The purple and blue skies reflected off the milky backdrop of clouds hurling towards the western horizon. She watched as a band of three stars blinked in synchronistic patterns. They grew bright then flattened, then bright once again before dimming down to little specks.
It had been nearly two years since Anna had last seen Rayne. Today, the boy would have turned ten. The moons and the stars were aligned just like the night he was born. This significance revived painful memories of that terrible night when the queen had died, but also the joy of when she and Indrid were young and when Rayne was home. They were the only happy thoughts that she carried nowadays. With Montague and Gretchen as their caretakers, she, Indrid, and Rayne were once a family. But that warm embrace had been broken. Anna missed her stepbrother more than she could have ever imagined. He might have only been alive for eight years, but he’d looked older than Anna, who was at the brink of adulthood. Even his mind was far more mature than the average teenager. Anna couldn’t deny the feelings she’d begun to feel for her much younger stepbrother. But she feared that her love for Rayne would seem perverted to others. So she never spoke of it. Not even in confession. She’d attended the temple every week and prayed to Gabriel, asking him to shine light on her lost stepbrother’s way home to her. She still didn’t accept his death. And she believed Montague didn’t either. He’d been quiet and refused to entertain the subject.
But now as an adult, Anna tried to move past losing Rayne. Perhaps, he’d run away in fear for his life, she thought. Whatever the case, there would be no future with Rayne in it.
She dreamed of starting a family and having children, but she was afraid to fall in love and give her heart to someone, fearing the possibility of losing him again. She felt that she had enough people in whom she’d invested her feelings: Indrid, Greta, Monte, and her young students. She loved children, but without having her own, the next best option was to teach them. She shared the Ikarus library basement with Montague to hold her classes. And what better subject to focus on than what she loved most: astronomy. Talking about the heavens, just like the discussions she once had with Rayne down by The Ponds, reminded her of home.
Home, she thought. The capital was lonely without Rayne.
Unlike her living stepbrother, Indrid, she wasn’t waiting to return anywhere. After her uncle had died at the burning of Grale and Mern, her royal relatives never demanded her return. Of course, her homeland had written letters to her over the years expressing an interest in seeing her again. But Anna’s written request to be reunited with her blood-born family had been denied by King Alexandal. Nevertheless, she’d entertained the idea of going without permission yet she didn’t have transportation to get there unnoticed. Because of her royal relation to the high maidens, the men at the docks would recognize her and report her emigration to the king. And she couldn’t reach Mern without a boat. The Mern kingdom included a series of small islands with hundreds of capes and bays of crystal clear water supporting massive coral reef systems. The white sandy beaches sparkled like crystals underwater. Maybe, she thought, a change in location would help her cope with her loss.
At the edge of the market, beyond the vegetable baskets, bushels of flowers stood at the street corner. She sifted through the variety, sniffing in the aroma of each gardenia, orchid, and rose. There was a mirror behind the multi-colored arrangements of petals reflecting the green of the stem leaves upon her face.
When Anna looked into the mirror, a frost stretched out from each corner of the frame before her eyes. She watched the clouding glass surface shape as the outline of a human hand appeared. Startled, she dropped her books and knocked over a basket of flowers, scattering dead leaves across the cobblestone street.
She took five deep breaths. Calm down, she said to herself. The day’s significance was pulling on her emotional strings. Rayne had been on her mind all day and she became impatient to visit the memorial that was dedicated to the lost boy king. If she wanted to make it back to Ikarus before curfew, she’d have to leave soon. The sky looked darker every time she looked up.
When Anna bent down to clean up the flowers and gather her things, someone pressed up against her buttocks. “Excuse me!” she said, turning in disbelief of the vulgar violation. It was the disgusting fisherman, Lief, now pot-bellied and usually drunk.
“Come on, baby. I never had a Mern before. Give me some of those sweet lumps,” the fisherman said, fixated on her breasts. “You can use a little relief. I’ll give it to you good.” He licked his lips.
