A Season of Rendings

by Adam J Nicolai

  These truths were absolute. Yes, he had his reasons for acting as he had, but none of them absolved him.

  He had consorted with witches.

  "Drink," he demanded again, shaking Retash's shoulders. He had pulled the man from the horse and propped him against a tree. Retash roused, his eyes swimming slowly into focus.

  "Where―?" he croaked, and Seth tipped the water skin into his mouth. His lips worked feebly at the spout, like an old man's. Then he turned away, the melted snow water pulsing against his cheek.

  He needs food, not water. Retash's training allowed him to withstand the cold and the wet, even wounded as he was. But not the hunger. Not when he was this weak.

  The distant temple drew Seth's eye again. If he turned himself in, if he accepted the punishment for his actions, maybe his constant, gnawing guilt would ease. He could trade the pain in his soul for pain in his body: a bargain by any measure.

  And if they torture me into telling them where Lyseira is hiding?

  The wind played at his feet, kicking up whispers of snow, until he turned away. "Back on the horse," he said, the words clipped.

  He would gladly destroy himself to be free of his guilt. But there were some risks he wasn't willing to take.

  ii. Lyseira

  A History of the Kespran Church, the book's title read, and it left her paralyzed.

  She had known doubt before. How could she not? She had spent her childhood at the altar, aspiring to the priesthood, kept from achieving her dream only by her failure to work a miracle at a young age. Father Forthin—the closest man she'd ever had to a father in truth—had been her bedrock, her connection to Akir, and when he'd died, she'd thrown a lifetime of service away. She'd betrayed the Church and cast her lot with witches, even going so far as to save one from a burning pyre.

  With God at my back, she admonished herself. It was easy to fall into that old trap of damning herself, but it wasn't honest. Akir is with me. He kept me from burning.

  But He had done so much more than that. He'd healed her friends—acting through her flesh—when they were on the brink of death. He'd guided them—all of them—into Veiling Green to escape the Church's Tribunal—and then not only kept them alive in a cursed forest from which no one ever escaped, but guided them to a temple in the forest's heart called the Safehold. A place that was, by her best guess, thousands of years old, and had been waiting for them the entire time. She knew this, because the inscription on the door had implored them to find rest in the arms of Akir.

  So her betrayal of the Church haunted her. She had her doubts—oh, mercy, every morning she woke with doubts—but the signs from her God had helped to keep them in check.

  Then, she'd found the book.

  The Safehold had several small rooms, and one of them was an old library, lined with ancient bookshelves. Most of the books there had rotted away, but this one survived. It was written in First Tongue, like scripture, but it was an old dialect: as old as Gilleus, the first book of the Chronicle, if not older. The title had been strange enough—the Kespran Church? What was that?—but the author's name had made her heart quicken.

  Ethaniel Isaihne.

  Everyone had heard the story of Ethaniel the Fallen at temple. It was one of the first tales in Gilleus. The man had been the leader of a heathen cult, a widespread and wicked religion. When Baltazar Godson, the first Fatherlord and the founder of the Church she knew, had brought His vision to the people, Ethaniel had resisted. In the end he was executed for refusing to acknowledge the Fatherlord's divinity.

  This book was written by Ethaniel Isaihne, not "Ethaniel the Fallen," but it had to be the same person. No one had named their child Ethaniel in ages. It was a curse. It would be like naming a child "Heretic" or "Heathen." Who else named Ethaniel would write a history of his own church?

  There was just one problem: the Ethaniel who had written this book did believe in Akir. He wrote constantly about Akir's grace and power, His limitless justice, His eternal love. These were ideas Lyseira had heard since she was young, of course, but Ethaniel's writing made everything she had ever read before sound like lip service.

  Judge not, nor consider yourself greater than your brother. Remember that all have sinned. Remember that none are unstained. In our imperfection, we are brethren.

