Monstrum, p.27
Monstrum, page 27
Yes, she thought. This is Culach Kafsnjór.
Nazafareen studied him. He looked troubled, but there was no sign of the greedy flame-eyed creature she’d seen before. She dimly remembered Culach carrying her in his arms when she couldn’t walk anymore. She remembered his laugh, wry and self-aware. He was bent on invasion, but he hadn’t seemed truly evil. Just cocky.
Then they had reached the gate.
“I’m glad Victor doesn’t have him in chains,” she said softly.
“Do you think he’s the Valkirin talisman?” Herodotus asked.
She shook her head. “No. That’s not it.” And here the seed of compassion that planted itself when she watched the Aurora took root. “I want to speak with him.”
“Why?” Darius burst out, letting the image in the globe fade away. “He tried to kill you.”
Nazafareen returned his heated gaze. “Because when we were in the Dominion, Kallisto told me another Maenad had the gift of foretelling.” She struggled to remember the exact words. “She said there would be war and strife among mortals and daēvas both, and we will be at our weakest when the beast comes to the door.”
Darius remained silent, but she could sense his tangled emotions through the bond.
“Don’t you see? I’m the reason for it. I want to tell Culach what I know. That I…I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
“You want his forgiveness?” Darius demanded. “He should be begging for yours!”
“There can be no more bad blood between the clans,” she replied firmly. “All this nonsense must end. And if we go to Val Moraine, we can try to find Kallisto and Rhea. They’re somewhere in the Valkirin range. Perhaps they already know who the talisman is.”
As Nazafareen spoke the words, she knew they felt right. But Darius clearly thought she was mad.
“Megaera,” he said, turning to the stocky Maenad. “She never listens to me. But you can dissuade her from this feckless course.”
Megaera laughed. “She doesn’t listen to me either. And I wouldn’t try because she’s making sense for once.”
“Herodotus?” Darius said, an edge of desperation in his voice.
The scholar gave a weak smile. “I’m afraid I am not impartial in the matter. Whatever choice takes me closer to Kallisto is the one I favor.”
Nazafareen kept a satisfied smile from her face with great effort. Darius would dig his heels in deeper if she gloated.
“I want nothing more than to see the Oracle of Delphi set down hard,” she said. “Going to your people would be the easy choice. But I have a gut feeling it’s the wrong one, Darius. A blind desire for revenge won’t serve the larger cause. The Danai are united, but the Valkirin holdfasts are isolated and vulnerable. Look at the way he tried to take Meb. It wasn’t by force, but cunning and subterfuge.”
Darius looked away, unhappy.
“The talismans must join forces, and to do that, I have to get the Valkirins to trust me. Please.” She paused and let her feelings flow through the bond. “I need to.”
Nazafareen wouldn’t say it, not in front of the others, but she was more than a little afraid of returning to Nocturne. Besides Darius, her breaking magic was all she had. Her entire identity.
Once she’d feared the huo mofa and the way it changed her. Now she feared the dark. But she had to face Culach. There was no way around it.
“We only go if my father still holds the keep,” Darius said after a brittle silence.
It took an instant to confirm this. Victor sat with Mithre, poring over maps spread across a long metal table. Grey winged the dark hair at his temples and lines of care creased his mouth. One hand rested inside his coat, clutching something.
Darius released the flows of power and handed the globe to Katsu.
“Val Moraine.” He turned to Herodotus. “For the record, I have a bad feeling about this. Write that down.”
Herodotus dutifully obliged. “I’ve always wanted to visit the Valkirin range,” he said. “And to see an actual holdfast! I might be the first mortal to set foot in one.”
“Kallisto and Rhea already beat you,” Megaera pointed out.
“Oh, yes, I suppose they have. The first scholar, then. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
The Marakai fleet had vanished over the horizon by this point. A few fishing boats and ferries dotted the harbor, but it looked strangely desolate without the great ships.
“I must leave you,” Katsu said, rising to his feet. “May Babana bless your journey.”
