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PROLOGUE
AFTER THE UNBINDING
Leth hesitates at the silent threshold. He had braced himself for confrontation, but the Tariel family chapel is empty. Trees whisper around him, and the night cuts through his long coat. The divine sword slung across his back sears a line of ice into his skin.
Two hours past midnight, the city of Ostaris is quiet. The day’s chaos has ebbed, leaving the people exhausted. In the courtyard of the Bright Cathedral, five bound gods were freed. Thousands of soldiers, paladins, and priests lost their false contracts of divine magic. Two centuries of lies were brought to ruin by the small group calling themselves the Locksmiths.
Leth imagines the rest of the Locksmiths are sleeping, celebrating, or still consulting with the paladin orders. But he has something to take care of alone.
The Tariel chapel to Ka Dravos sits half a mile outside Ostaris, in a stretch of forest owned by the ka Tariels for three hundred years. The stone doors are carved with two snarling wolves. Leth mutters a charm of protection, and one of the onyx spell beads braided into his loose hair flashes silver—but he meets no defensive spells when he touches the door. His family must not have bothered removing him from the wards.
The door creaks open at his touch, revealing the interior. Moonbeams stream from the high windows like blades of light. They reveal the fine layer of dust covering the dark marble floor. Dust covers the single bench by the door, too, where Leth’s grandmother used to sit to worship when she became too frail to kneel before the altar.
Leth’s lips tighten briefly at the chapel’s neglect. He takes a slow breath, holds it, and exhales to center himself. Ka Dravos—the cold, ascetic god of war—rewards strength.
Despite the late hour, Leth expected to find someone else here. His mother, perhaps. His aunts and cousins. His older brother. Even if Anton has spent his career devoted more to politics than faith, surely the Unbinding should have driven him to the chapel.
Did Anton keep his contract or not? Those the gods deemed worthy were allowed to keep their magic. If Ka Dravos judged Anton worthy, then he’ll be more powerful than ever. If not, he’ll lose all claim to Ka Dravos’s Valor.
It’s not Leth’s place to judge his brother, but he can’t help having his own opinions.
The chapel isn’t as large as it seemed when Leth was a child, but it’s large enough to make him feel small. Statues of men and women line the walls, wielding swords and axes, clad in armor and pelts. A gauntlet of Leth’s most esteemed ancestors, staring him down with dead stone eyes as he approaches the altar. Leth grew up on stories of their heroism and strength. The great feats they accomplished with the Valor granted by Ka Dravos.
A waist-high block of marble forms the altar. Leth unstraps the sword from his back. When he grabs the relic’s hilt, magic tingles through his glove. The Valor that tempers the war god’s acolytes into peerless steel, drumming through his bones. Leth has never wielded Valor, despite his lifetime of training. Before the Unbinding, Valor was falsely restricted to the elite Dravan soldiers within the Charaini army.
Leth’s failure to enlist left him only his own meager magic—until now.
He unsheathes the Dravansword and sets both blade and scabbard on the altar. The scabbard is plain leather; the blade is dark steel, and the ruby set in the pommel looks black in the darkness. Uneven blood grooves score the blade like claw marks.
“Release.” Leth’s minor protection charm shivers away. Nothing stands between him and Ka Dravos.
With another steadying breath, he steps back five feet from the altar and lowers both knees to the night-cold marble. He bows his head, and his shoulder-length hair falls in front of his face. Closing his eyes, he speaks quietly, without ritual or incantation.
“Ka Dravos, I am Leth ka Tariel. I helped free you from the Binding.” He doesn’t mention his sacrifices. Being faithful to his god required him to betray his family, but Ka Dravos wouldn’t care about the cost—only the results. “I ask for your blessing and Valor, in exchange for devoting my heart and sword to you.”
He’s prayed to Ka Dravos all his life. When he was younger, he thought the god’s silence was because Leth wasn’t strong enough to deserve an answer. He thought that if he tempered his will and rejected all mortal distractions, trained until his blisters bled, he would earn Ka Dravos’s attention.
But nearly two years ago, the Locksmiths’ leader told Leth the truth: Ka Dravoscouldn’tanswer. Every directive Anton claimed from the god was a lie. Ka Dravos and four other gods were imprisoned two hundred years ago, and if Leth wanted his true birthright, he had to fight for it.
The echoes of his prayer fade from the chapel. Silence holds him captive, and nervousness builds in his throat no matter how steadily he breathes.
Until the air shifts, and the night moves.
Hot-coldpowercrashes down on Leth’s shoulders. Forces through his lungs. Willpower alone keeps him on his knees, as crushing Valor surrounds him. His joints lock in instinctive resistance, and his vision darkens. For a moment, he’s afraid he’ll pass out.
The force eases. Gasping for breath, Leth raises his head.
Ka Dravos is tall. At least two feet taller than Leth’s five-foot-three. His massive shoulders are made even more massive by his great furred cloak, the length of which dissolves into shadows. A wolf’s head helm hangs over half his face, fangs silver in the moonlight.
The god circles behind the altar and runs his fingers along the Dravansword. Steel sings to his touch, and Ka Dravos finally looks at Leth.
“You ask my blessing.” Ka Dravos’s voice resonates with the steel’s uneasy song. Memories of howling nights. “Yet you reek of demon magic.”
Leth’s blood runs cold. He doesn’t. He can’t. Unless—
“It isn’t mine. I would never contract with a demon.”
