Promise of Blood

The square began to empty. Mihali was left alone, standing upon his table, arms folded. He looked sternly out across the paving stones as the last of the fleeing crowd took off down the avenues. Food was strewn about the ground; tables and chairs overturned; plates, bowls, and cups abandoned. There a pot had been overturned, porridge slowly spreading along the ground, and here the bodies of bystanders lay unmoving. A woman groaned in pain.

“Help her,” Tamas told a soldier, pointing.

Behind him, the doors of the House of Nobles swung open. Soldiers poured out.

“What happened, sir?” Vlora asked, rushing to his side.

“The Black Street Barbers,” Tamas spat. “Adamat and Sabon didn’t do their job.”

“Where the pit are they?”

“I shot a couple. They’re…” Tamas stopped. The wounded Barbers were gone. He blinked. Was that a red mist where they’d been? “I saw more. They must have fled with the crowd.” He brushed past Olem and hobbled down the stairs. He paused next to the vice-chancellor. Prime stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, surveying the empty square with a firm look of consternation.

“Who the pit are you?” Tamas said. His hands trembled. The sorcery that had washed over him minutes before was gone, hidden again. It had clearly come from Mihali, but then what of the vice-chancellor? A Privileged this whole time? Tamas would have seen it.

Prime removed his hand from his pocket and drummed his fingers on his belly. He’d taken off his Privileged gloves.

“You’re one of them,” Tamas said when it became clear Prime would not answer his question. “One of the Predeii. Like Julene.” It was true. All of it was true. Tamas felt dread settle in his stomach. “Don’t go anywhere.” Tamas headed out toward Mihali.

The big chef had climbed down from his table and was righting chairs. He paused next to a spilled cauldron of porridge, placing his hand gently on the rim. He frowned.

Tamas paused a dozen paces from Mihali. The porridge faded before his eyes, like rain drying on sun-warmed bricks. Mihali bent over the cauldron and gripped the sides with both arms. He lifted it easily, though it must have weighed twenty stone, and returned it to an iron tripod.

Tamas opened his third eye and fought off the dizziness. The world glowed. The paving stones where the porridge had been were smudged pink to Tamas’s inner sight. The colors swirled around Mihali like some kind of festival streamers, though they never once touched the chef himself.

Mihali dropped into a chair and rested his elbow on his knee with his chin in the palm of his hand. He caught sight of Tamas.

“Thank you for looking out for me,” Mihali said.

“I was too far to do much good,” Tamas said.

Mihali gave him a weak smile. “Still. I am vulnerable in this body.”

“They’ve ruined your feast,” Tamas said.

“The people will be back.” Mihali brushed a hand across his brow. One of his assistants approached him, put a hand on his back gently. He pulled her close with one big arm and kissed her on the forehead. “And there will be more,” he said with a sigh. “My own work was not ruined. Delayed a little, but not ruined.”

“Prime says you were channeling a spell,” Tamas said.

Mihali looked past Tamas’s shoulder toward the vice-chancellor. “Very perceptive.” He gripped his assistant’s arm for a moment and shooed her away. “I remember you now,” he said as Prime approached. “It’s been a very long time.”

“Fourteen centuries or so,” Prime said. “So it really is you? I didn’t believe it… I didn’t want to believe it.” He took a shaky breath. “I believed it had been long enough that Kresimir would never return. I believed it was time for change. I thought all of Rozalia’s concerns were foolish, and that Julene was living in the past. I believed we were alone.”

“My people have never been alone,” Mihali said. “The others may have left. I did not.”

“What did you do to those Barbers?” Tamas asked.

Mihali didn’t look happy. “They no longer exist,” he said. His voice was glum, in the manner of a man who’d done something he didn’t want to. “I lost my temper,” he said. “I don’t like…” He paused, his voice cracked. “They felt no pain. I don’t like to harm people.”

Tamas watched the chef for a few moments, a thousand questions flooding his mind. Something stilled his tongue.

“Sir,” Olem said, coming to his side. “We can’t find any of the Barbers. Not one.”

Tamas said, “You won’t.” He took a deep breath. “He’s a god, Olem. A real, live god in the flesh.” The newfound conviction was not a happy one. His head ached. His stomach reeled. “This is not good.”

Olem was staring at Mihali as if trying to make up his own mind. “Why not? I mean, if he’s a god, isn’t that good?”