Nazafareen glanced at the red roof of the palace. Like every other soul on Tjanjin, the emperor had witnessed the rising of the great wave. When it became clear one of his closest advisors was in fact a fire daēva, he had immediately pledged his full allegiance to the Marakai in the struggle that was sure to come and gifted the fleet with fifty chests of pearls and jade as a token of goodwill. Tjanjin had been the only land spared the first time around, but the emperor had no illusions this good fortune would repeat itself if the talismans were not gathered to repel the Vatras.
“What will you do with the bounty?” Nazafareen asked.
Katsu smiled, teeth white against his scraggly beard. “I might head to Samarqand. There’s someone I’d like to look up there.”
“I wish you well.” Nazafareen said with a grin. “I thought you were a lying rogue at first, but you turned out to be a hero.”
He laid a hand over his heart in mock distress. “Not that, I think. Let’s say a rogue, but an honest one.”
Megaera poked him with her staff. “Take care, thief catcher.”
The others made their farewells and Katsu ambled off toward the palace.
“There’s a gate not far from Val Moraine,” Herodotus said. “Now that we can read the signposts, it should be no great feat to find it.”
The emperor had indulged his request to visit the palace library, and Herodotus spent the last day poring through its collections, hardly pausing to eat. Megaera had finally been forced to drag him away, muttering under his breath about one more hour and chance of a lifetime. But he’d discovered some useful things, including charts showing the relative location of gates in both this world and the Dominion.
“The Valkirin range.” Megaera sighed. “We couldn’t be going someplace warm, could we?”
Nazafareen picked up her rucksack. They each carried one, packed with food and other sundries. “The gear we used to cross the White Sea should be adequate for the mountains,” she said. “Don’t you want to see snow?”
“Not particularly. But I’ll save my complaining for later.” She grinned. “Do you remember Diogenes of Sinope? That mad old philosopher who made misery an art form? I once saw him begging for alms from a statue. He said it was to practice being refused.” She chuckled. “Herodotus, you knew him, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes.” The scholar sounded amused. “A great enemy of Plato. We were in a tavern once and they began arguing over the cups, and whether in fact they really existed. Nearly came to blows.” He stood and shouldered his own rucksack. “Plato claimed a cup is merely an idea, and this concept of cupness precedes the existence of all particular cups. Diogenes rejoined that he could see the cups on the table, but not this cupness. Plato grew quite smug and explained that while Diogenes had eyes to see the cup, he lacked the intellect to comprehend cupness.”
Herodotus shook his head. “Of course, we’d all had a few at this point. I had no idea what he was talking about. Plato’s bad enough when you’re sober. But Diogenes, that old provocateur, held up his own mug and innocently asked, ‘Is it empty?’ Plato nodded. ‘So where is the emptiness which precedes this empty cup?’ asked Diogenes.” He grinned. “Well, Plato was trying to come up with a response when Diogenes reached over and, tapping Plato’s forehead with his finger, said ‘I think you will find here is the emptiness.’”
Nazafareen and Darius followed Megaera’s laughter across a rope bridge from the Pagoda of Waving Willows to the next island. The pool beyond had a tall stone pillar at its center, ancient and weathered. They waded into the tepid water. When it reached her waist, Nazafareen paused. Captain Mafuone had healed her wound and she felt good as new. Better even. She squinted into the sun. It was low and weak, yet the power throbbed inside her, reaching for the light.
What would it be like in the Kiln?
“Don’t,” Darius said, reading her thoughts.
“How do you do that?” she replied with a frown. “And I wasn’t.”
Nazafareen tweaked his chin and dove toward the green glow of the gate.
30
The Last Laugh
Acrid vapors rising from cracks in the ancient stone floor mingled with the heavy scent of burning laurel leaves, and Galen, who had been kneeling for hours, felt his eyelids grow heavy. He drew a deep breath, though it made him light-headed, and fought to stay awake. If he fell asleep, Thena would punish him. If he looked at his captors before they spoke to him, Thena would punish him. So he kept his eyes fixed on the ground.
