darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,15

her back with a splash. Where she had touched Faran’s arm, the flesh looked hot and pink and shiny, like a new burn scar, and the bleeding had stopped, though a clear fluid was oozing out here and there.

Before I could examine it any closer, Ssithra hissed angrily and wrapped herself around her injured companion’s arm again. The Shade’s tone didn’t invite any further prodding. So, I checked Faran’s pulse quickly—thready but distinct—then turned my attention to Siri, who looked very nearly as wrung out as Faran. Her eyes were closed and she had her stump pressed tight against her forehead. The hand of smoke was gone.

“Siri, are you all right?”

“Not really, no, but I think I might be later . . . after I’ve had a bath or six. I had to touch him pretty deeply to do that, and it’s left me feeling unclean inside and out. That and like a troll just used me as a chew toy. Now, be quiet and let me meditate here in the rain for a little while. I need to put this aside, and the storm will help me wash my soul clean.”

I stood and walked to the nearer edge of the roof, leaving Siri in peace as I began a slow circuit of the building. I didn’t have to ask her who “him” was or why she felt unclean. She meant the buried god known as the Smoldering Flame. As I had once been bound to him, too, however briefly, I knew something of the sense of violation his presence brought with it. One of the two swords our goddess had forged for Siri was buried in his heart now and would remain there unless the god’s own magic burned it away over the next thousand years or so—it was the only way that we knew of to keep him safely in his grave.

The buried gods had once been almost inconceivably mighty sorcerers of the Others, or First as they called themselves. The Sylvani, Durkoth, Vesh’An, Asavi, and all their lesser known brethren. In the days before the birth of humanity they had grown in power to rival the gods themselves, and that had resulted in their downfall. The gods are jealous of their place, and they had gone to war to break the strength of the First.

It was a close-run thing, and ultimately, while the gods defeated those who had risen against them, they could not destroy them. So, the gods had entombed their enemies and created the Wall to bind the power of the First. Mostly, the buried ones remained in something like sleep, deep in their tombs, but now and then one would rise for a time and trouble the living.

The buried gods were enormously powerful still, and couldn’t be slain, though they were something less than alive. They were also incredibly alien in their thinking and desires, and being bound to one, as Siri was, meant sharing the dreams of a sleeping abomination. Much of the time she could push that awareness back and down, keep it in a sort of box of the mind, as we had been taught to deal with the guilts and horrors that our profession sometimes brought.

But here, for Faran’s sake, she had chosen to actively broaden and deepen her connection with the Smoldering Flame if only briefly. I shuddered at the thought. I had seen into his mind, and I do not think that I would have had the strength to do what Siri had just done. Once again, she had demonstrated the will and skill that had led her to supplant me as First Blade back in the days before the temple fell.

I was just passing the women for a second time, when I heard a faint splashing sound from the far edge of the roof. Even as I drew my swords, Kelos stepped out of shadow and waved to me. There was something hunched about his outline and it took me a moment to realize that he had a body slung over one shoulder. I raised an eyebrow as he came closer.

“Hand. We were close together when you gave the signal to make a break for it, so I brought him along. I’d have been here sooner, but I was on the Fallows side of things and had to get out that way when the building got blown over by the storm. We rode the wreckage down, which event turned out to be a good thing, as that