Leviathan's Blood Read Free Page B

Ja could not take it
in as a single creature. His mind worked furiously to piece together the shape, the mountain-like head, the sharp ridges of its back, the long, long tail that curved up as the beast turned in a
spiral and began to descend into the water. It was like a country, a kingdom spreading out around him and, with a sudden onset of panic, Ja realized that the creature was plunging downwards only in
preparation to rise. In his mind he saw it bursting out of the black water, its open mouth a huge, horrific cavern capable of swallowing entire nations in a single bite and plunging him into a
world where his very being would be broken down, where it would be consumed by the acid of the beast’s stomach as if he were nothing.
    A hand touched his shoulder.
    ‘Father.’
    His daughter.
    ‘Father, you must wake,’ she whispered. ‘There is a boat approaching.’
    He wanted her words to be another part of the dream, but her hand shook him again, and he groggily opened his eyes.
    Outside his house, the light came from the stars and the moon, but by the time Ja had made his way to the beach, lamps had been lit, and the people of the village had begun to form a line that
he had to push through. ‘I am sorry,’ Iz said softly, standing beside him on the start of the beach. ‘I saw it just before the two guards did.’
    Out in the dark water, a single boat approached, a single figure in it.
    A single man, he knew.
    ‘It’s okay,’ he said, finally.
    ‘What—’ His daughter hesitated, aware of the crowd listening to their words. ‘The children should be sent away.’
    ‘We do not know it is him,’ he said, not believing his words.
    ‘It is a survivor from a ship, that is all. A survivor.’
    On Leviathan’s Blood, a wave rose, and the small boat rose with it.
    ‘We will greet him,’ he said, as the boat rode the wave down, as the oars in it rose and fell in unison. ‘We will send three people down to help him pull his boat ashore, to
help if the man needs help. We will tell him what we do here. We will be proud. We will tell him that we are trying to change the world. That we are fixing the damage that was done by the gods. We
will tell him that, but we will be cautious. We will give crossbows and bows to others. We will make sure that everyone is armed. We will send the young children into the forest with the older
children. We will not flee. We will not be ashamed of what we are doing here.’
    ‘Father,’ his daughter said softly. ‘We need not approach at all.’
    ‘We will not be afraid,’ he said.

The Floating Cities of Yeflam
    In Leera, she is known as ‘our god’ or simply ‘the god’; but abroad she is called ‘the Leeran God’, or ‘the child’.
    The gods of the past were best described as a belief defined by function, but the child is not like that. The first descriptions of her to emerge were of a blonde-haired white girl, no older
than seven; but after Mireea fell and the Spine of Ger began to crumble, other visions of her became known. In some, she was a baby, or a toddler; in others, a young woman, a teenager. While each
may have been different, they were linked by her youth, defined by it, in fact, for it is from her youth that she crafts her identity.
    —Tinh Tu,
Private Diary

1.
    A thousand years ago, Zaifyr’s sister tried to kill him.
    She had not been alone. Aelyn had been one of four who had come into his kingdom, drawn by the reports of massacres, by the reports of madness.
    By his madness.
    In the ruins of Asila, in the city that shared the name of the country he ruled, Zaifyr and his family fought. They fought a day and a night. Yet, he could not remember how it had started. He
could remember his family asking him to come with them. Could recall them telling him that they did not want to hurt him. But he could not remember who spoke those words. The dead had been so
strong and vocal beside him that it was their words he heard before any others. They stood