Curse of the Divine Page 3

  Dia, how gullible did Diavala think she was?

  “I think the answer is a lot simpler than you’re letting on,” Celia said. “At least from our point of view.”

  Diavala hesitated a moment, then chuckled, shaking her head. “Simple? You think approaching Halcyon will be simple?”

  Oh, she did. Celia had never been so sure of anything in her life, especially now.

  “Halcyon will never help you willingly, Inkling.” Diavala chuckled again, and Celia heard it a little more clearly this time: a laugh laced with pity for how little Celia understood. Diavala’s words were heavy with emotion but delivered with such matter-­of-fact bluntness that it took Celia aback.

  For a moment.

  “That’s an interesting line,” Celia said, infinitely tired of the conversation. “Or maybe, because Halcyon’s the only one who’s survived your Touch madness, he knows a hell of a lot about you, and he’s exactly who we need to talk to.”

  “He survived nothing. He was never in danger at all,” Diavala snapped back. “He doesn’t have the information you and I both need.”

  Annoyed that she even had to listen to this, Celia stood to add more soggy wood to the soggy, barely there fire. Diavala had a hundred reasons to lie and manipulate them, and Celia didn’t feel like wasting her breath arguing.

  “My history with Halcyon is . . . fraught,” Diavala said, shaking her head. “I took him over, then left. He wailed long and hard, screamed and wept. For a special, singular moment in time, I felt vindicated.” Diavala’s lips curled in a happy sneer at the memory, and despite how well Celia knew Griffin by then, she’d never seen his lips make that horrid shape. She turned away, disgusted, her rage nearly overshadowing all that Diavala was telling her.

  “But then,” Diavala said, “he stopped. He stood up straight, he smiled at me. And oh, how he laughed and applauded. He loathes dramatics, unless he’s the one performing.” She shuddered, as if to shake his dramatics off her shoulders. “So that’s why he’s on the Roll of Saints—he screamed loud and long enough to go down in Profeta’s books as a unique case, an example of something impossible—just to annoy me.”

  Celia snorted. If this was true, it sounded like Halcyon hated Diavala as much as Celia did. “If he’s able to withstand your torture and laugh about it, then he’s someone I want to meet very much indeed.”

  “You’re missing my point,” Diavala said. “Halcyon cannot know where I am. For all of our sakes, not just mine.”

  Then she moaned.

  No. It was Griffin who moaned. He put his face down in his hands, his fingers tangling in his hair, clutching hard. He didn’t scream, but he began breathing hard through his teeth, actively trying to absorb the pain and not succumb to it again.

  Celia didn’t have time to react. Just as quickly, his gaze snapped back up to meet Celia’s, all panic gone, his stare not his stare. “Do you understand, Celia Sand? Halcyon will not know I’m inside this body. I’m giving you no choice.”

  The threat hovered in the air between them.

  Diavala had moved from silent houseguest to aggressive hostage-­taker, just like that, and she wanted Celia to know it.

  Celia’s nails bit into the weathered skin of her palms. “I understand,” she finally said. “I’ll keep your hiding place safe.” For now.

  Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll know if you veer from our arrangement.”

  Our arrangement.

  As if Celia had asked her to hold Griffin hostage. As if she’d had a hand in choosing this path at all.

  With the fire between them, they watched each other. Celia’s constant headache throbbed and pulsed, always present, always enough to remind her that she was never again going to be okay. She knew the exact moment when Diavala retreated; Griffin’s shoulders went from tight to slumped, his fists unclasped. He tilted his head to the left and looked at her with tired eyes.

  “Celia?” Griffin said. His whisper was low, inviting, and weary. His bones hummed from Diavala’s presence, a constant song vibrating from the inside. Maybe Celia’s headaches were in sympathy—why should he suffer for all her mistakes?

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Eh,” he said, shrugging. “I fell out of a tree once, hit every branch in the world on the way down, and actually died from the thumps. That hurt so much more.”

  Celia almost chuckled. “I don’t think I believe you,” she said.

