by AB Bradley
“Silent son!” Mara stepped forward, cupping the mask. “You’ve saved me.”
The priest of the Loyal Father heaved. Blood trickled from his mask. “Go…” he whispered in a voice racked with pain and panic. “To the steps, Mara. To the Mother’s steps!”
A dagger’s bloody, pointed edge appeared beneath his mask. It twisted, tip first, toward Mara as it tunneled through his flesh.
The silent son fell, and like a falling curtain, he revealed the highborn crowd, the soldiers, the stage, and the two priests of the Serpent Sun standing upon it.
Mara tucked her son into her arm and leapt over the silent son’s body. Her feet pounded on the plaza tiles. Wind threw her burlap in flapping wings around her shins. Her dark, waving locks unfurled and flew behind her.
“Kill her,” Ialane roared. “Soldiers, kill the woman! Slay her where she stands and any who aid her!”
Chaos erupted amongst the crowd. Soldiers peppered in its midst unsheathed their swords and barreled through the panicked highborns.
Mara angled around the mob. Soldiers and swords trampled toward her, swinging their blades wildly. Ialane and Caspran bounded unnaturally high from the platform, their weapons gleaming in the light.
Oh gods, I will not let them take me. They will never take me!
An inferno lit her heart. Her eyes focused on the Mother’s steps even as the line of soldiers before it barreled to meet the other soldiers hacking their way toward Mara. Her feet bounded like a mighty antelope. She couldn’t slow, she couldn’t stop. One misstep, and she would tumble. Somehow, she did not.
An arrow whistled past her. Another struck the plaza stones and shattered.
A gale wind bellowed through the plaza. With it, the shadows lurking beyond the lamplights raced across the smooth stones and swirled around her feet.
The shadows coalesced. They thickened. They grew into a mighty river with churning black waves.
A soldier flung his sword at Mara’s head. The shadows swirled and rose. A silent son’s mask appeared in the cresting wave, and the sword buried in his back.
Another soldier leapt toward Mara. The shadows lurched as another mask appeared and caught the blade. The silent son twisted out of the black and flapped like a dead fish atop the startled man.
The shadows swirled and roiled, rising and falling like the waves of a river spewed from the mouth of a god. “Protect her!” the black river roared in a thousand mighty voices. “We are silent no longer. We speak with one voice. We pray with one soul. We are the silent sons of the Loyal Father. We speak, and we summon the Six. Loyal Father, protect the pilgrim.”
Thunder cracked like no other thunder Mara had ever heard. It shook the plaza. It rocked the temples. High above the hill, a column holding up the palace cracked and crumbled.
“Shining Child, protect the pilgrim.”
Clouds laced with violet lightning birthed in a once starry sky. Ialane’s piercing shriek sliced through the air like a razor through parchment.
“Gentle Lover, protect the pilgrim.”
Lightning blasted the plaza, flinging guard and noble alike. Masked and hooded priests of the Serpent Sun bounded from rooftops and sped from shadows like a hive of pale spiders. They cut down all in their path on their murderous flight toward Mara.
“Coin Counter, protect the pilgrim.”
Mara clenched her teeth. Her throat burned from her heavy breaths. Her legs had long since numbed, but a warmth welled within her and increased her speed. Arrows and swords buried in the river of silent sons. Masks appeared and fell away.
“Slippery Sinner, protect the pilgrim.”
A hail of black arrows crested from the palace behind the temples. Mara looked in horror as they blotted the stormy sky and rained like hell from a demon’s mouth. The river of silent sons crested over her, their shadows swelling into a raging tunnel whose end opened to the Mother’s steps.
The arrows thudded into the priests, and the river faded as the last of the holy men died. The shadows thinned, and the wind embraced her.
A sharp pain lanced into her shoulder. She screamed at the burning point digging into her flesh. She glanced over her shoulder. Caspran’s dagger buried in her arm. It twisted and dug like the fang of a hungry snake.
Tears blurred her vision. She bit her lip so hard, she tasted the tin of her blood.
The steps loomed large through her watery vision. Crying out, she leapt toward them. Her feet left the ground. An arrow whistled beneath her. One passed a finger’s width from her face and broke on the stairs.
