Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

Oh for fuck’s sake. Can’t anything go right today?

I rub the heel of my palm over my forehead and groan. Kalma does things the way I do things, which is to usually torture those we consider to be usurpers. There might not be any of her left. “Where did he take her?” I ask with a heavy sigh.

“I don’t know,” she says helplessly.

I walk over to the nearest mask, propped up on the dresser beside the bed—this one a silver skull with fox ears—and place it over my face. I should have been wearing my mask outside but in my haste I forgot it in the caves. Seems more important than ever to keep up the illusion of terror and power, even when I feel it slipping through my fingers like sand.

Then I stride out of the room and head down the hall and grand staircase, with Sarvi and Lovia trailing behind. I go all the way down to the main level and then outside to the stables. The skeleton horses are already on edge, their broom-brush manes bristled. I don’t know if it’s because they always get this way around Sarvi, or because of what they’ve just gone through.

“Easy there,” I say to them in a voice I pull up from the base of my chest.

The horses immediately relax, nickering softly.

I would spend more time with them if I could. The animals and creatures of Tuonela may be half-dead in many cases, but they’re still my creatures and in my care. It pains me to know if any of them are suffering or treated unfairly. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve always made sure Sarvi has had full autonomy. Well, Sarvi would have insisted upon it anyway.

I continue down past the stalls until I get to the paddock where pigs were once kept before Pyry decided to cook them up for a few feasts. I should have stopped her and regret that I didn’t.

There is Kalma, the old man, half bones, half human, holding Raila down on the ground, in the shit and hay, a sickle raised in the air ready to slice through her.

“Kalma,” I say loudly, his name reverberating through the stall.

Just in time, too. Kalma pauses, the sickle shaking slightly, catching the light from the nearby lanterns and making it quiver.

“Raila has nothing to do with what happened,” I quickly inform him. “It was Rasmus who started the attack on Shadow’s End. He has Hanna now.”

Kalma straightens up, slowly lowering the sickle. Is it strange that even though he’s been a decaying half-skeleton since I met him, I can see the age in him and it disturbs me? There shouldn’t be such a thing as age in the Land of the Dead, and yet the proof is right in front of me. The proof is everywhere. The pigs that were slaughtered for our feasts were plump and whole, but given enough time in this land, they would eventually rot, their muscles wasting away, leaving them half-skeletons like so many other ancient things.

Does that mean that I one day will age and die? That Lovia and Tuonen will as well? Will they one day have to bury me? We are supposed to be immortal as Gods, but I know that’s not the case. Every God’s reign eventually comes to an end. It might take decades or centuries or eons—all the weak, mortal grasps of time—but it eventually ends.

Everything ends.

I shake that thought from my head. Philosophical thinking like that will never get me anywhere.

“Are you certain?” he asks.

I stare at Raila. With her black veil and headdress, I can’t get a feel for her, I can’t even sense the way she might be looking back at me. I’ve never been able to really know my Deadmaiden’s and Deadhand’s intentions, for better or for worse. But it does look like she was seconds from losing at least one of her limbs, and I know that if she had, she’d be useless as a Deadmaiden or servant. Believe it or not, good help here is hard to find.

“I’m certain,” I say, though I mentally shoot a thought to Sarvi to keep her under watch. Even though it seems this time it was all Rasmus’ doing, there’s a reason why my advisor quickly assumed she was behind it. We all believe there is a traitor in our midst, most likely one of the help, who acts as a spy for the uprising, but all we have to go on is gut feeling and nothing else.

Kalma lifts one shoulder in a shrug and then leans over, grabbing Raila by the neck and hauling her up to her feet. “Death has spared you this time. I think this means you ought to be on your best behavior from now on.”

Raila nods, her thoughts telepathic. I never give anything less than the best for my master. Nor for my master’s wife.