Someone called for rope. Serymn shouted not to bother with rope, just kill him damn it—
—and around and around and—
“Lady Oree?” Dateh, his voice rough and puzzled.
—and around and around, feverishly, sweat from my forehead dripping down to smear the blackness, blood from my scraped knuckles, too, forming a circle as deep and dark as a hole into nowhere, cold and silent and terrible and Empty. And somewhere in that emptiness, blue-green and bright, warm and gentle and irreverent—
“Dearest gods, stop her! Stop her!”
I knew the texture of his soul. I knew the sound of him, like chimes. I knew that he owed Dateh and the New Lights a debt of pain and blood, and I wanted that debt repaid with all my heart.
Beneath my fingers and my eyes, the hole appeared, its edges ragged where bits of the charcoal had broken off with the force of my grinding. I shouted into it, “Madding!”
And he came.
What burst from the hole was light, a scintillating blue-green mass of it that roiled like a thundercloud. After an instant, it shivered and became the shape I knew better—a man formed of living, impossibly moving aquamarine. For a moment, he hovered where the cloud had been, turning slowly, perhaps disoriented by the Empty’s deprivations. But I felt rage wash the room the instant he spied Dateh and Serymn and the others, and I heard his chimes rise to a harsh, brassy jangle of dire intent.
Dateh was shouting over the guards’ panicked cries, demanding something. I saw a faint flicker from his direction, almost drowned out by Madding’s blaze. Madding uttered a wordless, inhuman roar that shook the whole House, and shot forward—
—then jerked back, tumbling to the floor as something struck him. I waited for him to rise, angrier. Mortals could annoy gods but never stop them. To my surprise, however, Madding gasped, the light of his facets dimming abruptly. He did not get up.
Faintly, through shock, I heard Shiny cry out, in something that sounded much like anguish.
I should not have been afraid. Yet fear soured my mouth as I scrambled to my feet, stepping onto my own drawing in my haste to reach him. It was just inert charcoal now. I tripped over the rug again, righted myself, fell over a chair that lay across the floor, and finally crawled. I reached Madding, who lay on his side, and pulled him onto his back.
There was no light in his belly. The rest of him shone as usual, though dimmer than I’d ever seen, but that part of him I could not see at all. He clutched at it, and I followed his hands to find the smooth, hard substance of his body broken by something long and thin, made of wood, that jutted up. A crossbow bolt. I grasped its shaft in both hands and yanked it free. Madding cried out, arching—and the blotch of nothingness at his middle spread farther.
I could see the arrow’s tip. Dateh’s arrowhead—the one made from my blood. There wasn’t much left; I touched it and found that it had the consistency of soft chalk, crumbling with just the pressure of my fingers.
All at once, Madding guttered like a candle flame, his jewel facets becoming dull mortal flesh and tangled hair. But I still couldn’t see part of him. I felt for his belly and found blood and a deep puncture. It wasn’t healing.
My blood. In him. Working through his body like poison, snuffing out his magic as it went along.
No. Not just his magic.
I threw aside the arrow and touched his face, my fingers shaking. “Mad? I… I don’t know, this doesn’t make sense, it’s my blood, but…”
Madding drew in a harsh breath and coughed. Blood—godsblood, which should’ve shone with its own light—covered his lips, but it was dark, obscuring the parts of him that I could see. Those were fading from view, too. The arrow was killing him.
No. He was a god. They did not die.
Except Role had, and Enefa had, and—
Madding choked, swallowed, focused on me. It made no sense that he laughed, but he did. “Always knew you were special, Oree,” he said. “A demon! A legend. Gods. Always knew… something.” He shook his head. I could barely see for his dimness and my tears. “And here I thought I’d have to watch you die.”
“No. I… I won’t. This isn’t. No.” I shook my head, babbling. Madding caught my hand, his own slick and hot with blood.
“Don’t let him use you, Oree.” He lifted his head to make sure I heard him. I could barely see his face, though I could feel it, hot and fevered. “They never understood… too quick to judge. You aren’t just a weapon.” He shuddered, his head falling back, his eyes drifting shut. “I would have loved you… until…”
He vanished. I could feel him beneath my hands still, but he was not there.
“Don’t hide from me,” I said. My voice was soft and did not carry, but he should have heard me. Should have obeyed.
Hands seized me, dragged me to my feet. I dangled limply between them, trying to will it: I want to see you.
“You forced my hand, Lady Oree.” Dateh. He came over, visible for once; he had used magic during the struggle. He was rubbing his throat, his face bruised and bloody. Someone had torn part of his robes. He looked thoroughly furious.
I hated that I could see him and not Madding.
“A doorway into my Empty.” He laughed once, without humor, then grimaced, as this hurt his bruised throat. “Amazing. Did you plan this, you and your nameless companion? I should have known better than to trust a woman who would give her body to one of them.” He spat downward, perhaps at Madding’s corpse.
not Madding there’s nothing there that isn’t him
Then he turned and snarled at one of the guards to come over. “Bring your sword,” he added.
I prayed then. I had no idea if Shiny could hear me, or if he cared. I didn’t care. Bright Father, please let this man kill me.
“Must you?” asked Serymn, her voice edged with distaste. “She might still be turned to our cause.”
“It must be done within moments of death. I don’t intend to let this mess go to waste.” He reached over to take something from the guard. I waited, feeling nothing as Dateh turned a look on me that was as cold as the wind in the Tree’s highest branches.
“When Bright Itempas killed Enefa,” he said, “He also tore her body open and took from it a piece of flesh that contained all her power. Had He not done so, the universe would’ve ended. Killing the Nightlord runs the same risk, so I’ve spent years researching where the seat of a god’s soul lies when they incarnate themselves in flesh.”
He lifted the sword then, two-handed, so fast that for an instant I saw six arms instead of two, and three sets of teeth bared in effort.
There was the hollow whoosh of cloven air. I felt a stirring of wind against my face. But the impact, when it came, was not in my body, though I heard the wet chuff as it struck flesh.
I frowned, horror struggling up through the numbness in my mind. Madding.
Dateh tossed the sword aside, gestured at another man to help. They bent. The smell of godsblood rose around me, thick and cloying, familiar, as flat and wrong here as it had been in the alley where I’d found Role. I heard… gods. Sounds I would expect in one of the infinite hells. Meat tearing. Bone and gristle cracking apart.
Then Dateh rose. His hand had gone dark, holding something; his robes were splattered and intermittent, too. He gazed at the thing in his hand with a look that I could not interpret, not without the touch of fingers, but I guessed. Revulsion, some, and resignation. But also eagerness. Lust worthy of a god.
When he lifted Madding’s heart to his lips and bit down—