The hairs on Serena’s neck stood on end. She peered into the eyepiece; the sky convulsed in a muddy haze, the shifting mists of Palthonheim contorting like ghosts in perpetual torment. Stars winked and constellations glimmered in the haze, then pink rays of sunset washed through the murk. It was like Palthonheim had been trapped in time, caught between night and day.
Serena adjusted a dial; she expected it to bring the stars into sharper focus, but it did nothing.
Plenty more buttons to tinker wi—
Something flitted across the sky, a scarlet streak stark within the convulsing murk. Serena shot back, heart racing and fingers trembling. ‘What in all hells was that?’
‘Serena?’ Enoch took a step closer to her.
‘There’s something out there.’ She peered into the eyepiece again—whatever she’d seen had gone.
‘A refraction, perhaps,’ the Ageless suggested. ‘A trick of the light.’
Serena balled her fists. ‘Why did you bring us here? Seems every time you give us an answer, more questions crop up.’
The Ageless cocked his head. ‘The answers are all around you, Serena.’
‘Gods damn it, I never thought I’d miss Myriel’s riddles.’
‘No riddle, Serena—look around you.’
Serena did. She’d been so distracted by the machinery that she’d failed to notice the artwork running the circumference of the observatory—an oil painting
‘You guys really like art.’
The Ageless’ mouth crinkled. ‘Art is just as vital as science. Without emotion, ambition and drive, we would achieve nothing—and without art, we cannot cultivate emotion.’
But it wasn’t a single painting—it was a series, separated by thin frames: A tide of orange fire; a comet, with a tail the colour of the Angel’s Breath aurora; an ice-blue flood sweeping through a village; a vibrant, pink exploding galaxy; a black mountain spewing red lava… ‘That’s the Zemsuhdenya, the mountain near Frosthaven,’ Serena said.
Another painting displayed a meteor cleaving through the earth, scoring the sea. Serena examined it closer; the meteor ploughed through a landmass, twisting it into a horseshoe shape and throwing up towering, spiking grey mountains.
‘That’s Dalthea.’
‘Separated from the eastern continent to which it once belonged,’ the Ageless said.
‘Dalthea used to be part of Idaris? And the Sanctecano Islands?’
The Ageless put his hands behind his back. ‘For a time, mankind worked as one—before petty feuding and corruption took root.’
Enoch brushed past Serena, gazing at the art. ‘Breathtaking, truly.’
‘Indeed,’ the Ageless said. ‘It depicts a story. The oldest story in the world, in fact—older than language. Interpreted and re-told over eons, from the first scrawls upon rock.’
‘Fascinating,’ the stone man said.
‘We humans were drawing pictures on walls before we invented words. Without the power of stories to fuel our imagination and ambition, would mankind have even evolved?’
Serena couldn’t decipher the story’s meaning, but she sensed its significance. The siren-song ran through her veins, and she wanted to weep. ‘What is it? What story does it tell?’
‘It’s the arrival.’ The Ageless said the words like that was all the explanation Serena would need.
She faced him. ‘The arrival of what? Gods? Sirens? Giant tufts of candy floss from outer space?’
The Ageless’ back straightened, like steel ran through his spine. ‘Of the Orinul. We found evidence of their arrival in the farthest corners of the world: The highlands of Aludan, the caverns of Ryndara, the plains of Phadros. These relics were thousands of years old, Serena—recorded at a time when travel between these nations was impossible—before man had the foresight to string planks together to make rafts. Yet they all tell the same story: A gift, from a place beyond the stars.’
The song wailed inside Serena—she felt it in her head, in her blood. It came without her summoning it.
A warning. ‘A gift? The Orinul enslaved humanity.’
The Ageless’ smile transformed at that—his brow drooped, and sadness poured out of him. ‘That is the lie the Fayth forces upon the world, Serena—the Orinul weren’t demons, or tyrants, or monsters—they ushered peace. Their arrival was a gift to the warring tribes that wandered the land. They united every person in the world—and from that unity, alliances of necessity became communities—communities became villages, villages became cities. The disparate tribes of the world worked together, for the first time in history. The Orinul sought the greatest minds from each tribe and brought them here, where they founded Palthonheim.’
