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10
I sleep so deeply that when I hear the banging, at first I think it’s in my dreams. That the a
Something pounds at the walls again, and the torches are flickering and sputtering on their last legs, the room dim. I look around and Aron is out of his bed, hands on his hips and staring at the statue and chest I put in front of one portion of the wall. As I watch, it shakes.
I gasp, jumping to my feet. That’s the secret door. “Someone’s trying to come in.”
Aron gestures at the door, a
“No,” I breathe, rushing to his side. God, the man is still naked. What the hell is wrong with him? “Are you high? Think—why are they trying to beat the door down in the middle of the night? A secret door?”
He frowns, his perfect features creasing. It’s clear he has no answer.
“Aron, this isn’t good. Please, we need to reinforce the door. Better yet, we need to get out of here.” I tug on his arm, ignoring the shock that jolts through me at the touch and hoping that my frightened expression tells him how serious this is. My heart’s hammering with fear and I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared—not even when I landed in this strange place.
The doors shake again, and it sounds like they’ve got a battering ram of some kind. I suck in a breath and look to Aron. “What do we do?”
The god looks around the room and then his gaze lands on the gigantic, ornamental axe on the wall over the bed. It’s mounted to a wood plaque that’s just as fussy and ornamental as the axe itself, but that doesn’t stop Aron. He climbs the bed with quick, agile grace and pulls the axe from the wall—kind of. More like he pulls the entire thing, plaque and all, down. He frowns as he holds the axe by the handle and shakes it, as if he can dislodge the wood from the axehead, and upon closer inspection, the entire thing seems fake. I don’t even think the blades are sharp. When the secret door splinters, though, he just hefts the entire thing to his shoulder and goes to stand in the center of the room.
I wring my hands. “What should I do?”
He points to the far wall. “Stay out of my way.”
“Right. I can do that.” I race over to the far side of the room, dumping the uneaten food on the floor and clutching the tray to my chest as a shield. I hate that there’s nothing useful weapon-wise in this room, but maybe that’s deliberate. It’s also a big stinking hint that the prelate’s up to no good.
The door falls apart and two of the armored soldiers step in, swords in hand. Behind them are four more, and then a familiar face—the pear-shaped meathead of my old owner.
Sinon. That bastard.
“My Lord of Storms,” he says, bringing his dagger to his brow and tapping it there in a strange sort of salute. “You are not yourself. Forgive me for what I am about to do.”
I suck in a breath. I was right. This is an assassination. I thought this jerk was pious, but it seems that when he has to choose between the prelate and Aron, he’s picking the prelate.
“I forgive nothing,” Aron says in a cold voice, lifting the axe from his shoulder and swinging it slowly, testing the unbalanced heft of it. “That is another god entirely.”
My owner nods. “Men,” he says, lowering his dagger. “Get her.”
Wait, what? Get me?
I let out a terrified squeak as the men try to rush past Aron and move to me. With a roar of outrage, Aron swings the axe—plaque and all—over his head as if it weighs nothing. It moves in a wide circle and then slams into one of the soldiers, knocking him into his buddy. Just like that, two men are down.
Of course, the other four are still coming for me. Frantic, I race across the room, heading for Aron’s bed. One of the men tries to grab me and ends up snatching the end of my skirt, and then the fabric rips from my body, knocking me off balance. I slam into the bed, face first.
Somewhere above me, there’s a furious roar. Weapons clang and the bed shakes. I roll onto my back, scooting backward even as Aron wades into the men attacking me, swinging the decorative axe like the world’s biggest club. His eyes blaze with unholy light and thunder rages above like it’s his own personal battle soundtrack. One man is flung aside with such force that he slams into the opposite wall, cracking the stone. Another flies over Aron’s head and soars through the air, landing with a crunch. As another reaches for me, sword in hand, the gigantic decorative battleaxe swings over Aron’s head and whirls through the air, then smashes into him, knocking him flat before he can reach me.
It’s both poetic and brutal how quickly and efficiently Aron works his way through the men. I watch one go down and another pick himself up, flinging his weight at Aron with a cry. The god smiles, baring his teeth, and it’s almost like he’s enjoying this little assassination attempt.
Something wrenches my head backward and hot pain shoots through my scalp. I scream, clutching at my hair, and find that someone else’s hand is there. My owner. His face looms over mine and he brings the dagger closer to my throat.
In the space between one breath and the next, something big and shiny launches through the air. He’s knocked backward and my hair feels as if it’s ripping out of my scalp. I nearly black out at the intense pain, moaning. I cringe, waiting for the knife to cut my throat, but there’s nothing.
