A smirk played at the corners of Nesilia’s mouth. As she spoke, she strode toward Sora.
Sora didn’t back down. Not one bit.
“Oh, you haven’t heard, then?” Nesilia said.
“Heard what?” Sora said. “More of your lies?”
“You didn’t kill her…”
The door of Whitney’s old house remained one of the last standing pieces. It split open, and another woman came forth, floating like a specter.
“Madam Aihara?” Sora said, unable to hide the astonishment.
A ghostly laugh echoed. The old mystic’s eyes were vibrant and purple. They carried a threat that needed no words.
“I am not that weak woman you called Ancient One,” the mystic replied. “She’s no more Ancient than the Webbed Woods—which we created.” The being looked to Nesilia, who was now only an arm span from Sora, and the already cold air became like death.
“You remember my sister Bliss, don’t you, Sora?” Nesilia said. “We’ve reconciled; come to a new understanding now that she’s felt my pain, thanks to you. She now sees the true enemy.”
“You lie!” Sora thrust her hand forward, and her fire was snuffed out before it had the chance.
“Hardly,” Nesilia said. “Iam was always the one to twist words. I believe in honesty, sharp as a blade.”
“It’s this place.,” Sora said, looking around. “It’s Elsewhere. None of you live. You’re all dead, and damned to this place forever.”
“Then what does that make you?” Nesilia taunted.
The body of Aihara Na reached out her arm, and her fingertips grazed Sora’s cheek. Sora shrank back, slapping at the hand.
“So many people, all claiming to have killed me,” it said. “It’s… hurtful.” She affected a frown but it didnt’ reach her smiling eyes.
“You’re not real,” Sora reiterated.
“Perhaps you know this form?” The image of Aihara Na shifted into a beautiful woman with skin the color of rich chocolate, like Torsten or Lucindur. “No… of course not, no one knows my true form, just the hideous beast.”
The visage faded away, and in its place stood the horrifyingly hideous Queen Bliss in all her arachnid splendor.
“I killed you…” Sora whispered.
“When you swat at a spider, but you do not kill it, you only succeed in earning its scorn. Now, your world will burn.”
“This isn’t real,” Sora whispered again. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why don’t you come to see for yourself?” Nesilia taunted.
“Where?” Sora screamed. She tried again to conjure up a ball of flames but couldn’t. “No!”
The ground rumbled again, sending Sora stumbling. She grabbed onto the fence post, but it broke off under her grip. Everything shook with such violent force, Sora felt like she was going to vibrate right out of her skin.
She stood there, looking down at the post with hers and Whitney’s initials barely visible through years of dirt. She dropped the wood and buried her face in her hands as the world rattled around her. Falling to her knees, she shouted, “Go where!”
Her eyes shot open, and she found herself standing high above Yaolin City, looking down upon the place like a goddess upon her throne.
The streets were a mess, piles of dead strewn haphazardly, buildings burning, blood staining the waters of Lake Yaolin. The death wails of thousands rose up all around her like a blanket. Above, smoke and ash mixed with dark storm clouds. They swirled all around her, like the eye of a hurricane.
Sora tried to turn, but couldn’t. She had to strain to see with her peripherals that she was surrounded by red stone parapets. The top of the Red Tower.
She took solace in the fact that this felt nothing like it had when she’d been possessed. She was seeing through Nesilia’s eyes—that she was sure of—but she had no fear of Nowhere. However, she didn’t know the why of it all. Was this what it meant to have a soul tie? And why now?
Nesilia’s gaze tracked toward a mass of Panpingese and Glass soldiers, civilians, marching west down Xiahou Boulevard. Grimaurs lined the rooftops along their paths. Goblins wrestled over spilled supplies, unable to contain their excitement as they scavenged.
Then, all in unison, the thousands of humans glanced back at the top of the tower, grinning, their eyes black as pitch. It sent a bolt of lightning up Sora’s spine.
“Governor Nantby is dead,” Nesilia said. “Panping will fall within days.”
Considering nobody was up there, Sora had to imagine she was addressing her. Was she letting her in?
