by Eve Langlais
“Doesn’t matter how the men became soldiers. Just remember, they can’t be trusted.”
Agathe pressed her lips. “I can handle them.” She hoped.
As the bell rang again, she moved to the gate and shouted into a hole that coiled sound before spitting it from an even smaller hole on the other side. “Who goes there?”
“We are the King’s Elite. Open the door,” a distinctly male voice declared.
“How do I know you aren’t ruffians?” No point in letting them know they’d spied upon them coming up the road.
“Would ruffians really bother with a poor Abbae at the end of the road?” The voice sounded genuinely baffled.
“Sounds like something a thief would say.” Agathe couldn’t help but amuse herself.
“No thief would think the walk here worth the effort. You are literally at the edge of the Abyss, and I highly doubt you have anything of value inside.”
The insult stung, and while she longed to correct him of his misassumption, that would be pride speaking. A smarter move? Let them believe they owned nothing of value.
“Do you swear you’re telling the truth?” Agathe said instead, trying to sound innocuous.
“Yes.”
“And do you swear not to do us any harm?”
“By my honor as a knight of the realm, I shan’t do any law-abiding citizens any harm.”
Ooh. A clever way of phrasing it.
“The Abyss’ll take you if you lie.” Agathe undid the locks and swung open the portal.
The man leading the squad stood ahead of three other men. He had a hand on his sword, his helmet tucked under his arm, meaning Agathe could see his mustache perfectly curled and braided to the sideburns. The beads dangling from his beard denoted his rank, lieutenant knight. With him were three squires, still green-looking in their shiny tin suits, their helmets covering their faces but not their wide, excited eyes. The King’s soldiers were more about show than substance—or so she’d heard.
The monster incursions that’d plagued generations ago had long ceased in the King’s Valley, making the soldiers more ceremonial and in charge of ensuring that the populace upheld the King’s laws. They were quite intent on their task, and given they worked directly for the King, not people to insult or ignore.
As the man’s gaze traveled first over her and then what he could see at her back, she clasped her hands. “Welcome, travelers, to the Ninth Abbae of the Shield, end of the road before the Abyss, shrine to our Goddess Niimweii. I am Soraer Agathe. How might I help you today?” She kept her hands folded over her midsection, knowing she appeared benign. Not that it mattered. The King’s Elite looked down on those not in their ranks, especially women.
The lieutenant knight clenched his fist and held it under a sigil on his chest. “Lieutenant Knight Baree, here on our King’s business.”
A King, Agathe should add, that few saw. And when they did, it was usually from afar, as he stood on the wall, guarding his Citadel. It had been decades since he’d attended the festival in person. It led to people scoffing at his existence until the soldiers showed up at the heretical person’s door.
“We don’t often see the King’s Elite traveling to the end of the path. Did you have news to impart?”
“Do you think us messengers?” The lieutenant knight bristled.
“I can think of no other reason for you to be here.” Men did not join the Abbaes of the Shield. They had their own temples.
“Let me remind you that, despite living out of the way, you are still under the King’s jurisdiction.”
“Outside these walls, perhaps. But within, this is the shrine of our Goddess Niimweii. The King has no business here.” Technically correct, but the wrong thing to say.
The lieutenant knight scowled. “We have every right to enter when the matter is grave. We are looking for a child. Female. Young and still in swaddling.”
Fear hit Agathe as he so blatantly revealed his mission. He’s here for Belle.
“Sounds like you’re describing a baby. How on earth did anyone misplace a babe? Or did she run away?” Agathe couldn’t help the mocking. She’d found sarcasm at a late age and now saw no reason to hold back.
The lieutenant sighed. “The answer to that is above my pay grade. All I was informed was that a female child was taken almost a full year ago and needs to be found.”
Agathe finally mustered the right kind of response. “Kidnapped? Oh, no.” She put a hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp. Inside, her heart raced. Could he tell she lied? Because she could tell he was. She would wager her life on it.
