The Nesilia's War Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set: Books 4-6)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Finally, the lift halted. A row of young-seeming Shieldsmen garbed in shining armor showed first, then parted in the middle. They revealed an older man with one arm wearing an exquisite tunic embroidered with gold.

  Beside him stood a boy wearing a Glass Crown. King Pi Nothhelm, the last of their illustrious line, same as Mahi.

  There was a time she would have wanted to kill him right then and there and do just that, end the dynasty, but she’d learned—from Babrak no less—the type of awful people who would be left to seize control. Pi’s name had earned him respect. His history as having been revived by their god, Iam, or so they told their people, earn him even more respect. But all men were easily manipulated.

  Still, he appeared older than she’d expected. Not yet her height, but it was the look in his cobalt blue eyes. It didn’t speak of the naivety of a boy, but of a warrior ready to draw his last breath. They were tired. He even nicely filled out his tunic far more resplendent than the man beside him.

  One of the Shieldsmen stepped forward to lead him off the lift. His hand rested securely on the handle of his sheathed sword, but he seemed calm. This one boasted a few scars, at least, even though he, too, was surprisingly young. Mahi had thought the Shieldsmen Order to be their most veteran soldiers.

  Shesaitju warriors on both sides of the path fell to a knee and bowed their heads, as per Mahi’s instructions. That was why she’d needed her most loyal warriors arranged. Bowing to the King of Glass may have been a push too far for many of her people.

  The lead Shieldsman’s gaze danced from side to side, taking in the strange new sights. The others too. From up the palace ridge, all of Latiapur was visible. Even a straight line down the coast to the imposing arena they’d likely heard legends of.

  Unlike the rest, Pi gazed forward. Straight at Mahi. He never wavered even the slightest, and his posture was tall and proud; practiced. To his credit, his jawline was strong, and she dared to think, even distinguished. Though he remained far from being able to grow a beard, she could tell he would grow to be strong.

  He really didn’t seem near as frail or small as Yuri Darkings’ whispers had said. Then again, the traitor who’d pushed Mahi through the Sea Door had been away from Yarrington for a long time. And in that time, Mahi went from a daughter desperate to save her father, who’d never fought a real fight to a champion of the Tal’du Dromesh to an afhem commanding a fleet, and now, the rightful Caleef. How much could the Glass King have changed as well?

  Pi stepped right up in front of her and stopped. The last of her warriors on the route bowed, and the drumming ceased. Silence pervaded. Not a soul dared speak as Caleef Mahraveh, and the King of Glass stood face to face. Mahi wasn’t sure what he wanted. Maybe for her to be the first to bow? The Black Sands had been a loyal vassal of Pi’s kingdom until her father’s rebellion, after all.

  She, too, refused to budge.

  “Caleef Mahraveh of the Black Sands, it is our great honor to meet you,” the one-armed older man accompanying the King spoke, his voice like a thunder strike amid the oppressive silence. He stepped up to Pi’s side and dropped his head ever-so-slightly. “I am Lord Kaviel Jolly, Master of Ships, and chief advisor to the King.”

  “Do you speak for him, or can he speak for himself?” Mahi asked, not letting her stare waver from Pi for even an instant.

  “I can,” Pi said.

  The Mystic

  It was fully dark by the time they were both satisfied. Whitney and Sora lay cradled in each others’ arms, staring up at Celeste and Loutis. It was a perfect moment amid untold chaos, and Sora didn’t want it to end. Celeste was particularly beautiful tonight, her light gleaming off the snowcapped mountains.

  “I’d have said ‘yes,’ you know,” Sora whispered.

  “To which question?” Whitney answered.

  “If you had actually been asking me to marry you. I’d have said ‘yes.’”

  “Truth is,” Whitney said, leaning up on his elbow and brushing a lock of hair behind Sora’s ear, “I’ve always figured I’d marry a virgin.” He smirked.

  Sora punched his arm and dragged him back in for a kiss. Then, he fell back against the deck, returning to gazing at the stars.

  “You weren’t my first, you know,” Sora said.

