Chapter 42: Not who he said he was

When a weariness of life settles in, you anticipate death. When death’s messenger comes, you welcome him.

-Athanaric

Naresh hobbled in, his back bent. He smelled of ale and cinnamon—both primary aspects of the Strengthening celebrations—and prostrated himself on the floor among the dogs. They gathered around him, licking his hands and face. He laughed and tried to push them away as he bowed.

The Master didn’t speak, just looked at Naresh. Still bound, Wrend wished he could wring his hands in worry for the old man. Naresh was his friend, and Wrend had always trusted him. Too late, he’d realized that he shouldn’t have spoken of the friendship.

When the dogs had settled down on the carpet around the Master’s feet, Naresh looked up. His hands trembled and his head shook from side-to-side from his palsy.

“It seems,” he said, “that I’ve caused some kind of trouble.” He glanced at Wrend, his eyes dull and soft, then back up at the Master. “How may I be of service, great god?”

The Master moved so fast that the action ended before Wrend even knew what had happened. He jerked with surprise at the blur of the Master’s arm and the scrape of a knife sliding off of the table and brought down on Naresh’s head—except Naresh was no longer there. He flipped backward, also just a blur.

When it was over, and stillness had settled over the tent, the Master leaned from his chair with his knife stuck into the carpet up to the hilt, his face shocked. He looked up at where Naresh stood tall, half a dozen feet from where he’d been, next to the divan. He held his head high. All traces of drunkenness and senility had disappeared from his countenance.

The dogs, roused by the sudden action, leapt up and began to bark, first at the Master in excitement, and—as if sensing their master’s angst—turning to the priest and baring their teeth. Their hackles lifted, and several crouched in preparation to spring.

“What,” Naresh said, “have I done to merit such an attack?”

Wrend looked from Naresh to the Master, then back and forth again.

Ichor. That was the only explanation. Naresh had somehow used Ichor to react and move that fast. That meant he was a demigod—if not one of the Master’s sons, then the child of another god, in another country. An enemy.

The world seemed to shift. Wrend’s perspective changed as he considered that this old man who had befriended him and given him advice through the years was actually a foe.

The surprise faded from the Master’s face as he pulled the knife out of the carpet, stood, and drew himself to his full height. He blocked much of the light from the lantern on the table, and cast a shadow over Naresh and most of the room. He held the knife down at his side, yet his muscles remained tight beneath his black shirt.

“Who are you?”

“I,” Naresh said, as he inclined his head politely and let one corner of his mouth turn up, “am the one known as Godslayer.”

Wrend had heard the word only once—back at the feast at the start of the proving—and this second time it made the skin on his back tingle. He shivered from the sudden chill.

Especially because of how the Master’s face became relieved.