“Is the child here?” The lieutenant glanced around the courtyard, which was a large stone cavern. It held growing plants, their planters built to get the most light from the windows—holes blasted into stone—when the shutters were open during the day. With only the three old women, some of it had grown a little wild.
“Are you accusing the followers of the Shield Goddess of stealing children?” she huffed.
“No, but you do provide succor to those who ask for amnesty. Have you seen anyone recently?”
“Does a monster count?”
“There are no monsters. Not anymore.”
Not quite, which was why she couldn’t help but cajole, “Stay the night on the ledge and see if you agree in the morning.”
Her dare brought a sharp bark to his lips. “Tell your stories to someone else. I am not a child who believes in monsters and scares easily.”
“I used to think the same thing.” She pointed past him to the tree and the cliff’s edge. “Until the mist rose and brought with it a monster, the likes not seen in our lifetime.”
“If that were true, you’d be dead.” A blunt assessment that gave the Goddess’s followers no credit. Then again, she shouldn’t be surprised. While stories existed of how the Soraers used to be mighty fighters, their skills hadn’t been called upon for at least a few generations.
Agathe couldn’t quite stem her irritation. “Scoff at your own peril. We know what we saw. With the mist rising once more, it’s only a matter of time before the monsters return as well. Why just last night we heard something big at our door. You would have seen the marks the monster left behind.” A terrifying thing to find in the morning. Left unmentioned was how, for the first time since they’d started living here, a sigil embedded in the door had flared a deep purple when the scratching started.
“Monsters? Ha. It is probably nothing but rats. Frightening, but hardly dangerous.” The lieutenant knight laughed, as did his squad of men. All of the King’s soldiers were male—as if women couldn’t fight.
In King’s Valley, that was mostly true. The men worked. The women tended the homes and raised the children. Was it any wonder some of them chose religion to escape their fate?
“It was not a rat,” Agathe hotly declared, drawing in an indignant breath. Like most men, the lieutenant knight disrespected her by letting his gaze drop to her bosom.
It had been a long time since a man had looked at her in that way. A long time since she’d had need or desire to do something about it. The lieutenant was good-looking if arrogant and condescending—kind of like the entire male populace. Agathe didn’t need him or his paltry sword skills. However, he did have information about the baby.
Which was why she said, “We don’t often get guests this far out, but I imagine you’re tired from your journey. And while my Soraer and I have little to offer, please join us for the midday feast before leaving.”
“Our mission is of grave importance. I’m afraid we cannot tarry. We shall have to search the premises and be on our way.”
She leaned close to whisper, “Surely, you can spare a few minutes for me in private.” Then more loudly, “Perhaps while your men search, you could tell me more of this child and their abductor that I might serve our King, should I come across any news of them.”
“An excellent idea. Squad, spread out, and report back once you’ve cleared the Abbae. I am going to brief the Soraer,�
�� he said with a clearing of his throat.
“Sure, you are,” one of the men snickered as they slunk away.
Agathe’s heart raced as she led him to the Maeder’s office. Unused for the last decade. Anywhere else, and something of the baby’s, forgotten in her haste, might draw his attention.
The moment the door closed, he drew her to him for a kiss.
Unlike the women who lived in King’s Valley, those serving the Goddess had no restrictions or qualms regarding sexual intercourse. The Soraers owned their bodies and weren’t ashamed of pleasure. Men. Women. Both at once. Forbidding it only made it more powerful a temptation.
The lieutenant knight didn’t take long to reach his pleasure but was good enough to make sure Agathe got there first, his tongue on her sex a welcome surprise. Afterwards, the lieutenant knight—“you can call me Baree”—spoke, and not just of his mission to find a supposedly important child. He admitted that he’d not heard of any families claiming to have lost one in the city.
Agathe couldn’t help but ask, “Could the child have come from inside the Citadel?” A dark stone tower that looked out over the King’s Valley. It was said that it also penetrated deep into the mountain with stairs that led down to the bottom of the Abyss itself.
