“Answers,” Cinzia said quietly, walking toward the stack of papers. As she got closer, she looked up at Arcana. “Can I look at them? Or will something ugly happen to me if I touch these, too?”
“Go ahead, if you wish,” Arcana said.
Immediately Cinzia picked up the top page. It was heavier than Cinzia had expected, but still seemed to be made out of paper of some kind, not stone, as it seemed, or thin metal like the Codex. The page was blank. No writing, runes, or anything of the sort. Keeping the page in one hand, she reached out with her other to retrieve the second. It, too, was blank.
“What—”
“You of course will not be able to read them,” Arcana said, “until you make your choice. The contents of those papers… not many people know the truth of them. Not many people at all.”
“Do they have a name?” Cinzia asked.
“The Veria,” Arcana said. “That is all anyone has called them.”
“And they are not bound because…”
“Because they cannot be,” Arcana said. “If you choose to take them, you could try, and you would see. Such a thing is impossible.”
Gently, Cinzia placed the two pages she had taken back on top of the pile. They settled into place as if an unseen force compelled them back to where they belonged.
Cinzia looked around at each of the pillars. These artifacts belonged to the Age of Marvels.
“The Denomination has kept these things secret for so long.”
“We have,” Arcana said, “and we do not apologize for it. Only the uppermost people in the Ministry know of this vault. Myself, the Triunity, and the occasional high priestess…”
Cinzia remembered the Beldam, lying broken on the stone floor of the Triunity’s quarters. If Arcana knew about her, she gave no indication.
“The time has come to make your choice, Cinzia. What will it be? The gem, or the pages?”
Cinzia glanced back over her shoulder at the gem, once again shifting radically in size. “You said one of them I need, and one of them I want.”
“That is what I said, yes.”
Cinzia closed her eyes. The gem would help her fight the Nine Daemons; the pages would… give her some answers?
Take the pages, Luceraf whispered.
Of course you would want me to take the pages, Cinzia responded. The other option would expel you from me.
Allegedly. Even so, Cinzia, there is more at stake here than you or I.
Luceraf had said that to her before.
What do you mean, there is more at stake? Cinzia asked.
“I know it is a difficult choice, Cinzia, but we really do not have much time. Please, make your decision soon.”
“Choices like this cannot be rushed,” Cinzia muttered.
I cannot be specific, Luceraf responded, but I can tell you all is not as it seems. This woman speaks to you of wants and needs. She thinks you want whatever answers lie in these pages, and need the gem to fight the Daemons—to fight me. I say she has it backwards. You would like me gone, I understand that. But you need to know the truth of all of this, Cinzia. You need to understand what we are doing.
If I need to understand, why do you not just tell me?
I can’t, Luceraf said, her voice rising in tone and tightness. Goddess, was the Daemon panicking?
“It is time, Cinzia.”
Cinzia locked eyes with the Essera. She could feel Arcana’s brown eyes scanning her, trying to see past her own into her soul, into the choice she had to make.
You think she is lying to me? she asked Luceraf.
I think she is telling you her version of the truth.
And you are telling me yours. How can you expect me to choose between the two of you?
When no response came, Cinzia grew worried. Would the Daemon truly have left her now, at such a crucial moment?
Luceraf?
You are right. I cannot expect you to do such a thing. I will leave you alone to make the choice yourself, then. But please, remember my words, Cinzia: All is not as it seems.
And then, at least for the moment, Luceraf was gone.
“You’ve been conversing with him, haven’t you?” Arcana asked.
Cinzia took a few deep breaths, Luceraf’s sudden departure making her somewhat dizzy. “I… With who?”
“With the Daemon inside you,” Arcana said, her voice not without its own accusatory tone.
Cinzia finally broke the staring contest with the Essera, and looked instead at the pages. “It is a woman, actually,” she mumbled, almost absent-mindedly.
“It’s a… what?”
