by Eve Langlais
“Would you get in here?” Venna snapped, reaching for Agathe and dragging her into a room that already held Hiix, wearing the robes of Maeder. Agathe had no interest. Let Hiix deal with all the annoying crap that came with wrangling people who whined or wouldn’t listen. Agathe was of the opinion they should just slap any of the acolytes who got vapors when they had to confront a monster.
Crossing her arms, Agathe eyed her Soraers. “What’s wrong now? Who’s causing problems?” She mentally went over the seventeen other women—and in some cases, young girls—living with them.
“She’s at it again,” Venna muttered.
No need to ask who. Acolyte Belle, the bane of her existence.
“What is wrong with that girl and following simple instructions? It’s as if she wants to be punished,” Agathe grumbled.
“It might be the only option. She’s refusing to do any chores. When I add more for disobedience, she mocks me and dares me to hit her.”
And, of course, no one punished because Soraers didn’t hurt Soraers—even disobedient ones.
Agathe waved at Hiix. “So, give her a lecture. Pour on the guilt. You’re the Maeder. Be Maederly.”
“Do you think I haven’t tried?” Hiix grumbled.
“Have you reminded her that she took an oath to obey?” Agathe asked. Most people took promises seriously.
“I did, and she’s now claiming she was coerced. But that’s not the worst part.”
“How could it be any worse?”
“Belle’s eyes turned purple.”
Agathe froze. “When?”
“She woke up with them just this morning.”
“I thought we were past the age we needed to worry about that happening,” Agathe muttered. Usually, the purple eyes manifested during adolescence. Belle had shown no sign in her teens, and now as a woman in full bloom? It wasn’t something Agathe had ever seen or heard of.
Venna interrupted Hiix. “You have to talk to her. She insists that since she just missed the Vionox Festival, she should go to the Citadel and present herself.”
“Is she stupid?” Agathe couldn’t help but blurt out.
“Do you really have to ask?”
“She can’t go.” Because, chances were, she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut about the two other girls with purple eyes currently hiding at the Abbae. Not everyone wanted to donate their lives to the King.
“Obviously, she can’t. And I told her that. But she’s insisting,” Hiix snapped.
“Loudly,” Venna added.
“Why would she want to volunteer? Has she learned nothing?” Because Agathe sure had since the death of the Major Knight. For one, Baree’s actions indicated the King condoned his soldiers killing Shield Soraers. And second, she’d discovered why the King took the purple-eyed, and it wasn’t a pleasant life for the women.
Rather than dwell on the past, Agathe rubbed a spot between her brows, starting to get a crease from constant worry. “I’ll talk to her.” A task she dreaded. How the girl got to be so unlikeable she’d never understand. She’d been taught the same tenets as every other acolyte, but as she got older, she got mouthier and more insistent that she didn’t belong.
She might be right.
Belle didn’t prove hard to find. The girl had hair dark as night, skin pale as the mist, and eyes a vivid mauve instead of brown. Beautiful and stubborn as all get out.
Agathe could have approached the matter gently. However, she’d long ago learned she couldn’t be the weak one. She left softness to Venna.
“What’s this about you not doing chores?” Agathe barked.
Belle turned a sullen expression her way. “Chores are for the peasants.”
“You are a peasant,” Agathe reminded.
“These eyes say I’m not.” The chit lifted her chin.
“As an acolyte, you serve the Goddess. Which means, you do what you’re told.”
“I am not mucking out the barn or toiling in the kitchen. It’s bad for my complexion.” Belle’s nose wrinkled, and Agathe wondered when the girl had gotten such ideas inside her head. Agathe and the others had certainly never taught her. At times like this, Agathe missed the solitude and simplicity of the Ninth Shield.
“You want to know what will ruin your complexion? My handprint on it,” Agathe snapped.
“You wouldn’t dare,” huffed the young woman.
