The Eye of God (The Fall of Erelith) (6 page)

Once again dipping his head, Blaise drew a deep breath and tried to will the throb in his skull out of existence. When that failed, he sighed. “I should’ve been more cautious when examining the collar. All of the fault, of course, is with me, Your Imperial Majesty.”

The Emperor looked away, staring down at the sands below. The portcullis off to one side opened with a grind of metal on stone. Whispers rippled through the crowd.

Blaise swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. Led by a guard and flanked by three soldiers, a group of children stepped onto the sands. Pale faces and wide eyes took in the Citizens crammed together to watch them die.

The stench of their fear hung heavy in the air.

“The highlight of our day soon begins,” the Emperor said. Blaise risked glancing at the man.

For the first time since Blaise had been herded to the Imperial Observatory after waking up dazed, confused, and with a pounding head, the Emperor smiled.

The temptation to claw the man’s grin from his face kept Blaise quiet. Anger kept him still and poised, ready to strike with claws a human couldn’t hope to have.

The crowd quieted, and most within the Imperial Observatory leaned against the gold railing for a better view of the children below. From the other side of the pit, a group of men clad in nothing more than ribbons and loin cloths stalked across the sands, taking up their weapons to slaughter the children.

Blaise closed his eyes and focused on the pain in his head to control the urges surging within him. The desire to lash out was the strongest, and it took all of his will for him to keep still.

A cheer thundered through the arena and Blaise opened his eyes. All was calm and still on the sands. The crowd quieted once more, and the silence smothered, thick with the anticipation of those lusting for the surge of divine power accompanying death. He doubted the humans were even aware of what lured them to the arena or their addiction to the presence of the divine.

The shrill cry of a frightened animal on the fringe of death rang out, torn from a young throat. Blaise didn’t catch more than a glimpse of the child before the first stone struck. The second felled the child, and the third heralded a gray rain that pounded the sands from those in the first tier.

Blaise whispered the prayer for the dead and the perfume of the Garden tickled his nose. Over the body, the shimmer of the Gate flickered before vanishing.

“There’s always at least one,” the Emperor said, laughing. “Look there, Bishop, don’t you think she’s a lively one?”

The man’s purple-gloved hand gestured to the remaining children.

Praying for the patience which Blaise’s long experience dealing with mortals still hadn’t granted him, he stared down at the sands. The Emperor’s elbow jabbed him in the ribs. The human let out a lusty laugh. Blaise bowed his head to hide his eyes behind a curtain of his hair.

It’d take more than meat and Genevieve’s touch to erase the loathing boiling within him. It’d take more than blood to satiate his rage that burned in his chest.

When Blaise could move without risk of succumbing to his desire to devour the soul of the man at his side, he watched the girl who had made this mistake of capturing the Emperor’s attention.

She held her staff high, and her blue eyes gleamed in the sunlight. Blaise wondered if the humans next to him could make out the vibrant color, but he doubted it. Bruises in the shape of fingers marred her creamy skin, and when she turned, the brand of a pleasure slave showed through the rags she wore. At her side, the dark-haired boy with the unmarked collar stood still and quiet, a short sword held in his hand. The boy stared at the approaching men with a frown.

An ancient, tired quality dulled the slave’s pale eyes. Sucking in a breath, Blaise leaned against the rail and squinted, calling on his true sight.

The boy’s eyes were the true green eyes of the Daughter, not the darker emerald or hazel touched with green that some mortals possessed. Anguish dissolved Blaise’s anger.

The weight of a miserable existence dulled the color. For a brief moment, Blaise wanted nothing more than to devour those who had hurt the child and dared to enslave someone with Aurora’s eyes.

“You seem intrigued. Most curious for a devout man such as yourself,” the Emperor said.

The man to Blaise’s left snickered. A clearing of the Emperor’s throat silenced those around them and the laughter died away under a faked cough. Blaise glanced at the Citizen on his left out of the corner of his eye. The man’s violet doublet almost matched the Emperor’s, barely light enough to avoid being the color reserved for the ruler of the Erelith Empire.

Blaise curled his lip up in what he hoped passed for a smile and didn’t bother to acknowledge the Citizen to his left before turning to bow his head to the Emperor yet again. “The boy and his collar intrigue me, Your Imperial Majesty, though the girl, as you so wisely observed, is fascinating as well.”

