The Nesilia's War Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set: Books 4-6)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Sora sighed and turned, looking down at the glass she’d made incidentally. In the reflection, she looked the same as she always had, though she knew she wasn’t. Without Whitney now, she had no idea who the woman staring back up at her was.

  Talons poked along her back, then dug into her shoulder. Aquira looked at the charred mark where the wianu had been, then made a few soft chirps.

  “I know, Girl,” Sora said, scratching the wyvern under the chin. “I miss him, too.”

  That feeling was multiplied as she looked into her reptilian friend’s golden eyes. It hadn’t been long after her reunion with Whitney that she’d met Aquira. They’d been through so much, the three of them…

  Aquira purred and rubbed against the side of Sora’s head.

  “How is your wing feeling?” Sora extended the wyvern’s left wing, sewn together with stitches. She’d attempted to fix it but still couldn’t manage to summon forth the power of healing, like her anger bottled up that part of her.

  Aquira stretched out and flapped both wings twice, then squealed in pain, curling the injured one in.

  “I’m sorry, Girl,” Sora said. “But it’ll get better.”

  She thought, at that moment, she might be talking to herself. But would it? Would things ever truly get better?

  She looked up and across Dockside. She didn’t know the place. In fact, this had been her first time there. However, she knew it’d never look the same. The stacks and rows of wood shanties huddled between grand churches, it reminded her of the Panpingese District in Winde Port. Maybe it was better it would all change, just as her life would.

  “C’mon, Girl,” she said. “I can’t be here anymore.

  Every corner of Yarrington reminded her of Whitney, even though it was in shambles, and she’d only been there with him once. She stopped on the Royal Avenue, outside of a place that used to be a bar. She and Whitney had shared a drink there shortly after returning from the Webbed Woods. Now, she couldn’t even remember its name.

  If only she’d been stronger that day. She’d put the idea in his head of them going to Yaolin and learning who Sora really was. If they hadn’t, maybe she wouldn’t know the truth of her parentage, but she might still have him. They’d probably be in Westvale or somewhere Whitney loved, living like kings and queens, figuratively.

  She was so young and foolish then, with no idea that the only home she’d ever need was with him. Getting into trouble. Following his ridiculous, often contradictory code of conduct. Whitney was an enigma to himself and everyone around him, but she loved him for it.

  Stopping outside the tavern, she ran her hand along a charred railing. The place was unrecognizable but lucky enough to still have a ceiling. The Glass army now used it as a place to house wounded, with surgeons, monks, and sisters of Iam flowing in and out with water and medical equipment. There was barely enough to spare.

  All throughout Yarrington, she’d passed places like this. It couldn’t be hidden in the back of a war camp, or in a ghetto. Everyone, every survivor, had to bear witness to the horrors of war. And as the memories of Whitney drew her inside, so did she.

  That bar, the one where Sora and Whitney once shared that drink, was now lined with injured soldiers. Some groaned. Others were fast asleep. They were bandaged, missing limbs, everything.

  Aquira made a sad-sounding whistle.

  “I know,” she whispered as she continued in deeper. The floor was wet from blood, and the water used to wash it off. She kept going until she found a man she recognized. Sir Austun Mulliner, lay alone on a bedroll, shaking in his sleep. He had a deep gash through his gut, which was filled with herbs. The skin around it was angry red, irritated, and covered in pus. Sweat poured down his forehead and drenched his blood-stained clothing.

  “Sir Mulliner,” Sora whispered, kneeling beside him. She took his clammy hand. He groaned and turned the other way as if he had no idea she was there.

  “Infection set in a few days ago,” a sister passing by, carrying a bucket of water, said. “I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before he’s with Iam.”

  The sister continued on her way before Sora could turn and ask any more. From behind, she thought it looked like Bartholomew Darkings’ daughter, hard at work being a better person than her father could’ve ever dreamed of being.

  Sora looked back down, ran her hand across Sir Mulliner’s forehead. He was on fire. She moved her palm down to cover his wound, then closed her eyes and looked within. Her powers ignored her, and she knew why. The ability to heal couldn’t fight through rage, and that was all she felt.

