by K. A. Tucker
She gestures toward the first pew, guiding me to take a seat. “We can speak openly. There is no one else here.”
The wood creaks as it accepts my weight. “How much do you know?”
“His Highness honors me by seeking my counsel,” she admits, settling onto the bench.
It dawns on me. “You knew of his plan, that last day you came to visit.” She hinted at my release.
“I knew he was considering it, yes,” she confirms with a solemn nod.
“He trusts you. You’re the reason he believes I’m not lying about not remembering who I am.” If not for her, I’d still be locked up in that room. “When did you figure out Margrethe summoned Malachi to bring me back to life?” It feels odd to talk about something as if I understand it when I don’t have the first clue.
“I suspected it after the daaknar attack and then was quite certain once the king described your conversation to me. But he wanted to be sure it was not another scheme. You needed time to heal, and the king needed time to decide his next move.”
“He already knew I was telling the truth that day he brought me to his war room,” I say more to myself. The day I saw the map. But he kept the pretense of doubt and suspicion going. I’m not the only one who knows how to pretend.
“We have much to discuss, and while I’ve secured time for us to speak freely, we do not have the sanctum too long. There are other casters needing to attend to their duties.” She claps her hands together. “Where should we begin?”
“How about the king’s fangs?”
She dips her head. “To understand how the Islorians came to be, first you must understand our creators.”
“Fine.” I turn to the four looming figures before me.
“Vin’nyla, Fate of Air. Aminadav, Fate of Earth.” I shift from the statue with silver wings affixed to her back to the one with bronze bison’s horns, reciting the names Wendeline gave me. Those are the two Sofie hadn’t mentioned, and I imagine I’ll need to repeat their names a dozen times before they’re firmly set in my mind.
Wendeline nods once, prompting me to continue.
I move on to the one with a broad crown of antlers branching wide like that of a mature deer. “She is Aoife, Fate of Water.”
Find the gilded doe.
I shove aside my father’s voice and settle on the last one, the statue with grand twisty obsidian horns. “Malachi, the Fate of Fire.” The fate who has sent me here to complete a task. The four statues stand at the corners of the dais surrounding the altar, equal in size and stature. The gods of creation, the elements that make up all of nature, that gave life. They’re anatomically similar to humans, except with hooves and horns, and wings in the case of the Fate of Air. Both males are well-endowed. Surely, those two created themselves.
Obsidian, gold, silver, and bronze. This entire sanctum is clad in those metals. Though I note with curiosity as I study Malachi, its outer walls seem an ode to him.
“Are any of them more powerful than the others?”
“That depends on who you ask. The appropriate answer would be that they are equal in power and equally worthy of our fealty.”
“But …” I sense it behind her words.
She takes a deep breath, her eyes flashing to the statues as if worried we’ve caught their attention. “It is said that the Fates of Fire and Water are not easily countered, and that they are often at odds with each other. It isn’t a surprise. Malachi is known to be courageous and passionate, but he’s weakened by envy and obsessiveness. He is the spark for all the lust and wrath in the world. Meanwhile, Aoife graces us with our forgiveness and humility. She promotes healing, peace, and trust. Yet she can be erratic, showing indifference in the face of agony. Both anger easily, especially when they’re not shown the respect they feel they deserve.
“Elementals are all born with affinities to at least two of the fates, and for whatever reason, one of those affinities is always either to fire or water. For an elemental to summon Malachi, they must have an affinity to him. To summon Aoife, they must have an affinity to her, and so on. Long ago, when it was permissible to summon the fates, elementals most often bound themselves to either of these two over Aminadav and Vin’nyla, for it was the lust for power or the desire for mercy that often inspired the elemental or the king and queen in power.”
Sofie said she serves Malachi. This must be what she meant. “But the elementals are forbidden from summoning the fates now.”