“Sora,” Nesilia said.
Hearing her own name startled her, but she didn’t respond.
“Come now. Watch,” Nesilia added.
Nesilia turned to look across the lake toward the wide cavern, which allowed entry from the ocean. In it, dark shadows swam. Massive things moving just below the surface, filled with tendrils. Wianu.
“Don’t blink,” Nesilia teased, as if Sora had any control over that.
“Where are they going?” Sora asked shakily.
“That doesn’t concern you.”
“Nesilia, it’s not too late to stop this,” Sora said. “I know what you felt. Alone. Betrayed. I’ve felt it, too. But you created this world as much as Iam did. Face him for leaving you, and leave the rest out of it.”
Nesilia cackled. “I saw so much potential in you, but you really are pathetic. Soon, you will know what happens when you cross me,” Nesilia warned.
Sora’s chest felt like it was rent in two. One second, she was inside of Sigrid, the next, she was facing the upyr, cold hands around her throat.
“Your thieving friend will pay for all his transgressions,” Nesilia said through Sigrid’s lips. “I hope your night with him was memorable.”
With that, Nesilia tossed Sora off the very tower her mother had once ruled from and where she had been born. Sora’s stomach flipped and turned. She tried to scream but couldn’t…
VI
The Thief
Whitney had always considered himself lucky. His whole life had been a game, and most times, he figured himself a winner. But lately, he just couldn’t believe his rotten luck.
It wasn’t just all the imprisonments, either—though that was embarrassing enough. Whitney Fierstown, World’s Greatest Thief, caught and dungeoned by everyone from the former Wearer of White—which might at least be considered excusable—to Barty Darkings. That one could not be forgiven. Barty was a dastardly slob and a privileged, stuck-up bastard who made a fresh barrel of shog look enticing.
Apart from all of those, not excluding being trapped in Elsewhere itself by angry old gods, Whitney had very few people he could call friends. A dwarf was numbered amongst them. One was an actually-dead upyr. One, a blind, holy knight that could hardly tolerate him. Another was a musician who used a very dangerous and outlawed form of magic. A Glintish kid who wouldn’t even talk to him. And lastly, the most important of them all… Sora.
He’d expected her to be in rough shape after suffering abuse at the hands of the Buried Goddess. But to see her now, lying on a bed in their ship, docked outside of Glinthaven, pouring sweat, and unconscious, Aquira curled up next to her… it was just too much. Her skin was like hot coals, hair matted down like she’d taken a swim in the Shellnak River.
A clump of it stuck to her moist neck, and Whitney pushed it away. Aquira shifted, but ultimately held her position of protection beside her true master and friend.
That poor wyvern had been through so much, too. But it seemed now, all her many injuries had healed. And there, beside Sora, Aquira felt at home. It made Whitney more than a little sad at the thought of how Gentry would respond to his friend returning to her former master.
He also feared how Gentry would respond to the fact that Whitney and Aquira, the two people—and yes, Aquira qualified as such—on Pantego he felt he could trust had abandoned him. Gentry had just begun talking to Whitney after he’d been left behind in Panping. Now, it happe
ned again. The kid had begged to go with them to fight Nesilia, and Whitney lied straight to his face. And Aquira helped.
Whitney didn’t expect to be forgiven, but sadness overwhelmed him at the thought of Aquira’s potential rejection. She didn’t know what she was doing. She just obeyed Whitney’s commands like the good little murderous dragon-kin she was.
Or did she? Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing.
Whitney had long suspected the wyvern was smarter than anyone believed. She’d all but proven she understood and could communicate with him and Gentry back in Fettingborough after the Drav Cra raiders had shackled her. She led them right to the blacksmith, where Whitney was able to free her.
However, none of that mattered as much as Sora waking and finally being present with him. Had he been a lesser man, he’d be wondering if she was so disappointed in his love-making that it sent her into shock.
Or perhaps I was that good.