Serena shook her head. She didn’t believe in the Orinul, or the Gods—not in the way the Church portrayed them, anyway. She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. She couldn’t even trust her own mind, or her own siren-song; the vision Ventris had shared with her showed Musa slaughtering innocent people. Serena herself had flooded Solassis’ mind with images and unravelled it.
‘Myriel said the Orinul enslaved mankind,’ said Serena. ‘Pyron Thackeray told me the same thing. He said Musa was the first person who broke free from their bonds.’
‘A traitor, who corrupted those around her and led them to their deaths,’ said the old man. ‘And mankind has not stopped fighting since.’
Serena held her face in her hands. Is that my lineage? Am I the descendant of a traitor who bled the world dry and plunged mankind into war?
‘And we’re to take you at your word?’ Enoch boomed.
‘Of course not, Enoch. Symbols tell a greater truth than words: I’ll show you.’
The Ageless’ hands roamed over the console he’d used to open the dome; the dome closed, machinery rumbled, and a descending stairwell formed around the telescope.
‘Follow.’ The Ageless disappeared down the staircase.
‘Serena, we do not have to do this,’ Enoch said. ‘We should find a way to get the others.’
Serena’s forearms burned. ‘Because you don’t trust yourself not to hurt me?’
Enoch lowered his gaze. ‘A concern we share.’
Serena didn’t know what to think or what to believe. She considered running back to the library, but then what? The Queen of the North wouldn’t fly any time soon.
The siren-song warned her not to follow the Ageless—but if he was right, if Musa was more demon than God, then she couldn’t trust it. What good had it done her so far? Solassis, Harvel Roarke—they’d died at a mere thought. The siren-song was too difficult to harness. Maybe it was the thing that drove Musa mad, made her slaughter scores of people.
If Serena had a chance to get rid of it, she had to take it.
‘Many children with your affliction stepped through the gates of Palthonheim, Serena—all cured.’ The Ageless led Serena through a dark tunnel, Enoch’s heavy steps trudging close behind her.
‘How many Sirens have you met?’
‘Before you? One. But our records indicate that no fewer than two dozen Sirens passed through the city gates.’
A chill filtered through the tunnel. Serena wrapped her arms tight around herself. ‘So, wait—you can remove the siren-song? You can make me… normal?’
The old man’s shadow stretched and contorted from the throbbing glow of the lamp in his hands. He craned his head—Serena couldn’t get used to his closed-eye stare. ‘First, you have to allow yourself to let it go.’
‘Really appreciate it if you stop talking in riddles.’
The Ageless led Serena deeper through the tunnel. ‘When Musa ended world peace, her followers waged war with her help. She subjugated entire nations and left her allies in charge, each with a fragment of her power—just enough to shield them from her soul-whisper—that was the bargain they struck. And together, they remoulded the world and invented the Fayth.
‘But they fell to in-fighting—Musa grew jealous. Though powerful, she was petty. She attacked her allies at once—a fatal
mistake; she spread herself too thin. Aldus—Aerulus, to you and I—led a rebellion and vanquished her. The event which inspires The Renaissance of the Gods wasn’t Aerulus defeating the imagined evils of the Orinul—he vanquished Musa.’
‘If what you say is true,’ Enoch said, ‘then why does Palthonheim sport temples, cathedrals—monuments to the Indecim, including Musa?’
‘She burned our libraries and destroyed our collected knowledge. Only thousands of years later did we uncover the truth. By that point, the Fayth had spread, and the Orinul had been painted as tyrants. To think there once walked a thousand gods upon the land, nameless Orinul who sought neither power nor glory. How different would the world be, had Musa’s wrath not reigned?’
