I knew. But I would rather walk through the fourth circle of hell than raise my hand to answer.
“Let’s give our newest member a chance,” Marletta said, resting her gaze at me.
I cringed, wanting to crawl underneath the table and disappear. Had I somehow messed with a satyr and ruined all my luck? Had I stepped into an elven circle by accident, and was now facing all my worst nightmares coming true?
“Well, Sarleyna?” The herbalist asked, tilting her head to the left and looking at me curiously.
I contemplated pretending not to know, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to be untruthful. If I was to face the Blood God at some point, then I wanted to do it with as clear a conscious as possible.
“Mandrake,” I said. “It’s often used as a substitute for mandrake.”
“Correct.” Marletta gave me an encouraging smile. She continued to list the variety of uses for mandrake, including its common use as an anesthetic, or to threat some of the illnesses of the mind: melancholy, madness, mania.
A pupil in the front of the class, of whom I could only spot her brown hair tied into a braid, raised her hand.
“Yes?” Marletta asked, gesturing at her.
“Isn’t it true that mandrake is often used as a protection from magic?”
I didn’t miss the subtle nod of the girl’s head toward me.
A protection from magic. A protection from me.
Reyna, the leader of the Brotherhood of Whispers, the group of renegade mages desperate to stop the hunt and slaughter of our kind, the woman who had tricked me into coming here by convincing my brother to take my place if I refused, had been dead wrong.
She had said that once I got accepted into the ranks of the Red Priests, it was the safest place for a person like me—someone who, despite that cursed rune disfiguring my forehead, still had access to her powers. But she had been wrong on so many levels.
This was a death trap for my kind, one I couldn’t escape from.
When the student on my left muttered below his breath, “Maybe we should stock up on some mandrake then,” while staring at me in a way awfully similar to how Cullyn had regarded me when he first saw me, I knew I was a dead woman walking.
If the Red God didn’t kill me during the initiation ritual, then sooner or later, one of his disciples would.
Chapter Two
After herbalism ended in a catastrophe, with Marletta shooting angry glares at any student who so much as dared to mention magic, I stood away from the others while they prepared to go to their next class which was, surprisingly, woodcarving.
Although, when thinking about it—not that I had anything else to do while all the other students purposely ignored me—it made perfect sense. A place like this always needed new chairs, tables, closets, you name it.
As the group of grey robes started moving, I joined in at the back, trailing behind them. I had never felt this lonely before. At home, I always had Sebastian to keep me company. Even if he wasn’t around, our house was a constant reminder of his presence, his smell clinging to the furniture, his coat hanging next to the front door, his shoes blocking my path whenever I tried to clean up the kitchen.
I wondered if he felt the same, now he was forced to fend for himself.
For the thousandth time since I left, I wished I had said goodbye to him.
I followed the grey robes out of the greenhouse, onto the courtyard. They then turned to the right, to another building identical to the ones I had been in before: sturdy stone structures with little soul or personality. We entered a large workshop with various machines and carts, cogs and gears, stacked on each side of the room. The ceiling was at least four meters tall, but despite the enormous height, it was quite dark in the room, courtesy of the small slits of windows allowing only minimal sunlight.
“Hey,” a voice said from next to me, interrupting my thoughts.
I stared at the girl with the curly red hair, who had asked in the herbalism class if the shrieks of a white bryony could really kill someone.
“I’m Tamrin,” she introduced herself, extending a hand toward me.
I smiled at her, glad to see a friendly face for a change. I shook her hand, and a chill travelled upon my spine. For a second, her face seemed to morph into something else.
Tamrin’s eyes turned wide, her shock mimicking my own.
I hadn’t imagined it.
Her normal face had large, green eyes, a straight nose, thin lips, and freckles. The person she had morphed into for a millisecond had far bushier eyebrows, a thicker nose, dark eyes.
Tamrin pulled her hand out of mine as fast as if I’d given her a jolt of electricity.
