Temple of No God E-Book

H.M. Long

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 575

Beschreibung

Epic fantasy followup to HALL OF SMOKE, featuring crumbling empires, secretive cults and godlike powers to be claimed, for readers of Margaret Owen, Brian Staveley, V. E. Schwab and Melissa CarusoAfter a brutal war between the gods, Hessa – High Priestess of the Eangen – has brokered a fragile peace. Through great sacrifice, she has forged an alliance between warring tribes and introduced her people to the true god.But a new threat is growing across the southern border. In the remnants of the once-great Arpa Empire, three factions are vying for the imperial throne, and the vast well of raw magical power only accessible to the Arpa Emperor. Already beating back former Arpa legionaries at her borders, Hessa knows she cannot let this chance slip by. She must intervene, for the safety of her people.With the peace she has sacrificed so much for at stake, Hessa must venture into the heart of enemy territory, where warring Arpa factions are not the only danger she must face. A sinister new cult is on the rise, one with the power to suck the life from everything it touches. With enemies on every side and her fragile alliance beginning to waver, Hessa must decide who to trust – no matter what it may cost her…

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by H.M. Long and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Epilogue

Glossary of Names

Acknowledgements

About the Author

“I am obsessed with what H.M. Long has created—the clear, vivid prose, the captivating mythology, and the absolute force of nature that is Hessa. Utterly enthralling, and a world I loved getting lost in. I can’t wait for the next book.”

Claire Legrand, New York Times-bestselling author of Furyborn

“H.M. Long takes us on another epic, fast-paced adventure in Temple of No God. As exciting and gripping as its predecessor, this standalone in the same world starts with a bang and doesn’t let up, full of intrigue, betrayal, and action sequences that don’t disappoint. Hessa is a heroine to be reckoned with.”

Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch’s Heart

“Once again, H.M. Long pulls us effortlessly into a landscape of warring gods, tribes and impulses. What a joy to return to Hessa’s side as, having battled herself and won, she draws her axes again – this time to build a better world. Sure, there’s a fantastic fight scene for everyone and the pace never falters, but where this book really shines is in its emotionally nuanced depiction of character. Temple of No God is a worthy sequel to Long’s impressive debut, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.”

Lucy Holland, author of Sistersong

“Long certainly made her entrance known with Hall of Smoke, but with Temple of No God, she solidifies herself as one of the great new voices in epic fantasy. Temple of No God is a story about adventure, war, and godly strife, but at its heart, it is also a poetic yet action-packed exploration of grief, longing, and obligation. Bold characters, shocking twists, and heart-pounding action will keep you turning pages long after lights out.”

M. J. Kuhn, author of Among Thieves

“This book is a bonfire on a bleak winter night. Exciting and dangerous, brilliantly plotted and paced, this is the perfect followup to Hall of Smoke. Come for the axe-smash battles, the crumbling empire, the dangerous cults, and the perfect puppy companion, and then stay for all of that stuff, because it rules.”

Joshua Johnson, author of The Forever Sea

“While knowledge and responsibility weigh on Hessa in a manner reminiscent of many warrior-legends of popular European mythology and heroic fantasy, Temple of No God does not succumb to the dreary moroseness of the aftermath of conquest. Instead, we get to witness Hessa relish her role as victor while contending with her status as a vanquisher. I was particularly struck by Long’s needlepoint focus on the gloomy pressures of militaristic endeavor, and appreciated the bright flickers of Hessa’s magical forays into spiritual realms. Fantasy readers who like their heroes battle-hardened yet thoughtful and tender – not in spite of war but because of it – will enjoy Temple of No God.”

Suyi Davies Okungbowa, author of Son of the Storm

“A darkly realised world full of rich lore and characters that leap off the page.”

Rob Hayes, author of The War Eternal trilogy, the Mortal Techniques series and more

Also by H.M. Long and available from Titan Books

Hall of Smoke

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Temple of No God

Print edition ISBN: 9781789095562

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789095579

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: January 2022

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© H.M. Long 2022. All Rights Reserved.

H.M. Long asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Marco and Eric, who convinced me to try again.

ALGATT, EANGEN, AND THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES OF THE ARPA EMPIRE

ONE

Howls drifted towards the sleeping settlement. They merged, harmonized, and thrummed through moss-laden trees, a sound as ancient as the fallen goddess who had taught it to humanity; as old as the line of priests who had served her, of which I was the last.

I raked in a breath and added my own higher, discordant note. The howls rose to meet mine, increasing in pitch and fervor until the whole valley rang, from forest-laden crags to the unwalled village and its lush farmland, silver in the moonlight.

To my right, my war chief Briel, with her knot of braids and broad shoulders, lifted her horn to her lips and blew. The call ended in a twisting crack, silencing the raiders and giving way to the screams of villagers. A baby shrieked. Dogs barked. A handful of lights flickered as villagers tumbled from their homes.

I marked my breaths, steady and even. Though my heart beat hard in my chest, there was no need for fear, no anxiety or prayers. It was our reputation, not our axes, that would bring us wealth tonight.

The village below knew who we were—the Eangen, the barbarians, the heathens from the North. We’d finally come to the Arpa Empire, and we brought recompense for centuries of fear and taxation and spilled Northern blood.

And there were no legions, nor armies nor emperor to stop us.

I started forward, leading a wall of fifty warriors out of the trees, in a row of round, painted shields either side of me.

“Survive tonight and you’ll be back at your hearths in a fortnight,” Briel called down the line. Her horn hung at her hip now, its bronze brim glistening against the ochre of her padded tunic. She bore a spear and a shield painted with foxes, the former resting atop the latter’s rim. “Now off with you.”

The first of our warriors bellowed and broke out of the line— one of my cousins, Sillo. He closed the fifty paces to the village in a reckless dash, shield braced at his shoulder, sword flung out behind him. More men and women followed, yelling and laughing and chanting as they burst over the muddy streets and boardwalks of the hapless village like children at play.

Briel cast me a look, her eyes etched with grim good humor and more than a little resignation. “Are you coming?”

“I’ll keep watch.”