  She opened her eyes. Aquira crawled down from her shoulder and stood across from Sir Mulliner’s broken body. The wyvern nuzzled against his neck.

  Drawing a deep breath, Sora tried again. She remembered how, just like Whitney… just like all of them, this man had given all he had to spare the realm from Nesilia. She recalled Whitney purposely forgetting the Shieldsman’s name, like he always used to.

  A small but genuine chuckle slipped through her lips, and with it, she felt a surge. Her fingertips crackled with energy as bluish smoke expanded over Sir Mulliner’s wound. First, the irritation became healthy skin, then the wound itself stitched over, layers of sinew and skin reforming one over the other.

  Sora held her breath as she drew on the power in her blood, and only when the wound closed did she breathe. She staggered back, her legs weak. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Of all her powers, healing had always taken the most out of her. It was as if she were bestowing her life-force into another.

  In an instant, Sir Mulliner returned from the precipice of death. He coughed a few times. All the color slowly returned to his face as he looked around, confused before his gaze stopped on Sora.

  “You?” he rasped.

  “I… yes…” she panted, barely able to form words. Clearly, she hadn’t recovered yet from all her exertion against Nesilia and then on the beach.

  “By Iam, how did you?” Nauriyal rushed over, patting Sir Mulliner, then lifting him to check the exit wound. “It’s a miracle.” She leaned his head back and offered him water.

  In Winde Port, Whitney had once told her not to give a homeless boy gold because it wouldn’t help. It’d feed him for a day, he’d said, and all the rest of the ghetto would remain starving. She loved Whitney, loved his eccentricities, but she finally knew how wrong he was.

  Sora wished she could tell him so. Rub his face in it. Watch him squirm.

  It was true, she couldn’t help everybody. She’d pass out long before, but she was tired of using her powers for destruction. Wasn’t that what undid the mystics in the first place? So, before Nauriyal and Sir Mulliner could offer their profuse thanks, she moved on to the next body.

  There were limits. She wasn’t sure of all of them, but she knew she couldn’t regrow limbs or bring anybody back from the dead. She healed who she could, stunning the entire tavern into silence. After a handful, her legs were so weak Nauriyal had to help her walk, but she kept going. And even more, drawing on her own innate connection to Elsewhere like a proper mystic was no longer possible.

  So, she snagged a surgeon’s knife and cut her hand like she used to. And as the sacrifice flowed, she healed with blood magic. Whatever it took. Over and over, it was like she couldn’t control it. Her vision went dark, and all she witnessed was the next body in front of her. She mended fractured bones, broken ribs, mortal wounds. She didn’t hold back until she was done and took a step, then collapsed over a stool.

  Aquira dug into her shoulder and flapped with all her might to keep her standing until her injured wing caused her to flop onto the bar. She squealed in pain, and the last thing Sora remembered was slashing her own left hand and healing Aquira’s broken wing before she fell hard to the wood floor.

  “Sora, you’re all right.”

  Her eyes blinked open, and an unexpected face appeared above her.

  “Here,” Torsten said, offering a cup of water. “You need to replenish your fluids.
You lost a lot of blood.”

  Sora absentmindedly grasped at the cup. Her hands stung so much, she nearly dropped it, but Torsten helped her hold on. Her throat burned with dryness, and her muscles shook. She struggled to raise her arm without his help.

  She gulped down every ounce, forgetting to breathe. Torsten took the cup and placed it on a bedside table. Only then did she finally look around. She was within an opulent room that was obviously in the Glass Castle. Well, somewhat opulent, at least once upon a time. The blinds had been torn by goblins or grimaurs, and much of the furniture tipped and broken.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  She placed her hands on the bed to try and sit up, but again, her palms stung. Turning them over, she noticed the slashes on each, as well as smaller cuts up the length of her arms. Then, she recalled healing Sir Mulliner and so many others, until the memory became a fog.

