Infinity Blade: Awakening

Chapter Seven

“The real secret to good cooking . . .” Isa said, lifting the spoon to her lips.

“Is . . . ?” Siris asked, sitting across the fire from her.

She took a sip.

“Well?” he said.

She licked her lips, held up a finger, then tossed in another pinch of spices.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” he said.

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said. “The secret is patience.”

“Huh. I just failed that one, didn’t I?”

“As soundly as if you’d brought a salad fork to a jousting match.” She smiled.

“Pshaw,” he said. “Jousting would require riding one of those things.” He eyed her horse, munching on some foliage on the other side of their camp. A few days back, they’d carefully moved to a location that was more secure. They hadn’t spoken of the fact that Siris continued to stay in camp with Isa, as opposed to going to fight Saydhi’s champions.

He would go eventually. He hadn’t lost his resolve. However, if he failed, it would mean his life-and he wanted to make sure Isa was well enough to reclaim the Infinity Blade if things went poorly. Besides, he wanted to attempt a few things on his list, like cooking. So far, he was confident that one was going to move to the list of things he did not enjoy.

“They’re not so bad,” she said. “Horses, I mean. You just have to know how to treat them.”

“The same could be said of a persistent rash,” he said, “You know, I considered-for just a moment-using the disc on him.”

“Nams?” she said with a start. “You were going to draw the heat from my horse to start a fire?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d have killed you.” She said it frankly, though she blushed. “We’ve been through a lot together, Nams and I. More than you and I have, whiskers.”

“Well, TEL indicated he didn’t have enough heat in him for it to work. Makes sense to me. I’m pretty sure he has a heart made of iron, blood as cold as a mountain snow.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I saw him eat a baby once,” Siris added. “And not even one of the loud, crying types. A sweet giggling one. Pure evil, I tell you.”

She shook her head, sipping the soup. “You’re insulated.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“No?” she said. “Not a word in your silly language?”

“It’s a word,” he said. “But it doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

“In . . . insatiated? Insociated? A word that means you say stupid things and are never likely to change.”

“I don’t think we have word for that.”

“I’m sure I knew one,” she said. “Stupid language. It doesn’t have enough words.”

“How many words does your language have?”

“Many. Many, many, many. We have seventeen different ways of saying a person is no longer hungry.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Nonsense. You just have to be patient.”

“I’m beginning to wish you hadn’t learned that particular word.”

She grinned, getting out bowls and dishing out the soup. “You are a patient man, Siris of the Lost Whiskers. Did you not spend twenty years practicing with the sword? All to achieve a single important goal? That is patience.”

“I’m not sure it was,” he said, taking the bowl. “I only did all of that because it was expected of me. Once I started, it built upon itself. Nobody would let me do common things, like wash clothing. They’d insist on doing it. I needed to train. Keep training. Always. At a feast, I couldn’t eat the good foods, because everyone was watching.”

“I watch you every morning, with that sword, working until you sweat. That is not the mark of an impatient man.”

“I train because it . . . it’s what I am. I can’t explain it. It’s as natural to me as breathing. You wouldn’t call a man patient for reaching the ‘milestone’ of continuing to breathe for twenty years straight.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Sometimes, continuing to breathe is a tough enough prospect.” She grimaced at her bandage. The wound was healing, but slowly. Getting a sword though the stomach wasn’t the sort of thing you just shrugged off.

Unless you were Siris. He looked down at the God King’s ring on his finger.

Isa followed his glance. “We haven’t discussed,” she said, “what I said. About the ring . . .”

“It’s all right,” he said, stirring his soup. He took a sip. It was fantastic. How did she do that? It was just boiled leaves and chopped-up bamboo shoots. “I figured it out.”

“You did?”

“I must be of the lineage of one of the Deathless. That’s why I can use the rings. It’s why the God King was interested in my bloodline.”

“Wait. He was interested in your bloodline? Why?”

“I haven’t mentioned it,” he said. “But I’m pretty certain he set up the system of Sacrifices. It might . . . it might be that my family is the reason for his entire dominance of this area. It’s why he treated people with such tyranny-to encourage my bloodline to come fight him.”

“This changes everything,” she whispered.

He frowned at her.

“Deathless rarely have children,” she explained. “Some say that the children of a particular Deathless can challenge them, steal their immortality. Whatever the reason, there’s an unspoken rule among them. No children. They . . .”

“What?”