  “Is that right?”

  “Yup.” She let her fingers entwine his.

  “Well, you’ll be my last.”

  Her face flushed, and she was glad for the darkness. She closed her eyes and rolled her head the other way like she was drifting off.

  “Sora?” Whitney asked, a short while later. His voice sounded garbled, like it was a thousand miles away. “Sora? are you all right?”

  She hadn’t felt it until then, but she was shaking. Not just shivering from the cold, either. Her whole body spasmed. She heard him calling to her, but it was like a dream.

  For a moment, she wondered if she was back in Nowhere. Then, hard truth hit her like a warhammer. She’d never left at all, had she? It was too good to be true—she and Whitney back again, like this.

  Sora couldn’t process the myriad thoughts assaulting her brain. She thought she felt Whitney’s hand squeeze her arm, but she didn’t know what was real anymore.

  Her head swam. The sky blurred and distorted.

  Silence engulfed Sora, threatening to bury her.

  Her heart throbbed in her chest, her temples. She swallowed hard, and it felt like daggers scraping against her dry throat. Darkness surrounded her. She forced her eyes open, fearing what she might see. Things were fuzzy, and she felt something warm against her.

  “Aquira?” she asked.

  But no response came.

  It soon became apparent that it wasn’t something warm against her, but she was against something warm. The ground. Air, thick with humidity, weighed her down, and her head rested in something wet.

  Her face, her eyes were coated in something…

  Blood? she thought, mortified. But no, it wasn’t blood. It was mud. Just mud.

  She pushed herself into a seated position and dragged her hand across her hair, caked in the stuff. Groaning, she stood and stumbled a bit.

  “Hello?” she asked no one in particular. When no response came again, she raked at her eyes, finally clearing them for good.

  The sky was like wine, and it cast a dour picture before her. Smoke rose from chimney stacks in a small farming town. But again, her eyes had momentarily deceived her. Those were not pillars rising from chimneys, but great swaths of the dark gray stuff from burned remains just like she expected to be rising from Yaolin City. But it wasn’t Panping.

  “Troborough?” she said aloud, standing.

  A feeling of dread battered against her heart. She’d seen this place before, though it wasn’t the Troborough of her youth, nor even the one she’d left when the Black Sandsmen attacked. The last time she was here, she’d been on the run with Whitney. She could almost smell the death. She felt the hot breath of those demons at her heels, biting, clawing, growling.

  She sucked in a steadying breath, but no sense of calm even flirted with her.

  “It’s not real,” she said, over and over.

  Presently, her feet sloshed at the edge of the Shellnak River as she took a few tentative steps forward. To her right, just ahead, should have been Wetzel’s shack, her childhood home, but instead, there was only a charred hole in the ground and scraps of crisp wood.

  “Wetzel!” Sora screamed. Her voice didn’t echo.

  She pushed forward, getting as close to the hole as she dared. There was no bottom, at least, not one she could see.

  “What happened here?” Sora whispered.

  The forest loomed behind the shack, so familiar, yet completely different. She’d never really been afraid of those woods. They’d always held something of a comfort to her. She believed she could still navigate her way to the treehouse she and Whitney had built—although ‘built’ was a generous term.

  But now, with scarlet-tinted fog hovering at its ba
se, the thicket terrified her.

  She shook herself out, willing her mind to settle, her body to find peace.

  Continuing north, past all the farmhouses and barns, she took it all in until she stood in the middle of the town square, staring at what used to be the Twilight Manor. It, too, was nothing but dirt and detritus. She thought she could see the slight rise of the wood floor where the stage used to be, but the inn was wrecked.

  She thought of Hamm and Alless, and her nights there watching and listening from her hiding place as the bards performed. She knew this wasn’t truly Troborough, but it seemed a fair evaluation of things to come at the hands of the Buried Goddess.

  So sad, considering what they’d already been through with the Black Sandsmen.

