Tranquility's Grief Read online

  Jud visibly gulped. “Like glass.”

  Jovan released him.

  Allric licked his lips before looking at Bethany. “Come. You can use my study until we find room inside the temple.”

  Allric stepped to her horse and reached up to ease the limp Lendra down. Bethany dismounted and wrapped her arm around her weeping sister. Bethany looked at Kiner and said, “Let me know how Erem does.”

  “Of course,” he said. He looked at Lendra, frowned, and walked off.

  Triumph in war.

  She would make them all pay for her pain.

  ****

  Ropes of intestines, grey and slick, fanned around Sarissa’s naked body. Corpses stared at her with their glassy, empty eyes, faces contorted in fear and horror, the last emotions before Magic took them.

  Around Sarissa sat eight other Magi, all that were left of her once-proud force. Most did not escape Orchard Park and the temple.

  Soon, a dark voice whispered in her head, soon they will be avenged.

  Sarissa ignored the voice. Without focus, the ritual would fail. Failure could mean anything, from nothing happening to turning her new island home into a smoldering heap of ash spewing into the cold air.

  She turned her attention to the swirl of energy around her. She’d not drank the power in months, not like this. The withdrawal was painful, but the drowning was all the more glorious for it.

  Sarissa blinked her eyes, still unable to make out her surroundings. The Magic coursing through her veins did provide flashes of images, a reflection of the world around her. That would have to do for now.

  The best thing about the initial rituals of sacrifice was the warmth. They sat in a tent since their main hall had yet to be built. Furs, canvas, and cotton all snapped and pulled against the relentless ocean wind and spray. She felt nothing, only warm comfort.

  Draped across Sarissa’s naked thighs was the text she’d risked so much to steal from the temple, the one she took before blowing the temple into little shards of stone and marble.

  Robert had not been able to retrieve all of the books from her stash. She’d been bleeding heavily and the poor man cared more about her life than turning her into a goddess. He was a good man like that. She, however, was not a good man. Nor a good person. Good was never quite good enough for her. Eternal Power sounded a lot better.

  Goddess Sarissa sounded very good indeed.

  “Shall we begin?” Sarissa asked.

  Mutters of agreement filled the air. She could not read the ritual book that was draped across her lap, but she had worked to memorize the words. She was too close to let her vision stand in the way.

  If successful, the spirits she’d trapped in between this world and the next would come to her. Their essence would fill her and her people. They would grow stronger than any mortals. Eventually, they’d grow stronger than even a goddess.

  “The Power of deity has always rested with the collection of spirits. Collect enough and you shall become holy,” Sarissa reread. She flipped towards the end of the book, where a twig marked the page.

  She fumbled to find the next page at the front, but took her time to feel the etching on the twig, reading with her fingertips. It was not enough to recite; she needed the words displayed. The actions were as important as the words.

  “This Power can be achieved by anyone ambitious enough, strong enough, and treacherous enough.” She flipped to the front, to marker “3”.

  “Dispatch eight sacrifices.” She flipped to another marker.

  “Now,” she whispered and chants filled the air and shivers crawled up Sarissa’s flesh as Magic caressed her. “Use their energy to collect the spirit of one individual. In time, you will learn to do it all at once.”

  Sarissa nodded to the group and they joined bloodied hands, their flesh squishing against blood and guts. The last six days had been spent reviewing the ritual over and over, practicing and re-practicing to ensure that nothing went wrong. In the struggle against Apexia herself, Sarissa would lose her very spirit to eternal darkness if she was not careful.

  Everyone focused their energy and will towards the capture of a soul. Hopefully, they had not taken too long since the death of the Rygents littered around the circle.

  Unseen force slammed against Sarissa’s body and she collapsed on the ground. In the distance, she heard the others scramble to grab her hand, but the circle had already been broken. Brilliant flames burst in her vision and Sarissa let out a howl as her book was consumed by fire.

