“These are your sisters,” she said to me. “The Mother’s daughters who wish to give their lives to study the mysteries and healing craft. They have left their clans and will become one with the Mother, giving birth to her children and nurturing the land and her people.”
The girls filed by, dropping the ribbons at the oracle’s feet. They piled up, red, greens, oranges and blues. Every color of the rainbow, with different markings notating their clan and the heritage the girls would leave behind. The last girl to approach was a head taller than the rest. She kneeled down in front of the oracle. Her head bowed as she laid down a green banner with a yellow horse upon it.
She looked up at us and smiled.
For a moment I was too shocked to speak. Then I blurted out her name, “Elenna?”
Chapter Nine
ELENNA WAS A HEAD TALLER than the other women. Her hair was loose and rippling down her shoulders. She wore the gown of the initiate, but it was plain to see she was no mere supplicant. She should have been a priestess in her own right, a fully trained du-toath, but she had fled from the destiny the oracle had foretold. The one that said she would die for me. I was overwhelmed by relief. I thought you were dead! I wanted to shout to her. Did the others survive the waters along the river ford? Had they made it out alive as well? My questions would have to wait. This was a sacred ceremony. Elenna stared straight forward as she kneeled down beside the other fresh young women in their white gowns. While the others looked like girls, Elenna was a woman with full curves and a wisdom in her eyes these girls lacked.
The oracle walked down the line of women. I followed after her, holding a torch made of bundled herbs. My grandmother held a wooden bowl with water from the lake within it. She chanted over the women, speaking in an old tongue, older than the Biski tongue, I suspected. White smoke curled from the burning bundle I held, and a sweet scent filled the air. My grandmother brushed the brow of each initiate with the water from the basin. They bowed their heads as she passed until she came to Elenna at the end.
“Welcome, daughter of my daughter.” I bit down on my lip to hide my surprise. Elenna is the oracle’s granddaughter as well? Is this the errant priestess she spoke of? That means that Elenna is my cousin. Elenna lifted her eyes to meet the oracle’s.
“Grandmother, I have come to rededicate myself to the order.”
The smoke twisted around the oracle’s head, haloing it. She studied her granddaughter for a moment, violet eyes probing. Elenna did not flinch nor look away.
“Your path will not change, despite your detour,” the oracle said at last.
“I know,” Elenna replied. She bowed her head.
The oracle smiled. She brushed the water from the basin across Elenna’s brow. “Come, we shall be the first to see the Goddess’s path.”
Elenna rose to her feet, graceful as a dancer. I stood beside the door, waiting for the signal from my grandmother. I tried to catch Elenna’s eye, but she was intent on the ceremony. Doesn’t she realize I have grieved for her all this time? The least she could do is acknowledge me. I was meant to help in the ceremony by reading the dreams of the initiates. We read their dreams to divine the path their lives would take. The oracle led Elenna to the door, and I held open the flap for them to come inside. Once they had disappeared into the dark depths of the tent, I followed them. Inside, the stone basin sat in the center of the room. We would not be using it today. The fire had been built up to twice its usual size, and the tent was warm and near stifling. The earthy scent of dream herbs spiced the air. Elenna lay on the sleeping mat near the fire. She had already begun to perspire from the close proximity to the heat when I kneeled beside her. My grandmother sat on the side with her back to the flames. She did not seem to sense the heat upon her.
Elenna seemed to know what was expected of her. She lay with her hands crossed over her chest, her eyes closed tight. Her hair was splayed across the pillow like a dark curtain. If her destiny was not to die on the riverbank, then when and where? What other trials does the Mother have prepared for us? Could fate be diverted? Was Elenna meant to die at the river, but instead she had survived. I had agreed not to kill Johai back in Sanore because Elenna had convinced me not to. Elenna said that we could prevent both of our destinies. I knew the truth about my own destiny. However, I wondered if Elenna hoped still that we might be able to avert tragedy for her. There was only one way to know. I met my grandmother’s eyes. She nodded her head, and I touched Elenna’s temple. Her blood pumped through her with a steady thump, thump, thump. I inhaled and matched her breathing pattern. I closed my eyes and let the vision take me.
