A low wail sounded from behind him. “Oh no, what have you done?”

Jorim rolled over and sat up. “Who? Grija?”

The god of Death looked every inch a starved cur. A thick black collar circled his neck, and a pair of black chains ran from it into infinity. The chains weighed him down, keeping his head low.

“What have you done?”

“I’ve done what you helped me do.” Jorim tore away the rags binding his legs. “I’ve returned to my body.”

“No, no, no, say you have not. I told you not to.”

“You did nothing of the sort.” Jorim stood over him and raised a fist. “You agreed to let me return.”

Grija cowered. “That was not me. That was Nessagafel in my place.”

“What? How is that possible?”

Grija wailed like an orphaned child.

Jorim almost slapped him. He dropped to a knee and lifted the chains. They didn’t seem heavy at all, but Grija was barely able to move. “You have to tell me what happened.”

“It was all your fault, you and the others.” Grija curled a lip back in a snarl, but it had no power or menace. “You all mocked me. You defied me worst of all. I punished you, but you did not care. The others laughed at me for it. I couldn’t abide that, you know, I couldn’t. No one admired me. No poems praised me. No songs favored me. All I got was fear. You cannot live on fear, Wentoki, you cannot.”

Jorim shook the chains and Grija yelped. “I need to know what you did.”

The god of Death looked through him. “You had all given Nessagafel to me and here he slept. You helped bind him and once he was gone, you chose to follow him, to become mortal, to live as he had lived. The others watched you, watched Men, enjoyed their antics, but could I? No. All I got was the shrieking souls coming here after they died. The dead are not peaceful. I do not visit torments upon them out of need. To torture one, all I need do is catch him in a mirrored sphere so he can watch the failures that shaped his life. Then, eventually, I release them so they live again. If they succeed, they dwell with you in the heavens. If they fail, they are mine again.”

Grija’s eyes focused. “But you know who did not scream or complain? Nessagafel. He knew peace, so I would steal here, to the Ninth Hell, the one we reserved for him and him alone. I would stay here, bask in his peace, and he began to speak to me. I talked back. He said we were wrong to kill him. He was not going to unmake everything. He wasn’t going to destroy us, not all of us anyway. Just some. Chado and Quun. They killed him. I convinced him that we were innocent, brother, you and I. We would have been fine.”

Jorim sensed the lies, but it really didn’t matter. He had sought to reenter his body so he could lead the way to Anturasixan and trap Nessagafel forever. Grija had resisted that plan-knowing Wentoki would insist on it. Whatever Grija had been planning had failed, and Jorim needed to know what his brother had intended.

“You meant for me to be trapped in my mortal form again, didn’t you? Why?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Jorim threw the chains down. Their weight choked Grija and forced him to the ground.

“Don’t lie to me. You wanted me to be mortal again. Why?”

Grija flashed fang. “I needed your essence. I needed the strength.”

“Then this thing with Nirati was a lie?”

“Yes, a ruse, and you fell for it. And Tsiwen, too. Not so wise, is she?”

Jorim stomped on the chains, again smashing Grija’s face against the ground.

The death god raised his muzzle, black blood oozing from his nose. “With your essence, brother, I could have controlled our father. He could have unmade some things and remade others. I would have been first among the gods. Then you would have feared me.”

“What use has Nessagafel for my essence?”

Grija laughed madly. “You helped imprison him here. Your essence was the key to his restraints. With it he regains his freedom. To acquire it, he replaced me.”

“But he wasn’t quite you.” There had been something off about Grija. “There was no simpering, no fear.”

“I do not simper.”

Jorim growled and Grija shrank back. “If our father could replace you, why hadn’t he done that earlier?”

“He had plans, brother, and they have come to fruition. He was never strong enough to rip your essence from you. You gave it freely.”

Did I? His memories of being a god weren’t fading. In sensing the changes in Grija, had he clung to them more tightly?

Grija peered at him closely. “You’re more than mortal, aren’t you?”

Jorim looked down over his body. It showed no sign of decay or the traumas he’d suffered before death. “I’m not sure what I am. Not a god. Perhaps a user of magic-unless Nessagafel healed me. Why would he do that?”

The craven god whimpered. “For his own terrible reasons.”

Jorim stood. “We’re in the Ninth Hell, you said. Wangaxan?”

“Yes, and there is no escaping it.”

“Ha!” Jorim looked around. A side from his brother there was nothing. “Nessagafel escaped. If he can do it, so can I.”

“You will have cause to reconsider that statement, Jorim Anturasi.” Nessagafel materialized as a Viruk. “After all, this place was meant to imprison gods. What chance has a mortal of escaping it? Especially when I have no intention of letting you get away.”

TheNewWorld

33rd day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat

Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th Year since the Cataclysm

Wentokikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

Though the stump of his arm itched fiercely, Prince Cyron had no time to scratch it. It had been itching for a while, but he’d not really noticed…which surprised him. Less than a month previous, the way that arm had been sucking the life from him had been the center of his existence.

The unhealed wound was a metaphor for the world. The invasion from the south, the invasion from the north, Qiro Anturasi’s disappearance, and the revolt of his western provinces had torn him apart. They had distracted him, made him incapable of anything but surrender. He had been as dead as the flesh the maggots devoured in his wound.

But now… Cyron laughed as a junior minister handed him a sheaf of figures detailing the inventory of arrows, bows, and bowstrings in Moriande’s nine armories. He had thousands of bows, and hundreds of thousands of arrows, but fewer than two thousand bowstrings.

He raised the papers in his right hand. “What’s more likely to break? A bow or a bowstring? What is worse, a wet bow or wet bowstring?”

The clerks and minor ministers remained hunched at their tables, nodding to acknowledge his question. They’d become used to the outbursts but, at first, they had been completely disturbed by them. None dared answer.

But circumstances had changed.

A clerk turned. “Strings, Highness. How many do we need?”

“Two per bow.”

“I shall arrange for three, Highness, and settle for two and a half.”

Cyron gave the man a curt nod. The clerk wrote out an order and a runner-wearing a broad, bright red sash around his middle-took it and sped from what had once been Cyron’s private receiving room. He would carry the order to another room in the Dragon Tower, where it would be duplicated and distributed to every bowyer in the city and beyond. They’d sell him everything they had and produce more, quickly.

Cyron set the archery inventory on a table and another clerk removed it to be sorted and filed for immediate retrieval. Yet other clerks would pore through the files, reading everything, noting anomalies and similarities, and they would be brought up to him. He’d make a quick decision, more orders and reports would be written, and the process would cycle on.

The standing bureaucracy hated Cyron from the first. Some of it was a holdover from before, but his appointment as the Imperial Grand Minister made things worse. He compounded them. Instead of passing orders down through Pelut Vniel and the other high ministers, Cyron had demanded a staff of low-ranking clerks. He wanted men and women who had not yet become entirely beholden to their superiors. This meant he raised up many clerks who had not formally been recognized by their ministries. Cyron catapulted them ahead of others who had labored far longer.