. “If you’d stood proud and stared me in the eye, I would have respected you. But you don’t deserve anything. You’re like a worm.”

Senari grabbed Damian’s sleeve, twisting it. “Yes, yes, I’m a worm. I want to live. Please, Damian. Spare me. After an age of stupor, I’m alive again. I care. I care for this world. I want to make it a better place. I want to amend my mistakes. I will help you. This is your world, Damian. It always was. Please.”

“You should have killed yourself. You should have let the wolves eat you. How about I give you a knife? Will you slit your own throat?”

The other god wrung his palms. “Please, Damian. Please.”

Damian grimaced. “You’re such a coward.”

Senari looked up, braving another slap from Damian, or even worse. “For countless centuries, I lived in the city, ignoring reality, pretending, dreaming. It almost killed me. I grew weak and stupid. Then, there was the Shattering, and everything came back to me. Now, I have a purpose in life. I understand now. I can help you.”

“Will you help me?” Lord Erik stared.

Senari bit his lip. “Yes. But not
that
.”

Damian nodded. “Even if the price is your own death?”

The other god broke down again. He started whimpering. “Damian, I can’t undo what we’ve all done. It takes all of us. You must understand that. But I don’t want to die.”

“I know. But if all of you acted together, you could release me from my prison. Would you then surrender the world to me? Would you do that in return for your petty, meaningless life? Yes?”

Senari rubbed his face. “All right…Damian, please.”

Damian was not amused or relieved. “So why did you banish me in the first place?”

“We made a mistake. We didn’t know that—”

“Oh yes you did. You knew what you were doing. You never expected me to return. You’re a coward, Sena. You see, I could go around the world hunting the rest of you, trying to convince you to undo the pact. But who knows what you may attempt then. You’re treacherous bastards, after all. Instead, I think you should all die. It’s simpler that way. Besides, the satisfaction is immense.”

“No, Damian, no. Please!”

“Enough talking. Take him outside,” he ordered the two soldiers. “If he struggles, maim him.”

The soldiers hustled Senari to his feet and led him away. The god walked in small paces, hanging limp between the two burly men, in an obvious state of shock. Damian followed. Some of the patrons stared at him, but they knew better than to interfere.

They went into a small back alley behind the inn. Gutters flowed with rain, shit, and fat rats that gorged on leftovers. Damian ignored the weather.

“If you kill us, there will be no one left to free you,” Senari tried.

Damian chuckled. Then, he swung and punched the other god in the solar plexus, hard. “You see? That’s the true test of your spirit. Even when faced with certain death, you try to whore your way out. And it insults my intelligence, really. That a pitiful creature like you could possibly try to outsmart me. While you jerked off your petty existence in the city, I spent the last age forging my vengeance.”

Senari was wheezing, bent double, quivering with pain and shock. He retched.

Damian leapt back, escaping the jet of pale beery vomit. “Suffice to say, your death is required. Your assistance is not. Now, I’ll give you a moment to sober up. Then, I want you to apologize. Brave up. Die like a god.” He snorted.

Senari spent some time breathing deeply, recovering, mustering what little courage and dignity he had left. He knew he was going to die. His face was bloodless. His soul had withdrawn into a little bubble of terror, trying to reason out the inevitable.

“I’m sorry,” Senari whispered after a while. It sounded like he meant it.

Damian closed his eyes. “That’s better, Sena.” He pulled a short sword from a scabbard at his hip.

“I’m sorry, Damian,” the other god repeated in a low voice. He held his breath.

Genuine or not, the apology made no difference. It was just another crumb of humiliation. Damian plunged the sword into Senari’s belly. He pushed hard, deep. The blade chinked against the stone wall behind. The god slumped, the sword tip clanking against the uneven brickwork. Damian pulled the blade out. A puddle of rain-diluted blood spread.

Damian waited, but there were no more words from Sena. He was still alive, blinking slowly, ever more slowly. He no longer saw things in this world. Damian shoved him over. The body folded sideways into the gutter. It was an absurd pose to die in.

There was noise from the street. A pair of city guards had just arrived and was watching the scene warily. They had not witnessed the execution, but they could spot trouble.

“What goes on there?” one of them asked.

Damian didn’t want to have to kill them. They were meaningless humans to him, but their deaths would not go unnoticed in the town. He used just a faint bit of magic to cover up the blood; he couldn’t afford more, not yet.

“My friend here passed out. He’s drunk.”

The guard snorted derisively. “Had a friend do that once. Passed out in a gutter. Woke up without his nose. Rat bit it off.”

Lord Erik saluted. “Thanks for the tip, Officer.”

The guards walked away. Damian knelt by the corpse, staring. One of his kin. Now, just a pile of broken flesh. They all had to die. All of them. It made him empty and sad. But there was no other way. He just hoped Elia would forgive him.

He cleaned the sword on his own cloak; he would find a better one later. For the next kill, he might not even need one. They would be going into the nomad lands next, where the weather was much warmer.

