by Brandon Barr
The cold hand of Harcor’s wife caressed her forehead, pressing it gently to the floor, exposing her neck.
Savarah drew in a thin breath she knew could be her last. She was going to die for that alluring beauty the Hold people called love. Whether she was a fool for doing so, she would never know.
Savarah opened her eyes to see Semmie raise the knife in her hand.
A crash sounded in the room. Semmie’s sightless eyes drifted up toward the noise, and, in that instant, an arrow tore through her eye socket, and her head jerked out of sight.
A bow string twanged near her, and the shriek of a dying man followed it. A discordant fury of arrows twanged from bows in response. Then the clanging of steel sounded. Swords clashed. A body fell across Savarah’s legs, but she didn’t have the strength to lift her head.
If this was a miraculous attempt to rescue her, it was too late.
She closed her eyes, as death began to beckon her to leave the waking world behind.
_____
MELUSCIA
Meluscia watched Wiluit and three other men battling a bald-headed man who moved like a tiger. All had swords in hand, having dropped their bows for a blade. The bald man had three arrows sagging from his arms, and one from the side of his chest, but he fought fiercer than any. Two armed men who’d come with them lay upon the ground, their blood flowing like a river toward the stone hearth.
Two more guards came in through the door. The bald man spun on one foot and grabbed a fiery log in his hand, glanced a sword blow with a slash of his own steel, and threw the flaming wood, striking a man in the face. Suddenly, he leapt at the man on his left, driving a fist into his jaw and springing off his chest toward a window pane. The glass exploded as the bald man leapt through. Wiluit and three men who remained on their feet, raced out the door in pursuit.
Meluscia turned and found her sister’s body on the floor. She rushed over and took her hand. She called Savarah’s name, but heard no response, then put her ear to Savarah’s lips. A fragile breath passed in and out. Meluscia looked at the blood covered floor. It was impossible to tell how much belonged to her sister, and what had come out of the old woman lying above her, or the two fallen men, one of which was draped across her legs.
She rubbed her sister’s face. It was pale, but there was no blood on it. Savarah looked different, lying there helpless, barely holding onto life. Like she’d been a young woman wearing a cruel and savage mask her entire life. Meluscia hardly recognized her. She was pretty, almost innocent looking. And where before she had the harsh look of a soldier, she now had a soft, effeminate aura about her features. Gone was her perpetual grimace and harsh, furrowed brows.
Meluscia embraced the tears that ran down her cheeks.
“Please, I want more time with her,” she whispered to the Makers. She’d barely begun to glimpse the strange new girl before her. What had caused the change? What would her future have been like?
A gentle hand touched Meluscia’s back. She looked up through stinging tears and found Wiluit kneeling beside her. Standing above him were the two old men, the young girl, and the boy.
“Jauphenna can help your sister,” said Wiluit. He pulled tenderly on Meluscia’s arm. She stood, trying to absorb his words, staring at his face and the confidence she found there. Meluscia had seen the wounded brought back from patrols with her father. She had visited the physicker’s chambers. Savarah was well past hope of return. She had twenty, maybe fifty feeble breaths left.
The young girl knelt down beside her sister and placed her hands on the bloodied cloak that covered Savarah’s chest. The arrow head stood erect, slick with blood and gore.
What did she think she was doing?
“We thought we were coming here with only words for your sister,” said Wiluit. “But we were mistaken. Both Jauphenna and the boy, who is called Shauwby, have words for you as well. The two speak very different messages, Shauwby’s tongue gives direction and encourages, Jauphenna’s tongue gives warning and breaks one’s bones. Shauwby sees only the present and future, but Jauphenna glimpses past and present.”
“What is she doing with my sister?”
“Healing her,” said Wiluit, his hand still on her arm. His touch was comforting amidst the chaos of his words. “It will take some time for her to finish. Healing is her other gift. She is the only one of her kind.”
A Healer? A wild hope came upon Meluscia, she looked down at the girl, then back at Wiluit. “What do you mean, only one of her kind?” she asked.
“No other diviner has been given two giftings. None that the histories reveal, at least.”
Meluscia recalled his words to be true. The diviners she’d read of had only one gift. Who was this man who knew the histories?
“You are like a dirty rag,” said a voice from below. It was the girl. Meluscia looked down at her, surprised. Jauphenna’s hands were pressed against Savarah’s chest, but her eyes glared up at Meluscia, full of poison. “Pretty on the outside, but underneath the skin you fester with rot. A secret transgression mars your heart. Your feet have taken you places you should never have gone, and yet…”
Jauphenna’s words trailed away, and the disgust filling her eyes seemed to lessen, if only slightly. “Yet the Makers see your heart has turned from murder. You’ve taken the first few steps back toward the pure love of the gods. You have a new friend, but you have not confessed to her. Too long have you grown accustomed to the darkness of life under the mountain. You’ve come to make peace with the King of the Verdlands, but I swear as the gods’ voice, unless you confess your wrongs to that woman, your words to the king will fall on deaf ears.” Jauphenna looked back down at Savarah. “That is all I have to say.”