“Listen here, acolyte”—and yes, she enunciated it—“you will do what you’re told when you’re told, or there will be consequences.”
“You can’t tell me what to do anymore. Just like you can’t stop me from going to the King’s City.” Belle lifted her chin.
“Go there, how? With what money?”
“I don’t need any with these.” She pointed at her purple eyes. “The King’s laws say you can’t stop me.”
“Think again.”
That surprised the girl. “You have to present me. It’s the law.”
“Law?” Agathe scoffed. “You should thank us. You don’t know what you’re asking. What they’ll do to you.”
“You mean let me live in a castle?”
“As a prisoner.” Agathe’s lip curled.
“With food and clothing and no chores.”
“We feed you and clothe you.”
“Barely.” The girl tugged at the rough wool of her gown.
“Do material things matter more to you than your life and freedom?”
“Freedom?” The girl sneered. “If I were free, I could do as I please. Why do you even care? You should be thanking me. As my guardians, the Abbae will be richly rewarded once I’m received by the King.”
“Rewarded? Those the King takes are prisoners. He will steal everything you have. Your freedom, your life, your youth.”
“How would you know? You’re just an old lady,” Belle retorted.
The past decade had not been kind to Agathe who now appeared older than Hiix and Venna.
“You’ll regret it if you go there.” Flatly said.
“You’re just jealous.”
Agathe’s brows arched. “Of what?”
“Everything. You don’t remember what it’s like to be young.” Belle tossed her hair, reminding Agathe of the grays threading her own. She wasn’t alone in aging. Hiix and Venna showed the signs, as well, getting older more quickly than was normal since they’d lost the access to the magic that’d kept them young. She shut her mind rather than dwell on that particular part of her past.
“I know more in my little finger than you have in your entire body, you ungrateful chit.”
“How am I being ungrateful?”
“The Soraers of the Shield took you in and cared for you,” Agathe pointed out.
“I didn’t ask to be left here,” Belle spat.
“And you make me wonder if perhaps you should have fed the monsters in the mist,” Agathe snarled right back. She wasn’t about to pander or mollycoddle. How had they raised such a spoiled brat?
“Threatening me? Wait until I tell the King.”
“You’ll never meet him.”
“I’m going!” The girl stamped her foot.
Agathe snorted. “You are throwing a tantrum, and I won’t stand for it. Consider yourself on latrine duty for the rest of this season.”
“I hate you.”
“Hate me all you like. I’m just trying to keep you safe,” Agathe said to a retreating back. Let the girl go and sulk. Agathe had better things to do.
Emerging from the Abbae, situated a full day’s walk down the mountain, she stared over the ledge at the mist floating almost level with it. It hovered high these days, even with the suns out. The fog kept rising, a few inches every year and, with it, the creatures. If the hammering against their wards continued, they might have to abandon the Abbae for the rim. A last line of defense that, if broken, would let death spill unchecked into the King’s Valley.
Her Soraers found her sitting on the edge looking at the mist hovering far enough below to look benign.
“How did it go with Belle?” Venna asked softly.
“How do you think it went?” was Agathe’s sardonic reply.
“Did you shove her off the edge?” Hiix peered down into the Abyss as if she could see the elusive bottom. This ledge didn’t have a tree like the Abbae long abandoned. Instead, the platform held crenellations, the mortar of it showing recent repair and the sigils of defense that barely glowed anymore.
“No, I didn’t push her off.” Agathe sighed. “But I was tempted. And then I reminded myself what it was like to be her age.”
“Does it help?” Hiix asked.
“No.” Because she’d made all kinds of mistakes and, despite all her knowledge, didn’t seem able to stop another young girl from making the same ones.
“What are you going to do?”
A question she kept asking herself. This holding pattern they’d been indulging in couldn’t last forever. Something had to give, and she’d rather it not end badly again.
“I don’t know. She really doesn’t want to be talked out of it. She’s convinced it’s all pretty dresses and pastries.”