Briel held my gaze for a moment more, assessing me, reading the weariness around my eyes, then set off after our horde.

I took up position in a muddy pasture at the edge of the village to watch the raid unfold. Firelight swept the streets as raiders hauled villagers from their homes and into a corral of shields and axes in the center of the village. Arpa villagers ran, axes pursued, and somewhere in the cacophony of noise I heard a man singing.

My eyes found the singer as he emerged from the nearest house with a torch. He was one of mine—as much as his tribe, the Iskiri, could be called mine. A lupine creature with a kohl-streaked face and long, muscular arms, he sang in a rumbling, chanting timbre.

“Iskiri!” I called, pointing to the roof of the house he’d been in. “Give us some light.”

For a moment I thought he would not obey, considering me with his head cocked to one side. Then he gave an elaborate bow, grinned to show teeth scored by ritual carving, and tossed the torch. It landed with a whump on mossy thatch, not so different from the rooves of our own homes, two weeks and one ancient border away.

The thatch began to smoke and smolder. Flames bit, and the foggy darkness retreated in a hollow, roaring sigh.

His task complete, the raider threw out his arms and took up his song again, this time much louder. Wind gusted over his bare head, carrying the fire from roof to roof as he prowled into the village proper.

I watched sparks and flaming curls of straw drift like a veil between me and his retreating form.

Memories toyed with me. They were always there, wound in the smell of smoke and the clash of steel, but tonight, our last night, I did not push them away. They flared and extinguished like the falling sparks; glimpses of a day when it was my people who had feared raiders in the woods, with their horns and torches and falling axes.

But we, unlike these Arpa villagers, had fought back. Victory had been true victory, our survival earned, and peace hard-won.

This village was no conquest. What was victory if there was no one to resist? What was a victory over peasants, whose gods were dead and whose rulers had abandoned them?

That thought made my stomach sour and the screams in the smoke took on a cutting edge.

A shadow hurtled towards me.

My shield moved instinctively, out in one quick blow. The rim cracked off bone and I raised my axe for a second blow, muscles moving in sequences I’d known since childhood.

I froze mid-strike. A stunned Arpa woman moaned in the mud at my feet, a bundle clutched to her chest. A baby’s fragile wails merged with the pounding, roaring, and shouting of the raid as the woman’s— the girl’s—dazed eyes found mine.

Her pupils were uncoordinated, stuttering and dragging apart. Closing her eyes again, she clutched the child and began to babble in her own language.

“The Mother, the Mourner, hear me, hear—”

I backed off. We were alone in our quarter of the night, two women and one infant. On our left, the flames swelled. With each passing second the light increased, her prayers became more fervent, and my blood thundered louder in my ears.

She expected me to kill her, harm her, or at the very least drag her back into the burning village. But as the seconds flicked past, all I could do was stare.

I felt her fear, deep in my guts, watery and hot and crippling. A child’s terror at horns in the night, or a young woman’s in a smoldering Hall of Smoke.

I had been her, once, and the memory left me feeling tired. So very tired.

“Go,” I said in her language.

The Arpa’s eyes flew open. Her lips still twitched in frantic prayer, but her rhythm faltered.

“Run,” I insisted, the word coming out as a growl.

The girl found her feet. Her infant’s wails grew as she took two tottering steps sideways, her eyes flickering between my face and my axe. Then she staggered into the fog with a ripple of skirts and patter of bare feet.

The night quietened in her wake. On the far side of the village, a horn blast signaled our victory—again that hollow, disgraced word.

My eyes still fixed on the spot where the girl had vanished, I relaxed my shield arm and swung my axe at my side, trying to loosen the tension in my shoulders.

Then, in place of the girl, the tepid night divulged someone else.

Firelight ran along the curved blades of a poleaxe—a long, bearded axe-head and a hooking sickle blade—held by a fog-shrouded figure. I became aware of my breaths deepening and my vision narrowing. The man was alone and his posture was not that of a vengeful farmer, nor was his clothing. His shoulders were spread beneath a robe of earthen, darkened yellow, and his stance was calm. He knew how to carry himself, and he was not afraid of me.

I understood my situation very clearly. I was alone and my back was exposed. The village was close, but my chances of reaching its cover— burning cover—before intercept weren’t good.

Still, I crouched, letting my compact, muscular frame slip into a familiar stance; weight low, feet rooted, shield raised, and the haft of my axe pressed into the rim.

The newcomer advanced, straight-backed and deliberate.

I slipped a half-step backwards, then another. The wind shifted and smoke gusted into my face, raking through my nose and lungs.

One step. Two. The stranger followed, the wind plucking at his robes and carrying a fine, pale ash towards me. But that ash didn’t come from the burning village. It came from the stranger’s skin.

My second, unnatural Sight awoke.

Magic. It gusted off him like chaff from a threshing floor, both glistening and blanched. No sooner had it left him then it gained a life of its own, eddying and fluttering in a cautious swirl around me.

I froze, watching the tide of magic merge with the smoke and fog. Though it came within arm’s reach, it did not dare touch me. No magic could. But this was not an assault—I realized that at the same time as the sounds of the village muffled. This was a shroud, concealing and shielding. Concealing a second attacker.

A cold blade hooked around my neck.

I stilled. There was no time to berate myself. My world simply crystalized, centering on my exposed throat, the presence at my back, and the certainty of death. My reflections of a few minutes before— that faux nostalgia and mourning of a proper challenge—echoed now, sick and senseless.

But there was more power here than these strangers’ ashen magic. I inhaled, letting my own strength, golden and warm and tasting of honey, awaken.

“No words,” an Arpa voice said from behind me in my ear. His weapon, whatever was hooked about my throat, had to be small—a sickle? The voice again was male, languorous and calm, and his Northman was thickly accented. “Do not speak.”

His free hand pressed into the small of my back and a spike of panic shot up my spine, but I contained it. Keeping quiet, I allowed him to guide me out into the fog and away from the village.

The first man, the one with the poleaxe, preceded us. I watched ash swirl off his robes as I sifted through everything I knew of the Arpa, their gods, and their magic. This tasted nothing like those. This presence, this unnatural power, tasted of wrongness. An absence. A lack.