Mara landed hard on the marble steps. She fell forward and caught herself. Her wrist twisted and bent. The bone cracked, and she screamed at the fiery pain. Her toe hit a step. She collapsed, her knee slamming against the stone.
A wicked laugh pierced the chaos of the battle. Mara twisted around. Sister Ialane stood at the base of the stairs. The priestess brandished both swords. Her serpent’s ruby eyes locked on Mara’s son. Its forked tongue flicked from its jaw and tasted the air.
“So close, ashwalk pilgrim,” Ialane said. “But I see you now that Caspran’s dagger found its mark. It looks as if the Six did not have the strength to save you. Their sun sets on Urum, girl. The Serpent Sun rises, and with it, the loyal will feast on the old gods’ flesh and take the Six’s power for our own.”
“You will never defeat the Six.” Mara struggled up a stair using her elbow.
Ialane casually climbed a step. “You are a fool. You have always been a fool. You will always be a fool. You will die tonight. You were born to die tonight. You never understood the truth, and it is a great pleasure of mine to send you to oblivion, knowing you will never discover it for yourself.”
The priestess raised her blade. Mara grappled with climbing another step. She cradled her son and pressed her broken wrist against him as a shield against Ialane’s hungry serpent.
It flicked its tongue and uncoiled from the woman’s neck. The creature slithered down her body and up the steps. It rose before Mara and slowly opened its wide jaw with a dripping hiss. Two pale fangs coated with poison gleamed in the light of the temple’s burning braziers.
“Time to end this,” Ialane said.
“Not quite,” boomed a familiar voice. A small orb whistled past Mara and slapped inside the snake’s jaw. The creature snapped its mouth shut and gagged and writhed. It spat the dark orb onto the steps and hissed.
“No!” Ialane swung her sword in a silver arc at Mara. “You won’t be saved this time!”
The orb exploded in a plume of inky smoke. Popping sparks erupted within the black like fireworks bursting in a cloudy sky. The smoke stung Mara’s eyes and disoriented her with its bright flashes.
Ialane’s sword sliced through the smokescreen. A hand wrapped around Mara’s neck and yanked her flat against the steps. The sword swished over her head, cutting air instead of flesh.
The strong hand jerked Mara up the last steps and snatched her to her feet. She twisted around as the hand pulled her toward the Mother’s doors, and she finally saw her savior. He wore tight black garments and boots trimmed in black. A dark hood hid most his features, but Mara instantly recognized his hooked nose and faint scar running beside his lips.
“Sander, you came!”
“Took me awhile. I never said I’d be there that instant, you know. So imagine my surprise when I try and come save the silly pilgrim woman, and I see this bloody battlefield with silent son corpses and damn near half of Hightable bleeding out at the Mother’s temple.”
“We must get inside!”
“Eh?” He glanced down the steps.
Ialane tore through the smoke, coughing and wheezing. Her serpent had slithered up her leg and coiled around her neck. It glared at Sander, bearing its fangs with a piercing hiss.
Sander’s face lost its color. “Fuck me, the Serpent Sun priests are alp? So there was a demon sorceress from the Second Sun in Sollan after all. It’s just not hunting our king. It’s working for him.”
<
br /> “That’s an alp?” Mara stumbled back. “But all the alp are dead. All living things died when the Second Sun fell.”
“The stories they tell common folk are often laced with lies. If you’re smart, you might discover a different truth. Or rich. The rich can always buy the truth. There’s a fancy saying for both, but I’ll be damned if I can remember them. Don’t you hate that? I wanted to sound all wise and priestly, but ah well, maybe the next brush with death, it’ll come. At least we know why you were so good at keeping out of their sights. There’s a reason the Mother makes her ashwalk pilgrims wear ash and burlap.”
Sander pulled Mara against the temple door. Brother Caspran swatted through the remaining smoke and stood by Ialane’s side. The priestess tightened her grip on the sword and pointed the tip at Mara. “No matter. The door is sealed and the faithful trapped within it. They will listen to your screams as we kill you both and my snake devours that child. Then, the temple will become their grave.”