  “Yeah, you’re right, I’m lying. Diavala messing around inside my head is worse.”

  “She confirmed it,” Celia said. Their running theory about why she hadn’t already left Griffin with the Touch in retribution had—fortunately?—been pretty accurate. “She worries that the Touch would spread doubt about the sanctity of Profeta’s lore. She won’t leave you until she finds an alternative. If there even is one.”

  Griffin nodded absently at the news that he and Diavala were indeed stuck together, as if it weren’t a monumental revelation. As if he’d expected it. “And? There was another reason she wanted to talk to you.” He paused, then added, “And make it such a painful experience for me.”

  Sometimes Celia wished he wasn’t astute.

  “She and Halcyon have some sordid history,” she said, waving her hand. “She says he’s powerful, and she warned us against approaching him.”

  With perfect timing, Aaro nickered.

  Griffin, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them, tossed a glance at their horse. “Well,” he said. “At least one of us thinks that’s funny.”

  “It’s horseshit, Griffin. She’s only trying to scare us and gain the upper hand again. She’s stuck in a body she doesn’t want, stuck without her followers and purpose. Threatening you, threatening me, trying to hold on to what little power she has left. She knows we’re on the right trail, and she’s just trying to keep us away from it.”

  If Halcyon hated Diavala, then Celia and Halcyon already had a whole lot in common. He could, in fact, be a fated soul mate.

  Wasn’t the enemy of her enemy her best friend?

  “Maybe,” Griffin said.

  “Definitely.”

  He didn’t seem half as sure as Celia was. “But there are easier ways she could keep us away from him,” he said calmly. “She could take me over and run away, for one. If he’s so terrible, why give us the opportunity to approach him at all?”

  “She’s assessing me, Griffin, waiting to see what I do until the moment she can take advantage. Taking off won’t allow her to spy on what I’m doing. Are you suggesting we don’t follow our only lead? That Diavala is warning us because she cares about keeping us safe? If she says finding Halcyon is a mistake, it means we should do exactly that.”

  “But it’s as if she wants us to find Halcyon while staying far away herself. I don’t trust her, Celia, but she’s definitely scared of him, I can feel it.”

  Hearing this, the blood roared in Celia’s ears. A mixture of loathing that Griffin had to share these feelings in the first place and a grim satisfaction. “Good. I’m glad she’s scared.”

  Celia thought of a blade, quivering, entering her line of sight, her small hand around the hilt.

  Anya, shaking, a handspan in front of her. The dagger between them.

  Another hand—Anya’s—wrapping around Celia’s, holding the dagger and Celia both.

  Pushing it into her own neck.

  Red blood.

  Black ink.

  And then it was over. A ten-year friendship, a young life, and a thousand-year-old religion.

  It hadn’t been worth it. Freeing a people from a crooked religion that meddled in lives seemed like such a noble cause, but if people hadn’t known they were enslaved, how could they appreciate their freedom? In her daydreams and nightmares both, Celia often revisited that night. Sometimes she tried to make it play out differently: no dagger in her hand, no sacrifice, no plotting. But however hard she tried, it always ended the same way: Anya gone, the only person she’d ever loved so deeply, and b
y Celia’s own hand.

  She shouldn’t know what Anya’s blood smelled like, but it stained everything she looked at. She hated how the people had reacted with reverent shock, as if what they’d watched on that stage had been divine and noble. And she hated, with a bright, fierce longing, the creature who’d made Anya believe that her death was the only way to freedom.

  “We need justice,” Celia said. “I’m going to get every one of Halcyon’s secrets and hope to all the devils in hell that one of them can break Diavala for good and free you.”

  Griffin assessed her for a long moment. “‘Rage scrapes your judgment.’”

  Celia moaned. “Don’t quote Ficus to me. This isn’t an epic poem.”

  “You’re acting like all I want to do is survive,” Griffin said. “But I want justice just as badly as you do.”