“Drop your weapons,” my second captor said in my ear.

My fingers clenched on my axe and shield, but the blade of his sickle was close and sharp. Never mind my assailant’s actions; one wrong move and I’d slit my own throat.

My fingers released. My axe and shield hit the cropped grass with hollow, fateful thuds.

“And the knife.”

I pulled a long knife from its sheath across my upper thigh and dropped that too. Then my captor prodded me back into movement over cropped grasses and swaths of mud.

“Stop here,” the voice commanded.

I complied. My heart slammed against my ribs in great, jarring beats. I blinked rapidly and willed myself to focus, willed my thoughts to stay coherent. I could survive this—I had overcome such odds before, and I would again. But who were these men, and where had their magic come from?

Power like this had three distinct sources. First, the most common, was the passive force that sustained all life, in earth and blood and air. Second was the benevolence of a God or the interference of a Miri— powerful beings once worshiped as deities. And the third source? The High Halls, the Realm of the Dead, and those who had once been gods.

The Arpa had no gods anymore. The Miri they’d worshiped had been annihilated, along with their magic. The only flicker of power in this entire province should have been me and my priests.

The first man stopped walking and faced me, poleaxe braced on the earth beside his leather-shod feet. The burning village glowed through the fog, but the diffused, dancing light wasn’t enough for me to make out his face. All I could see was the line of a straight Arpa nose and the fall of shoulder-length, light hair.

“I am Siris,” the first attacker stated. “You are Hessa, of the Eangen, of the priesthood of Thvynder.”

The blade at my throat bit in. Though I hadn’t noticed myself waver, the second attacker put his hand on my back again, stilling me like a shy child. Blood began to trickle down my neck, sticking stray black hair to my skin and seeping into the collar of my tunic.

“Yes, I am,” I returned in the voice I had learned from one of my long-dead mentors. It was low, bold, and steady, and as I spoke the words, their truth strengthened me. I took and released a steadying breath and transitioned into the Arpa language, forcing my tongue around their clustered vowels and stark consonants. “And you would do well to bow.”

“Your god has no power here,” Siris replied, slipping into Arpa as well. It flowed from his tongue, liquid and smooth. “We bow to no god but our own.”

“Your gods are dead. I watched them die, a long time ago.”

Silence fell, interrupted only by the muted roar of the fires. I could no longer hear shouting from the village. No screams. No orders.

My eyes flicked to the houses. Pale dust still saturated the fog, but the layers of shadows and light parted. There, for an instant, I saw Briel. My war chief stood, unmoving, on a path between hovels. Silhouetted as she was by the flames, I couldn’t tell where she was looking, but my heart leapt. Perhaps she’d sighted me.

Then her face tilted up to the sky in a dazed, senseless kind of rapture. As I watched, she dropped her weapons, continuing to stare up at a shroud of smoke-laden fog as the flames leapt higher over her head.

“What have you done?” I asked, fear for her and my people burning in my stomach.

Siris stepped closer, and I caught my first glimpse of his face. Unlike most Arpa, he wore a finely trimmed beard. His cheekbones were flat and his eyes languorous, almost sleepy beneath a widow’s peak.

“Did you truly see our gods die?” he asked in a conversational tone. “Each and every one?”

My breath was too loud in my ears.

The man went on, gesturing back to the village: “Your people are alive. They are simply distracted, unaware of your absence, or the smoke, or the flames. They’re also unaware that my priests have surrounded the village, and that they will remain blind until they suffocate, or burn, or their throats are slit. They see only what we desire them to. We are Laru, Hessa, priests and heralds of a new and powerful deity. And it is long past time we met.”

With these last words, he laid his weapon down upon the soft grass—far out of reach of my booted feet—and closed the remaining distance between us.

My grip tightened on an axe that wasn’t there and my whole body shuddered with the effort of holding still—of keeping my magic contained beneath my skin.

Before I lashed out, before I took control, I needed to know what Siris wanted—and what he thought he could do.

Close enough now that I could smell the damp and sweat of his clothes, the stranger met my gaze. His lips pulled into a thin, distracted smile. Then he raised his hands and laid warm, sweat-slick fingers over my eyes, like slats on a window.

Only the sickle around my throat kept me in place. His fingers pressed in and spread out, caressing the sides of my face as he finished whatever he was doing.

Siris retreated, scrutinizing me.

I blinked back at him and, as the moment stretched on, calm settled into my bones. Nothing had happened. Impervious to whatever curse he’d tried to lay, my senses eased like muscles in warm water, plucking at things that my natural facilities could not see—more threads of power, more whispers of Arpa sorcery. I felt them like I felt a drop of blood trickling down my collarbone, heard them like I heard the distant crackle of the burning village, and tasted them like sweat on my lips.

The sorcery came from these two men—priests, “Laru,” I understood now—but they were not alone. My own power, visible to the Sighted alone, spread into the fog like windblown snowflakes in a golden, midwinter dawn. It condensed into a dozen threads, threads that led to more enemy priests in the village.

I turned my attention back to Siris, and I knew my eyes were edged with the same gold. “Did you expect the High Priestess of Thvynder to be without protection?”

For a moment Siris stared into my eyes, gilded and flashing in the darkness. Disdain was thrust aside by understanding and then sudden, visceral fear.

“Kill her,” he shouted, stumbling back. “Now! Now!”

I shoved back into the second priest, slipping my fingers between the sickle and my throat. At the same time power exploded with my body at its axis, slamming into the priests and knocking them to the ground. Fog and flame cavorted into a dozen eddies, leaving me and the toppling men on a patch of open ground.

I caught the sickle’s blade. It sliced into my fingers to the bone, instantly making my hand hot and slick. I’d expected the pain, but still cried out. I hurled the weapon aside with a hollow clatter and sprinted back towards my discarded shield and axe.

Siris moved at the same time, already back on his feet. He seized his poleaxe from the ground and swept it into my path in a low, artful pass.

