Home > Temple of Sand (The Gods of Men #2)(4)

Temple of Sand (The Gods of Men #2)(4)
Author: Barbara Kloss

“Tallyn…” Survak dropped to his knees and shoved a motionless Tallyn onto his back. Tallyn still breathed, but barely, and a nasty cut deformed the good side of his face—so deep, Tallyn’s cheekbone shone white beneath. Survak had never grown accustomed to Tallyn’s scars, and Maker’s Mercy if the old Liagé didn’t look like a demon just then.

Paz and Rikk arrived. Rikk sucked air through his teeth.

“The hells happened to him?” Paz asked.

“Help me carry him,” Survak said.

Paz and Rikk exchanged an apprehensive glance.

“Hurry,” Survak urged. “Before someone sees.”

Survak, Paz, and Rikk hoisted Tallyn between them, half dragging and half carrying him onto The Lady.

“In there.” Survak nodded toward his captain’s quarters. They crossed the deck, Survak kicked the door open, and together, they lay Tallyn upon Survak’s small cot.

The moment Tallyn’s head touched the pillow, he bolted upright. Paz jumped, startled, and hit his head against the hanging lantern. The lantern slipped from its hook, hit the ground with a splintering crash, and the flame sputtered out, plunging them into darkness.

Suddenly, a strange white-blue light appeared. It burned like a miniature sun, hovering above Tallyn’s curled palm, while he sat rigid, eye pure black and teeth bared.

All three of them froze.

Survak held up placating hands. “Tallyn…it’s me…”

Tallyn did not seem to hear him.

“Tallyn.”

Tallyn blinked. His gaze settled on Survak, focused a second later, and then his attention drifted to the others. He pushed the light into the lantern upon Survak’s nightstand, blue morphed into quiet orange flame, and then he sagged back, closed his eye, and loosed a slow exhale.

Survak exchanged a glance with his men. “Water,” he whispered to Paz. “And probably some akavit.”

He always kept akavit on hand. It was a dangerous habit, but one Survak found difficult to break.

The cabin door creaked as Paz left.

“Keep an eye on the docks,” Survak said to Rikk, who ducked out after Paz.

Survak swept the shattered glass into a neat pile, and then stood over the bed, eyeing Tallyn. “I thought you were dead.”

He hadn’t heard a single word from Tallyn after he’d transported the Istraan and her wolf prince across the Hiddensee over a month ago. He had, however, heard about Tallyn’s fight with Ventus and the silent at Riverwood, but in the silence that’d followed, Survak assumed Tallyn had died. Clearly he had not, but the wound on his face was recent.

Tallyn’s chest rose and fell with labored breath. “Tül Bahn…”

Survak frowned.

“I tried to…” Tallyn strained, his teeth clenched in pain. “Two got away.”

Survak stilled. Tallyn had tried to kill the rest of the silent, now that Ventus was dead. “The hell were you thinking?” Survak hissed.

Tallyn only winced in response.

Survak cursed and raked a hand through his cropped hair. Those two remaining silent would come looking for Tallyn. “Tallyn, I’m sorry, but I can’t keep you. I won’t risk my crew—”

“We have to go back.”

Tallyn was not talking about The Wilds anymore.

Survak went very still. He sensed it—a storm brooding upon the horizon, eating up the sea as it drew nearer. That storm had never left, but always waited just beyond his sight.

Now it was here. The inevitable winds and rain and thunder of the past, coming back to claim him and drag him under.

Tallyn’s good eye opened, and the pale blue fixed on Survak. “It is time to go home.”

Old fire burned in Survak’s heart. “You know I’d never make it into Felheim’s harbor.”

“I can help with that.” A pause. “I think you’ll find this Angevin quite…different than his father.”

Survak didn’t agree. All Angevins were the same: cunning, greedy, vicious.

Still, that pale eye stared.

“Find another rutting ship.” Survak started for the door.

“You knew this day would come,” Tallyn said at his back. “You sensed it the moment I brought you his wolf.”

Survak stopped, eyelids squeezed tight, and his chest constricted with old pain—pain still so near to the surface, even after all these years.

“He needs you,” Tallyn said, softly but firmly. “It is time to go home, Captain Vestibor.”

Survak’s hand curled into a fist. “I don’t have a home anymore.” Survak exited the cabin and slammed the door shut behind him.

 

 

Imari lay on her side, wide awake. It was their last night in the Majutén desert. Tomorrow, they would reach Trier, Istraa’s capital. Tomorrow, she would return home for the first time in ten years and face all of the uncertainties and fears that had kept her awake these past two weeks.

But that wasn’t what kept her awake tonight.

It was the nightmare. Whenever her consciousness would drift, she’d be rudely awoken by the pain of branches tearing into her flesh, and the hopelessness and rage of that dark abyss. That terrible voice rumbling through her, more vibration than sound: You are mine.

Imari rolled onto her back and gazed at the big Majutén sky, where thousands of stars dusted the infinite black. In them, she traced the shapes of Nián, goddess of fate, and Sareddi, Istraa’s warrior god. Similar to Corinth, Istraa worshipped many gods, but Istraans also worshipped the sieta—sainted men and women who had existed in the flesh, who had done such good during their time in this world, they’d ascended to godhood.

Sieta Estara had always been a particular favorite of Sura Anja, Imari’s step mama. Sieta Estara had died a martyr, protecting her children from a “wicked” Liagé enchantress who meant to enslave them, and that act of love had rebounded and destroyed the enchantress. Sura Anja had insisted that Vana, little Imari’s kunari, tell Imari the story at least once a week.

Little Imari had never liked Vana’s stories very much.

Imari had not seen these constellations in years; The Wilds’ massive pines and surrounding mountains had always blocked them from view. She found other shapes too as she slowly oriented herself in a sky that had once been so familiar, and then her gaze slid farther south until—without meaning to—it rested upon Asiam’s star-flecked hand.

To Istraa, Asiam was simply the head of their many gods, but to the people of Sol Velor, he was everything. The Sol Velor worshipped only one—a god they called Asorai.

The Maker, who cradled all of creation in his generous palm.

Imari gazed at that cluster of stars in his hand. Asiam. Asorai. She’d never spared the semantics much thought before. As far as she’d been concerned, all gods were the same—ideas fabricated by mankind and used to control weaker men. Tools to justify others’ suffering while taking privilege for themselves and their few chosen. Imari had hated them all, and what they had represented. But now…

She did not know what to believe.

She couldn’t deny a higher power, for there had been another presence that night in Skyhold—one who had spoken to her directly and lent her supernatural strength to overcome the impossible. And when she closed her eyes, when the world was quiet, like now, she felt him near. A presence that persisted in the stillness, a constant that followed her every step like some silent champion.

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