Divine Rivals, page 2
Once he was gone, she had finished reading his article in peace. It made her heart ache—his writing was extraordinary—and she had dreamt about him that night. The next morning, she had promptly torn the paper to shreds and vowed to never read another one of his pieces again. If she did, she was bound to lose the position to him.
But she was reconsidering now as her tea went cold. If he wrote an article about missing soldiers, she might be inclined to read it.
Iris yanked a fresh sheet of paper from the stack on her desk, feeding it into her typewriter. But her fingers hovered over the keys as she listened to Roman pack his messenger bag. She listened to him leave the office, no doubt to gather information for his article, his footsteps muffled amongst the clack of typebars and the murmur of voices and the swirl of cigarette smoke.
She clenched her teeth together as she began to type out the first obituary.
* * *
By the time Iris was almost done for the day, she felt heavy from the obituaries. She always wondered what had caused the deaths, and although that information was never included, she imagined people would be more inclined to read the eulogies if it was.
She gnawed on a hangnail, tasting a faint trace of metal from the typewriter keys. If she wasn’t working on an assignment, she was elbow deep in either classifieds or obituaries. The past three months at the Gazette had seen her cycle through all three, each drawing different words and emotions from her in turn.
“In my office, Winnow,” said a familiar voice. Zeb Autry, her boss, was walking by, and he tapped the edge of her cubicle with his golden ringed fingers. “Now.”
Iris abandoned the obituary and followed him into a glass-walled chamber. It always smelled oppressive here, like oiled leather and tobacco and the strong sting of aftershave. When he sat at his desk, she settled in the wingback chair across from him, resisting the urge to crack her knuckles.
Zeb stared at her for a long, hard minute. He was a middle-aged man with thinning blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a cleft in his chin. Sometimes she thought he could read minds, and it made her uneasy.
“You were late this morning,” he stated.
“Yes, sir. I apologize. I overslept and missed the tram.”
By the way his frown deepened … she wondered if he could sense lies too.
“Kitt got the final assignment, but only because you were late, Winnow. I posted it on the board at eight o’clock sharp, like all the others,” Zeb drawled. “You’ve been late to work two times this week alone. And Kitt has yet to be tardy.”
“I understand, Mr. Autry. It won’t happen again, though.”
Her boss was quiet for a beat. “Over the past few months, I’ve published eleven articles of Kitt’s. I’ve published ten of yours, Winnow.”
Iris braced herself. Was it truly going to come down to the numbers? That Roman had written slightly more than her?
“Do you know that I was going to simply give the position to Kitt after he got his feet wet here?” Zeb continued. “That is, until your essay won the Gazette-in-Winter Competition. Out of the hundreds of essays I sifted through, yours caught my eye. And I thought, Here is a girl who has raw talent, and it would be a shame if I let that slip away.”
Iris knew what came next. She had been working at the diner, washing dishes with muted, broken dreams. She hadn’t once thought the essay she submitted to the Gazette’s annual competition would amount to anything, until she returned home to find a letter from Zeb with her name on it. It was an offer to work at the paper, with the tantalizing promise of columnist if she continued to prove herself exceptional.
It had completely changed Iris’s life.
Zeb lit a cigarette. “I’ve noticed that your writing hasn’t been as sharp lately. It’s been quite messy, in fact. Is there something happening at home, Winnow?”
“No, sir,” she answered, too swiftly.
He regarded her, one eye smaller than the other. “How old are you again?”
“Eighteen.”
“You dropped out of school this past winter, didn’t you?”
She hated thinking about her broken promise to Forest. But she nodded, sensing that Zeb was digging. He wanted to know more about her personal life, which made her tense.
“You have any siblings?”
“An older brother, sir.”
“And where is he, now? What does he do for a living?” Zeb pressed on.
Iris glanced away, studying the black and white checkered floor. “He was a horologist’s apprentice. But he’s at war now. Fighting.”
“For Enva, I presume?”
She nodded again.
“Is that why you dropped out of Windy Grove?” Zeb asked. “Because your brother left?”