“The Daemon inside of me,” Cinzia said. “It’s one of the female Daemons. Not a ‘him,’ anyway.”
Cinzia remembered Luceraf’s words. She is telling you her version of the truth.
Then, she turned on her heel, and strode toward the red gem.
“You have made your—”
Before Arcana could finish her sentence, Cinzia had grasped the red gem in both hands, the size of the thing immediately stable—she could hold it comfortably in one hand. The red glow darkened the moment she picked it up, but so far the gem seemed to have no adverse effect on her.
“…choice,” Arcana said, clearly surprised at Cinzia’s resolve.
“I have,” Cinzia said, feeling the weight of the gem in her palm—much heavier than she would have expected. Though its size had stabilized, it seemed far too heavy for something so small. She looked back at the Essera. “Has anything ugly happened to me yet?” Cinzia could not tell whether she asked the question in jest, or with sincere concern.
“No…” Arcana said slowly. “Very well then, Cinzia. You have made your choice.”
“How does this work?” Cinzia asked. “You said something about sacrifice.”
“I did, but I am afraid I do not know any specifics. The lore of that gemstone states that the user will come to understand it intuitively. It has not been used in many centuries.”
The gemstone drew Cinzia’s gaze back to it. Had she sacrificed potential knowledge for a shiny rock? She felt no different, having picked it up. Luceraf made no acknowledgement of Cinzia’s choice. Other than the weight of it, and the strange appearance of the gem, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Very well, the choice is made. It is time for us to part ways. I will order my people to release yours. And, my dear Cinzia, I hope this does not end our relationship. I hope we can do business together again sometime.” The woman made as if to move toward Cinzia, to embrace her or grasp hands, but seemed to think better of it. The Essera of the Cantic Denomination instead inclined her head toward Cinzia, and then swept out of the room, her white dress flowing behind her.
Cinzia stared after her. Was she supposed to follow the Essera? Or wait—
In a flash of red light, the Vault around her disappeared, and everything went dark.
28
NAYOME HINEK WATCHED FROM behind one of the great columns in the Vault as the Essera inclined her head toward Cinzia— an ex-priestess, for Canta’s bloody sake—and swiftly removed herself from the room.
While Nayome had meant what she had said, about wanting to stay behind and leave whatever business Cinzia had in the Vault to her, she apparently had not been completely honest with herself. Not long after Cinzia walked through the painting door and into the corridor, Nayome had slipped after her. She had called for her personal Goddessguard to gather others and retrieve the Beldam, of course—if the woman had any life left in her, she would see to it that she paid for her heresy—and had thus stepped into the corridor behind Cinzia with a generally free conscience.
When she heard voices inside the room, Nayome had crept as silently as she could into the Vault, hiding herself behind one of the columns closest to the wall, and began to listen.
To say that she had been shocked to recognize the voice of the Essera, having a conversation with Cinzia, would have been the understatement of the Age. What the most powerful woman in the Sfaera was doing spe
aking to a lowly ex-priestess, Nayome could not begin to guess, and their conversation had only left her more confused. Bits about needs and wants had left Nayome intensely curious as to the Essera’s intentions. She clearly did not seem party to the absolute heresy of the Cult within the Denomination, but the fact that she treated Cinzia with such friendliness made Nayome wonder.
Nayome could remember taking Cinzia under her wing at the seminary; the girl had been a year behind Nayome at the time, and Nayome had seen something of herself in the small, unusually pretty girl. Not the prettiness, of course, Nayome had never had any illusions about such things for herself, but in the girl’s intellect and curiosity, certainly.
They had lost touch after Nayome moved on from the seminary, climbing the ranks of the Arm of Inquisition. She had almost forgotten about her friend until the day she was tasked with investigating the Oden family; in that moment, she had remembered Cinzia’s name, and knew in her heart that the girl—the woman, at that point—would already be in Navone.
And now here that same woman was, no longer a priestess, no longer part of the Denomination at all, but nevertheless conversing with the Essera herself.