Anna almost laughed. “As if I would ever touch a slob like you.”
Angered, Lief dropped his ale then grabbed Anna by her braid, pulled her toward him and with his other hand, felt her breast, and again pushed his crotch into her backside. Before Lief could restrain Anna, she spun around him, unleashed a dagger from the small scabbard around her heel, and pressed the sharp edge against his throat.
Lief froze. “What are you going to do? Kill me? Tell the king, who you haven’t talked to in years, that someone fancied you? Well, go ahead. Because we both know that your ‘forever-foster-father’ doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you. Perhaps he’d sell you to me for the price of a whore. He would make a great deal of money on you. No doubt any man in the kingdom would pay to feel you.”
Anna knew Lief was right. The king hadn’t cared about her since the queen had died. Everything changed that day. For a relative of the high maiden of Mern, adult life in Ikarus was now no different than that of any other peasant. She hadn’t been provided for by the king since Queen Olivia had passed. Her quarters remained in the high castle, but she was deemed old enough to take care of herself. No longer was royal service of any kind provided for her by Alexandal’s servants. But she did not care.
“Let me tell you what’s going to happen here. First, you’re going to shut your mouth and stop drooling all over yourself. Go home, go to sleep and tomorrow when you wake up, you won’t be so stupid. Or you can keep trying to fondle me and I’ll break your little friend,” she said, looking down at his pants. “Okay?”
The horny fisherman submitted. But when Anna lowered her knife and walked back to clean up the flowers, he quickly reached under her gown and grabbed the bare cheek of her ass.
Anna turned back and launched her right foot straight into his groin, as hard as she could. There was a spongy crackle. Lief blew out his breath and fell to his knees.
“I warned you,” said Anna, walking away without a shred of sympathy. She quickly picked up her bag of spices and two books. Leaving the flowers scattered in the street, Anna ran off.
Outside of the kingdom walls, the trees swayed side to side as the north winds gathered strength; a storm was approaching. It was all the more reason for Anna to hurry on her visit to Rayne’s memorial at The Ponds. When she arrived at the overgrown weed-covered stone, she saw out of the corner of her eye someone running into the forest. He’d looked just like Montague. But why would Montague be out this late and this far from the castle, especially with a storm coming? There were few people who even knew of the memorial stone Anna and Indrid had placed there. Montague was one of them.
“Hi,” Anna said in a subdued tone. She kneeled. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been gone and I still think about what it would be like if you were still here. I can’t seem to let go of the past. I’m not sure who I am anymore or where I belong. I’m even questioning my own beliefs.” She looked up to the night sky and thought about their god, Gabriel Volpi. “And where are you, Gabriel? Don’t you care about your own bloodline? Well? Why didn’t you protect Rayne and keep him safe?” She didn’t understand; how can a loving god neglect his own descendent? Maybe, the old woman from the day Alexandal had claimed the throne was right. Perhaps Gabriel had forsaken them. “But then I ask myself, Rayne, what if you ran away and escaped? And it made me even more upset. Why wouldn’t you have come back for me? You wouldn’t just leave us. You would have come back for me, right?”
Anna stayed for only a moment
of silence before she readied to leave. A deep breath relieved the pressure of heartache and crowded thoughts.
On the other side of the stone she noticed a fresh rose leaning against it with a letter underneath. She didn’t recognize the language nor did she know how to pronounce the words, but she noticed a fingerprint had been stamped there in what looked like blood. There were many people who spoke both native tongue and ancient Mern. But nobody could read more languages than Montague La-Rose.
Anna could only wonder whose blood the fingerprint contained.
BEHIND A cluster of bushes, Montague La-Rose waited until Anna left the memorial stone. He hid at the edge of the dense forest that surrounded The Ponds.
After the boy king, Rayne, had disappeared, Burton had finally made contact with Montague. An impatient bird had been sent to sing the message. Burton knew the boy was no longer amongst the living. He gave Montague a specific set of instructions in order to bring Rayne back to life. His sensei had told Montague about what happened to the boy; how he was kidnapped to be burned at the stake. Only, Montague couldn’t make out the names of the violators through the bird’s broken chirping.