  That book cost too much to lose. She kicked it with her bare foot, trying to save as much of the pages as possible. She’d risked everything for it. Without that bloody book, everything she’d done would have been in vain. They would have died and sacrificed and bled for nothing.

  Then, Sarissa realized her foot was not burning. No heat came from the fire. She stopped and a moment later, the flames disappeared. Her vision faded, the blur of color leaving her, replacing her world with an iridescent streak of blues, greens, and whites - colors not visible within the tent in the middle of the night.

  As the world changed color, so too did the book. Pages of text disappeared, replaced by blank, shimmering white.

  “No!” she exclaimed. “The words are gone!”

  “What do you mean? The pages haven’t changed. What do you see?” asked Quincey. Next to Sarissa, he was their strongest Magi.

  “The book burst into flame and now the words are gone,” she said, her heart pounding. She’d felt no backlash from the ritual. Why did it fail then?

  “Sarissa, there was no fire.”

  “Of course there was,” she snapped. “I put it out with my own foot.”

  “No,” Quincey said, his voice calm. “There was no fire. I did not feel the ritual fail. Did you?”

  “No,” Sarissa answered bitterly. “I don’t understand.”

  Then Sarissa looked up at Quincey. His features shimmered blue, with dark snakes writhing around him, taking bites from his flesh.

  She stepped back from him with a gasp.

  “Sarissa, what’s wrong?” asked Tharace, another of their number.

  Sarissa turned to the old woman’s voice. Tharace was also blue, but little mouths opened on her flesh, endlessly biting the air, stretching their fleshy necks to sink their teeth on the people sitting next to her.

  “What has happened?” Sarissa gasped out and fell backwards. Black beetles the size of her hands crawled over the floor where the bodies had been oozing. Sarissa clawed at her eyes. “Make it stop! Make it stop!” She screamed, flesh curling into her fingernails as she lashed at her face.

  Strong hands grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. She looked up to see Robert, his face just as she remembered it when they’d first met. He even wore the same clothes as that day. How was that possible?

  She let out a long, frustrated breath. “Another test. Just like before with my eyes. A distraction meant to cloud my mind.”

  She picked up the book, its pages still blank. She flipped through it until she came across one sentence in the middle of the volume.

  With payment, a barrier.

  She read it aloud. Someone made a displeased sound.

  “I don’t see that on the page,” Quincey said, his voice hesitant. Snakes slithered into her ears and Sarissa looked away before her nightmares found new material.

  “Check,” she growled.

  Quincey exhaled and, several minutes of tense silence later, he gasped.

  “What?” Tharace asked.

  “She’s right. A magical barrier has formed around Taftlin.” A smile filled his words. “Fuelled by the souls we’ve collected. We are safe from outside interference.”

  Triumphant praise went up from those around her, but Sarissa could not join in. She could not look at them. The payment might prevent her from ever using Magic again if she wanted to keep her sanity.

  Chapter Twelve

  The truth will be a burden and not a release.

 
-Prophecy of the Diamond, First Tablet

  “Lady Bethany, we must speak,” Aneese said.

  Bethany nodded, though she wasn’t really paying attention to the priestess. She stood in a small, marble room. It had been a prayer room at some point in its history. It was supposed to be Allric’s new study and bedchamber, but he refused to vacate the stable while civilians still slept on the ground. It was to be Lendra’s home until she could be sent back to Wyllow.

  No matter how long that takes, he had said. Allric was a real Knight. A real hero.

  “Lady Bethany?”

  Bethany shook her head. “Sorry, Aneese. What do you need?”

  “A chair.” The corners of Aneese’s mouth curled up in a sad smile.

  “I’m sorry, of course,” Bethany said and grabbed one the chairs that were piled on top of each other in the corner. She put it down behind the old elf. “Will your hip ever heal?”

  Aneese winced as she eased herself into the chair. Once seated, she exhaled sharply. Her shoulders slumped. Bethany let out her own wince, fueled by guilt.