Iris didn’t reply.
“That’s a pity.” He sighed, releasing a puff of smoke, although Iris knew Zeb’s opinion on the war, and it never failed to irk her. “What about your parents?”
“I live with my mother,” she replied in a curt tone.
Zeb withdrew a small flask from his jacket and poured a few drops of liquor into his tea. “I’ll think about giving you another assignment, although that’s not how I usually do things around here. Now, I want those obituaries on my desk by three this afternoon.”
She left without another word.
* * *
Iris set the finished obituaries on his desk an hour early, but she didn’t leave the office. She remained at her cubicle and began to think of an essay to write, just in case Zeb did give her a chance to counter Roman’s assignment.
But the words felt frozen inside of her. She decided to walk to the sideboard to pour herself a fresh cup of tea when she saw Roman Conceited Kitt walk into the office.
He had been gone all day, to her relief, but he now had that annoying bounce in his stride, as if he were teeming with words he needed to spill across the page. His face was flushed from the chill of early spring, his coat speckled with rain as he sat at his desk, rummaging through his messenger bag for his notepad.
Iris watched as he fed a page to his typewriter and began to furiously type. He was lost to the world, lost to his words, and so she didn’t take the long way back to her desk, as she often did, to avoid passing him directly. He didn’t notice her walking by, and she sipped her overly sweetened tea and stared at her blank page.
Soon everyone began to leave for the day, save for her and Roman. Desk lamps were being turned off, one by one, and yet Iris remained, typing slowly and arduously, as if every word had to be pulled from her marrow, while Roman two cubicles away was pounding into the keys.
Her thoughts drifted to the gods’ war.
It was inevitable; the war always seemed to simmer at the back of her mind, even if it was raging six hundred kilometers west of Oath.
How will it end? she wondered. With one god destroyed, or both of them?
Endings were often found in beginnings, and she began to type what she knew. Snippets of news that had drifted across the land, reaching Oath weeks after they had happened.
It began in a small, sleepy town surrounded by gold. Seven months ago, the wheat fields were ready for harvest, nearly swallowing a place called Sparrow, where sheep outnumber people four to one, and it rains only twice a year due to an old charm cast by an angry—and now slain—god, centuries ago.
This idyllic town in Western Borough is where Dacre, a defeated Underling god, was laid to sleep in a grave. And there he slept for two hundred and thirty-four years until one day, at harvest time, he unexpectedly woke and rose, sifting through the soil and burning with fury.
He came upon a farmer in the field, and his first words were a cold, ragged whisper.
“Where is Enva?”
Enva, a Skyward goddess and Dacre’s sworn enemy. Enva, who had also been defeated two centuries ago, when the five remaining gods fell captive beneath mortal power.
The farmer was afraid, cowering in Dacre’s shadow. “She is buried in the Eastern Borough,” he eventually replied. “In a grave not unlike your own.”
“No,” Dacre said. “She is awake. And if she refuses to greet me … if she chooses to be a coward, I will draw her to me.”
“How, my lord?” the farmer asked.
Dacre stared down at the man. How does one god draw another? He began to
“What’s this?”
Iris jumped at Zeb’s voice, turning to see him standing nearby with a scowl, trying to read what she had typed.
“Just an idea,” she replied, a bit defensive.
“It’s not about how the gods’ war began, is it? That’s old news, Winnow, and people here in Oath are sick of reading about it. Unless you have a fresh take on Enva.”
Iris thought about all the headlines Zeb had published about the war. They screamed things like THE DANGERS OF ENVA’S MUSIC: THE SKYWARD GODDESS HAS RETURNED AND SINGS OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS TO WAR or RESIST THE SIREN’S CALL TO WAR: ENVA IS OUR MOST DANGEROUS THREAT. ALL STRINGED INSTRUMENTS ARE OUTLAWED IN OATH.
All his articles blamed Enva for the war, while few mentioned Dacre’s involvement at all. Sometimes Iris wondered if it was because Zeb was afraid of the goddess and how easily she recruited soldiers, or if he had been instructed to publish only certain things—if the chancellor of Oath was controlling what the newspaper could share, quietly spreading propaganda.