I really must’ve been jinxed, because the one person who was trying to be friendly towards me, turned out to be keeping a secret as well. I was willing to bet my life on it that Tamrin wasn’t entirely human either.
Which would have been fine, ten years ago. Before the Great Famine. Before magic was forbidden and everything remotely connected to it, became as shunned as the wizards practicing it.
“I’m Saleyna,” I said, trying not to sound too spooked. “Nice to meet you.”
Tamrin still stared at her hand as if it had caught on fire. Then, she looked up at me, and a dark shadow passing over her features.
Without another word, she abruptly turned on her heel and stalked away from me, toward the others.
Great. I scared away the one person who was trying to be nice toward me.
“Please take your positions,” the woodcarving teacher, who had introduced himself as Gentar and towered over the rest of us with a height so impressive I wondered if he descended from giants. His shoulders were so broad I wouldn’t be surprised if he was strong enough to lift a horse. Any warlord would’ve paid a good coin to have a man with such a strong build join his army. Perhaps, he had been a warrior before he joined the ranks of the Red Priests.
I wondered the same thing about the others as I took up an empty space in the back of the workshop, thanking the Gods that at least woodcarving had nothing remotely to do with magic.
Who were all these people, and what had convinced them to become a Red Priest?
Had they been ‘called’ by the Red God? If so, how? Dreams? Visions? Just a gut feeling?
I would have to pry them for answers, even if they despised me, or use my magic to extract the answers from their minds, because the only way to survive the initiation rite was if I could somehow trick the Red God into believing I was here for a reason other than the actual one: that I was a spy infiltrating his very own stronghold.
My gaze rested on Tamrin, while I desperately tried to turn a stump of wood into a small stool. I had felt the magic coursing through her veins when we touched, so different from mine, yet so alike. I had seen her shift, even if for just a second. Although her kind wasn’t hunted down the same way mine was, non-magic users still shunned them.
What in the Gods’ names brought a shapeshifter to the temple of the Blood God?
The girl with the straight blonde hair caught my interest next. Her long, pointy ears betrayed her Elven heritage, although her hair—too light blonde to be native to these parts—had already given a hint about that. She was at least half Elven.
Elves had always been held in high regard, even by the High King, although they too used magic, or had done so once. Practically their entire Kingdom was built on magic. But then the usurper had kicked the Elven Queen from her throne, and the Elven Kingdom had fallen into a dark pit of despair it still hadn’t recovered from.
Everyone here had a story. If I got to know their stories, if I figured out what brought them here, then maybe I could spin a story of my own, one so good even the Blood God had to believe it.
I struggled through the rest of class, delivering a horribly mismatched stool at the end, with one leg longer than the other ones. Gentar raised an eyebrow when he beheld my monstrosity, but he still said, “At least you tried. It takes practice.”
For someone who h
ad never tried woodworking before, my attempt was not too bad, at least according to my amateur eyes. I shrugged, accepting my defeat. It was obvious I had zero affinity for woodcarving.
As the class finished, Gentar pat his belly and said, “Lunch time.” He escorted us outside, and then back to the main building, through the meandering corridors, and through double doors leading to an enormous dining hall.
The main hall, where four ten-meter-long tables were stationed, with eight equally long benches on each side of the table, was the most impressive space I had seen so far in the Red Keep.
The windows were decorated with stained glass, showing scenes depicting the Red God in various stages of his life. Once upon a time, before the Gods went back to the Upperworld, they dwelled on our own world, governing over their subjects as the Kings did now.
Judging by the bloody depictions staring down at us from the glass windows, it hadn’t exactly been a good time in the world’s history. Gods weren’t always peaceful or helpful. The Red God in particular, had spread bloodshed wherever he went, bringing honor to his name.
But the Era of Gods had been over a millennium ago, and no one was alive now to remember it—not even High Elves lived a thousand years.