Meluscia stared at the top of Jauphenna’s head. Shame coursed through her blood, along with fear. The gods had spoken to her through human lips, and had brought to light her secrets before men. She felt stripped naked. Humiliated.
And terrified.
Was that what the gods saw? Only the wrong in her? Was there nothing of worth or praise? She’d done wrong, but she had righted herself. Her whole life, she’d dedicated to the Makers, to the teachings of scripture, to pleasing them with the way she had prepared herself to rule the Hold and bring peace to her realm.
This response from the gods, it left her cold.
Further, they’d asked her to confess what she’d done. She couldn’t tell Praseme! It wasn’t necessary! It would only serve to hurt the woman. And to tell her such a horrible offense…how could she broach such a thing?
Then a child’s voice broke the silence. “I want to say something,” said the boy, Shauwby. “It is not very much. Just a little thing to say. Or, I think two things. One thing is, the Makers know you did bad things. They are sad, but they still smile. I mean, smile at you. They love you.”
Meluscia found the boy looking up at her, concerned. It was his look, even more than his words, that made her knees collapse under her own weight. Just as Jauphenna embodied the gods’ judgment, in Shauwby’s face she saw their mercy. If both Jauphenna and this boy’s words were from the same source, their messages couldn’t feel more different. She had felt the sting of abhorrence and the kindness of forgiveness, both from a Maker’s Tongue.
Wiluit held her up. She didn’t know what to say. The sense of hopelessness had fled at Shauwby’s words.
The gods did see her. They cared for her.
“One more thing,” said the boy. “It’s a nice thing. But, I think it’s a hard thing, too.”
Meluscia looked at his small round face. The boy’s lips broke into a smile. He reached out and touched his tiny hand to her stomach. “You’re going to have a little girl.”
LOAM
Truth can be the most excruciating pain of all. If we do not have it at the core of our knowledge, then it begins to eat at our false beliefs—even though we often cherish them. Our treasures. Those things that fill us with warmth and make us secure.
Truth is like a bear. If we are to ta
me those razored claws and powerful jaws, we must disembowel ourselves first, and remove those imaginary treasures from our gut. It is not a thing done in one sitting, but a routine to do until the day we die.
And though our stomach will forever be scarred, and the ache of what we did will never fully disappear, it is far better than day after day, by night or morning light, fighting the claws of truth raking our mind, or running from the teeth returning again and again to gnaw at our heart.
Truth is excruciating. None are born fully to it. But some are born profusely without it.
-Lian, Reflections of a Poet Philosopher,
(Library of the Royals, Anantium)
CHAPTER 34
WINTER
Whisper’s wings beat the air, the eye-like dots lost in the blur of motion. The creature was not gliding as it normally would. It seemed disturbed. Restless.
Aven was by her bed, talking to her, but the nausea made listening difficult.
He had said something about his farm hovel. Something that was supposed to cheer her up. But his joy and enthusiasm had served only to push the knife deeper into her heart. There was a sense of the inevitable she couldn’t escape. She could not combat these visions, for there was no connection to the present. Where was this room, with the unspeakable monster? Where was the cliff with green canopy of sickle-toothed trees below?
She cried out in her mind to the Makers.
Did you think I could handle this? You have the time to make a million worlds but you can’t make space to give me direction? Tell me what to do about the visions of my brother’s death. Tell me why the Sanctuss had to die? Why?!…
…Your silence is cruel. Why do you tolerate cruelty?
Sanctuss Voyanta’s words echoed in her mind, and she found them on her lips. “…Assuming they are tolerating cruelty? What if cruelty is part of their design?”
“What are you talking about?” said Aven.
Winter turned her head on her pillow, her eyes sweeping past him to look somewhere beyond.
“What if we suffer because they want us to? What if they make promises and give people hope just to see how far they’ll crawl before they break? They’re going to take you away from me, Aven! They’re going to, I know it!”
A shadow of fear swept into Aven’s eyes. She was saying what he had said all along. He had never trusted the Makers.
“I won’t let them take you,” she panted. “I’m going to kill that monster I saw. I’m going to find out where it is and kill it. Or throw Leaf’s gift in his mouth! I’ll do it, I swear. Do you hear me?!”
“Please, Winter,” said Aven softly, combating her pounding heart with his soothing voice. “Stay calm. I’m here, now. Whatever you’ve seen, it’s not certain. It’s never certain.”
Her brother looked down at her tenderly, but his softly spoken words could not stop the images of her vision from pushing through.
Aven’s body torn in half.
His blood gushing onto the metal floor.
Her head began to swim with nausea. She closed her eyes, fighting off the bile rising in her stomach again.
_____
AVEN
Aven touched Winter’s hair with his fingers. If she felt his touch, she didn’t show it. He placed his hand over her forehead. The fever was bad, it seemed to have worsened since he first arrived back from his trip to Core. He’d sat there for over an hour, listening to her babble. One moment she would express her love for the Makers, the next, shower them with curses.
She had spoken things she would never have said if she were fully conscious. Her doubts about the Makers’ goodness. And her fear that he would die.
