Divined (7 page)

“Cearo is a peaceful city, Ixie. It makes sense their rulers would be peaceful as well.”

“Of course you like him,” Ixie huffed, shaking her head and cutting Clio a hard glare. “He’s perfect for you, isn’t he? He and his council aren’t the least bit concerned about what the Order is doing to people in the Empire. Just like you.”

“No,” Clio said through gritted teeth as she pushed herself up to lean weakly against the wall. She swayed for a moment, but the dizziness was good. Vazuil couldn’t enter her mind. “He called Daizon’s mark an ancient and evil curse.”

Ixie dropped the robe she was folding and turned to face Clio.

“I think he can help me, maybe. I don’t know if I trust him yet. But perhaps, eventually, if we find out he’s truly trustworthy, I can ask him if he knows how to break curses from the Deities.”

“You would try to break the connection with Vazuil?” Ixie asked, and Clio saw something spark in the girl’s eyes.

“Of course. I don’t want to be connected to the Deities in any way. And if I can get rid of him, then…”
 
Clio trailed off, not permitting herself to voice what she wanted more than anything, not willing to imagine a future without fear, where she and Riece could be together.

“I’ll start following him immediately.” Ixie jumped up, brighter than Clio had seen in days.

Clio smiled. “Would you hand me my bag?” She saw it hanging from a hook on the wall across the room.

Ixie’s grin faded. “You shouldn’t take more of the draught. You’re too weak.”

“I’m not taking it. Not until Vazuil makes me. Would you please just bring it to me? I promise, I’ll wait until I’m stronger.”

Ixie chewed her bottom lip but fetched the bag and held it out for Clio. Clio sat, bringing the bag onto her lap. It was mostly empty now. They’d gone through all the food, and without her cloak, all she had left was the decanter and what remained of Derik’s gold. She pulled the decanter out, removed the cork and swirled the dark, thick liquid, already feeling something was wrong.

“Ixie!” Clio looked up, heat filling her face. “What happened to the rest of it?” The decanter had been nearly full the last time she had taken a swallow, and only three fingers’ worth remained.

“It might have spilled,” Ixie said casually, her eyes flashing.

“Ixie…”

“I’m heading out to tail Ealis. Ashira should be up soon,” Ixie called over her shoulder, bolting toward the door before Clio could get to her feet again.

“How much longer can we stay in this inn?” Clio asked as Ashira changed her bandages the next morning.

“Derik’s gold should last a few more weeks, but we should be looking for work. Sorry,” Ashira added when Clio winced as the old bandages tugged on her tender wound.

“We can’t move until you’re able to take more than ten steps anyway,” Ixie said. She was dressing for the day. They’d purchased the heavier robes that seemed to be in fashion in Cearo, and Ixie was frowning at herself in the looking glass. “This looks ridiculous. It’s not even cold outside.”

Clio and Ashira exchanged a glance, holding back laughter. Ixie was always wearing light skirts, and she almost never had her stomach covered unless they were on the road. For her to be wearing heavy linen shrouding her toe to tip was akin to seeing Princess Zarae in something without color.

“You two have something you’d like to say to me?” Ixie turned on them with her hands on her hips.

“You look very nice today, Ixie” Clio said, unable to finish her sentence before a laugh burst through her lips.

“You are going to pay for that.” Ixie pushed up her sleeves and came toward them. “You know, the one advantage to all these layers—lots of room for weapons.” She stuck her hand in one of her pockets and pulled out a small blade, but then dropped it when she tripped on the hem of her robe. Ashira and Clio howled with laughter while Ixie tried to untangle herself on the floor.

Three quick knocks sounded on their door, and the girls fell silent. Clio nodded to Ashira while Ixie quickly stowed away the dagger in her robes, leaving her hand to hover over her pocket.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Ealis said when Ashira opened the door.

Clio let out her breath and smiled. “You’re interrupting nothing, Ealis. Please come in.”

“I was actually just dressing to come find you.” Ixie forced a grin.

“Were you?” Ealis sounded genuinely surprised and perhaps even amused.

“I thought you would be busy discussing important matters with the council, though. Imagine my surprise to find you, yet again, spending your morning visiting three unimportant girls.”