Gold Grin’s former quarters, now belonging to Sora, were as immaculate as any Whitney had broken into across all of Pantego. Wood walls marked only by circular windows the size of one’s head surrounded them, staring out into the Covenstan Depths. The floor was carpeted in luxurious silver furs as if a hundred foxes from Brotlebir had been laid down upon it. In fact, they probably were.
“Would you sit down, you’re making me nervous,” Lucindur said, seated in a plush chair situated diagonally from the bed.
Whitney hadn’t stopped pacing since he’d carried Sora down from the main deck. How could he?
“I second that.” Tum Tum sat cross-legged on the floor beside Lucindur, looking terribly uncomfortable.
“I’ve been waiting for her for six years,” Whitney said, a harsh edge creeping into his tone. “Six years, Lucy! Then I find her, and she can’t even say two words to me for weeks! Finally, she opens up, and we…” He stopped before revealing too much of their previous evening. And this… this happens. I don’t know how much more of this my fragile heart can handle.”
Tum Tum let out a haughty laugh that reverberated through an otherwise silent room.
“What is so funny?” Whitney demanded.
“Whitney Fierstown, nothing about you is fragile but your ego,” Lucindur said. Whitney wasn’t looking, but he could picture the smile on her face. Any other time, it would have been a welcomed sight.
“Why won’t she wake up? What happened?” Whitney sat down on the bed, and Aquira shifted to rest her head on his thigh. “We were sleeping, and then she started shaking violently. Then, nothing.”
“I don’t know,” Lucindur said softly. It did nothing to ease his mind.
“Ye remember in the north when Lucy was in straits just as dire?” Tum Tum asked. “Ye were actin crazy and babblin like this. Look at her now, would ye? She’s fine as a fairy and twice as strong for it.”
Whitney stared at Tum Tum for a minute before ignoring him and saying, “We were together… really together for the first time…” He looked around and added, “talking for the first time since… I don’t know, Winde Port!” Whitney eyed Tum Tum, who returned a pitiful look.
A long breath passed before Whitney looked up at his companions, sadness evident on his face. “You don’t think—“
Sora’s words bounced around in his head, the worry that Nesilia might still be present in her mind somehow. I’m going to destroy that vengeful, no-good, witch of a goddess.
“No,” Lucindur said.
“Think what?” Tum Tum asked head bouncing between the two of them. “What are ye thinkin?”
Lucindur stood and said, “What I think, no… what I know… is that what we did worked. The sacrifice made by Kazimir, and Teryngal, and all the others… it worked, and the Buried Goddess is long gone from Sora.”
The Lightmancer always seemed to know what Whitney was thinking. It was unnerving and comforting all at once.
“But what if she isn’t?” Whitney asked.
“Wait, wait,” Tum Tum said. “Ye think she ain’t gone? Oi, Fierstown, that’s some madness right there. We all seen it—seen that witch explode into that fair-haired demon.”
“Sure, we saw what happened with Sigrid,” Whitney said. “But Nesilia’s not gone. She just switched modes of transportation, so to speak. And then Sigrid disappeared. Just poof. And we don’t know where she went, or even that Nesilia went with her. For all we know, Nesilia jumped right back into Sora and has just been waiting for one of us to turn our back long enough for her to drive a dagger through it.”
“Poppycock,” Tum Tum said with a dismissive wave. “If old Nessy were waitin for a chance at us, she had plenty while we traveled. She’s a goddess for Meungor’s sake.”
“Then what!” Whitney shouted. “What is it?”
“What you have to understand—“ Lucindur started, but a knock on the cabin’s door saved Whitney from hearing another of her cryptic reasonings.
“What!” Whitney barked, but Lucindur beat him to the door.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she opened it. Whitney couldn’t see who it was, but he didn’t care either. “Oh, wonderful,” Lucindur continued. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Lucindur reached into a pouch on her side, and the sound of autlas jingled into an open palm. Then, there was the distinct sound of them being handed back.
“Are you sure?” Lucindur asked.
A deep voice said something Whitney couldn’t understand, and then, “Good luck.” The door shut, and when she turned around, a broad smile filled her face all the way to the eyes.
“Who was that?” Tum Tum asked.
