AKI:

The door crashed open. The upper hinge snapped off before it swung back at an angle. An older man, tall and wide and utterly intimidating, ducked in under the door frame. “Adeenas!”

His target lounged on the bed, calm despite the man’s violent entrance. “Good. You’ve made it here unscathed.”

The man fumed. Bulging muscles on a build I’d thought reserved for stories of mythical giants vibrated with tension. “You will answer me without jest, without diversion, and without lies, or I swear by the divinity of The Queen, it’ll be your death or mine this day!”

“Calm yourself, Farian,” Adeenas said, standing from the bed. “I will answer what—”

“Why?” Farian asked.

“A simple question with a—”

With an astounding feat of physical strength, Farian ripped the door off its last hinge and hurled it at Helena. She ducked under the mass of wood, but he’d already rushed forward and was waiting for her when she straightened. I heard the crunch of bones. Helena had not moved. The injury was his and his alone. Farian paid it no mind and swung at her again, much with the same result. Even then, he didn’t stop, his blows coming steadily. Finally, when his lungs and arms grew too heavy to continue, he tried to wrap his hands around her neck. He strained with the effort, but his hands—now mounds of bloody, broken, unresponsive flesh and bone—lay harmlessly on her shoulders, no more than twitching.

“Why?” he asked, the anger on his face tempered with deep exhaustion and deeper sadness.

“My dear Farian,” Adeenas began. Blood trickled from Farian’s hands. She took one into her own, brought it to her face, and kissed it, her lips coming away bloody. “The why of it all is too much for me to answer. I do not jest, deflect, or lie when I tell you this. My master will be here soon if he isn’t already, and then I must face more urgent matters. So, while we have the time, try to be specific, and I’ll answer what I can.”

I’d crawled under the table when Farian came through the door. His ready violence and lack of control reminded me of Kalin. Now, uncomfortable and unaccustomed to the sincerity of their conversation, I stayed perfectly still, watching them. It’s not often I’d seen the better sides of humanity, especially through the prism of conflict.

After a long pause, Farian asked, “Why’d you marry me?”

“For solace. For the love you had for me.”

Farian pulled his hand back from Leahne’s tender hold, wincing as his bloody fingers slipped out of her gentle grasp.

“And then because I grew fond of you,” Adeenas hastily added.

“Solace from what?”

“From heartache.”

Farian’s frown deepened. “And Merkus?”

“He is the man who owns my life,” Addy answered. “Beyond that, I cannot say.”

“Prince Knite,” Farian said, spitting the words out as if they were an insult. Adeenas remained quiet for a moment, giving weight to Farian’s utterance.

“So,” she finally said, “master’s mask is no longer apart from its whole.”

“My son was a mask?” Farian’s anger resurfaced. “A mask!”

“No,” a deep voice interjected. “Not a mask as you know it.”

I don’t know what I’d expected a god to look like. Whatever it was, Knite wasn’t it. Dark. No other word described him better. It was more than his dark, deep-set eyes, the stark black of his thick eyebrows and shoulder-length hair, and the bleak greys of his clothes and skin. Darkness radiated from him in some intangible way I couldn’t quite fathom. His gaze shifted across the room, taking in the broken hinges hanging from the door frame, the blood on Farian’s hands and Addy’s lips, the loose door leaning on the bed, and finally came to rest on something above the table I hid under. He held out a hand, and a blur shot into it.

The naftajar! I clambered from beneath the desk, glancing at the window as I stood.

“And where did this wretched critter come from?” Knite asked, his hand squeezing the writhing mass of black.

“Not a mask?” Farian asked. He was unfazed by the abnormal creature.

Knite ignored the man, looking past him to Addy. “We’ll be in the library. Join us when you are done here.”

“I thought I’d raised an honest son!” Farian roared. “Now I know all I’ve done was harbor a coward who hides behind lies, a li—”

Knite moved. Farian’s lumbering frame crashed to the floor, the god looming over him, a hand to his throat, a knee to his chest. The far bigger man struggled against the hold, trying to push him off. Failing, he tried to unfurl Knite’s grip, raking his limp and unresponsive fingers over the hand that denied him air. Nothing worked. Fear and panic settled in. He attempted to speak, but without air, no sound came.

Despite the rush of aggression, Knite’s voice was calm when he spoke, each word pronounced as if it stood alone. “Never. Call. Me. A. Liar.” He stared at the larger man, searching his eyes for some answer no words could provide.

Helena took a step forward. “Master?”

Knite released Farian. The bigger man gasped and coughed, scrambling for air.

“Thank you,” Helena said.

Knite beckoned me to follow as he walked out of the room. “Come, Aki. It is nearly a new day, and I have promises to keep.”

Farian spluttered for air as I hurried after the fallen prince. We took to the stairs and entered a room I’d not yet visited.

