by James Stone
‘I see.’
‘You have to believe me!’ she pleaded. ‘They were burrowing into my skin…! I know it was all in my mind, only colours and noises. But it was happening like it was right in front of me—not just in my head.’ Her fingers were quivering as she moved. ‘I feel—I don’t. I don’t know. But… I have to leave.’
Much to her surprise, Deih nodded, poured herself another drink and said, ‘I would be more surprised if you didn’t see a thing.’
‘What?’
‘Torth’s resting place is a vessel for the First,’ the High Priestess explained. ‘They’ve shown you what you needed to see.’
‘No.’ Magmaya stood, feeling some fear burn deep in her. ‘No, no! It was in my head. Nothing—nothing so terrible could be real…’
‘Is that so?’ Deih asked curtly. ‘You see, girl, the First will channel themselves through their believers in this world. We are their advocates, their avatars, and what they showed you was no less real than you or I. If you were to ask the Lord Legatus Kurulian, he would tell you he saw the same. When the Divinicus first travelled to Belliousa, they didn’t find an alliance, but instead some truth.’
‘And Kurulian never wanted to come back,’ Magmaya spat.
‘He was awfully silent after he left the mausoleum,’ Deih admitted. ‘That was until he called me a witch and threatened to burn me. How archaic, I had thought.’ She paused. ‘But I can still remember the tip of his blade against my throat, and that was enough. I dare say the angels haven’t quite liked me since, trying to starve out my island with their embargoes and taxes and the like.’
‘So, what did he see?’
‘Same as you: what he needed to see,’ she explained. ‘And that is no witchcraft, nor trick of the lights, but perhaps a placement of trust. I can’t explain it, but maybe you can feel it, girl.’
Magmaya nodded, but then she thought she heard the child crying again. There was blood boiling in her chest, screaming at her to submit to Deih—to give herself to the High Priestess and forget all that had brought her to the First Temple. But her words were spun like a thread of warmth, and they lulled themselves through her mind—they were far too good to be true.
I can’t go back to the Divinicus either, though, Magmaya realised. I’ve been gone too long to return.
‘The angels weren’t always like this,’ Deih began again as if she was reading her thoughts. ‘Not until Auna’Iara; not until the Golden Woman.’
‘I keep hearing about her,’ Magmaya said. It felt as if ever since she’d first been told her bloody name, her life had become more hellish.
‘Of course, you do. When she took her first step on this world, it was as if the sky had fallen,’ Deih hummed. ‘For centuries, we clung to our holy books and prayed the heavens would send one of their own. But once she stood before us, there was no answer. Half the world dropped to their knees in prayer, and the other half took up their swords against the false goddess.’ She smiled, knowingly.
‘False goddess?’ Magmaya asked.
‘Well, some believed she was sent by the enemies of the Maiden Gods to blemish this world,’ she replied. ‘But after all of it was done, it seemed she had been masquerading as an angel rather than a devil of the pit.’
‘You liked her?’
Deih shrugged. ‘I’m not sure if she was the catalyst of what began or just a symptom, but she did good for this world, Magmaya. She revealed the Divinicus were not without stain.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘Time and time again I have been warned about them, but when I see them, I’m… blinded.’ She almost laughed.
‘And that’s a demon’s greatest disguise,’ Deih insisted. ‘I was still a maiden of the Summerlands when the Golden Woman emerged, but her footsteps resounded far across the seas. You see, the Divinicus had been a force of holy crusaders wrought to watch over both Inamorata and Kythera unchecked, but Auna’Iara challenged that. The children of the Summerlands had been imprisoned for years by fear of a Divinicus raiding party or crusade—but the Golden Woman scared them away.’
‘So, who was she?’ Magmaya asked.
‘Your guess is as good as mine, child,’ Deih remarked. ‘Some say it was because of her, the angels left Kythera. Others say she came to finish off the angels after they left—she was a warmaker, that much was for sure—the struggle between the Golden Woman and the Divinicus lay waste to much of the land.’
