Of Silver and Beasts

Of Silver and Beasts

A Goddess Wars Novel

Trisha Wolfe

Copyright © 2013 Trisha Wolfe

Cover Design: Steven Novak

Ebook Design:
JW Manus

One kills a man, one is an assassin;
one kills millions, one is a conqueror;
one kills everybody, one is a god.

—Jean Rostand

The morning sun hangs over the sand-covered queendom of Cavan, reflecting off the glass buildings towering above the downtown market, its heated rays drawn to my dark uniform.

Straightening my starched shirt and leather harness, I try to pull the material away from my sweat-slicked skin, cursing the already blistering sun. But Cavan’s sweltering summer is only partially the reason I’m bathed in sweat. The protector advancement ceremony is in an hour, and my nerves are about to consume me.

Goddess
, I curse inwardly, and fan my face with my hand.

Judging by the bustle on the dusty streets, everyone is in a hurry to hear Empress Iana’s address at the palace. A knot forms in my stomach, and I push the queasy ache down.

“Only five dinnels for this lovely coral vest,” a merchant with greasy, sweat-soaked dreads says to me as I pass under his awning to escape the roasting heat.

I eye the hideous coral vest and hold up my hand, shaking my head. He moves on to his next potential customer, and I continue my trek through the marketplace to where I always meet up with my friends before training.

Glancing up at the puffs of steam escaping the mercury plant’s glinting copper pipes, I pray the man-made clouds block some of the sun’s heat for the ceremony. The glass building soars fifty stories high in the center of the city, and is the largest mercury distributer in the Three Realms. If anything could blot out the sun, it’d be that monstrosity.

I rub my chest, feeling the cool glass casing beneath my fingertips. Nearly everything in our country is mercury-powered. Even the cybernetic fix that filters the poisonous mineral away from my heart pumps mercury through its gears and wires.

Mercury is believed to be the divine blood of our goddesses, as it’s the purest mineral. My mother continually reminds me that I’m not cursed—but blessed. I shake the thought from my head as I spot Lilly and Willa. My usual concerns are unimportant today.

Lilly leans against the tech shop’s awning pole as Willa waves a piece of chocolate-coated crisp in her face. I smile as I approach them.

“Stop trying to force feed her,” I say, resting my hand on the pommel of my sword. “You know she won’t eat a thing when she’s nervous.”

Lilly gives me a toothy, sweet smile, her red ringlets cascading over her shoulders like flames licking her uniform as it catches the sun. “I’m not nervous,” she says. “I’m watching my figure. My girlfriend mentioned just how
thick
I’m getting right before you arrived.”

“I did not,” Willa retorts. She gives Lilly a stern glare, but a smile hikes up the side of her face. “I said
muscled
.” She shakes her head, her dark braid bobs. “It was a compliment.” She quickly kisses Lilly’s cheek, and I laugh at them.

All three of us started protector training at the same time, at the same age. I’ve known Lilly my whole life, as we grew up in the same quarter just two apartments apart. But when Lilly met Willa, they became inseparable. Willa is her perfect match. We’ve all been together since, and I can’t imagine moving on to the Nactue without either of them. Especially Lilly.

We’re not allowed to discuss our factions among each other, though. All the protectors in training were given their status last week, and I’m dying to find out if we’ll advance together.

Lilly pulls her attention away from Willa. “Are you ready?” she asks me.

“Of course.” I nod once, forcing the anxiety roiling my stomach down. “Although I’m about to pee my uniform if you two don’t hurry up.” She laughs, and I relax into my easy life away from the haunting walls of my home. Here with them, I’m another person completely. I’m brave and loyal Kaliope, protector in training to the Empress Iana and the deities of Nalbis.

But in the small, cluttered apartment of my childhood home, I’m that same quiet and distant girl who kept to herself. Even after my father was sent to the mental ward, it’s as if that home will always be his, and the very smell of musty air filtered through our sorry ventilation system will return me to her—that little, scared girl.

I vow to buy my mother a new home as soon as possible.

Willa pulls Lilly into a comforting hug, as she knows just how nervous Lilly truly is, and I step away to give them a moment alone. I walk to the window of the tech shop and place my palm against the chilled control interface. The tinted glass ripples, peeling away the dark panes to reveal a reflective surface.

I scoop my long black locks into a tight bun, away from my eyes, the same forest green that matches my mother’s. Then subtly, I check that my face is clear, running my fingers from temple to jaw. Streaks of mercury rarely show on my face. But sometimes, if I get upset, they do appear as faint, barely noticeable outlines. And other times—like on
that
night—the night my father held my mother’s arm over the stove burner, they surface like angry, fire-hot coils of wire threading my skin.

On that night, my mother’s eyes grew wide, and not just due to the pain of her searing flesh. She shook her head, trying to stop me from drawing my father’s attention. He dropped her to the floor as his beady eyes raked over me furiously. Then he shook me, blasting my face with curses and his foul, alcohol-saturated breath.

I looked at my mother curled into a broken, defeated heap, and the mercury in my blood heated, shooting through my veins like quicksilver. Without thought, I clutched my father’s head and pressed my palms to his temples, the tips of my fingers digging into his scalp. My vision blurred, and his features shook erratically in fast, jerky motions. Then he crumpled to the floor.

