But here it was not possible.
Gods do not die.
A strident burst of horn startled him, driving him to his feet. He twisted around to find a dark shadow sweeping at him with the swiftness of a black gale. He fell back, fearing the beast had returned.
But glowing eyes stared down at him; shape took form, a familiar one. The cloak billowed out, then settled to narrow shoulders.
“Perryl,” Tylar said, relieved that his former squire had not been a part of the slaughter here. In the distance, the horn blared again. Shouts now could be heard. The castillion guards were closing in.
The young knight took in the scene. “What have you done?” he asked in a rush.
Tylar frowned at such a strange question. “What do you mean?”
Tylar glanced down at himself. He was covered in blood-Meeryn’s blood. In the center of his chest, a perfect palm print had been burned through his shirt and linens. The skin beneath was as black as the scorched edges of his clothing. He touched the flesh. No blistering. Just a black stain.
He was marked.
Tylar lifted an arm. “You can’t think I-?”
“I saw you earlier.”
“And I you… so?”
Perryl eyed him from head to toe. “Look at yourself.”
“Why-?” Further words died as he finally understood. Perhaps he had been too numbed by the events. Or perhaps it was like a pair of well-broken boots, easy to forget once donned. Either way, he finally noted the straight hold of his back, the breadth of his shoulders, the strength in his arms and legs.
“You’re healed.”
Before he could react, castillion guards pounded into the square, bearing pikes and long swords. Cries arose as the bloody sight struck them. Many fell immediately to their knees; the stronger fanned out to shield the square and attend to the night’s victims.
A full complement surrounded Meeryn, driving Tylar away at the point of a blade.
“Do not say a word,” Perryl hissed in his ear, staying at his side.
Tylar stared at the many drawn weapons and obeyed.
A fresh cry erupted from the crowd around the fallen god. “She’s dead!” one man shouted.
Another, bearing the oak sprig of a healer, stumbled free of the group. His face had drained of all color, his eyes bright with shock. “Her heart… her heart is gone… ripped away!”
All around, guards stared hard at Tylar, many weeping, others swearing. He knew how he must look: the lone survivor, covered in Meeryn’s blood, her palm print burned into his chest as if she had attempted to thrust him away.
And on top of it all, he was healed, cured, made new again.
A cadre of castle guards approached with swords drawn, murder in their every step.
Perryl stepped before Tylar, facing the men. “Under the edict of the Order, this man is arrested under my name.”
Shouts met his words, angry.
Perryl yelled to be heard. “He will not be harmed until the matter here is attended and the truth be known.”
The guards stopped, hesitant. Swords remained drawn.
Their captain took another step forward and spat in Tylar’s direction. He uttered one word, both curse and accusation: “Godslayer.”
2
She never liked cabbage.
Half a world away from the Summering Isles, Dart stared at the plate covered in a soggy bog of boiled leaf. She fingered through the pile, searching for a bit of carrot and maybe, if she were lucky, a chunk of raven’s egg. She liked raven, believing the keen senses of the aerial hunter would flow into her if she ate enough eggs.
As she bent to stare under an especially large leaf, something slapped the back of her head, bouncing her nose into her meal. She yipped in surprise.
“Enough!” the matron of the Conclave screeched at her, sounding like one of the feathered residents of the rookery at the top of the tower. “Eat or I’ll boil you into the next batch!”
Dart straightened, wiping cabbage drippings from her nose. “Yes, mum…”
The other girls seated along the two tables of the third floor commons laughed behind their hands. Fingers pointed.
Dart kept her face lowered. She was the youngest of the thirdfloorers, barely thirteen birth years, but she already stood a head taller than the eldest. In fact, Dart had been named after the dartweed, a hardy plant that sprouted stubbornly between the cobbles of the courtyard, growing fast enough for the eye to follow, shoving its yellow head up after the sunshine. Even her unruly thatch of straw-blond hair matched the weed’s hue. And like her namesake, she was considered a nuisance here, an eyesore, something to be trampled underfoot.
The Conclave of Chrismferry was one of the most distinguished schools for training gentle boys and gentle girls in the art of proper service to a god’s household. The finest families from the Nine Lands fought, bribed, and prayed for one of their offspring to be granted admittance.
Dart, on the other hand, came here by chance. She was not even from the blessed Nine Lands. The prior headmistress had discovered her among the hinterlands, where only rogue gods roamed, an unsettled and barbarous country. Dart, as a newborn, was to have been sacrificed to one of the rogue gods. But the headmistress, a willful and pious woman, had stolen her away, whisking her out of the hinterlands and into the Conclave. And though the woman died only three years later, Dart had been allowed to remain out of respect for the memory of the esteemed headmistress.
Unfortunately none of that respect had rubbed off on Dart.
“Finish your breaking fast!” the matron said, stalking away. “By the time I pass through here next, your plate had better be empty. That goes for all of you!”
Murmurs of dutiful assent followed in the woman’s wide wake until she left the room.
Dart pinched a leaf, studying its limp form with resignation. Sighing, she glanced under the table to where Pupp lay curled at her feet. “How about helping me with this?”
Pupp stirred. He cocked his head in her direction.
Dart frowned, knowing he couldn’t help. She popped the cold wet leaf into her mouth, attempting to chew without breathing. Every fiber in her being fought her valiant effort, but at last she succeeded and swallowed the slimy lump.
With a renewed determination, she set upon her plate, working down through the mountainous pile of boiled fare. Almost finished, she stared at the remaining leaves, disappointed.
Not even a sliver of raven’s egg.
Movement drew her attention back across the table. Sissup and Jenine shifted and allowed Laurelle to push between them. The eldest of the thirdfloorers reached over and dumped her load of cabbage atop Dart’s plate.
“What are you-?” Dart began to complain.
Laurelle straightened. “Did anyone see me do that? I’m sure they didn’t.”
Laughter followed from the other girls.
With a flip of her long ebony hair, freshly washed and oiled by her family’s servitors in residence, Laurelle glanced back to Dart. “Eat up, Dartweed. Maybe you’ll fill out that boy’s body you’re wearing.” Laurelle leaned a hand on the table and stuck out her chest, posing like some harlot.
More laughter met her antics.
At fourteen, Laurelle was already rounding into a woman. Boys in the school dogged her footsteps, pining for
