In the Shadow of the Gods by Rachel Dunne

Author:Rachel Dunne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-05-02T19:00:00+00:00

810 Years after the Fall

Run all you like, but with enough time, everything’ll come back around to find you.

—Tare

CHAPTER 14

Joros’s anger was like a thing alive, clawing and howling and wanting to destroy. There was an ache in his jaw from keeping his teeth so tightly clenched, but that was distant, like his nails digging grooves in his palms, unimportant, only serving the boiling fury.

Thirteen years! Thirteen years he had served the Ventallo, and nearly a decade as a shadowseeker before that, serving the Fallen with all the faith he could muster. He had done everything right, exceeded all expectations, achieved the impossible—and this was his reward! In the absolute darkness within Raturo, he felt the brush of a passing preacher and, snarling, lashed out; there was a cry of mixed surprise and pain, but Joros was already moving on, anger driving him forward.

His chambers were as dark and cold as the rest of the mountain, but a single barked word sent Anddyr scrambling forward to fill the hearth with fire. The first thing he gave to the flames was his book of research, all the ideas and experiments meant to make the lives of preachers easier. The flames ate the paper as eagerly as the paper had eaten the ink. Then the piles and piles of letters and reports and rumors from his shadowseekers, useless fools who couldn’t do the simplest tasks, a lifetime of records fed to the hungry fire. The flames burned bright and red, perhaps the first natural fire Raturo had seen in years. He could see, almost, why the Parents’ priests thought fire sacred.

When he was out of things to burn, with his fury cooled to smoldering embers in the face of the roaring fire, he sat before the hearth and he began to think how he could kill the new Uniro.

Joros had quarreled with Delcerro over the years, and he would be the first to admit he hadn’t exactly wept at the old man’s passing, but he would give an arm to have that old bat back. Valrik Deuro, now Valrik Uniro, had revealed himself as something of a fanatic.

Though Joros had spent his thirteen years in the Ventallo doing everything to prove he was a faithful believer, Valrik still remembered him as the power-hungry young man fresh from the mountain, and the new Uniro had made quite clear his suspicions that Joros was still that same man. While Valrik was Uniro, Joros wouldn’t be trusted with anything more complex than paperwork—and perhaps not even that, since paper was so good at carrying secrets.

Joros could have withstood Valrik’s mistrust and his insults; he had long years of experience working in secret, working in the shadows, and he could have done it for many more years.

But for this latest insult, Valrik would have to die.

“You’ve done well, brother Sedeiro,” Valrik had said flatly, regarding the five seekstones in Joros’s hand.

The praise would have meant nothing even if it hadn’t been empty, but Joros still gave a shallow bow.

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