Once Was: Book One of the Asylum Trilogy

by Miya Kressin

  “Do not let the anvil stay your course. You are needed, else I would not have called you to Sheelin. I will see you on the mainland’s full moon. I am hopeful it will not be too late to say good-bye. Bas’ blessings on your journey, my dear, sweet child. Bas’ blessings for us all.” As her lips closed, darkness closed in on Asha, leaving me adrift in moonlight on the water, alone.

  “Too late,” she called. “Too late. Save the rest. Save yourself. Too late.”

  *

  I was shoved outside the aisling as quickly as Bas had pulled me to it. Too late? I was surprised Asha had left my message of sorts on the astral, waiting for me to search for her. As it was, my connection to her had been limited. No other faces had been recognizable to my imperfect sight. It had been days, if not more than a week, since she had left the vision for me to find; the time had degraded the quality. Asha knew the bulk of my reasons for leaving Sheelin, that she left this message to chance worried me. If it was as important as this, she would have been far better to have any of the oneira project herself into my dreams. Perhaps I would have come faster. Perhaps not given the other oneiras’ opinion of me.

  Bright sunlight, that of the afternoon sun, shone through my bedroom window, blinding me. It was still a shock to have glass windows inside wood and stone walls where oil-clothed curtains were once suspended within a thatched cottage. When Sheelin released me to become a missionary, I had returned to Madani to find a small house where the cottage in the way of our ancestors had once stood in pride. If not for its proximity to the forge and Mother’s sign in front, I would not have known it to be my home.

  The sun shining onto my face through the window above my bed was a treasured sensation. Most places I stayed had long since been overrun with industry, and smog filled the once clear skies. A bath, bed, and sun were luxuries not often afforded by a priestess. My nap, which to my mind had felt like mere moments had been hours, still left me tired and aching. Pulling back the blanket, I cried.

  Crimson stains faded out into the dirty bronze color of drying blood, coating my clothing, the mattress, and the underside of the extra quilt. My ribcage and stomach ached from bone deep rakings of claws through me; sitting up made my head swim. Despite Asha’s healing magic, I had lost too much blood.

  Laying back down, I angled myself into the largest patch of sunlight and tried to be calm. “Sun above me, source of Aya’s fires, heal me.” The golden glow warmed my skin, the heat seeping into my tender flesh. “Earth beneath me,” I paused as I felt down beneath the wooden floorboards to the fertile earth. “Rich earth, Bas’ hunting ground, heal me.”

  Gold and dark green lights converged upon my body, communing in a sacred dance of their patrons. Bas and Aya bowed before one another as They waltzed through my body, healing me.

  “You were right, Lady,” Aya murmured against the Goddess’ slender throat. “She does call to You with all her heart. Perhaps We can still use her.”

  A throaty purr warmed me far more than the sun as Bas laughed against Her lover’s cheek. “She’s My priestess, Consort. She’ll use her own claws to rip out Your throat if You force her. Coax her as I have.”

  Even I knew better than to announce that I was there and had my full consciousness. It did not do one good to interrupt the Gods as They determined the fate of a priestess. They spoke in words I both did and did not understand. Their magic was a bright force as it healed wounds I did not know existed.

  “This, My Lady. This is Our brother’s work.” Aya’s voice held a reverence I did not know. “Why have You not cleaned it out of her?” The paternal side was winning out over His position as Her lover.

  “You are questioning Me?” Bas took offense. I held still as a corpse, my eyes closed to Their brilliance. “I cannot do everything, Wayland Smith. They would not learn if We coddled them too greatly. I do not like My children to be My pets. I must loosen the leash if I am to be loved as I crave.”

  Lulled by Bas’ words, I drifted in contentment. The verdant sunlight beckoned me with pulsing medicine for my soul.

  Then came bone-shattering pain.

  I convulsed upwards, newly knit wounds tearing open as molten metal poured through me, scouring the hidden parts of me. Fire followed in its wake, burning away the blackness. “Sleep, Little Priestess. Let Me clean you.” Aya’s voice softened as He forced me into a pain-free realm of unconsciousness.