  The seventh Sacred Principle said to mind your brother's sin as if it were your own. Small wonder, that Ethaniel had been executed; he had been preaching the exact opposite of the seventh Principle. And then there was this:

  If a man should squander all he has, does he deserve your charity? If a fool harms himself and comes to the temple, does he deserve to be healed? I say this: it matters not what a man "deserves." Only Akir knows what a man deserves. But if you ignore those in need, you hurt only yourself.

  It was madness. The Church had always said that those who squandered Akir's gifts weren't worthy of them. To give them more was to waste it, and this had always made sense to Lyseira.

  And yet . . .

  Last year, her new temple Keeper had told her that if the sick couldn't afford a donation, they should be allowed to die. Brother Matthew had assured her that this policy was enforced across the kingdom; that the Church routinely let the poor suffer. They even punished priests who would share Akir's blessings for free, going so far as to maim them for life.

  Was that just?

  To those who would withhold Akir's blessings unless their petitioners come bearing gold, I say this: Akir gives us miracles so we might share them. You are the peoples' servant, not their master. You are a benefactor, not a miser. And if you believe otherwise—if you insist on treating Akir's miracles as currency—then you are no Kesprey.

  It had taken her the better part of a day to translate that passage, and she'd done no more translation work since. Every time she read it, it struck her dumb.

  Ethaniel's voice seemed to cut through the centuries, to hurl accusations at the Church. He wasn't merely saying that Bishop Marcus was a bad apple. He was slicing to the core of the Church's teachings: indicting the entire institution, as Matthew had done. It repulsed her. It made her want to burn this sacrilege, to ensure no one ever saw it.

  But it spoke to her, too. It felt like the scriptures she had always secretly expected to find, hidden somewhere between the constant judgments of the Canon. Weren't Ethaniel's words her true beliefs, codified? Hadn't she been acting on them, really, when she'd saved Helix from his death sentence, and when she'd ridden into the flames to save a warlock she barely knew?

  And didn't Akir lead me here, to this book?

  A knock at the door made her jump. She felt a flush of guilt, an absurd urge to hide the book, and forced it down. She fumed at the interruption until she realized that maybe Seth had returned. Anger melted into hope. But when she threw the door open, she found Syntal in the hallway.

  "Oh," Lyseira said.

  Syntal threw a furtive glance down the hall. "Can I come in?"

  Now that she knew her brother wasn't back, she resented the interruption. Two doors down, Syntal had been spending her days teaching Angbar and Harth to chant; to become a witch, like her. That was wrong, but Lyseira didn't interrupt them. She had maintained a kind of uneasy truce with the other girl for the winter: don't bother me, and I won't bother you.

  She sighed and motioned Syntal in. The girl slipped through the door and closed it behind her. Her eyes were brilliant emerald, not glowing precisely, but somehow more real than everything around them. She'd been chanting.

  Lyseira knew she should be used to it by now, but she wasn't, and she hoped she never would be.

  "What?" She was already on edge from reading Ethaniel's book, from wondering what it meant for her. She felt unbalanced, unsure of herself. The girl's intrusion nettled her.

  Syntal chewed her bottom lip, her eyes fixed on the floor. "I just . . . it'll be spring soon."

  Lyseira sighed again. She didn't want to think about spring. "Yeah."

  "Are you still thinking of going to Ta
l'aden?"

  Tal'aden: the Church's seat of power, home of the Fatherlord, who was Akir on Earth. Last year Lyseira had proposed bringing Helix's case there, to seek a divine pardon.

  "I . . ." In truth, she hadn't thought about it for months. She'd been putting it off. Suspicion gripped her. "Why?"

  Syntal glanced up. "Well, I just—I wanted to tell you . . ." Mercy, she looked nervous. Why did she look so nervous? "If you go, I'll come with you. I don't see another way."

  This was such a reversal, Lyseira was sure she hadn't heard it right. "What?"

  Syntal might've been a worm on a hook. Her eyes said, Come on. Don't make me say it again. "You're right about the Fatherlord. That's all. If Helix wants a pardon, the Fatherlord is the only way he'll get one. We have to seek Him out."

