Dreams of Gods & Monsters

And the first answer that came to him was simple, as simple as what he had come here to do, as simple as his desires.

I am alive.

He remembered the moment—and it seemed very long ago but wasn’t—when he had lain on his back in the training theater at Cape Armasin, an ax—Liraz’s ax—embedded in the hardpan just inches from his cheek. He’d believed Karou was dead, and then and there, breathing hard and looking up at the stars, he had accepted life as a medium for action. Something to wield like a tool. One’s own life: an instrument for the shaping of the world.

And he remembered Karou’s plea from just the day before, when they were crushed into that tiny shower. “I don’t want you to be sorry,” she had said. “I want you to be… alive.”

She’d meant something more than life as a tool. Something about the way she’d said it, Akiva had known that, to her, in that moment, life was hunger.

And whatever his name, whatever his past or ancestry, Akiva wasalive, and he was hungry, too. For the dream, for peace, for the feel of Karou’s body pressed against his, for the home they might share, somehow, somewhere, and for the changes they would see—and cause—in Eretz for decades to come.

He was alive and intent on staying that way, so while his uncle taunted him, probing for a weak spot—it wasn’t enough to kill; he had to torment—Akiva heard what he said, but none of it touched him. It was like threatening darkness at the break of day.

“Today we break the curse,” said Jael. “Today, at last, you die.”

Akiva shook his head. Passingly he wondered if he should be pretending weakness he didn’t feel. In Joram’s bath, these gruesome hand “trophies” had given the Dominion the advantage they needed to subdue Akiva, Hazael, and Liraz. Tonight things were different. No rush of weakness assaulted him. He experienced only a sensation of awareness in the new scar at the back of his neck as his own magic met it and turned it aside. He remembered the feeling of Karou’s fingertips tracing the mark, so lightly, when he had shown it to her, and he remembered the press of her palm against his heart, no magic screaming into his blood, and no sickness, only what the touch itself intended.

He was aware of her flickering glamour and her struggle with the thing Razgut. He wanted to surge toward her, smash the bloated purpled face and free her, even twist off that vile stringy arm if he had to. And he wanted to back the creature into a corner and fire questions at him, too. Fallen.What did it mean? He’d had the chance to ask him once before and had thrown it away, and now wasn’t the time, either. He knew Karou could manage the creature.

His own true adversary stood before him. “Not today,” Akiva told Jael. The first words he’d spoken since coming into this room. “No one dies today.”

Jael’s laugh was as nasty as ever. “Nephew, look around. Whatever you meant by creeping to my bedside in the night”—and here he diverted his attention for the first time from Akiva to glance at Karou, and an appreciative light came on in his eyes—“and I expect that it is notthe more pleasant of several possible explanations.…” He paused. Smiled. “I would expect it to run counter to my own intentions.”

He was enjoying himself. This was an echo of the Tower of Conquest for him, too, so much so that he was failing to notice the critical difference: Akiva wasn’t trembling under his assault of magic. “It does,” Akiva acknowledged. “Though I doubt it’s what you expect.”

“What?” Mockery. Hand to his chest. “You mean you haven’tcome to kill me?”

He spoke it like a good joke. Why else, indeed, would they have come? Akiva’s reply was mild. “No. We haven’t. We’ve come to ask you to leave. Leave just as you came, with no blood spilled, and carrying nothing from this world back with you. Go home. All of you. That’s all.”

“Oh, that’s all, is it?” More laughter, spit flying. “You make demands?”

“It was a request. But I am prepared to demand.”

Jael’s eyes narrowed, and Akiva saw the mockery transform first to incredulity and then to suspicion. Did he begin to sense that something was wrong? “Can you count, bastard?” Jael was trying to hold on to his mockery. He wanted this to be fu

“Numbers do matter,” Akiva conceded, thinking of shadows chased by fire, and the tangled darkness of the ambush in the Adelphas. “But other factors sometimes turn the tide.”

He didn’t wait for Jael to ask what those other factors might be. Only a fool would ask—what could the answer be, but a demonstration?—and Jael was not a fool. So before the monstrous emperor could command his soldiers to strike first, Akiva spoke. “Did you think,” he asked, “that you could ever surprise me again?”

After that came one word only. It was a name, in fact, though Jael wouldn’t know it. And for an instant, his brow furrowed with confusion.

An instant only. Then the tide turned.

61

SUPERPOWERS WILLY-NILLY

“Now, let’s not be hasty,” said Mik, holding one of the saucer-broad wishes in his hand. “What exactly isa samurai, really? Do you think that’s something we should know before we wish it?”

“Good point.” Zuzana held a matching wish on her own palm. It dwarfed it, and weighed even more than it looked like it should. “It might turn us both into Japanese men.” She squinted at him. “Would you still love me if I were a Japanese man?”

“Of course,” said Mik, without missing a beat. “However, as cool a word as samuraiis, I don’t think it’s what we really mean. We just want to be able to kick ass, right?”

“Well, definitely don’t phrase it thatway. We’d probably just become highly skilled at kicking people in the ass. Don’t turn your back on them,” she intoned. “They never miss.”

Wording was important when it came to wishing. Fairy tales could tell you that, even if Karou herself hadn’t, plenty of times. Zuzana had wished on scuppies before, but she’d never held a true wish in her hand, and the weight of it cowed her. What if she messed up? This was a gavriel. A mess-up could be severe.

Wait. Back up. This was a gavriel.

Of which there were fourin Mik’s violin case.

The case sat at Zuzana’s feet now. She was still in awe of Mik, swiping the mother lode of wish stashes right out from under Evil Esther’s nose. The sweetness.Had she noticed yet? How frenzied was she? And did revenge even count if you didn’t get to see your enemy’s anguish?

It definitely counted as one of Mik’s tasks, anyway, though they were in disagreement as to which. Zuzana said it was the third and last, because she was still counting his getting the air conditioner working back in Ouarzazate. He said that didn’t count—not by a million miles, because it had been in his own self-interest, so that he could pounce on her—and he still had one task to go. Zuzana could only argue up to a point before it would begin to seem like she was begging him to just propose marriage already, so she let him have it his way. Besides, their hands were a little full right now: the sky still ominously empty, and her phone silent to match. They didn’t know what they could or should attempt. With flight and fighting skills, could they help? What could they do that Akiva, Virko, and Karou couldn’t? Zuzana didn’t suppose you could wish for battle experience and strategic good sense. Could you?