by Nhys Glover
“Because she was my sister. My sister was that wife.”
Chapter Twenty
That had us all taking a mental step back. This was surprising news. And I had no idea what it meant.
“Make sense, man, before I do what those Devourers were about to do to you!” Prior fumed, though I could tell he was struggling to hold onto his fury now.
“You can’t possibly do to me what the Devourers would have done. They make the nightmares I conjure seem like a walk on the beach.”
“Why do they want you?” I asked bemusedly.
Laric sat up and brushed himself down. There was dried grass and leaves all over his tunic. A remarkably unremarkable tunic designed to be seen and quickly forgotten. It was harder to make his handsome face, dramatic black hair, and bright blue eyes—fringed with incredible black lashes—quite so forgettable. His physical attributes were what made him stand out from any crowd. They were what appeared on his death warrant.
“Because a Soothsayer told them I was important. That I would use the Key of the Goddess to defeat the Devourer—The Jayger. I escaped them once, but it has become increasingly difficult to stay hidden from them since this thing appeared on my wrist. I think it is like a beacon to them. A way to find me. I thought they put it on me, somehow. I saw the star surrounded by a circle in the temple of the Devourers.”
“They didn’t do this, the Goddess did,” I told him haughtily. “The five-pointed star is her symbol. Five is the building block of nature. The circle is what will stop The Jayger.”
“How?” Laric demanded, jumping to his feet excitedly. “How do we defeat this thing? When they kept on at me about it I could not conceive of a way that such a monstrous thing could be defeated. And certainly not by me.”
He was moving toward me, but before he got within a stride of me, Zem was there, barring his way—my ferocious protector.
In this instance, I wished he wasn’t. I would have gladly tested my skills against the bastard of my nightmares. Though he could fire arrows as well as me, that didn’t mean he could defeat me in a hand-to-hand fight. I had been trained by Airsha herself, after all.
Not that I wanted to get within range of those lethal hands of his. And that thought had me fearing for Zem suddenly. If Laric condemned him to such a nightmare, would I ever be able to get him out of it? We were close, but our bond was not like Calun and Airsha’s.
But Laric had come to a sudden halt as he faced down Zem. They were of a height, these two. Back when they came into conflict before, Zem was still not grown to his full height, only just turned sixteen and malnourished for six of those suns. Laric was much as he was now, tall and lithely muscled. It must have come as quite the shock to be knocked down by a crazy little lad like Zem had been back then.
“I mean her no harm. If you thought I did, why go to all the trouble of rescuing me? Am I headed for the hole? Does the Goddess Incarnate want the pleasure of punishing me herself?”
I expected there to be a note of cynicism when he spoke of Airsha. Instead, he seemed... respectful. And resigned. As if it was only what he’d been expecting all this time.
“She should want that pleasure,” I snapped at him over Zem’s shoulder. I felt slightly ridiculous doing it, though. “You brought her terrible pain and nearly destroyed her.”
He nodded and stepped back, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I know. Although it was not the plan to leave her in that state. Once the battle was done, I was to bring her out of it to face the Godling. That was what he ordered me to do.”
“Oh, well, that’s sooo much better!” I snarled sarcastically, stepping around Zem so I could take a run at Laric myself. I did succeed in giving him a good shove. And, as he didn’t resist, he fell back satisfyingly.
I could barely see straight though as I continued. “After you undermined us and won the war for your lud and master! Groundling bastard!”
“I did what I was ordered to do. It was a war,” he threw back at me, but without much heat.
“You could have walked away. You could have joined the other Abs and defected!”
“He had my sister! Don’t you get it! Him and his priests had already killed my older sister, do you think I was going to let them do the same to my younger one? Patra was an innocent, just like Mardri had been when they killed her. I would not be the one to sign her death warrant!”
I stilled then, not sure whether what he was saying was the truth and, if it was, what that meant. I had met his sister, Beila. His younger sister. She’d been one of Airsha’s magical daughters.
“Why did they kill your older sister? How could you have worked for him if he’d done such a thing?” Landor was at my shoulder, a gentle hand placed there to soothe me. Gods, I was getting used to the way he could pull me back from the edge. Not even Zem could do that at times.
Laric shut his bright-blue eyes and turned his head skyward, as if praying to the gods. When he spoke again his voice was croaky, his throat clogged with tears. But he told his tale like an impassioned bard and we hung on every word.
“I didn’t know. My father was a prince of Eastsealund. Second in line for the throne. He married a Daughter of the Godling. Not this most recent Godling but his great grandfather—if I have that straight—whatever—she was the last child born to that Godling. Still in her mother’s womb when he stepped down. Yet she was entitled to the honour of being named a Daughter of the Godling.
“When she reached maturity her power came in. Of course, I did not know this. They castrated her. And much later she was married to my father. She had many miscarriages before my sister Mardri was born. By that time she was quite old for birthing her first child. But once she’d succeeded, she then produced three more living childlings, each two suns apart, before dying giving birth to the stillborn fifth.
