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

by Rhett C. Bruno

  It was silly. In truth, he’d barely known the thief, but somehow, he’d become a trusted ally, if not a friend.

  Torsten had been strong during the rebuild, firm with his orders, always standing proud. But here, alone, the weight of so many dead finally hit him. He leaned on the throne, the blindfold sliding off his seared eyes and up over his bald pate.

  “Sir Unger, are you all right?” came Lucindur’s soft, melodic voice.

  It startled him.

  “I’m fine,” he replied, mustering the most composed tone he could manage. He adjusted the blindfold and straightened his back. “Just thinking.” It sounded like a question.

  “About?” she asked, stepping forward.

  “Everything. About Kings lost, and who should sit upon this throne now that they’re all gone.” He wasn’t sure why he spoke so plainly with her. She wasn’t a member of the court, not even from Yarrington, but she had a calming presence that made him feel she was worthy of his trust.

  “Well, uh… I don’t know anything about that,” she said. Her hesitation told Torsten all it needed to. She was lying. She knew about Sora’s true origin.

  Torsten didn’t press her further. Instead, he placed the broken sword down and pushed off the throne to rise to his feet.

  Her features were bright, like she’d fully recovered from her exertion, though her eyes were puffy. No doubt from crying in a way Torsten’s lack of eyes didn’t allow. Whitney’s death hit the whole group hard. Tum Tum worked through it by helping the other dwarves. Lucindur, by staying in the castle and repairing her instrument. And Sora… Torsten had barely seen her. She’d spent days down by the water, staring—probably wondering, as Torsten did, why not her? Maybe she hoped he’d swim to shore as if nothing in the world was wrong.

  Torsten cleared his throat and said, “You look well.”

  “I’m feeling better,” she said. “You have my thanks for allowing me to stay here. I know there are many out there who only wish to be so lucky.”

  “Without you, they’d all be dead. We’d all be dead.”

  The corners of her lips curled into a frail smile. “Like each of us, I did what I had to. I didn’t choose my powers.”

  “Yet, you saved all of this with them. The Kingdom owes you a debt it can never repay, Lucindur of Glinthaven. You can stay as long as you like.”

  “I… thank you, Master Unger.”

  “Please, just Torsten.”

  “Thank you, Torsten.”

  They both looked to the floor for a few seconds, then Torsten regarded the salfio strapped to her back. “Is it working?” he asked.

  “It is, yes. Thank the heavens a string didn’t break this time. Though, I’d very much wish not to have to play again.”

  “That would be an injustice to this new world we are forging.” Torsten swallowed back a suddenly dry throat. “The song you played when Nesilia was here. It was quite beautiful. I’d love to hear it again sometime, without all the…” He looked around, grimaced. “Well, you know.”

  “My mother taught it to me, who learned it from her mother, and so on. I’m not even sure what it’s called. Passing down songs through generations is a right of passage amongst the Glintish.”

  “Is it? I’ve barely been there.”

  “You should visit sometime.”

  “If only I could.”

  This time, Lucindur looked around the devastated room, and her cheeks went a shade darker from embarrassment. She likely realized, as Torsten did, that it would be many years, maybe decades, before all Nesilia’s damage was undone.

  “Will you go back?” Torsten asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. “My daughter’s there. And I don’t think there’s much use for Lightmancery any longer.”

  “Maybe not, but there are thousands of sad, homeless people outside these walls. Your music might ease their suffering, if you’re willing to keep playing.” He stepped up the dais, beside the throne, and pictured better days. “I used to hate when troupes and bards came through.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oleander loved the distractions. Liam liked it when they were about him, until he couldn’t care for anything at all. But I hated them. I never understood it. Why invest in make-believe, when a cathedral and Iam’s grace were so near?”

  “I suppose that’s one way—“

  “I do now, though,” he said, interrupting. “I think you should stay for a little while. Bring your daughter. Play your music across the city and give Whitney the flamboyant funeral we know he would have wanted.”

