The slain divine, p.1
The Slain Divine, page 1
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by David Dalglish
Excerpt from A Flame in the North copyright © 2024 by Lilith Saintcrow
Excerpt from The Combat Codes copyright © 2015 by Alexander Darwin
Cover design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover illustration by Chase Stone
Cover copyright © 2024 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Map by Sámhlaoch Swords
Author photograph by North Myrtle Beach Photography
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Dalglish, David, author.
Title: The slain divine / David Dalglish.
Description: First edition. | New York : Orbit, 2024. | Series: Vagrant gods ; book 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2023021890 | ISBN 9780759557161 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780759557154 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Fantasy fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3604.A376 S63 2024 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20230508
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023021890
ISBNs: 9780759557161 (trade paperback), 9780759557154 (ebook)
E3-20231110-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
A Reminder, For Those Who Need One
Prologue: Dagon
Chapter 1: Vagrant
Chapter 2: Lucavi
Chapter 3: Sinshei
Chapter 4: Mari
Chapter 5: Vagrant
Chapter 6: Sinshei
Chapter 7: Dario
Chapter 8: Keles
Chapter 9: Stasia
Chapter 10: Lucavi
Chapter 11: Arn
Chapter 12: Mari
Chapter 13: Soma
Chapter 14: Stasia
Chapter 15: Arn
Chapter 16: Keles
Chapter 17: Vagrant
Chapter 18: Mari
Chapter 19: Vagrant
Chapter 20: She
Chapter 21: Sinshei
Chapter 22: Soma
Chapter 23: Vagrant
Chapter 24: Lucavi
Chapter 25: Vagrant
Chapter 26: Lucavi
Chapter 27: Vagrant
Chapter 28: Dario
Chapter 29: Stasia
Chapter 30: Keles
Chapter 31: She
Chapter 32: Sinshei
Chapter 33: Stasia
Chapter 34: Arn
Chapter 35: Dario
Chapter 36: Stasia
Chapter 37: Mari
Chapter 38: Stasia
Chapter 39: She
Chapter 40: Vagrant
Chapter 41: Mari
Chapter 42: Lucavi
Chapter 43: Arn
Chapter 44: Keles
Chapter 45: Soma
Chapter 46: The Night Before
Chapter 47: Sinshei
Chapter 48: Keles
Chapter 49: Sinshei
Chapter 50: Stasia
Chapter 51: Dario
Chapter 52: Stasia
Chapter 53: Arn
Chapter 54: Mari
Chapter 55: She
Chapter 56: Calista
Chapter 57: Vagrant
Chapter 58: Assassin
Chapter 59: Vagrant
Chapter 60: Lycaena
Chapter 61: The Night After
Chapter 62: Cyrus
A Note from the Author
Discover More
Extras Meet the Author
A Preview of A Flame in the North
A Preview of The Combat Codes
Also by David Dalglish
Praise for David Dalglish
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A REMINDER, FOR THOSE WHO NEED ONE:
Cyrus Lythan was meant to be a figurehead for a resistance against the Everlorn Empire, which invaded his island of Thanet, slew his parents, and slaughtered his two gods, the Butterfly goddess, Lycaena, and the Lion god, Endarius. Instead, the leader of the resistance, Thorda Ahlai, organizes a sacrifice resulting in the death of forty men and women in the Vagrant’s name. He becomes something more, a fledgling god against his will. Though he protests, and abandons Thorda’s group for a month, he eventually returns upon hearing news that his friend the paladin Keles Lyon has disappeared while searching for the supposedly resurrected Lycaena.
Keles, meanwhile, has befriended a priest named Eshiel Dymling, a devoted follower of the Butterfly who, through daily ritual sacrifice, has returned a simulacrum of the goddess, only this time born of blood and fire and prepared for war. Cyrus, traveling with his mentor, the paladin Rayan, battles the reborn Lycaena but would have failed if not for the timely arrival of an unexpected ally: the Heir-Incarnate of Everlorn, Galvanis vin Lucavi. Together, they break the goddess, and Eshiel falls off the crumbling cliffside, believed by all to be dead.
A dejected Keles returns alone to the capital of Vallessau, only to be captured by Soma Ordiae, an enigmatic paragon working with the God-Incarnate’s daughter, Sinshei vin Lucavi. Soma brings Keles to the capital, where she learns from Sinshei the truth of her island and her heritage. Cyrus’s family, the Lythans, arrived with Endarius from across the sea, and came as conquerors to fight a war against the Sapphire Serpent, Dagon, and his chosen ruling family, the Orani. Keles is descended from that Orani blood, and if not for Cyrus, she might even be queen. She accepts the power of another paragon ceremony, only this time the sacrifices are followers of Dagon, declaring her the Returned Queen meant to restore her bloodline to the throne. As payment for this power, she hunts down Cyrus, supposedly to bring his head to Sinshei, though in truth she only hopes to convince him to lie low and fake his death. In doing so, she can accept Sinshei’s offer: Once she is God-Incarnate, Sinshei will deliver Thanet back to Keles and order the imperial occupation to depart.