The last step of the plan was the most difficult. Montague fought with anxiety for five months just pondering the final task. If he wanted to ever see the boy again, the old farmer had to cast a spell; an act he’d never performed before.
All Montague needed was one drop of Rayne’s blood. And he had it, stained on a letter with words he’d written in angelic language. Those words were words that could reach into the shadow realm. Leaving sacred blood out in the open seemed crazy—it was crazy. But the letter should burn up in the fire as the portal opens. He saw no other option.
This opportunity to contact Rayne wouldn’t come around again for another ten years when the stars were aligned again like they were tonight. Montague feared that the people didn’t have another ten years. With Burton trapped and Rayne stuck between realms, the Nekrums could invade as soon as they found what they needed. If Montague failed tonight, he was sure that the people of Naan were doomed.
Not only did bringing Rayne back depend on the night sky, the location of the event had a huge impact on Montague’s chance of success. He needed to recite the spell at a place where Rayne had been emotionally attached. And what better place than The Ponds, where Rayne and his dear stepsister, Anna, had spent the most time, to perform the ceremony.
Only minutes after Anna had left the site, Montague softly recited the angelic words he’d repeated to himself over and over again to remember. As he spoke, leaves began to tumble towards a wind tunnel, coiling around the stone. Then a storm erupted with thundering flashes of light. Freezing cold rain fell, creating within minutes, mud and small puddles.
Above the watery ground a tiny spark flickered into life, and died out just as quickly. It happened again, and again. The flame ignited for a brief second before going out again. The heavens roared while great bolts of lightning illuminated the sky. Suddenly, a bolt of electricity shot into the ground where the hopeless flame was failing to spark and ignited into a small green fire dancing vertically in a braided pattern. The flames hovered above the rolled up letter, then changed shape into perfect spheres of glowing fire.
Within moments the lights coalesced into a luminous cocoon, morphing into the outline of a human body. The impression of a ghostly man began to take physical form as the fire’s light imprinted itself into his aura. He tried to rise, but fell hard like a baby’s first attempt to stand. Silky and reflective, his shape steamed as the cold drops of water evaporated instantly from his scalding form. The man tried over and over again to stabilize himself upright, but he failed every time, screaming in pain.
Then there was a lurid flash of light and the man was gone. Montague stood, terrified of what he’d done. He couldn’t be sure if the shape he’d summoned was indeed Rayne or a demon from the abyss.
The shoemakers closed down for the evening. Even the pubs retired early for the night as the streets were unoccupied and silent other than the sound of rain pounding against stone like stampeding elephants.
Lief woke up from a drunken nap when the dock bell tolled three times. It was a warning for the inner villages of minor flooding. But water was no threat to the fisherman. He lived on a boat secured to the docks of Bulbin Lake, a mile west of Ikarus.
The storm reminded the fisherman of the day he and the speaker of the council supposedly murdered the boy—the king. At least that was what Mongs pushed him to believe. Even though they never found the body, Lief had convinced himself that the boy was dead. The young king had never returned to Ikarus and was never seen again.
Then he thought of Anna. That bitch.
His groin was sore from Anna Lott’s well-placed kick, but he still had the urge to reminisce about the good old days when he was young and would seduce women into pleasuring him, and his needs only, before kicking them out to the cold in the middle of the night when he was finished. Now he had to pay whores for sex.
The fisherman prepared his dinner while he entertained his mind with fantasies. Perhaps, he thought, after his meal he could visit the local brothel for a quick release before bed tonight. First, he scaled the trout with his newly-sharpened knife then separated its flesh from bone. He seasoned his meal with a touch of basil and a pinch of salt before placing the pan over fire. Men shouldn’t have to cook, he said. I need a woman to serve me.