  *

  It was almost dinner time when I awoke again. The sky was softening to a warm reddish glow through the windows, a gentle awakening compared to the bright pain of before. Pain? The pain. Was it all a dream?

  Seeking fingers slid over silken skin, finding no scars across my sides, even the one gained years ago from falling into a thicket of berry bushes and cutting myself on a dagger. Looking down, I saw pale skin against the tanned flesh marking out two large hand prints on my abdomen. Aya had healed me.

  Praise to the Lord and Lady. I gave the prayer in my head, too scared to voice my thanks and break whatever spell I was under.

  Their magic still throbbed under my skin. Would it be enough to see me to Sheelin?

  The full moon was when I would find if my own magic held; I had little time to learn if I could walk upon the water as the first priestess had done when she was led to Sheelin by Bas. The woman was heavy with child as she made the treacherous path, stumbling to the shores that welcomed her as a parent welcomes home a child.

  I knew that I would not truly walk upon the water, but that my presence and magic would call forth stones from the depths of the lake, stones that bore the footprints of every priestess to walk before me, as they would bear mine if any came after. To be that priestess, to fully acknowledge that my magic was more than healing abilities, I would have to find the strength inside of me to accept my path. Summoning that internal fortitude would be harder than reaching those stones. I had left Sheelin in defiance. Now, I must return in a fashion of the most pious. My faith was being tested; once I used those gifts, I could not be a simple, wandering healer again. Calling upon the Goddess like that would change me.

  Becoming a Sister had been a transformation from girl to something divine. The change I undertook in the walk to Sheelin would be something greater. While nothing could compete with the first aislings I endured and the moments that followed, to harness that much raw power, holding wild magic inside me for that walk to (and hopefully from) Sheelin, I would go through a form of metamorphosis greater than what I bore in my initiation. If I was to survive my time in this new world I would have to change. While I would not lie about my faith, even the Oracles of generations past have stated we must learn to blend in with the modern world.

  I sat watching the changing world from my bedroom window until the sun began to set and Cade abandoned his forge to prepare our fare. My stomach voiced its complaint of only having had a few bites of bread. “Soon,” I promised. Cade began cooking for my parents when he was only eight. It gave them more time to work and him a way to earn his keep after his mother passed away from a life of drink and prostitution.

  The languor of my second rest fell away as I stretched in the dying light. No blood remained on my dress or the quilt, though it stained the bed as proof it was not entirely a dream. Reaching deep inside, I could no longer feel Liand’s tainting touch. Aya had burned me free of the past, akin to farmers’ use of controlled fires to reclaim fields that had gone to weed or filled with diseased crops. A little loss could give an impressive gain if done with care.

  It was with careful loss and necessary change filling my thoughts that I reversed my earlier steps and slipped out into the rose path. I could still hear Cade’s voice in my head, an echo of the words shared in our last encounter before I left. “Until you accept me, I will plant two rose bushes each thaw. One for you along the road and one for me from the back garden. When they meet in the middle, I will finally set my dream free.”

  I walked down the path, feeling the ghosts of our young adulthood selves standing there as I examined the d
ifferent rosehips still hanging upon trellised vines. There were but three paces left open between the sets of roses. Cade was due an answer before that time. In truth, I owed it to him once I determined the nature of the calling.

  No man deserved to wait for a woman who did not love him to the same depth as he loved her. My heart belonged to Fion.

  Does it, Lady? Aya’s whisper ran through my blood until my heart beat in time with His hammer. You’ve felt a Smith’s touch now, and I have felt your heart. There is a soft space there for Cade, one you hide behind a promise broken by another. A heated stroke of strong fingers down my sides became a firm grasping of my hips as Aya pulled me back against His body. Steel and restrained fire shifted against me as He tried to hold a human form. If I told you you were free to love another, would you deny My priest a chance?

  Ignoring Aya and His dark laughter as much as ignoring a God was possible, I broke free the moment I felt His grasp loosen. I sought refuge from Aya Wayland within His own holy space—the forge. The building was set up as my father had left it; what I needed could be found in my sleep. Here, in a place of familiarity, I would find my necessary change. I released my hair from its pins, the long braids continuing to hold the strands hostage. I wove them together in a single braid, then grabbed another hair band from my pouch’s inner pocket and tied it at the base of my neck. The scissors I chose were iron, ones sharpened to a fine edge.