But he could still hear. Now he listened closely to the murmured conversation on the far side of the chamber.
The Oracle perched on a three-legged stool, leaning toward two men. One was very fat, with small, vicious eyes and a helmet that squished his face like a sausage. The other wore a scarlet cloak and had dark hair swept back from his high forehead like a raven’s wings. They were talking about Galen.
“Have you determined the nature of the block?” asked the man in the cloak. “Is it real or is he faking it?”
“I think it’s real,” the Oracle replied slowly. “He seems genuinely unaware of it.”
For the past two days, she had asked him questions. About his parents and his abilities, and their abilities. She seemed to believe he had some kind of extraordinary power. Again and again, he had told her he didn’t. That in fact, the opposite was true. She had never raised her voice, but her hatred was palpable.
Thena had aided her in the questioning. He felt her smugness through the vile collar around his throat. She believed she’d brought a great prize to the Pythia. The woman was mad. Some horrible mistake had been made. But now, kneeling in this inner sanctum deep beneath the Acropolis, Galen felt a new sense of purpose. He would find a way to kill the Pythia, or die himself in the attempt.
“What do you intend?” the man in the red cloak asked.
“I cannot test him yet because he cannot be trusted with the power. He will have to be broken first, Archon. Turned to our cause.”
“With all respect,” the fat man said, “you’d best do it quickly, Oracle. I sent four wind ships to scout the Umbra. They spotted a large force of daēvas massing at the edge of the forest. They’ll be here in a matter of days. The one who escaped must have sounded the alarm.”
Galen could hear the fear in his voice. The Danai were coming! For Rafel and Ysabel, if not for him. Assuming they were still alive. He hadn’t seen either since he was collared. But the clan had found out somehow. Galen bit his lip to keep from whooping with joy. His grandmother Tethys would see Delphi leveled to the last stone—and the Pythia whipped naked and howling into the desert.
“It is no more than I expected, Polemarch,” she was saying. “Leave them to me. But I agree it would be best to break this one without delay. It’s usually a prolonged process, but there are ways to accelerate it. Thena, who wears his bracelet, has proven herself quite adept at—”
The Oracle twisted around as the door to the chamber flew open. Startled, Galen looked up. He heard Thena’s indrawn hiss of air. A man strode inside, his mud-covered boots leaving streaks of dirt on the floor. He had coppery hair and a glower on his face.
“How dare you?” the Polemarch demanded, purple suffusing his jowls. “There are no public audiences today!” He sneered at the man’s dusty traveling cloak. “If you’re looking for a bowl of gruel, you’ll find it in the dungeons.” He turned to the Pythia and adopted a groveling tone. “When I discover which of the Shields allowed this filthy—”
The man raised a hand. Blue flames shot from the Polemarch’s eyes and mouth and the stink of burning flesh filled the chamber. The inferno devoured him so quickly and thoroughly, he didn’t even have time to scream. Two seconds later, a helmet with a smoking horsehair crest bounced off the stone and rolled away. The rest was a greasy smear.
The Archon swayed on his feet. Thena gave a shriek. Galen frantically probed the collar with his mind, hoping she might release his power, but met a wall. He’d seen fire dancing from the torches lining the temple’s corridors—the first time he’d ever encountered the forbidden fourth element—but this was something else. He had no doubt the man could burn them all up in a single instant.
The Oracle showed no sign of emotion as the man approached her. He stopped a few paces from the tripod and the two stared at each other for a long moment.
“That was my general you just immolated,” she said in an annoyed tone.
“He should have guarded his tongue.”
They spoke as if no one else existed.
“Where’s the girl you promised me?”
“I don’t have her.”
“Then it’s a good thing I caught another.” She pointed at Galen. “He is the Danai talisman.”
“And can he use his power?”
She frowned. “Not yet.”