As the fish cooked, Lief gathered the entrails and brought them out to his garbage in the shed at the edge of his dock. He laughed again and again, still reminiscing about women he used to enjoy. But the excitement of his dirty thoughts made his groin swell and hurt even more.
When he got back to his boat, the smell made his mouth water. With crispy skin, the fish was ready to eat. Before he sat, Lief stuffed a tablecloth into the collar of his shirt and set a knife and fork beside his dish.
As he plated his meal, every candle he had set around his kitchen mysteriously went out, one by one, leaving only a string of smoke rising from blackened wicks. There was no wind or any other external factor that could explain the phenomenon. Damn candle makers, he thought. They must have used bad wax. But he didn’t feel cheated. Most of his assets, including the candles, were stolen.
In the blackness, Lief lit a match. But it went out again after holding it for only a moment.
A shape appeared before him and petrified him on sight. The figure was cloaked in shadow. It was a ghost, he swore it. And as it moved closer Lief felt the air being sucked out of his lungs. His limbs froze in fear. The shadow’s face was only darkness, but Lief could tell that it was a man when a breath of fog escaped from his hood.
The man took Lief by both wrists. Lief could see his green glowing eyes. They swallowed him like a black hole. “You don’t remember me?” The shadow asked in a calm whisper.
Lief panicked; the shadow’s voice was eerily familiar. He’d heard it before. But it sounded different—matured. He suddenly knew exactly who this man was and he couldn’t believe it. The last time he’d seen him, he was younger and shorter; not like the towering form that now stood before him.
“Please,” Lief begged. “I was just doing what I was told?”
“Ah,” the shadow chuckled. “Your job, right? Following orders?”
“Yes. Yes. That’s right.”
“So you are not responsible for your own actions?” the shadow roared. A surge of darkness swallowed the room. The entire boat creaked as if each wooden plank was twisting.
“I am! I am!” Lief said, shielding himself with his arms folded over his head. “I’m sorry.”
“I once said ‘I’m sorry.’ And I truly meant it. But all it did was get me killed.”
“Please, I didn’t want to. I swear.”
“You didn’t want to what, fisherman?”
The shadow pulled him in close. Lief felt its breath upon his cheek. But the fisherman turned away and closed his eyes. After what he’d done he couldn’t look a resurrected Ray
ne Volpi in the eyes.
“I know who you are,” Lief admitted. “I don’t know how, but I know it’s you. I kidnapped you two years ago, regretfully.”
“And?”
“And I tied you to a post—”
“Surrounded by piles of oil-soaked wood,” the shadow finished. “Men like you disgust me—empty heads. You don’t use your brain nor do you want to. You look for someone else to give you orders because you don’t know what to do yourself. You feel like you have no purpose. You are lost. And you want to be found.”
The candles in the room relit.
For a moment, Lief’s fear abated. He suddenly felt emotional, realizing the faults of his life. “I am lost,” he said.
Suddenly, the darkness returned. “Well, I found you,” Rayne said. “And I will tell you what not to do.” Rayne’s grip tightened. “You shouldn’t have groped that young lady earlier today. She asked nicely for you to stop. And you refused.”
“Never again, I swear,” said Lief.
Rayne’s wide green eyes shrunk down into slits, studying Lief’s fearful expression. “I believe you. And I will make sure of it.”
Lief’s heartbeat doubled.
“Do you know what separates humans from animals?” Rayne asked.
What does that mean? Lief thought. The fisherman’s teeth chattered. His mouth was too dry to even fold his lips to speak.
“I’ll give you a hint. Without this, humans couldn’t have built the kingdoms that they’ve built today.”
But the fisherman didn’t know. He was too scared to think. He didn’t want to know.
“Technology,” Rayne said. “And how can one create technology without hands to operate tools.”
“No!” Lief shouted.
Rayne released his hands from the fisherman’s wrists. “Like a tadpole you will live, trapped in a puddle with no way out, without ever growing new arms and legs. You will never touch her again, nor will you ever tie another knot.”
Under a Veil of Gods Page 16