Archive of Our Own

But war is an opportunity.

The Watcher God’s gaze is ever present. Zanka will not let an opportunity pass without proving himself.

The air reeks of a slaughterhouse. Of a battle long fought.

But Zanka's on a tear again, he can feel it. He swings his weapon out at the next cultist. He thinks that one was trying to run — how cute. Could have tried that a bit earlier. His pulse sings as he slides under the arc of another blade. He sees it clip the ends of his bangs an inch above the bridge of his nose. Great, now he needs to add a haircut to his pre-ceremony to-dos. He slams his staff into his assailant’s knee, listening for the scream when the joint shatters like ice in its socket. He goes down and stays there.

Zanka’s eyes flick between them, calculating. His angle’s bad. There's room to retreat, and good odds that it would split them up — but to retreat from his duty? From these guys, no less. Even if just for a moment, that’s not what you were taught. No, not happening.

He hears words, but not with his ears. Like someone turned down the volume in his brain for a moment to speak.

Good choice, it says.

Then Zanka sees a possibility. A shivering afterimage of himself and the other combatants. He feels his body following those motions just as much as he feels himself standing there, perfectly still. His muscles twitch, impatient to make it real.

A gift from the Watcher. He doesn't hesitate.

He lunges right first, and just like the vision, the fighter flinches, like he didn't expect to be the first target. The spikes on Zanka's staff puncture his carotid before he has the sense to swing his sword with any intention. He weaves behind the second fighter who trips over the body of the first. Jumps off his back for leverage to strike the remaining two across the face with the same blow. He lands on one of them to finish the job, but he’s already unconscious. Zanka pauses.

He hears it again.

C’mon, don't stop now.

He's right. Not a threat to him, maybe, but still dangerous to the raided village they are here to protect.

He finishes his work swiftly.

The iron of meat and blood hangs dense as fog in the air.

It changes after Zanka listens.

Not subtly, either.

Ozone and red-hot metal, heavy and thick in the air. Choking to some. He hears coughing from his squadmates. Wet gasps from the not-quite-dead at his feet. But Zanka breathes fine.

He swears he hears uproarious laughter somewhere behind him but there’s no one. Just the bodies he went through to get here, crumpled and scattered in the field. He pants from the exertion, staff planted firmly through an enemy’s chest.

Fall back, he’s commanded. All student soldiers, fall back.

Maybe they feared a chemical weapon. His squad leaders look especially grim as they lead the extraction.

Well, it doesn’t really matter. Zanka proved himself more than any student out there today. More than any other soldier or Patron. He ensured the city’s protection, did his duty and then some. The Watcher will remember this during the ceremony, he’s sure of it.

***

Kyouka has no advice for him. Says, “If you’re asking now, you’re too late. This isn’t a test you can cram for. You’re either worthy, or you aren’t.”

Of course Zanka knows all that. His teachers have said much the same all his life. He just hoped that the Watcher’s Chosen of all people would have something more useful to offer on how to follow her path. Zanka looks at the Watcher’s claim marks. Dark rings around her eyes. The vigil mark, followers call them. He imagines them blazed across his own face. He remembers playing in his mother's makeup when he was a kid, drawing the marks he saw mirrored on his father’s eyes in her kohl eyeliner.

“The Nijiku line has produced no less than five of the Watcher’s Chosen,” his mother says. “You are as promising as they were in their time.”

And if the Watcher disagrees? Zanka doesn’t ask. He knows.

If he disagrees, he’ll join most recruits who come away from the ritual as ordinary Patrons of the Watcher, if they’re blessed at all. A handful, every year, leave marked by other Gods instead. A storm-marked Patron might be tolerated by Hell Guard. A plague-marked Patron, not so much.

Families like Zanka’s don’t plan for that outcome.

Certainly Zanka has the talent, the dedication, the discipline to become a worthy Patron.

If you ask him, though, he can do more. He can be a lot more. But you can’t exactly declare yourself worthy.

In fact, he shouldn’t be thinking about this at all.

He never got that part. Wanting it too much will only turn your God away from you. Only the corrupt chase power for the sake of it.

Dangle the carrot and punish the horse for following. How’s that make a lick of sense?