  She chuckled. “Well, that’s just it. Whitney wouldn’t want anybody crying, but when I play this instrument, it brings out emotions and memories I can’t control. There are so many dead. So many lost spirits. It would only make them more downcast.”

  “Maybe, that sadness is exactly what they need to feel.”

  Lucindur removed the instrument from her back and studied it. She ran her finger along the frets, plucking once as if to test it. The pitch was perfect, at least to Torsten’s untrained ear. The sound echoed across the empty room. Torsten could feel it in his bones, and he staggered back into the throne, his hand stopping on top of Salvation’s grip as he braced himself.

  Clearly unaware of the effect it was having on him, Lucindur started to hum and play softly, that same song from earlier, and Torsten found it impossible to move. She wasn’t lying. His heart grew heavy, and he longed more than ever that he could shed a tear, even just one. That he could let the pain out. With one hand, he pushed the enchanted blindfold up, the only way he could earn the sensation of closed eyes.

  In a flash, he experienced it all—every moment in this room. From the good, like when he was a young ward to Sir Uriah, looking at the tall ceiling as if it were the most amazing thing he’d ever seen—which it had been—to stealing glances at Oleander during parties or meetings. Being knighted by Liam himself a few feet away from the throne.

  And then, all the awful things. Sir Uriah, his mentor, going missing. King Liam’s last breath upon this very seat. A possessed Pi causing war with the Shesaitju that killed so many. Cutting Valin Tehr’s head from his shoulders.

  Emotion crashed over him like a wave. His lips started to tremble; his chest constricted. He could barely breathe. The hand keeping him upright unconsciously clenched around Salvation’s grip, and he squeezed tight as he could.

  And as he did, he saw something he hadn’t expected. No longer was he in the Throne Room, but far away, in a chamber with walls of red stone and thin windows. He saw Liam standing in front of a bed when a Panpingese woman dressed in the red robes of a mystic arrived at the door.

  Torsten didn’t need to ask himself who she was. When he saw her, he knew. She didn’t only have Sora’s ears, but her cheeks and her nose, her lips—this was the ancient one, Sora Sumati. She clutched her stomach, and Liam’s eyes welled with tears.

  “You’re with child?” he asked as he slowly approached her. His voice cracked in a way unlike Torsten had ever heard from him.

  Smiling, she said, “I am.” Then, she took his shaking hand and pressed it against her belly.

  “Our child?”

  She nodded, and he threw his arms around her, and she, him. He squeezed her, letting his face be lost within her long, black hair. Torsten couldn’t remember even seeing Liam hug Oleander, let alone hold her like that. Like there was nobody else in the entire world. Like how Whitney held Sora before they joined a war he wouldn’t return from.

  They were in love. Truly, and purely, in love.

  “Torsten!” Lucindur yelped.

  He heard her salfio drop, and then she ran to him. She pulled his enchanted blindfold down over his eyes, and he searched the room, totally confused about how he wound up on the floor. She grasped his hand, and it stung, and when he looked down, he saw that his palm was cut, Salvation just an arm’s length away, a droplet of fresh blood on the broken edge.

  “I told you I shouldn’t play that song around so much pain and loss,�
�� she said, quickly tearing off a piece of her sleeve and wrapping his hand. She pressed, and the blood seeped through. All Torsten could picture was Sora the blood mage after she’d cut her hand to throw fire.

  “I saw…” he stammered. “I saw… Liam?”

  “King Liam, that’s—“ Lucindur glanced down at Salvation. “That was his sword, wasn’t it? I’m so sorry, Torsten. Sometimes, if I play... unfocused, people around me feel the memories of those who’ve touched what they’re wearing or holding. It’s why I shouldn’t—“

  Torsten grasped her forearm, cutting her short. “She wasn’t like the others,” he said. “They were in love.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sora’s parents. Liam. He loved her. A mystic, a foreigner, an enemy—he loved her.”

  Lucindur’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you know?”

