by Kate Martin
“Come on, lad. Out you go,” said one of the men.
“Don’t fight it,” said another. “This is a holy day. You don’t want to ruin everyone’s worship, now do you?”
“You don’t understand—” Bri’s words fell short. A third man approached and had gotten his hands first on Bri’s collar, then on one of his outstretched hands. The myst poured in before he could stop it.
Screams. Smoke. Shouts of horror and pain. An explosion. The crumble of stone and the shattering of glass. Then nothing. Nothing but the slow smolder of embers and ashes.
Alec could only watch as Bri ran up the stairs and disappeared through the doors of the temple. Even at the foot of the first step, his skin heated up, itching with the instinct to burn. If he moved another hair’s length forward, he would turn to a pyre in the middle of the street. So he remained where he was, worried, angry, and terrified for the boy he tried so hard to protect more effectively than he had Marc.
Gods, Marc. If your spirit is anywhere nearby, if you can help in anyway, help Bri now. Get him out of there. Cel-Eza, I wish I had more than a dead god to pray to.
At first he heard nothing over the din of the street chatter and the bells ringing on every corner. But then the first signs of shouting filtered out through the doors. Voices he didn’t know first, then Bri’s.
Gods, Bri. Get the hell out of there.
More shouting, and Alec mustered every bit of self-control not to race up the steps to help. He would be no use to Bri as a pile of ashes. He paced the length of the steps, praying to everyone, having little faith that anything he said would be heard.
The scent of lilies passed through the air. A rare species that could only be obtained near the water’s edge, and only at certain ponds, in his old home of now Ancient Gryadon, a land since turned into The Wilds of the north. He hadn’t smelled that in lifetimes, and it brought bittersweet memories of a time when he had been human and happy. A time when he had a brother and a lover. Then a time when he lost it all. He spun around, but saw no venders and no women who might be wearing the flower in their hats or in their hair. He would have dismissed it as a figment of his worried imagination, but then he smelled smoke. Real and unmistakable. Yet no matter where he looked, he couldn’t see it. Crowds mingled happily around him, walking across the bridge, stopping to examine the wares of a traveling salesman who had set up shop in the nearby park. Hats, dresses, canes, horses, carriages—all the normal sights of Callay.
Inside the temple, the shouting continued.
Beside the temple, a shadowed silhouette slipped from the rose bushes and into the street, heading towards the bridge. Alec took steps towards it before he could stop himself. But he heard Bri shout once more and kept close to the temple. The figure, a woman, turned back briefly as she came to the crest of the bridge and leaned for a moment on the handrail to look over the river. Her long raven hair shimmered in the sunlight, loose and unencumbered by the curls and pins that were in style. She wore white, which enhanced the natural golden color of her skin. Gentle hands wrapped delicately around the rail.
Just before she pulled away, long fingers on those hands drummed three times, then lighted through the air as if in dance. Alec’s heart forgot to beat. The woman glanced back, providing a proud silhouette featuring a strong nose and full lips.
The crowds closed in, and for all that he tried to find her again, she had disappeared.
Ariadne?
The shouting became clearer, and Alec saw three men manhandling Bri out of the temple. He rushed back to the bottom of the steps. “Get your hands off him.”
The tallest of the men, dressed in a fine suit that got mussed from his struggles with the boy, roughly guided Bri down the steps. “Is this yours?”
“My brother, yes. Now kindly let go of him.”
The man tossed Bri down the last of the steps so that Alec had to catch him. “He’s been spouting nonsense about death and destruction. And on Empyreal Night, no less. You might want to keep a better eye on him. There are places that take people like him.”
Alec held Bri tightly, keeping his eyes on the three men. All rich, all used to having their words obeyed. Bri clung to Alec’s arms, not struggling, not even attempting to stand on his own. “People like him? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Alec made sure the threat was present in each of his words.
The man seemed clear on Alec’s terms, though he loomed on the higher step like some Havenly giant. “Just keep him out of the temple if he can’t behave respectably. We have a ceremony to conduct.”
Taking their cues from this man, the other two followed him back inside, shooting a final disgusted glare in Bri’s direction.
Alec was a conflict of emotion. The threat of burning kept him from going after those three brutes and grinding them into unholy dust. Bri’s trembling kept him rooted to that spot, unwilling to face the ramifications of Bri’s actions. The boy’s devastation was clear.
“Excuse me.” The voice was delicate, young and feminine. Footsteps that matched clicked down the marble steps from the temple, bringing with them a girl of fifteen or so. Her green dress matched her eyes and complimented her blonde hair. Bri stiffened, then stood on his own, staring at the girl as she approached. Alec kept close.
The girl smiled, a bit out of breath as she reached the street. “It is you. I thought it was.” She glanced back at the temple. “What you said, is it true?”
Bri clenched his hands at his sides, standing straighter than Alec would have thought possible only moments before. “I wouldn’t lie.”
“You don’t strike me as a liar,” she said, smoothing her skirts. “Do you really believe the temple will burn?”