  Like Anya’s name, Vincent’s name wasn’t uttered either. Vincent, whom they’d watched suffer with the Touch for days. The true Touch, full and deep and permanent, not just an approximation of it that Diavala could inflict seemingly at will.

  Both ghosts joined them around the fire.

  “All I’m saying,” Griffin said, “is that we need to tread carefully here. Don’t let your hatred for Diavala cloud what comes next. We know nothing about Halcyon except that he survived the Touch and that Diavala fears him. And think about how scary someone must be for someone immortal to be afraid of him.”

  The constellation of tattooed stars beside his eye beckoned to her. He’d tattooed himself with nothing more than ink, a needle, and flame, long before tattoos were legal again. The constellation Leonus, nine stars strong, Regulus, the largest star, perched perfectly at his temple. All around the world, people give this star mighty names, he’d said once. The Princett, Heart of the Lion, the Mighty. In a vast world easy to get lost in, Regulus has always been my anchor.

  Celia blinked long and hard, trying to push away the pain of her pounding headache. Griffin’s gaze stayed locked on the dancing flames, but occasionally his eyes flitted to her. Midnight black pools, dark eyebrows, impossibly long eyelashes fringing them.

  “I’ll be careful,” she promised. “If only to stop you from quoting Ficus at me again.”

  It was what he’d been waiting for. With a long breath, he stood and walked over to her, and gently, carefully, as if she were hollow and breakable, guided her down to her bedroll.

  He lay down behind her and arranged a blanket over them both, his chest pressed to her back and his arm under her head like a pillow. A day ago, she wouldn’t have let this happen, too worried that it could have been Diavala manipulating her, too scared of everything. And she was still scared of those things, but she pretended she wasn’t.

  She pretended it was just Griffin. The mystery under the plague doctor mask that she’d only begun to know. That she had plans for, had dreamed with, before all hope was sabotaged.

  “The stars in Kinallen?” she whispered, watching the embers flash in eddies and swirls. Celia and Anya had daydreamed about making it to that infamously beautiful country, and Griffin wanted so badly to show her his beloved land of stars. On a map, it didn’t seem far, but even on good days it had always felt impossible.

  “Mmm hmm,” he murmured into her hair.

  “Tell me about them.”

  “No words can describe such wonder. You’ll just have to see them yourself one day.”

  “I wish we could go there,” she said. “I wish we had a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.” He pulled her closer. So warm. And for a moment she felt safe, wrapped in his arms. “Some choices are just harder to make than others.”

  Interlude

  The plague doctor was more than a bit insulted that Diavala had chosen to talk to Celia first. He’d been trying to start a conversation for weeks.

  So rude.

  He’d felt Diavala in there, poking around in his mind. A memory—like the time he’d tried a backflip and broken Sky’s nose with his heel, or the time he’d run out of Kinallen powder and had attempted to perform with real fire—would rise up without any sort of trigger, as fresh as if it had just happened. Or some emotion would surge, discordant with the moment: he’d almost wept while reading a map, his heart had fluttered in fear as he’d fed Aaro an apple. The plague doctor always had difficulty figuring out real from not real, upside down from right side up, and Diavala’s increasing agitation wasn’t helping matters.

  At first he’d fought against the invasion, trying to imagine rooms in his mind where he could keep his most private thoughts hidden.

  But Diavala was an expert with the lockpick. Better, even, than he was.

  Enough was enough.

  Diavala!

  He thought the name as loud as he could. Beside him on the hard ground, Celia shifted in her sleep as if she’d heard his mind-shout. Possible, he supposed. She had a queer knack for knowing exactly what he was thinking, even when he didn’t know himself.

  Still, Diavala ignored him.

  The plague doctor hummed, thought about Wisteria, wondered about Halcyon, tried to ignore the past as he pushed ever forward. But then he drew one clear image in his mind. One moment in time, captured like a still life hanging on the wall:

  Nero, the biggest bear of a soul the plague doctor had ever had the pleasure of meeting, smashing a gilded chest full of Divine ink with a sledgehammer.

  Nero brings the hammer up, he smashes it down.