Leahne sat in the library, engrossed, a thick tome of aged leather in her lap.

“He thought he could beat me,” Knite said as we entered.

Leahne raised her head, peeling her eyes away from the tome. She glanced over at me before returning her attention to Knite.

“That’s why he accepted my challenge.” Knite sat beside her. “Why he lost the war.” He pointed to the book Leahne held. “They write lies and call it history.”

I chose to stand, leaning my back against the door. “What war?”

“The one against the Golden King when he came to storm the Eastern Gate with his army,” Knite said.

Leahne snapped the heavy book shut, driving a plume of dust into the air. “He was a god,” she said, “so he had a chance.”

Knite smiled. “There are no gods. Or, more accurately, there are none that I know of.”

“You know yourself,” Leahne said.

“Precisely my point,” Knite said, waving away the topic. “But we have more urgent matters to discuss. Leahne, tell me my sister’s plans for our friend here.”

“She’s no friend of mine,” I hissed.

Leahne carried the tome to one of the shelves and pushed it back in place, her finger tracing a line down its spine before her hand came away. “When you read souls like a book, what are you if not gods? What are you when you’ve lived longer than history itself? How can you deny—”

“We are long-lived and powerful, yes, but we are not gods,” Knite answered. He pulled his swords out from over his shoulders and laid them on his lap, his hands sitting gently atop the hilts. “A true God is not one of power, destruction, or even creation, but of existence. Now, I will not ask again; tell me of my sister’s plans.”

Leahne’s face drained of color as she watched the naked blades, laughing. “Of course, of course. Apologies, my Lord. But really, there’s not much to tell. Well, there’s not much I can tell.”

I smiled, enjoying her poorly veiled fear. A flash of my father smiling at my pain crossed my mind. Almost without noticing, a silent murmur of Diloni’s warning crossed my lips, flattening the curves of my vindictive sneer.

“Lorail?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Leahne said. “She wanted me to isolate you from everyone at the academy. You didn’t make that easy for me.” She flicked a look at Knite. “Neither of you did.”

“Is that why you tried to Tunnel me?” I asked.

Knite chuckled in a tone more suited to the crushing of stones than laughter. “The Zephyr matrix.”

“You?” Leahne asked, directing a finger at me. “You!”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“You deserved worse,” I said. “Deserve worse. It’s a crime to Tunnel anyone before they’ve taken their assessment.” The residue of her failed attempt lingered, nagging faint discouragements at me whenever I thought to speak to others.

“A god ordered me,” she said, wholly remorseless. “What are laws against demands from those who dictate them.”

Knite ran a hand down his face. “Enough. As amusing as your spats may be, let us return to matters of greater import. Rowan’s death will force Lorail to act. I gather she expected Aki some time ago. Her agents are likely already investigating the delay.” Knite eyed Leahne. “How long before they come to look for you?”

“Not long,” she said.

“Then we’d best use our time wisely. Arousing their suspicion might find you facing a scrying. That cannot happen. Except for the collectors, who would’ve rendered your soul inert in the endeavor, none but I can erase Lorail’s mark. The discovery of your betrayal would be tantamount to announcing my return.”

Leahne nodded.

“Who are the collectors?” I asked.

Knite shook his head. “Soon, Aki. I promise.” He returned to addressing Leahne. “So, tell me, how exactly was she planning to recruit Merkus?”

Leahne sat, her back straight. “As you know, Lorail is the most reviled of the gods—though almost no one is daring enough to tell it to anyone but themselves. Recruitment outside Halor is largely done with indirect force, whether by subtle manipulation or explicit threat. I believe, and I must stress that this is nothing but conjecture, that she’s long been manipulating Aki and was soon to be threatening you with some charge or other.”

“No one manipulates me,” I hissed.

“Your insular life indicates she’s been influencing you for quite some time,” Leahne explained, the odd combination of pity and amusement on her face fueling my anger. “It’s her way to drown people with one hand and offer rescue with the other. I doubt your solitude is by happenstance.”

“I have Merkus… And Edon… And Diloni… And—” I snapped my mouth shut, horrified of the name I’d almost uttered.

“Merkus was an exception,” Leahne said. “With your resistance and his immunity to my Tunneling, I failed my task.”

“And Edon?”

“He’s of House Bainan. We didn’t expect a Seculor from The Branches, low among his class as he may be, to associate with either of you. I’d not dared Tunnel him for fear of discovery.”

“And Diloni?” I persisted.

“Likely someone else’s failure.”

“I thought as much,” Knite said.

“No!” I barked. “I am my own.”

Knite looked nothing like Merkus, but there was something very familiar about his laugh. “You are, Aki.”

“This is funny to you?”

“No,” he said, his mirth gone, the harshness of restraint playing on his voice. “I agree you are your own. It’s just that I’ve never seen you so passionate.”

