Page 96 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Maksym crouched before another crate, and, after sorting through some flowers, he retrieved a small basket. It housed a few jars of white paint and a handful of brushes.

He extended it to me with a reserved smile. “Everything you need. And if you show me what needs to be done, I’d be happy to help you. If that wouldn’t interfere with anything sacred, of course.”

“I appreciate that, but you don’t have to. I’m sure you’ve got better things to be doing for your kingdom,” I replied.

But when I tried to take the basket from him, Maksym clasped his free hand over mine and fixed me with that amber stare. “At this moment, I don’t. Humor my curiosity, Miss Wynn, and teach me about your people’s ways with their fallen.”

A thousand different protests sat on my tongue, but I sighed and nodded instead, and Maksym released the basket into my hold.

To some relief, the body beneath the first sheet I worked back wasn’t a soldier I knew well.

But he was young, quite fresh in his service, and that alone stung, never mind the reminder his horrific burns served. He probably had parents or siblings who would grieve for him for the rest of their lives, without a body to bury to bring them an ounce of closure.

“We normally bury our dead at first light,” I said, my voice a little more uneasy than I would have liked as I opened a pot of paint and wet my brush. “And the night before, the family and friends get together to prepare their loved one to finish their passage. If there isn’t anyone to claim the dead, it’s usually a mage or a volunteer who will prepare the body.”

I painted the first few lines of paint along his charred fingers and continued them up the back of his hand, joining them at the soldier’s wrist. From my side, Maksym watched in silence.

“The most devout Odessans believe death causes a temporary separation of the body from the soul, and the first stop you take after death is the river of aether, which carries your soul to the gate to meet your body for judgement.” I painted one thick line up his arm, intersected by a circle at his elbow and topped by one at his shoulder. “Since the goddess Elja is responsible for meting out that judgement, we paint the bodies of our dead to resemble Her skeletal familiars, hoping She will think them her own creatures and allow them to slip through the gate to join their body in eternal rest.”

After I painted lines across the top of his chest to resemble his collarbones and ribs, I moved around the structure to work on his other side.

“What do you believe?” Maksym asked. Even when I glanced over, his amber eyes never left the body between us. “You said the most devout, not we. I take it you don’t count yourself among their numbers?”

What an incredibly loaded question.

I pursed my lips as I shifted the sheet, but I found most of my peer’s other arm burned to the bone. I sighed and lowered the sheet back down. After wetting my brush again, I started working on painting a skull-like mask on his sooty, charred face.

My voice was quiet as I said, “I know that we rot, like everything else when it dies, but I’m not sure what I believe. It’s not like we commune freely with the pantheon, even though they created all that Odessa is. They like their comfort hidden away in the enclave. Everything my people believe is just a theory, or a hope, or something half-legible scrawled on an ancient text from when the gods once humored us with their presence. I’m not sure I like any of those odds enough to base the direction of my life around them.” I half shrugged. “I’ll find out when I die, I suppose. If anyone is around to see me carried over properly.”

When I glanced up, I found Maksym nodding slowly. He had a remarkably thoughtful look on his face when he asked, “Why bother with these rites then, if you don’t believe in them?”

“Because I’d rather be safe, for their sake.” A small smile tugged at my mouth. “My falling out with my faith is my problem, not theirs. It’s the least I can do. Especially since…”

Goddess.

I couldn’t even put it into words.

There was no inkling of a doubt in my mind anymore that Streja had saved my life. That those fragmented memories I had of her talking to me and carrying me meant she had known something, and she’d put my life above her own. I was so devastated she had, and the thought of voicing it made my empty stomach churn something fierce.

Maksym cocked his head at me, but I shook mine. The concerned pinch on his brow didn’t settle in the least.

“The flowers,” I said, praying he would take the divergence as I moved on to making quick work of painting the soldier’s legs. “They say Elja has Her workers maintain vast gardens at the gates, to give Herself a pleasant view as She waits to dole out judgement. Mourning vine, apparently, grows abundantly there, even on the gate itself, and Her workers like to adorn themselves with it. So, we do the same to give them a better chance at passage.”

I hadn’t expected the king to sigh.

“I’m sorry, then, that we didn’t have it for you.” Maksym rubbed the back of his neck with a look of frustration. “Even more so that very little of this is right.”

I came back around and extended the second jar of paint to him. “Don’t apologize. They would have been out there alone otherwise. Rotting. Being picked apart by scavengers.”

I shook my head. “And they didn’t deserve that at all.”

Maksym’s fingers brushed mine as he took the paint and gave it a thoughtful glance. “I’ll give it my best.”

With the small smile that graced his sharp features and the curt nod he gave me, I had no reason to doubt him. And I quickly found out that where Maksym clearly lacked in some measure of artistic capability, he made up for it in his lengthy limbs and his lack of emotional attachment to the bodies he was helping me prepare.

Whereas I had to work my way around each side of the pyre bases to paint my comrades’ limbs with their skeletal masks, he could simply reach, pull back the sheet, and use his height to his advantage.

And whereas I had the steady pressure of threatening tears wearing away at me as I moved from body to body, the peaceful stoicism never left Maksym’s face. He paused once to retie his hair after it slipped loose and didn’t even notice or care that he streaked the inky strands white.