Clio shot Ixie a warning look, but Ealis laughed. His teeth were white in his face, and Clio found herself thinking he had a certain handsomeness to him, even though Ixie was right—it didn’t look like he could hold a sword or fight in a battle to save his life.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m meeting with the council later today. I just thought I would stop by and ask if there’s anything I could do for you.”

“Actually there is,” Clio said, tossing her blankets to the side and haltingly getting to her feet.

“There is?” Ixie asked, her eyes suspicious.

“Ixie, Ashira, why don’t you go fetch water from the well. I think it’s past time I bathe,” Clio suggested, not wanting Ixie to get too eager. Clio wasn’t ready to speak to him about the Deities, not until she was certain the Order had no eyes in Cearo, but she did think there was something he could help her with in the meantime. It just wasn’t something Ixie would approve of.

Ashira pulled Ixie from the room while Ixie cast a questioning glance back at Clio. Clio grinned and waved them on, then turned to Ealis.

He grinned kindly at her. “I must say, I didn’t think you would make such a fast recovery. I’ve had patients bedridden for weeks with injuries less severe than yours.”

Clio made sure to falter in her step. “Perhaps I’m less able than I’m willing to admit,” she said, allowing him to help her back into her bed.

“Still, your color is much improved. I know I’m an excellent healer, but even I can’t take credit for this. Now what was it you would ask of me?” He didn’t look at her with any suspicion. Instead, it seemed as if he truly were merely pleased with her progress. Of course, no one in Cearo would have any reason to suspect Clio of having any unnatural abilities. It’s not as if they had ever had an Oracle this far from the Empire.

“I was wondering if you knew much about mixing elixirs,” Clio began.

“I wouldn’t be much of a healer if I didn’t.”

“I know you are very busy, but…” She looked down, not wanting to press him too hard.

“What is it, Maia? I’m a servant to any and all in my city, and nothing would make me happier than to help you with whatever you need.”

Clio looked up at him, searching his dark eyes, but if he had an agenda, he gave no hint of it. Her bag sat beside the mat, and Clio leaned over to pull out the small decanter.

“A friend of mine back home made this for me,” she said, handing him the bottle, and folding her hands in her laps, hiding how they shook.

Ealis took out the stopper, smelled the contents and immediately recoiled. “Why do you have this?” His voice was low, and his knuckles whitened around the black bottle.

“I need it to sleep,” she answered, knowing he would see through it.

“You actually drink this? Maia, if you need something to help you sleep, I can give you several tonics that would be more beneficial than this.”

“I need this one.” She raised her chin, setting her features in firm determination.

“This is poison. Worse than poison. It’s used by cruel men to subdue slaves and torture enemies.” He swirled around the contents. “Whoever gave this to you is no friend, and I suggest you cease drinking it immediately. It’s a miracle you’re even still breathing. I will not help you with this.” He handed back the decanter and stood as if to leave without another word.

“Wait!” Clio called after him. “Ealis, please listen.” He stopped and turned back to her, but there was something hard in his expression. “You said that you knew something of curses.”

Confusion flickered across his face. He nodded.

“This draught, it’s the only way I know to fight a curse that was put on me by someone very powerful.”

“Tell me what the curse is. I will find a better way.”

“I’m sorry. I want to. But…”

“You do not trust me.”

“I hardly know you.”

He shook his head. “You should not trust the man who made this for you.”

“It works. It’s the only thing that works. Please, without it, I’m lost.”

His eyes softened, and he reached to take back the decanter. “I cannot make this for you not knowing why you need it. Even if I did know—this potion, it goes against several of my vows. I’m sorry, Maia, but I cannot do it.” He bowed stiffly and opened the heavy door. “When you feel you can trust me, I hope you will tell me about this curse. I want to help you, just not in this way.”

Clio nodded, her chest tight. “I understand. Thank you, Ealis.”

He left, and Clio felt panic well in her throat. The draught was her only weapon against Vazuil. Without it—

Clio.
His voice seared her blood. She reached for the decanter, but stopped before she could undo the cork. She needed to save this for the worst moments—the moments when another word could shatter her mind completely.

