A Twist of the Blade (Shadows and Crowns Book 2) Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by S.M. Gaither

  Cover Art by Amalia Chitulescu

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter One

  Something nearby was dying.

  If he could have pushed the feel of its death from his mind, he would have. But even in his fallen form, he was all too aware of the ebb and flow of life’s energy, of the fleeting nature of existence in this world. The old cliche the humans used had some truth to it: So many lives truly did hang by a thread. A winding, thin, easily-frayed and easily broken thread.

  They were threads that he had been far more intimately connected to, once upon a time.

  But no longer.

  Because he was no longer the god of Death.

  He was not Kerse. It had been so long since he had gone by that name that it did not feel right to even think of it. That name had been bestowed by the humans who worshipped him, anyway; his true name was far older and more complicated than that—which only made his actual identity feel that much farther away from him.

  Who was he, really?

  The most recent moniker he’d had was a human one— Elander. He had been answering to it for decades now. It was as good as any, he supposed. Names by themselves meant nothing to him. He had been given dozens during his existence. He likely had dozens more ahead of him…

  If that existence continued.

  Of course, this was a rather large ‘if’ that loomed over him as he walked the edges of the domain that he had occasionally called home.

  Oblivion. This was what humans called this domain. Another questionable name. A single word, an attempt to press meaning onto this dark and magic-drenched place that defied logic. They were obsessed with bestowing simple words onto dangerous and difficult things, he’d noticed. A human would have called the white spikes rising around him trees. They would have called the twisting grey clumps of thorns bushes. They would have overlooked the way these things had no roots, and the fact that they did not actually grow.

  How could they grow?

  There were no nutrients in the soil here. There was no water. The sunlight did not penetrate the thick canopy of poisonous clouds above him.

  He spotted the dying creature he’d sensed, huddled next to a cluster of those grey thorns—a rabbit. It was rare to see a living creature this deep in the darkness of Oblivion; normally the airs of this place brought annihilation within minutes to anyone and anything that didn’t serve the god of Death.

  This tiny, trembling ball of fur was apparently stronger than it looked.

  “Impressively stubborn,” Elander mused.

  But it would not matter in the end.

  Because death always won in the end.

  Once upon a time, the Death magic Elander controlled had been unrivaled, even by the magic of the other middle-gods. He had bowed to no one and nothing aside from the three upper-gods that had created the very world he now stood in. And even then, it was only one of those three that he consistently submitted to—the Rook god. Anga, the humans called him, though his true name was Malaphar.

  It was Malaphar who had chosen Elander as his servant. Malaphar who had given him that Death magic. And it was Malaphar who had now taken all but the most rudimentary parts of Elander’s power, and who had threatened to take much more.

  And that higher power, Elander suddenly realized, was here.

  He sensed Malaphar’s presence like a breath shuddering over him, a cool breeze that caused the skin along the back of his neck to prickle. A very human-like response, those rising bumps, and he hated this reminder of the weak body he had been relegated to.

  He turned away from the dying rabbit. Waited. Watched Malaphar moving as a shadow amongst the bleak landscape.

  That upper-god did not fully materialize. He could have taken a solid form here if he’d so desired; the Kethran Empire that bordered Oblivion was growing devastatingly bereft of the magical energies that sustained the divine beings, but Oblivion itself was still filled with that energy. Specifically, with the energy given off by Death magic—otherwise known as Bone magic. A godhaven, the human scholars called Oblivion. And so it was. In this refuge, Elander was stronger than perhaps anywhere else in the mortal realm. Staying here these past few days had almost made him feel immortal again.

  Almost.

  Malaphar kept to those shadows. He didn’t need to take on a solid form. The twisting shades of him were powerful enough as they moved through the air, spiraling closer to Elander and making the world darker and heavier as he came. As he descended fully over his servant, everything, everything turned to blackness, to emptiness, and then a voice slithered through Elander’s mind—

  (Why does she still live?)

  Elander shook off the cold sinking into him and steadied his voice. “Because the poisonous airs of Oblivion do not effect her for some reason.”

  (Does your sword not effect her either, Servant?)

  There was no safe answer to this. But silence was just as dangerous, so Elander quickly and calmly recited the plan he had only halfway finished forming: “She might be the key to killing her brother. I believe her magic protects him, and she may be the only one that can undo that magic. So I’ve spared her for the time being, and I will continue to do so until she is no longer of use to me. To us.”

  (Have you forgotten the cost of the last life you spared?)

  The darkness somehow managed to deepen further with Malaphar’s irritation. The air shivered with that same irritation, and the cold was becoming unbearable— even for a fallen god who had once been able to summon such coldness himself.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Elander said.