“Oh,” I said, recognizing the uncontrolled display of emotions I unwittingly exhibited. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t who I told myself to be. But I refused to believe that my mind, the only thing I’d left to me, the only thing I counted on, was being led by another.

“Sorry,” I said, half to Knite for my insolence, half to myself for betraying my emotions.

“My recruitment was…” Leahne paused, her smile sad. “Let's just say I understand.”

“Alright,” Knite said. “Where are you staying, Leahne?”

“Not far from here.”

“Then go and tell them you know nothing. Go about your days as you normally would. I assume you are safe from your fellow agents?”

“They’re my—were my subordinates. I can handle them.” Leahne hesitated. “Erm… about my—”

Knite waved a dismissive hand. “Her conceit will not allow her to consider the prospect of your betrayal. As long as you avoid a scrying, you shall remain safe.” Leahne lingered, unwilling to leave. “The absence of the mark will raise too many questions, and so, for now, you must endure. But rest assured; I shall cure you of it when the time comes.”

“Yes, Lord.” Leahne stood, bowed, and left.

I closed the door behind her, putting my ear on the smooth wood for the sounds of her departure to fade into silence.

“Do you trust her?” I asked.

“I’ve read her soul, Aki. I have no need for trust.”

“For a man who says he’s not a god, you sound an awful lot like one.”

He smiled. “And what would you know of gods?”

“True,” I conceded, taking the seat Leahne had vacated. “Except that I might be one.”

“You are,” he confirmed, “insofar as what Leahne and others like her consider a god to be.”

“How?”

“One of those secrets I can't yet tell you.”

“But she is my mother?”

“Unfortunately.”

“That would make you my uncle.”

He smiled ruefully. “I’d prefer it if you considered me a friend instead. Neither of us does well with family.”

“And my father?”

“Him most of all for you.”

“No. I mean…”

Knite shrugged, his smirk showing me another glimpse of Merkus. “He is who he is.”

I waited. Merkus would’ve filled the silence with some incisive observation or other. Knite remained as he was, matching my quiet stare.

“You’ve changed,” I said, breaking the silence.

Knite’s head tilted, a curious movement I couldn’t read. “Of course. I’m not Merkus.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And perhaps I’m not Aki.”

He shook his head. “Like myself, you both are and aren't by way of being more.” He closed his eyes and leaned back. “Maybe even more than I know.”

“Why did you betray your mother?”

Knite sighed in disappointment. “I had hoped you’d know without asking.”

I returned the sigh. “Will all your answers be cryptic? Are all of our conversations to be a dance of hidden meanings from now on?”

Knite laughed. “I’m afraid so.” He leaned forward, his deep, dark eyes drilling me with a seriousness Merkus lacked. “There’s too much at risk for me not to be loose with my answers and tight with the truth, Aki. I wish it were not so, but it is.”

“What can you tell me,” I asked, failing to hide my frustration.

“I need you to pass into the Royal Academy,” he said. I blinked in surprise. “You’ll also need to win a commission into the Royal Institute of War.”

I surged to my feet. “Those are more like demands than answers!”

“Our goals align, Aki. How can I demand something you already want? But yes, I understand telling you the how without the why is not much of an answer. Alas, it is all you’ll get from me for now.”

“And by what credence do you attribute me capable?”

“Being a ‘god,’ as you so put it, is not enough?”

“Don’t be crass, Merkus! I haven't the patience for your dry wit. You know that my streams are but a trickle.”

“Are they?”

“Merkus!”

Merkus’ jovial grin switched to a severe expression. Despite myself, I leaned away from him.

“I can be forgiving, Aki,” he said. “Understanding at times, tolerant when I need to be, but I have my limits, and you’d do well not to think yourself beyond them.”

Panic bit into my heart, licking at me with tongues of dread. Then anger pushed fear aside, and, for a long moment, I hated him pure—for threatening our friendship, for playing on my greatest weakness, for breaking the trust I had in never having to fear him.

Knite sighed. “You always were quick to anger.”

“No, I am not,” I said defiantly. Yet I knew he was not lying; I was quick to anger; I just used to be better at hiding it.

As if privy to my silent confession, he said, “You’ll have to re-educate yourself on how to control and conceal your emotions.” He reached into the folds of his dark cloak, fishing out what little remained of the naftajar. “I’m afraid purging this has… unblocked the valleys of your soul. As preferable as that was, it did come at a price.”

“Unblocked? Who put that creature in me? How did I take it out? How did I know how to take it out?”

Knite squeezed the creature until its bulbous figure bulged, its bulk wedged between his fingers. Then, in a small explosion of an immaterial splutter, it was no more. “All questions I cannot answer—yet. What you know is already dangerous.”