“Yes.”
“Then what do we do?”
The smell of smoke on the air grew. Alec grabbed them each by an arm and hauled them back. “We move.” They didn’t fight him. The girl protested a few times, wanting to go back for the others, but Alec ignored her. It was futile. He released them when they had reached a safe distance down the street.
Bri was more out of breath than he should have been. “Ella, right?”
“I’m glad you remember me, Bri.” She smiled, but the expression was laced with worry. “I haven’t seen you around. Not since the ball.”
Bri stared at his shoes. “I’ve been busy.”
Ella stared at the temple. “Can we really do nothing to help them?”
“Bri already tried,” Alec said, contemplating leaving so they would not be around when the place went up. “You saw how well that worked.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“But you believe me.” Bri took a tentative step towards her. “Why?”
After a quiet, thoughtful moment, she answered. “I don’t quite know. But like I said, you don’t seem the kind to lie.”
A woman emerged from the temple, shouting for her mistress. Ella sighed in irritation and relief. “My maid,” she said, then shouted back, waving. “She was my only escort today. At least now she’ll be safe as well. Maybe if I went back, I could persuade them…”
Alec spared a look at Bri as the maid responded and made her way down the street. Bri stared at Ella, all disbelief and awe. Alec knew the look well, and his thoughts returned to the woman he had seen on the bridge.
An explosion rocked the street, causing the cobblestones to heave and scatter on the ground. The air filled with smoke and heat and debris. Alec dragged himself quickly across the street, throwing himself atop both Bri and the girl. Something hard and heavy hit his shoulder before clattering to the ground at his side. A femur. He leaned in that direction so the kids wouldn’t see it.
Bri’s mouth was moving, but Alec couldn’t hear him over the ringing in his ears. Judging by the way the girl was responding, he didn’t think she could hear either. He scooped each of them under an arm, and hauled them into an alley before observing the carnage behind them.
The temple had come down, and in its place was a tower of fire and smoke that
blackened the sky. People were running in all directions, panicked and desperate. But one man stood eerily still. Tall, dark hair beneath a high-end hat, with broad shoulders like stone beneath his jacket. Olin.
The demon turned his head in Alec’s direction, and Alec ducked further into the alley, pulling Bri and the girl with him, hoping they wouldn’t be seen.
And then, somehow, among the smoke and burning flesh that permeated the air, Alec smelled lilies.
— CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN —
Bri sat quietly on his bed in the hotel suite while Alec tended to the minor wounds he had sustained when the explosion upended most of the street. Cuts and bruises, nothing serious, though Alec spent a lot of time fussing over the gash across his temple. Bri felt nothing, not the sting of the astringents or the pressure of his fingers as Alec checked for broken bones. All he felt was the beat of his heart, driving his guilt further and further into his blood stream with each thump.
All those people…
It had taken time for his hearing to return after the explosion, but once it had… He couldn’t forget the screams, the cries of anguish, and the shouts for help. He let them ring through his memory, clearer and clearer. The image of the crumbled temple sat in his mind, falling over and over again. It was amazing how such a strong and old building could simply collapse in on itself, spitting debris in all directions. Some of the debris hadn’t been stone or wood—some had been flesh and bone.
“Bri, stop it.”
Exactly. I should have stopped it. I could have stopped it. Those people didn’t have to die.
“Bri, I am going to slap you if you don’t come back to me right now.”
Go ahead. A slap is so much less than I deserve.
A firm shake shocked him out of his depressed thoughts. His head snapped on his shoulders. A few small sparks formed in his vision. Bri brought his hand to his neck where it stung from the jolt. He blinked at Alec, not sure what had happened. Not a slap.
“Are you with me now?” Alec didn’t look much better than Bri felt. He had used his own body to shield both Bri and Ella from the worst of the blast. His clothes were torn, his hair matted with dirt, and spots of blood covered him.
All the feelings Bri had shoved away, choosing instead the cold numbness of guilt, flooded into him. His chest tightened, and his head ached. He refused to cry, but didn’t think he would be successful. “They’re all dead, Alec.”
“Not by any fault of yours. You tried.”
“Why didn’t they listen?”
“One listened. That girl, Ella, she listened to you. She’s alive. You saved her.”
Thankful as he was for that, he didn’t want to think of Ella. She made his palms clammy and his heart flutter. She made him feel awkward and stupid. More so than normal. Yet, when he had first seen her coming down the steps—No. Nevermind that.
“But how many people died, Alec? How many?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!” Bri threw his hands up, pushing away and going to the other side of the room to the window where he could see the street, but nothing of the destruction of the church. “It always matters.”
“You can’t blame yourself for every ill in the world. Things happen. They always have.”
You don’t know though. You don’t know what it’s like to know something is coming, and be powerless to stop it.
He heard Alec move, heard the mattress shift. “Bri, I know you think it’s your responsibility to look into the myst and stop anything bad from happening, but it’s not.”
“Then why? Why do I see it?”