Keles twice attacks Cyrus in disguise, culminating in her reveal during a horrid failure to sneak soldiers into Vallessau through boats at the port. The plan was betrayed by one of their collaborators, Lord Jase Mosau, though Keles is initially blamed instead. Their lives are spared only by the timely arrival of Eshiel, who survived the fall from the cliff and has now returned, declaring himself thrice-born and still Lycaena’s faithful servant.
The resistance is dejected in the aftermath, but not all is grim. One of Thorda’s daughters, Stasia, marries her girlfriend of four years, Clarissa. The beautiful ceremony is tainted in the eyes of Thorda’s other daughter, Mari, because she knows the truth Thorda hid: Her father was one of the last gods of their conquered homeland of Miquo. His power as God of the Forge was meant to pass on to Stasia, who still does not know of her divine heritage. Further darkening the event is the arrival of one of their friends and allies, the Heretic, Arn Bastell, who requests that Mari channel the spirit of the Fox, Velgyn, so he might offer his life up to her. Mari does so, but no sacrifice is demanded, only forgiveness offered.
Arn is overwhelmed by the offer, and also realizes just how much he cherishes his relationship with Mari. Once back in Vallessau, he decides to buy Mari a gift in thanks, only to be captured by his brother, Dario, who has arrived on the island alongside the Heir-Incarnate. Dario tries, unsuccessfully, to convince his brother to return his faith to the Uplifted Church. And so, instead, Arn is used as bait for the rest of Thorda Ahlai’s group. Betrayed again by Lord Jase, Cyrus leads his friends down into a recently unearthed gladiator pit used by Endarius in the earliest days of his reign. There Cyrus once more battles Keles to the amusement of the watching Galvanis. Instead of killing her upon winning, he kneels before her, declares her his queen, and vows to protect her. They break free the rest of their friends, and so begins the final battle.
Amid the chaos, Rayan chases down and kills Lord Jase, but in turn is corne red and defeated by the Heir-Incarnate. Keles finds his body, and amid her grief, Lycaena comforts her and grants her the power needed to defeat Galvanis. Together, she and the Vagrant battle the powerful Heir-Incarnate. Upon realizing his defeat is at hand, Galvanis tries to flee, only to be stopped by his sister, Sinshei. She cuts his head from his shoulders with her golden blades of faith, placing her as the now highest-ranking member of Everlorn upon the island.
Once more she offers her promise to Keles. If both she and the Vagrant lie low and pretend that Thanet is cowed, Sinshei will free the island once granted the power of the God-Incarnate. They begrudgingly accept, unaware that Sinshei’s promise is a lie. The entire island will be sacrificed to facilitate the rebirth of a new God-Incarnate, only now it will be in her name instead of her slain brother’s. She needs only the Vagrant to step aside and let her appear in control of the island.
At least, she hopes so.
For her loyal paragon, Soma, is the god Dagon in disguise, and most assuredly has his own plans for the island he has been exiled from for the past four hundred years… an exile that began at the final battle waged against the Lion in the War of Tides.
PROLOGUE
DAGON
Trapped against the sea,” Dagon said as he stood at the front of his pitiful army. Behind them were his several hundred faithful, hurriedly building rafts with what few logs they had cut and carried on their flight after their defeat at the battle of Illiam Crossing. The rafts would not be done in time, and even if they were, they could carry only a pittance of the gathered men and women.
Before them marched the army of the Lion.
“It is not too late,” said one of Dagon’s loyal priests. The bearded man stood at Dagon’s right, his head barely reaching Dagon’s shoulder. Seashells rattled on his necklace, which he clutched tightly in fearful hands. “Find safety in the Crystal Sea, I beg of you, my god.”
Dagon glared at the thousands of approaching soldiers, most of them bearing foreign steel.
“If only I had sunk their boats before their hulls touched the sands of Thanet,” he lamented. Ever since Dagon arose from the sea to look upon his beloved worshipers, he had believed he and Lycaena were the only two gods alive, meant to guide humanity on this little island they named Thanet. But to discover a third god? To learn of humans living across the Crystal Sea? It had been too much of a curiosity, and now he and his faithful suffered for it.
“My lord?” the priest asked.
“No, Aladine, I will not flee,” Dagon said. “Here we make our stand. My blood will join yours upon the sand if that is the cost of our salvation.”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, never quite comfortable when bipedal. As he always did upon land, he had shed his scaled serpent tail for human legs. His movements across grass and rock were too slow when slithering, his tail too hard to defend when surrounded.
Aladine shook his head and kissed the shells of his necklace.
“There is no salvation here. The Lion is too cruel.”
Dagon turned to the far cliff overlooking the shore, and in the distance he saw Lycaena watching with twelve of her priests and paladins at her side.
“The Lion,” said Dagon. “And the Butterfly.”