“It’s said that long ago, when they first seized power, the Deathless slaughtered everyone who was related to them.”

He fingered the Infinity Blade, buckled at his side. Well, that means I’m probably not related to the God King, he thought. He tried to get me to join him. He succeeded in getting one of my ancestors to join him. He’d not have kept us around if we could threaten him.

That relieved him. Though, one of the Dark Thoughts-as he’d started to think of them-crept into the back of his mind. A panicked sense that felt Isa knew too much, that she needed to be taught to hold her tongue, to fear him.

These things weren’t really thoughts. They were more basic than that. Instincts. Impulses. He fought this one down. They came to him frequently these days. Too frequently.

The conversation hit a lull. As he was finishing his last bites of soup, the nearby bamboo stalks rustled. He immediately stood, hand on sword, until a small form slipped out of the forest.

TEL had turned himself into dark cloth using Isa’s coat, and in doing so, had shrunk down to about three feet tall. He still had gemstone eyes.

The golem entered the clearing of their camp, then bowed. It took orders from Siris-so long as those orders didn’t violate previous commands. Siris didn’t trust the thing, particularly after Isa had warned him that the Deathless had ways of communicating over great distances.

But if TEL was a spy, he already knew the most important fact about Siris-namely where he was. Siris faced the option of either destroying the little golem or putting him to use. TEL had ignored orders to “go away” and “stop following me.”

He didn’t feel like destroying the thing. He just . . . well, he couldn’t. It hadn’t done anything against him, not overtly.

“Well?” Siris asked.

“The pathway is easy,” TEL said in a voice that was faintly reminiscent of rustling cloth. “I watched the sentries for three hours and seventeen minutes, and it is as the Lady Isa says. Four champions. I saw one of them slay a petitioner. Even the first champion is quite skilled.”

Siris rubbed the pommel of the Infinity Blade.

“You need to go eventually,” Isa said, looking up at the sky, which still held to its overcast gloom. “We can’t forage out here forever, and eventually those knights hunting you will realize they’ve lost our trail. They’ll spread out, and this direction-through the passes-is a natural place to search.”

“Can you make it?” Siris asked.

“Riding? Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Is that a brave front, or is it the truth?”

“Both?”

He took a deep breath. In her condition, she probably wouldn’t be able to recover the Infinity Blade if he fell. Still, it made him feel better to have her there to try. At least someone other than TEL would have a shot at the blade.

“Let’s go then.”

They didn’t break down camp; they’d probably make their way back here for the night before striking out for the Worker’s prison. Assuming he won. Assuming this Saydhi even knew the information he wanted. Assuming she kept her word and told him.

Those were a lot of assumptions, but this was the best option they had. Siris helped Isa onto the horse, smacking the thing in the face when it tried to bite him.

TEL walked over, then dropped. The black cloth unraveled, turning green, and plants sprouted. A few moments later, TEL crawled free, now the size and shape of a small cat made entirely of leaves. He leaped up onto the horse’s rump, then settled back.

They set out, a solemn group passing through dew-wetted stalks of bamboo. Siris wore the God King’s ring, with its healing and teleportation powers. His fire ring had stopped working; the disc he’d dropped into the vent must have melted. Siris would rather have the healing anyway, and wearing more than one of the rings caused them to interfere with one another. You risked triggering the wrong ability, and Siris would prefer not to start himself on fire when trying to heal.

“So the God King was hunting your family,” Isa said speculatively as she rode. “Whiskers . . . it might have to do with that sword.”

He walked around a moss-covered stump. “Yeah. It does.”

She raised an eyebrow at him from horseback.

“I . . . uh . . . learned something from the minions in the castle, and TEL mostly confirmed. The blade needed to drink the souls of people related to my bloodline in order to activate. That’s why the God King lived, even though I stabbed him with it.”

Instead of looking betrayed that he’d withheld the information from her, she just grinned in a self-satisfied way, as if proud of having pulled the secret from him. “Now that is interesting. You don’t have any estranged brothers that just happen to be evil, do you? It would be terribly convenient.”

He laughed. “No, my only relative is my mother.” Well, her and-

He froze in place.

Isa pulled up, and TEL poked a green, catlike head out from behind her, leaf-ears perking up.

“Hell take me,” he whispered, pulling free the Infinity Blade. “The sword might be active after all, Isa.”