  Turning, she looked beyond the blacksmith’s shop to a pile of stones. At one time, in the real world, it had been the town’s Church of Iam where Father Hullquist would have delivered about a million sermons. It was also where, in Elsewhere, she and Whitney hid from the wianu, and where she’d first told Whitney she loved him.

  Cautiously, Sora approached the building. She looked everywhere for the bronze Eye of Iam, but it was nowhere to be found. Parchment was strewn about like a windstorm tore through, but Sora knew it had been more than mere wind.

  “Can I help you, young lady?” said a gruff voice behind her. It sounded like wagon wheels on gravel, and it startled her, but it wasn’t the first time she’d heard it, either.

  “Torsten?” she said before she’d even spun toward him.

  “Father Drimmond,” the man who looked and sounded just like Torsten Unger, Wearer of White of the Glass Kingdom corrected.

  She tried to hide her shock but barely managed. “I—uh… okay.” Her eyes drank in a man with skin the color of tree bark, eyes missing, wearing a stained and yellowing robe. Just as Whitney said Torsten was, this man was blind, dirty cloth covering his, no doubt, burned-out eyes.

  “Can I help you,” he repeated.

  “No… thanks. I was just… I was seeking the safety of Iam,” she lied.

  “There is no Iam in this place,” Father Drimmond snapped. “Who are you?”

  “No one important. Just a passer—“

  “It doesn’t matter,” Father Drimmond said softly. “It’s not safe here for someone like you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sora said, absentmindedly touching her ears. It was silly to think even a blind priest would know of her heritage and hate her for it.

  Father Drimmond leaned in and whispered, “Alive.” Then, without another word, he turned and walked away.

  Alive? she thought. What does that mean?

  Had she died right there in Whitney’s arms?

  She thought about calling out to him, but instead, turned back to the place where she and Whitney had huddled together in Elsewhere, watching the real Torsten battle all kinds of evil.

  This time, there was no Whitney charging across the town, nor a pale-skinned upyr. There were no flying beasts or raging infernos. It was just… empty. Now, not even the priest could be seen.

  She stood alone.

  Away from the river, the hot, stagnant air was even worse. Sora felt like she was swimming in it. She gasped for breath and realized the smell of shog that was so common in all farm towns was absent.

  Sora tried to call upon her magic, determined to be prepared if anything unforeseen sprang up from the dirt, but only a dark puff of smoke swelled from her open palm. Cracking her knuckles, she tried again, but still, there was nothing.

  With a sigh, she continued down the familiar path leading to the daub and wattle farmhouse Whitney and his parents had lived in. Unlike the rest of the town, it was still standing. So many of her days had been spent there. She’d never felt welcome, but that was true of anywhere in Troborough. Despite having lived there her whole life, she’d never been a Troboroughite, not really. She’d always been the Panpingese orphan who lived with crazy, batty, old Wetzel on the outskirts of town. She wasn’t dumb, and she wasn’t deaf. She’d heard the whispers, the rumors that Wetzel abused her, mistreated her.

  But none of those were true.

  As kooky as Wetzel had been, he’d never laid a hand on her outside of her training. In light of what she’d learned in the Red Tower—that Wetzel had been exiled for abusing magic before being tasked with watching over her—she sort of felt sorry for him.

  Taking another step toward the Fierstown residence, Sora didn’t know what she expected—Mrs. Fierstown to come rushing out, blueberry and ginger pie in hand? Or maybe mean, rotten Rocco, face purple from yelling at Whitney to “stop playing with that stupid knife-ear.”

  Her finger traced the grain of the rotting wooden fence, finding a deep chasm where she and Whitney had placed their initials. Back then, it had nothing to do with romance. They were just friends. But seeing it now…

  “Whitney!” she cried out, wondering if he’d burst through the front door, or tear through the barley fields, sickle in hand.

  Instead, she found silence.

  The gate hung askew, only one hinge still attached. She pushed it, careful not to tear it off completely.