  He nodded. “Sora isn’t a bastard at all. She was his.” He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth, but all became so clear. He was wrong. Iam had purposefully put Sora in his path all those moons ago. And all this time, he’d thought her powers a curse, even as they saved him and Pantego time and time again. This was precisely where he was meant to be.

  Here, beside the throne, with a chance to right Liam’s wrong, just as Iam had given everything to right His. Liam had fought countless wars against the evil mystics, only to fall for one and realize she was human after all. And he took that secret to his grave. That awful, horrible secret which would have undermined everything he’d ever done in the name of Iam—that there could be peace with those who weren’t Iam’s children.

  It wasn’t illness that killed Liam, or a lifetime of poison from the Queen he didn’t love, like so many gossiped. It was that truth that broke him, that caused him to stop fighting until his body gave out. He’d lost the only person he’d ever loved and had hidden the miracle they’d created together. All because of his own pride.

  Torsten scrambled to his feet, accidentally knocking Lucindur back. He stopped, frantically turning to steady her, then continued across the throne room.

  “Torsten, what are you doing?” she asked, face wracked with concern.

  “I…” He stopped over her salfio, picked it up. “Thank you, Lucindur, for showing me what I must do. Never… ever stop playing this.” He returned the instrument to her before finally exiting the Throne Room, leaving her wearing a baffled expression and stumbling over words.

  LII

  The Mystic

  Sora sat at the edge of the docks, one of the few spots left intact. The whole of South Corner and Dockside looked like Winde Port all over again—far worse if she were honest. Ash blew on the air like snow, enough to make her throat sore. The Shesaitju were focused on cleaning out the inlet. Without many zhulong left to help, it was proving a grand undertaking.

  However, this time, at least, the locals helped them. A bond forged by the heat of battle helped them work together without fighting. Sure, she overheard bickering and a derogatory term thrown here and there between races, but it never escalated beyond that. Maybe they were all just too tired.

  Sora focused on the small fishing boats, finally dragging the wreckage of Babrak’s ship ashore. It’d taken a week just for the cleaning efforts to reach the middle of the inlet. The rowers moved slowly, timidly, as if disturbing the body of the wianu chained to its prow might, somehow, invite Nesilia back.

  It wouldn’t. The moment Whitney gave his life to send her to Nowhere, Sora felt it in her blood—that ever-looming, dark connection to the Goddess was gone. The nightmares, gone. She should’ve been relieved, and yet, the absence of that feeling chilled her more than its presence ever had. Because she also knew that Whitney was gone with her. Not banished to Elsewhere where she could pluck him out—gone… really gone, forever.

  She didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye. Just a distant view of his patented smirk through her tangled hair before he carried the Brike Stone into the wianu’s dreaded maw. If she’d only been stronger, maybe she could’ve reached him and helped him pry the stone loose to toss it in. Every moment she was awake, she replayed all the events of the battle in her mind, wondering where she could’ve slowed down and conserved her energy.

  Killing Freydis could’ve been simple, but instead, she absolutely destroyed her. Like the mystics of old, she allowed vengeance to rule her.

  Never again.

  She could’ve let others die in the Throne Room instead of shielding them all. Instead, she drained herself until all she could offer was a bridge for Whitney that he’d take straight to his doom.

  But she was no murderer, and to let those brave men die when she could have saved them…

  Her fists squeezed as the wreckage, and the monster along with it, slid up onto the narrow beach near the western jetty. Before she knew it, she found herself storming toward it.

  “Why!” she screamed, unleashing a fiery torrent upon all of it. People had to dive out of the way to escape her rage. The fire grew and grew, the heat stinging her cheeks. Parts of the ship were incinerated in an instant. She moved closer, every scream fueling the mystic blaze. The wianu’s thick flesh flaked away to black dust, as if it were made of darkness. It didn’t even have bones. It didn’t even stink like burning, rotten flesh should, which only made her angrier.

  “You promised to never leave me!”

  The fire grew and swirled into a whirlwind, enveloping her, but unable to harm her because it was part of her now. Nearby water flash-evaporated. Men throughout the district shouted, fearful that battle had come for them again. Sora didn’t relent.

