The Lion & the Deathless Dark — Chapter 5

C HA P T E R F I V E

o call this establishment an “inn” or a “pub” would be an insult to both. Neither tended to be especially nice these days, and this one wasT out in the middle of nowhere, with fewer resources. Still, it had beds, and rooms, and food, and even one musician, a thin, scraggly man bent over an out-of-tune guitar that sounded to be missing a string. Practically luxury, as far as we were concerned.

We had traveled for nearly six hours in the opposite direction of Yiferis to get here, which maybe made the sight all the sweeter. But considering the shit show that was our hunt, and Valentina’s injuries—coupled with her weakness after days with no hixis—I wanted a guaranteed place to collect our bounty.

And maybe, even if I refused to admit it to myself, Septimus’s warning had affected me. The last thing I needed was a bunch of Shadowborn turning up when we were so exposed.

I didn’t tell the others why I insisted on the detour. But Mirie had given me that look. The woman could speak volumes without saying anything at all, and right then she had been saying, This is not a wise idea.

Perhaps not. Shiket wouldn’t be happy with the delay. I was lucky that gods were easily distracted. Time moved differently for them, and in the midst of war, they were inundated with slights and rivalries to seize their attention. Shiket didn’t really care what I did with my time as long as I devoted a sufficient amount of it to her. But it had been over a month since I last brought her an offering. I already knew I was testing the limits of her distraction, and if I hadn’t, Zefiah had helpfully reminded me at least a dozen times on the journey here.

But every time I looked at Valentina’s wobbly posture, her dull eyes, the choice wasn’t a choice at all.

As soon as we arrived, I went to the back office. Money—and hixis— before food.

The innkeeper was a short, middle-aged woman with streaks of grey running through a bun of chestnut hair. Despite the fact that she lived out in the middle of nowhere in the depths of the apocalypse, she clearly took great pride in her appearance—her face done up with cheap, powdery makeup, her threadbare clothing impeccably fitted. I respected that.

The tarnished pin at her lapel, a silver bird, denoted her as a Shepherd of the Court of Vultures, a network connecting bounty hunters with clients.

The position held some cachet—no one stumbled into it—but everyone was capable of betrayal. I’d been stolen from by Shepherds before, and the last thing I needed was Duke Vinwest chasing us around because he thought we took his money and ran.

We assessed each other, icy stare to icy stare.

What do you think, Zef? I asked silently. Will she fuck us? {Perhaps if you ask nicely and her standards are low.} And you accuse me of being crude. {You have been tainting me for a decade now, Vindica Ultis.} The title, as it always was when Zefiah spoke it, was drenched in sarcasm.

Finally, the woman said, “You’re shorter than I expected.”

“You’re older than I thought a Shepherd could be,” I replied with a bright smile, then hoisted my pack onto her desk with a wet thump, not bothering to avoid the stacks of parchment. Despite my attempts to wrap the head well, blood had soaked through the burlap and now smeared over the Shepherd’s record book.

She wrinkled her nose accordingly. “I see you’ve brought gifts.”

“Gifts? I brought wares.”

“Same difference, to those of us who enjoy doing business. Got some I can offer you, as well.”

I chuckled. “Oh, maybe I like you after all. Businesswomen understand each other. I’ll need supplies, too. Food. Hixis. Materials for a machinist, if you have them. But in the meantime . . .”

I reached into the pack and grabbed a fistful of hair, dragging out Gaveer’s head. It was hot out, and the flesh already reeked. One eye was

half closed, the other wide open and cloudy.

“Gaveer Iron. A bounty for Vinwest. Five hundred. Tattoo here.”

I pulled back his ear, revealing the clumsy flower rendered in greying, blown-out ink.

The Shepherd examined the face, then flipped through her record book, now stained with head-juices. She withdrew a drawing, compared it to the head I presented to her, and, satisfied, took the head and tossed it unceremoniously into a crate behind her. Doubtless not the first one she’d been presented with today. Before long, a spellcaster would come along to have the heads sent back to those who had originally placed their bounties.

If they were satisfied, all would be well. If not, I’d likely find another hunter on our tail. It wasn’t uncommon to attempt to pass off random corpses as marks—especially given that corpses were in such bountiful supply. I’d tried, once, and learned the hard way that it was not worth the trouble of getting on a sponsor’s bad side.

The Shepherd eyed my bag as she wiped her hands with a stained towel.

