Page 52 of Beyond the Shadowed Earth
Eda felt shaken and raw, seized by a strange frantic certainty. She would go to Halda. She would find Tuer. And she would make him answer for everything he’d done to her.
She changed quickly into the trousers and shirt she’d pulled from the clothesline and went out into the night, leaving her discarded gown to gather dust with the ruined statue of the god.
“But how are you supposed to kill a god?” Eda asked. She’d crawled up into her parents’ bed to be with them, because they were all sick with the same crippling fever and she could no longer bear to stay in her room alone.
Her mother was asleep, her brow drenched with sweat. Her father was awake, his dark eyes glassy.
“What’s that, my love?” His voice sounded horribly far away.
“The third way to appease a god you’ve made a deal with,” Eda explained. “How are you supposed to do it? The gods are immortal.” She’d been puzzling over this question the last few nights; she needed the answer.
A cough wracked her father’s whole body,and flecks of blood clung to the stubble on his chin. He stroked Eda’s hair with trembling fingers. “A god can be killed with the right weapon.” He broke off into another fit of coughing. “Something as old as he is. Something just as powerful.”
Eda clutched at the buttons on her father’s brocade dressing gown. “But the only things as old as the gods are the Stars and theImmortal Tree, and they’re lost and gone forever.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, little one.” He caressed her cheek. “The stories say there used to be weapons like that, but I don’t know what became of them. You should look in the scrolls in the temple. Perhaps there are answers in there.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow,” said Eda, suddenly feeling very tired.
But she didn’t, because the next day she was so ill she couldn’t move, and the day after that, and the day after that. And then she recovered, but her parents did not, and she was dragged off to the capital.
She forgot all about the scrolls in the temple, even when she made her deal with Tuer.
She forgot all about ancient weapons forged to kill the gods.
She didn’t think she’d ever need one.
Chapter Twenty-Two
EDA REACHED THE SEAPORT JUST BEFORE DAWN, the sky brightening from black to gray to silver, for one fleeting moment the same color as the sea.
A steamer waited at the dock, its huge smokestacks and dark iron hull dwarfing the more traditional sailing ships. Eda was shocked at how ugly it was. She couldn’t help but think of that day, not so long ago, when she’d tried to persuade her Barons that the steamers were the future.
She’d never meantherfuture.
But it would be the fastest way to get to Halda.
Eda shouldered her way through the chaos on the docks. Seagulls shrieked and sailors swore at each other, struggling to haul cargo on and off ships. At the end of the quay stood a squat stone building with a sign over the door that readSTEWARD’S OFFICE. Eda ducked inside, a bell chiming overhead. The interior was lit by a single lantern, the ceiling low. Sea charts were plastered all over the dingy walls, with a fanciful depiction of the sea god Aigir framed in the center. He was surrounded by his daughters, the Billow Maidens, and an ancient Star blazed brightly from his finger.
The whole place stank of fish.
An Enduenan man wearing a blue sash and matching sailor’s cap looked out at her over a worn wooden counter at the back of the chamber. “Can I help you?”
“I’d like to buy passage on the steamer to Halda. When does it sail?”
The sailor eyed Eda doubtfully. “This morning, but it’ll cost a pretty penny.”
Eda tore the gold wrist cuff from her arm and slapped it on the counter. “I’ll need my own room, with meals.”
“Gods’ eyeballs, who do you think you are? The Empress?”
Eda’s fingers twitched for the dagger at her waist that wasn’t there. “Is it enough or not?” It had to be—Eda had the Emperor’s ring as well, but it was far too distinctive to use for currency here—any Enduenan would recognize it. She’d braided it into her hair in the holding cell, saving it to exchange for money in Halda.
The sailor considered, running his fingers over the cuff. He took it, securing it somewhere behind the counter, then drew out a pen and ink and a blank paper ticket from a drawer. He printed the number 302 on the ticket, and glanced up again. “Name?”
For half a moment, Eda didn’t know what to say. She swallowed back a demand for him to use her title, hating the sinking feeling that accompanied the recollection that she was now nobody. “Niren,” she said quietly. “Niren Erris-Dahril.”
The instant the name left her lips Eda wished she would have said something,anythingelse.