It goes against discipline and restraint, both things in the Watcher’s domain. But Zanka never understood how. He memorized the explanation he was taught, but it’s just one of those things he thinks they get wrong. His Watcher doesn’t have a problem with enthusiasm. Why would he?

Not power for its own sake, but for a noble purpose? For duty? A duty he’s trained for his entire life, at that.

Nah, he doesn't buy it.

He's heard the voice of the Watcher God. Zanka has felt his presence, as real as the blood rushing in his veins. Like today, in the battlefield. It's always where he hears him; where he's most needed. His words have never been to shame him. To lessen him, like his teachers insist he should. Should he doubt the voice of God himself, just ‘cause they tell him to?

Zanka prays again before the ceremony.

He doesn't hear anything back. No voice in his head.

***

He’s seen the ceremony just once before. Most students can’t say the same. He was just old enough to be allowed when Kyouka had her ceremony. As an eight-year-old, he envisioned a spectacle. Mechanically, it’s not so grand. You walk into the circle, recite the prayer that's been engraved into the backs of your eyelids by now, and just like that, you have your answer.

Most of the recruits walk away with nothing. Disappointed faces, jaded by an indifferent cosmos. Some disbelieving, even. Frozen in the middle of the circle, waiting for something to happen. Zanka’s turn doesn’t come soon enough. He’s vibrating. Well, shaking as much as he can get away with given the eyes on him. It’s him and the new girl, this year. He schools his face, keeps his hands clasped still around his weapon, but he keeps catching himself moving. His heel tapping against the bench, his index finger tearing his thumb’s cuticle to shreds.

He’s out of his chair before they get to the second syllable of his name. The solemn hush breaks too. Whispers follow — from the benches, from the front, from everywhere. Not just from his classmates, but from the Spirituals and Militia leaders too. Kyouka did warn him about that part. He walks as if he doesn’t hear them.

Steadily, impassively, while chewing a hole through the inside of his cheek with the effort it takes to look that way. His answer is right there. Right there! Steps away. He'd run if he could. No. He ignores the restless itch and takes measured strides to the sigil circle and gracefully folds to his knees. Under all those eyes, he steals a moment for himself.

Zanka inhales slow, smelling the ceremonial incense, bracing. There's time for one last prayer. A desperate private thing, 'cause, fuck, he wants so badly he can't put it into words. All the pretty words fall flat, useless in the face of this desire, but his God knows what he's praying for.

Please, please, please.

He recites the prayer, lips forming the shape of a long dead language.

The pain isn't subtle when it comes.

It's all-consuming. Blinding. Divine.

Survivable only because of its meaning.

He did it.

The highest blessing achievable is his. His hard work bore fruit. Pain, no matter how exquisite, could never take away from the joy in this vindication. Power flows into him, he feels it. Strength unfathomed, now his, compounding. His hands sear like they're buried beneath red-hot embers.

It's localized, he notices. That's really the only observation he can make. Eyes wet from the pain, and squeezed tightly shut.

The pain starts from his fingers and spreads out. Kyouka never described it this way. She said it felt like her face was melting off. Like she'd never see again. "Felt like staring at the sun from ten feet away," he recalls her saying. This is... like that, yes. Kind of. There's heat. Like a contact burn. A brand.

He doesn't know how long it lasts. He just feels when it fades. The pain lets up enough for the world to matter again. He feels his heartbeat in his throat — in his clenched teeth. He's still kneeling, but collapsed onto his elbows for support, staring down at his hands when he opens his eyes.

They're still there, is the first thing he notices. It felt like a near thing. Seeing charred, gnarled bone would've surprised him less than unbroken flesh.

The second thing he notices is the silence. Total silence. He doesn't remember that the first time he watched.

The third thing... Zanka sees but can't say he comprehends. The black bands on each of his fingers, half an inch above the joint. He scrapes it with the side of his fingernail but the pigment doesn't budge.

Huh.

He looks to his sister first; she's staring hard already, brow furrowed, gaze set like a hunter’s. What's he done to be on the receiving end of a look like that? Beside her, his mother's jaw is dropped in horror.

The priest breaks the stillness, to confirm what he is and call up the next student but even he sounds fuckin' weird too. Perturbed or disbelieving or something.

"Chosen of the Unbound God," he says, voice wavering.

The whispers start up again, louder than they would've dared earlier. They survive the oppressive air and make it to Zanka's ear.