A horse screamed. I twirled about to see a man pinned beneath his mount. He held out his hand, beseeching me for assistance. My body was not under my control, and I could do nothing for him. Soldiers were clashing nearby, steel upon steel. No one saw the broken man dying beneath his lame horse. I could not see Elenna. I stumbled through the mud and the blood looking for her. Tattered blue and silver banners rippled in the wind, the silver oak of Danhad near indistinguishable upon them. Nearby, a man with the golden horse of Neaux upon his tarnished armor ran a spear through the gut of another man wearing leather and hides. He had braids in his hair and feathers tied in his forelocks. Before the Biski man could fall over, the ground beneath our feet began to roll and pitch back and forth. A chasm opened up, and half a dozen men fell into it.
I ran from the quaking earth as storm clouds gathered upon the horizon. Shafts of lightning fell from the sky and scorched the earth and men alike. I climbed a grassy knoll and looked down upon the destruction before me. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of men lay broken and bloody upon the ground. Ships were landing upon the shore. Men with golden hair wearing thick furs spilled from the ships and clashed against a sea of blue, red and brown.
“This is what awaits us if we do not stop him.”
I turned to face the speaker; my mother was beside me, looking down on the terrible scene. I knew the risks, but for once I was prepared to face it without hesitation. She wore her hood pulled up to conceal her features, but her violet eyes gleamed from beneath it. She pointed a bone-white hand, and I followed the line towards a distant hillside. Johai sat upon a white horse. The wind was running its fingers through his hair, tangling it and whipping it about. I looked back to my mother, but she had disappeared; instead I was standing beside Johai, and he was smiling at me. If you could call it that, his lips twisted in a cruel mockery of mirth.
“You think you can stop the full might of the prophecy? This day has been coming for centuries. If you do not choose me, then you will meet your end, make no mistake.” He pulled out his sword. The metal screeched against the scabbard. I stumbled backwards to avoid his slash. I fell to the ground, and my hand came back wet. It was covered in blood.
I brushed the blood off my hands. A few feet from me lay a corpse. Johai had disappeared, and I was alone in a chamber made of stone. Water was dripping from somewhere above. It plunked into a basin beside the body. I crawled over to examine it. It was a woman, judging from the long dark hair. When I turned her over, it was Sabine. Tears rolled down my cheek, and my vision blurred, and as it did, the body changed to Elenna, her faced burned and blackened.
“Spare them!” I shouted into the void. “It is my blood you need. It is my death that is necessary to stop the specter’s rise. I see that now. I will go to my death gladly if you will spare them!” I did not know whom I was begging. Maybe it was my mother, the first diviner, or the Goddess herself. I was not certain. All I knew was I could not stand the idea of any more bloodshed.
The body changed a final time, and for a moment I thought I was seeing my own corpse. Then the eyes opened, and I realized it was my mother. Her skin was bloated and pale, and there was seaweed tangled in her hair.
“Save me!” she said.
I was wrenched from the vision. I convulsed on the ground, kicking my arms and legs as I fought off imaginary foes. I saw my mother’s death face reaching for me, trying t
o pull me beneath the waves that had taken her life. I felt like I was drowning. I cannot breathe. Someone was shaking me. I kicked at them and rolled over onto my hands and knees and heaved for breath.
“Maea!” My grandmother slapped my back. I gasped and then inhaled. I am not dying. I can breathe. I took a few more shaking breaths before sitting back on my haunches.
Elenna was sitting cross-legged beside the fire, watching me with her dark liquid eyes. My grandmother watched me as well, her arms crossed over her chest.
“You saw?” my grandmother asked.
What did I see? War. Death. My mother’s bloated corpse. I shivered. This cannot be a good omen. This was what Elenna had run from, her death and her role in stopping the specter. I could not fault her for it. I, too, would like to run, to go to the farthest reaches of the known world to escape my forsaken destiny. I could not do that, however; if I were to flee, hundreds of thousands would die. I looked at Elenna. She seemed sad, but she did not move to speak. She saw as I did.
