“Okay, so they went to bed. And then what, they woke up the next day and the bridges were magically built?” I asked.
“Exactly. Of course, they all heard the ruckus throughout the night—stones crashing, the incessant moaning of the giants as they lifted each huge slab to place them on top of the others, the pounding of hammers in the silence of the twilight—and yet, the Dainians obeyed. In the morning they found twelve new bridges connecting them to the eastern bank. Until then, most of their city had been built along the western bank. They had barges loaded with materials sailing across the water, but progress was slow. Once the bridges were erected, the entire city bloomed, expanding into what we’re seeing today.”
“How do you know all this stuff?” Unending replied.
“I was here. I saw the giants working.” Anunit looked to the mountains. “They live up there, beneath the sharpest ridges. Sometimes, when the sun sets, you can see them moving ever so slightly, causing the occasional avalanche. They sleep through most of their existence. They don’t need much to survive, since they belong to the Earth Hermessi of Dain. The mountains used to be rich. Precious metals and rare gemstones at their core. There were forests that made them look like titanic emeralds… I’m not sure what happened. I wasn’t here for that particular episode.”
I stopped walking, gripping Anunit’s wrist. “Hold on. You keep talking about a god. Are the Dainians worshipping the Earth Hermessi?”
“Nah. They’re worshipping someone who’s not supposed to be here,” she replied, then resumed her walk, beckoning Unending and me to follow. But the more she spoke, the more curious I became.
“Someone who’s not supposed to be here? You’re talking in riddles,” Unending muttered.
“A long time ago, a strange man came to this land. He was immortal, and he knew magic the likes of which the Dainians had never seen,” Anunit said. “Naturally, they were in awe of him. They’d never witnessed such phenomena before. Their lives had been simple. The only thing they’d worshipped were the natural elements. As I mentioned before, that Da entity they basically named their realm after. But this guy showed up and poof! Everything changed.”
The city’s inner streets were narrow but surprisingly neat. The Dainians had put a lot of work into this impeccable symmetry. Every corner was straight. Every surface was smooth. There were workers cleaning the sidewalks, making sure nothing was out of place. Each leaf that fell ended up in their dustpans. I wondered how many hours a day they spent nitpicking at their city like this. Were the other settlements the same? They had to be. If a so-called god had raised the stone giants to build bridges, surely he would’ve done so for every city in this world. How would he have earned the worship of an entire population?
“Who was this immortal?” Unending asked. Anunit had her full attention. No surprise there, since immortality had always been the work of my beloved wife, and she’d been decommissioned long before this godlike man had come to Dain. “An Aeternae, perhaps?”
Anunit shook her head. “Oh, no, darling. They never made it to this far corner of the universe. No, this immortal is actually the subject of your second trial.”
The statement brought us to a sudden halt. “What?” I managed, my brain glitching slightly. This Reaper had a way of weaving stories and bouncing from one subject to another with such impressive speed that she was hard to follow at times.
“You have to kill him,” Anunit said. “You have to kill the Dainians’ god.”
“So, bringing us here isn’t just about the triple full moons,” Unending breathed. Her forehead smoothed as she understood the complexity and gravity of what would come next. I was stunned. We were being asked to kill someone, and it didn’t feel right. I worried what terrible demands she might make next.
“No. It’s an added bonus,” Anunit replied. “Listen, it’s simple. You’d be doing me and the Dainians a favor, believe it or not. This guy thinks he’s a god—or poses as a god, anyway—but he’s a freaking psychopath and deserves worse than the swift death I’m sure you’ll give him.”
“Whoa. Back up there for a second,” Unending said, raising her hands slowly. “I’m not killing anybody until you tell me exactly what this is about. We’re missing important information here.”
We’d stopped beneath an old tree—surprisingly, the Dainians had built their sidewalk around it, adding a decorative border to its patch of grassy dirt, each stone cube beautifully hand-painted with what I could only imagine were local ethnic motifs. The repeating patterns spoke a little bit about their culture. But the border could only distract me for so long as I tried to control my breathing. I gave Anunit an alarmed glare. “You need to explain yourself.”
“His name is Shezin. He’s Death’s former lover.”
That revelation paralyzed us both. Anunit noticed our astonishment. It didn’t surprise her. It only made her laugh, perhaps too hard and with too much delight, considering the circumstances.
“You weren’t the only one to fall for a mortal,” she told Unending. “Death loved someone, long before you were made, and she made him immortal. You’d think she’d have learned something from this experience before she made you. Turns out she didn’t. Now Shezin needs to die.”
The sudden dump of information that Anunit had bestowed upon us was mind-blowing. Naturally, it paved the way for more questions about the veracity of her statements and Death’s crappy habit of keeping secrets. Clearly, we were still peeling away at the true Death, and I had a feeling that Anunit, as suspicious and incomprehensible as she could sometimes be, was pretty much the only one who could help us get to the whole truth.
Unending gave me a brief glance. There were no words between us, only blood-curdling shock as we tried to adjust to this new reality. Death had taken a lover once, much like Unending. She’d made him immortal, much like Unending. However, unlike Unending’s beloved, Death’s was still walking and talking, apparently worshipped as a god on Dain. And I’d thought things couldn’t get any crazier.
Tristan
We left the plaza behind and moved north through the city. I had to tilt my head back to look up at the Dainians—their appearance never ceased to amaze me. The existence of stone giants was equally fascinating, though it did sort of remind me of Calliope’s Dearghs. They were creatures of fire and stone, lava flowing through them with the force of life, while the stone giants of Dain were creatures of slumber and stone who only rose once, summoned by this Shezin fellow.
Death’s former lover.
I still had trouble wrapping my head around this one. The hypocrisy was too much to bear. It made my blood boil, and I wasn’t accustomed to living with this much anger inside me. Death’s past had come back, not only to prove she was just as flawed as the rest of us, but also to bite her in the ass because I was pretty sure this entire situation was just the kind of ammo Unending needed to discredit Death in front of every single Reaper out there—or at least it gave her the option.
The North had taller buildings with rounded towers and wooden stables, polished taverns, and open courtyards filled with flowers and trimmed bushes. There were shutters on every window, just like there had been when the bridges were built. The river rushed nearby, its crystalline waters licking at the rocky banks below the cobbled promenades. The smell of roasted vegetables and spiced pies lingered in the air. Glasses clinked in the tavern across the street from us, raucous laughter pouring out onto the street. These people seemed happy and prosperous.