“My big sister Mardri was like a little mother to me. I adored her. Idolised her. And then when I was eleven she died. I was told it was from a sudden sickness. There were certainly many healers there at the time. I did not know she died of complications arising from her castration. It happens, so I was later told.
“It seemed our line was strong in magic. But a woman with magic was an abomination, just as a male with magic not born of the Godling was an abomination. And so she was castrated when her magic came in. She was to be married to the Godling. The previous one. Mayhap she was better off dying than marrying that bastard! Her own grandnephew.”
He’d gone back to sitting on the rock while he spoke, and I’d trailed after him, almost as if I needed to be near him so I could hear his tale through from close at hand. I didn’t think about it, to be honest. I was too caught up to think about my own actions.
“And knowing this you stayed loyal?” Landor spoke for the first time, his voice filled with incomprehension. He’d come with me, hand still on my shoulder, caressing the nape of my neck with his thumb.
“I didn’t know! I was a child, and I was told she died of a sickness! I was not told what really happened until the night I was taken to the Godling’s palace, so puffed up with pride to have been singled out for an audience with the Godling! Gods, I was such a prick, an arrogant, self-opinionated prick.” He laughed at himself then, a harsh cynical laugh that hurt my chest.
“They brought me into the grand audience hall with all its gilding and stained glass. I was no stranger to decadent displays, but it had been lacking in my life since I was... since I joined the secret army. So I was impressed and very proud of myself. For what, I had no idea. But I must have drawn the Godling’s eye somehow, I reasoned. I was the best recruit they’d had, and recently gained full membership to the brotherhood. Surely that made me deserving of the Godlings’ attention. Mayhap he was going to legitimise me, there and then. I hadn’t proven myself yet, of course, but I thought it might not matter. What man would not want to acknowledge me as his own?”
Self-loathing soaked every word, and I was hard-pressed not to reach out a hand in comfort. I wanted Landor to do it. He was bett
er at soothing than I was. But he simply held my shoulder in his gentle hand and listened along with the others to this terrible tale.
“So I strutted down the length of the hall until I stood before him, sitting there on his gilded throne. He wasn’t dressed for the occasion, and no one else was there, but I was still sure this was about me being legitimised.
“He told me he had planned to marry my older sister, because magic was strong in our line. But first she had to be protected from herself. Women couldn’t control their magic; their bodies were too fragile to contain it. So for her own safety she was castrated. Unfortunately, she had not survived the process. Unfortunately. He said it like it was unfortunate we’d had too much rain that month. Not that my beloved thirteen-suns-old sister had died to protect her from her own magic!” He spat the last words into the silence.
“He then went on to tell me about the revolt taking place at that very moment in the ranks of his secret army, led by the traitorous Trace. Not only had he failed in his task to bring the Godling’s whore of a daughter back to him, but had been turned in the process. That was her strength: using her body to turn men from their duty.”
I heard Zem growl somewhere behind me, and I would have echoed him had I not heard the cynical note in Laric’s voice. He was just reporting on the Godling, not stating his own attitudes.
“So the Godling was assuring himself of my continued loyalty. After all, we were related by marriage now, a much closer bond than had existed through my mother’s blood. He had wed my younger sister. At a lift of his hand, the door had opened and Patra came in. I hadn’t seen her in suns. When I was taken she was just twelve. Now she was a young woman of sixteen. Still, it seemed a travesty that such a beautiful young girl should be given over to that old man. Yet it was our way, and to be wife to the Godling was a great honour.
“We greeted each other warmly. She had thought me dead all these suns. How had I survived? Why had I not come home? Father was never the same after I disappeared. I realised she’s been lied to in the same way I had been about Mardri.
“When she was given a kiss on the cheek by her husband and told to return to the harem, I suddenly knew why I was there. The Godling was assuring himself of my affection for my sister before pressing the metaphorical knife to my throat. Remain loyal, do as I was told, or my sister would die painfully. A worse death than poor Mardri had suffered. Only I could assure her safety.” He paused to draw breath and to control the tears that I could hear in his voice.
“There were only a few of us left. I never asked, but I assume some similar pressure was placed on them to keep them in line. I do not know. Then the Godling I knew was gone and a new one replaced him, and I thought... I thought I had my chance. But my sister was paraded before me yet again, this time by a man who was not her husband but her ‘protector’. And she would have his protection while ever I did my job. And my next assignment was the most crucial. I would end the war for him.”
“I found out later that my sister had not survived long under the protection of the new Godling. He’d given her to one of his generals, as a prize, and as a punishment to my father who had joined the rebels after the old Godling was murdered. The cruel bastard had broken Patra like a toy on the first use.
“So I did what I did to your Chosen One for nothing. In the end, it was for nothing.” His disgust tainted the dry air around us and I heard a sob. But it didn’t come from the man before me. I realised absently that it came from me.
“Why didn’t you come forward and confess all this to the Goddess. She is not a vindictive woman. She would have pardoned you,” Zem said from closer behind me now. I could feel his warmth pressing against me from behind. Landor had closed in at my side. I felt comforted, even though I was not the one who needed comforting.
“Do you know the horror I wrought for the Godling? Both of them? There would have been many people after my head, besides your Goddess Incarnate.”