‘I never heard about any of this,’ Magmaya exclaimed. The Kytherans that had come north all those years ago had been fleeing from angels— Albany’s mother had never mentioned a Golden Woman.
‘Well, you have her to thank that the Divinicus didn’t bring their conquests north,’ Deih said. ‘Hundreds—no, thousands died, Magmaya, and all the war did was draw country lines in the sand. After the Divinicus routed, they brought down every bastion and every monument Kythera had forged until only the Silver City remained. And you must know what happened to that.’
‘I know about the treachery of the Divinicus,’ Magmaya insisted. ‘But I read nothing about this in their doctrines.’
‘Then their doctrines have done their work,’ Deih remarked. ‘But for you to understand why I’ve brought you here, you must learn the follies of these men.’
‘I am aware of them,’ Magmaya said, growing impatient.
‘Then you will know how the Aureate Reign came to an end, no? A gaudy, young Divinicus took it upon himself to kill the Golden Woman, and if by some miracle, he came back with her corpse.’ The High Priestess sighed. ‘They still sing of her blood; they say it was like oil laced with gold dust, and it shone like burning salt. One ounce of it would make you a man with more coin than coin there is.’
‘Which gaudy young Divinicus was that?’
‘The First… they do not tell me.’ Deih frowned. ‘In my dreams, they show me only a corpse—it must be hers, but it’s not bleeding oil and gold dust—it’s bleeding wine.’
‘They don’t tell you?’ Magmaya exclaimed, confused.
‘There are some things the First have me know. Others not,’ she said. ‘Her death, though, they tell me of that—it might have well been something you’ve read in a holy book—it sealed the fate of the Divinicus, too. From then onwards, it was as if they couldn’t resist committing crimes against the world.’
‘Like what?’
‘Perhaps you should ask the Legatus Akanah about the songs the children sing of how he staked his own mother—right through the heart. The villages the Divinicus have burned, the children they have killed out of mere spite! Each Lord Commander seems to have committed a greater deviancy than the one before him.’
‘So, what has Fabius done?’
‘Fabius shall burn forever for his sins,’ she said. ‘But your friend, Legatus Kurulian?’
‘Friend?’
‘I can see the vial on your wrist, girl.’
‘My vial…’
‘His vial,’ Deih said, and Magmaya sighed, losing herself again. ‘There’s only one of those, though. It’s his sins which are perhaps without count.’
‘You told me I had all the time in the world,’ Magmaya asserted. ‘You can start counting them. I can wait,’ she said, but even as she spoke, she knew she was betraying herself. She had assumed from the start that the Divinicus were quite far from the gods they claimed themselves to be, but she had never expected such an intricate thread of travesties.
‘Very few of his infidelities would mean anything to you,’ the High Priestess remarked. ‘And I fear he would strike me from the heavens if I dared to mention one.’
‘I told him everything about me in exchange for passage south.’ The girl looked to her feet. ‘I made a mistake…’
‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Perhaps not.’
‘He told me…’ Magmaya started, feeling something stir in her stomach. ‘He told me that the Silver City was no more. Is he the reason it’s not on any of the maps of Kythera anymore?’
/>
‘Yes, well…’ she started. ‘The city wasn’t only a bastion against the Divinicus, but it was perhaps the only reminder of what the south was before the Transmutany.’ Deih grit her teeth. ‘When the Golden Woman arose, many cited her as a new renaissance, where man could walk arm in arm with their maker upon the soil—but she was slain at the hands of those who revered her. And in honesty, when she died, it was only inevitable the Silver City would fall too. Just not at the hands of an escaped slave who barely knew the ways of the south.’ She paused as if contemplating her next words very precisely. ‘They call him the Lord of Quicksilver, girl. I feel that’ll suffice for an explanation.’
Her head was swimming. It had been him? All along, Kurulian had been the one to take the Silver City from her?
‘But why?’ Magmaya asked, feeling a string of dread spiral through her. ‘Why did he do it? Why did he join the angels?’
