Fevered Star (Between Earth and Sky, #2)(53)

“So if you are no longer a priest, what are you?”

“Now I am a person with an enviable skill set and an exciting amount of indifference.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said quietly.

“No? You will.”

She watched Iktan’s face, looking for signs of that cool rage that she was beginning to understand was when xe was most dangerous, and seeing none of it, she ventured, “Can I ask you something?”

“Please do.”

“How is it that you were not on Sun Rock with the rest of the Watchers?”

“Ah, Xiala of the Teek,” xe said, pressing a hand over xir heart. “Again, we must look to fickle fate. I was in a rage when Nara went missing. I blamed myself. Eche tried to claim that Nara had killed the tsiyo at her door and run, and while I am a fool, I am not an idiot. I tore the tower apart, sent dedicants out to search for her, and nothing. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew what they had done. When the time came for the Convergence ceremony, I sent one of my tsiyos in my stead. It was a thing I did often when I didn’t have the patience for their pomp and bloviating, and I was in no mood to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who had killed my friend.”

“If you believe they killed your friend and you hate them for it, what are you doing here?”

“I considered staying in Tova,” xe admitted. “But once I realized Golden Eagle was already shifting the game to Hokaia, I knew I needed to see the larger battlefield. Nara is gone, and I cannot bring her back. The Watchers, likewise, are no more. Whatever happens in Tova will happen. Carrion Crow may well take leadership of the Sky Made and hold dominion over the city. Or perhaps they will remain a peculiar little religious sect content with worshipping their dark god, as you seem to think. But either way, the Meridian is in revolt. With the fall of the Watchers, the Treaty of Hokaia has been broken. The signatories are free to do what they wish, and what they wish is war.”

“But why? What does Tova have that makes them so powerful? Why did the four cities bow to them to begin with?”

“Do you not know the history of the War of the Spear?”

“The Teek do not teach it to their children. We do not talk much of the outside world except to warn against it.”

“Hmmm. I can tell you, if you like. It is taught to us when we are dedicants. It is the reason for our existence.” Xe took a moment to refill xir cup and settle back before beginning.

“It began with a spearmaiden named Seuq. She was said to be the greatest of her people. The smartest, the bravest, the strongest. Always looking for adventure, afraid of nothing. She was the leader of her class at the war college. So when a group of young maidens decided to venture to the Graveyard of the Gods, no doubt on some drunken dare, she was the first to volunteer. It was forbidden, of course. The Graveyard of the Gods lies far to the north. It is said to be the place where many gods from the God Wars fell, and great magics run wild there. It is said that those who enter do not return. But it is also said that if anyone is brave enough to breech the Graveyard and eat from the fruit at its heart, the one they call godflesh, then they will have power unimaginable. The power of not just one god but all the gods.

“Seuq could not resist this challenge. What daring spearmaiden could? She led four companions north that summer. Herself, Gwee, Odae, and Asnod. It took months to reach the Graveyard. They battled giant bears and frost giants, flesh eaters and revenants. But at last they made it to the Graveyard. It is said to be a place of both horror and beauty, a living forest of calcified white stone hoodoos, the bones of gods, cut through with swaths of earth the color of blood. They followed the path, careful not to stray, for they knew the enemies beyond the path were the spirits themselves. They passed the lake where the sun god shed her scales in battle, and the deep crater where the coyote god fell and bent the earth, leaving his salty sweat upon the shore. And finally, they reached the center, where the rare godflesh grows. And one by one, they ate.

“Asnod died immediately, tearing her own flesh from her face, screaming of creatures burrowed under her skin. Odae died on the journey back after she attacked the other two in a rage of madness. But Seuq and Gwee returned and found they had a prodigious new power. They had the power to walk in a person’s dreams.”

Iktan paused to take a deep drink, eyes on Xiala. “It may not seem like it now, but it was a power to break worlds. Imagine it. They could enter anyone’s dreams and make them into nightmares. Suggest horrors to enact during the day. Plant suspicions enough to ruin alliances and invite murder. No one was safe, for we all must sleep. The only thing that slowed their ambition was that the power carried the possibility of madness with it. They remembered Asnod’s and Odae’s fates well enough. The result of their hubris might have remained a deadly secret adventure, but they shared their knowledge and the godflesh they brought back with others, and soon the dreamwalkers became a dozen, and then a dozen more.

“The winter they were gone had been hard on Hokaia, and the harvest the season before had been thin. They eyed their neighbor across the river, the city of Barach, and coveted. So they took what they wanted. And then they took the whole river valley. With the military might of the spearmaidens and the spirit magic of the dreamwalkers, they were unstoppable. Soon the river valley was not enough, so they looked to the south. It is said that back then, the Teek did not travel on their floating islands but lived in one place and traded freely with the world. Until the spearmaidens and the dreamwalkers came and ravaged their home. Your people do not speak of it?”