“Selim,” she barked and the man who'd been fightingValinglanced up.
He gave a grim nod and then turned fromValin and ran.Valinwhirled around to face us before stalking forward, blade out. I did the same until all three of us were converging upon the remaining rider.
“Who sent you?”Aigeusbarked, murder clear in his eyes as he approached. “How did you know we would be here?”
Instead of running like her friend, instead of backing down or begging for her life, she simply smiled. Then she lifted her fingers to her lips and let out a short, quick whistle.
Aigeusseemed to know what it meant. He whirled around to face the threat from the sky, the girl’sZver,who was now swooping toward us, jaw open, claws out, whileValinleapt on the girl who met his sword the first time but had no hope against his enhanced speed and strength the second time. She fell to the sand as well, throat slit from ear to ear.
Aigeusraised his palms again, undoubtedly to utilize that strange light cannon he was capable of summoning to defeat his newest foe. But his focus was entirely on one beast,Valin’son the rider. Neither of them saw the trick, the real plan for what it was.
“No!” I screamed, shooting forward with my enhanced speed, spear angled up.
But I was too late.
Aigeus’ blood sprayed onto me as the rider Selim crashed his beast into a god, claws tearing through flesh as if there were nothing holy about him at all.
Aigeusslumped to the ground, already dead, claw marks shredded into his torso so deep his organs were visible. Selim let out another whistle and then flew off in the direction opposite toPavos, the fallen rider’s survivingZver following in his wake.Valinran after them for a minute but then, seeing the hopelessness of chasing after a flying target on foot, he returned.
I fell to my knees besideAigeus’ body, staring in slack-jawed awe at the body of a god fallen before my very eyes. They bled as we did. Crimson red rivulets ran down onto the coarse sand below. They died like we did, eyes open, lips parted slightly in some macabre expression of surprise. I stared at his palm, now hanging limp on the ground beside him, as if expecting that light to erupt from him once more, expecting him to rise again, toreturn. Because how could death triumph over a god? How could a deity die?
“I’ll find the one who ran,”Valinmuttered as he approached, voice gruff and furious. He bent to gather an unbent shield and a new weapon since his had been broken or lost in the scuffle, completely unaware of the existential crisis I was having on the sand below. “He’ll be branded a deserter and banished to the sands. It’s a fate worse than death. Viper?”
“He just…died,” I said.
The words sounded foolish aloud, stupid. ButValinapproached anyway, frowning down atAigeus’ body.
“Immortality doesn't mean eternal life, Viper,” he told me. “An immortal man can still be slain by sword or arrow just as well as a mortal one.”
“But he wasn’t just immortal. He was…”
“A god?”
I didn’t answer butValinknew what I meant.
“There are no gods here,”Valinsaid then, his voice low as he laid a hand on my shoulder in the first sign of comfort he’d ever given me. “Not anymore.”
Chapter Ten
Adrian
“When the darkness comes, you must not stumble. Stand firm in the light and go forth with hope in your heart, as you are the gods’ chosen.”
– From the Rite of the Culling
Iwoke up to a small beige folder slipped underneath the door to my quarters. The contents only contained a single piece of paper with one word upon it.Textiles.
I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Tiberius and his fellow high and mighty supervisors to be so formal and unnecessary. Tossing the summons, envelope and all, onto the kitchen counter, I strolled from my quarters. I shut the door tightly behind me and adjusted the collar of my gray jumpsuit as I made my way down the hall to the stairs and the elevators below.
Textiles was level six. I'd memorized all ten on only my second day in the Underground. I hadn’t told Tiberius that, of course. I didn’t want to risk allowing him to derive any sort of satisfaction from the completed task. He wanted me to embrace my role here, to accept the importance of what he, and all the other supervisors, did in the Underground. He wanted me to embracethe Underground as a whole, likely because he was convinced I would be spending eternity down here just as he had. But I had no intention of wasting away buried beneath mounds of dirt and stone for the rest of my uncertain future. And I had no intention of giving up on returning home.
I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jumpsuit, fingers running along the edges of the note I’d crafted the night before upon the stationary every supervisor seemed to have stowed away in their apartments. I muttered a silent thanks toBria for teaching me how to read and hoped my clumsy hand had done well enough in replicating the letters to form the words I needed to get back to Sanctuary, to one person in particular, one person who would know what to do with the information.
I climbed into the elevator with the rest of the morning shift making their way to the various levels below and pressed the button for level six. The elevator hummed to life, lights flickering only briefly overhead before plunging us into the darkness below. A few got off on the second level, more on the third, and even more after that. I waited patiently until the ping which told me we'd arrived at level six, textiles. I pushed past a man in dirty miner’s coveralls to make my way into the illuminated tunnel beyond.
The entry to the textiles level was more vibrant than any I'd seen so far. A dazzling array of multicolored silks and lace and cotton hung from long wooden rods set against the walls as far as the eye could see. There were finished products from beaded ballgowns to plain tee shirts to tufted comforters arranged in row after row, all awaiting assignment and delivery. Three textiles workers, in their burgundy jumpsuits, were walking to and fro with a clipboard, jotting down the numbers on the tags attached to each item and listing it according to where in Sanctuary it was heading. I would bet my life that even I could guess where the motley assortment of faded, scratchy tee shirtswas headed as opposed to the selection of elegant ballgowns and fitted jackets.
I sighed, averting my gaze as I made my way into the main workroom where men and women in the same burgundy jumpsuits were seated at rows upon rows of sewing machines, desks littered with buttons and beads and zippers and anything else they might need to craft the various textiles of Sanctuary.
