Those Who Would Not Be Gods

3. Arrival:

It was a gorgeous day.

He couldn't feel the sunlight on his skin, nor smell the pollen thick in the air, but he could see that it was beautiful, though the colors of the flowers and fresh buds were muted and their edges, blurry. His senses were dulling again, the way they always did in the end. I'll have to move on soon, he thought, hand idly lifting to the heavy pendant that hung under his clothes. How long had it been since he'd obtained this body? Not long enough. It seemed to grow shorter with each cycle, the next body failing faster than the last.

He hadn't mastered it. Not the way she had. But it was enough. It would have to be.

Two Shrineguards stood at Castelfiamma's gate, stiff-backed and noble as ever. Another pair checked a wagon for smuggled goods off to the side, all clatter and chatter. He was registered and dismissed in the same moment, allowed through the gate without a second thought. A smirk passed over his lips, brief as it was faint, the ghost of a ghost of an expression. And you're supposed to stop undead, he thought, amused. They hadn't even suspected him.

It was pathetic. Any revenant could walk through the gates with absolutely no resistance. And a lich, the damage an undead-king could do here... But that was no matter. The Shrine thought all the greater undead were killed, long burned to ash and buried. It wasn't his funeral if they went on making that mistake.

I've already attended mine, after all.

"You're in a good mood," his companion commented dryly.

Pale eyes flicked to the man beside him, to his disgustingly perfect hair and horribly beautiful face. He wanted to ruin it, drag a blade through it and watch it contort in pain, to laugh as Cajetan's pride shattered before him, but the man was one of the best illusionists he'd ever found. He needed him. It pained him to need anyone but himself, but he needed Cajetan. Needed his talents.

If only I had such useful magic.

He waited long enough to make most men squirm. His companion didn't twitch. "A little black humor," he replied at last. He's no fun at all.

But it was only because Cajetan was broken in a fundamental way, a way that gave the glitter in his eye a broken-glass edge, a useful way. A way that made him agree to follow a dead man across the country on what anyone else would call a fool's errand. And it had been a fool's errand. For centuries.

His fingers curled around a scrap of paper in his pocket, words written in a childish, hasty scrawl. The message was simple: It's in Castelfiamma.

He'd almost dismissed the girl entirely. Cajetan certainly had. But he needed more searchers. Enough to make the whole country small. Hundreds of them.

She had looked so small. A tiny, pale thing, ready to collapse, big dark eyes like holes in her face. It took nothing to lift his hand and offer her the same thing he did all the others, the promise of magic. He'd expected her to smile or try to flaunt her newfound strength like all the others, but instead, it had been like watching a long-neglected plant unfurl at a sip of water. It had almost felt cruel to take it away again.

He almost smiled at the memory. She has a gift. If only the Shrine were willing to open its eyes and recognize talent from outside Bosco's borders, perhaps I wouldn't be here.

He hadn't had faith in her. He hadn't felt such a thing in centuries. But she'd shown more talent than most of his searchers, dull-eyed Boscans with little talent for magic and less for sensing it. Perhaps fresh blood was what he'd needed, after all. Blood untainted by the Boscan perversion of magic.

It had been a fool's errand.

Dry lips curved into a small smile. His hand clenched around the scrap. Until now.