For a second, Baree went silent, and she worried she’d gone too far. “That would make sense since I know most of the highly placed families, and none are missing a child.”
“I am surprised the King sent you to fetch someone’s baby. I thought the Elite were only about maintaining the laws.”
“The child was kidnapped, making it a crime.”
Of which, she assumed there would be only one outcome.
Death to whoever had taken her—in this case, Agathe and her Soraers. But only if they got caught.
“As I recall, the child was stolen quite some time ago. How are you supposed to recognize her?”
“Easy. She’s got the purple eyes.” Which was exceedingly rare in the young.
No denying whom he sought. Time to get rid of him before the soldiers accidentally saw something they shouldn’t.
She stood and stretched. “You should get dressed. Your men will be done shortly. There’s not much to see.”
“I disagree.”
The man flirted, and Agathe coyly said, “Maybe you should come back soon. You know, to see if I’ve heard or seen anything.” Never mind the incongruity of their end-of-the-road Abbae getting any kind of action.
“Maybe I will.” As Baree dressed, he had questions. “I always wondered, what do the Abbaes of the Shield do?”
It was almost rude of him to ask; however, in his defense, only women ever talked amongst themselves about the Goddess. “In olden times, the Soraers of the Shield protected against the monsters that rose from the Abyss.”
“Women as defenders?” he scoffed. Not maliciously, and yet Agathe had an urge to pull the knife from the hidden pocket in her gown and show him how quickly she could gut him. Never mind she’d never killed a man before, only beasts. She’d been reading old training manuals and practicing in her spare time.
“What can I say? According to history, there was a time when men and women fought side by side, lest the monsters of the Abyss overwhelm.” She offered him a lesson in their past, and he was a jerk about it.
“Good thing that’s no longer necessary. The very idea of a woman handling anything with a sharp edge is terrifying.” Baree chuckled and almost had his throat slit for it.
Before Agathe acted, she swept out of the Maeder’s office and into the courtyard, where the lieutenant’s men converged as they emerged from various tunnels leading into the different sections of the Abbae.
“Did you find anything?” Lieutenant Baree asked as he joined them with a swagger because he couldn’t help but brag.
“Place is empty, sir,” one of the squires reported. “Just a bunch of empty rooms.”
“Can we leave, sir?” another of his men hastily added. “This place is creepy.”
“We should get going if we’re to make it back to the rim before the full moons. I have plans,” the third whined.
“Yes, we should get going. Soraer, thank you for your time.” Baree was polite enough to offer Agathe a short salute before leaving with his men.
Climbing the ladder with a wince, Hiix watched them from the nest until they’d moved out of her sight before announcing, “They’re gone.”
“Keep watching in case they turn back.”
They waited until midafternoon before they fetched Venna and the baby from the catacombs. Apparently, they should have gone sooner, as their Soraer emerged, eyes wide, splattered in goo, and looking younger. The baby snoozed in her arms.
Hiix took one look and yelled, “What happened?”
“The child saved my life.”
Chapter Seven
Hiix stared at Venna. “What do you mean, the baby saved your life?”
Venna handed the babe to Agathe and headed to the sink rather than reply.
Hiix stuck close to her heels. “Talk to us, Venna. What happened in the catacombs?”
Only once Venna had rinsed her face clean of goop—guts and ichor and gross things that came out of bugs—did she sigh and say, “There was a nest of monsters.”
“Impossible,” Agathe blurted out. The catacombs didn’t have any exits or threats. Just dust and cobwebs from the spiders that hid in the cracks of stone.
“Tell that to the ten-legged freaks that came after the baby and me. Hundreds the size of my fist. So, I stomped and stomped.” Venna sobbed as she mimed her foot slamming, drawing notice to the muck covering her feet and calves and also the ripped holes in her robe as if she’d been slashed. Despite the blood and filth, she appeared uninjured.
