A Priestess for the Blind God (Legends of Rahasia Book 1)

Chapter Fifty-Nine

A woman's knee digs into his spine. The whole world goes blurry, head slams into ground, and now a knife digging into his neck.

"You think I wouldn't notice you following me?" Ratu slams him again into the ground for good measure. Arno gasps, half his face instinctively turning to its golem state to protect himself. "No, none of that shapeshifting, soldier boy. Where we're going, secrecy means living."

"We?" Arno sits up, willing his skin to calm down and shift from clay to its regular, bronzed form. "You aren't even going to attempt to say, 'this is too dangerous, you should stay behind' like all the other heroes do?"

Ratu twirls the knife between her fingers, the blade spinning methodically. Then, a quick snap of the wrist, and the blade points right between Arno's eyes. "Do I look like a hero to you, soldier?" She snorts, and then suddenly shoves a skinny boy who'd gotten close to Arno's shining belt. "Watch out for pickpockets, Arno. With your shiny, well-fed body on display, you'll be a big target for the urchins. It's obvious you grew up well... too well."

And then, as they walk in that tense, spine-tingling silence, Ratu tells her story. She tells Arno everything, of staying on as a maidservant, of Elio's torture at the hands of Cato. She tells of some of her history as the Queen of Thieves, and about how Ode plans on getting Kane to help her fight those demons. She describes her encounter with Aziz.

And finally, she explains her mission. Find a way to get a demon soul out of a mortal body... preferably without killing the poor human host.

"Got it." Arno dodges to the side the next time somebody gets too close, or else he growls at them and reveals a little bit of his golem eyes, the solid, murky gray like river water swelling over dust. "Where are you going, Queen of Thieves?"

"A brothel." She looks back, chuckling softly at Arno's blush. "What, have you never been to one before, soldier?"

Arno scratches nervously at his neck. "Not with a woman... I mean there are women there, but, well, you know what I mean! But it was only one time. Just accompanying my men. Group bonding, you know."

"Of course, just a regular training exercise. A little swordplay, and then the main event." Unfortunately, Arno can't see if she's laughing at him. He decides to be optimistic and hope that she isn't.

She makes to turn into the next alleyway, but Arno reflexively stops her. "Wait, no, it's the next alley over."

Ratu smirks at him, waggling her eyebrows. "Ah, so you have been there more than once, I take it. Figures. I'd always get tons of money stealing from unconscious noblemen sons."

Arno, wiser this time, stays silent.

The brothel's particularly rowdy tonight. With the war against the gods raging so long, people turn to more earthly pleasures. If you can't trust the Divine, then why not trust your senses instead? It's better to feel while alive than feel nothing when your dead, and these people are doing just that. Men paw at women, and women slosh more liquor against their already-stained garments. Leering eyes, clawing hands, the scene is hell. He wonders for a split second if he should shield her body with his own, but the brothel occupants bow with their palms up in supplication as soon as they see Ratu's batik signature and body armor. Ratu strides over to the beefy guard in front of the door, so large that he even makes Arno look small.

"Silahkan," Ratu says with an eerie tilt to her head, the prodigal heiress reclaiming her throne, reunited with her former glory. "Tell Snake that his favorite Jiwanese Queen has returned. I want you to drag him out from whatever hole he slithered in."