“Ah, yes. That collar. I suppose it would catch your interest. I’ve a few of them I give to my most trusted to do with as they please. I’m sure I’ll find out who lost their slave when they come calling for it,” the Emperor replied with a faint frown. “Do watch that girl. She’ll prove most entertaining.”

Blaise sighed. The gong sounded, worsening the ache in his head. With weapons lifted high, the convicts prowled toward their prey.

The girl’s leap brought her to the first of the men, and she brought her staff down with a crack. Letting out a whoop, the Emperor surged to his feet. The crowd followed his lead and their cheers shook the stone. A few green cloths fluttered among the thousands of red. The girl danced back out of the convict’s reaching, and she glared over at the green-eyed boy.

With mouths opened in war cries that Blaise couldn’t hear over the crowd, the convicts charged. Their fury twisted their scarred faces, and Blaise braced himself for the slaughter.

The spray of blood heralded the opening of the Gates, the pearly curtain of light unnoticed by the mortals that surrounded him. It hovered over the corpse, and he squinted.

Instead of one of the children, a convict lay on the sands. The green-eyed slave pulled his short blade free of the man’s throat, stepped over the corpse, and jumped forward.

Blaise whispered the prayer for the dead and wondered what God thought of the men who dared to lift a hand against one born with Aurora’s eyes.

The convicts turned their attention to the boy and swarmed him. A second man fell, gutted with a strike so swift that Blaise missed the blow because he’d blinked.

The Emperor let out an appreciative whistled echoed by the man to Blaise’s left.

The silence of held breath gripped the spectators, and the hope some children would survive tore at Blaise’s heart. He wanted to look away, at anywhere other than the blood-stained sands, but he couldn’t tear his gaze from the boy who danced on the sands despite his worn and bruised body.

In the child’s hands, death became beauty and the Gates opened wide for those who fell to him, as though God reached out to the mortal world in hopes of reclaiming one of His children, but settling for those slain at the hands of the boy born with Aurora’s eyes.

“A hundred prisms Catsu will win,” the Emperor announced in a voice just loud enough for all in the Imperial Observatory to hear. “Any takers?”

The number surprised Blaise. Most Citizens lived their entire lives without acquiring even half as many of the prized crystals. He kept his expression neutral and stared down at the sands.

“I’ll take you up on that,” someone said from behind him. “But, a hundred on the boy, but he won’t take the contest.”

“Agreed. What about you, Bishop?”

Blaise didn’t look away from the slave facing off against two men bigger and stronger, both holding weapons with a longer reach. Without any sign of fear, the boy ducked beneath their guard.

The first fell, cut from groin to chest. When the second lunged, the slave rolled behind his prey and ran him through from behind. The crowd screamed, and the drumming of their feet on the stone matched the throb in Blaise’s head.

“I’m a pious man, Your Imperial Majesty, but one would like to hope that the young would have a chance to prove their worth in the days to come.”

The Emperor clapped him on the back. “Well said, well said! Pious men don’t gamble, or so I’ve heard, but perhaps an arrangement can be made. Should these young ones have worth and can prove it, I’ll grant the Church a boon. I’ll double the number allowed in both my Palace and the Arena. Of course, if they prove worthless,” the Emperor continued, pausing to allow the snickers of the Citizens around him to add weight to his words, “then, of course, I shall halve the number allowed.”

Blaise’s cheek twitched and the corner of his mouth twisted upward. If only he could indulge, if only he could reveal what was trapped beneath the thin barrier of human skin, then he could rip the smug look from the Emperor’s face. “You’ve my thanks and appreciation for your generosity, Your Imperial Majesty.”

The rancid taste of his words left him nauseated and disgusted.

With another laugh, the Emperor stomped his feet and lifted a scrap of red silk high over his head. “Win, Catsu!”

Red dominated the arena, and all signs of green vanished from the hands of the Citizens.

With his mouth opened in a pant, the green-eyed boy fell back to where the other children waited. The pleasure slave put her back to his and the two tensed in anticipation of the convicts’ attack. She said something that was answered with a jerked nod, and both stared at one of the older boys cowering with the youngest children.