  Silence.

  Then, little by little, the blackness began to lighten. The cold lessened. Forms reemerged from the darkness—the sharp-tipped trees; the cracked ground; the small rabbit, whose breaths had slowed so much they hardly moved its sunken-in sides.

  The Rook god had risen into the phantom shape of a man, though he was taller than any human that had ever walked any empire, and he had only glowing orbs of red where his eyes should have been.

  His voice boomed more loudly in Elander’s head. (She cannot be spared in the end.)

  Elander started to agree. He should have agreed.

  And yet.

  And yet, there was something that prevented him from doing so. A thought that he couldn’t seem to shake. It was dangerous. Foolish. But he could not stop himself from saying it: “She is not the same as her brother. She has divine magic. She could be an ally in the end
if we—”

  (She is no ally of mine. And so she is no ally of yours.)

  How could he know for sure?

  Elander frowned. But he managed to hold his tongue this time, even though he had the sense, as he so often did when in the presence of this god he was bound to, that he was not receiving the entire story.

  Silence. More terrible silence. It seemed like it might last forever, until finally the upper-god said, (They will both die. Varen first. Then the queen who would take his place.)

  The queen. The word still sent fresh chills over Elander’s skin. That woman—that maddening mess of a woman that he had decided to save and carry into Oblivion for some idiotic reason—was the true queen of the kingdom of Melech, the only kingdom still properly standing in what had once been the vast and powerful Kethran Empire. She was the oldest surviving member of the Solasen bloodline. Her family had made a bargain with this upper-god who stood before him, decades ago. In exchange for power, they would restore the divine magic in Kethra, grow it to levels not seen in centuries, and thus add to the energy that the gods fed upon. It should have been a mutually beneficial partnership.

  But once the Solasen king had received the Rook god’s blessing, protection, and power, he had done the opposite of what he’d sworn to do.

  And the Rook god was not the type to forgive dealbreakers.

  Which meant that woman with Solasen blood had to die. Her brother had to die. Their kingdom and the empire over which it ruled had to die as punishment, and as a warning to others—

  And those deaths needed to be at least partially by Elander’s hand, if he wanted any hope of winning Malaphar’s favor back.

  That favor would restore Elander’s magic, his immortality, his divine status and everything that came with it. The alternative would be one of two things: A swift annihilation, or an eternity spent wandering the mortal world, fully stripped of his powers, alone with the memories of his mistakes and with no way to atone for them.

  He wasn’t certain which would be worse.

  (I chose you because you are uniquely suited to my needs,) Malaphar reminded him.

  Elander did not need this reminder. He knew the details of the bargain his master had made, and the particular part of that bargain that had proven to be the Rook god’s downfall: That the Solasen king and any of his blood would have an unnaturally long life, a life that the gods themselves could not touch.

  Elander was no longer a god. And he was not as powerful as he had once been, but he had been powerful enough to kill that king. So now only his children remained, protected by the mysterious power that the older Solasen sibling possessed.

  (But I am resourceful,) the Rook god continued. (I can find another beast to do my bidding if need be. Do I make myself clear?)

  “Yes.”

  (I have been gracious to allow you this chance, even after you betrayed me and disappointed me, haven’t I?)

  “Yes.”

  (I could have destroyed you after that betrayal. You are expendable.)

  It was not a question, but the Rook god still tilted his phantom head to the side and slowly blinked his fiery gaze, clearly awaiting an answer.

  Elander paused. It was dangerous to do so, but for a rebellious fraction of a moment, he didn’t care.

  But that moment soon passed, and the word rolled thickly off his tongue: “Yes.”

  The world flickered, moonlight bright one instant, dark as a deep cave the next, then back to brightness. A breeze rose with a howl, settled, and the Rook god was gone as suddenly as he’d arrived.

  Elander reached a hand toward the small rabbit. It stared up at him with glassy brown eyes that slowly fluttered shut.

  With a twist of his wrist, his magic put the creature out of its misery.

  As Elander rounded the corner and stepped into the large, circular room at the base of the eastern tower, a gruff voice greeted him: “Your lovely guest is acting up again.”

  Elander tilted his head toward the man sitting by the fire in the center of the room.

  But no; man wasn’t quite the right word, was it? Like Elander himself, this being was not a human. The skin glistening in the light of the flames had an ashen tint to it, and his eyes were wild, rimmed in a golden-red shade that did not belong to this mortal world. He was not a fallen middle-god like Elander, but a lesser-spirit. The Blood spirit Talos, to be specific— though Caden was the human name he’d elected to use during this decades-long misadventure they had found themselves on.

