Free A Painted Goddess by Victor Gischler Page B

aren’t you?” Kristos said. “You feel it.”
    “Yes.”
    “They’ve given you the other ones too, I see,” he said. “The three stripes and the fish.”
    “Yes.”
    The Moogari had tattooed three stripes like gills on the left side of her throat and a small fanciful fish on each of her ankles. They were identical to the Fish Man’s tattoos.
    Kristos dropped the wrap from around his waist. “Come. Let’s try them out.”
    He turned and sprinted down the corridor. Maurizan followed, running effortlessly.
    She had previously considered herself an athletic person. She trained with the other gypsies with the daggers just like all of them did from the time they were old enough to hold the blades, ducking, dodging, spinning, striking. She’d thought herself quick and graceful.
    Now Maurizan could barely recognize that slow, clumsy woman she used to be. She sprinted after the Fish Man, running faster—running better —than she ever had. It wasn’t that she had tattoos that specifically made her stronger or faster like Rina had. It was a perfect understanding of herself, knowing exactly where to place her foot with each stride, how each muscle worked to propel her, the perfect posture, controlled breathing. Her body was a tool she’d not even half known how to use before.
    She smelled the salt water even before turning the corner. The hallway slanted down into a dark pool.
    Kristos, without breaking stride, ran until he reached the edge of the pool and then launched himself like a spear, diving into the water and disappearing below the surface with hardly any splash at all.
    Maurizan didn’t hesitate, diving in after him.
    She sped through the water with ease, naturally, as if she were born to. The fish tattoos tingled on her ankles. The gill tattoo pulsed with each breath. She effortlessly glided after Kristos toward a patch of light ahead of them. A second later, they emerged from the ruined sorcerer’s stronghold into open sea.
    They swam side by side, two feet below the surface of the water, the sun glittering on the waves above. Kristos smiled at her, and she felt herself smiling back. He pointed down and took off for the depths, indicating she should follow.
    Maurizan sliced through the water like a harpoon, grinning madly. Excitement built in her, and she welcomed it.
    A second later, she and Kristos hovered within a school of fish, thousands of them each about the size of her hand, bright blue scales with golden stripes catching the sunlight from above. They swirled around her. She floated weightless, caught in the dream.
    Maurizan remembered her mother warning her about staying tapped into the spirit for too long. How she could use herself up if she were careless or greedy. But now that she had the Prime and held the spirit, she couldn’t see how she’d ever lived without it, how normal people stumbled through their drab gray lives. She drank in the spirit until she overflowed with it. Just a few minutes longer.
    Just a little bit more.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Brasley rolled over and opened his eyes. It was very much the same as having his eyes closed. He tried to blink the darkness away and failed.
    Then he remembered where he was.
    Ah, yes. The delightful pitch-dark place with the sealed door at the top of the shaft with the wrecked lift. He felt around in the darkness. He’d set the lantern close the night before, but he was still disoriented and his groping couldn’t find it at first. There’d been talk of leaving it on, but of course they couldn’t risk burning through the fuel so quickly. Even on the darkest winter night in the middle of a forest, there’d been a glimmer of starlight. The darkness in the enclosed heights of the Great Library was so complete Brasley would actually have been impressed if he hadn’t been so certain he was going to die here.
    In the occasional morbid moments he imagined his own death, it was usually something like a dagger tossed into his back by an angry husband as he