Baradaz returned with a steaming bowl of soup, brimming with fresh vegetables and aromatic herbs. I was hungrier than I expected.
“You should inform the King’s Council of my whereabouts,” I said after a few spoonfuls. “I’m sure the rest of the Ten would want to know I’m still alive.” Whatever the story behind her banishment, it would be wise to determine whether she still held any allegiance to our fellow Aurea.
“Mmm,” Baradaz murmured, sitting down on the only chair in the room and watching me eat with a peculiar expression on her face. “There are those who believed that your death would restore balance to everything. That by killing the Adept of Chaos, its dark influence over Aron-Lyr would break as well, ushering in another age of peace. Did you know that?”
I suddenly lost my appetite, realizing this soup might be my last meal.
“I could probably make a deal,” she continued, her gaze piercing. “Either with Aramaz to keep his little secret, or with Sha’am. He’d love to bury that axe in your black heart.”
The spoon clattered into the bowl.
“Don’t worry. I won’t sell you out.” Baradaz rose, rigid and dismissive. “Because I am not like you. But the moment you can sit on a horse, I want you gone. I don’t care where you go or what you do, but I want you out of my life forever. And whatever regrettable history exists between us will be over. Once and for all.”
I stared up at her, a bitter laugh threatening to spill from my lips. There was so much she did not know. About why I rebelled, aboutperfect, always so bloody righteous Aramaz. About her beloved Allfather. So much that I wanted to tell her, that she needed to understand. But she hadn’t wanted to listen to me when we met one last time during the war, when I had risked and lost everything in a final attempt to pull her to my side. She would never believe me if I told her now.
“Rest now.”
Even her parting words seemed mocking, an expression of her wish to see me gone as quickly as possible. And it was not rest I found as I stared at the ceiling for hours, lying alone in her bed. It was only bleakdespair.
CHAPTER
7
AFTER THE FALL
one year after the end of the Sundering Wars
Noctis
They said you could buy anything in the seedy underbelly of Triannon, the sprawling capital of the Kingdom of Mekat in the east of Aron-Lyr. I knew only too well that was not true. There were some things no amount of silver coins could bring back. However, they could buy me oblivion. For a time.
Triannon’s red walls spanned the entire mouth of the Trian River before it flowed into the serene waters of the Emerald Sea. I found myself in a tavern in one of the city’s more disreputable districts, where makeshift tents were pitched between ramshackle wooden houses. The unpleasant odors of too many beings living in close quarters lay heavy in the air, the stench of overflowing sewage barely masked by the mouthwatering aroma of food from half a dozen different realms and the cloying scent of cheap perfume. This part of the city reeked of poverty and despair, offering debauchery of the less tame variety.
Triannon had been a melting pot in the long age of peace while I was imprisoned after the first war between Order and Chaos.Members of all races of Aron-Lyr had come here to exchange their wares, making its citizens rich. The narrow streets of the city had been renowned for their countless small art and craft studios, and its stages had hosted the continent’s most talented performers.
The Sundering Wars had turned Triannon into a lawless place, filled with the desperate, many too poor to afford a roof over their head. Its Human king, Orest, barely clung to power, the city watch helpless against the criminal mobs dominating most districts these days. Blending in was easy. Surrounded by others like me, people who had known only battle and bloodshed for decades, I found work as a guard. The rich paid handsomely for the illusion of safety.
Rough laughter erupted next to me as Rabast, a huge Human with a square jaw and unsteady blue eyes, tumbled a scantily clad waitress onto his lap. It was payday, and my fellow guard seemed determined to spend most of his silver coins on the first evening. I hid my contempt behind a long pull of ale, wondering if he was oblivious to the way the raven-haired girl stiffened at his touch, or if he simply didn’t care.
The gleam of silver. A coin deposited into the girl’s cleavage. In an instant, her mood transformed. A bright smile appeared on her face as she comfortably settled on Rabast’s knee. The sharp outline of her collarbone was visible over the neckline of her dress. A handful of coins more would convince her to let him underneath her skirts in the dirty alley behind the tavern at the end of her shift. Morals and hunger did not mix well.
In the early moons after my fall, I had avoided joining my fellow mercenaries on their nightly forays into the Undercity. However, I soon realized that being aloof and taciturn only made it harder to fit in. So, at least once a tenday, I willingly subjected myself to the revolting downsides of being Human.
“Another drink, handsome?” A womanin a gauzy red dress leaned on the table next to me, her sudden proximity making me tense. Long coppery hair filled my vision; lips painted a vivid crimson curved into an inviting smile. An intense flowery scent drifted into my nose. Judging by her golden eyes and graceful movements, she was a Djein, a daughter of Zamani. Perhaps one of the many fugitives ripped from their southern homelands by the war. I captured a strand of her red hair, absentmindedly letting it slide through my fingers.
“Not tonight.” I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to pretend. Shaking my head, I motioned to young Amris at the other end of the table. The blonde warrior’s face lit up as the Djein scoffed at me and sauntered over to him. I took another sip of my drink, the bitterness of the ale lingering on my tongue. Experience had taught me long ago that this particular kind of escape would only deepen my melancholy.
Agitated voices and the sharp sound of axes splintering wood cut through the usual noises of the tavern. A woman’s terrified scream pierced the air. Ignoring the whisper inside me telling me that whatever was happening, I should not intervene, I rose from my seat and stepped outside.
“Bele!” Rabast called after me. I did not turn around. “Where are you going?”
They were destroying her temple.
It was a small shrine, nestled between two narrow houses, the statue in front carved from wood, not stone, the roof adorned with cheap glittering fabric instead of hammered gold. Far less awe-inspiring than the Grand Temple of the Star Queen on the hill opposite the King’s Palace. Yet it was a place of worship, and something clenched inside me as unworthy mortal hands hacked an image of her to pieces, even if it looked nothing like her.
They said that she had betrayed the Ten, that she had failed in her duty to her husband and the world, that she…
“Silence! Or we will shut you up.” A sharp male voice caught my attention. My gaze was drawn to two women cowering in front of the shrine, surrounded by a dozen Human men. Acolytes of the temple, their once white dresses dirty, their tear-stained faces full of fear.