“Better have been the gods-damned warden himself, knocking at such an hour,” Whitney said. “And who is he to board my ship?”
“Yer ship?” Tum Tum scoffed.
“Goodness, Whitney, you are in rare form, aren’t you?” Lucindur said. “That was Mr. Onepp. I told him to see me whether the sun or moon reigned. I knew there’d be very little sleep happening, anyhow.”
Mr. Onepp was the purveyor of an inn just beyond the Gilded Bridge, though Whitney couldn’t remember its name. Something in Glintish that didn’t translate. He and Lucindur seemed to know each other well—which was one way of putting it.
From the moment they’d docked, and Mr. Onepp had met them with a bowl of warm stew and a pint of ale, all Whitney could think of was Torsten. Mr. Onepp was large—very large—and was more suited to be a warrior than an innkeeper. In Glinthaven, however, there really was no need for soldiers. Artists made the city as beautiful as it was boring for adventurers like Whitney.
“And what, pray tell, did Mr. Onepp want?” Whitney asked, frustrated.
“I’d asked him to have men scour the city for Talwyn and the others.”
It’d been days since the party had returned to Glinthaven from the far, bitter North. With Sora keeping to herself in her cabin, with only Aquira for company, Whitney and Lucindur had resolved to track down what remained of the Pompare Troupe. Lucindur had refused to use her gift to locate them for fear that it might reopen the door and allow Nesilia or her horde of monsters to find them. Whitney knew she was right, but it was hard to think of poor Gentry out there like the orphan boy he’d once been, living under the Gilded Bridge.
“Turns out, Mr. Onepp is a very respected man in the community now,” Lucindur said. “Very respected, indeed. He’s had a veritable army out looking, and he believes he’s found them.”
“And you know him, how?” Whitney prodded. “How can we know he’s trustworthy and not one of Nesilia’s pawns.”
“For starters, there aren’t many evil men here in Glinthaven.”
“Anywhere there’s men breathing, there’s evil,” Whitney said.
“Secondly, he’s Talwyn’s father.”
All air escaped the room, and there was a deafening silence.
Whitney thought about what a man his size might do if he found about that night in Fettingborough. The Glintish folk were weird when it came to their sexuality. He didn’t know i
f he should be more frightened that he’d seen his daughter naked, or that he turned her down.
Finally, Tum Tum cleared his throat, and Lucindur started gathering her things.
“What are you doing?” Whitney asked.
She stopped only long enough to toss an incredulous glare Whitney’s direction. “I’m going to see my daughter, and I think you should come, too. There’s nothing more you can do until Sora wakes up, and regardless of what happened with Gentry, I believe you should be there when we find him.”
“Come? No way. I’m not leaving. When Sora wakes up, I’ll be standing right here.” He jabbed a finger at the floor. “First thing she sees.”
“Whit—“ Lucindur started.
“I said, no!” Whitney immediately felt terrible for snapping, but this was Sora. There was no way he would ever leave her side again. He couldn’t risk it.
“Ye don’t think Elsewhere’s gonna open neath her and gobble her up, do ye?” Tum Tum laughed before apparently realizing this wasn’t the time for jokes. “It’s just—I mean…”
Whitney lifted a hand. “I’m not leaving her.”
“Suit yourself,” Lucindur said, returning to her things.
Whitney stopped wearing lines in the carpet to stare down at Sora. She seemed peaceful. He remembered that version of her in Elsewhere before he added himself to the list of people to abandon her. So pure, innocent, and pretty.
“Why won’t you wake up?” he whispered.
He felt Tum Tum edge up beside him. The dwarf didn’t speak for a moment, but Whitney could tell he was trying to.
Tum Tum cleared his throat.
“Don’t,” Whitney said.
“Don’t what?” the dwarf asked.
“Don’t try to comfort me. It won’t work.”
“Whitney, I known ye longer than I care to admit. I seen ye at yer stupidest. I seen ye and she together, and apart. One thing I do know is yer better together. Another thing I know? Ye ain’t givin up on her. And ye know what?”
The Nesilia's War Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set: Books 4-6) Page 118