  “The bones had already fused together by the time a healer could look at me.” Aneese forced a smile. “However, I would be drifting on the wind if you did not carry me away from the fray. I shall not complain.”

  Bethany looked away, unable to meet the priestess’ eyes.

  “Look at me, when I speak to you,” Aneese snapped, her tone absolute.

  Bethany stared at her, having not heard that tone since before the battle. Don’t think about the battle. Don’t think about it.

  “I have been watching you, Bethany, daughter of Apexia,” Aneese said, her tone hard. “It is time for you to grieve.”

  Anger welled up inside her. “Grieve? What do you think I’ve been doing?”

  “Feeling sorry for yourself,” she replied in that same hard, absolute tone.

  Bethany rocked back on her heels, the words worse than any slap across the face. She stared at Aneese, shocked. “I have not been—”

  Aneese raised a hand and spoke. “You blame yourself for the dead. You blame yourself for not being perfect, for not believing your sister was a murderer.” Aneese’s voice lowered and become softer. “You did not kill those people. Their blood is not on your hands. It is time to say good-bye, child.”

  Bethany’s vision blurred. The weight in her chest, the one that had not left in months, swelled. “I shouldn’t have been with –”

  “Arrago?” Aneese said with a smile. “For Apexia’s sake, child, you are not the first Knight to fall in love outside of an arranged union. Nor I say the last by the time this is over.”

  “Aren’t you going to blame me?”

  Aneese tsked. “For fighting in the middle of the night in your boots and trousers? For refusing to back down against a swarm of evil? For unleashing Power like this world has never seen since of dawn of Apexia’s Power herself to protect those under your care? For pulling my injured body away from a stampede? Tell me, Lady Champion Bethany, what do I have to blame you for?”

  Bethany looked at the floor, scrubbed clean for the daughters of Apexia to mourn in private. If she stared hard enough, she could still see the blood of the dead draining there. “For one thing, I violated my chastity vows.”

  “Oh pish,” Aneese said, waving her hand in the air. “Torius never even followed them.” Bethany snapped her head up to stare at Aneese, who had her eyes closed. “I should not have said that.”

  A sinking feeling spread over Bethany. “Aneese…”

  “Please. There are secrets that must be kept.”

  “What did you mean about Torius?”

  Aneese swallowed. She looked down at her crippled hands, wrinkled and aged with time. “Haven’t you ever wondered why Torius spent so much time with you when you were a child?”

  Bethany stopped breathing. She looked at Aneese and physically forced herself to gulp in a breath of air. Her vision fogged. Her heart raced. She shook her head frantically. “He felt bad that Jovan’s parents were unable to care for me. He wanted me to feel wanted.”

  “He did it because he loved you.” Tears shone in Aneese’s eyes. “Because, he was your father.”

  The dam collapsed and the river of grief overwhelmed Bethany’s senses. She fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Aneese reached out to her and Bethany clutched the elf’s arms. She sobbed. Not cried, not wept, but sobbed for the deaths of thousands that she’d carried around on her shoulders for far too long.

  Bethany did not recognize the gasping whimper that escaped her lips. Her hiccupping, gasping cries made up for a century of regrets and missed opportunities.

  And for the death of a man she’d loved like a father and he never knowing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Diamond will look into her heart. She will see.

  -Aleu’s “The Agony of the Diamond”

  “Thank you.”

  The four seamstresses bowed and exited Lendra’s room, where Bethany prepared to bury her father and her sister. Lendra was with the nuns, which allowed Bethany a rare moment of privacy. For that, she was grateful. She needed the solitude to survive this day.

  She smoothed down the creamy fabric bound around her. With the exception of the dress she wore the night she’d seduced Arrago, Bethany had not worn anything but trousers since joining the Silver Knights. The structure felt odd against her skin.

  Wearing armor to a funeral of someone fallen in violence was considered an affront to the family of the loved one. She could tolerate the dress for Lendra’s sake, who asked Bethany to wear it. Not everything had to be about her

  At least she’d gotten word that Erem would live, and with his parts still in place enough to one day lose his chastity. The day brought that relief, at least. Today, when she would burn the bodies of her loved ones, anything to rekindle hope was welcomed.