Mara pressed her son tight against her chest. Sander clucked and shook his head. He threw back his hood and bowed before the two priests of the Serpent Sun. “That’s the thing about dealing with a man of the Slippery Sinner. No doors bar us, and we’re just so damn hard to catch.”
He twisted and slammed his palm against the door. An odd sensation racked Mara’s body. She fell backward, her flesh warping through the crack in the doors as if she was water down a drain.
Sander smiled, his breath washing over his face as his form twisted with her. “I’m sorry it took so long.”
Mara looked to the steps as the world faded. Ialane screamed and flung her sword. Brother Caspran flung his daggers.
The outside world blinked out. The weapons thudded against something solid.
The world reappeared. Instead of a Harvest Festival Sky, she looked upon a set of doors. She placed a palm on the thick wood and slid to her knees.
Her heart pounded. The wood and wrought iron muffled the alps’ screams.
Sander threaded his arm beneath Mara’s and hoisted her up. “Welcome to the temple of the Burning Mother, oh ashwalk pilgrim.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Blessed is the Mother
Countless eyes glittered in the firelight of the Mother’s temple, each one brimming with hope and edged by red-rimmed fear. Only a moment ago, Mara had faced the greatest crowd she’d ever seen. In the massive temple, the numbers gathered counted easily twice as many.
The temple itself spanned enough space to swallow a whole neighborhood. Pillars carved in the likeness of women supported a high roof. Olive and emerald ivy leaves dotted with honeysuckle blossoms coiled up their bellies and filled the room with their rich, honeyed scent.
The crowd parted and formed a path to the opposite end of the temple. In the back, towering above all others within the house of worship, stood the statue of a woman. The statue clasped her hands beneath her swollen belly and dipped her chin to gaze upon the ground. At her feet burned a white fire tinged by scarlet.
Mara swallowed, tucking her son a little deeper in her arms. “There are so many people.”
“Bless the Six, they are all here.” Sander tensed, his foot sliding back. “They have all come to face their doom beneath the king’s shadow, the faithful fools.”
“All of them?” she asked.
Her gaze swept over the crowd. A few silent sons stood taller than the rest, their pale masks stark against their black robes. A few others wore the crimson flame of the Burning Mother on their brow. Still others painted glittering gold beneath their eyes, a sign of the stalwart Coin Counter. Priests and acolytes of the Shining Child gazed upon her from within the myriad of tattoos scrawled over their skin, each intricate design a symbol of a sin committed. Those that worshipped the Gentle Lover nodded with respect, ornate nets of gold and silver woven in their oiled hair. There too she recognized men and women clad in the black and grey of the Slippery Sinner.
Mara stepped back and bumped into the temple’s doors. “Why have they come here? Why are they staring, Sander? I—I don’t like this. I’m so tired of not knowing.”
Sander shook his head. He licked his lips, and his gaze slowly settled on her. “Who in all the hells are you?”
“I just want to send my son’s soul to rest. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Then let’s take you to the flame.” He gripped her broken wrist.
She cried out, falling to her knees.
Sander’s eyes shot wide open, and he followed her to the ground. “Fuck, fuck, I’m so sorry. I had no idea it was broken. You’ve really swam through a shark’s jaws tonight, haven’t you? Damn me to every burning layer of every hell there ever was and will be. I did not mean to hurt you. I’m just—I’m new at this priest thing. If I’d been a little more experienced maybe, but…Gods, I’m so sorry, Mara.”
Mara sucked the snot back into her nose and looked at her son. No trace of pink colored his body. His sickly blue tinge had spread over his skin. The filth and blood from her womb dried and cracked in patches on his brow like a leper’s wounds. Even then, not even Upper Sollan, not even Hightable, not even the Mother’s temple could ever hope to match his beauty.
Still, she knew his soul faded. Mara shuddered. She bent over his tiny body and pulled him close, her wounded wrist crooked like a sailor’s hook beneath him. She cried, and the tears splashed against the temple’s marble tile. Her body heaved, the last of her energy drowned by her frustrations.