The jealousy bloomed in Nayome’s chest, so powerful she could sense it clouding her vision.
But Nayome was nothing if not prudent; she waited patiently for the conversation to take its course, and then after the Essera had left, she prepared herself to confront Cinzia. But as she had rounded the pillar, she’d witnessed a strange flash of crimson light, and then Cinzia was gone.
Nayome was alone in the Vault.
“Oblivion,” she muttered, staring at the place Cinzia had occupied not moments before. Where had she gone, and how?
Nayome’s anger faded—somewhat—and she could not help but look in awe around her at the artifacts on each of the pedestals. She dared not pick any up—the Essera’s warning to Cinzia before she had picked up Canta’s Heart had been frightening enough. She could not imagine what unpleasant surprises the other artifacts might have for the poor soul that thought it a good idea to ignorantly pick one up.
That did not stop her, however, from admiring each of them.
She found herself particularly drawn to the strange dagger. The weapon appeared ageless; Nayome felt she could be looking at a dagger millennia old or one that had just been forged, and neither answer would surprise her. The bright blue jewel set in the pommel particularly caught her attention, and it was with some effort that she finally pulled herself away and sought the only other artifact in the room she knew anything about, based on Cinzia’s conversation with the Essera.
The pages.
The Essera had said that these pages would tell Cinzia the truth—that they held the answers to the questions that Cinzia had been obsessing over. Cinzia was clearly having a crisis of faith, and not just a crisis in relation to the Denomination. Nayome recognized disillusionment and malcontent when she saw it; she had made it her life’s business, after all.
And, now that Cinzia and the Essera were gone, and now that the Nine Daemons were on the rise and the Sfaera was falling apart all around her, Nayome walked up to the pedestal that held the document, reached for the first sheet with one hand, and began to read the words that immediately appeared on the page.
29
CINZIA WAS NOT SURE whether she awoke from unconsciousness, or had been awake the entire time, but as she came to herself, traces of red mist surrounded her, and with it a deep-rooted, expansive emotion.
Fear.
As the red mist faded, darkness replaced it. Thick blackness inked over her body, so heavy she was not sure she could breathe. She could neither see nor feel her hands, feet, body, anything. It was all dark.
And yet it was not, because light surrounded her, too. Tiny pinpoints of light, a rainbow of stars twinkling in the horrible darkness, and even though Cinzia feared the darkness, she feared the stars more. The dark, while encompassing and suffocating, remained a knowable quantity. The stars, on the other hand, Cinzia could not know. Could never know. They were mysterious, the unknowable and something altogether apart from herself.
Cinzia did not know how long it took, or how long she simply drifted in the star-studded darkness, but eventually she realized what this place was.
She was in the Void.
Cinzia could remember Knot’s description of the Void, and Wyle’s. Like a moonless night sky, but with colorful stars. The idea did not sound too bad, in theory, but Cinzia could remember the chill that ran up her spine when she heard of the place.
And now here she was.
She looked down at the gemstone in her hands, sure it must be there. Only darkness, and stars. That was strange; she could feel the weight of the stone, heavier than it should be, still in her hand, but still nothing there.
Don’t…
The voice was so quiet, so subtle, that she almost could not understand what it said. But when it spoke to her again, Cinzia recognized the voice through the faintness.
Please, Luceraf whispered.
Cinzia’s jaw set. I am sorry, she said, genuinely meaning it. Whatever Luceraf’s intentions, Cinzia could tell the Daemon was terrified. But I have work to do, and you stand in my way.
Please—
Another voice echoed over Luceraf’s. This voice was not whispered in Cinzia’s head, but rather reverberated throughout the Void itself. Cinzia wondered whether every being here could hear such volume.
“Take the dagger,” the voice said.
The dagger? Cinzia wondered. She had seen a dagger in the Vault, but she had not taken it, obviously. Did she need to return for the dagger, or was the voice referring to something else?