“If it weren’t for Korra and Neelie, I’d say let her go.”
Agathe agreed. But they couldn’t risk Belle telling the King they’d been hiding two more girls with the purple eyes.
“Any more luck deciphering that scroll I found for you?” Agathe asked.
Venna kept trying to translate the old books brought with them from the Ninth—to no avail. Whenever Agathe went somewhere, she sought out old texts for Venna to study.
Venna shook her head. “That last one was a ledger of marriages and births.”
Irritation boiled within. “There must be something, somewhere, that talks about how our ancestors fought back against the mist and the monsters.” Agathe had been searching the Abbaes, entering even the long-abandoned ones, looking for information.
“If only I could translate those old tomes. I’m sure the answer is in there.” Venna’s lips turned down.
“I could go back to the Eighth and Ninth, have another look,” Agathe offered. She remained convinced there had to be more hidden chambers or even cubbies. She’d found a few over the years.
“You’ve searched them a dozen times already,” Hiix reminded. “There’s nothing there.”
“Maybe. It wouldn’t hurt to take another look. Not to mention, I can check on the sigils, see how many we’ve lost since my last trip.” It’d been more than a year since she’d gone to the bottom of the trail.
“It’s too dangerous now,” Venna reminded. “Remember the last time?”
She did. She’d fought off some monsters. Gotten a new scar. “I can’t sit around and do nothing.” She glanced over the edge at the roiling mist.
“If we’re going, then we should go now while the morning is still young,” Hiix stated.
“You can’t come. You’re needed here. A Maeder’s duties and all that,” Agathe reminded. That brought a scowl that was echoed by Venna when Agathe added, “And before you volunteer, we can’t lose the only scholar we have, either.”
“As Maeder, I am commanding you not to go alone,” Hiix decreed.
“Wasn’t planning to. I’ll bring Belle with me. Perhaps a bit of real danger will smarten her up.”
That arched Hiix’s brow. “You mean scare her into line?”
“You have another idea?”
“No, take her. At this point, if a monster eats her, then I can only assume it’s the Goddess’s will.” Venna wasn’t as gullible anymore. Almost dying did that to a person.
Belle, of course, assumed having to accompany Agathe was a punishment. “Why do I have to go? The Ninth Shield is far.”
“You’re young.”
“There might be monsters.”
“Most likely. You’ll earn some valuable fighting experience.”
Belle scowled. “I’d rather work on my embroidery before I meet the others at the Citadel.”
Agathe lost her temper and grabbed the girl by her robe. She slammed her against the rock wall. “Listen up. You are an acolyte of the Goddess. The shield that protects the weak.”
The young woman lifted her chin. “I am no longer her servant. I quit!”
“Your vows are for life.”
“Circumstances change.”
Agathe could only shake her head. “They do, and not always for the better. You would do well to remember that.”
Chapter Fifteen
In the end, the sullen woman followed, and Agathe hoped she wouldn’t feel a knife in her back. After all, they were both armed in case of a monster attack, a possibility even during the day. The mist pushed against the magic guarding the path and obscured it in spots. The farther they traveled from the safety of their home, the more Belle clung.
The sigils that still functioned barely held back the fog that rose from the Abyss. Thick and swirling, not the pure white they saw above during the day, but darker with hints of swirling gray and black that muffled all sound. Ominous enough that it stifled Belle’s complaints. Who knew it only took putting her in peril to render her quiet?
They paused just past midday at the entrance to the Eighth Abbae, its door cracked wide open and ominous. Agathe didn’t bother entering. The last time she’d gone in there, a nest of spiders had taken over—albino things with too many legs and hundreds of faceted eyes. Their spit paralyzed. Their webs couldn’t be unstuck. The only good thing? They hated light, even the daylight that filtered through the mist. So long as she and Belle stayed out of the Abbae, they should be okay.