I dove for my weapons. He came after me, his footsteps little more than a rustle of grass and a sigh in the fog.

Heedless of my bleeding hand, I snatched up my shield as another blow fell upon me. The axe blade of his weapon struck my shield and I hinged it out, directing the blow into the night and darting inside his guard. In the same move, I hacked at his knees.

He tripped backwards. My blow missed by a fraction, slicing through the dark yellow of his robe. I followed up immediately, punching my shield out and smashing his arm as he hit the ground. The blow was clumsy, my grip slick, but he dropped the poleaxe.

I shifted, kicking his weapon out of reach and standing over him with axe at the ready. Around us, the fog roiled. Ash surged towards me, thickening and billowing like the underbelly of a summer storm. But it still didn’t touch me.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the priest who’d held the small sickle climb back to his feet. Weaponless, he stared from his comrade to me in horrified panic.

I feinted towards him, quick and sharp. He bolted into the fog.

Good. My weariness from earlier in the night swelled back, redoubling into a jaded, cool determination as blood dripped down the back of my shield. I returned my attention to Siris.

The priest retreated across the muddy earth in a dazed, pawing crawl. This close to me, his pale magic flickered around his fingertips, like a candle in a draft.

“Who gave you your power?” I asked him. I battled to keep hold of my shield with my bleeding hand. I needed to bind it soon, before I lost too much blood or the pain became unbearable.

“My god did,” he bit back, forcing out each word with a bubble of crimson. I had burst his right eyebrow and the corner of his lips— blood dribbled into his eyes and through his short beard too.

“Does your ‘god’ have a name?”

Instead of replying, he tried to stand, and I allowed him to—though I stayed between him and his fallen weapon. His foot slipped, but he found his balance and straightened halfway, shoulders hunched and head bent in pain and frustration.

“Whatever creature you serve and call a god,” I told him, “they are nothing. Harm me or my people again, and I will annihilate you. I will murder your ‘god’ before your eyes and drink their blood like wine. Do you understand me?”

I had no intention of drinking any blood, but I had grown adept at abusing the Arpa’s fear of barbarians over the past months. Their notions about Northerners had proved a useful weapon, whether or not they were founded in fact.

Siris glared at me. It was a childish expression, his teeth bared in hatred and his shattered jaw twitching with pain. He strained, trying to exert the power I’d smothered.

I flicked my axe at the fog. The last of his dust vanished with the gesture and we were left in a pre-dawn haze of moisture, smoke, and the threads of my own, dominant magic.

Sounds came through the fog again—Eangen battle-howls and the startled screams of Siris’s priests. Two of the golden threads, which I could still see trailing off into the gloom, vanished.

I eased back up to my heels. “Flee. Go back to your god and tell them how you failed.”

He heard me, but didn’t move. With every second that his sorcery did not obey, Siris’s trembling spread and his hatred increased.

“The Empire will unite. Under my god. With my power.” He spat the words, glaring at me with such abhorrence that my heart stuttered— half in unexpected uncertainty, half in a forgotten kind of elation.

It was that elation that grew, iron-scented and fierce. My knees loosened. “Your gods are dead, Arpa.”

Frustration snapped his lips into a snarl. “My god is not. My god is vast, powerful. And he will come for you and your people.”

Cold trickled down my spine. I braced for another attack; the vengeful, desperate spasms of a wounded animal. But it never came. Siris, still covering his jaw with a trembling hand, stumbled off into the fog.

I watched him go, blood trickling down the fingers of one hand while I kept my axe firmly clenched in the other. Grasses shivered under the droplets and a white flower bowed, stained with crimson and threads of amber ichor: the blood of a mortal, threaded with the stolen magic of the High Halls.

I glanced down at the bloody flower for a silent, uninterrupted moment. The Laru’s threats were aggrandized, but he wasn’t entirely wrong.

My power should have been alone here, tonight. Yet it wasn’t. Magic from an unknown source had returned to the Arpa Empire, the Empire that had jeopardized my people for centuries and knew me by name. With that power, leaders would rise, followers would flock, and unity of one form or another would come. The Arpa Empire might truly threaten our borders again, and this time we would no longer be the forest tribes in the North, disorganized and unworthy of the Empire’s attentions.

We would be a threat to be eradicated.

I curled my fingers in on themselves, letting the pain wash over me in blanching, burning waves, and set my jaw.

As Siris had said, I was Hessa, High Priestess of the Eangen. And if the Empire threatened my people?

I would destroy it.

TWO

Five months later, water closed over my head. Cold slammed into my lungs and I stifled a gasp, lips clamped, throat contracting and chest bucking.

I curled my knees into my chest and willed myself still. Blood thundered behind my eyes, but gradually began to slow. My muscles eased, my eyelids fluttered, and my awareness expanded.

I opened my eyes in slow, languorous blinks. The water was clear, brimming with sunlight from one side of the lake to the other. It diffused through the ice overhead, brighter here, darker there where the wind had piled snow into drifts. It shone the brightest through the hole I hacked in the ice every morning.

I pried my limbs from their fetal curl and let dense muscle pull me down towards the gloom. The cold was a distant thing now, a burn and a pressure so all-encompassing it became part of me, like the flesh of my tunic-clad body, the strands of long black hair eddying around my face, and the tips of my fingers, latticed with both ritual scars and the harsh, clean slashes of a sickle’s blade.

I let the cold anchor me there, suspended in the lake; one gasp between life and death, one mistake between the smothering depths and the bitter sweetness of the Waking World.

I returned to the surface when I could bear it no longer, draining my lungs as I went. As I emerged, the winter wind buffeted me, low and swift and swirling across the frozen lake. I squinted into it, grasping the lip of the ice and willing my lungs not to seize.

The ice-locked lake spread around me, silent and sleeping. Beyond its shore of snow-heavy cedars, wind-swept pine, and stark, leafless oak and ash, smoke rose in steady gray wisps. The hearthfires of Albor. Home.

Between me and the shore, there was a girl. I noticed her belatedly, sitting in a drift of snow like it was a throne, the tips of her white hair tangling in the fur of her cap and her kaftan’s silver clasp. Her skin was tawny, like most Eangen, but her hair set her apart—as white as the snow she perched in.