“Why have they done this to me? I have done nothing.” She clenched her teeth and stared at the smooth stone. “I have done nothing! My son is dead, Sander. Oh gods, my beautiful son is dead and I never knew him. I’ve never said the words until now, but he is dead. I—I—I always saw him as alive, but he is dead. He is dead.”
A great tide of emotions washed out from her shuddering spine, and she inhaled. Mara tightened her jaw and shook her head. “No, every dream I had, every vision I saw, you lived the life I pictured for you. You may not have breathed in my world, but you have always lived within my heart.”
She smiled at her son. A shadow washed over his face. She kissed his brow and lifted her gaze.
A woman stood over her. A crimson veil mostly masked her features. Within her auburn hair piled high upon her head, stones with simmering hearts glimmered with their own light. She wore a necklace of wide, gold discs, the firelight revealing dimples wrought by tiny hammers on the metal.
Her crimson dress billowed around her as if she stood upon a high hill and opened her arms to the wind, yet no hint of a breeze disturbed the temple’s placid air. Mara could not see the woman’s eyes, but she felt them nonetheless. They embraced her. They warmed her. They knew her better than she knew herself.
Not a single word broke the stillness of the temple. Only the crackling fire at the statue’s feet gave life to the quiet.
Mara found it difficult to meet the woman’s gaze. She felt like a little girl again, caught by Olessa trying to sneak a sip of wine or drop of saltwater gin. Her ash-ridden cloak of burlap screamed poverty in a field of luxury, and the sickly green stain her moon maiden collar left behind let the world know how little it valued her.
The veiled woman bent. Her hand slipped from the rolling scarlet waves of her dress. “May I help you? You are a weary ashwalk pilgrim, and you have suffered much for us tonight.”
Mara stared at the woman’s perfect hand. She bit her lip and looked away. “My wrist is broken, and my other arm holds my son. I cannot take your hand, even if I wanted.”
The woman’s hand lingered in Mara’s periphery. A moment later, it disappeared, and the stranger in scarlet straightened. “You are close to knowing your own strength, and you are close to the end of this long night.” Her red silks whirled in a pool around her ankles. “Would you at least walk with me then?”
“Where?” Mara struggled to her feet, shooing Sander’s helpful hands away. Too many helped her that tonight. Too many helped her and paid a price far higher than the
y deserved.
The woman extended a hand toward the statue and the flame at its feet. “To the end. To the beginning. To the place you seek that has sought you for so, so long.”
Flames so white they burned Mara’s eyes danced at the Mother’s feet. Despite the burn, Mara couldn’t turn away. She wouldn’t turn away. She knew them. Somehow, she remembered them.
Mara took a step. Her knee wobbled and began to buckle. Sander gently clasped her shoulders and supported her until her strength returned. He leaned to her ear, his warm breath washing across her neck. “Do not fear them. I will follow you. I will not leave you here at the end, my ashwalk pilgrim.”
Rolling crimson silks swelled around the mysterious woman as she glided down the path. Mara followed, the long, weary night pulling on her steps like lead weights around a swimmer’s ankles.
“My name is Cassandra,” the woman said. “I will guide you to the flames.”
“I have been walking a long way tonight. They told me the Mother could save my son’s soul before the alp devoured it. I—I almost didn’t make it, but I had help along the way.”
“The flames can do much.” Cassandra paused and motioned for Mara to lead. “But it is you who will save his soul.”
Mara licked her lips and took the lead. She tried her best to ignore the faces in the crowd, but all eyes bore down on her and followed her every movement.
“Traditionally, the ashwalk pilgrim speaks of her life,” Cassandra said.
Mara rubbed her fingers down the rough threads of her son’s burlap. “Which part?”
“Everything you think might matter.”
“I don’t remember much…” the throbbing ache in her broken wrist flared. She paused and glanced to the side, closing her eyes until it passed. “But I do know a man of the Burning Mother brought me to the House of Sin and Silk. His name was Laedon, and he convinced Madame Olessa to raise me despite the cost and burden. I worked very hard for my madame. I never complained. I served my patrons even if I hated myself for doing so.”