Page 54

WHO CALLS FOR HAVEN?

The voice shook the flames of the shrine lanterns and set all the little cups of libations trembling. Inara heard the clatter of the broom, footsteps running over cobbles outside, but she ignored it.

Your daughter calls for you, said Inara.

Daughter? Incense whirled around them, then a strange, boyish laugh. I have no daughter, but your offering … it tastes so sweet. Is there more?

A wind rushed in through the trees, petals blew in through the door.

And then he was there.

The statue didn’t move. It was only his totem; it was not the god.

Yusef appeared as if he had stepped out of a dream, standing in the shadows of his shrine.

He wore robes of purple silk, long and drifting along the floor like a fall of water.

At his neck were chains of heavy gold and silver, inset with red, decorated with doves, seeds and pomegranates.

His fingers were full of rings, thick with precious gems: tiger’s-eye, sapphire, emerald. He dripped with wealth.

And he was young, with auburn hair and bright brown eyes, his skin unlined.

Younger than Kissen. It seemed the people who prayed him back into being did not see him as he had been: a great and ancient god of the travelling peoples who had settled Restish.

The god who had died had been created anew, and his new form was one of wealth and plenty.

‘I am Yusef,’ said the god, ‘god of safe haven. What do you wish of me … child?’

Skedi, likely sensing Inara’s confusion, grew to the size of a dog and swept down to stand on his hind legs beside her, tall enough that she could put her hand behind his ears.

‘Great god of safe haven,’ said Skedi. ‘I am Skediceth—’

‘Little god of white lies!’ said Yusef. He grinned, and opened his arms. ‘What a joy to see you!’

Skedi half raised his wings in surprise.

‘They read me my scriptures about you,’ said Yusef, beaming and exuberant.

‘They did?’

‘With so much danger on the roads, they said I sought something to keep people’s faith strong.’ The god leaned down to take Skedi’s paws in his glittering hands, ignoring Inara completely. ‘And I found a shrine to you. A children’s story, a locals’ tale.’

Skedi tried to hide it, Inara could see, but she also saw his whiskers twitch, excited.

‘You made a promise to me,’ her god said shyly. ‘That I would journey with you, in your shrines, to keep spirits up, and hopes steady. You promised to keep me safe with all your power.’

‘Quite right,’ said Yusef, stepping back again, putting his hands behind his back.

He looked up, admiring his shrine, then ran his eyes with interest over his offerings and their colours.

‘A century we travelled together, little god, a boon binding us, a bond of divinities.’ His face darkened.

‘Until Blenraden, where the Middrenites allowed me to lose my life.’ He looked down.

‘And I had no more power to give. Were you not killed then too?’

‘I was,’ said Skedi, ‘in a way. But your promise kept me living and bound me to a power that your death left behind.’ He looked up at Inara. ‘Her.’

Inara could feel her body trembling as Yusef gave her a mildly affronted glance, as if he had forgotten she was there. She had been hoping to find a father, a saviour, a sage. Not this … god-child.

She met his gaze, feeling his power, like a physical pressure on her skin, a squeezing of her neck.

Yusef crossed his arms and frowned. ‘You do look … different to other humans. Brighter. Like an offering.’

That made Inara shiver. ‘I am the daughter of Lessa Craier,’ she said. ‘And you in your previous incarnation. Gods call me halfling, demigod …’ Her chest tightened. Abomination. Beast. No, those words were not hers. ‘I have some of your gifts, but you owe me more than that.’

‘Owe?’ Yusef blinked, his robes floated wide, drifting over his shrine as if to protect it.

‘The Restish are trying to hurt my mother,’ said Inara, steeling herself. ‘Your lover.’

The god twisted his nose.

‘The woman you left with child .’

Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he understand? ‘Who protected you until you died and left her with me. I am your daughter.’

‘Whatever my …’ the god shrugged. ‘Whatever my past incarnation did, what has it to do with me now? The priests told me nothing of you. ’

Inara narrowed her eyes. ‘Perhaps your priests tell you what they want you to hear. Hseth’s tell her the same.’

The god’s expression changed at mention of Hseth. His mouth turned down, his brow creased. ‘The fire god is beyond our ken,’ he said coolly.

‘The fire god has plans to invade every shrine, every home, every heart,’ said Inara.

‘To consume all hearths, to burn all ships unless they bear her plenty. Look at me and see if I lie.’ He should be able to tell by the surety in her colours, the lack of twists and changes, of deception.

Not all gods were good at telling lies, but certainty was easier.

‘Craier,’ Yusef repeated at last, as if testing the word, pacing now. There was a stirring of recognition. ‘Craier!’ He stopped in front of his own feet. ‘The records do show that I met with a Craier. To broker a treaty, that her commander later broke by raiding a Restish ship.’

All he knew was his own scripture, the lines his priest thought it best to preserve and teach him.

‘You spent many nights with her,’ said Skediceth.

‘You remember this?’

Skedi fluttered his wings. ‘Yes,’ he lied, and no white lie it was either, but he had worked out that Yusef’s innocence might play in their favour. ‘This girl has a god’s power. It is a flattery to you, great lord, that she has such strength in her.’

Softly, softly, gentle lies and lovings. The god beamed, and in a glimmer of light and burst of smoke he ascended to the lap of his own statue and looked down at them. ‘You say my priests lie to me?’ he said, more curious than angry.