“What else do you have for me? I have traders passing through soon. I’m willing to take a look at whatever else you’ve got.”

She would sell whatever I gave her at double the markup whenever the traders passed through. But I was in no position to be choosy. Not when I knew just how long Valentina had gone without hixis. So I rummaged through my bag, pulling out the paltry trinkets I’d stolen and collected these last few weeks—rusted silverware taken from the manor, leather fabric stripped from dead bodies, a mismatched set of earrings, three daggers, and, most valuable of all, a few silver-tipped arrows.

The Shepherd hemmed and hawed over these items, then said, “A hundred for all of it.”

Anger lit in my veins, making Zefiah flare. “Bullshit.”

“You are welcome to go elsewhere,” she said smugly. “But your

payment won’t cover your supplies.”

Because she knew I needed hixis.

Only now did my mistake crash over me. Idiot. Never mention that first.

Because everyone knows that anyone who needs it needs it desperately.

And desperation was the most valuable currency of all.

My pack was now empty. I reached into my pocket. My hand closed around a gold pendant. My thumb pressed to the imprint on it—a strong profile, framed by six swords. In my blink, I saw the face of the man who

had given it to me. The hope in it, the kind that could only belong to someone who truly believed they had met their savior. Followed, so quickly, by such betrayal.

I didn’t know why I hesitated. A part of me—no, most of me—was eager to get rid of the thing. I pulled out the necklace and held it up, the gold glinting in the candlelight.

The Shepherd observed it, lips pursed, unimpressed. “Pretty. Useless these days.”

“There’s being a shrewd businesswoman, and then there’s expecting me to be stupid. This is gold.”

“So what? What use is gold out here? At least if it were silver, we could melt it down for arrow tips.” Then, after some consideration, “I’ll give you ten for it.”

Ten. Someone’s treasured possession, likely passed down for generations, traded away for ten shitty pieces of metal. Practically worthless.

But it would be enough, barely enough, to pay for the hixis.

“Fine,” I said, and tossed the pendant across the table. It landed lamely in the pile, one more trinket traded away to be someone else’s useless junk.

“THIS IS the best food I’ve ever eaten,” Val said, shoving another bite of grey mashed potatoes into her mouth. “Ever. Ever ever ever.”

“I’m not sure if I would go so far as to say that,” Mirie said, letting a slimy glob fall off her rusted fork onto her plate, but there was a good- natured smile of amusement at her lips. I was sure that, despite my best efforts, there was one on mine, too.

Valentina had insisted she didn’t need the hixis. But when I’d pressed the vial into her hand, wordlessly, upon concluding my drawn-out negotiations with the Shepherd, she hadn’t been able to hide her sigh of relief. The medicine worked fast. By the time she joined the rest of us at the pub downstairs, the lethargy had already ebbed. The light was back in her eyes.

We had all changed and cleaned ourselves up as much as these poorly stocked rooms would allow. I only had one pair of leather trousers, but I wore a fresh white shirt, left unbuttoned just low enough to reveal cleavage.

I’d redone the kohl around my eyes. My hair, usually bound in a braid, now hung free down to my waist in loose gold-copper waves, one streak of silver—from an old scar on my temple—intertwined in them. It was an impractical length, as Zefiah reminded me often. Easy to grab in a fight.

Difficult to care for. {Humans,} she’d grumble. {Slaves to their vanity.} I wouldn’t argue with that. I was absolutely vain. There were so few beautiful things left in the world these days. The way I looked at it, it was a public service to try my hardest to be one of them myself.

Valentina, Mirie, and I sat at the end of the bar. Marko promptly got involved in a card game in the corner with a bunch of seedy looking individuals—a ballsy move, considering the recent fate of our unlucky healer. Then again, Marko was never exactly known for making measured decisions.

I took a long drink and relished the bitter bite of alcohol over my tongue. There was nothing—nothing—better than a drink after what felt like several very long days without one. I watched Valentina’s refreshed zeal, and a potent warmth bubbled up in my chest. I chose to attribute that, too, to the wine.

“Look at this.” She pulled out a burlap pouch and opened it, revealing a collection of twisted metal pieces. Most were rusted or broken. It really did look like junk, but Val cradled the bag like a slyvik hoarding treasure.

“Can you believe my luck?” she said, without a hint of sarcasm. “Look at this haul! Imagine the stuff I can make with this. Quin gave it to me. He says there’s a bunch more I can have once he finishes his shift, too.”