After a moment, I sit up, clutching at my burning scalp. Aron stands, shoulders heaving, his pale skin gleaming with sweat. His hands are empty and covered in red spatters, and as I get to my feet, I see that the men on the floor are scattered and lying in pools of blood. I turn and see my old owner, the knife flung to the floor near his hand. His other still has a handful of my blonde hair in his fingers. There’s a big sloppy mess where his face used to be, thanks to the gigantic axe that’s even now sliding off of his front.
And Aron just smiles, happy for the first time since I’ve met him.
I feel sick. “Well,” I manage faintly. “This is a bad time to say I told you so, but…I told you so.”
“This makes no sense.”
“No shit.” I rub my head, wanting to cry with the pain of it, but crying won’t do any good. Aron’s not exactly the most sympathetic of audiences.
“This is my temple. These are my people. They worship me. Why would they try to kill me?” Aron’s pale brows furrow and his scar seems that much darker against his skin. “Are they mad?”
“Or they know something we don’t. Also, spoiler, it wasn’t you they came after. It was me.” I jab a thumb into my chest. “So you want to tell me the reason behind that?”
He stares at me for a long moment and I expect one of his snippy comebacks. But then he just shakes his head. “I do not know. I understand none of this.”
I press a trembling hand to my forehead and find it wet with blood. God. I just want to cry. Cry and then race to the nearest clinic where they can stitch me up and give me something to calm my nerves before I have a nervous breakdown. Someone sent a murder squad for me. Not the god I’m serving.
Me.
And he’s no help in the slightest because he doesn’t know anything. I can’t blame him for that, but at the same time, I feel helpless in the face of everything that’s happening. “Do you believe me when I say we can’t stay here?” I ask him again. “Because someone’s going to come looking for these men. And while you’re a badass with that axe, if they send twice as many after us next time, you might not be able to stop them before they kill me.”
I wait for him to say something shitty about how it doesn’t matter if I die because he’s the important one, but he only gazes at me thoughtfully and then nods. “Where should we go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this place. I told you, I’m not from here.”
“Then let us go to your land.”
“I wish we could, believe me.” I rub my bare arms, covered in goosebumps. “As for where we should go, we’ll figure it out on the road. Maybe other temples aren’t full of assholes. Maybe we can find a nice i
“I didn’t sleep,” Aron says absently. “I still couldn’t.”
“We’ll add that to our growing list of problems,” I tell him, trying to keep the crankiness out of my voice. I’m scared, tired, and hurting. Of course, that’s been the norm ever since I arrived here, so it shouldn’t freak me out as bad as it has. But someone just tried to murder me tonight. Me, not the god who showed up uninvited.
There’s something about this whole “anchor” thing that no one’s telling me, I suspect, and I don’t trust the prelate or anyone else in this stupid temple to give us the right answers. For now, we have to leave and go somewhere where they might help us, and it’s not here.
“Grab some shoes and some clothes, Aron,” I tell the god as I kneel beside my old owner and begin to search his pockets. I find a pouch with a few coins in it attached to his belt and a holstered dagger, and grab them both. Then, I decide to take his belt because his seems way handier than mine. Actually, they all have better clothes than I do. I glance around at the dead bodies. It’s awful to think of stripping the dead, but me in slave gear is going to draw attention to us, and it’s freaking cold and has no pockets. I check the next body, but his tunic is covered in gore. There has to be one that isn’t completely gross.
“What are you doing?” Aron asks, his tone imperious once more. “Robbing the dead?”
“No, I’m robbing the assholes that tried to murder us.” I glance up at him even as I slide a few more coins into my pouch. “Or how far do you think we’re going to get without money in this city? In any city?”
He frowns at me, crossing his arms over his chest. “I am a god. I have no need of coin.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong on both counts,” I tell him, and move to the next body. Success. This guy’s neck looks like it was broken instead of blood everywhere. Yay. I grab one arm and then try to push him onto his stomach. “Help me with this.”
Aron reaches over and helps me turn the guy. A moment later, I’ve got his long, red cloak freed and I’m working on dragging his tunic over his limp body.
“What do you mean, I am wrong?” Aron asks. “That I am not a god?”
“You know you are. I know you are. But to be honest, it’s better for everyone if no one else thinks you are. I mean, what if these people have been ‘Anticipating’ your return so they can murder you and take your place? How do we know that’s not the trick?”
He’s silent.