  The plague doctor repeated the memory, singling out only that part—not shattered Celia pressing against him, not the sound of his thundering heartbeat—but only the giant soul, the sledgehammer, the smashed chest of ink. The grand finale of Diavala’s fall in Asura.

  When the repetition threatened to put him to sleep, he added other details he thought Diavala might appreciate: the crestfallen expression on Ruler Vacilando’s face, the broken sound of that one mistico’s wails, the small Kid on their parent’s shoulders, so young they likely hadn’t even chosen a name for themselves yet, part of the first generation who would grow up without a deity.

  Chest, smashed.

  Chest, burned. (The plague doctor didn’t remember how the fire had started, but the smoke had been spectacular.)

  The final moments of Profeta, where the Divine and her ink had left their world forever.

  Chest, smashed.

  Chest, burned.

  “All right, all right . . . enough!”

  Satisfied, the plague doctor linked his fingers behind his head and smiled up at the night clouds. Ah, there you are, Diavala. Finally. He thought the words slowly and emphatically; it was harder to think in full sentences than he’d anticipated.

  He closed his eyes to concentrate, the smile staying on his lips as Diavala muttered something unintelligible.

  Hmm? What was that? he asked. I didn’t quite catch it.

  Silence fell, the intrusive muttering falling quiet. But he knew Diavala was close.

  I want you to talk to me, not Celia, he said.

  More silence, but tinged with curiosity. Her mind was closed to him save for occasional hints of emotion.

  “Why is that, plague doctor?” Diavala finally asked. “Don’t you trust her?”

  Diavala was playing a game, trying to rile him up. You know well that it’s you I don’t trust, he said. But more to the point, I much preferred it when you watched and listened rather than took over and spoke. I can’t keep you out, I can’t stop you from knowing everything I’m thinking and doing and wanting. But when Celia talks to me, I need her to know it’s me.

  A strange sound—an echo of a laugh—and then Diavala said, “Interesting. With your mask and false smile, don’t you already deceive her? How does she ever know who she’s talking to? You call yourself the plague doctor, but to her you’re only Griffin.”

  The plague doctor gritted his teeth and kept his smile.

  Chest, smashed.

  Such a pretty chest, too. Gold and sparkly.

  Chest, burned.

  So
much smoke. Outrageously thick and black and sinister. If he could have found a way to harness it for the stage, the Rabble Mob would have been famous long before.

  “You are a frustrating one,” Diavala said. A tinge of electricity burned through his bones at a higher frequency than the usual ever-present humming. He felt Diavala’s frustration just as he’d felt her curiosity.

  You might have made your own deal with Celia, he said, and you obviously have a vested interest in what happens in Wisteria, but you forget whose mind you’re sharing. I can make this stay very unpleasant for you.

  “Are you really in a position to threaten me?” Diavala said.

  Are you really in a position to leave? he replied. We both know you’re stuck for the time being. So unless you want endless reminders of the worst moments of your life—

  The frequency got even higher, and a tear slid down the plague doctor’s cheek as he realized that this was how Vincent must have felt for weeks, but without knowing the cause.

  He pushed the thought away and focused on another: the moment onstage in Asura when the tide turned. A tattoo on Celia’s back that heralded the imminent death of the Divine, who’d just revealed herself.

  The moment when Diavala had tried to take center stage and failed, instead being driven into hiding forever.

  “Fine!” Diavala said, her thought a scream. “I’ll talk to you instead of Celia if I have something that needs saying. But don’t forget I’m here, watching everything. You can’t keep anything from me. The moment I suspect things aren’t going in my favor . . .”

  The searing pain of the Touch took over. Knitting needles in his brain, poking around. His eyeballs being pulled inward, everything caving in. The plague doctor took the physical pain with shallow panting breaths. He curled into a ball away from Celia, pushing his fist to his mouth to stifle a scream. Sweat broke out all over his body, as if he were on fire, yet he shivered. And all of it in an instant. It would have been a mercy if the shock knocked him unconscious.