  “The way Nauriyal tells it, you healed dozens of people until you, yourself, collapsed,” Torsten said. “Even Sir Mulliner spoke in praise, and he’s much harder to please than me. Thank you, Sora. You did a great service to the Kingdom.”

  Sora grimaced. She looked inward, hoping the power to heal her own wounds might emerge, but she was too weak. “I’m surprised you see it that way,” she muttered. “Didn’t I taint them with my cursed magic?”

  Torsten frowned. “It was much simpler when that was the answer, wasn’t it?”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond, and he just kept looking at her—or, rather, his magical blindfold remained fixed upon her. Either way, it was unsettling.

  “For you, perhaps,” she said, a slight smile forcing itself onto her face.

  “You really are his, aren’t you?” he asked softly, like the very question might send the castle into ruin.

  “I’m not—huh?” He’d caught her completely off guard.

  “I can see it. Not the eyes, thanks to this.” He tugged on his blindfold. “But something… you’re not fully Panpingese.”

  “You can say ‘knife-ear,’” she grumbled.

  He stumbled over a response, jaw hanging in shock.

  “Sorry,” she said. “My head is pounding.”

  “No, I deserve it. I was cruel to you when we first met, and all you’d tried to do was heal me and fight my enemies. I should have seen it then.”

  “Seen what?”

  “The miracle right in front of me.”

  Sora fought the pain in her hands to sit up and build as much distance across the bed as she could. “Torsten, have you slept at all? You sound insane.”

  “No, Sora, listen to me. Everything you were then stood against Iam and against my very being, but so many times, when hope was gone, it was you who saved us. Not your powers, not your blood magic—you. Iam was—“

  “Oh, stop it with Iam,” Sora groaned. “He didn’t place me in those places.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But I should’ve had you hanged the moment we returned from the Webbed Woods instead of pardoning you. Something inside of me told me I shouldn’t, and now, here we are.”

  “It’s because you’re a good man, Torsten. You wear your hate well, but deep down, you know that so many of the things your church of Iam stood for were perversions of men. They weren’t Iam. Who knows what He truly thinks—thought? Was He the benevolent hero who ended the God Feud and saved us all, or did His stubbornness cause it?”

  The holy knight bit his lower lip but said nothing.

  Sora continued. “I’ve been with all the peoples in this land. Shesaitju, dwarves, mystics… they all tell a different story. But what I know now is all the old names we fall prostrate before, they’re all gone. A memory. We have to move on.”

  “Sora, you’re not listening to me,” Torsten said. He scooted closer. “I followed Liam against all those same peoples. We crushed them, forced them to bend the knee and see the world our way. We made Pantego one giant mirror of our world. A glass kingdom…” He drew a deep breath. “All the conquests, and beauties, and faith in Iam couldn’t fill the void in Liam’s heart.”

  Sora’s throat went tight. She couldn’t respond even if she wanted to.

  “I’ve witnessed miracles,” Torsten went on. “Saw Pi reborn from death. Received sight when I’d lost my own. Saw a dastardly thief give his life to save everyone. But the true miracle was right in front of me all along. In all that hate, in all that war and death, Liam found something he truly cared for amongst the ranks of his most bitter enemies. He found love.”

  Torsten leaned over Sora and ran his fingers through her hair.

  She recoiled, but only slightly, and only out of surprise.

  “You are a miracle, Sora,” he whispered. “Liam gave his very soul to hide you from his worst enemy—himself. And now, here you lay, and all the war-torn streets outside these castle walls speak of the ‘knife-eared’ mystic healing the injured, of the blood mage giving her own blood for others.”

  Sora cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Torsten.”

  “I’m so tired of asking for miracles, and Dellbar told me to open my eyes to receiving them. You don’t have to believe it’s Iam that set us in each other’s path, but I still have faith in the world He wanted, despite all His errors and those made in His name.”

  “Torsten, please don’t say what I know you’re about to.”

  “I had the honor of getting to know the real King Pi after Nesilia’s influence left him,” Torsten said, ignoring her. “He was all the best parts of his parents. I know who Pi would’ve wanted to take the throne.”