“That is correct. The fates only meddle in our world when they are given the opportunity, and it became clear that it is never a good idea to give it to them. They thrive on conflict, with each other, and within their subjects. Answering a summons has less to do with the caster’s requests and more to do with what the fate wants. There are always consequences. Sometimes they are not felt immediately.”
Malachi allowed Sofie to pull me, a human doppelganger for Princess Romeria, from my world and drop me into her immortal body, which he resurrected and made lethal to a daaknar’s bite. He can’t be doing all this just to free Sofie’s husband for her, especially not when he’s the one holding the man hostage. So what is he after? “What kinds of things do the fates want?” I ask.
“Besides adoration? That is a question that I nor anyone else can answer with any degree of certainty. Some claim it is the unwavering devotion of the elementals, while others believe it has nothing to do with the elemental and everything to do with a bigger plan that we are not privy to.” She smirks. “The more cynical among us assume we are but pawns on a game board to amuse the fates in what is an otherwise tiresome eternal existence of creating and watching. But that would mean the fates feel the same passage of time as we do, and I suspect that is not the case.” She waves a hand dismissively. “That is a complex idea for a different day. Suffice it to say, it was agreed by both Ybaris and Mordain that the world is better off when the fates are not given an occasion to meddle.”
And Islor only had one elemental capable of breaking that rule. “Why did Margrethe summon Malachi to bring me back to life? Is it true, what Zander said to the court?”
Her jaw tenses, the only hint of anger I’ve ever seen in the priestess. “There was no hiding the fact that a daaknar had been released into Cirilea that night. Its distinctive shrill scream has haunted children’s tales for centuries. Too many recognized it for what it was. The king had no choice but to lay blame at Margrethe’s feet in the way he did, to quell rumors and questions.”
Is that how she truly feels, or is that the official answer? I study her. “But she didn’t ask Malachi to send it here to tear apart the city, did she?”
“Margrethe would never have summoned Malachi for the purpose of chaos.” Wendeline’s answer is quick and uncharacteristically sharp. “Islor was her home. She summoned him to bring you back to life, to protect her home.” Wendeline’s frown deepens as she reaches into the folds of her robe to produce a paper that reminds me of parchment in its crinkly texture. “I found this in her desk. Obviously, she had her secrets.” She adds more quietly, “As we all do.”
I smooth my thumb over the swirling M of the broken wax seal before unfolding the letter.
The Princess of Ybaris must survive at all costs, by Malachi’s will. – G
By Malachi’s will. Is that a call to summons? “Who is G?”
She shakes her head. “Someone deeply knowledgeable. That is an official seal of Mordain’s scribes. I’m not entirely sure how they learned of Margrethe. But nothing stays hidden forever, I suppose. Not even on this side of the rift.”
“I thought Mordain is against summoning?”
“The guild is, officially, and they would demand Margrethe’s execution, but we are far from their jurisdiction. Exiles, as far as they’re concerned. But there are always those who oppose the ruling power, and who believe a different way of life would be better. Mordain has a long and complicated relationship with Ybaris. That is also a history lesson for another day. But whoever sent this to Margrethe”—she taps on
the letter—“must have discovered something in the recorded prophecies that they feel is of great import as it relates to you.”
I assume prophecy means the same thing here as it does in my world.
“Mordain has an endless library filled with thousands of years of visions from the seers. Things they’ve prophesied to come. Many have lost faith in the foretellings, seeing them as nothing but ramblings. The library has become a dusty museum during Neilina’s rule, the visions’ worth diminishing to nothing more than fodder for delusions. But there are still those in Mordain who find great value in the old texts, and who continue to scribe and study and search for the path forward.”
My focus wanders to the altar to where I met this delinquent elemental. What could these seers foretell? And what might they have told the high priestess? “How well did you know Margrethe?”