“I saw death, three women in one, and I saw the coming war; it will draw in every nation to destroy us all.”
My grandmother nodded her head. “Yes, time is running short. There is much left to do.”
I need to go to Danhad to stop the war, but am I ready? My grandmother had taught me much of herb lore and some healing. It would do me little good when I faced Johai at last in the Sea Chamber. Will my mother guide me in those final moments? I looked at the fire, where the aromatic herbs burned. What if Johai realized what I was trying to do and killed me for it? How did I open the gateway to the veil beyond? I had asked my grandmother about these things, but each time she told me the time was not yet, she would reveal all when I was ready. I was growing frustrated with the delay. Time was of the essence, but I obeyed, watched and waited.
We spent the remainder of the day reading the dreams of the other ten initiates. Their futures ranged from mundane to cryptic, none as dire as Elenna’s. I performed them all, and by the end I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to collapse into a tired heap on my sleeping mat. Elenna had stayed behind, waiting outside while I divined the futures of the initiates. When the last of them had left, she came to me.
“There is much we need to speak of,” she said to me. “Tomorrow I will come to you. Be ready with the rising sun.”
I gave her a weary nod. It was all I could manage before I stumbled back into my tent. I collapsed upon my sleeping mat. I did not dream that night, for which I was glad. I woke in the early morning hours to find my grandmother had disappeared with the morning mist again. Where she went to, I did not know. She had become increasingly secretive, spending many late nights gazing into her basin. She seemed to sleep little and ate even less. It is not good for a woman of her age not to eat or sleep. When I return tonight, I will tell her so.
Elenna was waiting for me when I emerged bleary eyed from my tent. She was wearing a gown made from sewn-together hides. She had beads tied up in her forelocks, and she displayed her tattoo that marked her as one of the du-toath.
I had so many questions for her, but before I could speak any of them, she said, “Come, and stay close. There are enemies even here.”
She slipped up the hill away from the tent. I ran to catch up with her. Her legs were longer than mine, and she took long strides as she walked. I struggled to keep up with her. We skirted along the campsites, never close enough to be seen. The camps were only beginning to stir; cook fires’ smoke trailed upwards to the sky. To our right was nothing but grass and sky. The brown grass swayed in the wind. It reminded me of the sea, the way it rustled and moved. But it did not have the smell or the breeze. I felt a pang of longing for home, for Keisan and the cry of gulls and the smell of salt and the faint hint of fish from the harbors.
Elenna did not tell me much but that Beau was alive and back at the Neaux camp with the other survivors. We travelled for a while longer until the encampment burst from the grass plains. It was some distance from us yet, but I could see the crimson and gold banner of Neaux. What a relief the sight was. I knew some had perished, but many more had made it here to Mother Lake. From a distance I could not pick out individuals’ features, but I searched nonetheless. The tents were fewer than when we had started out, which was a sharp reminder of the losses sustained thus far. There had been casualties at the river, I knew. They were greater than I imagined. At least a third of the company was missing. When we drew close, we were hailed by a guard posted on the perimeter.
“Ho, what business do you have here?” the man called. I recognized him as the soldier who had tried to help pack up our tent at the onset of our trip.
Elenna stopped a few feet away. “I am Elenna, returned with news and a lost member of our party.”
The soldier nodded at her and waved her through. As we passed by, he saw my face and swore. I smiled, but it was difficult to smile carrying the news I bore. I must warn the ambassador about Danhad and the Biskis’ pact. He will not be pleased. They came far and lost many for naught.
Elenna made her way towards the ambassador’s tent. I saw it looming in the center of the encampment. It was little changed. As we approached, we spied a group gathering outside it. Laughter drifted over the heads of the soldiers pressed together. The men shouted and whooped. I heard a thud followed by a grunt. There was a gap in the circle, and I could see two men wrestling in a dirt ring in the center of the surrounding men. I was preparing to turn away when I saw a flash of white. I stopped and stared. Johai was wrestling with a Neaux man, and winning, from the look of it. He had the man pinned to the ground by the shoulders.