‘No,’ said Inara carefully. ‘I tell you they do not speak the whole truth.’

‘And what truth is that?’

‘That Hseth is a threat, and you should help Middren. Help my mother. Help me.’

He did not seem moved. Inara swallowed. She could see daylight creeping in outside the shrine. What if even now her mother was being taken by the Restish? What if they were already about to kill her?

‘If not for me,’ said Inara, trying not to panic, trying not to cry, ‘then … for an offering?’

At this, he perked up, tipping his handsome head on one side. He did have the look of a classic Restish man, in his human-like size. Other than his jewels, the only thing beyond human about him was the coldness in his eyes.

‘What will you give me?’ he asked. ‘I get a lot.’ He looked at Skedi. ‘Will you give me back my helper?’

Inara’s heart twisted. Slowly, carefully, she looked towards Skedi, who was still on his hind legs, standing enthralled by the god above him. His ears were up, his whiskers forward.

‘Skediceth is a god,’ she said at last. ‘He isn’t mine to give away.’

But Skedi turned to her. They both knew that was a lie.

The love she held for him could be an offering.

And Yusef could give Skedi everything he had wanted: powerful protector, freedom, purpose.

Haven. The great god beamed down at her hare, and she tried to draw in her colours so that he wouldn’t see her pain, her fear .

Inara, he said at last, the button she had given him gleaming on his antler. If you ask me to go with him, to save Kissen and your mother, I will. But … you are my home. I belong now with you.

Inara felt her chin tremble, her eyes burn. She looked at Yusef, who was staring at her and Skedi, unblinking. She had thought going to Yusef would solve all her problems, that finally there would be a god who would see that he should help them and have power enough to do it.

But the smallest god of roses in Lesscia had more generosity than this behemoth of faith would give to her. She needed to think of a better offering, an exchange. Something.

‘I will raise a shrine to you,’ said Inara.

Yusef did not look impressed.

‘Greater than this one, a temple. In Middren.’ She looked around this grand space. It was bigger than any shrine she had seen. ‘There are so few gods left in Middren, you will be the greatest.’

That piqued his interest. He considered it.

Inara, no , said Skedi. Don’t make such a promise to a god. Choose me instead.

I won’t. I don’t want to.

‘A shrine in a land that has abandoned gods,’ said Yusef. ‘How will this happen?’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said Skedi out loud. ‘I will … I will go with you.’

Yusef looked at him. ‘It is not enough,’ he said. ‘It is her sacrifice, not yours, if she wants something from me.’

Inara ground her teeth. She thought about what Kissen had told her, that gods were greedy. All they wanted was more: more faith, more power. They did not care for bonds of family, or friendship.

‘I will ensure it,’ she growled. She was glad he had already lost his desire for Skedi, the fickle-hearted bastard. ‘If I have to break the king myself, I will, and I can. I’ve done it before.’

‘You will raise me a shrine in a godless country,’ said Yusef.

‘You will bind yourself to this promise? On your flesh? It will connect you to me, the link unyielding.’ Now, he appeared more godlike, more serious.

He drifted down from his throne, coming closer to Inara.

‘I will curse you if you do not keep it, or find another god to break it. My reach is far, and I will condemn you to have no home, no hearth that doesn’t crack, no haven that doesn’t flood. ’

They would be bound, she and her father. Forever.

Kissen won’t like this, said Skedi, for the second time calling on Kissen as the arbiter of sense.

Kissen doesn’t have to.

Skedi put his ears down, flat on his back, but he nodded his support.

‘I swear to it,’ said Inara. ‘By choice or by force, you will have a shrine in Middren again if you save my mother, save the veiga, and see us and our Irisian allies safe to our land.’

Yusef’s eyes shone. ‘Then a boon ties us,’ he said, and grinned. ‘My first, now that I have risen.’

Inara felt … empty. She had come to find a father, but instead she had found a god, venal and self-serving. But she lifted her arm.

The sound of several running feet came from the courtyard. The caretaker had brought the other priests. ‘ No, great god! ’ cried someone in Restish. ‘ Do not— ’

‘Make me a boon, Father,’ she said.

The god raised his hand, and light came off him, deep-blue and silver, like winter sun on a still sea. It threaded towards her, wrapping around her wrist as three priests threw themselves towards the shrine entrance.

Too late.

The bowls of offering flared and bubbled, and Inara could feel it: the bind of another god’s will, Yusef’s will, embedding itself in her skin, her flesh, her soul.

A manacle, a chain, twisting in a script that was all shape and colour, like hills and waves, something between sea-script and stone-script, from a god of both land and sea.

It seemed that this would be the only thing she gained from all of her searching for her father.

Yusef shrank down, using too much power. In an impulsive swoop of greed, he had detangled himself from the desires of his priests and politics, and instead, forged a bond with a child he did not, would not recognise.

The priests had fallen to their knees just inside the shrine, gleaming with piety and awe, and bristling with anger that their god had done such a thing without them. Their records. Their say so.

Then, Yusef began to laugh.

He opened his arms and his flowing robes turned to streams as he dived forward. Skedi sprang up into Inara’s arms and the god of safe haven caught them both up, sweeping them out into the vivid sky.