The man started to laugh then, and seemed unable to stop. The Oracle’s lips thinned as she beckoned to the Archon and Thena, who skirted the remains of the Polemarch and crept forward on unsteady legs.
“Well,” she said. Her slender fingers touched the serpent brooch at her shoulder and her hair, which had been a lustrous, silken black, changed to the deep, violent red of a poppy.
“I am still the Oracle of Delphi,” she intoned, letting small flames writhe over her fingertips. “The Sun God lives in me. I speak for him.” Her voice lowered to a gentle murmur. “Do either of you doubt me? If there are objections, I would hear them now.”
The silence in the chamber was absolute. The Archon fell to his knees and kissed the hem of her gown with bloodless lips. After a moment, Thena did the same, but Galen felt her shock and confusion. It mirrored his own. What were these creatures?
“Good.” The Pythia smiled, though it soured when her gaze fell on the stranger. He’d finally mastered himself, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes with a corner of his cloak.
“You make a fool of yourself, Nicodemus,” she said coldly.
“I’m sorry.” He gave a last rueful chuckle. “It’s just…I’ll try to put it succinctly. That daēva over there?” He pointed at Galen, who tried not to shrink beneath the man’s gaze. “He won’t do you a lick of good. Not without the girl who broke your gate.” Laughter threatened again, but he managed to suppress it. “The one who was just here a few weeks ago. The one you wanted me to kill.”
The Pythia’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Nicodemus smiled but it was a grim thing, and Galen realized his amusement masked a deep, implacable rage.
“She broke the Marakai girl’s block,” he said. “She’s the fourth talisman.”
Epilogue
The abbadax shifted on their newly-built dung nests, hungry and irritable. There had been strong differences of opinion when the two-legged creature-without-feathers came creeping into the stables. Three had wanted to devour him on the spot. But Wind from the North had accepted his blood-scent and hissed at the others until they backed away. Wind from the North was vicious. She did not suffer fools and the others feared her.
They were also anxious and uncertain because their own riders had left them behind in this strange icebound place.
Now she cradled the two-legs close to her body, keeping him warm, their hearts beating together. She remembered his smell from her home in Val Tourmaline, though she had not smelled him in a long time. But he used to come to the stables there, grooming and bringing treats. He had been kind to Wind from the North and she would be kind to him in turn.
In the recesses of her ancient mind, she even recalled his name.
Daníel.
Book #4: Nemesis
In the fourth volume of the Fourth Talisman series, Nazafareen risks everything on a desperate gamble to stop the Vatras once and for all…
* * *
With Meb safely among her own people, Nazafareen has finally embraced her dangerous fire magic. She is the Fourth Talisman, destined to free the heirs from the wards binding their own extraordinary power. With Nocturne and Solis poised on the brink of war, the choices she makes will decide the fate of mortals and daevas alike.
Determined to confront Culach and make amends, Nazafareen goes to Val Moraine, setting off a chain of events that ultimately leads her deep into the perilous wasteland called the Kiln and the faceless enemy waiting there. But the ancient hatred that shattered the world a millennium before is stronger and far more devious than she and her companions imagine.
Is the Viper truly dead? And can Nazafareen triumph without facing the darkness that lurks within her own heart?
Read on for a sneak peek from Nemesis!
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Chapter One
The Lost Prince of Val Tourmaline
Flying.
The smell of the stables—dry dung and saddle oil and the pungent musk of the abbadax—triggered a physical ache, like an essential part of him had been ripped away. Mina spent half her time prowling the distant corners of the keep, searching for some sign of her son Galen, and during these periods of solitude, Culach had lain in bed and fantasized about long flights over the mountains and sea, each breath a communion with the elements. He remembered the way the moonlight burnished the waves to a cold gleam. The sweep of powerful wingbeats and stinging frost on his eyelashes. Sometimes he’d taken jaunts over the great forest, though he took care to keep out of arrow range in case the Danai sentries spotted him.