Damian pushed his plastered hair away. He blinked the rain out of his eyes. Rain and tears, maybe. Overall, he was pleased. He had not lost his composure. He had handled the kill as he had expected. One day, murdering other gods could almost become a pleasure.

He walked away, and Calemore’s men followed.

CHAPTER 17

“I
will resign, Your Highness,” Commander Gerald repeated, for the fourth time. His face was haggard, his eyes red. His perfect composure was gone, replaced by deep lines of exhaustion and despair. He had not slept in two days.

Amalia slammed a fist against the desk. “No, you will not! I forbid it!”

Theodore gestured in a pacifying manner. “Please, Amalia, relax. You must not get agitated.”

Captain Gerald stood, swaying slightly from excitement. His voice was thin and crisp. “If I’d been there, it would not have happened.”

“If you had, you’d be dead now!” Amalia shrieked.

The atmosphere in the room was grim, dark, tense. Luke was there too, and he looked as somber and defeated as Gerald. They had both utterly failed in their task of protecting the empress. Her face still bore the signs of their failure. The left side was swollen, bruised in shades of purple and yellow. Her lip was pulled up in a grotesque grimace, and she lisped when she talked.

“Your resigning won’t solve anything,” Theodore spoke, his languid manner replaced with a firm voice. “This attack was an act of magic, it’s obvious. We do not have protection against it.”

Magic.

Magic was not a word often spoken in the realms. Since the First Age, magic was not practiced in an open, free manner. It was confined to witchcraft and tricks and some healing. The Sirtai were more liberal about it, but even they kept their sorcerers hidden from public view. The attack two nights ago had come as a total surprise. This was a dire threat that no one had anticipated.

The empress-mother sat by her daughter, stroking her back lightly, trying to soothe her. What else could she do?

“We need to understand who this man was,” Theo added. He nudged Luke.

The man seemed stunned. He shook his head. “My agents have nothing.”

The city was in chaos. Hundreds had been arrested and questioned; hundreds more were locked in damp cells, awaiting interrogation by the Secret Guard. A night curfew was in place, and no one was allowed to leave the city without an imperial pass. The streets were deserted, people huddling in their homes, frightened, confused, not quite sure what they’d done to suffer the wrath of their empress.

Theodore gripped Luke’s shoulders, shaking him. “We need to know who he’s working for! Caytor? Eracia? Someone else? They now have the bloodstaff, and this could change the balance of power.”

“Enough,” Amalia snapped. She tried to rub her face, but stopped herself. She was still sore from that kick. Gently, she tugged a stray lock behind her ear.

“You will need magical protection, Amalia,” Theodore persisted.

“I will personally protect the empress,” Gerald intoned. His eyes brimmed, but he kept his composure, just barely. Years of service with Amalia’s father, his own dad’s teachings, all for nothing. He had failed in the one duty he was supposed to be doing.

“Sit down, everyone. We need to discuss this carefully,” the old adviser spoke. He was a pillar of sanity in a rockslide of madness. “First”—he pointed at Luke—“we need to understand this new threat. You will find out.”

Amalia ran a finger along the desk’s polished edge. “My father told me this could happen,” she admitted at last. “The bloodstaff was a gift. He told me that if its owner came back and demanded it, then I was to give it back.” She paused and looked at her mother. “But that was not him.”

They stared at her blankly, not really sure what she’d just told them. She did not blame them. No one really knew what Amalia’s secrets were. Oh, they had seen the bloodstaff in action, once, just once, in the stormy winter dawn two decades earlier, but rumor and legend had twisted the truth into a tapestry of colorful lies. Adam had never disputed any of the tales. He had even paid bards and singers and scribes to spread the story far and wide.

“Ambiguity and rumor are your best weapons,”
Father would always tell her. The only thing that mattered was that her enemies believed she could annihilate them in the blink of an eye.

Until just a year earlier, she hadn’t known the truth about the bloodstaff either. And now it was gone. But what made her stomach spasm with ice-cold anxiety was the realization she had lost the book. For some reason, she felt its loss was far more important, far more catastrophic. She had never gotten a chance to glimpse even one line of its text.

And now, she never would.

“We will have to manage without the bloodstaff,” Theo said. “It’s a symbol, nothing more.” But his eyes did not match his cool voice. He was one of the few people who really understood that thing should not belong to ordinary men, not even the empress. The rest of them all felt some kind of dark reckoning had transpired two days ago. Magic had claimed its own sort. But they did not dare say that aloud.

They were afraid.

She wanted to tell them more about her father’s legacy. But no, she could not. It was her burden. Still, it pained her to see the seed of doubt in their eyes, wondering if she were not just a spoiled girl who fretted about her precious toy getting lost. For most of her people, the bloodstaff may have been a symbol of power; for her, it
had been
power.

A replica would satisfy the masses, but she would know her realm was now without its most dreadful weapon. She had been confident in her ability to protect Athesia, but now she simply didn’t know what to do.

Worse yet, keeping the nature of the attack a secret was not going to be easy. That stranger had killed close to a hundred soldiers and wounded another three hundred in the carnage. If the city was in chaos, the palace was what you got after you set chaos on fire.