“Then the God King-”

“No. After beating him, I went into the palace dungeons. I met a man who served the God King, a man who claimed to be one of my ancestors.” Siris turned, looking toward her. “The daerils in the place, they said the God King felt only one more soul was needed. I slew my ancestor; that might have been enough.” He turned the silvery blade; it glistened in a beam of filtered sunlight.

“Great,” she said. “So all we need to do is hunt the God King down and kill him again. How hard can it be to locate, fight your way to, and slay a god?”

“I did it once.”

Her smile faded. “I meant that jokingly, whiskers.”

“I know.”

“So . . .”

“So I don’t know,” he said, slamming the sword back into its makeshift sheath and continuing on. “I feel like my entire life has been controlled. I was the Sacrifice, and that was it. I trained, I focused everything I had on facing the God King. And you know what? Part of the reason I could do that was because I saw an end.”

She moved the horse up beside him, listening.

“An end,” he continued, fingering the pommel of the Infinity Blade. “It was death, yes, but at least I knew exactly what I had to do. It’s like . . . like I knew there was an enormous race in front of me, but there was also a finish line, after which I could rest.

“These last few weeks, they’ve taken that finish line from me. Fight the God King. Oh, you won. Well, now you’ve got to fight him again. And if you manage that, you’ve got an entire Pantheon to worry about. And maybe hundreds of other Deathless nobody has told you about. Want to bring freedom to your people? Well, you’re going to be fighting every moment of your life, like a drowning man struggling to hold his head above water.

“So I don’t know, Isa. This sword is a lead weight at my side. I should use it, but I’m exhausted, and someone has stolen my prize away. I lost my entire childhood. I’d like to live a little, just for myself. Does that make sense?”

“More than you could possibly imagine,” she whispered.

He glanced at her. He still didn’t know what to make of her. She seemed to like it that way.

“I think,” she said, “that what you are doing is more than noble enough. You shall find this Worker, and give him back his sword. Nobody could ask more of you.” She grinned. “And if you die instead, I shall then take the sword and sell it for a mountain of gold.”

He eyed her.

“I’ll use it to throw you one hell of funeral party,” she promised solemnly. “I’ll make sure the Dark Barrower himself comes to take your soul, and that no Deathless claims it.”

“Thanks. I’ll just try to live, though.”

“Sure. Make things boring.”

Siris got a good look at Saydhi’s estates as they wound their way down around the side of a ridge. Instead of a castle, it appeared that this Deathless preferred sprawling estates with ornamental gardens. There were practically no walls, just streams, stands of bamboo, and the occasional peaked building.

One building stood out: an open-sided structure in the center of the gardens. “I fight my way there, I assume?” he said, pointing.

“If she keeps her word, yes,” Isa said. “You challenge the guard at the pathway in. If he falls, it will draw her attention and alert the other champions. Saydhi will probably watch from a distance to see if you’re entertaining enough. If you are, she’ll summon her current high champion. Defeat him, and you get your answer.”

“Supposedly.”

“Supposedly,” Isa admitted.

He took a deep breath. He’d feel less nervous if he could remember how he’d performed that True Pattern sword dance. His instincts-ones he hadn’t realized he had-whispered that the True Patterns were extraordinarily varied, and the one to use depended specifically on the number of attackers, their skill, and how they were surrounding you. Using the right form could end them all in a series of perfected strikes. Using the wrong one meant leaving yourself wide open to multiple attackers.

He shouldn’t need that today. These should be duels after the ancient ideal. As they rode, he found himself increasingly nervous, more so than when facing the God King. Then, at least, he’d assumed he knew the fight’s result. “All right,” he eventually said, stopping. “You wait here.”

Isa raised an eyebrow at him as he unloaded his armor. “I don’t recall,” she said, “being turned into a golem, instructed to obey your every command.”

“Hey,” TEL said. “That’s what I am. Did you realize that you were saying-”

“Shut up,” Isa said.

“Oh.”

“I’m aware that you don’t need to do as I ask,” Siris said, strapping on his left forearm guard. “But you’re in no condition to fight.”

“I thought I was here to help.”

“But not to interfere,” Siris said. “These battles are one on one. I won’t have you joining. My honor won’t allow it.” He met her eyes to let her know he was serious.

He didn’t get an eye roll, as he’d been expecting. She did lean down from horseback and rest her hand on his shoulder. “If you do fall, I might be able to get you out before they finish you.”

“You wouldn’t be fast enough,” he said. “The Aegis Forms all include finishing strikes. These are duels to the death. It’s not about mercy or ruthlessness; it’s just how things are done. If I fall, I die.”