“Draw your own blood,” the voice continued.
The fear never left Cinzia, and she began to wonder. Fear was a side effect of the Fear Lord Himself. One of the Nine Daemons. But why would he speak to her? Why would he tell her how to use the stone?
“Azael?” Cinzia called. But the voice continued, heedless of her call.
“Be rid of the shadow.”
“Be rid of…” Cinzia looked around her. Nothing except colorful pinpoints of light.
Then the darkness around her shifted, and for a brief moment, Cinzia saw her body, the gemstone in her hand, her hand attached to her arm, her arm attached to her body, her body in… Goddess, was that her tent in the Odenite camp?
And, she realized, the gemstone was no longer a gemstone. It was a dagger, twin to the dagger with the gray blade and blue pommel she had seen in the Vault, but with a shimmering, golden blade, and a dark red jewel in the pommel.
“Take the dagger,” the voice repeated.
Cinzia was back in the Void, darkness and stars all around her, but she could feel her body, feel it attached to her, feel the weight of Canta’s Heart—the golden dagger—in her hand.
“Draw your own blood.”
Cinzia hesitated. Blood did not seem the right thing here, somehow. Was blood not the tool of the Nine? She remembered the young man slitting his throat at the Odenite camp outside of Kirlan, blood spurting all over her and Arven. Blood had always been part of the rituals that brought in the Outsiders. Knot and Astrid had told her of that night in Izet, where Lian’s bloody death had ushered in a whole host of them.
“Be rid of the shadow.”
And yet, despite her misgivings about blood and daggers and the nature of the gemstone itself, a single idea drove her forward.
I could be free of Luceraf.
You will never be free of me, Cinzia.
Cinzia froze. She had not realized she had even been raising one hand, the hand that held the gemstone, or the dagger, or whatever it was, toward her other open palm, until she stopped. Luceraf’s voice had been faint, barely an echo, but audible because the other voice that spoke to Cinzia, the one she did not recognize, was quiet in that moment.
Cinzia waited, silence ruling her both inside and out. For a moment, blessedly, no voices spoke to her; not Luceraf’s, not the other’s, and not
even her own. For a moment, Cinzia feel genuine clarity.
Take the dagger. Draw your own blood. Be rid of the shadow.
The words were not spoken by any voice, her own or otherwise, but rather hung in the Void like the star-lights themselves, ominous and imposing, and simply there.
Cinzia held the stone close to the open palm of her other hand, felt the sharp edge of a blade, curiously warm against her skin.
With one slick movement, she pulled, and roaring pain erupted like fire on her skin; fire where the blade cut her, fire that dug deep and infested, roiling, into her blood and bones and every part of her. For a brief moment, or perhaps hours, or even days, Cinzia’s entire body agonized, racked with an inferno of pain.
When she finally opened eyes she could not remember closing, she immediately covered them with her hands to protect them from the sudden bright burst of daylight. As her eyes slowly adjusted, she recognized the familiar pale canvas walls of her tent in the Odenite camp, sunlight streaming through the parted door flaps.
She had noticed an odd bulkiness on her left hand when she had raised her hands to cover her eyes, and squinted to see it wrapped in cloth. A treated wound. As she gently flexed the fingers of her left hand, a dull burning pain sprouted in her palm.
Cold sweat broke on her brow and the center of her back. Had everything she’d recently seen, and done, actually happened? The Vault, the Void, all of it?
Luceraf? Cinzia whispered.
No response came. That would not be remarkable, not normally, as Luceraf had a tendency to depart for hours, sometimes days at a time.
And yet, this time, the empty darkness that only echoed in response was different. Luceraf had occupied a space within her that she had not even realized existed until now, as it gaped emptily inside.
You will never be free of me, Cinzia remembered hearing the Daemon say. And yet the memory of Luceraf’s voice was already fading from Cinzia’s mind.
Chaos Queen--Fear the Stars (Chaos Queen 4) Page 27