“I … yes, I know, sir, but I thought—”
“You thought what, Winnow?”
She hesitated. “Has the chancellor given you restrictions?”
“Restrictions?” Zeb laughed as if she were being ridiculous. “On what?”
“On what you can and cannot feature in the paper.”
A frown creased Zeb’s ruddy face. His eyes flashed—Iris couldn’t tell if it was fear or irritation—but he chose to say, “Don’t waste my paper and ink ribbons on a war that is never going to reach us here in Oath. It’s a western problem and we should carry on as normal. Find something good to write about, and I might consider publishing it in the column next week.” With that, he rapped his knuckles on the wood and left, grabbing his coat and hat on the way out.
Iris sighed. She could hear Roman’s steady typing, like a heartbeat in the vast room. Fingertips striking keys, keys striking paper. A prodding for her to do better than him. To claim the position before he did.
Her mind was mush, and she yanked her essay from the typewriter. She folded it and tucked it away in her small tapestry bag, knotting the drawstrings before she scooped up her broken shoe. She turned her lamp off and stood, rubbing a crick in her neck. It was dark beyond the windows; night had settled over the city, and the lights beyond bled like fallen stars.
This time when she walked by Roman’s desk, he noticed her.
He was still wearing his trench coat, and a tendril of black hair cut across his furrowed brow. His fingers slowed on the keys, but he didn’t speak.
Iris wondered if he wanted to, and if so, what he would say to her in a moment when they had the office to themselves, and no one else watching them. She thought of an old proverb that Forest used to invoke: Turn a foe into a friend, and you’ll have one less enemy.
A tedious task, indeed. But Iris paused, backtracking to stand at Roman’s cubicle.
“Do you want to grab a sandwich?” she asked, hardly aware of the words spilling from her mouth. All she knew was she hadn’t eaten that day, and she was hungry for food and a stirring conversation with someone. Even if it was him. “There’s a delicatessen two doors down that stays open this late. They have the best pickles.”
Roman didn’t even slow his typing. “I can’t. Sorry.”
Iris nodded and hurried on her way. She was ridiculous for even thinking he’d want to share dinner with her.
She left with bright eyes, hurling her broken heel into the dustbin on her way out.
{2}
Words for Forest
It was a good thing Roman had turned her down for a sandwich.
Iris stopped by a corner grocer, feeling how light her handbag was. She didn’t realize she had stepped into one of Oath’s enchanted buildings until the food on the shelves began to shift. Only items she could afford worked their way to the edge, vying for her attention.
Iris stood in the aisle, face burning. She gritted her teeth as she noticed how much she couldn’t afford and then hastily grabbed a loaf of bread and a half carton of boiled eggs, hoping the shop would now leave her alone and cease weighing the coins in her purse.
This was why she was wary of enchanted buildings in the city. They could have pleasant perks, but they could also be nosy and unpredictable. She made a habit of avoiding unfamiliar ones, even if they were few and far between.
Iris hurried to the counter to pay, suddenly noticing the rows of empty shelves. Only a few cans remained behind—corn and beans and pickled onions.
“I take it your shop has been overly keen to sell tinned vegetables lately?” she asked dryly as she paid the grocer.
“Not quite. Things are being shipped west, to the front,” he said. “My daughter is fighting for Enva and I want to make sure her company has enough food. It’s hard work, feeding an army.”
Iris blinked, surprised by his reply. “Did the chancellor order you to send aid?”
He snorted. “No. Chancellor Verlice won’t declare war on Dacre until the god is knocking on our door, although he tries to make it appear like we’re supportive of our brothers and sisters fighting in the west.” The grocer set the loaf and eggs into a brown bag, sliding it across the counter.
Iris thought he was brave to make those statements. First, that their chancellor in the east was either a coward or a Dacre sympathizer. Second, to tell her which god his daughter was fighting for. She had learned this herself when it came to Forest. There were plenty of people in Oath who supported Enva and her recruitment and thought the soldiers courageous, but there were others who didn’t. Those individuals, however, tended to be the ones who regarded the war as something that would never affect them. Or they were people who worshipped and supported Dacre.