“And the blade . . .”

“Fighting won’t get it for you,” Siris said. “If they recognize it for what it is, you’d just get yourself killed trying to grab it. If they don’t, it will be much easier for you to take by slipping in quietly.”

“All right,” she said, though she didn’t seem pleased about it.

“TEL,” Siris said. “I need to rest for a bit before attempting this. I need my cloak, also.”

“Your . . . cloak?”

“I left it at the camp, I’m afraid.”

The golem fidgeted. He probably realized that Siris had left the cloak intentionally. It was time to see how far he could push the creature’s subservience.

“You’ll wait until I return?” TEL asked.

“Of course.”

Two conflicting commands, Siris thought, but an implication that he can follow both. What will he do?

The golem left, muttering to himself. “Oh, not good. This is not good. Not good at all . . .”

Isa watched him go, then turned back and raised an eyebrow at Siris as he finished putting on his armor. “You think that will work?”

“If it doesn’t, I haven’t really lost anything. But I don’t trust that thing, and I’d rather it be gone while I do this.”

He unsheathed the Infinity Blade, then tossed the sheath aside before attaching the transportation disc to the hilt of the blade. This time, if he dropped it, he’d be able to get it back with speed.

He pulled on his helm. He breathed the stuffy air inside the metal shell.

“Siris?” Isa said.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll try to sneak in after you. I’ll be watching. Maybe if something goes wrong, I can . . .”

“Don’t get yourself killed, Isa.”

She smiled wanly. “I’ll promise that if you’ll do the same.”

“It’s a deal, then,” he said. He did up the final straps at the side of his breastplate, then pulled on his gauntlets and nodded toward her. “Wish me luck?”

She shook her head. “The Deathless have all the luck, whiskers. They always have. You don’t need luck. You need obstinance, belligerence, and a bit of selective stupidity.”

“Selective stupidity. Yes . . . that sounds like me.” He marched out of the woods, armor clanking, toward a serene pathway of moss and overgrown stones. A daeril guard stood there, slender and lithe.

Siris held his blade up in the posture of one requesting a formal duel. The monster fell into a familiar stance, causing Siris to release a breath of relief. This was familiar. This was where he excelled. He stepped up.

The duel began.

Siris yanked his sword free of the chest of the last of the guards, dropping the beast like the others before him.

Siris breathed in and out inside his helm for a moment, then stepped from the pathway out into the open gardens. The sky was dark with gloom and melancholy. It had begun to drizzle again.

For a time, he’d managed to forget all else-all but the duels. He cherished that focus. During such moments, he didn’t worry or wonder. He could fight and seek the solace of a spinning blade, a shield turning aside attacks.

The open-sided building was just ahead. It was a thing of beauty, with ornate carvings and subtle colors, set in a garden with bridges spanning ponds and slow streams. He’d never before realized that a building could be a work of art.

“I seek the champion of Saydhi,” Siris called. “I have come for my boon.”

“A little early to be making demands, warrior,” a feminine voice said from the building. He could see someone sitting in the shadows there, in a cushioned chair. A larger figure stood beside the chair. It began moving, stepping out into the dampened sunlight.

The champion was a hulking brute who was almost big enough to be a troll. He might have been human beneath that evil silver mask, or he might have been a daeril. Either way, he wore little armor, leaving his thick chest-bulging with both fat and muscle-bare.

Siris raised his blade. The champion raised a huge machete-like sword and leaped down the steps, shaking the building as he landed.

Time for the real challenge, Siris thought.

The champion started immediately. Three quick blows, forcing Siris back.

Insolent grub, Siris thought. They use our fighting forms, but they are not worthy.

Siris attacked into the creature, moving by instinct, with a barrage of blows.

We shouldn’t give them privileged positions. Raidriar was a fool. Saydhi is a fool. Choosing “champions” like this encourages these grubs to think themselves special.

Siris battered aside the champion’s weapon, then slid the Infinity Blade forward. The skin split like water parting before a slimfish. Siris pushed the blade in up almost to its hilt, then whipped it out, spinning it around back to the ready position.

Pathetic.

The champion collapsed without a grunt, bleeding out on the pathway. Siris brushed past the dying creature.

“Impressive,” said the woman under the pavilion, her voice curious. “Who taught you the Aegis Forms, warrior?”

He could see her better now, a slim woman with a golden mask, hiding her face after the way of the Deathless and their servants. Her armor gleamed with gold and straps of black leather.