  Then something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. When she looked, she saw nothing. It troubled her, but she gathered her wits and took a step. She felt something against her foot and looked down. A bright red apple. It was odd enough to be so far from the apple orchard on the other side of town, but stranger still in such a dead and barren place. The thought of picking it up entered her mind, but she decided she wasn’t hungry and gave it a gentle kick. It rolled, revealing gray, paste-like flesh mottled with black spots and squirming little maggots.

  Something stirred again, behind her this time, and she turned. Still, there was nothing.

  Then, she yelped as long, pale fingers draped over her shoulder, and a hand closed over her mouth. It was like the Drav Cra tundra, it was so cold. A shiver bounded through her, drawing out goosebumps.

  “Do not cry out,” the voice said with a guttural Breklian accent.

  Sora attempted to agree, but it passed through as a muffled mutter.

  The hand slipped off, and Sora turned to see Kazimir.

  The memory of being shackled to a bell tower high above Winde Port slammed into her like a zhulong. She could almost feel the color leave her face.

  “What are you doing in this place?” he asked. His eyes were cold and dark as lifeless coals.

  “You’re not real,” she said. “I watched you… I saw you. You died.”

  “And where do you believe dead things go?” he asked.

  “But you were eaten. The Wianu…”

  His hand slid over to her throat, his fingers closing around her neck. She felt the warmth as his fingernails drew blood.

  “Stop this,” she said, trying to pull away.

  “But we’ve both waited for so long.”

  The look in his eye was feral, reminding her of a galler circling above a battlefield.

  “This isn’t real!”

  “Was Nowhere real?” he asked.

  That was all she needed to hear to break the illusion. She’d never called that place ‘Nowhere’ in front of Kazimir. She’d barely even spoken before Gold Grin killed the upyr.

  With the blood dribbling down her neck, she closed her eyes and focused. Flames seemed to burst out of her very pores, exploding outward. When she opened her eyes, the vision of Kazimir turned to ash.

  A crackling beneath her feet drew her attention down to the frost forming in the dirt. Snow flurries stirred along with the ash, and a light wind picked up, bringing with it an unbearable cold. Ice-covered tendrils shot out from the soil, frozen vines. They grasped Sora’s ankles, rooting her into place.

  She tugged, but the vines were too strong. She bent, grabbing hold of them with both hands, pulling and tearing, but still, nothing happened.

  Then, the roof exploded in a shower of dust, sending her backward onto her rear. From the wreckage of Whitney’s old h
ome, rose a figure covered in moss and flora. Her long hair fell to the middle of her back, framing that perfect face.

  “Nesilia!” Sora shouted. She thought that if she ever saw the Buried Goddess again, it would be accompanied by sheer terror, but instead, anger rose up within her like a sword.

  “Sora, darling,” the Buried Goddess spoke. It was a teasing, manipulative sound.

  Sora’s skin crawled like maggots. Where there had been one festering apple, there were now hundreds of them, larvae dancing upon each other in a macabre feast. She slapped and kicked, but her feet were solidly frozen in the ice, and soon her hands were, too.

  “Don’t look at me like that, child,” Nesilia said. “What did you think—you’d leave me, and I’d just shrug?”

  “You’re not real, either.”

  “I am more real than the breath in your lungs,” Nesilia said. Her voice was like thunder rolling across the farmlands. She took a step. “I’m more real than the skin on your bones. You let your guard down, Sora, and let me peek in. You and your little friends are in way over your heads.”

  “You’re scared. You’re scared because you thought you had me forever. But you learned that you’re just as weak as the day Iam buried you beneath that mountain.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that!” Nesilia snapped. “And to think, I let you live. I could have snuffed you out and used your body—“

  “You’re a liar. A child, fearful of being alone.” Sora was the one to advance this time. “You couldn’t control me. Not when I know what I really am. With my blood, I’m more powerful—“

  “You are nothing without me,” Nesilia interrupted, voice making the earth quake. “You had your chance at greatness. It’s sad—a pity, really. Now, you’ll just die like all the rest.”

  “And you had your chance at atonement!” Sora’s hands became balls of burning flame, and the ice melted away in an instant. She stood. “In case you forgot, I killed your ugly sister. Now, I’m going to kill you.”