Violence. Frenzy. No— him?

Mistake.

Zanka's still staring down at his hands, now with sickening understanding.

Not his Watcher's Chosen. Not a Patron either. Just this… contemptible third thing. Bile churns in his stomach.

No.

No, no, no. This isn't happening. It’s a joke. There was a mistake, or the ceremony got fucked up somehow. Something isn't right, because this doesn't make sense. It can't make sense.

Zanka stands up carefully and walks out of the circle. Everyone's eyes are on him, still whispering. He goes toward the door. He hears Kyouka's chair scrape the stone as she stands. Zanka walks faster. He walks straight out of the room, word fragments chasing him the whole way. The heavy door slams behind him, dulling the cacophony that erupts when he's out of view.

Only then does he break into a sprint.

***

A surfaced root catches Zanka’s foot and he stumbles hard, scraping his right shoulder against tree bark. His shirt catches like velcro, but Zanka scrambles up just as quickly to keep running. There’s no plan, no direction or destination. He just needs to go. He can’t be witnessed, can’t bear it. Not until he figures this out.

Outrunning this problem isn’t possible. He barrels straight through the woods separating the training school compound and No Man’s Land, like a calf on new legs. He’s unaccustomed to the speed and the newfound strength behind his movements. He dodges hanging branches too late and hears them snap cleanly with his passage; he smashes a thick log when he jumps to clear a washout, sending debris flying around him like shrapnel.

The very act of escaping reminds him of this power and where it comes from. Who it comes from.

He trips again and skids, landing on his knees on the mud-caked riverbank. It soaks cold through his gray ceremonial garb and plasters the cotton to his shins with wet silt. His chest is heaving. The water’s low but Zanka crawls toward it. He can’t see his reflection in the moving water — maybe that’s for the better. Instead he sticks his hands in, careful not to look at them too closely before they’re submerged. He scrubs his hands together under the freezing stream, and then surfaces them. His hands come up tingling, bright pink from the cold, except where they’re black. Tar black. If anything they look darker. He sinks his hands again and rubs harder.

They’re still there. Again. And again. ‘Til his hands are numb from cold and rubbed raw. He scratches the black marks under the stream and manages to shred a fragment of flesh away. It bleeds red but the wound underneath is just as black.

Zanka breathes shakily and wonders if the lump in his throat means he wants to vomit or break down in tears. He’d rather do either than confront these marks painting him as something he isn’t.

The Unbound God.

Dutiful student that he is, Zanka knows this one.

The Watcher is a God of guardians. Of vigilance, discipline, duty, and restraint. A God of worthy strength. Not all Gods are so noble.

Frenzy, will, and ecstatic violence. The God of fighters unleashed. The God of appetite. Of defiance. Those are the domains of the God that stole him from his purpose.

That’s what this was.

Theft.

If he’s never chosen by the Watcher, fine. He can accept that. What he can’t accept is the idea that his faith wasn’t devout enough to save him from this. Was it something so insignificant that he has to lose so much at once? His family, his home, all notions of his future. All for a God of man’s worst impulses.

He looks at the black rings again. They stand out so starkly against his pruned, trembling pallor. Wrong, is all his mind can supply. They shouldn’t be there.

No, there’s something he can do to put things back to rights. One thing. A spell no one’s performed since the last Holy War. He could speak to his God — make his case. Zanka memorized everything he could from the restricted section of his family’s library, assuming he’d have a head start when he’s chosen among the faithful. He remembers the engravings, the prayer.

That’s it then.

He’s gonna summon the Watcher and… hope he survives the fallout long enough to convince a God to change its mind.

Faint voices carry from the tree-line. He sees a flashlight beam dancing through the leaves.

A better chance isn’t coming. He won’t be more ready with time.

Zanka plucks his staff out of the mud she landed in and runs again, this time with a destination in mind.

***

At the bottom of a dry well, Zanka carves the sigils into coarse dirt with a stick. He carves them deep and clear. He has one shot at this. On the far wall, a half-burnt candle sits on a pile of rocks. It’s tunneled unevenly and yellow-brown from use, ash settling into the white wax after each burn. It’s not what he’d ever consider choosing for this, but it’s what he found. What can he do?