She watched me with a disapproving scowl, reminding me so strongly of her father that my breath snagged in recollected fear. But the feeling fled and I hauled myself up onto the ice, picked up the axe I’d wedged there, and straightened, dripping.

“My mother will be very unhappy,” the girl said, standing too, and brushing off the snow from her long, heavy kaftan and wool trousers. The way she carried herself had changed in the last season, and it was not simply due to her brother’s departure for the far north, her broadening hips, or the men who had begun to eye her when they thought I wasn’t looking. She was more cautious, and held an understanding of her place in the world in her cold blue eyes—the eyes of her dead father, the Son of Winter, and of the goddess whose name remained etched in this land and my scars, long after her death.

Eang. The Brave. The Watchful. The Vengeful. The Swift.

Responsibility resettled on my shoulders like a yoke. Mourning the lost peace of the underwater world, I pried my numb feet from the ice before they could freeze there and shoved them into fur-lined boots. Then I set aside my axe, grabbed my pack, and freed a spare tunic.

“Why is that?” I asked.

Thray glanced down the lake as I exchanged my sodden—and now ice-rimmed—garment for the dry undertunic and a sumac-red overtunic, trimmed with geometric patterns in yellow-gold. For a moment, the wind raked across my muscled belly from a sky of raw and unadulterated blue. The sun had just topped the trees to the east, glancing down at me and the girl and the lake locked in ice, but it gave no heat.

“You should not go under the ice alone,” the girl informed me, as I pulled on my cloak and gathered my things.

It’s the only place I can be alone, I thought. I pinched the end of her nose. “I’ll deliver the warnings.”

She screwed up her face and stepped back, tugging her nose indignantly from my grasp. “Don’t— Hessa!”

I grinned and handed the girl my pack and axe, using my newly freed hands to close my cloak. My senses were sharp and clear and my skin flushed, but I didn’t want to linger on the lake. “Come, I need to get back to the hall.”

Thray fell into step behind me, scowling and scolding all the way. My black hair was frozen before we reached the short path to the village, grating against my cheeks as we wove through the cedars and tangles of sleeping vines.

I half listened to the girl, focusing on my steps—my feet now aflame with renewing heat—until we passed through the village outskirts and ring wall, and approached the doors of the great, central hall.

The houses around us were low, constructed of weathered wood and thatch and mushroomed with snow. Few residents were in the streets at this time of day, and those I saw were fur-wrapped and red-cheeked.

Everyone was accustomed to my daily pilgrimage to the lake and didn’t bother me, but this morning something had changed. They watched me, eyes lingering on my face as if I could answer some question I wasn’t aware of.

I slowed, glancing at Thray. The girl looked back at me and lifted one shoulder.

“Has something happened?” I asked the nearest woman.

“There’re travelers in the hall,” she returned, arms full of a little boy, who stared at me through huge, dark eyes beneath an oversized fur cap. “I didn’t see them, but I heard.”

“What travelers? Algatt?”

“I don’t know, High Priestess.” She shook her head and I left her, redoubling my pace while Thray ran to catch up.

The hall rose above us. Its wood was weathered and gray, though it was less than a decade old, and its angles as steep as the bulk of Mount Thyr. The mountain’s snow-laden peak loomed over the town, jagged and glistening in the winter sun. Its slopes were sheer until, some distance down, they transitioned from rock and ice into the skirt of forested foothills in which Albor sat, all laden with snow.

As to the hall, it too was formidable, even austere in some opinions. But I found that austerity fitting. This hall had been constructed on the charred remains of the old one, the Hall of Smoke, where I’d spent my childhood. Its steep, double-tiered roof and spreading wings symbolized the strength and solidity of the new age, and its only adornments— other than snow and icicles—were the ends of its exposed beams, each carved with beasts: a bear, a fox, a lynx, and so on.

And, of course, there were the hall’s doors, great oak bastions intricately carved with runes and coils and depictions of plants and animals, together proclaiming the name of the building: the Morning Hall, seat of the Vynder priesthood and their High Priestess.

Holding my pack under one arm, Thray hauled one side of the door open and I stepped through, catching my breath as heat curled around me. A central fire blazed within a rectangle of knee-high stones, and the vaulted chamber was full of the scents of smoked cedar beams, burned sage, fresh bread, and the two dozen Vynder priests who called this home.

Today the hall was packed with forty men and women in wool and fur and scowling faces. Children craned to look down from the hall’s deep, encircling balcony that housed multiple Vynder families, and a stranger stood by the fire.

His back was to me and he wore an ambiguous, heavy winter cloak, but there was no disguising his foreignness. He clutched a silver helmet with hinged cheek plates under one arm, his cloak falling from one shoulder over glistening, plated armor. His hair was blond, cropped short, and I caught sight of a distinct, straight nose as he turned his eyes upon me.

Thray, who had just closed the door at my back, halted. I pulled my axe from her arms—a calm movement—and murmured, “You stay out of sight.”

Her face was pale as she slipped into the shelter of the crowd, and I faced the newcomer.

The man’s eyes flicked from me to my axe, his expression a mask of forced passivity. He took in every bit of me, from my frozen braid to the missing top of my right ear and the freckles that layered my nose and cheeks.

Another man, Nisien, appeared at my side and bent to my ear. He wore his head shaved and beard short, unlike the other men in the room, who wore their hair long and painstakingly tended. His Soulderni skin was a shade darker than mine and his frame taller, but he was clad in our layered tunics, trousers, and legwraps—the style of Eangen, his adopted home.

Nisien didn’t comment on my sodden state. The familiarity of his voice warmed me as he explained, “A messenger. Come all the way from Apharnum. Estavius and I escorted him up from the border.”

I studied the faces in the crowd, noting our friend Estavius near the front. The only Arpa welcome in the North, his handsome face was angled towards the fire and he clasped a cup of warm mead in hands the color of sun-bleached bone.

The messenger was Estavius’s countryman, but he made no move to interact. I did not blame him. The Empire had once called Miri like him gods, and if he did not want to involve himself any further, so be it.