  What changed? Lyseira wanted to ask. Last year, when she'd proposed going to Tal'aden to seek the Fatherlord, everyone had vehemently opposed the idea—especially Helix—and Syntal had been silent. Lyseira felt a surge of irritation. "Why didn't you say anything last year?"

  Syntal shrugged. "I've had a winter to think about it. I mean, when the snow melts, what are we going to do? Stay here forever?" Her eyes sought Lyseira's for an acknowledgement. She didn't find it. "We can't do that. We can't live our whole lives in Veiling Green. The only way for Helix to get his life back, or save our families, or anything, is through the Fatherlord."

  Save our families. Lyseira still didn't know what had happened to her mother, but she knew that last year the Church had taken her in for questioning. The very idea left Lyseira raw with fear. Any harm that came to her mother, Lyseira had brought about.

  But she didn't want to face that pain; she'd spent the whole winter hiding from it. "You need to talk to Helix. He's the one that needs convincing, not me."

  "I know."

  Then why are you talking to me? Lyseira bit the words back. She felt jumpy and brittle. She hated feeling that way. She missed being confident. Was going to see the Fatherlord even the right thing to do anymore?

  Of course it is. What happened was a travesty. He'll set things right. If He won't, it means He—

  She clamped down on the thought, killed it before it could finish.

  "M'sai," she finally managed. "Good. M'sai. Well . . . why don't you talk to him. Let me know what he says."

  "M'sai," Syntal echoed. Lyseira waited for her to leave. Instead, she said, "Are you . . . well?"

  I turned my back on the Church, and as a result my mother may be dead.

  My brother is gone and may not be coming back.

  I did everything I did because of what I believe, and now, I have no idea what to believe.

  "Of course." She forced a tight smile. "I'm fine."

  iii. Seth

  Retash was getting worse.

  The trip had seen him grow thin—Seth could feel the bones in his frame like sticks in a burlap sack—and his lips had taken on a pallor. His wounds still stunk through the bandages Seth had given him, the stench growing worse by the day. Worst of all, though, he wasn't waking up anymore. He hadn't spoken since last night.

  He had no strength to stay on horseback, so Seth had rigged up a simple litter. They'd reached Veiling Green just after sunset, its pines bristling in the murk like a wall of black needles.

  When Seth had first entered the wood nearly four months ago with the others, its curse had forced them all into helpless circles until Syntal had used her sorceries to lead them through. After they'd found the Safehold, she had assured Seth the curse would leave him alone now; that its purpose had been to keep people from the Safehold, and it recognized those who had been there.

  But her magic was new to her. She didn't really understand how to use it or what it meant. She liked to act as if she understood what she was dealing with, but she didn't really—she couldn't—so as he left for the compound, he'd tied ribbons on tree branches as a way to guide himself back.

  Now, as he led his horse haltingly through the black trees, he hoped she'd been right. If she wasn't, Retash would die.

  There, he accused himself. There it is. The moment I became dependent on her.

  He'd been watching for it, anticipating it with dread, since the night they'd first escaped Southlight. She was a witch, working sorceries from a forgotten book she'd found in a cave, and the notion that his master's survival depended on her magic made his stomach twist.

  But what was the alternative? He was trapped now. He'd had a thousand chances to turn back, and he hadn't. His lot was cast.

  The horse whickered. In the tree-shrouded moonlight, Seth caught a glimpse of its breath curling in the cold, and a flicker of red in the boughs beyond.

  The ribbon. He rounded the horse and plucked the fluttering cloth from the branch.

  If the curse was on me, I would never have found this. She was right. She does understand the forest's magic.

  And I am dependent on her.

  He pressed past the tree, further into the dark.

  iv. Angbar

  "I told Lyseira I want to go to Tal'aden."

  It took a minute for Syntal's words to penetrate. He was lost in her eyes again, something that still happened now and then despite the fact that she wasn't interested in him.

  For the first month, he'd held out hope. They'd spent hours together, as she taught him to chant. They'd talked and laughed; he could feel her excitement, the thrill in her voice, when she described the Pulse. Yes, he was Bahiri, but his darker skin had never seemed to bother her before, and he was the only one who understood what she was saying. He was the only one who didn't condemn her for who she was.