It reminded Agathe of the night she’d found the baby when she could have sworn that she’d cracked a rib or two and had definite bruises. The next day, she’d examined herself head to toe and hadn’t found a single scratch. She’d emerged with less sagging skin and aches in her joints. A blessing by their Goddess was what she’d told herself. She’d wanted to find a better explanation than the fact that a baby had sucked a monster dry and used whatever force that engendered to heal Agathe.
Hard to deny when it seemed as if it had happened again. Like Agathe, Venna had emerged with a face younger than when she went in, the lines around her eyes mostly gone.
“You obviously survived. Look at you. Not a scratch, and you look twenty years younger!” Hiix exclaimed.
“Who cares! I almost died. Don’t you understand?” Venna cried, disturbing the sleeping child in Agathe’s arms, who uttered a sound before settling.
Venna stared at the baby’s silken-haired head. “She saved me.”
Hiix snorted. “How could the brat, who can barely walk, save you from mutant spiders?”
Her Soraer sounded almost mocking, and yet Agathe couldn’t help but recall her circumstances. She’d never told them what she thought might have occurred. Let them assume divine intervention instead. But if it had happened to Venna, too…
“What makes you think she saved you?” Agathe asked.
Expression fond and, at the same time, a little terrified, Venna eyed the child before softly whispering, “When I fell to the ground, the spider-things swarmed me. Covered me in their wretched legs and began biting me.” Venna shuddered, and her gaze stared sightlessly as if replaying a different scene.
“What of the baby? What happened to her?” Agathe prodded.
Venna hugged herself. “They swarmed her, too. And died. They all died, so many I couldn’t see her. She was under a blanket of them, as was I. And then, the next thing I knew, she was slobbering in my face, patting my cheeks, and the spiders were all dead.”
“That doesn’t mean she saved you,” Hiix declared. “Sounds more like a miracle from our Goddess.”
“No,” Venna shouted, slashing a hand. “The Goddess didn’t save me. The Goddess would have let me die. You don’t understand what it was like to
be buried under a wave of bodies. Bitten. Poisoned,” Venna spat. “I was dead. And horribly, too. The Goddess didn’t come to save me. Belle did. She just had to touch the monsters, and she sucked the life right out of them. And I think she used it to heal me!”
So many times, Agathe had wondered if she’d imagined what had happened in the mist. Surely, she’d hallucinated the baby killing the monster and saving her? Hearing Venna detail almost exactly the same scenario had Agathe blurting out, “She has power.”
“Hardly. More likely the Goddess rewarded her,” Hiix clarified.
“Call it what you like. She can do some miraculous things.” Agathe turned to Venna. “Tell me, when the spider-monsters touched the baby, did her eyes glow?”
“Yes! Purple to white. It was so bright,” Venna enthused. “How do you know?”
“The same thing happened to me.” Agathe had not actually spoken of what she remembered from that night. She didn’t want to be accused of making it up. But now, with Venna confirming that she wasn’t crazy, Agathe finally told her Soraers what had happened—the truth she’d had a hard time accepting.
As she recounted her experience aloud, Venna threw in some details. Their two stories were so similar that skeptical Hiix believed them even as she questioned.
“I don’t understand. How can a baby do that?” Hiix eyed the child slumbering in Agathe’s arms.
“Because she’s special,” Agathe uttered with deep certainty.
“She has magic,” Venna added.
“People don’t do magic, especially not a child,” Hiix scoffed.
“Says you. If you’d seen it… When the arachnids swarmed her, she didn’t cry once in pain. She gurgled and giggled as if they couldn’t hurt her. But she could harm them.” Venna’s eyes opened wide in amazement and fear. “She sucked them dry. Or so it seemed. Their bodies were like husks when it was all over.”
“What color were her eyes when she was done?” Agathe asked. “Did they go from glowing to brown?”
Venna eyed the child. “She fell asleep almost right away, so I’m not sure of the color, but they definitely stopped glowing white.” Venna put fingers to her cheek. “She saved me from dying.”