‘I suppose he was always one of them, girl. He only burned the Silver City to impress them. They’re all the same,’ she spat. ‘They serve their empire with the majesty of heroes and prostitute themselves as mercenaries the next.’
Perhaps Kurulian is no different to the others. Perhaps what she had fallen in love with was the hazy reflection he had left in the ice that night in Ranvirus. She felt betrayed and frustrated. A sickness began to gnaw at her stomach.
‘They’re vile,’ Magmaya heard herself say, but she didn’t know from where she had summoned the words. They felt like fire in her throat. ‘So, tell me how to leave them, then. Tell me how to run back north.’
‘North?’ Deih asked. ‘I said nothing of you going back north.’
‘Well I’m going,’ she protested, sweating. ‘I made mistakes there, yes, but I’d rather return to the war than suffer this.’
‘You came here to escape war?’ She looked concerned. ‘You’ve brought the war to us.’
‘If I can somehow take it back north, then I will finish it there.’
‘I told you, you can’t go back there, girl,’ Deih pleaded.
‘Then why have you told me any of this, if not to scare me away?’
‘Because when I hear the First, I take solace in that it doesn’t matter what they tell me,’ Deih said. ‘But what instead they show me—and what they’ve shown you.’
‘Me?’
‘They’ve chosen you,’ Deih said. ‘And they need you to do something for me,’ she admitted.
They needed her? The First were foreign! Besides, she’d never really believed in any gods—Deih’s or her own.
And yet, as Magmaya looked to her with all the fear of what she’d seen, she found herself yearning to know why. If she were to reject Deih, perhaps she would never understand. At last, she found herself asking, ‘What is it?’
‘I think you came south for a reason,’ she explained. ‘This conquest of Belliousa is a sign of things to come. The Divinicus’ negotiations are control, and under them, my people will never know peace.’
‘I understand.’
‘Then you understand I must do what is best for them, no matter the cost,’ Deih asked. ‘You know that, yes Magmaya? Because to save my people, Fabius Uliana must die and the Divinicus along with him.’ The High Priestess paused. ‘And I can’t be the one to kill him.’
Magmaya looked around the chamber as the realisation set in; the sparkling of the bejewelled table had drowned out her vision. Deih had been right, there was no running back north. There was no running anywhere.
‘You know I can’t,’ Magmaya heard herself cry. ‘You’re conspiring against those who have raised me here! I can’t…’
‘They care nothing for you,’ Deih said. ‘You yourself admitted your disdain. They will use you as a puppet to speak to me and discard you as they please. And as for conspiring?’ The Priestess laughed. ‘You can’t speak of conspiring against him; it was Fabius himself, once granted his new title, who commissioned the Abominable Sisterhood to bring an end to Belliousan sciences. For months,’ she crooned, ‘I watched as assassins arrived at my doors and slaughtered those I loved.’
‘I—!’
‘Look, girl, once Fabius finds a flaw in you, he will see to your dispatch,’ the High Priestess explained. ‘They will make an example of you, Magmaya, as you are hanged before the starving crowds of Inamorata, fed to them as traitor. My request is mercy—a way out of this before it’s too late for you. In the name of the First and yourself.’
‘Even if I tried, I could hardly best him!’ she protested. ‘And what then? My fate would be worse than hanging. If this cause is worth dying for, then you should be their martyr.’
‘I can’t.’ Deih shook her head. ‘They will not allow me within an inch of the Lord Commander. But they will let you meet with him, no?’
‘Deih—!’
‘Fabius will not die by the blade but by his own greed,’ she explained. ‘I will supply you with a potion. It will not be quick, but they will not suspect you. You will leave the manse a free woman. Both of us will be free, Magmaya.’
‘I won’t betray them.’ She clenched her fists; she wouldn’t have anything else poured in her ear by a woman she barely knew, no matter how noble the intention. She couldn’t get caught up in more conflict. No matter how much Fabius had condescended her, she couldn’t bring herself to kill him. He’d put all the fear of the world in her.