He thrashed as his mind was lost to madness. I backed away from the scene and stumbled to the bathroom where the mirror revealed silver—
glowing
silver—swirling slowly around the corners of my eyes, just above my cheekbones.

I close my eyes now, clearing my head of the memory, and force calm, collected thoughts to center me. It’s never happened before that night. And it has never happened since. I breathe in and out. In and out.

Every bit of my wits will be needed to keep my composure this morning. Today, the Nactue Guard retires—the women Lilly, Willa, and I have looked up to ever since we were enlisted. And I’m about to be promoted in place of one of them. I’m about to become a member of Empress Iana’s Nactue Guard—her personal guard—a highly coveted faction.

I’ve kept my mercury-tainted blood a secret for fifteen years, with the exception of those closest to me. Now at nineteen, I plan to advance with the rest of the protectors today—normal, unblemished. I won’t be pitied. I’ve earned my spot among them as an equal.

And I plan to keep it.

Alyah, give me strength.

Turning toward my friends, I say, “All right, girls. To the palace.”

Their faces wash over with the same apprehension I’m feeling. Lilly holds Willa’s hand as we leave the tech shop. Then we weave our way through the marketplace in compatible silence to discover our placements.

A tiny service-bot rolls down the sandy walkway, its wires dangling, trailing through the dirt. Anti-gravity Cury-crafts—powered by steam and a mercury-based plasma—hover past us, their engines whistling a high-pitched whir. In the city limits, most crafts only seat two or three, and are brightly colored with a sleek, industrialized bamboo body. But the empress’s army has larger, nearly-indestructible crafts, designed to transport at least twenty protectors.

The soaring glass buildings grow thicker as we head deeper into downtown. They loom over the dirt-packed roadways, and screens along their middle panels display last night’s broadcast. Councilor Herna, Empress Iana’s trusted advisor, talks above the crowd, her words strengthening my gait with pride. The protector advancement ceremony is an important part of her message, but not what has everyone rushing past us in the streets to get to the palace.

“. . . It’s come to our attention that Otherworlders have attacked Perinya,” Councilor Herna says. “And as suit, we’ll promote the new Nactue Guard in place and sanction the Cavan Army to our boarders. If our neighboring allies need assistance, we will lend it. But no word other than of the minor attack has been reported at this time.”

I scowl, squinting past the sunlight as I watch her features harden on the bright display. Until now, the Otherworlders haven’t been seen in over a hundred years. They were rumored to be extinct. It’s what every protector is taught during training. Lilly and I thought the stories we heard growing up about the mutated bottom-dwellers were myths, something they told children to keep them from roaming too far from their home. But now every country on the Nalbis Peninsula is in an uproar since their unexpected attack.

I wonder if the empress will issue another call for protectors during her address. After the war eleven years ago between Cavan and Taggar—an outskirt territory to our north—the recruiting age dropped from fourteen to twelve. My father enlisted me in protector training as soon as I become of age, as parents received a salary from the Cavan Council. I spent my birthday doing pushups to build upper body strength instead of playing dolls. The money was his only reason, but enlisting me was the best thing my father ever did for me.

My hand grips the hilt of my sword as Lilly and Willa lead us past another shop and onto the dust-covered walkway. The thick crowd presses in, and we shove our way through. Shouts and the clang of machinery fill the air, and a cleaning-bot sputters along the ground. As we near the end of the market, a shiny gear catches my eye. I pause, then walk toward the merchant’s stand.

The gear spins, its deep cogs rotating as a smaller gear pushes it around. The gears protrude from a baby doll’s chest, and my hand inadvertently goes to my own as one of the doll’s blue eyes winks at me.

“It’s missing the cover flap,” the merchant says, grabbing up the doll. “But I have outfits to hide the mechanics.” He rummages underneath his table and yanks out a tiny yellow dress. “It’d make a fine gift for a little one.”

Lilly places her hand on my shoulder. “No,” I say, snapping out of my daze. “Thank you.” I grip her hand for a moment before moving away from her touch. Spinning on the heel of my boot, I start again toward the palace with the doll’s open chest, exposing all of her wiring, sitting on the front of my mind.

I’m not the only one in Cavan, or in the Three Realms, or probably the world for that matter, to have cybernetic instruments beneath her skin. Even as I remind myself of this, a man with a prosthetic arm passes by, his robotic fingers gripping a mug of coffee.

If it were just my cybernetic parts, it wouldn’t be so bad . . . but there is something
wrong
with me. Again, my mother’s words of being blessed by the goddess Alyah echo through my mind. Only, how can doing what I did to my father be a blessing?

A Curry-craft whirs by, and dust kicks up around me. I slap my uniform of the dirt and groan. It’s the poorer class, like me, who can’t afford to cover their cybernetic parts with skin grafts. I think of the doll’s missing chest cover. My new salary in the Nactue Guard will be enough for my mother’s medication and to pay Emily to make sure she’s taken care of, and I’ll still have a little left over each month to save up for grafting.

Not that that’s the only reason why I trained for this position. I could’ve dropped out of training after my father was placed into the psychiatric ward. My mother even suggested it. But seven years of training—learning discipline and how to protect myself—has taught me one thing: you have to face down your fears. And I’m damn good at what I do. When I have a sword in my hand and something to attack, my whole being is centered on my purpose.