“I hope your daughter remains safe and well at the front,” Iris said to the grocer. She was glad to leave the nosy shop behind, only to slip on a wet newspaper in the street.
“Haven’t you had enough of me for one day?” she growled as she bent to retrieve it, assuming the paper was the Gazette.
It wasn’t.
Iris’s eyes widened when she recognized the inkwell and quill emblem of the Inkridden Tribune—the Gazette’s rival. There were five different newspapers scattered throughout Oath, but the Gazette and the Tribune were the oldest and most widely read. And if Zeb happened to catch sight of her with the competition in her hands, he would surely give the promotion to Roman.
She studied the front page, curious.
MONSTERS SIGHTED THIRTY KILOMETERS FROM THE WAR FRONT, the headline announced in smudged type. Beneath it was an illustration of a creature with large, membranous wings, two spindly legs hooked with talons, and a horde of sharp, needlelike teeth. Iris shivered, straining to read the words, but they were indecipherable, melting into streaks of ink.
She stared at the paper for a moment longer, frozen on the street corner. Rain dripped from her chin, falling like tears onto the monstrous illustration.
Creatures like this didn’t exist anymore. Not since the gods had been defeated centuries ago. But, of course, if Dacre and Enva had returned, so could the creatures of old. Creatures that had long only lived in myths.
Iris moved to drop the disintegrating paper in the rubbish bin but then was pierced by a cold thought.
Is this why so many soldiers are going missing at the front? Because Dacre is fighting with monsters?
She needed to know. And she carefully folded the Inkridden Tribune and slipped it into her inner coat pocket.
It took longer than she would’ve liked in the rain, especially without proper shoes, but Oath was not a simple place to travel by foot. The city was ancient, built centuries ago on the grave of a conquered god. Its streets meandered like a serpent’s path—some were hard-packed dirt and narrow, others wide and paved, and a few were haunted by trickles of magic. New construction had bloomed during the past few decades, though, and it was sometimes jarring to Iris to see the brick buildings and shining windows adjacent to the thatched roofs, crumbling parapets, and castle towers of a forgotten era. To watch trams navigate the ancient, twisting streets. As if the present was trying to cobble over the past.
An hour later, Iris finally reached her flat, sore for breath and drenched from the rain.
She lived with her mother on the second floor, and Iris paused at the door, uncertain what would greet her.
It was just as she expected.
Aster was reclining on the sofa wrapped in her favorite purple coat, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. Empty bottles were strewn across the living room. The electricity was out, as it had been for weeks now. A few candles were lit on the sideboard and had been burning so long the wax had carved a way free, puddling on the wood.
Iris merely stood on the threshold and stared at her mother until the world around them both seemed to blur.
“Little Flower,” Aster said in a drunken lilt, finally noticing her. “You’ve come home at last to see me.”
Iris inhaled sharply. She wanted to unleash a torrent of words. Words that tasted bitter, but then she noticed the silence. The roaring, terrible silence, and how the smoke curled within it, and she couldn’t help herself. She glanced at the sideboard, where the candles flickered, and noticed what was missing.
“Where’s the radio, Mum?”
Her mother arched her brow. “The radio? Oh, I sold it, honey.”
Iris felt her heart plummet, down to her sore feet. “Why? That was Nan’s radio.”
“It could hardly pick up a channel, sweetheart. It was time for it to go.”
No, Iris thought, blinking back tears. You only needed money to buy more alcohol.
She slammed the front door and walked through the living room, around the bottles, into the small, dingy kitchen. There was no candle lit here, but Iris had the place memorized. She set the dented loaf of bread and the half carton of eggs down on the counter before reaching for a paper sack and returning to the living room. She gathered up the bottles—so many bottles—and it made her think of that morning, and why she had run late. Because her mother had been lying on the floor next to a pool of vomit, in a kaleidoscope of glass, and it had terrified her.