  “What happened?” Elander asked. He assumed Caden was going to tell him either way; he might as well get the conversation over with.

  “I did as you requested. I checked on her. I brought her water.”

  “And?”

  “And she threw the entire pitcher of it at my head. And no, I didn’t stay to clean up the mess.”

  Elander found himself fighting off a wry smile. Not fighting it off well enough, apparently, judging by the scowl that overtook Caden’s face.

  “She’s a menace,” Caden informed him.

  “Yes,” Elander agreed, more fondly than he’d meant to—which did nothing to erase the irritation from Caden’s face.

  “Why is she still alive?”

  “The question of the day, apparently.”

  Caden gave him a curious look.

  “Because everyone is asking it,” Elander clarified, settling down into a chair in front of the fire.

  It wasn’t any more a proper fire than Caden was a proper human; it gave off no heat, very little light, and the pale flames never went out on their own.

  Those flames could be collected into the black stone they had originated from, and then carried and reignited by way of a simple spell. But it was a spell for Sight, not for light or warmth, because this portable pit of fire had been a gift to Elander from the middle-goddess of Stars. Cepheid, the humans called her; she had grown so fond of the name that she had stopped using her true one.

  That Star goddess had a gift for divination, and so too did the people and things blessed by her magic.

  But this particular Star-blessed gift was not meant for mortal eyes, and so the flames had been keeping their secrets from Elander for decades now—ever since he’d fallen from his divine state.

  He still vividly remembered the last vision he’d seen in Cepheid’s Fire: A black bird swooping down from a stormy purple sky, claws reaching toward a sword stuck in the ground. The bird had seemed oblivious to that storm above him. And to a blazing sun beyond the clouds, which soon folded in on itself and left the world in darkness.

  Elander didn’t like to think about these images.

  And yet he couldn’t help setting the spell ablaze. The flickering grey light revealed no visions, but it was still a small comfort as it danced across his body, illuminating the dark patterns that emerged on his skin whenever he came to Oblivion. The fire was a beacon of sorts, a link to that divine existence he was trying to find his way back to.

  When he finally lifted his gaze away from those twisting flames, he saw that understanding had dawned, dark and distraught, across Caden’s face.

  “He was just nearby, wasn’t he?” Caden asked.

  Elander didn’t reply right away. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, chin propped on his hands.

  “I thought I sensed Him.” The tension in Caden’s voice was understandable; his fate was tied to Elander’s. Malaphar held the chains of the middle-gods he’d chosen to serve him, just as Elander held the chains of the lesser-spirits that served him. Such was the hierarchy of the divine in this world. There was no changing it—although centuries of time spent together had made Caden akin to something like a friend, rather than a mere servant.

  It was a friendship that had been sorely tested by the events of the past few decades.

  And yet it held, like a tree with deep roots, bending with the storm, and eventually that tense irritation in Caden’s expression gave way to concern. “I assume He wasn’t thrilled with you.”

  “He
hasn’t been for some time now,” Elander replied.

  “But that woman…”

  “Is potentially the final strike, no doubt.”

  He shouldn’t have saved her from Varen’s army. They both knew it. But to his credit, Caden didn’t bother to say this out loud. Not this time. He only nodded and wandered away from the fire, toward the sealed doorways that lined the far wall. Six doors in all. Each one shaped and formed with magic that allowed them to travel from Oblivion to the respective godhavens of other deities.

  Caden tapped each door as he passed it, touching the symbols that told them where each of those passageways led to. Eventually, he paused in front of a mark that resembled jagged fangs made of sparkling ice. The symbol of the middle-goddess of Winter.

  “She’s a menace,” Caden repeated, quieter now. “And she’s not going to last much longer in Oblivion, either way. She looked terrible. Whatever she is, whatever power she possesses, it isn’t protecting her well enough to make her completely immune to the magic here, I don’t believe. She can’t survive indefinitely—especially if she keeps stubbornly refusing to eat or drink anything we offer her.”

  Elander let his gaze fall back to the fire. He hoped the dim light it gave off reflected brightly enough to obscure any trace of concern that might have been hiding in his eyes.

  He shouldn’t have been concerned about that woman.

  He should have been concerned about himself. About the loyal ones who served him. About appeasing the Rook god they all ultimately served. He could not erase what he had done, but there was still a chance he could regain his full powers. And then, perhaps, he could find what he’d lost…

  “So we could just leave her locked up,” Caden suggested, somewhat halfheartedly. “Let her stay in there until she wastes away, since she seems determined to do as much.”