There were no survivors, and Yethyr was not pleased. He had intended to activate the Death Circle when only half of the final boat was in it and spare a few men for questioning, but in the chaos and the breakdown of communication it caused, any who would have survived were shot down.
He had massacred his own people, a fraction of a fraction of what he did to Datrea, but those people, my people, had been demon worshippers, spirits doomed for Hell. In the comforting embrace of his own zealotry, he thought he was saving the Datreans from a horrible fate.
This was not that. He saw his hands as unclean and they were trembling.
But he did what he always did when confronted with inconvenient feelings. He buried them deep where only I could see them and pretended to carry on.
The Flazean ships themselves were untouched by the Death Circle and continued to float, lifeless downriver. Thralls mobilized to try to stop a ship, any ship, from floating past them. It was chaos and no one involved really understood how to wrangle a runaway ship. Nisari blew wind to slow them down, but six boats still passed them by before someone managed to drop anchor on the seventh.
According to the Datrean inscription carved into its bow, it was called Driftbranch.
I was not pleased with that ship. Based on the sound of the watersong that rushed past its hull, the wood was warped in a little spot that would not take much force to splinter apart.
No one else knew that though.
“Excellent.” Nisari yawned. “I’m going to take my nap.” She turned toward The Wily Seal and left everyone else to sort out the rest.
Upon Yethyr’s command, thralls transferred all supplies from The Finrider’s broken hull to Driftbranch as fast as possible.
He also ordered the thralls who could swim to dredge up a couple of Brinn bodies from the river, which confused his hunters. I could hear them muttering amongst themselves. “Why is he wasting precious time on such nonsense?” Kvelir asked. “Does he actually think there is a heavenly heir among the dead?”
“He wouldn’t have dared to use a Death Circle if he even suspected so,” Vezemar said seriously. “It is no small thing, killing a Lord of Brinn without formal challenge.
Dethur scoffed. “Doesn’t seem like they cared much about that themselves, seeing as they shot at the Prince without warning.”
“Whether the Prince actually has a claim to a divine inheritance is unclear,” Grokar said. “He’s never attempted The King’s Trial.”
Tular hummed. “They say he can’t hold a proper weapon long enough to try.”
“Well we know that is utter nonsense,” Hegrir hissed. “Or am I the only one who saw him decapitate Yorir in a single stroke?”
Yes, but that was because of me.
Ah.
Suddenly, my importance to Yethyr became clear. If wielding a weapon was required to succeed his father as King, he needed me.
No wonder he was obsessed with my father and his work.
“Whether the Prince is in line to be Kentheir is beside the point,” Dath was saying. “Lady Jaetheiri is a heavenly lord outright and they attacked anyway.” She tossed her head. “They are clearly heretics. No angel would stand in their shadows and I will not speak for them at a funeral pyre.”
Many others furiously agreed, so they were perplexed when Yethyr laid the bodies of the hunters in the sand and began to draw new black deathsong notations around them.
Kvelir was alarmed. “Isn’t killing them enough? Taking them from Heaven or from Maethe’s jaws can only be blasphemy.”
Yethyr buried his flinch. “They have gone to the Conquering Fang. Whether he keeps them in Heaven or devours them is his due. I would not dare raise a Hunter of Heaven proper, but with his blessing, I will question them.”
“How could you get his blessing? We have no priest here.”
“I intend to commune with him.”
The Brinn hunters gasped and muttered eagerly amongst themselves.
Kvelir frowned. “We are wasting time, my prince.”
“Truth is not a waste of time.”
Kvelir rolled his eyes. “Fine.” He whirled on his heel. “I will assist in the preparations for departure, seeing as someone has to do it.”
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Only Tular volunteered to help him. Everyone else huddled around the beach, bound by intense curiosity.
I shared that curiosity. How does one commune with an angel’s tooth?
The Prince knew. He finished his notation, knelt carefully in the sand. His knees were killing him as they always did, but he ignored that.
“Yethyr, son of the heir to your divine inheritance greets you, Conquering Fang of Maethe, first of the most holy line of kings,” the Prince said; it was the most deferential I had ever heard him be. “I beseech you, hear this lowly son of yours, and be merciful.”
Suddenly, there was a shape standing in Jaetheiri’s shadow. Something great and terrible and monstrous. I wanted to look, but Yethyr pressed his forehead into the sand and shut his eyes. His heart was pounding. For whatever reason, he believed he wasn’t supposed to look. He had not expected to see even that. He shouldn’t have been able to. Clearly, no one else could see the figure standing at Jaetheiri’s shoulder. No one else had reacted to its appearance. Then why …
It was because he was carrying me, Yethyr realized suddenly. I had allowed him to perceive demons in Datrea. This was the same.