“So, what, you went on the run for two suns? How was that better?” Prior said scathingly.
“All I wanted to do was have a little time to... recover. I’d made many friends along the coast of Eastsealund. I loved to sail and fish when I was a childling, and fishermen would take me under their wing. I was seen as the little royal who preferred being a fisherman. It was to those men I went afterwards, because they knew my story. Because they believed I did what I did for my sister.
“But then a sun or so ago I was captured by the Devourers.”
Again he paused, and I wondered if this conversation might wait until we got back to the Airshan Capital. He was wrung out, I could see that. Either he was a brilliant liar or every word he’d said was true, and it had gutted him anew to tell it.
It was enough for now.
“I think Airsha and the Airluds need to be here for the rest of this. There might be something in it that will help them find the Godling. And stopping him from unleashing The Jayger is our first and most important concern,” I said resolutely, drawing away from my comforters. “The airlings have rested enough. We need to go.”
“It’s dangerous taking him there,” Prior declared. “What if he uses those hands of his on someone? Like the Goddess herself.”
“If these Devourers want Laric, and somehow they can track him because of his mark, we have to get him where he can be well protected. No Devourer will get within a league of him at the capital.”
Laric looked at me oddly, as if he wasn’t expecting me to take his side. I was shocked by my words, too. But even as I said them I knew them to be the truth. I would not let this member of my five be taken by those blue-robed bastards.
Although I could hear Zem’s many reservations in my head—he, at least, was not blocking me—I stood my ground. We would go. There was time for more later. Right now, we needed to get to safety and try to put the last pieces of this puzzle together to stop the beast from being unleashed. Because the last thing I wanted to do was take to the open seas with only these men at my side as companions, searching for a key in a volcano that might be needed to defeat a malign, devouring, sea monster.
Chapter Twenty-One
We had barely mounted up when the attack came. More blue-robed men on beastlings pounded down on us, completely taking us by surprise. Jets of water washed us from our airlings’ backs. Terrified, our creatures squealed and lurched to their feet, taking off into the air.
Prior was the first to regain his feet. He sent a surge of flame at the legs of the approaching beastlings. It was a slightly different strategy to the one he’d employed the last time. Hitting low, rather than at the riders themselves. It was harder for the water mages to see, and therefore to extinguish, before it did any harm. But the beastlings bore the brunt of this agonising attack and I felt, as much as knew, how much it had cost Prior to use it.
The first line of beastlings fell forward, legs burning and in terrible pain. Their riders catapulted over their heads, landing within range of Zem and my swords. We made quick work of them before they gained their feet.
But there were more. How had this many men come upon us so silently? And how had they found us so quickly? Laric must be right about his mark being like a beacon. Did that mean we had to remove it if we were to have any peace from these insane priests?
There was no time to decide such things now. Priests were skirting around the fallen beastlings, ready to ride us down. As with the last raid, the water mages remained protected in the middle of the group. They were already shooting fresh jets of water at us, throwing all but Zem backward to the ground each time we rose to our feet.
The weight of that water knocking me over was like a physical blow, and climbing back to my feet, slipping and sliding in the mud, became harder and harder each time I fell. Any moment now we’d be overwhelmed and defeated. We were hopelessly outnumbered. Even Zem’s magic was unable to right the balance.
That’s when the unexpected happened. Our airlings began flying low overhead, grabbing at the heads of riders with their ou
tstretched talons. Several were successfully plucked from their mounts and carried high into the sky, before being dropped screaming to the ground.
The blue-robed men jumped off their mounts, attempting to avoid those cruel talons. It gave us enough time to get to our feet and start slicing into every robe we could reach. Blood flew through the air like sea spray from the prow of a fast moving fishing boat.
I had no time to see how the others fared. All my concentration had to be on the man racing toward me—his sword held high over his head—seemingly uncaring that he was racing to his death.
I held my weapon in two hands, shifted my shoulder and sword to the side, and then waited for him to come into range. In one smooth movement, I cut outward at waist-height as the priest reached me, slicing him neatly in two. I watched in horror as the two halves dropped limply to the muddy, slippery ground.
My attention must have stayed too long on the fallen man, because I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my back. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a priest standing right behind me.
Everything seemed to slow down then. I saw every small, separate image and action—all in the time it took for one sharp, indrawn breath. Even the beads of sweat or water from the deluge seemed significant and deserving of my focus in that moment.
Laric came from out of nowhere—his black mane gleamed where it stuck wetly to his skull; his blue eyes flashed fierce and terrified all at the same time, while droplets of water clung to his thick lashes, sticking them together in bunches—and knocked the man aside.
That man, brown skinned and eyed, thin to the point of emaciation, head bald, turned a little away from me and his blade went with him—flying with him, it seemed—but not before cutting its way across my body in the process. I felt its searing, agonising path as it ripped through skin, muscle and bone in that infinite moment.
I looked up and saw realisation dawn on Laric’s handsome features. He hadn’t reached me in time. The blade had already cut too deep, and all he’d done was change its trajectory. Instead of going deeper until it reached my heart, it had cut a searing path across my back.