  Then, a hand fell upon her shoulder. A hand that should’ve been melted in an instant.

  “A promise nobody could ever keep,” Mahraveh whispered in her ear.

  Hearing a familiar voice caused Sora to relent. The fire wisped away into embers, and she collapsed, exhausted from employing so much energy. Her knees banged on a hard surface where there used to be sand, and as the smoke settled, Sora realized that the entire coast had been turned to glass by the heat of her flames. A part of her still hoped that maybe Whitney’s body might appear once the wianu was gone, but the monster was nothing but a scorch mark now.

  “They want to keep the promise,” Mahraveh went on, moving in front of her and crouching to look Sora in the eye. “With all their heart, they do. But men cannot control the world, and neither can we.”

  “I wish I could,” Sora whimpered.

  “No, you don’t. Because then you would be exactly like Nesilia, and you are far from her.”

  “Am I?”

  Mahraveh held Sora by the shoulders, unfazed by the heat radiating off her, protected by her Caleef skin. “You are still here, aren’t you?”

  Sora sniveled, then wiped her nose with her wrist. Mahraveh helped her stand, her feet cracking the newly formed glass down to a layer of untouched sand.

  “I just don’t know who to be angry at anymore,” Sora said. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

  “I know,” Mahraveh said, firmly. She had a way about her, not just consoling or desperate to make Sora feel better. She talked plainly, honestly. It was strangely comforting.

  “My father died across a desert,” she continued. “My oldest friend—a man I think I loved—died right in front of me by the hands of my own god. Saying goodbye would not have changed a thing. But the man you know you loved… the people here will call him a hero. They’ll form statues of him, name things for him—buildings, children, cities even. All you need to know is that he did it for you.”

  Mahraveh’s gaze swept across the battered harbor. She regarded the people helping, all of different types, her eyes freezing momentarily upon her second in command. Bit’rudam was busy herding zhulong to drag a bundle of rubble. He wore an eyepatch now, having lost his in the battle. The tiniest hint of a smile touched Mahraveh’s lips. Sora had no idea she even had the capacity for such an emotion.

  “Dying for each other, it’s what separates us,” Mahraveh
said. “It was the strength of an afhem, and it will be the strength of all the Black Sands soon. I hold all the memories of the Caleef, and if just one of them were capable of what your Whitney was, we would have never lost our Kingdom to fear-mongers like Babrak.”

  “I hope you get it back,” Sora said.

  “From the mouth of a woman whose home village my father burned to the ground.” She patted Sora’s arm. “That is progress, no?”

  “Progress…” Sora laughed quietly. Mahraveh apparently saw that as the end to their conversation and went to walk by, but Sora clutched her wrist.

  “You were nearest to him at the end,” she said. “Did you hear what he said?”

  Mahraveh shook her head.

  Sora bit her lip, then nodded. “I almost wish you would have lied.” She’d tried to imagine it. How he’d said it was for her or something loving, but she knew Whitney. He probably looked Nesilia straight on and told her to go shog herself.

  “No, you don’t,” Mahraveh said. “My apologies, Sora, but I must go. There is much to be done before we return home, and there are many hundreds of Shesaitju prisoners we must decide what to do with, including their leader.”

  Mahi glanced down, and Sora followed her gaze before realizing she was still squeezing the Caleef’s wrist. Embers floated around her hand as her emotions fueled her power, but again, Mahraveh couldn’t feel the heat.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Sora quickly let go.

  “Don’t be. But if you’d like to unleash some more anger, there is plenty of rubble that’d take up less room as glass or ash.” She tapped the glossy, flat surface beneath them with her toe, then hopped up to the docks.

  “Lady Mahraveh!” Sora called up to her. The Caleef looked back. “Enough people died here today. Show them mercy… if you can.”

  Mahi pursed her lips, then offered only a soft grunt before she continued. As she went, Sora couldn’t help but wonder what that beautiful young lady had been like before becoming Caleef. Would she be as unrecognizable as Sora would have been before the things Nesilia made her do?