  Then she'd started teaching Harth.

  Angbar had been convenient. A good friend and a willing ear. But Harth understood what she was teaching, too; in fact, he picked it up far faster than Angbar ever had. They started talking in the way she had used to talk with Angbar, but faster, further, finishing each other's sentences and jumping off from each other's ideas. And of course, Harth was pale, like she was.

  Angbar could Ascend now. He had felt the Pulse and chanted simple spells, but it didn't entice him like it did Syntal and Harth. They had left him behind.

  And despite it all, despite the fact that it made him feel like a whipped puppy, he still got lost in her eyes. Gorgeous and green, fathomless as the sea. It would be so easy to slip his hand behind her neck and pull her into him. To taste her lips. She—

  He blinked. "What?" Had she said Tal'aden? "Why?"

  She pursed her lips, hesitating. "Keep your voice down," she finally said.

  We spent months running for our lives from them. Now you want to walk into their capital? "You can't be serious," he whispered.

  She held up a hand. "Just listen. Look." She pulled out the book they'd found in the Safehold the day they arrived: bound in black leather, a broken metal band hanging loose from each cover. It was nearly identical to the one they'd found as kids, but instead of lying in the bottom of an underwater cave, this one had been placed carefully in the Safehold's chapel. When Syntal had opened it, she'd created a second Storm: the skies had filled with silent lightning, just as they'd done when she opened the first book as a child, a lifetime ago.

  Just seeing the book made Angbar's heart lurch. The Church said a lot of things about the Storm—that it heralded the world's end, it was a sign of Akir's anger, even going so far as to name it The Rending instead of using the peasant name for it. Angbar didn't believe most of it. But this book had created a second Storm. It had changed the world, somehow, and though none of them talked much about it, they all knew. You could tell just by looking. Colors were crisper, newer; scents were sharper. It was like the effect on Syntal's eyes when she chanted, magnified a hundred times and applied to all of reality.

  She touched his hand, jolting him back to the present. "It's all right. M'sai? I promise."

  He drew a breath. "M'sai."

  "You're scared. Because of the Storm."

  He nodded.

  "I was, too," she
said. "But this book . . . I haven't told anyone what it says."

  Every moment that she hadn't been teaching Angbar and Harth to chant, Syntal had been buried in the new book. Angbar felt his brows furrow. "You said Lar'atul wrote it, just like the other one. It has new chants, right?"

  "It does, but . . ." She leaned toward him, as if to whisper a secret, then glanced toward the door. They were in one of the side rooms, just the two of them, but that door could swing open any time. She shook her head. "Let's go in a Rising."

  It was one of the spells she'd learned from the new book. She closed her eyes and chanted, slowly lifting her hand as if commanding a mountain to rise. The chant ran longer than most, and as her voice droned, the air grew heavy. Finally a slash of light cut from the floor, lanced upward like a ramp, and shifted into right angles, creating a stairway. Then the light's apex blossomed into a brilliant door of light.

  Wonders upon wonders. It was a line from an old Bahiran story his mother used to tell him. It had swum to the front of his mind the first time Syntal had shown him this spell, and countless times since.

  She climbed the stairs, and he followed. The doorway at the top was opaque, solid with brilliance, but stepping through it took no effort. Beyond waited an empty, white room, existing impossibly where the stone of the Safehold should have been. The doorway they'd come through was transparent from this side, like a window into the room they'd left. Compared to the brilliant white of the space they were in now, the Safehold room looked dingy and cramped. Syntal gestured, and the stair of light disappeared behind them. From previous experience, he knew that the door had vanished, too. The room they'd left would appear completely empty now, to anyone who looked.

  The entire effect always left him vaguely nauseated and dizzy. When he put a hand to the wall to steady himself, it felt like warm glass.

  "I love this chant," Syntal confided as she set the book on the floor, "and I never would have thought of it. Can you imagine how many times it could've helped us last year?"