Page 1 of Mischief Maker

Chapter One

Kireth

F ootsteps.

I jolt awake to the sound of crunching leaves and twigs as someone passes through my forest. It’s likely an innocent human is simply searching for wood to chop or game to hunt. Many years have passed since anyone disturbed me, and then it was only a young boy picking berries.

Immortality has been boring these last few centuries. In the old days, gods like me were everywhere. We ruled the world and kept mortals in their place, occasionally deigning to help them because they made such wonderful playthings. We needed humanity to worship us to continue on.

Then, slowly, the mortals began to change—building new tools and discovering new ways of living that didn’t include us. Eventually they stopped believing in magic. In the old ways. In us .

Without anyone to worship us, we faded into memory, which for many of the greater immortals gave way to oblivion. The bigger the god, the harder they fall, as they say.

Now I, on the other hand, am a minor immortal. I have one temple, built deep in the forest, that has long been overgrown by twining vines and thick undergrowth. It is where I rest, possibly for all of eternity.

So, like I said, a relatively tedious life.

I’ve grown accustomed to the idleness, to watching the world pass by.

Weeks and months are nothing to me, barely a shiver, the years mere blinks.

A decade is a soft breath. Perhaps someday I, too, will fade into oblivion, once the last mortals who remember me are gone.

Imagine my surprise when a small hand tears at the vines and greenery that’s grown all around my temple, disguising it like part of the forest. One by one, the branches are torn away, revealing crumbling stone underneath.

I’m fully awake now, curious about who has discovered me and is now seeking me out.

My visitor is a young woman, dressed in a simple dress that looks like it’s seen much better days. Her brown hair is scattered and dirty, her hazel eyes determined as she frantically tears off the last remaining brush, freeing my temple from the clutches of the forest at long last.

How does she know I’m here when so many others have forgotten me? And what does she plan to do?

I wait with burning curiosity as she studies the runes carved into the stone. Her mouth moves but no sound comes out, as if she is testing out the words.

Surely she can’t be here to summon me. It has been hundreds of years since anyone uttered my name and spoke the words to call on me. I was sure that everyone had forgotten how.

And then I hear her voice. It is like a new harp, a simple but beautiful song falling from its fresh, soft strings.

“I beseech you, O Lord,” she intones. Some of her dirty brown hair falls over her face, and she pushes it back behind her ear. She wavers, as if unsure this is the right path to follow.

If I were currently corporeal, I would be leaning forward, listening carefully. As it is, I am hovering on the edge of my physical form, waiting for the words that will manifest me.

She can’t mean to bring me out, can she? If she does, there will be chains around my hands, circling my feet, binding me to her will. I will be a slave again, existing only to do another’s bidding.

Why, then, am I excited for it? Perhaps it’s that I miss the fresh air, or that I have not felt the sun’s rays on my bare skin in so many centuries.

“I come to you on my knees,” the young woman says, and it is true—she kneels before my temple, her hands clenched in the moss that has grown thick around the base. “As you once promised us...”

She pauses, thinking hard. It’s been so long, I’m certain no one still knows the words. This is where she’ll falter, where she’ll fail, and I will remain entombed here.

“As you once promised us, please grant me your aid, and I will be your supplicant.”

The words tickle my very essence. Truly, the time has come.

But what does this mortal being want with me?

“O Lord, who goes by the name of...”

Once more she trails off, and I wonder if she’s changed her mind. All she needs is one more word, and I’ll be set free again.

Set free only to be shackled.

“Kireth.”

Faela

Perhaps it was foolish of me to make the journey all this way when I could be back home doing chores, when I could still be desperately trying to keep up with everything—and failing.

That’s all I am now: a failure, unable to care for the one thing my mother left me. The farm my parents founded, that they labored over while I was young. The farm that was left to my mother and me after Father passed away. The farm that no one in the world but me even cares about.

I say the final word—the god’s name—and wait.

And wait.

This is a ridiculous errand. I knew it wouldn’t work, knew the old gods were a legend. If they ever existed at all, they are long gone now, lost to time.

But my mother still believed in them before she died, so I decided to gamble. Now look what mess I’ve made, leaving the farm behind to travel all this way to Kireth’s temple, and nothing will come of it. I’ve wasted my time. I hope that the sheep and cows are all right in my absence.

I listen and wait, hoping. The leaves whisper in a light breeze, but there is no other sound here in the deep woods.

That’s it, then. This was a mistake. I rise to my feet and turn around, heading back down the path that will return me to where I left my horse, Rye.

“Going so soon?”

It’s a young man’s voice. I turn around and there he stands, leaning against the side of his temple casually, one arm draped over a corner. The look on his face is as if he’s the one who’s been waiting for me all this time.

His skin is gray, like stone. He has not one, but two sets of horns—shorter ones in the front that wind upward, and longer ones in the back that curl over his head, reminding me of a ram. He has pointed ears and just as pointed claws at the tips of his fingers.

Behind him, a long tail with a spade tip flicks back and forth.

I don’t answer at first because I don’t really believe he’s here.

Kireth. A minor god in his own right, known to the valley people as a “demon.” He is standing right there, watching me, and wearing little more than a loincloth around his waist. Every one of his muscles is lithe and defined, as if disguising a great power hidden inside him.

“You had words just a moment ago,” he says with a chuckle, leaning back on the temple. “When you summoned me.”