“I have come for my boon,” Siris said harshly, trying to control the tempest within him. His calmness was gone. Those Dark Thoughts-they seemed like they’d consume him. “I wish a question answered.”

“Something so . . . pedestrian?” she said, rising and walking around him in a circle. Inspecting him. “You could be my new champion. You could duel my challengers, slay them, find glory in battle. And, of course, there would be other rewards. Riches, women, power. I treat my champions well.”

“A question.”

“Very well,” she said with a sigh. “What great mystery does your small mind ponder?”

“Where can I find the prison that holds the Worker of Secrets?”

The woman froze, her armor clinking faintly. She looked toward him, eyes narrowing. “Whose child are you? Which immortal’s blood do you have in your veins?”

“Answer my question.”

“The Vault of Tears,” she said. “The place once known as Saranthia. Take a ship due west until you strike land, then climb the mountains to the north. You could find him there.” Her eyes flickered toward Siris’s hand.

The sword. She recognizes it.

“But you won’t,” she added, raising an arm.

Siris raised his shield to parry the knife he assumed would be thrown. Saydhi’s hand instead let loose a jet of fire.

Even behind the shield, the heat was nearly overwhelming. Siris felt as if he was going to suffocate within his armor, and his shield didn’t completely block the flames. The metal on his side grew so hot it scorched his skin. He stumbled backward, turning his head and gasping for fresh air.

The flames stopped and he turned back toward her, his shield steaming. He forced himself to raise his sword and made the sign of one offering a challenge, after the ancient ideal.

She lowered her hand, and he thought he caught a sign of guilt in her posture. She removed a tall, slender pole from its place beside her throne. The weapon had a long, golden blade affixed to one end.

The Deathless held it for a moment, then attacked, giving no other warning.

Siris was ready. He threw himself into the duel, trying to focus despite the Dark Thoughts within, despite the burning at his side.

She was good. Not as good as the God King had been-but Siris was wounded this time. And there were those thoughts, insidious. Driving him to kill, driving him to dominate, to take this woman’s domain as his own.

He rounded her as she swung the polearm out, forcing him to keep his distance. He tried to come in from the side. The thoughts made him miscalculate, and his slice took only a small cut-a spray of blood-from the weak point at her side, where her armor joined.

The sword in his hand began to glow softly. He could almost hear it humming.

Saydhi backed away. She stared at that sword; he could see her eyes behind the mask. “Is it true?” she whispered. There was a tremor to her voice.

Siris attacked, driven by the Dark Thoughts. She raised her polearm in one hand and-ring recharged-turned her other palm at him, letting out a burst of fire.

He should have prepared for it. He knew she had a ring, like the ones he’d used. He had simply grown accustomed to his foes not having that advantage, and his mind was not clear.

The fire took him in the chest. His armor instantly became an oven, his skin searing, then charring. It crusted against the metal intended to protect him. Siris screamed, dropping to his knees, smelling the acrid smell of his own burning flesh.

She chuckled, lowering her hand. “I wonder whom to test the sword on. Raidriar himself, perhaps? He thinks he can saunter in here whenever-”

Siris stopped listening. He activated his ring.

The healing came in a rush of energy and new skin, in the sensation of sudden motion. His heartbeat, like a thundering river. His breathing, in and out, fast as a drumbeat. His hair grew, his fingernails curled in his gauntlets, and the pain vanished. As she stepped to him, he stood-

– and in a fluid motion, he rammed the Infinity Blade up into her chest, right under the breastplate.

She gasped. “No . . . but you can’t . . .”

He ripped the blade free and stepped back, the sword glowing with a pulsing flash that matched the one coming from Saydhi’s own body. It built, like a concentrated bonfire, then burst out of her in an explosion of light.

She collapsed.

Siris fell to his knees, gasping for breath in the quiet, open-walled building. A few leaves blew past, carrying a chill wind that blew through his faceplate. His armor still felt hot enough to burn him, though not as badly as it had before.

I’ve killed another, he thought. Had her answer about the Worker been truth, or was that a lie?

He stumbled to his feet, then checked on the fallen Deathless, just to be certain. That strike hadn’t been part of the forms; it had been brutal, guttural, and desperate. It had also been effective. No signs of life. Underneath her mask, she was quite pretty. He shook his head, then rose.

He didn’t want to remain too long, in case other Deathless-or guards-came. For now he seemed alone, so he checked her throne, hoping for another mirror that could answer his questions.