  She choked back tears and looked out the window, squinting through wet eyes. “No, Torsten.”

  “It’s you, Sora,” he implored.

  “No…”

  “It has to be. You can bring us together in a way that we never truly were. The daughter of our greatest King and his greatest enemy. The healer, whose ferocity mirrored her father’s when she helped us save this city. If Pantego truly belongs to the Kingdom, then you are born in the Glass, raised by it. A blood mage like those favored in the north. A mystic who could garner the support of the broken East as we repair it. You are strong enough to stand before Mahraveh and the Black Sands and know her deepest pains. You are the bastard child of Pantego and all its many gods, not just the one.”

  “Torsten, I already told Whitney I don’t want it. I never will.”

  “That is why it must be you.”

  “Then why not you?” She sat up further. “You’re offering the Crown to me, but you could walk into that Throne Room, and there isn’t a man or woman who wouldn’t bow. You know that.”

  He shook his head. “It can’t be me.”

  “It can.”

  “No!” he shouted, causing Sora to flinch. His hands squeezed the sheets, trembling. He took a few measured breaths to calm himself. “I can’t,” he said.

  Sora took his hands to try and steady them from shaking. “You say it should be me because I don’t want it, but neither do you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I don’t want it, that’s true,” he said. “But that’s not it, Sora. You’ve seen what I’m capable of. I don’t—I don’t deserve it. You do. Everything you’ve fought through, all the scorn, the bad looks, the distrust. We have a chance to start over and end all of it. To change.”

  Sora opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t find the words. She sank back.

  “You know,” she said finally. “Whitney mentioned you all the time. Like you were actually best friends even though you hardly knew each other.”

  Torsten chuckled softly. “He really was a lunatic.”

  “He was. But that’s the thing about Whitney. Despite all the bad things he ever did, the only people he ever cared about were good, deep down. Like Lucindur and Tum Tum. By Elsewhere, he found the soft heart of a monstrous upyr. You aren’t the man you were, Torsten.”

  “Maybe not, but I know my place,” he said. “My life is to serve this Kingdom. I made that vow when Liam knighted
me, and I will never break it. And right now, against all odds, I believe that you are what is best for it.”

  “All because I have Nothhelm blood in me?” she scoffed.

  “And so much more.” He backed away from the bed, fell to one knee, and lowered his head. “The Royal Council will hear your story, and they will agree. Dellbar will wake, and a new crown shall find a new head. Sora Nothhelm, from this day, until the end of my days, you have my sword and shield. Or Iam, strike me down.”

  Sora’s heart skipped a beat. She’d never been bowed to before—at least not when Nesilia wasn’t inhabiting her body—let alone by a member of the Royal Council. She supposed that’s why he did it. Those were the types of people he’d always served. Those who’d get bowed to once and realize they were exactly where they were ordained to be.

  “And what if I reject their decision?” she asked.

  “Then that crown will find a lesser head,” Torsten replied. “And the Glass Kingdom, whatever it is to become, will be a lesser place.”

  His head remained bowed, and Sora couldn’t help but stare. He actually believed what he was saying about her. If her birth were really a miracle, it had nothing on that. Only a year ago, he’d been disgusted by blood magic and her appearance.

  She didn’t answer right away. What she did know is that she didn’t want to be Queen. There was nothing he could say or do that would ever change that. And she shouldn’t be Queen. In charge of everyone simply because of a bloodline?

  Without that, Torsten wouldn’t even be considering it.

  But she knew him. Torsten was bullheaded, even if he’d opened his mind beyond the strict dogma of his faith. He wouldn’t back down unless she left him no other choice, and then council members and lords and ladies across Pantego would squabble over the Crown. There’d be more wars, more death—the very things that led Sora to grow up in a small village hidden away from everyone.

  Yet, it was in that town she’d met Whitney. What would he do here? She recalled one of the lessons he’d imparted to her, unable to hide a small smirk. “The best way to get someone to do what you want is to make them think you’re doing what they want,” he’d said.