The tunnel sloped deeper, the musky stench and cool air cloying Serena’s senses. The farther they descended, the more Enoch fidgeted. Serena shared his apprehension.
The Ageless set his lamp on the floor, stopping by a makeshift door.
‘You’ll have to excuse the mess,’ the Ageless said. ‘When the fires burned the skies around the city, this is where I found refuge. Standards slip when there’s no-one to impress.’ The door opened with a slow creak.
Serena followed the Ageless into a circular hovel. The darkness made it hard to judge its size.
Six stone obelisks rose from the ground, stretching high and glowering down at Serena. They were replete with ancient carvings and embedded with dull, red gemstones. They reminded her of the Challenge arena in Rhis.
Old desks filled with trinkets and tomes lurked throughout the room, and a small bed with threadbare sheets nestled in the corner.
‘Esoteric texts and some personal relics,’ said the Ageless. ‘Feel free to take a look.’
She really wanted to ask him how he read with his eyes closed all the time. ‘Is any of this gonna help you cure me?’
The old man rummaged through his belongings. ‘Extracting the soul-whisper is a difficult process, not unlike removing venom from a poisoned vein—but I have what we need.’ The old man cleared his throat. ‘Assuming I can remember where I put it.’
Enoch had to stoop inside the room, placing himself between Serena and the old man. ‘I won’t let you hurt her.’
The temperature in the chamber dropped. ‘Nor I you.’
Something caught Serena’s eye; a tablet made of glinting, amber ignicite, sitting on one of the desks. Crude drawings of men with spears surrounded a larger figure, like an elongated human, stretched to deformity. Some of the people were on horseback, others on foot.
‘It’s the battle from The Renaissance of the Gods,’ she muttered. ‘Except… older.’
‘Indeed,’ said the old man. ‘The original artefact which inspired the artistic movement, discovered—’
Serena touched it.
Then everything turned black.
‘Maybe they were men and women, too, once.’ Aldus’ voice carries above the thundering hooves of his horse.
Musa doesn’t respond. The scribe, Sul, rides close to her, and though he does not look her way, she knows he’ll note everything she says.
‘Sister, listen,’ Aldus continues. ‘Think how far you’re willing to take this crusade of yours. Your own strength is untamed—make sure you control it, and it does not control you. If you don’t, the coming storm may strike the world over.’
Would that be Aldus’ last counsel? Is he right to fear her?
The death priestess rides up beside her, silent as a spectre. ‘The runes spell doom.’ The language of the eastern continent vibrates through her words.
Aldus’ laughter bellows. ‘Nura’s ways are strange—but that does not mean they are wrong.’
Musa says nothing. She feels Sul’s eyes bore deeper into her back; he does not like the increasing attention Aldus pays her. He wears envy and malice the same way men wear a sword—sheathed but unconcealed. She sees it more each day—sees his eyes, his scheming. He is the real threat; a weak man cowers before that which he fears, or he runs; a warrior engages it head-on to mask the terror coursing through him like gut-rot.
But a man who is warrior and coward both strikes in the dark, swift as a bolt of lightning.
Wordless, Musa rides harder.
And the earth shudders.
Red as blood, the moon bears down. Men cry at Musa’s back as they die—not in anguish, but in bliss.
Scores take blades to their own hearts when she gifts liberty upon them, eager to return to their chains of deceit.
‘Some lies are easier to swallow than the truth.’ Aldus’ words.
The chanting hordes in the distance march across the trembling land. She hears them across leagues: ‘You are the Herald of Death, acting in sedition against the True Gods.’
Horses gallop in every direction, trampling bodies into the shuddering ground.
Great rifts split the earth and swallow everything in their path: Homes, forests, mountains. Walls of dust sweep the stars from the sky and choke the symphony of screams into nothing. The moon bleeds red, hanging low and looming across an ash-coloured sky. Tornadoes of fire dance in the distance, wreaking death and sowing chaos throughout the broken landscape.
Amidst the carnage, alone among the legions of dead, she stands. Blood drips from the sword in her hands.