While his faithful numbered in the hundreds, Endarius’s came in the thousands. They marched in neatly aligned rows, his bannermen carrying flags bearing the Lion’s roaring face. The soldiers’ steel glittered in the midday sun. Dagon faced the distant cliff, his divine eyes focused on the beautiful goddess draped with colors akin to flame.
“Come you to watch my execution?” he asked. His words traveled to the goddess’s ears and hers alone. “Is this slaughter your idea of ‘impartiality’?”
“You suffer for your pride,” her voice responded on the wind. “If you cannot share the bounty of Thanet with Endarius, then you shall battle him for it. My faithful will not die for your stubbornness.”
It was exactly as he expected. When Endarius’s paws were still wet upon the shore, he had demanded land of his own. Dagon had foolishly given it. Land became titles. Titles became a crown, Thanet’s third, as the island split into three kingdoms. Still, it was not enough. Endarius called for one king, not three, and against such insolence Dagon finally decreed, “Enough!”
Lycaena, however, fell for the Lion’s words of unity and peace. She accepted the lie that three kingdoms upon Thanet meant too much conflict for the humans to bear. Yet she also pretended to honor Dagon’s dissent, and so she ordered her faithful to remain neutral in the war that followed.
Neutral, impartial, as Dagon’s faithful died beneath waves of foreign steel.
The Lion takes, as is his nature, he thought, his eyes narrowing. But it is your cowardice I shall never forgive.
Dagon readied his weapons. His sword was the height and weight of a man, its length gently curved and made not of metal but of hardened coral. The blade was a soft blue that shifted nearest the sharpened edge into the bright red color of blood. His shield was an oyster shell, the grandest from the entire ocean floor. His scales were his armor, and he trusted them more than any man-made chain.
“You must be strong,” he told Adaline. “Have my priests pray for strength. Pray for courage. Call for the sea, and trust the sea to come. I do not fear the Lion’s brutality. The ocean conquers all, even the hardest of stones. Thanet shall rejoice when Endarius bleeds out at my feet.”
Except the Lion would not fight him. Dagon had learned that maddening fact during their first two battles. Endarius paced the outer edges of the conflict, watching. Hunting for weakness. Any progress Dagon made in the heart of the battle, Endarius would undo with a strategic attack on a flank. When Dagon would reinforce, he would find the other flank broken, or the center bending as the Lion charged anew. Slowly, steadily, Endarius stripped Dagon of his faithful. His instincts for war were greater than Dagon’s, for Dagon had known only peace. It was a butcher’s advantage, and it only solidified the need for Thanet to be saved from his twisted faith.
“To my side, paladins, warriors, and blessed priests,” Dagon called, and he lifted his sword high. “We shall harden these sands with the foreigners’ blood.”
In the distance, the Lion roared, and his army charged. Dagon steeled himself for battle. Foreigners, he called his foes, but he could only wish that were true. Too many Thanese had shifted their loyalty from the Butterfly and the Serpent to the Lion, securing themselves a place in the newfound order. A desire for power defeated the call for peace and prosperity. Dagon tightened his grip on his sword. Damn the numbers before him. He would find victory. He must. And if he found victory, it would come from the sea.
He need not turn to know an enormous wave approached. He felt it in his mind, caressed by his divine hands, guided toward the shore as an ever-growing monsoon as wide as the beach they stood upon. His priests aided him, their prayers drawing forth the wave and granting Dagon strength to perform the miracle. Closer, closer, come to meet the charge of the Lion and his followers. Dagon lifted his sword and shield, and he dared believe victory could be his. The wave would pass like a gentle rain over his faithful, who closed their eyes and believed. They would be spared its wrath, but not the followers of Endarius. Not those who sought destruction.
Dagon opened his eyes, and he smiled beneath the shadow of the furious tide.
The Lion roared.
Tremors shook the sand. Wind howled, vicious and sharp. Hundreds of Dagon’s followers collapsed, blown back as if struck by a physical force. Dagon dug his feet into the sand, grimacing, all his divine might pushing, pushing, but the wave could not abide. The land was not its place. It crumpled backward and then collapsed, carrying several of the rafts out with it. When the roar ended, the savage, jubilant cries of Endarius’s charging army filled its silence.
They met no wave. They endured no wrath of the sea. Just Dagon’s frightened, outnumbered, and broken few.
“Stand strong!” Dagon shouted at them. He met the charge with a swipe of his enormous sword, crushing soldiers with ease. He waded deep into them, aided by his paladins, adorned in blue plate and wielding long spears. They tried, these paladins, tearing into their foes with songs on their lips and bravery in their hearts, but with each passing moment, Dagon watched more die from the corners of his vision. He would weep for them later, if he could. Swords stabbed at his scales, most deflected, some not. Bruises built upon him, and his blood dripped blue across the sand. He batted away soldiers two at a time with his shield, swung wide with his sword, and cut two more in half. They did not attack, though, not truly. These soldiers surrounded him, keeping him penned in so the Lion could do his work elsewhere.
