“He almost sliced his own foot off,” he tried to tell a priestess.

Her face was a crazed, awed mask.

Not everyone loved the champion, of course. Roturra agents and supporters scattered throughout because their own section was full, threw fruit, or worse, rocks. The champion peeled himself from the arena’s floor, unrecognizable from the blood—mostly his own—and black sand. He stood before the judge, the headmaster of Isilurra, Gael Lor’Baronar. Roturra didn’t have proper important people like other houses but relied on its four bloodhouses to make its power felt. It was in worse shape than Hosmyr.

Lord Baronar was talking to the champion, and the court grew silent. Everyone wanted to hear what he was saying to the young champion. He let out a hearty chuckle, slapping his knee. The man really was like the great bear, the Mauler, the Baronar sigil.

The Roturra stands were deathly silent, staring daggers at the judge’s back. He didn’t seem to care and just laughed louder. The carcass in the arena wasn’t of his house or his vassals.

The champion stood proudly, vaunted spear at his side, cutting an impressive figure.

“Well, at least he’s good at posing,” Ren said.

“What’s that?” the man next to him asked. His face was ecstatic, as bad as the priestess.

“Nothing,” Ren whispered. The court had gotten far too silent.

“He’s the goddess’s own son,” a man behind Ren yelled. The crowd cheered in response.

Ren just huffed.

Lord Baronar raised a hand, declaring Nothrin Lor’Vanarik the winner.

At the mention of the name, a cluster of valley priestesses sitting in the section to Ren’s right started keening, a mournful cry for the name of an ancient master of a defunct house. No one would say the name aloud, but everyone knew it. He thought the women either very brave or very stupid. He glanced about at the Daushalan guards lining each section. They didn’t seem bothered by it.

Below, on the arena floor, the magistrate wrote up the order which would enforce the change in ownership of sixty-five acres of cropland and a hundred acres of hill pasture in the South Valley. Zauhune would invade by summer. The scribe rang the bell, and the court closed for spring.

The crowd started stomping in unison—the supporters, of course—as the godling left the arena, glad-handed by his second, Mirlanos Lor’Zadryn, and saluted by the sons of Hosmyr. None of those sons even knew Ren existed, and he’d done horrible things for their house. The Roturra supporters just groused. They must wonder when one of them would receive the command to enter the court on their matron’s behalf.

People trickled out, arguing, cheering, even praying. They reached for the stars, wavering in a feverish trance, tears in their eyes. This arena was their temple now. In the commotion, Ren swiped a straw hat abandoned on the stone seating. He’d dressed like a farmhand, but the hat would help. Crater Mornae would never wear such a thing. Ren pushed down through the departing crowd. People cursed him for going the wrong way, but he ignored them. One of his master’s agents had told him of a side entrance to the staging halls. Closer to the entrance he dropped the straw hat and swiped a cap from a servant’s hand. Before the servant could respond, the river of bodies carried him away.

Ren secured the cap on his head, pulling his silver-gray hairs round his face. He’d left his larger weapons at home and only carried a pouch of powders and a single needle. The truth was his best weapon was to appear as a servant. Hidden by the distracted crowd, he changed up his clothes, removing a jacket to reveal a long sash about his waist bearing the muddled sigil of a Zauhune fourth tier house. If questioned, he’d say he worked for Lor’Baltrin—a made-up name, but it sounded so close to Balstrin and lowborn rarely pronounced things the right way—and was there to aid the champion.

He deftly jumped a separation and landed on the court sand. His throat tightened and shadows swirled unbidden at his feet and hands.

Goddess above, not now!

He’d not intended to land in the arena at all. He backed away into a deep shadow. None had noticed. The lords were already gone from their places on the judge’s platform, anyway. He snuck to the door and pressed his hand to it. A foot above his hand was the bloody handprint of the champion.

“A giant,” he said, a little less cocky, a little less sure that he was superior to this wildling champion. The man wielded a spear of legend even if it gave the champion more trouble than Roturra’s armor-clad pawns.

He pressed his ear to the door. Nothing. Pure silence. The walls of the court amplified sound for the crowd so all could partake intimately of the action on the sand, but here, in the staging area, a sacred silence permeated the walls and doors. He needed to work quickly. Someone would be by soon enough to wipe it all down. He took out a rag just in case, another element of his disguise. He could always claim to be part of the cleaning crew.

The door didn’t budge. Too heavy. He pressed his shoulder to it, and it slid open an inch. Then it became light, almost weightless. More magic. Those ancients loved to waste their power on such things. He peeked inside. The staging hall was empty except for bloody rags piled against a wall. A half-full pail of water sat beside it.

