being a Tiste. Even the title of goddess now seemed paltry and insufficient to evoke what she had become.
He did not understand how a mortal could make that journey, could become something other. But clearly she had done so. And Lord Draconus stood at her side and, Rint now suspected, shared something of the power his lover possessed.
The Azathanai met Draconus eye to eye, as equals, and even, on occasion, in deference. The Suzerain of Night: he had heard that title used for Draconus before, but it was not a popular one among the Tiste, who objected to its presumption, its arrogant impropriety. Well, as far as Rint was now concerned, they were all fools to denigrate Draconus’s claim to that title. Whatever it meant, it was a thing of power, brutally real and profoundly dangerous.
There was no question now in Rint’s mind that Draconus posed a threat. The highborn were right to fear the Consort and his influence in the court. They were right to want him ousted, and if not ousted, then brought down, discarded and driven away in disgrace.
Months past, Urusander’s agents had come among the Bordersword villages. They had argued their case — the need for a husband for Mother Dark, rather than a consort, and the obvious choice for that husband: Vatha Urusander, commander of the Legion. Those agents had gained little ground among the Borderswords. Their cause rode currents of conflict, and the Borderswords had lost their thirst for war. Those fierce fools had left in frustration.
Rint knew that his opinion counted for something among the loose council of his people, and he vowed that the next time such an agent visited, he would lend his support. Draconus needed to go. Even better, someone should kill the man and so end this deadly rise to power.
He had seen enough, here on this journey, to choose now to stand with Urusander. Hunn Raal and his comrades were not so blinded by personal ambition as Rint and his kin had believed. No, the next time will be different.
When Draconus announced that the contract had ended, concluded to the Lord’s satisfaction, Rint had struggled to hide his relief. Now he could take Feren away from all this: from the Lord’s cruel needs and the son’s pathetic ones. They would accompany Raskan as far as Abara Delack, because the man deserved that much — it was hardly Raskan’s fault that he served a beast.
They could now leave the lands of the Azathanai.
He rode hard to catch up to his sister, only to find his fears unfounded and, better still, that she was in good company.
‘I am not always cruel.’
Raskan spun round at the words. The saddle slipped from his hands and he staggered back. ‘No,’ he moaned. ‘Go away.’
Instead Olar Ethil drew closer. ‘Yours is an unhealthy fire,’ she said. ‘Let me douse it. Let me heal you.’
‘Please,’ he begged.
But this denial she received as an invitation. She reached out, as Raskan sank to his knees, and took his head in her hands. ‘Poisons of desire are the deadliest of all. I can cure you and so end your torment.’ She paused and then added, ‘It will give me pleasure to do so. Pleasure such as you cannot conceive. You are a man and so cannot know what it is to be sated — not in those few panting breaths following release that is all you can ever know — but the swollen bliss of a woman, ah, well, Gate Sergeant Raskan, this is what I seek and it is what I can offer you.’
The hands, pressed against the sides of his head, felt cool and soft, plump and yielding as they seemed to meld into his skin, and then the bones of his face, the fingers reaching through his temples. The heat of his thoughts vanished at their touch.
‘Open your eyes,’ she said.
He did so and found only her bared belly. It filled his vision.
‘Whence you came, Raskan.’
He stared at the scars and would have turned his head but she held him fast. He reached up to pull away her hands but found only her wrists — the rest had flowed into him, merging with the bones. In horror, he felt his fingertips track a seamless path from the skin of her wrists to his own face.
She drew him closer to her belly. ‘Worship is a strange thing,’ she said. ‘It seeks… satiation. Revelation is nothing without it. As you are fulfilled, I am filled. As you revel in surrendering, I delight in your gift. You need no other gods than this one. I am your only goddess now, Raskan, and I invite you inside.’
He wanted to cry out but no sound came from his throat.
She pressed his face against her belly, and he felt a scar open, splitting ever wider. Blood smeared his cheeks, leaked past his lips. Choking, he sought to draw a breath. Instead, fluids filled his lungs.
He felt her push his head into her belly, and then the edges of the gash tightened round his neck. His body was thrashing, but her power over him was absolute, even as the wound began to close, cutting through his neck.
His struggles stilled. He hung limp in her grip, blood streaming down his chest.
A moment later, in a sob more felt than heard, his body fell away. Yet he remained, blind, swallowed in flesh. And in his last moments of consciousness, he touched satiation and knew it for what it was. The blessing of a goddess, and, with it, joy that filled his being.
Olar Ethil wiped her bloodied hands on her distended belly, and then stepped over the headless corpse crumpled at her feet.
She went to the nearest tree and clambered up into its branches. The strange black lichen enwreathing those branches now gathered round her, growing in answer to a muttering of power from her full, blood-tinted lips. Thoroughly hidden now, she waited for the return of the dead man’s companions. She wanted to see the pregnant woman again, and that sweet wound on her cheek.
Not always cruel, it was true. Just most of the time.
‘It was boredom that had us riding half through the night,’ Ville was saying as they rode back to find Sergeant Raskan. ‘That and finding water. Without that spring we would’ve been in trouble.’
‘The sooner we’re gone from these lands the better,’ Galak said, glancing at the stone houses they rode past. ‘I don’t mind us riding all this way only to turn round and go back again. I don’t mind it at all.’
‘The tutor?’ Rint asked.
‘Quiet the whole way,’ Galak replied. ‘Seemed happy enough to see the monks.’
Something in the man’s tone made Rint look over at his friend.
But it was Ville who grunted and said, ‘Galak decided he didn’t trust the old man. Saw no reason for it myself.’
‘Something in his eyes,’ Galak said, shrugging. ‘Something not right.’
They reached the base of the hill.
‘I see his horse,’ Feren said. ‘Did he go back to sleep?’
Rint shook his head. The witch had wounded the poor man and a night of mead did not heal. It just offered the peace of oblivion. Nothing lasted, of course. The spirit struggled back to the surface, gasping the pain of living.
The four of them cantered up the hillside, crested its summit.
He saw Raskan, lying curled up — but something was wrong. The air stank of spilled blood. Reining in, Rint made to dismount, and then fell still.
The Borderswords were silent — their horses halted and the beasts jerking their heads, nostrils flaring.
Feren slipped down and walked over to where the headless body was lying. Rint saw her studying Raskan, and then the ground around the corpse. All at once she lifted her head towards one of the trees. Her sword scraped free.
Rint’s mouth was suddenly dry as dust. Eyes narrowing, he sought to see what Feren was staring at, but the snarl of lichen cloaking all the branches revealed nothing. Dismounting, one hand on his knife, he drew closer to his sister.
‘Feren?’