“So he’s Arpa,” I said to Nisien, looking back to the messenger. “Did they come because of the raids? Or the Laru?”

Nisien shrugged. “His message was for you. But I assume it’s the raids.”

“Does he speak Northman?”

“Well enough, yes.”

I nodded and started towards the newcomer, unclasping my cloak with one hand as I went. The other still cradled my axe, hooked loosely at the top of the haft.

Nisien followed at my shoulder, wordless.

The messenger watched as I took up position next to the flames. I set my axe down on a nearby bench and pulled my cloak free, letting the heat of the fire rush over my flushed, damp skin as I sat. He took in my disheveled state, suspicion cycling into a resigned discontent as he understood who and what I was.

“I am Hessa. What do you want?” I asked.

The hall was silent except for the pop and hiss of the fire, the brush of heavy clothes and the squeak of a floorboard.

“I come in the name of Bresius, Emperor of Arpa,” the messenger began. His Northman wasn’t perfect and his accent was thick, overaccentuating consonants and rolling what should have been soft, shushing ‘r’s.

“Emperor?” I returned, neither scornful nor kind. “Last time I stepped into Arpa territory, someone called Cassius was on the throne and his arm was rather short. How much of an ‘empire’ does this Bresius rule?”

“Cassius is besieged in Apharnum by Bresius’s forces, and will not live out the summer.” The emissary’s eyes flicked across my body to my braid, now dripping on the floor.

His weapons were nowhere to be seen, but I straightened. Part of me wanted to demand the messenger wait until I’d put myself together before having this conversation, but I wanted this man out of my hall, away from my people, as quickly as possible. We all had reason to hate and fear the legionaries, who’d fallen into increasing lawlessness since the death of their gods.

“Cassius will soon be deposed by Bresius,” the messenger clarified, a spark of irritation in his eyes. “Bresius has reunited Apharni and the Lake Provinces, the Southern Territories, and, of course, Souldern. He has only to reclaim Nivarium, which is under the control of his cousin Eolus, and the capital itself, in Cassius’s hands.”

His mention of Souldern surprised me, but I did not show it. Nisien eased closer. Souldern was his homeland and that of many others in the room, lost over the last decade to the same decay and conflict that had taken the rest of the Arpa Empire and its territories. Since then more and more of his people had fled north, over the former Arpa border to Eangen and the shelter of our living, breathing god.

If this Bresius had retaken Souldern, it had happened recently enough that we hadn’t heard. It was a shock, and it was dangerous. As I’d feared when I’d faced the Laru during our raids last year, the Arpa Empire was back to our doorstep, and with it the threat of unified, if godless, legions.

Thray’s mother Sixnit approached, presenting me with a cup of hot honey wine. I gave her a meaningful look but she did not leave, sitting her round hips on a stool and watching the proceedings with casual hostility.

“You’re telling me that there are three contenders for the throne,” I clarified. “Cassius, Bresius, and Eolus. And your lord, Bresius, has yet to take the capital or Nivarium?”

“In due course.”

“Then he is no emperor,” I pointed out. “None of them are. I understand that your emperors must ascend to properly claim the title—and you’ve no gods left to grant him that Ascension. So he is not emperor, and what can he have to say to me?”

The messenger’s jaw tightened, but he nodded and drew a preparatory breath. “Last summer your people began raiding Nivarium, and in that you proved yourselves a threat to the Empire. But you also showed yourself against the Cult of Laru, who hold Nivarium in their sway. You encountered the Laru’s head priest, Siris.”

A few murmurs drifted around the hall and I narrowed my gaze. If this Bresius was an enemy of the Laru, that changed matters.

“Yes, I met him.” I set my warm cup down on the rocks that lined the fire and rung out my braid. More droplets of cold water pattered onto the floorboards beside my boots. “And defeated him.”

The messenger nodded. “We know. As I said, Bresius has yet to regain Nivarium. It is technically ruled by the third contender, Eolus, for whom the Laru labor. So, Bresius has a proposal for you, Hessa of the Eangen. When the snow melts, return to Nivarium with his blessing. Distract Eolus. Raid and scourge the land as you please, as my lord’s mercenaries, and he will pay you royally for the privilege.”

A second ripple passed through the hall, this one incredulous and hostile. I kept my gaze on the speaker, ignoring the tumult.

“The Eangen will not fight for the Arpa,” Briel, Vynder priestess and my war chief, cut through the murmur. “If we raid, we go in our own name, for our own benefit. We would never trust you.”

“Bresius could have his throat slit tomorrow,” Nisien pointed out, still hovering at my shoulder. “Your rulers never last long.”

“Not since we killed your gods,” a gentler voice added. Thray had pushed through the crowd to give the Arpa a blatant, cold glare.

I looked up sharply but the girl’s mother had already intervened, leaving her stool to drag her daughter out of sight.

“Your Bresius will need to offer more than money and weak promises,” Nisien said.

I glanced at my friend, then off to where Thray had vanished into the crowd. This proposal from Bresius was not overly compelling, but in it I saw something beyond talk of riches and hired swords.

An opportunity. An opportunity to insert myself into the chaos south of the border, to have a hand in what the Empire became, and, if I could, gut it from the inside out. I could help forge a new Empire under a ruler I approved of. Or obliterate it.

But that would mean leaving home, Thray, Sixnit, and the Hall. It would mean involving myself in foreign games of power and bloodying my axe in someone else’s name. I wanted none of that.

What I wanted, however, hadn’t mattered in a long time.

Just for a moment, I closed my eyes and drew a breath deep into my belly. When I released it and opened my eyes again, I was composed.

The envoy continued, his focus traveling through the crowd. “You will be paid in gold and silver and whatever else you people desire.” I didn’t miss the disdain in that. He did not think much of us, this hall, or anything we might hold dear. “Also, Bresius requires a personal guard of eight Vynder priests to escort him into the capital, Apharnum, which he will take by the end of summer. Then Cassius will be executed, and you will ensure the Laru do not interfere with Bresius’s Ascension.”