He crouched down and studied everything. A bit of linen stained with blood might be useful to his master, but he couldn’t be sure whose blood it was. The Zauhune champion had split his opponent from shoulder to hip, spraying himself with blood in the process. Why hadn’t Maunyn asked him to fetch these samples before? He flushed hard, heat creeping up his throat. What if, when he turned in the samples, Maunyn just scoffed… like he had about the beady-eyed boy? Was this a game to force Ren to cross Vaidolin in terror?

Ren kicked the rags. This champion formed poor shadows, his movements vile to the eye, but he was making the goddess manifest. He was doing so much more than most in Vaidolin. More than Ren ever did.

“He won’t last,” Ren whispered as he collected strands of hair. “This will do,” he said, picking up a black-as-night strand of hair. This was something he’d not seen close: black hair with goddess-light. It gave off a strange glow which only Mornae with enough talent could see. It was the same light that danced unseen across the tunnel walls below the cities.

The Mornae always talked about the goddess moon, but his mentor said the Mornae found the greatest power deep below, in the rock, in the heat of the world’s heart. But Ren had never bought into that. It was both, somehow.

He shook his head. He wasn’t a diviner to ponder such matters. All the hairs went into a pouch, which he tucked into an inner pocket.

Shadows swirled at his feet as a door opened down the hall. He stepped into a sliver of shadow where the sconce-light didn’t penetrate. The clean-up crew must be coming.

Ren slid away, pressed to the wall, staying in shadow. His own shell provided a shield of sorts, like a reflective surface. If anyone looked his way, they’d see a reflection of the other side of the hall.

Two laborers walked past, oblivious to his presence.

A small smile broke on Ren’s face. I am a god. The champion can’t even do what I do. Thoughts and feelings swelled in him like a rushing flood. Sure, he couldn’t wield that spear… But give me a blade… a knife. Heat braced his skull and black blotches sprouted in front of him, his vision turning a deep red hue.

Ren blinked.

His needle was out, and the laborers were dead on the ground.

“Oh, goddess…” he sputtered, “what… what?”

He collapsed on all fours and vomited a fiery mixture. The desire to kill had overwhelmed him. He’d been standing there, exposed, his power drained. His mentor would have flogged him bloody for such a careless mistake. And yet, a gentle warmth caressed his head. He’d served the goddess, he told himself. He searched the bodies for a knife. Within a hidden sheath in one man’s sleeve, he found a three-inch-long knife. No one would believe a Naukvyrae had killed with a needle. He slit their throats and then, with a blood-soaked rag, drew Naukvyrae glyphs on the wall. It was sloppy, but did it matter?

He checked his breast pocket for the precious samples.

“It won’t be enough,” he whispered. He needed to do more to impress a lord like Maunyn. He needed to do things that could earn him a place at Isiltrin. Ren the god would become Ren the consort, Ren the counselor, Ren the valued vassal. All these things he craved in his little wreck of a heart.

“Yes,” he said. “And why not? I’m just as worthy as that son of Xaeltrin.”

He sucked in his breath. The name hung in the air, echoing gently. Xaeltrin's sorcerers must have helped build this arena, their thoughts embedded in its stone, just waiting for a fool like him to touch it and overwhelm him with their ancient presence. Warmth crept up on him, dancing across the backs of his legs, spine, neck, and cradling his head tenderly. Funny how it happened in a place like this. The goddess chooses whom she wills—despite the Accords and efforts of highborn ladies and lords to cage her.

And she’s chosen you, the heat seemed to whisper.

He smiled to himself. He’d never thought much of prayers and devotions, but now he fell to his knees, bent over, and muttered his every desire to that heat reaching up to him from the heart of the world. His nose and throat prickled, and a scarlet blob fell from his left nostril to the stone floor.

“Only those willing to bleed are worthy of the goddess,” he said, giving voice to the thought dominating him.

He couldn’t say where he’d ever heard such a thing before.

“I will make myself worthy,” he said through the searing pain. “You’ll see.”

He crawled out of there, chaos behind him, and with the determination to make something of himself.

30

Within three days of Taul’s audience with the high matron, the vultures and jackals were circling Lor’Toshtolin.

“They sent agents to press us for debts,” Xautan said, eyes wide.

Taul placed jars of honey on the shelf. They were of superior quality and reasonably priced. The bees of that hive had fed off Zeldra’s blooms for cycles. He could almost hear them buzzing. The consorts crowding around him buzzed louder.