“Then tell me why?”

“As Leahne and I have tried to explain, Lorail has wormed deeper into your life than you suspect, my friend.”

“I am my own,” I growled.

“You are, but no man is free from the influence of those around him.” He paused, taking a moment to let his point sink in. “Who’s Diloni?”

The question caught me off-guard. It pulled on memories whose bite yet stung. “Why? What has she to do with this?”

“I suspect she, crippled by time or injury, was relegated to The Muds alone and without option.”

“Not at all. Diloni was a library custodian with a son who’s just ascended.”

Knite nodded. “Yes, that fits.”

“Fits? Fits what?”

“I suspect there isn’t another agent who’d failed as Leahne theorized, but that Diloni herself is the agent.”

“No!” I denied. “Not possible. She—”

“Had to prepare you, Aki. Lorail wouldn’t have you brought to her uncouth and uneducated if she could help it. You speak as well as any man from The Branches. Better than most. Better than some Fioras. Who taught you?”

“I learned from books, from the Masters of the acad—”

“Nearly every Root can read,” Knite interrupted. “None speak as well as you do. Why do you think Leahne was told to discourage you from talking to others?”

I remember the late nights I’d spent with Diloni, debating the books she’d given me to read, how she corrected my pronunciation and grammar at every turn or managed to help me understand the theory behind the combat forms better than Kurash himself.

“Who instilled in you that respect—not devotion, but respect—for royalty?” Knite continued.

I remembered the tall tales Diloni told of the mighty King and his children, how they defended us from wayward gods, how they gave us the freedom to excel, and how it was our duty was to do so.

“When coincidence aids an enemy, regardless of whether or not it aided you in turn, it would take a fool not to doubt if the convenience was a coincidence at all. You have never been a fool, Aki. Not for as long as I’ve known you.”

I slumped in my chair. What else had I not considered? What else had instructed me without my knowing? She’d gone to The Roots the same day Rowan came for me, the same day her slow son was given a guard position. Gods, I thought, how could I have been so blind?

Knite continued to speak, but his voice was distant, bogged down by my racing thoughts.

“She did it for her son,” I said, barely aware I interrupted him. “She did it so he could ascend. So they both could.”

“Yes. A fairer trade than Lorail usually grants. Now, about your father?”

“What of him?” I asked, both dreading and eager to be done with whatever other secrets he was prepared to divulge.

“From what you’ve told me, I’ve always thought him too cruel for reason. A vindictive drunk, yes, but why?”

“Cruelty begets cruelty,” I said. “It’s the way of The Muds. Especially for those of weak will and weaker spirit.”

“But he is your father. And your mother is your mother,” Knite said. “There must be a reason.”

Gods, my father, I thought. He knew. He knew all, if not most. Why did Lorail give birth to his child? Why had he hated me for it? I should ask. I will ask. I must

“Why?” I whispered.

“Men are not treated well under Lorail’s rule. If not for the House’s talent for slavery, I doubt they would have any men left under their banner.”

“I know.”

“But your father, Aki? What of your father?”

“Forced,” I said in disbelief. “A slave.” I could not fathom why I’d not considered it.

“Not necessarily. I doubt any man would need encouragement to bed Lorail when she cares to want him to, notwithstanding her gift for molding souls. And he might hate you for reminding him of himself. Or her. Or maybe it’s both or something else entirely. What is certain is that it began with your mother, and she made certain you’d not suspect.”

“I’ll kill her,” I growled. The words came from a depth I’d not known I had, a prideful, vengeful part of me that went deeper than my hate for Kalin, which I had thought could not be outdone.

“Perhaps your father is merely a hapless puppet,” Knite offered.

“He can read and write, you know,” I said. “There were books in his room. Pages with passages he’d written. He was literate, and yet he lived as a Mud. Truly, he is a shell of a man.”

“Ah, a shell, you say. That is an interesting turn of phrase. “

“Be done with this slow torture of yours!” I held up a hand. “And before you care to threaten me with that look you’ve suddenly grown so fond of—”

Knite broke into laughter. Angry as I was, it was good to see him as mercurial as ever; he felt less like a stranger for it.

“For the hilarity of your intractable emotions, I’ll forgive you your transgression,” he said, chuckling. “Anyhow, a shell is a perfect partner when you want a child that is more you than they. It might explain why you have the pale hair and skin my siblings and their children are known for while inheriting little to nothing from your father. Few among Fioras and Seculors can claim as much likeness.”

“I’ll kill her,” I repeated. “My whole life, a sick conception of her control.”

“Good. You may not know my reasons, but now you have yours.”

I slammed a fist on the armrest of the chair. “I’ll wipe her from existence!”

“Enough,” Knite said. “We have more to discuss, and time is running out.”

“More?” I asked. “What more could there be?”

“Well…”