The deep well amplifies every noise. The dull sound of each precise stroke onto the ground sounds almost louder than Zanka’s heavy breathing. He’d tried to calm himself before, because panicking wouldn’t help him do this right. Unfortunately, this has to work, and he can’t just ignore that pressure and pretend this is some shrine duty ritual he’s done a thousand times.

He carves the last mark and checks his work. It’s right, but he wishes again that he had the book just to make sure of it. No matter. He’ll just have to trust his memory.

Zanka kneels in the dirt, takes the dagger from his belt and slashes both palms open. He plants them onto the dirt atop the sigils, wounds burning as his blood soaks into the dirt, and he recites the prayer. He talks slowly, carefully. If he let his racing mind move his mouth just as fast, he’d trip over the unfamiliar words. They glow again, bright white. The candle flame burns bright as a star in total darkness.

It’s working. He’s not entirely sure how literal ‘summoning’ was meant to be taken, but the Watcher should be able to hear him now.

So Zanka prays harder than he’s ever prayed. Begging the Watcher to reconsider. To accept him as a Patron. He’ll be devout, dedicated. He apologizes for his faith not being strong enough. He’ll redouble his efforts, devote his whole life. But if he’s not worthy enough still for any of it, he asks why. What could he have done? Where did he go astray? He thought back and back and he still doesn’t understand. The not knowing, that’s what kills him.

Zanka feels a breeze. A breeze at the bottom of a twelve foot well. His eyes fly open and he watches helpless and frozen as the scene changes before him. The pure white glow warms until it’s blood red. The careful sigils he engraved shift on their own. Like they’re melting. They morph into new runes he’s never seen before. The candle flame before him flares, shooting two feet higher with red flame. It’s unlike any ritual outcome he’s ever heard of.

This is it, Zanka thinks. He’ll be killed for all his trouble.

He takes a deep breath and it smells like molten iron and ozone again. Just like it did on the battlefield, when he spoke to the Watcher.

He waits for his end. If death is all the Watcher finds him worthy of then that’s it. He’s failed. He deserves it. But… he can’t make sense of that either. Why would the Watcher speak to him at all before?

Then to his right he hears a low drawl.

“Yeah…” it says. “I think he's busy.”

Zanka jumps into the air, and scrambles back against the farthest wall, away from the new presence. He holds his staff in front of him, pointing.

The air vanishes from his lungs.

A throne sits there now. On top of it, the divine being that stole him.

He’s sprawled across it carelessly, like it doesn’t belong to him. Or like everything does. One arm thrown over the back, legs slung carelessly over the side. Silver and gold glint everywhere — rings, chains, bracelets, cuffs threaded through his locs.

Fabric hangs off him in loose layers, deep purple and white, richer than anything Zanka’s ever seen worn so casually. It’s draped wrong. Slipping. Like it was put on for no one in particular and never adjusted.

Zanka’s gaze snags on his hands.

Silver rings circle each of his fingers. They catch the red candlelight wrong. A silver echo of what was set into Zanka permanently.

The air around him feels crowded. Like the well got smaller without anything moving. Zanka can’t tell if the throne is too big or if he is. Every time he tries to fix his eyes on the edges of him, something doesn’t line up. He thinks his body is not actually so enormous. Still, he feels minuscule crouched before him.

The God yawns.

“He don’t like me much either,” he continues. “Answerin’ prayers from my Chosen ain’t at the top of his list.”

“Y-you’re,” Zanka says and doesn’t finish, terrified that saying it aloud would make it more real.

The God tips his head and looks at Zanka sideways. The metal cuffs on his locs ping against the gold of his throne.

“Got a lot of names,” he says. “Which one do you know?”

The priest at the ceremony had called him the Unbound God, but that’s never been the name they teach. Hell Guard invokes another name, if they say his name at all. Zanka nearly whispers it.

“The Butcher God.”

He stares down at Zanka from his throne. He feels pinned. Like a deer watching a mountain lion close in. Then… he kisses his teeth, and laughs. The same laugh Zanka heard in his head.

“Maaan,” he sighs.

The God leaves his chair, taking a step toward Zanka. He’s all too aware of how small this well is now.

“This little cult of the Watcher’s stay pissing me off. No wonder my rep is so weird now. That’s an old name. And not my favorite.”

He grins wide. His canines are too long to read as human.

“You can call me Jabber.”