He didn’t find one. Behind the throne, however, he did see something that he hadn’t noticed before. A small stone obelisk, with a familiar shape carved into its front.

He froze. There had been one similar to this in the dungeon of the God King’s castle. Placing the Infinity Blade into it, like a key, had opened a pathway to the dungeons. That had made sense-the God King possessed the only Infinity Blade, so using it as a key had been rational, to an extent.

But this obelisk also had the imprint of the Infinity Blade on it, and it was in Saydhi’s gardens.

Suddenly, nothing made sense. What was it really? Did all of the Deathless have these obelisks-and if so, could they open them? He raised a gauntleted hand to his helm.

What is happening? he thought. I’ve been lied to at some point along the way. But when?

He hesitated, then stepped forward, slipping the Infinity Blade into the ‘keyhole’ of the obelisk. It fit perfectly. What would it open? What secrets would he-

The obelisk dropped sharply into the ground.

Reacting quickly, Siris snapped his three fingers together to summon the blade back. Nothing happened.

“Yes,” a voice said speculatively, “I thought you might fall for that.”

Siris spun. The God King stood behind him. The creature wore new armor, shaped somewhat like he’d worn before, almost organic in feel. Siris recognized him, even with the change. The voice . . . he knew that voice.

Oh, hell.

“You opened the pathway to my dungeons,” the God King said. “I know you killed the prisoners there. Not to mention Archarin, which is a pity. He was a useful servant.” The God King strolled past-Siris could see where he’d come from, a doorway that had risen up from the grass beside the building.

Desperate, Siris snapped his fingers together again.

“That will not work,” the God King noted. “You don’t think we’d create a means of teleportation without creating a means of blocking it as well? The transportation ring will not work as long as the sword is properly shielded.”

The God King prodded at Saydhi’s body with his foot, shaking his head. “I do believe she was planning on taking the sword and betraying me. I suppose you did me a favor by killing her. Pity.”

“I . . .” Siris struggled to make sense of what was happening. The God King was here. “So you do live. TEL. You were using him as a spy?”

“The transgolem?” the God King asked, amused. “No, I’ve been using my ring to listen in. Quite useful, these are. Why do you think I gave them to my minions?”

Siris felt cold.

“Excellent listening devices,” the God King continued. “I’d hand them out to those who pleased me, and so they fought for my favor, never knowing that their prizes were the means by which I took care they wouldn’t betray me.” He looked at Siris. “I never thought one of my foes would actually be able to use them.”

“Of course you did,” Siris said. “No lies. You know what I am. You sought out my lineage.”

“Oh, I know what you are,” the God King said, a smile to his voice. “Though I’m more and more certain that you do not. I do wish I knew who sent that transgolem to spy on you.”

A large portion of the ground cracked near the building, and a rectangular chamber rose from beneath. A group of knights in black strode out, surrounding the building. One carried a cloth-wrapped bundle over to the God King, who reached into it and took out the Infinity Blade.

“Thank you for returning this to me,” he said to Siris. “I’ve been worried about its safety.”

“Give me a sword,” Siris said. “Duel me!”

“I think not. You . . . surprised me, last time. I don’t think I’ll put myself into that position again.” The God King stepped down from the building, walking up to Siris, who couldn’t back up any farther without hitting the knights.

“What of honor?” Siris demanded.

“There are some I give honor,” the God King said, voice growing cold. “But not you, Ausar. Never you.”

“What? I fought you with honor. I killed you with honor.”

“And I do believe that was the only time in your awful life you ever showed honor to another.” The God King spoke softly, raising the blade so that the tip touched Siris’s neck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The God King chuckled. “You really don’t, do you? Ironic. What did you do to yourself, Ausar?” He pulled the blade back to strike.

Siris spotted something moving on the other side of the court. Behind the knights, a dark figure crawled along the top of a low landscaping wall. None of the guards saw her; they were focused on him. She shouldn’t have been there.

Isa. She carried her crossbow.

She lied! Siris thought. It wasn’t that hard to fix after all! He laughed, both in horror and incredulity.

The God King hesitated, sword raised.

Isa lowered her crossbow at the God King’s back.

It won’t work, Siris thought. It won’t kill him. It probably won’t even stop him. It-

She turned the bow fractionally, so it pointed past the God King, and pulled the trigger. The bolt flew, streaking across the garden between the knights.

It hit Siris directly in the forehead.