“Speak,” the angel in the shadows said and both Yethyr and I trembled as one. The power in his voice reminded me of Z’krel, of Spryne, and of Aztomag. Ancient, divine, and deadly.
The rest of the people at the beach heard it and scrambled to prostrate themselves in terror and awe. I could feel their knees hit the sand in a panicked succession of thuds. I could feel how the angel ignored them. Yethyr could feel it too, the divine gaze upon him, and swallowed.
“I do not presume myself distinctive. Five winters ago, I promised you, from that day until Jaetheiri’s death, that the spirits of my necromantic kills were my offerings to you.” He clutched the crescent moon pendant hanging heavy from his neck. “In exchange, you provided me this vessel to collect your tribute and permitted me to do whatever I wished with the spirits within until such time as you collected.”
Yethyr took a breath and was confronted by a deafening silence.
“But such liberty is not for the Host of Heaven. The Brinn my Death Circles kill go directly to you, as agreed. I do not challenge this. I do not wish to challenge this. I wish only for permission to raise the spirits of these men to ask their intentions and then return their spirits to you, where they now rightly belong.”
All was silent.
“Please,” Yethyr begged. “Let them speak their truth to me.”
The silence grew and so did Yethyr’s panic. Then the angel spoke.
“One man. Two questions. I will grant nothing more to one who saves his prayers for another.”
I was baffled, but all Yethyr felt was relief.
“Thank you, Old King.”
The angel was gone. I knew it at once, and so did Yethyr. He could finally breathe.
“Was that truly the Conquering Fang?” Dath murmured in awe. The hunters became awash with similar whispers.
Yethyr ignored their apparent religious ecstasy. He got off his knees and wasted no time.
“Yethyr, son of Yevvar Kentheir greets you, Hunter of Heaven. I command you to face me and speak the truth.”
The Prince’s deathsong jerked the nearest waterlogged corpse before him to a facsimile of life. He sat up and looked up at Yethyr with dead blue eyes.
“My prince.”
“I am heartened that you have discovered proper respect in Heaven.”
“I will never reach Heaven,” the man said hollowly. “I am unworthy of joining Her glorious hunt. I…” his voice cracked. “I was in Her maw, as near to the terrible vastness of God as could be.” He was seized with frenzied panic. “I will be again if you don’t do something! Keep me—”
“The Conquering Fang will never allow it,” Yethyr said quietly.
“But…but my name will never be spoken, not in tales, not in firelight. I am forgotten.”
Yethyr felt a flicker of pity. He opened his mouth to ask for his name, and I was forced to remind him, in his voice.
“That would be a waste of a question. We only have two.”
Yethyr took my counsel without suspicion. He hardened his voice. “You should have thought of that when you committed such wanton blasphemy. You attacked a Host of Heaven and then pursued us when we sought to avoid spilling the blood of kin. Why do you hunt us?”
The man took a shaky breath.
“My Hunting Party found a great treasure while looting Datrea.”
Yethyr wanted so desperately to ask about the treasure, but he swallowed his tongue. He only had one question left.
“Teshir, our Hunt Captain, had every right to it,” the man was saying, “but Shumari and her Hunt Party killed the Datrean man with the key, so she thinks…” He glanced at the river full of dead bodies. “...she thought she should have it. The spoil dispute was messy. They were to have a duel at sunset, the day after the siege, but then this treasure, this wonder of Datrea, was stolen!”
The dead man saw Yethyr’s shock. “Yes! Stolen! We could scarcely believe it. Such heresy during a hunt as holy as that! It was unthinkable.”
Yethyr agreed. “I did not steal this treasure you speak of. My hands are not that unclean.”
“We know, my prince. But volunteering for your expedited hunt offered just the quick escape that a true thief needs.”
The hunters shuffled nervously, suddenly eyeing one another with suspicion.
“Teshir and Shumari put their duel on hold and we have been chasing you all down ever since.”
The man fell quiet and Yethyr was forced to use his final question. “Who stole this treasure?”
The man bit his lip. “If I answer that, you will release me back to the Conquering Fang and her.”
“You will return regardless,” Yethyr said tiredly. “I was granted two questions, not two answers. Whether you give me what I seek is irrelevant to your fate, so you might as well give me knowledge I can use to punish the heretics.”
The man swallowed. Slowly, he nodded.
“Kvelir—”
The dead man went limp, Yethyr’s deathsong abruptly cut, as everyone gasped. They looked around for Kvelir, but of course, he had gone to help with the disembarking preparations. All eyes turned to the river to see The Wily Seal had been quietly sailing away the whole time. The ship was already past the river bend that had beached The Finrider and soon it would be out of view.
Kvelir was escaping.
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