  Aneese had been shocked when Bethany insisted on taking part in the funeral, but relented quickly. Torius had trained as a Silver Knight before becoming a priest, like all in the Order of Apexia. Therefore, both a member of the clergy and the Knights presided over the funeral. She could help officiate both the funerals of her father and her sister, and in doing so, hoped to find some peace within her.

  After it was over, after the pyres burned, after the ashes scattered, she would march north. Anyone connected to Magic, anyone not on her side, anyone in her way would die.

  “I promise you that, Torius,” Bethany said under her breath.

  “Lady Bethany, we wait on you,” a young feminine voice said from the other side of the closed door.

  Bethany took a deep breath, steadying her grief. She had done this countless times before. She could do it again. And she would do it sober.

  She opened the door, the cool air hitting her skin and sending a shiver through her body. The fabric was far too flimsy for this time of year, but nothing else had been available. As it was, the dress had been an altar drapery in a prayer room the day before. She handed her Blessed Blades to Jackson to carry. She would never to have them out of her reach again.

  Bethany walked behind the young woman, dressed in her brown clergy apprentice robes. As she walked through the winding, drafty corridors, most still suffering damage, she wondered if the walls were weeping inside, too. She could sense the crushing grief of the entire temple pressing on her. Everyone wept around her. Hope seemed to have died with them.

  Bring hope back tomorrow on the end of a pike.

  She joined the others at the front gates. Officiating the funeral meant she would not help carry the bodies. That was her only disappointment.

  Due to the distance to make it to the end of the causeway, Aneese agreed to be carried in a seated chair. It had taken some serious threatening from Bethany, but in the end the old elf gave in, no doubt in relief. Four junior Knights were given that honor.

  Allric, in his billowing white tunic and trousers, stood at the front of Torius’s blue carpet-wrapped body. They had run out of white fabric for their grievi
ng outfits and took the tapestry from a prayer room. Torius believed in thriftiness, Aneese had said. He would understand.

  Bethany choked back tears, thinking how Torius was not on the wind with his ancestors. With his daughter. With his lover.

  Get through today. Kill them all tomorrow.

  Torius’s flanking carriers were Kiner and three priests Bethany did not know, beyond that they worked at an orphanage just outside of Orchard Park. The back posts rested on Erem’s narrow, but able shoulders, still limping but he’d insisted on being there.

  Bethany waited for Drea’s pyre to be picked up. In the lead was Jovan, who freely allowed tears to stream down his face. Lendra carried the back post, while Eve helped stabilize the flanks with three nuns. Drea would have understood. Well, she wouldn’t have, but that was life. In death, others make those choices. That Drea would have understood.

  Bethany walked past both and stood behind Aneese. “I’m ready,” she whispered.

  Aneese cleared her throat, incense and smoke drifted from her golden censer as they walked along the stone-paved causeway between the Temple of Tranquil Mercies and the mainland. All sleeping materials had been moved to the edges, and everyone who could, stood.

  The walk was somber, as all funerals should be. A tinge of guilt stabbed at Bethany, for she found herself growing stronger through it, not worse. Her desire to hide in a bottle was replaced with the burning desire to seek revenge.

  They approached the end of the causeway and navigated down to the white sand shoreline. Around them, thousands gathered. Bethany wondered if every person within a day’s ride was here. Torius would have been so proud. Drea would have been embarrassed by the crowd.

  Bethany stepped ahead to help Aneese out of her chair.

  “Thank you, child,” she said. Her assistant rushed to her side and wrapped a strong arm around Aneese to support her.

  Aneese cleared her throat. “Thank you, Goddess, for the gift of life so we can honor you. Thank you for the gift of death so we can return to your gentle embrace. Though we are not worthy of your love, thank you for giving it unconditionally to us.”