She turned in her chair and cast a shy smile at the inn’s errand boy, a gawky teenager who wiped down a table in the back.

Mirie and I exchanged a glance. Quin, huh? {Perhaps we will pay him a visit later,} Zefiah said.

Well, aren’t you protective, Zef. {I say it only because you were already thinking it.} She wasn’t wrong. I took another sip. The world pleasantly softened.

“Does that mean you’re taking on assignments again, machinist?” I said.

“Ooh, yes!” Val sat up, delighted. “Give me something good. Not too easy.”

“With that pile of junk?” I twisted up my face in faux disbelief. “No one could make something of it. Not even Srana’s highest acolytes.”

She beamed. We all knew this game by now. “They’ve got nothing on me.”

It was true. I’d met Srana’s highest acolytes. Been gifted weapons made by the greatest machinists in the world, eager to outfit the Vindica Ultis.

Valentina put them all to shame.

I leaned back in my chair, considering. “I would like you to build me . . .”

I thought of my run-in with Septimus. The confident smirk twisting his perfect lips. His chest, smooth, sculpted flesh exposed beneath a thin shirt open a little too low, without so much as leather armor covering it. A heart so close I could’ve tasted it.

“I’d like a stringless crossbow,” I said.

Valentina’s face fell. “I already made—”

“Let me finish. I want a stringless crossbow, small enough to fit on your belt, that doesn’t need to be loaded. With bolts that can pierce fallen hearts.”

I imagined a silver bolt hurtling straight through that immaculate chest.

Bam.

Val was intrigued. “Soulless hearts?”

“No. Vampire hearts.”

She grinned, delighted by this challenge. Near the hearth, the musician launched into a new melody, and she let out a gasp and leapt to her feet.

“I love this song,” she said. “How does he keep playing all my favorites?”

She rushed to the other side of the room, ready to join the small group of patrons swaying to the music. Mirie chuckled softly while I leaned over the bar and slid a coin across the worn wood.

“Have him play ‘A Dawn Sworn’ next, if he knows it,” I told the barkeeper, who nodded.

Mirie gave me a knowing glance, and I narrowed my eyes.

“She had a rough week,” I said. “It doesn’t make me soft to think that she deserves to enjoy her favorite songs for a night.”

“No one would ever mistake you for soft, Kyrene.”

I took another swig of wine. I was now swaying a bit in my seat, and the warmth in my chest bubbled up like the crackle of a warm flame, melting away the sharp edges.

Mirie’s smile faded. She leaned closer, voice low. “Are you sure that you can be here? This brings us two days off course, and the Lady of Justice—”

“We’ve had this conversation already. I’m sorry if I’m not devout enough for you, acolyte.”

Just like that, the sharp edges were back, drawn without my permission.

“I am not judging you, Kyrene. But the Lady of Justice might, if she feels that you’re squandering her gifts. You have put off her mission three times now. Vindica Ultis or no, there are bounds to her patience.” {She is right,} Zefiah said. {As usual.} The soft blur of my drunkenness felt suddenly nauseating. I raised my glass. “Shiket has bigger things to worry about than my two-day delay in heeding her bidding. Enjoy yourself. Or do priestesses not know how to do that?”

I pointedly turned to the musician, but I could feel Mirie’s stare peeling back layers of skin. From the very first night I had met her, she had looked at me that way. It had unnerved me then, and it still unnerved me now.

“I have spent three years by your side,” she said. “Give me a bit more credit than to think I see you the way everyone else does.”

I paused and cocked my head. “I can’t tell if that’s an insult. Is that an insult?”

She smirked. Offered a delicate half shrug. Even when Mirie was joking with me, she still somehow managed to remain so effortlessly elegant. I admired that about her. In a world where nothing had managed to cling to dignity, Mirie was always dignified.

“You can always go back to the temple, priestess,” I said.

She took a thoughtful sip of water. “Hmm. Perhaps tomorrow.”

That was the refrain, batted back and forth between us for years.

“Go back to the temple.”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

I was accustomed to acolytes hanging around—usually acolytes of Shiket, but sometimes those of Atroxus, the fallen sun god, too. I attracted lots of religious attention. After all, following the Vindica Ultis was a mere step removed from following the goddess Shiket herself. Most were

tittering teenagers or self-righteous elderly masters, and all were terrible company.

Mirie, from the beginning, was different. Quiet, calm, and shockingly grounded, considering that she was apparently the type of person who would uproot her life to go follow around some woman she’d never met.

