So cut and dry. As if resurrecting him is a simple thing.
“I have no remnant of you,” I tell him. “The prince has the God Knife, made from Thamaos’s bone. I couldn’t resurrect you if I wanted to.”
“Do you really think any god would be so witless as to not prepare for such things? Knowing that the laws of their kind provide a method for true eternal life? I had liegemen devoted to protecting my remnant. They were charged with my resurrection because of my unjust death. They failed, thanks to Fia Drumera’s protections around her land. But now I’m granted another chance, it seems. With you.” He tilts his head closer. “I know where my remnant is. I can lead you to it. And so I offer you a deal.”
His aid is what I wanted. This just isn’t how I thought that aid would be granted.
Fuck. If Fate oversees what choices lie before us, then that son of a bitch has one cruel sense of humor.
“I need to see what the prince is up to now, not later,” I tell Neri, digging as deeply as I can into my sense of self-preservation and perhaps my own powers of manipulation. “If you’re correct, then Thamaos wants you sent back to the Shadow World. If he’s truly guiding the prince, and the prince gets to the grove first, what makes you believe Thamaos will let the prince leave your grave intact? It must remain intact if you want to live again. As it stands, we could already be too late.”
Sighing with annoyance, Neri growls and spreads his massive hands. “Then I cannot help you. Because until I am whole, I have no power over the magick of men. Only my own and any I doled out three centuries ago.”
I suppose that explains why he was able to remove Colden’s curse.
“The council’s barrier is as impenetrable for me as it is for you,” he adds. “But I’ve a sneaking suspicion that the prince is nowhere near ready to attack the Summerlands. In fact, if my old deal bonds are singing correctly, then he’s going to need a little time. Which gives you a window of opportunity. Find my remnant and reach the Grove of the fucking Gods first.” He raises his white brows. “So. Last time. Deal or not?”
Oddly, I want to trust the god crouched before me. But I need time to think this through.
He huffs a laugh. “I thought you had more fire, Seer. If you decide you want to play, you know how to find me. Until then, I’ll be on the lookout for other means to make my resurrection happen.” He stands, and like an apparition, begins to fade at the edge of Brigot’s Rock. Before he vanishes completely, though, his voice reaches my mind. “Perhaps you should keep an eye on your king, he says. One of the answers you seek now lies with him. The knowledge will not save you or Tiressia, and it will not stop the prince, but it will allow you to prepare.”
A second later, Neri is gone. His words linger though, repeating in my head, and for reasons I can’t yet understand, I believe everything he said.
Listening to Mena’s advice, I decide to trust my instinct. With a slight shiver, I get up and walk to the shore to fill my scrying dish. Using the hairpin, I prick my finger and bleed into the water one last time tonight.
“Nahmthalahsh,” I sign, releasing a shaky breath as a great clap of thunder cleaves the air. “Show me Colden Moeshka.”
14
COLDEN
The Eastern Territories
City of Quezira
Min-Thuret Temple, Dungeon
* * *
There’s a dead woman in the cell next to mine.
A tall, blond guard carried her into the dungeon moments ago. Now he looms over her, covering her corpse with a blanket, like he’s tucking her in for a long night’s sleep.
At the guard’s side stands a woman dressed in black trousers and a bronze tunic, holding a basket of medicinals in hand. A physician. Which seems quite pointless given that the body is a rotted mess of remains and bones. She sits the basket aside and withdraws a thin, iron collar that she places around the exposed sinew of the dead woman’s stringy neck.
The maid’s face is familiar, that pale, pearlescent skin. And her hair… The color of straw under summer’s late dusk. Not blonde and not red, but something softer in between. Silver threads streak her braided locks now, and her body is leaner, harder than I recall, her face more lined. It’s been nearly twenty years, after all. She’s one of mine, though.
Bronwyn Shawcross.
“I take it that digging people from their graves is the only way you can force anyone to spend time with you,” I say.
The guard and Bronwyn glance up, and though I catch a glint in Bronwyn’s eyes, she’s the epitome of calm, her facade never once wavering. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that her pulse didn’t even quicken.
But I wasn’t speaking to Bronwyn or the guard.
The Prince of the East, whom I haven’t seen in many days, stands two steps behind them, hands stuffed inside his trouser pockets, blood-colored shadows roiling like a miniature storm around his feet.
My words were meant for him.