Clio, let’s not go there. You know what I can do to you. You saw your aunt recently. You think she was always like that? I can break you in an instant.

Something snapped deep inside her, and pain flooded through her veins. Clio screamed as she retched.

I
will
have you. Whether you submit willingly or I have to torture you until your mind leaks out of your ears and you can’t tell the difference between what’s around you and what’s inside you. I don’t care if you are spitting and raving when you come back to me. When you’ve forgotten your own name, I will make sure you remember mine. Give me what’s promised to me, give me a daughter, and all of this can end. I’ll let you die the moment she is born. You can be free. Just summon me, summon me now and open yourself to me and this can all be over—

She heard a crack before she realized what she was doing. Again. She thrust her head backward, driving it into the wall behind her until warm blood spilled down her neck and Vazuil’s voice faded behind the pain.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Days followed, one after the other, without any sign of Vazuil. Clio knew she’d scared him. He wouldn’t risk coming back to her so soon, not until he was really desperate, not while Clio’s skull was still bruised and fragile. She’d made her intentions more than clear—she’d die before she let him have what he wanted.

When her side healed and she could walk down the stairs on her own, Clio started going out into the city. Ashira was always at her side. Clio suspected Ixie had ordered the girl to never leave Clio alone, but Clio didn’t mind. Ashira was pleasant company. They would walk through the markets, seeking work from vendors who needed washing or cleaning done.

Cearo was unlike any city Clio had ever seen before. Everywhere they went, its great river was in sight. It cost more money than Clio had to cross, but often, she’d sit on the west bank and look over the slow waters, into the east district where the wealthy citizens of Cearo lived. It had surprised Clio, the first time she learned that the city’s temple was on the western side among the poor. The temple stood beside the river, and Clio would have walked right by it had Ashira not stopped her to point it out. It looked nothing like those back in the Empire. There was nothing ostentatious, nothing presuming about it. It was hardly larger than their inn. Its walls were a mixture of black clay and stone, and every day the sick and the poor lined up outside its doors, waiting for a white-clad man to let them in.

They weren’t priests. There were no priests in Cearo, Clio learned. Instead, all those who worked inside the temple were known as scholars or healers. In truth, the building itself wasn’t a temple in anything but name. The stories said once the building had been a place of worship, erected to a long-forgotten Deity, but as Cearo grew, more and more escaped slaves came from across the lands, bringing with them their own Deities and priests, and no single Deity rose above the others. Worship no longer took place inside the temple, moving instead to unorganized gatherings on the riverbanks. Clio would watch them sometimes, their low chanting and silent prayers as foreign to her as the tongues they spoke in.

From time to time Ealis would call on her. He remained polite despite what had passed between them, and Clio found herself looking forward to the mornings she knew he would come. Ixie, on the other hand, was less than pleased. She had quickly grown bored following him.

“He just sits inside the temple, rubbing oils on old men’s boils. I’m telling you, he isn’t hiding anything. He might be the single dullest man who ever lived. Please, don’t make me watch any more of it,” she had begged, ten days into their stay in Cearo.

Every day she asked Clio to speak to him about Vazuil and his curse, but Clio wasn’t ready. There was no way to speak about Vazuil without revealing what she was. And while Cearo seemed completely unconcerned with matters of the Empire, Clio knew the Emperor and the Order would have placed a high price on her head.

But in truth, Clio wasn’t eager to speak to Ealis about the curse, not while Vazuil was leaving her alone. Never before in her life had she ever been able to go about her day without considering the duties of the Oracle or the demands of the Deities, and for the first time, Clio was realizing what it could be like to be her own person. She ended her days with hands blistered not from the grip of a blade but from scrubbing floors in the market. And when she washed her robes at the end of the night, the water never ran red.

But every day, more and more weary travelers would come into the city, their clothes in tatters, their eyes red and swollen from crying. The Order was spreading. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, Clio found herself pulling out her leather armor or sharpening one of Ixie’s blades. She didn’t like the way her skin sang every time she brushed the dark obsidian. She didn’t like how she woke, itching to practice maneuvers with a staff. And especially, she didn’t like how in her quietest moments, Clio knew something was missing from this tranquil life.