Page 51 of The Merciless Ones

Gar Nasim. I force myself to smile back at him. Of course.

Gar Nasim is the island Mother always wanted to visit, a wondrous place hidden so deeply in the ocean between Otera and the Unknown Lands, it’s taken on mythical status.

Of course, Father would imagine her there. Of course, he would imagine Mother alive.

A sob chokes me, but Father’s eyes turn blindly towards that crack in the wall again, as if seeking a light only he can see. “I think I see her now,” he whispers. “I think she’s coming for me.”

His hand lifts weakly, a small greeting to a person who exists only to him now. “Don’t walk so fast, Umu,” he says with a smile. “I’m coming, my love. I’m coming…”

Another breath rattles his chest, and then, silence.

Just like that, Father is gone.

It’s silent afterwards. Empty. As if all the air has gone out of the shelter and left only the darkness and the shadows behind. Mother’s necklace feels heavy in my hand, so I slip it into my pocket. Then I close Father’s eyes and place my cloak over his body.

And I just sit there.

Time passes – exactly how long, I’m not sure. I have no understanding of how the minutes flow, how the seconds waft past. All I know is that it’s night now, and everything is still. Peaceful. It’s as if the world has stopped and it’ll never start moving again. And I don’t want it to move. I just want to sit here in this silence and let the darkness take me where it wants.

I’m barely aware of the tears streaming down my cheeks, barely aware of a weakened Ixa curling around my neck in kitten form, of Britta tugging at me.

“—eka, we have to g—”

Everything is in pieces now. Light, sound, movement – everything. Silver flashes at the corners of the fortress, and Britta desperately points at it: a gigantic iron hook is prising open the walls of the fortress, but I don’t care. I don’t care if the walls come crashing down, if Elder Kadiri dies or doesn’t die, if the world burns around us. I want to sit here in silence and be still. Just for once, I want to be still.

“I told you she’d never leave him.”

Elfriede’s triumphant voice accompanies the sudden crumbling of the fortress’s walls, and when I look up, it’s to find her standing in the alley just behind the fallen stone, Elder Kadiri at her side. An entire contingent of jatu accompanies the two, more pouring in from the square beyond. Ixa growls, his body bristling at them.

Strangely, the Forsworn are nowhere to be seen. The purple-and-gold deathshrieks have all somehow disappeared, replaced by these jatu, who are now wearing death masks, ornate affairs usually made for corpses that are moulded after their owners’ features. The dullness inside me tinges with an ugly darkness at the sight of them. The village elders would have had one made for Father if he’d died back in Irfut. They would have buried him with a copy of the Infinite Wisdoms – given him at least some measure of ceremony to smooth his passage to the Afterlands. But he’ll have nothing of the sort here.

The reminder turns me even colder inside.

I put Ixa down, then rise, pick up my atikas, barely aware of Britta standing protectively in front of me, her war hammer in hand, even though she can barely lift it.

“Deka,” she begins worriedly, but I push past her.

I don’t need her protection any more.

“Another trap,” I say, my voice strangely distant as I look at Elder Kadiri. “Well done.”

Somehow, I’m not dismayed to have been caught by the priest, although I’m distantly curious as to why he replaced the Forsworn with all these jatu. I don’t dwell on the question, however. Another strange feeling is stirring somewhere deep inside me. Relief. Cold and stark. My father lies dead behind me, and in my hands are two atikas, while a contingent of men wearing death masks are lined up in front of me, all of their lives ripe for the plucking.

Considerate of them, to come so prepared. It’s almost as if they want me to massacre them.

Of course, I will oblige.

Deka? Ixa asks, but I shake my head.

No, Ixa, I reply. There’s no running this time.

Not now. Not ever again.

I ignore him and Britta as I walk towards Elder Kadiri and Elfriede, palming my atikas, savouring their weight. As expected, the pair both have the kaduth emblazoned across their robes, as do the jatu, only it’s on their breastplates, as always. Strangely, it doesn’t bother me any more. Nothing bothers me now. I am entirely cold. A creature of ice and snow.

“How long have you been planning all this?” I ask, more out of curiosity than anything else, as I reach them. Between the trap Elder Kadiri set at Zhúshan and this, it all seems very well thought out.

“Months,” the elder acknowledges. “I know how your goddesses work. More to the point, I know how that bitch Fatu conducts her dealings.”