City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(58)

But I say to them, “I did not lift a sword to the gods. I did not strike them down. I loosed not a single shaft against them. That was him, and only him. He was the only one who knew how his weapon really worked. And when he died, he took his secrets to the grave.”

As he should have. Such a thing should never be known by people.

In truth, we did almost no fighting at all on the Continent. The gods were dead, or dying. The land was dead, or dying. We saw many horrors that I cannot describe, nor would I wish to. Most of the fighting done was in our souls.

The only people we made war against on the Continent was a tribe the Continentals called “the Blessed.” They were, I was to understand, descendants of unions between humanity and the Divine, creatures of perverse intercourse with either the gods or the creatures of the gods. These beings rallied some of the people of the Continent, most of them sick or starving, and fought us.

The fighting was bitter, and I hated the Blessed so. They were almost impossibly hard to kill. Yet their skin was not iron, nor were they strong of arm: they were simply lucky, impossibly lucky. Their lives were charmed, for they were the children of gods, though it seems the more they muddied their blood with that of other mortals, the less charmed they became.

They were not charmed enough, though. We cast them down with the others. We slaughtered their tiny armies and shed their blood in the streets. We piled their bodies in the town squares and we set them alight. And they burned just the same as other men and other women. And other children.

The people in the towns came outside to watch the fires. And as they watched, I could see their hearts and hopes die within them.

I wondered if we, soldiers of Saypur, were still men, still women, on the inside.

Such is the way of victory.

—Memoirs of Jinday Sagresha,

first lieutenant to the Kaj Shara checks the clock for the sixth time and confirms that, yes, it is still 3:30 in the afternoon. She sighs.

This day has been spectacularly ill-timed. Sigrud was bailed out just as the workday started, which meant that when he arrived to pick up the university maid, she’d already gone to work—and though there are many powers Shara can exercise in her duties for the Ministry, walking into a woman’s workplace, picking her up, and walking out with her is something she can’t quite pull off.

She guesses it is still about an hour and a half until the maid returns to her apartments. Shara mutters to Pitry that she’s going for a walk around the corner, and he protests, but one glance from her quiets him. Still, she wears a coat with a hood, so she’s not immediately identifiable as Saypuri.

The staggered streets and alleys unscroll before her, damp gray walls and gleaming stones and khaki ice slurry. Her nose grows raw and brittle, her toes numb. She thought the walk would clear her head, but all the suspicions and paranoia cling to her like fog.

Then she glances up, sees the man standing in the street ahead of her, and stops.

He wears only a pale orange robe: he has no shoes, no hat—in fact, he is completely bald—and no gloves. His arms are even bare, and, like his face, they are deeply tanned.

She stares at him. No … It can’t be. That’s illegal, isn’t it?

The icy wind rises. The robed man takes no notice: he sees her watching and smiles placidly. “Looking for something?” His voice is deep and cheery. “Or would you be here for warmth?” He points up. A sign above him reads: drovskani street warming shelter.

“I’m … not sure,” says Shara.

“Oh. Would you perhaps be here to make a donation?”

She considers it, and finds he intrigues her. “Possibly.”

“Excellent!” he cries. “This way, then, and I will show you all the good work we do here. So thoughtful and kind to give to us, on such a bitter day.”

Shara follows him. “Yes …”

“People rarely wish to even go out of doors, let alone give.”

“Yes … Pardon me. Might I ask you something?”

“You may ask me”—he shoves open the door—“anything you wish.”

“Are you … Olvoshtani?”

He stops and looks at her with an expression both confused and slightly offended. “No,” he says. “That would be illegal, to follow a Divinity. Wouldn’t it?”

Shara is not sure what to say. The robed man smiles his glittering grin again, and they continue into the shelter.

Ragged urchins and trembling men and women crowd around a wide, long fireplace bedecked with many bubbling cauldrons. The room is filled with coughs and groans and, among the children, miserable whimpers.

“But your robes,” says Shara. “Your bearing …”

“What have they,” he asks, “to do with the Divine?”

“They’re … historically that of an Olvoshtani.”

“And historically when one wished to praise the Divine, one looked up to the sky, arms outstretched.” He hauls an empty cauldron out of the kitchens and pours soup into it, with a rap rap rap as he taps his spoon against the side of the pot. “But if a man were to do this today, in the street, would he be arrested?”

Shara looks back into the kitchens. She sees many other shelter attendants there wearing pale orange robes, cheerily working away, all hairless, all quite exposed to the frozen air. “So if you are not Olvoshtani,” says Shara, “what are you?”