  How fitting that you’d use a symbol of My priesthood to hide one of My Lady’s. Aya’s laugh was a soft caress within the fire behind me.

  I had watched my father create the scissors over twenty years ago. I was only four or five then, quite a ways from me now as I near thirty. Father had once scolded me for cutting my hair with them as a child. I had not wanted to waste time with it going into rag curls like the other girls. I wanted to run and play with Fion and Cade, when he would join us. With the blade held near my scalp, I felt my old life fall away from me as the braid came off into my hand.

  “You left the door open, so I knew it would be you.” Cade’s voice held a gentle reprimand as he observed my actions. “I was not expecting to see you shearing off your own hair. Give me those; I’ll fix your hair out back so you do not look like a startled sheep.” Cade’s broad shoulders shook with his silent laughter, and I found myself having to fight the urge to smile. It felt like the “old times” we would have shared had I been a normal girl.

  A shimmer of the meddling God disturbed the air outside the forge door; Aya smiled upon us like a proud father as Cade led me to a tree trunk out back. I heard His chuckle echo in Cade’s as I fumbled in trying to climb onto the hip height stump. The Smith’s arms were as strong as I could ever remember as he lifted me up onto it. Cade studied me from side to side with a false appraising look, then set about evening my cuts, so I had a simple chin-length straight style all the way around. A quick slice across the front gave brow-skimming locks that covered Bas’ mark. Cade fingered one of the raven waves and looked at me, his eyes heavy with a wistful stare.

  “I shall miss your braids, but this suits you. You look like the Roseen I knew as a child.” His fingers moved to my face and I found myself leaning into the warmth of his palm. It soothed away some of the ache from acknowledging the loss of my first love. Cade’s affection—nay, his love for me—was palpable. If I could not have Fion, could I find happiness with his best friend, my best friend? Was Aya correct that my friendly love could grow to more?

  “The sun really has bleached out your hair. You will be blonde by the time your travels are finished.” He sounded displeased to admit I would leave again.

  “If the tidings of the Oracle are dire as Asha has led me to believe, my travels may be finished, Cadey-cat.”

  He smiled as I used a childhood nickname to soften what he knew was my possible death sentence. “You’ve returned thrice in twenty years, four months total, and each time you come back stronger. Sheelin is in your soul; you are the heart of our people’s magic.” Cade’s rough palm rubbed up and down my cheek and then tucked my hair behind my ear. “Your strength will see us through what the armies of Liand have done to us. We need you here with us.”

  I heard his silent plea for me to be here with him.

  “Fight against them. I’ve seen what your magic can do, Roseen. Combine your magic with my iron, and we can protect Madani.”

  I smiled up at him and wished for all the world that it was that simple. “Cade, you know my abilities do not work by wishes and parlor tricks. I cannot imbue your blades with anything but hope.”

  He lifted the scissors and took another swipe at my hair in the back. “Hope is all a man needs to continue in this world.” Cade spoke of more than the battles ahead. “Enough talk of the war. There is time enough for that tomorrow. The stew should be hot and filling. The vegetables come from your garden; I’ve kept it tended throughout the years, putting some up for harder winters. The meat . . . well, I’m not proud of its source, but it keeps my belly full and my fire lit.”

  I turned on the makeshift stool to look up at his tall form. He was making swords for the army. Cade nodded as if he read my thoughts. “Aye. I do not take pride in my deeds, but for every five swords I make, Liand’s generals claim one, and they provide gold. It’s gold our town sorely needs. I spend more than I should in the marketplace and give my excess foodstuffs to the poorhouse and orphanage.”

  Seeing the hard glimmer in his eyes as his pride give way to self-loathing, I climbed down off the tree trunk and took his hands in mine, being mindful of the shears. “Cade Alexis! You are a good man. You work at cost without receiving anything for your time and effort. I’d rather see you selling four out of five swords to Liand’s army if it means they let you keep your arm. I’ve seen apprentice and journeyman smiths having to take over a forge when the master found his arms useless after meeting with Liand’s guards for refusing to supply the army.”

