Infinity Blade: Redemption

collapsed in places. Why would the Soulless come here? Why not someplace more grand?
    On the pathway close to the palace, Siris found the first daeril. Dead.
    Siris knelt beside the creature. It had been hacked to pieces with a sharp blade. He thought he recognized the beast from its orange-red skin, twisted too-long limbs, inhuman face. It was one of those who had greeted Siris when he’d come to this place years back, after defeating the God King.
    But this creature was freshly dead; the blood was dry, the body cool, but rot had not yet set in. Wary, Siris picked his way across the ruined grounds.
    He found more dead just beyond the gateway. An entire heap of trolls, mountainous beasts that he’d once assumed to be unintelligent—until he’d met one with an alarmingly strong wit. That troll had betrayed Siris, unfortunately.
    He walked across the causeway and entered the grand hall. More dead daerils, and broken machines. A few chains hung down from the ceiling over a deep hole in the floor, remnants of the lift. It had been destroyed, apparently during the same battle that had killed the tower’s defenders.
    With a sigh, Siris removed his gauntlets, stepped back, then dashed forward and jumped out over the void, catching one of the chains. He swung back and forth until the momentum ran out, then began to climb upward, toward the God King’s throne room.
    ISA DRANK alone.
    Contrary to what many would assume, she didn’t prefer to drink alone. She’d rather be out with the soldiers, enjoying their company. She liked people. Well, she liked listening to people. Analyzing them. She didn’t particularly like talking to them, but a woman could prefer being silent in the company of others, as opposed to drinking alone, couldn’t she?
    You’d better not get yourself killed, Whiskers, she thought, taking a pull from her beer. She sat at a barlike shelf in the cavern of the God King’s hideout, waiting for contact from Siris.
    “That is not a table ,” said Eves, the stout Devoted, as he shuffled past her and checked on some wires. “That is a bank of very important, very holy equipment.”
    “Yeah?” Isa said.
    “Yes. And you’re drinking at it as if this were the bar of some tavern!”
    “I’ll try not to spill,” Isa said, taking another pull on her drink.
    The priest huffed and wandered away. Isa had watched him the entire day, including the point where—she was quite certain—he’d almost transformed himself into a Deathless. He’d primed the machine, set some input into the mirror, and stood facing it with sweat on his brow. Then he’d cursed and turned it all off before leaving to get some lunch.
    Now he seemed to be fretting about other items. He eventually left to check on the men outside. He wouldn’t make himself Deathless unless permitted to do so by his god. Well, you have to admire his loyalty, she thought, taking another drink.
    Wait. No you didn’t. The man was nearly as evil as his master, and culpable in his schemes and murders. That wasn’t loyalty to admire. She’d rather the man worshiped a rock than served the Deathless.
    And I’ve basically delivered the rebellion to one of them. Damn. What did she think of Siris? No idea. Maybe the beer knew.
    She took another drink.
    “You pine for him.”
    Isa spun, jumping from her stool, nearly throwing her mug toward the sound. The God King stood in the shadows back there, bare-chested, wearing the head of a jackal as some kind of illusion to hide his features.
    She hadn’t seen or heard him enter. How long had he been there? Had he watched Eves consider making himself Deathless?
    “You,” Isa said, “are one creepy bastard. You realize that?”
    He stepped forward, watching her with eyes she could not see. “It is natural to be captivated by one of the Deathless. We are your gods, are we not? I would love to hear what you have spoken of when alone together, if only to judge what parts of his mortal upbringing he has adopted.”
    “You think I’d tell you?”
    “Of course not,” Raidriar said, walking over to her pitcher of beer. He sniffed at it, then—surprisingly—poured himself a mug. He raised it. “To our alliance.”
    “Go suck on a rock.”
    He drank anyway, the front of his illusory head engulfing the mug as he put it to his unseen lips. “I promise,” he said lightly, “that all in my lands will know freedom, prosperity, and ease for the next, say . . . thousand years. A mythologically appropriate