Right. I have to remember why I’m here. It’s worked, that much is clear. Honestly, though, I’d never really thought past that. Maybe I hadn’t actually believed summoning him would work, and I came here because I needed an excuse to escape my dying harvest and disintegrating paddocks.

“Sorry,” I say. I can’t take my eyes off of him. His tail makes curlicues in the air as it dances, as if trying to entrance me, and he’s dragging his claws up and down the stone impatiently.

This is why I’m here, of course. To summon Kireth and put him to work. But now that he’s standing in front of me, I’m tongue-tied.

“I did call you.” I clear my throat as I squeeze the words out. “I need your help.”

He sighs. “Yes, of course you do. That’s the only reason anyone ever calls me.” Then he taps his chin thoughtfully. “Though you’re the first mortal I’ve seen here in hundreds of years.”

I’m not surprised. Mother and I, like her parents before her, live in the far-off mountains.

It took me most of the day to get here, to Kireth’s woods, and I’ll probably get home just as the sun comes up.

We’ve kept to our ways there, separate from the valley people, who believe in different gods and more modern things.

That’s why Mother is dead, after all. There was no one in the village who could help her, and she couldn’t make the journey to the valley while the darkness consumed her body.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest,” I tell him. What else do you say to an immortal being? I am nothing compared to him.

Kireth’s eyebrows rise high on his forehead. Then he grins a wide, mischievous grin, and hops down from the temple like it’s meant nothing to him this whole time.

“Are you?” he asks, tucking his hands behind his back. “You’re sorry to have awoken an ancient, immortal being so that he may help you?”

A stone falls into my belly. That is what I’ve done, isn’t it? I’ve called upon a god because of my own impotence, my own faults. What right do I have to make him work for me, to fix what I’ve broken?

But then I steady myself. No. I came here and made this journey because I need Kireth. I can’t survive much longer without him, and neither will my sheep or my horse or my dog.

“Yes,” I say, ducking my head in a way that I hope comes across as polite. “I truly am sorry, but I can’t do this alone.”

There’s no reply. When I venture to open one eye and look up at him, the trickster god is bent forward, studying me carefully. His big smile is gone and now his face gives away nothing.

“Who are you?” he asks, tilting his head. His tail flicks again, more insistently this time.

“Me?” I fumble with my words, his penetrating gaze making me clumsy and nervous. “I’m Faela.”

Kireth’s grin returns abruptly. He’s as mercurial as my mother always told me.

“Faela.” His tongue savors my name, and my eyes are drawn to his lips and tongue.

Somehow it’s sensual, the way he says it.

“A poor girl, all alone, seeking the help of a forgotten myth. A demon. An immortal.” He walks around me, surveying me, and I stay rooted to the spot.

Under his loincloth, his legs are wonderfully shapely, each muscle clearly defined.

“And what is it I’ll be helping you with, sad girl? ”

I swallow. This is where I admit my failure.

“Bring my farm back from the brink of death.” I keep my gaze on the forest floor. I can’t look him in the eyes as I tell him my ugly truth. “Fix what I’ve not been able to fix. Plant crops, rejuvenate the soil, help me bring a bountiful harvest so I can survive the winter.”

I keep my gaze down while Kireth does another circle, clicking his tongue thoughtfully, that tail whipping back and forth behind him.

“You’ve let it go to ruin, have you?” His voice is light, carefree, and not at all accusatory.

“Yes.” I don’t even try to deny it. I’m only here because of my incompetence.

Kireth stops abruptly in front of me, and a clawed finger reaches under my chin. He lifts my head up so I’m looking right into his bright red eyes, and his touch, while strange, is gentle and delicate.

“Why is a sad young woman like you doing all this on her own?” he asks, voice quieter. He’s watching me curiously, the way a boy might study an interesting bug he’s found on the ground.

“My mother died. She left all of it to me, but I’m a terrible caretaker.”

His hand releases me, and I can’t help rubbing my chin where his hot skin met mine. There’s a pensive look on Kireth’s face.

“You’ll have to be a little more specific than ‘fix it for me,’” he says. “But you’re the one who summoned me, so you know that already, don’t you?”

Right. I’ll assign him tasks to do and hope he does them right, like Mother told me once upon a time. Then, once his tasks have been completed, he will vanish and return to his temple to serve someone else.

I can only pray that I’ll have him long enough to repair the farm, and he won’t cause too much trouble in the meantime.

“Yes, I know.” I wring my hands. “How many tasks?”

“One hundred. That’s all you get, and then I’m free of you.” He sticks one pointed finger in my face. “And you can’t summon me again in your mortal lifetime. Those are the rules.”

I get one shot at this, one chance to make things right again. Maybe once I’ve used all my tasks, I can keep up with maintenance from there. I have to hope.

“Go on, then,” Kireth says, shooing me with one hand. “Let us get started.”

As I walk back to my horse, he follows close behind.

“I’m sorry I don’t have another horse,” I say, getting up onto Rye’s back. “You can ride with me, though.”

Kireth just laughs at that, and it’s a somewhat menacing sound.

“No need. I will enjoy stretching my legs again after so much time asleep.” He pulls down a tree branch and inhales the scent of the leaves. “At least the woods still smell like woods.” Then he looks at me with a smirk. “And humans still smell like humans.”

“What do we smell like?” I ask as we begin walking.

“Like stupidity,” he says with another bright laugh, bounding on ahead of me down the path, and I wonder if I’ve made the right decision in bringing him back from his immortal sleep.