Beyond the devastation’s red haze, wreathed in shadow, the hordes surround her. Fear radiates from them, yet their lines refuse to break.
Sword raised, Musa marches towards them.
The Ageless’ den returned.
‘—in this very place,’ the old man finished.
Sweat collected on Serena’s lower back. ‘What?’
The Ageless faced her. ‘I said it’s the inspiration behind the Renaissance, discovered in this very place.’
Serena stared at the tablet. Only a moment had passed.
‘Are you okay?’ Enoch whispered.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
And that’s what worried her. Every other time the visions seized her, they’d left her exhausted and drained. This was different—it was a message from within her siren-song, not an external source like she’d thought.
All along, the visions had been a warning. From Musa or her own Siren blood, Serena didn’t know, but there was more to them than she’d seen so far—there, but just out of reach.
All she had to do was accept them.
She touched the tablet again.
With wrinkled fingers, Musa placed the lantern onto the altar. The candle inside burned low, but its rust-orange glow warded the altar from shadows.
Light from a dozen other candles glowed throughout the icy hall. Musa watched the flames dance; a prettier sight than the unseemly portrait hanging in the hall, but it was rude to refuse a gift.
A cold wind slithered through, and Musa’s breath hung in front of her, a silver phantom fading in the air. She wrapped the shawl tighter around her shoulders.
A litter of children ran amok at her feet, pulling at her dress, begging for a story before bed. After years in solitude, their noise and joy refreshed her.
‘And what story would you like to hear?’ Though she tried to speak in soft tones, the warrior—the goddess—always came through. ‘Angelique of Adeline?’
The children chorused, ‘No!’
Musa placed her index finger to her lips. ‘Perhaps… The Song of the Five Maidens?’
‘No!’
‘The Wren and the Nightingale?’
‘No!’
There was only one story the children wanted to hear. She knew it, but she enjoyed the game—enjoyed the life these children brought into this place. Like men, the children always wanted to hear the stories that frightened them—as if confronting imagined terrors steeled them against the real thing.
She only hoped she’d keep them safe in this secluded haven, tucked away from the dangers of the world. It would be a refuge for all lost children. Aldus would be proud.
Aud tugged at Musa’s dress—the girl had been sickly for the entirety of
her short life and always needed more attention than the other children. Musa ran her fingers through the child’s jade-green hair. Aud had already told Musa of the phantom singing she heard, and the whispers. The other children had teased her for it, but soon, their own soul-whisper would manifest.
Such a toll to place on a child—Musa remembered her own childhood, fraught with fear and confusion
‘Very well,’ Musa said. ‘I’ll tell you, yet again, of my exploits travelling with Aldus and—’
The door exploded inward.
Dust and smoke filled the entrance, snuffing out the candles.
‘Children, downstairs,’ Musa commanded. ‘Now!’
The children ran to the corner, disappearing within a descending stairwell. Aud cowered behind Musa, grabbing her robes.
‘Aud, the shelter!’
But the girl clung on.
Silhouettes stood in the entrance, limned in a faint, tawny glow. Sul emerged from the shadows. Age had wrinkled the scribe’s skin and turned his blond curls into white tufts, but his ice-blue eyes hadn’t dulled. ‘Pestilent whore.’
Hearing his voice after so many years sent Musa reeling. How many safeguards had she put in place? How many miles had she put between them?
And still he found her.
She didn’t hesitate. The soul-whisper uncoiled from her—powerful, immediate, as easy as taking a breath.
But like a breeze striving to blow down a castle, it did nothing.
‘How does it feel?’ Hate tempered Sul’s straining voice. ‘How does it feel knowing your power has limits?’
Aud wept and shook in fear, clinging to Musa’s robes. She put her arm around the girl.
‘This is where you’ve been cowering?’ Sul’s blue eyes roamed the hall. When they fixed onto the hanging portrait of Musa and her adopted children, the corners of his mouth turned down. ‘Your protestations against being worshipped seem to have faded.’
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