  Thinking back to what I had seen in the forge, I continued on my lecture, my voice as soft as a mother soothing a colicky babe. “I also can tell from the blades on your wall that you are expecting a visit from Liand’s men soon. They are not of your usual caliber. Where are the good blades?” My husky whisper was meant for his ears alone; a priestess would be hard-pressed to hear me when I did not wish to be.

  Cade’s lips turned up at the edges, the barest hint of a smile, as his gaze crept over to the cold cellar and curing house. “I know not of which you speak, my Lady. Surely a good man who wishes to better the world would not hold back from the Army of Righteousness. Come: let’s eat before it burns on the cook-stove.” I let him take my arm and walk me across the yard, his eyes flitting once again on the curing house.

  Cade’s voice was a breath in my ear as he spoke again. “Beneath the pickling salt cask, there is a door. I have been careful. Should the city be surrounded and I am taken by the other side, you must see that Madani is protected. Within two dark tides, there will be a sword for every capable man and woman who still walks.”

  By next month’s dark moon, Madani would be at war. Not only did I have to answer my calling, I needed to support my people despite having been shunned. “If Liand attacks before then, there’s room enough for the two of us if we can hide in time.” The hand he rested upon my arm clenched until pain shot along my bones. “I will keep you safe, Roseen.”

  How could I tell him I did not want a man to keep me safe? I did not desire anyone to do that for me. I am a priestess and can protect them! Him, though, he would not take that answer if I voiced it. “Thank you, Cade, dinner would be lovely,” I responded in a loud voice. No other response could be given.

  Cade nodded and flashed me a rakish smile as I passed beneath his arm into the cottage. Roses—our roses—were on every possible surface despite their being no sign of them having been along the path in weeks, and a candle was lit upon the dining table. He had not given up on me at all.

  Chapter Seven

  I am but the first speaker of hopefully many. Welcome, c
hildren of Bas and Aya. May the paw shelter you and the hammer protect you in your journeys. The Oracle watches, and you do. It is your tasks that are the true service of our Lady. My prayers are with each of you who walk this world. May your feet never grow tired and the light of your heart never dim. In Her loving service, always.

  Letters to the Initiate, First Oracle of Bas

  The clanging of the forge was the most unpleasant method of waking I could have imagined, considering the bottle of old mead Cade and I polished off following dinner. We had spoken of the war, of patients I’ve aided, of the artistry he’s taken his work to after building upon my father’s lessons. It was as if I was truly speaking to another priest—so comfortable were we together. Once I had walked into his home, my thoughts were not disturbed by the Gods, but I found myself constantly questioning my feelings of comfort with Cade. Falling in love with him would have been easy.

  Listening to the sounds of him at work, perhaps not quite that easy. If that din was the worst way of waking me, finding myself in an unfamiliar bed came in at a close second. Lavender scented sheets covered me, and lifting the fabric I saw that I was still in the clothing I had worn to Cade’s for dinner. Relieved by the knowledge he had been a gentleman despite the spirits we’d imbibed, I let my eyes adjust to the dim light. Here a shell, there a hint of color, all displayed on a set of shelves with rough clothing that finally organized my memories until I recognized the bedroom as Cade’s. A heavy curtain separated his private space from the kitchen and dining area, and as I sat up, I could smell remnants of his breakfast.

  Not desiring to leave Cade a mess, I straightened the bed linens that bore the creases and valleys of having had two bodies sleep upon them. Aya’s voice stirred within my heart, divine murmurs of what it could be like to wake in this bed daily. His tone turned to one of chiding, A priestess being domestic? when I went out to wash the dishes. However, I found all save a plate covered in a serving bowl had been cleaned and placed onto a towel to dry. Lifting the bowl, I found a hard-boiled egg, a thick slab of ham that looked to have been boiled in the stew last night, and a chunk of bread. My stomach threatened to rebel, heaves shook my body as I doubled over. An empty wine bottle sat beside the fireplace with its glowing embers, and just thinking of more herb-accented mead made my head ache anew.