Without thinking, I took a few steps closer. Johai was grinning in a way that seemed unnatural for his face. The Johai I knew, the real Johai, was not a man of brawn. The real Johai was one who enjoyed a good book. The truth did not keep my eyes from being drawn to the sweat glistening on his muscles and the way they bunched and corded as he worked to keep the other man pinned. I could not see the face of the man he wrestled, only that he was Neaux. The Neaux man arched his back and pushed Johai off of him. Johai stumbled backwards a few steps. He did not fall and lunged forward to attack the Neaux man once more. Johai’s back blocked the man’s face from view once more. Something glittered in Johai’s hand. He held a dagger. Johai circled the man, who slashed at him and danced away after each attack.
The other man landed a strike on Johai’s upper arm. The knife bit into Johai’s skin, but he appeared unaffected. A stream of blood rolled down his arm in a crimson trail. Johai parried with a slash to the man’s face. It caught him just beneath the eye. The man spun away, and I saw his face at last. Commander Bellhue wiped away the blood that trickled down his face. The cut had almost taken his eye. The commander, despite the close call, was undaunted. He slammed into Johai with his shoulder and brought Johai to the ground. The commander was a large man, and once he was atop Johai, who was slight of frame, the fight was over. The commander pressed the dagger to Johai’s neck. The look in Johai’s eye was one of murder. It was a fleeting look, however. Johai laughed, and the commander jumped off him. They clasped hands together, signaling the end of the fight.
The spectators were filing away now that the sport was over. Those that had bet upon the match gathered their winnings, and others walked away grumbling over empty purses. Many of the spectators had been Neaux, but there were more than a few Biski mixed in with them. The Biski men stayed near Johai, watching over him.
The commander brushed the dirt off his breeches. Across the circle from me, Aland barked with laughter. Beside him stood the ambassador, Lord Gerard Buree; he smiled smugly, most likely pleased with the outcome of the fight. What is Aland doing here? He made a pact with Danhad, did he not? Lord Buree looked thinner than the last time I had seen him. There was a hunger in his gaze when he looked at Aland.
“It seems my man has won,” Lord Buree said to Aland in the Neaux tongue. “Perhaps you should have put in a man who is more equipped for fighting.”
Aland stopped laughing and looked over to Johai. He was composed, his hands folded in front of him, and a white linen shirt covered his upper body.
“Strength comes in many forms. Perhaps now that we have seen your champion fight, we can talk?” Aland said to Lord Buree. The ambassador’s gaze flickered to Johai. That same hungry gaze devoured Johai. He knows what Johai is, and he wants to use his power for Neaux. What had happened to the ambassador and his men since we were parted, I could only guess, but months had passed, and he appeared desperate. He needs this Biski pact, and he needs Johai if they hope to defeat Danhad. He’s too late. The Stone Clan has sworn themselves to Danhad. I was surprised to even see Aland here. What had they tempted them here with, or was this Johai’s plan?
“Yes. Come with me to my tent, and we will break bread and talk.” Lord Buree turned to walk away, Aland walking with him. Three Biski men followed after along with a few Neaux soldiers, including Commander Bellhue.
The ambassador had not seen me, and that may have been for the best. Johai did see me, however, and it was too late to pretend I hadn’t been watching him. Elenna placed her hand upon my shoulder as he approached us. I had nearly forgotten she was there. Whenever he was near, he seemed to absorb most of my focus. How can Johai do this to me? Why does everything fall away when I see him? I moved away from Elenna discreetly. I did not want Johai to know that I needed Elenna’s support to face him. I forced a serene expression onto my face to not give away my fear.
“Maea, it’s good to see you this morning.” He spoke to me in an easy, familiar way. He did not reach out to touch me, but I felt as if his very essence and power were wrapped around me, suffocating me.
“You were injured.” I nodded to his arm. I did not have it in me to pretend I was glad to see him.
diviners fate Page 12