The Dance of Gods by A.R. Knight

Author:A.R. Knight
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9798888580769
Publisher: Black Key Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The Bandit Lord

Leaving the Najahn quarter always felt like blinding a thousand eyes. Gladdring kept the thick hood pulled up, the bulky winter furs matching the stature, if not the Najahn’s purple and black, of someone who meant good business. Dodging an Adept’s finery for less notable clothes was one thing, sacrificing respect for a disguise was another.

Neither guard, in their glossy black armor and skyward voulges gave him a glance. A success, albeit a minor one. Still, campaigns like Gladdring’s depended on minor victories.

Noctia glowed in Winter’s depths, its many stone windows greeting the midday with a lantern’s flicker. Snow piled in the corners, shoveled off, sometimes with hands alone, by those who needed bread, soup, survival. Gladdring passed by several more now, hacking at ice with stone chisels. The boys would get their labor’s due, enough to sate their stomachs for a night, enough oil or wood to keep their homes warm.

At least till tomorrow came and demanded it all over again.

The thought drew Gladdring’s eyes skyward. Scattered clouds, a scant sun. No storms on the horizons. Bad luck for the street cleaners, good luck for him. Perhaps the job could get done sooner. Perhaps . . .

No, hoping for this very night would be setting himself up for disappointment. Undo haste would mean risking⁠—

Gladdring scowled at nothing and nobody, tromping along the manors scaling the westward cliffs, making his way south. Private guards and well-dressed groups shuffled to business or pleasure lunches, though the winter meals in Noctia lacked summer’s cosmopolitan flavor. Vis and Kance fruits and fish, what Whent potatoes had been stored, would suffice until things thawed. His palate ached at the thought.

No, haste. Moving fast was what brought Gladdring here in the first place. Too much attention paid to overthrowing the Circle’s irritating leader and not enough shoring up his own position. The skars were weapons, Gladdring had proved that now, but the guards he’d entrusted to keep his secrets had decided their loyalty to the purple and black lay above loyalty to him. A problem Yarvick would fix, among several.

If only Masayo still lived. She understood, as Gladdring did, that true power lay in saving the Isles, not keeping them in chains.

A statue to Demion, the first Aegis, dominated the plaza Gladdring now walked through, as if confirming his own statement. Cruelty and iron fists didn’t create legends. Deeds worthy of remembering did. Demion had been the first to gather the skars, to put all the world behind their power. Gladdring would do one better than her, would marshal the skars and the Najahn together to obliterate the fiends at their very source.

Funny how that direct idea came from one particular Guardian, a Foti lost to his own ambition. Gladdring had been there that day when Svarde raged his proposal at the Circle, declaring a strike into the Dark Below the only sure option for saving their lives. In that moment, Gladdring found his direction, a larger purpose than simply deposing Fassle, a goal subtly shared among all the Tenets, as it had been as long as the Circle existed.

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