As the other acolytes sat down on the benches, I joined them. The half-Elven girl sat down next to me, and on my other side sat a boy with unkempt brown hair, a round face and a small stature, reminding me of the half-dwarves I had seen in Ginderstund.
Plates with a crust of bread and some slices of cheese sat in front of us. A cup of milk stood in front of the plate.
My stomach growled in response—I hadn’t eaten since my late lunch with Hugo yesterday, and I was starving.
No one was touching the food, though, so I followed their example, ignoring the rumbling in my stomach.
Slowly, the main hall filled with other disciples of the Red God. I counted at least a dozen people clad in white robes—no idea what that meant—a larger group donned in black robes, and then the largest group walked in, wearing their trademark red robes. The red robes came in last, striding through the room as if they were kings walking toward their throne.
All the while, none of my fellow acolytes dared to touch the food in front of them.
When the last of the Red Priests sat down at the long tables, the High Priestess strode in. Altheia. She held her head high, a condescending look on her features, as if she wanted to remind us all that no matter the color of our robes, we were all vermin and she was the Queen ruling over us.
A shiver ran down my spine when her gaze rested on me. Even if it only lasted a millisecond, I wished she hadn’t given me the time of day. Of all the people in the Red Keep, Altheia was by far the most threatening, and that was counting Cullyn.
Cullyn. I searched for him, gawking at the rows of Red Priests and trying to discern him. When I caught sight of him, he was staring straight at me, his gaze unwavering. Even as our eyes met, he didn’t flinch.
I was the one who pulled my gaze away, focusing back on the High Priestess.
Altheia didn’t join the other Red Priests at the table. Instead, she sat on a more luxurious seat behind a small table on a makeshift stage at the end of the room. The Queen looking out over her subjects.
She sat down gracefully, and then lifted her arms. “The Blood God has blessed us with this food,” she said, although I was pretty sure the Blood God was as involved in the process of baking this bread as I was. “Eat,” the High Priestess ordered, and her subjects attacked their food like ravenous wolves.
I struggled to pull my gaze away from her, wondering how in the world she managed to hold that much power over the other Red Priests.
The half-Elven girl poked me in the ribs, and then gestured toward the loaf of bread on my plate.
I nodded at her, grabbed the bread, and started eating. It wasn’t too bad, and it was warm, obviously freshly baked. Still, it tasted nothing like the food back at home. I missed home so much it was making a hole in my stomach, a hollow feeling settling in my chest.
No one spoke during lunch. The silence hanging over the room was only interrupted by the sound of chewing, people putting down their cups of milk, and the occasional person shuffling on the bench. It was not an icy silence, but rather a calm, easy silence.
Then, a few minutes after I had finished my lunch, Altheia shoved her chair backward and stood up. She gestured for us to rise, and in one fluent motion, the acolytes next to me stood up.
I quickly followed suit; half a beat slower than the others.
“May you spend the rest of the day serving the Blood God.” Altheia softly bowed her head, then strode out of the room, not bothering to grant us another glance.
The tables emptied one by one. The fully-fledged Red Priests left first, then the black hoods, then the white robes, and eventually my fellow grey robes and I shuffled out of the room.
“Who will clean this up?” I whispered to the half-Elven girl.
I had no idea if we were allowed to talk or not at this point, but since everyone had been quiet so far, it didn’t seem right to speak out loud.
“The white robes will come in afterwards to clean. They’re in the stage where they must cleanse everything. The world, and themselves.”
I frowned, not entirely sure what she meant. I opened my mouth, ready to pose another question, when I spotted Cullyn waiting for me outside the doors of the main hall.
“Follow me,” he barked at me, the same way one would talk to a dog. He didn’t wait to see if I was chasing after him before he rushed off, making me run to catch on.
“Where are we going?” I asked when he had crossed halfway through the hall already, leaving several meters distance between me and my fellow acolytes.