They ate and drank in silence. Nothing moved. Not a sound occurred. But Agathe would have wagered they weren’t alone. The skin on her nape prickled. Someone watched, which meant she had to remain alert for the attack. They moved quickly to finish the second half of their hike, knowing the light faded. She wanted to be secured in the next Abbae before the monsters truly came out to play.
The mist licked and curled over the Ninth’s ledge. The tree, gnarled and bare of leaves, was a sad reminder of how things had changed.
The door to the Abbae remained closed, but that didn’t mean anything. They couldn’t lock it when they left. She braced herself before entering the gloomy place. The solarus stone she pulled from her pouch illuminated the courtyard shrouded in shadow. With no one to open the shutters during the day for light, the plants were all desiccated, the floor covered in the dust and detritus of long-dead leaves. She saw signs of recent rodent inhabitation. Small pellets of scat loosely littered and the bones of small animals.
Belle stuck close as Agathe did a careful walk-through of the main floor, in and out of bedrooms, the doors to the chambers left closed. The Maeder’s office remained as she remembered, if dustier. One by one, she checked the other rooms in use during her time. All bare, as they’d stripped them to supply the Seventh.
“Let’s check the catacombs.”
Finally, Belle balked. “There’s nothing down there.”
“Then why are you afraid?” Agathe asked, leading the way.
Belle chose to follow, if reluctantly. “This place feels wrong.”
Agathe cocked her head as if listening. “What you feel is the age of it. The spirits left behind by the people who’ve come before.”
“You mean the people who died here. I don’t like this.” Belle hugged herself.
“You used to be braver when younger,” Agathe remarked.
“When I was younger, I didn’t have a sense of mortality,” the girl retorted.
A good point. Bravery was easy until the first time someone got hurt or truly scared.
“Remember our lessons, and you’ll be fine.”
“Fine? I’m aware that some of the monsters have managed to wipe out whole legions. That’s way more people than the two of us.”
“Those kinds of beasts are too big to fit in here,” Agathe scoffed. Not that size was the only danger. She kept an eye open for webs.
The catacombs appeared untouched compared to the rest of the Abb
ae. Even the rodents seemed to be steering clear. The sigils here remained potent, a credit to whoever had originally imbued them with magic, given their age.
Agathe peeked in all the chambers but for the one blocked off where the breach had occurred so long ago.
“Are we done yet?” moaned Belle.
“No.”
“What are we even looking for? This place has been stripped clean.”
“We are looking for clues. A secret room would be nice.”
Agathe found nothing. No cracks that might lead to more books. No hollow spots behind walls. Eventually, even she had to admit there was nothing to find.
They camped in the catacombs for the night, which led to more grumbling. “…perfectly good beds upstairs.”
But down here with the sigils was safer. Agathe tuned the girl out and slept, her dreams full of running red blood.
Violent death.
Betrayal…
Still in the grips of that rage, Agathe woke suddenly, the dimming solarus stone showing that Belle was nowhere near. The damned girl hadn’t stuck close like she had been told.
Grumbling, Agathe poked her head in every side cavern, making sure the girl hadn’t simply chosen her own spot before heading back to the main level.
She found the chit sitting in the courtyard, staring at herself in a chunk of mirror, which prompted Agathe to bark, “Drop it!”
Belle didn’t listen but rather hugged the shard to her chest. “I found it. It’s mine.”
“It’s not a toy for you to play with.” Agathe lunged and, after a brief tugging war, she tucked it into a leather pouch.
Belle didn’t take the loss gracefully. She stamped her foot. “You’re being unfair. Why do you even want it? It won’t work for you.”
The odd phrasing had her tensing. “What won’t work?”
“The mirror. It’s only for special people like me.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because the man in the mirror said so.”
Agathe’s heart went from almost stopped to thumping very fast. “And of course, you believed him,” she sneered.
“You wouldn’t understand. You’re not special like me.” Belle tossed her head.