The room rippled with whispers.

I couldn’t keep the surprise from my face. “What?”

“You and your Vynder have shown yourselves more than capable of managing the Laru threat,” the Arpa said to me, his tone edged with nearly genuine deference. Nearly. “You are a Curse Breaker, the Nivari say. You have the blessing of a powerful god. You, Bresius believes, can withstand the Laru and see him crowned.”

I paused. The title of Curse Breaker summed up my gifts well—I could extinguish unnatural power. I broke my enemies, so long as they wielded magic themselves. But against human foes and mortal blades, it had little value.

“Bresius would have you by his side,” the messenger continued, “ensuring his Ascension. Just eight priests capable of combating the Laru, including yourself. You would meet him at the Apharni border, south of Nivarium, by the last moon of summer.”

I exchanged a look with Nisien, and saw my own incredulity reflected in his eyes. Still, though I knew the deal was not a good one, I was tempted. Since I’d met Siris last summer, my anxiety over the state of the Arpa had grown. Now I was being handed the opportunity to slip into the heart of the Empire, and I couldn’t let it pass by.

Yet, as Briel and Nisien had said, the Eangen would never fight for an Arpa. Not for mere wealth, in any case.

“It’s not enough,” I said, letting a little grudgingness seep through. “My people won’t rally.”

The Arpa man watched me for a long, long moment, then reached to a satchel beside the hearthstones and pulled out a scroll. He held it out, and Nisien stepped forward to take the object.

“Very well,” the envoy said with gravity. “I’ve a second offer. Raid as you please in Nivarium, take whatever you wish, but you’ll receive no extra payment. Save Souldern.”

Halfway through unrolling the scroll, Nisien froze. The rest of the company disintegrated into murmuring knots, but everyone still watched me. They always watched me. We had no queens, no kings for them to look to—only a god and a high priesthood that, through fault and trial and choice and will, had come to me.

“Souldern?” I repeated. “Bresius would give up the province? Freely?”

“With concessions for trade,” the messenger said with a tempering nod, “but yes. The terms are there.”

Nisien looked down at me. Concern settled in the creases around his eyes, the usual patterns of age exacerbated by a decade of near constant travel at Estavius’s side. But under it all was an incendiary, soul-deep hope. His homeland hadn’t been free of Arpa rule in centuries.

The Arpa emissary watched us, pale face full of firelight. Memories came with the sight: a white lake and a massing army of his people, gray-eyed and inhuman, at the closing of the last age.

My composure waned and I reached for my cup of wine.

“I’m willing to consider this and bring it to council,” I said. “You can remain here until we’ve finished our deliberations.”

The envoy’s eyes flicked around the hall, between my people’s hostile, cold expressions, but he nodded slowly.

“Nisien will take care of you.” I gestured Nisien forward, my lips brushing the brim of the cup. Steam prickled my nose and honey wine, scented with pine, warmed my throat as my friend led the foreigner away.

I thought of the ice then, of the stillness and pressure of the water, of the cold stripping away all thought of clan and future and daily life. For a heartbeat I suspended myself there again, bare feet towards the gloom, hair floating up towards the winter sky.

Then I drained my cup, left it on the stones around the fire, and slipped away through the crowd.

THREE

I stopped at the edge of a snow-locked mountain meadow. Snow swept past me, gathering against the bulk of an old, weathered shrine. It was simply constructed, little more than a collection of four posts and a tiled roof, now buried by the downfall. Its peak cast a sliver of shadow across the meadow under the noonday sun, visible every so often through a break in the clouds.

I shrugged my pack and shield into the snow with a whump. The wind gusted, tugging at the fur edging my cap and clacking the bare branches of poplar and oak and ash above my head. White-blanketed evergreens swayed. There was little else to hear; the birds were silent, and though I’d seen lattices of animal tracks on my climb through the forest, there were no creatures in sight.

I adjusted my footing with a muffled clack of snowshoes and pushed my cap back from my forehead.

Eang. Eang.

My former goddess rose through my mind, but I didn’t speak. My past lurked beneath these trees—Eangi ritual, desperate prayers, and the last time I’d seen my first husband, Eidr, alive.

I brushed at my nose, sniffed, and eased my weight into my heels. Eang, Goddess of War and deity for whom the Eangen were named, was dead. But something of her power remained here, at her shrine, in her holy ground. And, if one knew how to open it, her doorway into another world.

I reached for my golden Sight. It welled, revealing a crack in the world not a pace ahead of me. It glowed, as amber-gold as my power itself, and slim and subtle as a fracture in a clay pot.

As it sensed my magic, the crack began to widen. Light, warm and undulating, spilled out into the meadow, shafting across the snow and trees like a slice of autumn sunset.

I drew in one more lungful of the icy, Waking World. Across the meadow the shrine crusted over with latent magic, gold running through the cracks and seams of the old wood and lacing out under the snow, off into the trees until everything shimmered and cracked. Then, holding the breath deep in my belly, I picked up my pack and shield and stepped through the door to the High Halls.

The landscape remained the same, the forest and the meadow, but the very fabric of the world twisted. The sun faded and a bitter midwinter night broke over me. Above my head, the sky separated into four quadrants—the perpetual lavender twilight of the western Realm of Death, the clean dark of the midnight north, a star-cast east and, to the south, the looming peak of Mount Thyr, backed by the first rays of a sudden, new dawn.

With every beat of my heart, the cold tripled. I put out a hand to steady myself, but placement of the trees had changed. The pine I’d intended to grab was gone. I staggered and my pack swung out, pulling me off-balance.

I bit back a startled curse and half toppled, half sat in the snow. For a moment I floundered gracelessly, trying to get back up, then my tired body realized how comfortable I was. I let out a huff, pressed my lips into a line, and let my head fall back into the drift.

An owl hooted. Squinting up, I saw six of the creatures roosting above, silhouetted against a midnight sky as crisp and sharp as a blade and studded with stars. Each bird was different, yet the same—a variety of white and grays and browns obscured in the darkness. But each had the same eyes, round and bright as harvest moons.

