Chapter Six

“So now, we are cowed to the whims of a random, un-Bonded immortal of no renown. Marvelous. I'm certain he shall make an informed decision.”

“He isn’t Kinfolk?” Mikele asked.

“Not at all,” Leshin said.

Shina, the tall, quiet girl looked a bit intrigued, and for the first time, Leshin actually heard her speak.

“What did he… look like?” Shina asked, her voice sounding a tad on the husky side.

“Uh… thin? Sad? I called him ‘Smirk.’ ’Cause he smirks a fair bit, and he seemed to like the name.”

Mikele furrowed her brow. “Quite a rude thing to call someone.”

“I don’t know,” Leshin said. “He said it was alright. Or—you know—he nodded when I asked if it was okay. That is the only way he can communicate, I suppose.”

“Do you think… he’s some kind of… abomination?” Shina muttered, crossing her legs and arms and keeping her body as small as possible. “Something God made just to torture?”

Leshin raised an eyebrow, unsure what to make of that question. “No? He just looked like a really, really tall man with no tail.”

Just then, Kilini threw open the door to their room, back from her shift. But her white gown was stained red from head to toe, and her hair dripped with blood. All eyes went to her. Without a word, she shuffled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind herself. Soon, the muffled sound of running water crept under the door, and the four priestesses sat in silence.

Eventually, Nikime, Kilini’s supposed attendant, trudged through the door, a haunted look in her dead eyes.

“S-she dropped a plate,” Nikime said, her face blank and her fists clenched.

“Oh, God,” Mikele said.

Leshin shook her head, listening to Kilini’s quiet sobs echoing in the shower. “What happened?”

Nikime just stared ahead, frozen in the doorway. “I-it made me watch.”

For the first time since Ilaki had woken up, Leshin heard her speak. “Here,” she said, standing up and wrapping her arms around Nikime’s shoulders. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” She led Nikime to the bucket of tepid water in the back corner of the room, which they used for drinking and freshening up, and she scooped a half-shell’s worth of water into her hands, wiping the cold sweat form the girl’s forehead.

“What happened?” Shina said, rushing up to the pair at the pail. “Please tell me it wasn’t—it didn’t—"

“It—it was worse,” Nikime said. “Worse than w-we thought it would be. She just—she couldn’t hold the plate—she g-got too close to the st-statues, and she—she fainted, and it—it—oh, God, it—”

“You don’t have to tell us,” Ilaki said. “We don’t need to know.”

Nikime nodded, and Shina shot Ilaki a disdainful look.

“I don’t care what it did,” Mikele finally said, standing up by the door, looking both ways before she turned around to regard the five women. “It is going to pay.”

The room stared at the older woman, but she took a step forward. “I’m not about to serve a—a monster who tortures people just for dropping a plate! It’s unreasonable! This cannot stand!”

“It will smite you in an instant,” Leshin said, leaning back against her pillow. “And then it will bring you back, just so it can savor killing you again and again and again and again.”

Mikele loomed over Leshin with furious eyes. “Ever the rebel, ever the malcontent, up until fortune turns against you. You disgrace your family name.”

Leshin burst out laughing. “My apologies, but, what would you have me do? I’m a half-decent Slinger, but God can do whatever it wants.”

“Coward!” Mikele said. “You’re a f-f-fucking coward!”

In the six days Leshin had known the woman, she’d never heard her curse even once. Granted, that wasn’t much time to get to know someone, especially since they only ever interacted for a few hours at a time, but… for some reason, it stuck out in her mind.

“Okay. Say I’m a coward,” Leshin said. “But for a second, let’s pretend I’m not. What would you have me do?”

Mikele froze. “I… want to—I want to find a way to kill it.”

Leshin stared at her. “And what makes you think it can be killed?”

“B-because it isn’t—it cannot—”

Leshin sat up, glancing at Ilaki, who had started helping Nikime into bed. “You think it can die, but it is a god.”

“But it isn’t a real god.”

Raising an eyebrow, Leshin snorted. “It definitely has the power of a god.”

“But it lacks absolute knowledge—omniscience!” Mikele interjected. “It had to ask us our names.”

Leshin frowned. “That proves nothing. Just that it respects decorum for decorum’s sake.”

“It demands praise,” Mikele said. “It aims to astonish us with its power. And yet, it felt the need to ask us a question it already knew the answer to? Several times? Wouldn’t you expect such a beast to demand respect for knowing everything about us before we even met it?”

Pausing, Leshin shifted, resting her feet on the ground and considering things for a moment. Not only had it asked for their names, it had repeatedly asked for clarification on which priestess was which. Not exactly the behavior of an all-knowing deity. And yet, God could clearly do what it wished—no one could doubt the limitless extent of its power, its ability to warp reality, to take fate and align it to its own twisted whims. This was the being who had engineered the Fell Rot, who rearranged the stars every few years to suit its ever-changing, arbitrary preferences, whose looming presence and eternal fury felt so overwhelming that not a thought of rebellion could withstand its withering, eyeless gaze.

But it did not know their names.

Mikele looked at her expectantly, yet Leshin had nothing to say. “But how do you kill it?” she asked.

For a moment, Mikele just stood there. Then, she sat on her bed, seething at the miserable wails coming from the bathroom. “I don’t know,” she said.

It was a ridiculous thought, of course. The idea that six women could dethrone God itself, that they could somehow muster the strength to assassinate a being beyond time and space, beyond limitations, beyond mortality. Ludicrous. But it tempted her, from back in the furthest corners of her mind. What if we could kill it? After all, wasn’t she the one who’d dedicated her whole life to toppling a system that felt, in comparison to her piddling band of crusaders, all-powerful? If she was willing to place herself in harm’s way for the rights of strangers, why not for her own sake?

She glanced at Ilaki, who sat on her bed holding a shivering Nikime, and they locked eyes. Ilaki nodded.

“Okay,” Leshin said. “Okay—okay. Okay.”

“Okay?” Mikele asked.

“Yes. Yes, let’s kill it.”