The Makers’ words and visions were consuming her mind and eating away at her health. All the while, that horrible insect fluttered about the room. Landing for a moment, then darting back into the air.
It would be so easy to strike it down in this confined space. He watched its erratic flight with a deep sense of sadness, turning his thoughts to the depths of the battle going on inside his sister’s head. He’d never seen her struggle like this. Not outwardly, at least. Her words drifting back and forth between devotion to the Makers, defending their goodness, to fierce anger toward them. It was as if a rift had been opened in her soul.
Her broken gift was tearing her apart inside. She desperately wanted the Makers to be the good, lovely beings her heart longed for—but she could not deny the truth. The contradictions. The curse of her gift.
He hated the Makers. Would they ever let his sister go?
He stroked the side of Winter’s face. “I should stay with you tonight. I can take the Missionaries to the farm another time. They’ll understand.”
“No,” said Winter, the frailness gone from her voice. “I want you to go.”
“You’re feverish,” smiled Aven.
“If you don’t go and show off your new farm, I’ll be angry,” said Winter. “This means so much to you.”
“I want you to be there,” said Aven.
“I’d rather you show me, just the two of us,” said Winter. “Take them this evening, and then tomorrow you and I can go alone.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“Don’t make me angry,” said Winter. “Go on, leave me to rest.”
Aven looked out the window, at the waning light. “I’ll look forward to taking you tomorrow even more than tonight.” He squeezed her hand and gave her one last look. “Get rest, dear sister.”
He stood and turned for the door.
“Take Whisper.”
Aven stopped.
“Take my butterfly,” she said.
He came back beside her. “Lay back and rest,” said Aven, placing his hand in hers.
Winter lifted her hand and the butterfly swooped toward it, landing nimbly on the back of her fingers. She reached beside her bed and took the glass jar. The butterfly obediently stepped inside. Winter closed the lid and placed the twine string around Aven’s neck.
“Take it, for tonight.”
Aven stared at his sister. “Why?”
“Just take it. Make me happy.”
Aven sighed and nodded. He wanted to rescue his sister. If this would help ease her burden tonight, then he would do it gladly.
“Get some sleep,” he said.
Winter’s head sunk back into her pillow, and her eyes closed.
Aven lifted the glass jar to his face. It was a small jar, half the size of his hand. Winter had cut small holes in the cloth lid. Whisper stood inside, its spindly antennae slowly drifting upward, toward its wings. Exquisite, beautiful wings.
If not for your wings, thought Aven, you would be an ugly worm.
_____
KARIENCE
Karience’s desk was cluttered with the new legislation drawn up by the opposition. The next session of pleadings in the Hall of Discourse was sure to be contentious. The sentiments of the three quorums had shifted in recent months, sparked by a movement of young Royals with new ideas and eloquent arguments.
It was nothing new for an Empyrean. Karience had studied the counterarguments of hundreds of worlds seeking to stay in control of their own planet—they just did not understand how that control was a facade, an illusion in the face of the threat from Beasts. But history had not always been won by reason. Passion won the day time and time again. A united movement with heartfelt belief in its cause was like a black hole, devouring logic.
She wanted to speak to these opposition leaders. Having studied the methods of previous Empyreans, she knew one of the quickest ways to defeat an enemy was to become their friend. And she understood their desire for autonomy, their fear of Guardian control. It required trust in the vast Guardian order of which they knew very little beyond what they were told. They had fears. Questions.
Much like her. How much did she really know about the inner workings of her order?
But as to Loam, she did know that they were vulnerable to the attack of a Beast. If the Royals did not negotiate, Loam
could lose its protection. She feared the old opposition would not stop at legal action, and if anything close to war began to brew, it was a required, automatic response that the Guardians depart.
The thought grieved her. Loam’s charter was the work of her life. And, now, she knew Loam’s security was more important than she’d ever guessed.
Karience stood and went to her window overlooking the portal. The sun was close to setting and she realized she was probably alone in the tower. Nephitus would be returning soon from the Royal Palisade, where he’d gone to meet with Princess Liyza and King Darmelion about security matters. The rest of the Guardians would be heading to Aven’s farm.
A smile broke across her face. She was pleased for him. Such a simple dream, so easy to fulfill. If only more of humankind lived with such modest wants, the galaxy would be a kinder place.
The sun touched the water, its reflection bleeding into its true source. She would have to visit his farm sometime. With a contingent of Royal Protectorate, of course. It was too bad Loam was no longer a safe place to walk freely—at least not for Emissaries. She would have to inform Aven that security measures would need to be put in place at his new home. For his safety.
Something thudded against the wall outside the door.
Karience turned, startled.
“Who’s there?”
A moment of silence followed.
Something scratched on the other side of the wall. The door opened in a quiet hush of air, but the entrance was empty.
“Who’s there!” shouted Karience.
Someone rolled off the wall and fell to the ground.
She took a hesitant step forward. From behind a tangled mess of hair, Winter’s face looked up at her. Then she wretched on the side of the door-frame.
Karience hurried to her side. “You’re ill!”
“He took it,” said Winter. “And I’m still having them.”