‘Please,’ Deih said softly. ‘There are none as able as you to do this; I was a fool to ask Kurulian all those years ago—he was already one of them. But for you, Magmaya, it will be easy. The poison will merely have to touch his lips, and he will be dying. Think of all of those Fabius has left downtrodden—you will be a liberator from just cutting the head off one angel.’
‘And then another will take his place,’ she protested. ‘I will not do this, Deih.’
‘You will not, or you cannot?’
‘Take your pick. But—’ Magmaya tasted bile.
‘But what?’
‘I feel faint,’ she admitted. The feeling had worsened the more the tension had built in her. She was bleeding down her thighs still, and the strange smell in the air wasn’t helping the pain. ‘But I can’t kill him to escape this.’
The High Priestess nodded and made her way over to a cabinet lined with several flagons. ‘The angels walk as church, government, judge, jury and executioner,’ Deih remarked. ‘No longer can we go on oppressed. I fear you’ve made a grave mistake.’
‘So did Kurulian in your eyes. And he walked out a wiser man.’
‘He threatened me.’ Deih shrugged. ‘A girl thinks differently with the tip of a sword at her throat.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ Magmaya said. ‘What did the First show me?’
‘They showed you the truth.’
‘Which was?’
‘They gave you the knowledge and the courage to do this for me,’ she said.
Magmaya shook her head. ‘I can’t be caught up in this. I’m going home or far away, at least, until someone will accept me without bloodshed. I want nothing to do with this—not with the Divinicus, not with the south.’
‘I once thought like you.’ The High Priestess returned with a glass of cherry-red wine and set it down on the table with a gentle clink.
Magmaya nodded, keeping her eyes on Deih, and forced herself to drink. She felt the strength return to her with a sour yearning and made herself stand, despite the grinding in her stomach, and looked to her.
She sat opposite, but it was like there were a thousand mirrors of the High Priestess projected throughout Elysia, blocking every exit. She may have been a witch, but Magmaya needed to leave. If she could somehow find a way back to Ranvirus where she understood the rules of the game, she could at least be at peace with herself.
She would take Anclyn with her and offer a thousand apologies for her deceit and beg Rache and Siedous for their forgiveness too. She would live in a palace upon the ice where no one would bother her, save for the whisper
ing of the wind, where she wouldn’t have to suffer any pearly armour ever again.
And if Kurulian had escaped by threatening the High Priestess, then so could she.
Magmaya found the wine glass and gripped it hard. She smashed it against the shimmering table, leaving a jagged rim behind. A chiming of broken glass resounded through the corridors, and she felt a fire rise within her.
But the High Priestess just sat still, swilling her wine about her glass with an unpleasant demeanour ringing across her lips.
And then a coldness ran through Magmaya’s chest and pricked the back of her legs like a fistful of needles; her knees betrayed her weight, and she met the floor with the brunt of her cheekbone. The broken glass spiralled out of her hand, and she watched as Deih stood, lithe like an uncoiled serpent.
The poison will merely have to touch his lips, and he will be dying.
Magmaya could almost taste it creep across her mouth and looked to the wine as it seeped into the lines between the cobblestone like a river of blood. She wanted to scream; she had been foolish—she had been deceived! There never was a choice; the High Priestess had her wrapped around her finger from the beginning; she either killed Fabius or died.
‘Deih!’ she shrieked, but her voice was broken and blue. Each syllable burned her lungs as she spoke until each ounce of energy she’d gathered was drained from her. The Dew of the Honey; she could taste the kiss of Vargul Tul, the weapon of the Summerlands—she’d lapped it up like a dying man in a desert.
She felt her fingernails tear for the vial at her wrist in some wild hope it would overpower the poison, but any whimper of strength left had been washed away with the moisture in her eyes.
And then, as if to insult her, Deih’s silvery sandal hammered down and shattered it across the stonework.
The High Priestess looked at her with a regard that she might have once mistaken for concern—the same concern an inquisitive child might’ve had as they watched an insect writhe and struggle in its death throes.
‘This wasn’t necessary.’ Deih frowned. ‘But you must understand, girl. With or without you, Belliousa will thrive.’