“Well, and not at all, it would seem.” Her gaze follows mine. “In Ybaris, casters are assigned various roles. Healers, light bringers, horticulturists, alchemists. My role was as a tester. I would attend births in the villages and assess the babies for caster abilities. I remember the day Margrethe was born well.” She smiles fondly. “She had enormous brown eyes, far too big and alert for a newborn. I knew before I tested her that she was an elemental. To my dismay, she held affinities to both fire and air. The affinity to Malachi meant she would be put to death. I will explain that,” she adds quickly, seeing the shock on my face.
“Her mother handed her off to me, not wanting anything to do with a caster child. She could not remain in Ybaris as she was, and if I brought her to Mordain, they would kill her. So I ran and brought her here where I could heal rather than harm, and taught her what I could of caster magic.”
I listen to Wendeline rationalize kidnapping a child with a gloss coating her eyes, and the image of the mutilated body behind the altar hits me with greater meaning.
She takes a deep breath and then releases it slowly, as if calming herself. Does it anger her that the girl she raised as her own had secrets? “But we are not here to discuss prophecy, or Mordain and all its political motivations. You are here to learn of Islor.” Wendeline’s gaze slides over the grand forms surrounding the altar. “There may be questions about equality of power among the fates, but there is no question that they are uniformly arrogant in their need for reverence, and spiteful when they are not shown it. Summoning them has been expressly forbidden for almost two thousand years, but even when it wasn’t, it was known that to beseech the aid of one fate would be to choose them over the others, and once an elemental did that, they were bound to serve that fate for life.”
That means Margrethe would be bound to the Fate of Fire. “But it was Malachi’s own demon that killed Margrethe.”
“Yes. The fates have been known to be callous with their elementals. I suspect once she brought you back to life, Malachi had more use of the daaknar than he did of her.” She flinches. “The fates are creators, but sometimes what they create also has the ability to destroy. And that is what we are here to discuss today.”
I bite my tongue from interrupting more, sensing Wendeline’s reluctance to speak of the high priestess any longer.
“Two thousand years ago, this land was all the kingdom of Ybaris and ruled by King Faolan and Queen Rhean, elven who resided in Argon, the capital city where you were raised. Their eldest daughter, Princess Isla, was in line to assume the throne of Argon. In the meantime, she was ruling in Cirilea, considered the most important city within a southern land heavily dominated by humans. She was doing so admirably, according to history texts. But then Mordain sent her the elemental Ailill to serve, and she did what she should not. She fell in love with him.
“The king and queen did not approve of the union, but they did not fret because they assumed Ailill would not survive long, being an elemental and a mortal, and Isla would find an elven male to marry. It was a foolish assumption to make, and in hindsight, anyone could guess what would happen. Princess Isla was determined to reign as queen of Ybaris with Ailill at her side. And Ailill, of course, was eager to live as an immortal king. He bound himself to Malachi and implored the fate’s passionate side to grant him the immortality of the elven so Ailill and Isla could spend eternity together. The Fate of Fire answered him.”
I peer up at the figure with the black horns. “And he granted Ailill immortality?”
“He did, but not in the way Ailill hoped. Not in the way that Isla was immortal.” Her brow furrows. “He granted him the long life of an elven, making him stronger and faster to move and to heal, and more difficult to defeat in battle than the elven, but he cursed him with an eternal bloodlust for human mortals that was challenging to control. It was like an infection in that it could spread to others if the impulse wasn’t managed. Of course, Ailill did not understand what he had become, only that he had instincts he could not restrain. He bit Isla, infecting her as well. She in turn infected her lady maids. The disease quickly ran rampant through Cirilea and then beyond, into villages and towns, changing both human and elven into these new creatures. Elven lost their affinities when they changed. Casters who were bitten died.”
“Why would Malachi do that?”
“Some believe it was in retaliation of something the other fates did that he did not like. Others believe he wanted to create a superior being. This bloodlust, while hard to manage, gave his creatures power and dominance. Both views may be correct.