The respite didn’t last long. The tallest of the remaining men led the charge, letting out a whooped cry. The crowd quieted.

“Wind, breath of God, blow so that all might live!” a man’s tenor called out, the tone sharp with authority and demand.

A gust of wind erupted from the center of the pit, tugging at Blaise’s clothes. Sand spiraled upward to darken the sky. Shielding his eyes with one arm, Blaise leaned against the rail and stretched out his other hand. “When man believed the world would drown ‘neath the fury of the storm, the winds stilled and the seas calmed,” he Spoke.

The sandstorm and the will of the other Speaker fought against Blaise, and he was aware of the whispered echoes of power despite the terrified screams of those around him. Curling his lip, Blaise let out a snarl, his bones aching with the need to punish the mortal who dared to defy his will.

The sands fell to the ground in a rain and the winds fell silent. Several forms lay still below, but no shimmering of the Gates or scent of roses marked the bodies.

Abandoning the staff, Catsu took up a sword and lifted it high. The crowd cheered for the hero of the Arena. With a wild grin, the man plunged the blade through the back of the nearest convict.

Catsu’s victim slumped, mouth and eyes wide from shock.

The Gates opened to welcome the souls of the men slaughtered as Catsu cut a path to where the slave children stood stunned from the winds that had battered them but moments before.

~*~

Chaos took hold of those in the Arena, and not even the bellowed demand from the Emperor brought order. The rail bit against Blaise’s stomach as he tried to figure out what was happening in the pit, but the screams of the Citizens drowned out the sounds from below. If God’s power had been invoked, Blaise couldn’t sense it.

“God devour them,” he spat, slamming his opened hand against the marble wall. With all of his power as a bishop and his heritage, he couldn’t do anything without hearing the scriptures as they were Spoken. His lip curled up in a snarl, exposing his teeth. If the culprit chose to slay those fleeing, the Gates wouldn’t close until every last one of them resided in the Gardens.

God didn’t care how they’d died, only for the quality of the souls ascending to the Garden.

Red splotches marred the Emperor’s face and the man leaned over the rail, pointing at the battle below. “How dare those worthless things ruin my event? Kill them!”

The cries of those fleeing the Arena drowned out the man’s demand.

“Look,” the man beside Blaise said, mimicking the Emperor’s gesture.

Blaise wondered if God would get too upset with him if one or two extra numbered among the dead. He stared down at the sands at the human’s request.

Catsu stalked forward and bodies fell in his wake. The man didn’t wait to find out if any survived his blows, and not all of them died. Men writhed on the sands while clinging hopelessly to their lives, not even realizing the Gates poised over them, cracked open in anticipation of the moment their last breath fled their bodies.

Where the boy with the Daughter’s eyes turned death into something almost beautiful in its swiftness, in Catsu’s hand, it was a nightmare born of flashing steel and the red of blood. The children roused to the convict’s presence. The pleasure slave lifted her staff, and the color drained from her face.

One blow knocked her weapon aside. The second felled her, the pommel of the blade cracking against the side of her head. She crumpled and lay still on the sands.

The green-eyed boy lunged at Catsu. Their blades clashed with a ring that cut over the screams of the Citizens. When their blades locked, the slave stood firm despite their difference in size, staying positioned between the so-called Hero of the Arena and the younger children.

One of the older slaves, wearing a bronze collar, lifted his sword and jumped at the two fighting. The blade stabbed at the unprotected back of the green-eyed slave. Blaise barked out a warning and drew a breath to Speak.

Catsu’s mouth moved and a bolt of fire and lightning streaked down from the clear sky.

The bronze-collared slave fell screaming, writhing as a shroud of flame and sparks engulfed him. The blade he’d held, instead of piercing through the other slave’s spine, grazed his side instead. The Gates to the Garden didn’t open. Blaise frowned and forced his muscles to relax.

To his amazement, neither slave had died.

Blaise shook his head. If he interfered, he’d risk exposing his true self and his secret. Should the mortals discover the truth, God would punish him as He had punished Lucin and Mikael. Blaise didn’t savor the idea of spending the rest of eternity trapped in an inanimate object, doomed to become the plaything of foolish mortals desiring power. Settling on muttering the prayers for the dead, he watched and waited.