No matter how I tried to chase her off, she always remained—always with a maybe tomorrow. And soon enough, I stopped trying. Stopped wanting to.

I took another drink. I was now, well and truly, drunk.

“You know,” I said, “I think I’ve won.”

“Won what?”

“Us. This competition. You follow me around trying to make me a better chosen one. I drag you into a life in the criminal underworld.”

“I don’t believe this was ever a competition.”

“Bullshit. You are now definitely more sinful than I am holy.”

Again, that smug smirk, just at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t think that’s true, Kyrene,” she said, casting a pointed glance at Valentina, twirling to her favorite song.

Perhaps the alcohol was getting to me, because an unexpected lump of emotion tightened at the base of my throat.

Shiket was the Goddess of Justice. The goddess of warriors and maker of heroes. And Mirie, from the start, was undeniably a hero. She even looked the part, with the robes and the armor and the plume of short, thick, dark hair that made her profile resemble that of warriors who wore feathers atop their helmets. She was an excellent fighter and had impeccable judgment. In fact, the only poor judgment I’d ever seen her exhibit was her decision to follow me around, day after day, week after week, year after year.

And yet, shamefully, I was grateful for it.

I looked away, but not quickly enough. Mirie’s brow furrowed.

“What?”

“What?”

“Something happened earlier. Something that shook you.”

Nothing ever got past Mirie.

I hesitated, then leaned closer to her. “When Marko and I went after the mark—”

A cacophonous roar burst up from the corner of the room. We turned to see Marko thrusting his hands in the air victoriously while his opponents

grumbled curses, throwing their cards to the table.

“Which one do you think is going to try to kill him later?” I mused.

A young woman, laughing, draped herself over Marko’s shoulder, and he kissed her to a wave of laughter.

“Her husband, maybe.” Mirie shot me a pointed glance. “That bother you?”

I scoffed. That wasn’t the kind of relationship Marko and I had. We were just two people who disliked empty beds and quiet loud enough to hear our own thoughts.

“I always dreamed he might take me away from all this one day,” I said flatly, and Mirie stifled a snort.

The song ended, and across the room, Valentina thanked the musician.

The lanky boy—Quin—leaned over her shoulder and said something that could not possibly have been funny enough to earn her sparkling giggle. I watched all the little casual touches in their flirtation, and when he murmured in her ear and nodded to the back room, I started to stand.

Mirie stopped me. “Oh, please. She’s sixteen.”

I gave her a blank stare. I didn’t know what that was supposed to mean.

“He could be dragging her out back to murder her.”

“You know as well as I do that Valentina could kill that boy with one arm tied behind her back. You’ve got to let her live eventually.” She nudged my arm. “Don’t you remember what it was like back then? When you could have a dramatic, exciting flirtation that seemed like the greatest thing in the world?”

I blinked away the memories. “It was a different world back then.”

“It was. But she’s growing up in this one, and that means the little joys are all the more important. She knows how to be safe. She has the tea. Let her have some consequence-free fun with a boy.”

I had a visceral, unexpected reaction to those words. Consequence-free.

A vivid memory of sharp pain, blood on my fingertips, and— Gods fucking help me. I downed another gulp.

“She’s not prepared for this world,” I grumbled.

“She’s smart. Capable.”

“Naive.”

“Only because you work so hard to preserve that in her.”

I fought the urge to touch my chest. Mirie’s words hit their target precisely.

She was right, of course. The qualities in Val that I found most frustrating were exactly the ones I fought so hard to protect. Mirie and I had been a young adult and a teenager, respectively, when the sun fell. But Valentina barely remembered a time before darkness. When I had first met her, I felt like I’d discovered one final remaining flower. A relic from a past age, miraculously preserved.

I hated that this world would stamp that out of her, one day. I’d committed my fair share of reprehensible acts, but the idea of killing Valentina’s innocence seemed the most unforgivable of all.

I took another drink, a little desperately, chasing the quickly fading

buzz.

“Listen, Mirie,” I said. “Tomorrow—”

“Kyrene.”

Valentina’s voice ripped through the room. My heart stopped. It was always so easy to tell when Val was angry. She still had that high, sharp warble, like a child.

I whipped around, already reaching for Zefiah.

But Valentina was alone. She was unhurt. She stood straight. And she looked only at me as she held up her hand, something gold glinting in her

grasp:

A pendant of Shiket.

She asked, “How did they get this?”