“When the other fates learned of Malachi’s handiwork that was quickly ravaging Ybaris and their creations, they were angry. They did not like seeing their creation corrupted in such a way, and so they unleashed a wrath like never seen before. Aminadav’s fury cracked the land in two, creating a deep fissure through the mountains that, save for a small passage between, is perilous to cross. That is the Great Rift. Aoife, in her rage, stirred the western waters south of Mordain with a current so violent, no ship has ever survived sailing through since. That is the Grave Deep. Vin’nyla was the gentlest in her retribution, churning the wind into a funnel that tore through Cirilea, toppling buildings and killing thousands.”
My eyebrows pop. “That’s gentle?”
“Short-lived, at least, and possible to repair. But it was King Faolan and Queen Rhean who were perhaps the harshest with their punishment. They banished their daughter to remain south of the Great Rift, to never return upon penalty of death. They knew of the infection sweeping through the southern lands, and the terror it brought. Instead of sending their army into battle for their people, they used their elementals to build an impassable wall to keep the infected from crossing the rift into Ybaris. They abandoned their people to protect Argon.
“Isla and Ailill established themselves as the new king and queen, and the land became Islor, named after Queen Isla. They were the original Islorians, the first of their kind, which Ybaris to this day call Malachi’s demons.” She peers up at the Fate of Fire’s ominous form. “Many struggled with accepting what they had become, including Ailill and Isla. Some tried feeding from animals to stave off the blood hunger. Others abstained altogether, continuing with their usual diet, and they grew weaker by the day. They realized that not feeding off the mortals wasn’t an option, not if they wanted to survive. Given the lifespan of an immortal—”
“Which is what?” I cut in. Lifespan suggests they don’t live forever.
She frowns curiously. “It varies greatly, but I would say anywhere from eight to ten centuries. Some, much longer.”
I bite my tongue against the expletive that threatens to slip out.
“And with that many years, they feared soon there would be no mortals left. And then what? How would the Islorians survive? Through Malachi, Ailill learned that the blood curse is spread through a venom that the Islorians release through their bite, and that they could control the urge to release this venom and not infect the mortals. They educated the immortal Islorians and established the tributary system, where humans were protected and the immortals were fed. It took years, but it
worked. It is still in use today.”
“Except that humans are now enslaved and used as blood bags.” I can’t keep the horror from my voice. “They’re not given a choice, are they?”
“It is the only way for all to survive,” she says with a wince. “With hunger comes desperation. The humans will bleed regardless, but without a system in place, it will be under far worse conditions. At least this brought law and order. A civilized framework to an uncivilized situation.”
And what about all the humans who are deemed cooks and laborers? Who lug blocks of crumbled stone from gardens with sweat pouring from their faces as courtesans stroll by, twirling their parasols? Is that also for the survival of the Islorian immortals? I don’t bother asking; I already know the answer to that.
“The result of the fates’ anger was far more reaching than originally thought. Mordain is like the pulse of caster magic. Aminadav’s rift in the land was said to be so deep, it severed Islor from that source. There were no more gifted babies born to humans in Islor, and the casters who lived south of the rift were dying off. It was assumed that this was Aminadav’s intention—to cut off Malachi’s demons from all elemental magic so they could no longer beseech the fates. Soon, Ailill became the only elemental power in all Islor. He was fearsome, his elemental powers to fire and water impressive.”
“To Malachi and Aoife.”
“Yes. And he chose Malachi.” She gives me a knowing look.
That would have angered Aoife.
“But the gifted babies were not the only ones missing in Islor. Malachi had created these immortals in a way that would not allow them to bear offspring. This was an especially tragic circumstance for Queen Isla, who was desperate for children of her own to pass on the throne of Islor. So desperate, they were willing to risk the consequences of summoning Malachi again. He was kind to them this time, though. He taught them how to tap into the nymphaeum’s power.”
“How?” I blurt. A spark of eagerness hits me. Finally, an opportunity to get more information about the sacred garden without appearing obvious.