“They have runecraft this afternoon,” Cullyn said. “And you don’t.”
My frown deepened. “Why not?”
Cullyn shot me a look that said, ‘shut up’, and then continued walking.
I had no choice but to trail after him. Still, I wasn’t ready to drop this subject just yet. Runecraft sounded infinitely more interesting than woodcarving or herbalism. If I got to know anything about the rune marking my forehead, how it worked—and perhaps more importantly, how it didn’t work for me—then I had a chance of…
That was exactly why they wouldn’t let me take that class, I realized. Because if I learned how the runes really worked, then I could use the runes against them.
“You don’t trust me,” I said, trying to sound accusatory. “Altheia doesn’t trust me. Why let me join then?”
Cullyn’s features darkened. “If the choice was mine, you wouldn’t have joined our ranks, mage.”
“I’m not a mage,” I reminded him, gritting my teeth. “My magic is locked up, remember?” I pointed at the mark on my forehead. “I’m as human as you are.”
“I advise you to never say that again,” Cullyn snarled.
I was willing to put up with the condescending attitude from Altheia, because the High Priestess treated everyone the same way. But to have to accept the same bigotry from the other acolytes and from Cullyn was too much, and I wanted to scream at him.
Still, getting into an argument with him didn’t seem like a good choice either, so I took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“What am I to do then, if I can’t join runecraft?” I asked.
“I’ll teach you some archery. Because by the looks of it, I don’t think you’ve had any archery training at all, ever.”
I wondered how he could judge that—did he mean I was scrawny? That my arms were two thin twigs lacking the muscle to pull back an arrow in its bow? Cullyn seemed to thrive on offending me every chance he got.
“I’ve never shot a bow and arrow before,” I admitted, a tad reluctantly.
By now, we had reached the courtyard with the greenhouse, but this time, we followed the path circling the greenhouse and then headed several meters down, along the slope of the hill on which the Red Keep was built. In the shadow of t
he greenhouse lay a practice area, complete with targets for archery, but also lined by several weapons’ racks containing swords, staves, clubs, and even weapons I had never seen before.
“Why do I need to learn archery?” I asked Cullyn as we descended the last few meters towards the practice area. Herbalism and woodcarving made sense for priests. Even though the thought of a Red Priest healing someone using herbs sounded ridiculous to me—in my mind, the Red Priests brought only horror and despair, not healing or cures—it was technically within the repertoire of a priest. But archery?
Cullyn rolled his eyes. “You ask too many questions that are irrelevant.” He grabbed a bow from one of the racks and held it next to me, sizing me up.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking if the bow isn’t too big. It needs to be a good ratio compared to your height.” He swayed the bow to the left and right, narrowing his eyes.
A hot blush crept on my cheeks from being stared at like that. Not that he was looking at me for any reason but trying to gauge if the bow was the right size or not. Cullyn had made it adamantly clear that he hated me simply because of the species I belonged to. Still, no one had stared at me for this long and this intently ever before.
“Should work.” Cullyn shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but the other ones are even larger, and you’re remarkably short.” He handed me the bow.
I took it with one hand, instantly regretting it. The bow was a lot heavier than I expected.
“To answer your question about why archery is such a viable skill for us,” Cullyn said while he picked out his own bow, not hesitating for a second as he grabbed the weapon, “is because once it’s time for your initiation ritual from a white robe to a black robe, you will need to make an offering to the Blood God. An offering you have hunted yourself. Look there.”
He pointed behind me and I turned around. At the back of the Red Keep lay an enormous stretch of woodland, reaching almost to the horizon. Lush, green trees as far as the eye could see. “Those woods are ancient, dating back to the Era of the Gods. They have seen wars, hardship, love, forgiveness, everything. In those woods, you must go hunt for a prey the Red God will accept. When you capture it, you may not kill it, because it needs to be sacrificed in the Holy Halls of the Red God, in the dungeons of the Keep.”
Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4) Page 93