“I don’t know, but not so you can rewrite the future. There are thousands of seraph moving through the myst every day. Seraph who see the myst far better than you do, I’d bet. It’s their job to watch the world. Their job to make sure things happen. And sometimes that means bad things. I don’t know why, but it does. It’s the way things have always been. Tragedy happens.”
Something in Alec’s face told Bri he was remembering a specific tragedy, and so he kept his next words to himself. Finally Bri said aloud, “That doesn’t make it right.”
Alec shrugged. “Right and wrong are subjective terms.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you want? A world where no one dies? People die, Bri. People die every day. We all die.”
“We won’t.”
The candlelight flickered in the silence. “I made an unholy pact with a demon. I died the moment I gave my soul to Carma.” He stood and crossed the room, coming to stand by the window. “We all die. One way or another.” For a moment Bri thought he would reach out, touch Bri in some way, tussle his hair, place a hand on his shoulder…but Alec’s hands remained at his side and he turned toward the door that connected their rooms. “Wash up and eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat anyway.”
When the door shut between them, Bri felt a different kind of guilt well up. In the two years since he had made his deal with Carma, he had never seen Alec so morose. Alec was always the one to keep calm, to lift Bri’s spirits when the myst pushed him to dark places. He had never seen Alec so…sad. He couldn’t help but feel that he was the cause.
— CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT —
The king of Chanae paced his private sitting room, the window open to the east, overlooking Callay, and it was there that Lillianna perched. The smoke sat against the night sky, blotting out the stars. People continued to shout and carry-on, searching for worshippers. No, searching for bodies. Lillianna had heard the reports. No one had survived.
Just as planned.
“What do I tell my people?” The king faced her, his rotund frame bathed in light from the fireplace behind him. His long white beard shook as he spoke. “They will want to know the cause. It’s Empyreal Night! The temple was full to capacity.”
“I know. That was the plan. Remember?”
He grumbled a moment. “Yes, I remember. But I will still need a reason and explanation. I can’t very well tell them the truth.”
“You mean that you’ve thrown in your lot with an ambitious demon from Hell?”
“Yes, that.”
“You’re not changing your mind, are you?” She traced a finger along the windowsill, marveling in the way she could singe the wood with a simple touch. Her power had grown substantially. She could feel the nine pulses in the hollow of her chest, urging power into her veins and strength into her limbs.
“Of course not.”
“Then stop pacing and stop talking, and I will tell you exactly what to say.”
Amazingly, he did just that.
Lillianna leaned against the open window, inhaling the sweet smell of smoke and death. It energized and elated her. “You will offer your sincere condolences, of course, and honor the lost lives however you see fit. Then you will reveal to your people the terrible truth of the matter. That Callay, and indeed, all of Chanae, has been infected with the scourge of the soulless—depraved citizens who have given themselves to Hell, and are sating themselves on the deaths of the righteous. The soulless must be hunted down, and made to pay for their sins.”
The king regarded her with skepticism. “You would turn the people against your own kind?”
“Not demon-kind, no. You must impress upon your people that to go after the demons directly would be too dangerous. The last thing we need right now are demon hunts.” She remembered a time, multiple times, when such hunts had been common. They had been amusing, for certain—no human could honestly compete with a demon—but they were messy, and irritating, and time consuming. She had no time for that. “We blame the soulless.”
“And what of your creatures? You have soulless of your own. Do you really want them at such a risk?”
“My soulless are not so stupid as to be caught, and besides, I shall keep them away from it all. I do not intend to lose any of my people. But we will weed out the soulless of our enemies. Without their servants, the ot
her demons will have diminished power, and that will suit our plan just fine. I want you to make a crusade of it. Offer rewards, incentives for finding such people. I will provide information that you can distribute identifying the marks of my enemies and instructing what is to be done upon their discovery.”
“You’ve thought this all out, haven’t you?”
“Of course. How else does one become a god?”
Pouring himself a glass of wine, the king sat in an armchair beside the fire. “So I blame the soulless for the destruction of the temple and entice my people to action. But how to control it? Surely once the hysteria begins, there will be false accusations.”
Lillianna shrugged, lighting small fires at the end of each fingertip and extinguishing them after a moment. The new power delighted her. “Of course, but that is no matter. We need more blood as it is.”
For the first time, he truly frowned, but his disapproval was blemished by the obvious fear that had come over him as she toyed with fire in her bare hands. “You would bring the bloodshed here? To my country? I thought we agreed it would be contained to Talconay and Vaah.”
“We did, but it seems they are not enough. We don’t need much, but more is needed. We have no choice but to cut into the flesh of Chanae as well. Are you disagreed? Or do you see it as a small price to pay for all I have offered you?”
“Fine then,” he agreed, nonplussed when she put it that way. She had known he would never argue. He was a greedy man, a trait she treasured in her pawns. He would not turn down the chance to rule the whole of the Dactic Continent, an immortal king, blessed with the favor of a new, powerful god.