These were not true owls, but messenger constructs once made by Eang—feathers and bones bound by the breath of a lost deity.

I struggled out of my pack. I knew these owls and I’d passed through this door a hundred times, but my heart still fluttered and my lungs struggled to process the colder, clearer air.

“Fetch Gadr and Imnir,” I said to the birds, clearing my throat. “And Thvynder’s Watchman.”

The nearest owl, a gray male with black-tufted ears, ruffled his feathers.

“Go,” I repeated around a mouth full of mittens. I pulled them off with my teeth and leaned forward to untie my snowshoes, artful contraptions of cord and hide and bowed wood; a gift from one of the men I sought today.

Free of the snowshoes, I gave the birds a moment to comply while I put my mittens back on and got to my feet, dislodging the snow from a nearby spruce as I grabbed at it. Needles stabbed through the knitted wool and the snow fell in clumps, marring the pristine surface around me.

The owls still hadn’t moved, watching me with dour expressions.

“Gadr, Imnir, and the Watchman,” I repeated to the birds, hardening my voice. “Off with you.”

Two of the birds took flight, leaving their fellows to glower. The black-tufted male ruffled his wings even further and tipped his beak down in a strigine scowl. Then he took wing. The last three, a slate-gray female, a brown, moon-faced male, and a second, smaller white male, promptly closed their eyes and pretended to sleep.

I let them be. The cold pried into my bones by now, despite my months of bathing in the ice. Time and distance were unpredictable in the High Halls, easy to manipulate if one had the skill, but it would still be several hours before my guests arrived. I needed to get warm.

I set my shield against a tree and unlashed a woodsman’s axe from my pack. I cleared a patch of ground and built a fire, irritating the remaining owls by hacking branches off dead trees and striking flint and tinder. But once the fire burned, sending the snow and dark and cold into retreat, the birds fluttered closer to the warmth.

By the time dawn turned the eastern quadrant of the sky from midnight blue to deep purple, then violet and a crescendo of pale pinks and oranges, the owls perched on the closest branches and basked in the heat of the flames.

I watched them with something close to fondness, stoking the fire around a pot of morning grains and nuts. I’d made tea, too, of pine needles from the nearby trees, and as I sipped, the power of the High Halls, inherent in everything around me, seeped into my blood. It strengthened me, hazing my eyes with gold as I looked up at the owls.

“See, I may not be Eang,” I said to the owls, “but I’m not a terrible mistress, am I?”

“Do they often reply?”

A man emerged from the trees, his blond beard crusted with ice and his equally blond hair escaping from a fur-lined wool cloak and hat. The cloak was fastened to his broad shoulders with the silver pin I’d given him at our wedding, eight years ago, and his eyes hazed with the same power as mine. A power kept secret by us alone, High Priestess and High Priest of Thvynder.

I smiled. The expression was genuine, but it was an ally’s smile rather than a lover’s. Still, my heart clutched at my ribs at the sight of him, every line of his face reminding me of struggles and duties I would rather forget.

“Imnir,” I greeted him, setting my cooling cup of tea aside.

“Hessa.” My husband came to a stop before me. He gave a squinting, half-smile in return, but didn’t reach for me.

I made room by the fire. He sat, holding his hands towards the flames as I studied him. It had been months since I’d last seen him, and the high lines of his Algatt cheeks, the paleness of his Algatt skin and hair, and the twitch of his Algatt lips struck me as eerily foreign.

“What is it?” Imnir asked. “Is everything all right, or is there something wrong with my face?”

I gave a small laugh but continued to watch him with a distant curiosity, waiting for my heart to pry itself off my ribs. “It’s your face. I haven’t seen it in a while.”

“Hmm.” My husband sat back to study me in turn. The ice in his moustache and beard formed perfect strings of pearls, framing lips slightly indented at the bottom left—the result of a scar whose cause I’d never learned. He was not handsome, his nose a touch too round and his eyes too far apart beneath straight brows, but I could imagine he’d been so in his younger years—before violence had stolen his first wife and children, and etched those green eyes with grim, guarded lines.

And he was Algatt. My people and his had been enemies for centuries – the peace our marriage secured could not erase that. He had killed my kin, as I’d killed his.

“I’d prefer to only tell the story once,” I added absently, pulling my gaze away. “When the rest arrive.”

Imnir nodded slowly, his gaze dropping to my hands. “Those healed well.”

The scars I’d gained from the Laru’s sickle glistened white in the firelight. Last time we’d seen one another, right here in this quiet corner of the High Halls, I’d just returned from the raids. My hand had been a stiff mess of flaking scabs and I’d been perturbed, wrestling with the first real threat I’d encountered since the Upheaval – since the Arpa gods had died, and Thvynder had risen to power.

“Do you have a spoon?”

I blinked. “What?”

“That’s hot.” He nodded to the pot. “And I’m starving. Unless you were planning on eating it in front of me, which is cruel but not unexpected.”

“I planned on sharing,” I admitted with a small smile. “Go ahead. There’s tea too.”

“What kind of tea?”

I nodded to the needles in the pot, still resting to the side of the flames. “Ours.”

He eyed the needles, then my cup. “Is it wise to drink it so often?”

I shrugged. Our power was a consistent thing, with no need for replenishment, but I could not imagine visiting the Halls without taking a little more of its magic into my bones. It was our right, after all, whether or not he feared the long-term repercussions.

“I’m quite well, husband,” I assured him.

He inclined his head, giving in, and I edged the pot of morning grains from the fire. We sat with it between us and I leaned over to dig a spoon from my pack. I picked up my tea again, but he shook his head when I offered it to him.

“I didn’t expect you to be the first to arrive,” I said, settling the rejected cup onto my knee.

He shrugged and dipped the wooden spoon into the steaming grains. “I was near Gadr’s Door.”

I watched him blow on the spoonful. Gadr’s Door to the High Halls, like Eang’s, rested in a place once sacred to one of the Miri—the beings formerly known as gods by Eangen, Arpa, and Algatt alike. The doors could only be opened by very few; those whose gods had given them leave to, or who already possessed the magic of the Higher Realms.