Leviathan's Blood by Ben Peek

Author:Ben Peek
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781447251873
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

2.

‘How do we hold a god accountable for the crimes it commits?’ Zaifyr heard his sister address the crowd before he saw her. ‘That is the question at the heart of the trial we begin today. Today, you will stand in judgement of a man who is not mortal. A man who once saw himself as a god. A man who was once viewed as a god. A man who has worshipped and feared. You will stand before him and you will judge him, though not a single one of you is his equal. Not one of you could defeat him in combat, not one of you knows the history that he knows, and not one of you has lived the lives that he has lived. It is only when you stand with each other, when you represent your families, your friends and your loves, that you have authority over him.’

She stood beneath the twisting bone-white branches of twenty-three trees, their pale limbs a crown much too large to wear or assume. On either side of her – a few steps back – were the empty plots of Bau and Fo’s trees, the torn earth smoothed over to look like recent graves. Between them was a huge podium made from dark wood so red it verged on black, on which sat a dozen men and women – the judges. Mortal on one side, immortal on the other, they watched Zaifyr intently as he was led through the centre of the crowd. He was unchained, but with a guard on either side of him – one immortal, one mortal. The first was the Soldier, Xrie; the other was a female soldier whose name was Oake. She had close-cut snow-white hair and looked as if she had been carved from ice.

Before the judges was a sealed glass box, small and square, the companion to the dozens of tall glass cylinders that were peppered throughout the crowd.

‘The man who is led past you is known by many names,’ Aelyn continued. ‘Today, he will be referred to by the name he has used the longest. That name is Qian. For some of you, his name will resonate. For a great many others, it will not. Whether you know it or not, what is important to know is that Qian stands before you because he has committed a crime. He has killed Fo and Bau, two Keepers of the Divine. He did this in Mireea, on the back of Ger’s Spine, in a city that is now in ruins. In killing Fo and Bau, he broke a law that was made by his peers to ensure that the War of the Gods could not begin again. He was fully aware of this law when he broke it. Indeed, he does not deny that he broke the law when he killed them. What he will insist today is that it does not matter that he killed Fo and Bau. To Qian, their deaths are meaningless because there is a larger threat that stands before us.

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