What I must ask myself is, am I willing to let my sister go? Because the deal Mordenn is making is, undoubtedly at its heart, about me giving him the Artifacts. He already has Esmanth; I can’t treat these women like currency or objects to bargain with.
Andraste pushes Crispin aside and comes to stand with me. “All the artifacts are bound to you, Lir. They will serve your will for as long as that continues. Mordenn cannot snatch them up just because you release them, but you won’t have any control over them.”
“How does that benefit Mordenn enough that he’d bargain for Esmanth?”
“Right now, the Artifacts belong to you. Mordenn cannot have them unless you fail. If you release them, he’s free to hunt and trap them. He can’t curse them again, but he can pursue them.”
I turn, putting the question to the women. “Esmanth will go to my mother in Folkvangr. My father and brother will journey from Valhalla to see them-” I choke on the words. “I’m not trading you to Mordenn when my family is already reunited. But I will release you. Not for him, but because you each deserve to be truly free.” I meet their eyes, one by one. “There’s a danger to it, either way. So, I’m leaving the choice to you.”
Theriss raises defiantly. “In one more trial, it sounds as if Mordenn won’t have time to hunt us. He’s going to have his hands full fighting us.”
“I agree.” Callista nods in respect. “I want to be free. If it also gives Lir the chance to take back his sister…”
Freya stands, moving beside Theriss. “I’d like to see Mordenn try, having to face us on equal footing and not trapped, cursed.”
Finna is more solid than I’ve ever seen her. “I’m with you, to the end.”
Meridiana rises, eyes hooded, and nods.
Etain lays fingers at her blade’s hilt, resolute.
Kumiko gets to her feet.
I hold my breath.
Her eyes have deepened to a dusky rose, clear and absent their haunted look. “I didn’t believe, in the beginning. That you could do this, that we wouldn’t be cast back to our trials.” She shudders, remembering. “I knew we’d all be sent back to the hells we’ve suffered. But you keep winning, keep surviving. You are a miracle, Tamlir.” She sweeps a hand across the others. “You all are. I should have had more faith; we’re an army now. Mordenn makes demands, but he must contend with us.”
She glances at the emissary, swirling impatiently, and holds my eyes. “Free us. I’m not afraid of Mordenn anymore. I, at least, am with you whether you bind me or not.” Kumiko moves to my side.
Theriss follows, and Freya. Finna, Meridiana, Callista. Etain strides to us like the warrior-queen she is.
Crispin gives me an encouraging nod.
I face the messenger. “The Artifacts have asked to be freed. I honor their wish.”
It closes a hand around Esmanth’s soul like smoke blotting out the sun. I panic all over again as her light disappears.
It’s just for now, just for the moment.
“Your bargain is struck. Free the eighth artifact, and the girl is yours.”
It disappears from the garden on a vulgar sucking sound.
“His punishment for killing Maeve was swift,” spits Theriss.
She’s not wrong, but I don’t think it’s that straightforward. “He would have taken Esmanth eventually, once the Oryllix discovered who I was.” I wonder how Iden and Mynogin are taking all of this? Probably from the cold reaches of Helheim, by now. “Do you feel different?” I ask. The women shake their heads. “Me either. So, he’s changed the rules, but not our ability to play the game.”
Etain grins. “Mistake number one.”
Crispin steps forward, and I can’t imagine him looking more godlike, more warlike than he does now. “I can tell you his second mistake…” He lays a palm on the twin lions of my cuirass. “He’s chosen his own destruction, the Pantheon’s next god of war.”
“God of what?” I ask in unison with the others. I must have heard him wrong. “My sister. My kingdom…” My reputation for showing up to lessons half-drunk and smelling like a woman. My general history of lacking dependability. I’m not especially noble, forget godly.
“No one has ever completed a temple, freed all of the imprisoned artifacts. When you have, when you achieve the culmination of their powers, and yours…”
I can’t find words to answer.
Crispin claps my shoulder. “Get your rest, Tamlir. It’s time you begin your training as my successor.”
PART FIVE
–A Dark Horse–
Heijl, grant me wisdom, patience, and strength to wield the twin hammers of fortune and fate.
Father, help me to understand when an eye is worth the sacrifice.
Protect my family from harm. They have honored you with worthy lives and will honor you with warrior spirits. Bring them in to the Great Hall.
Lead Esmanth through the Wilderness. Shield her in your light. Tell her spirit to await me. Tell her heart I fight to return her to Midgard.
When my prayer is done, I pack away the dried mistletoe stub, the stone runes, a scrap of blue mead cloth, and thumb sized rowan-wood figures of my family. Scraping them into the pouch’s dark cavity feels symbolic. It’s kind of a relief to stuff it back into my bottomless bag, out of sight.
I snuff the candle and watch smoke swirl eagerly into the air and dissipate. If I’m honest, I stopped listening to the prayers long before I stopped reciting them. Somewhere around my fourteenth birthday I mumbled along, paying more attention to my mother’s voice or the pretty maid serving mead.
After Esmanth and my mother were saved, I stopped being faithful to Heijl. If I’d stopped believing, or never believed, or grown some grudge against the Father of All, I could respect myself for what happened. But I got lazy. Indulgent. Ungrateful. It wasn’t even something as concrete as bitterness. I had every reason to show respect and gratitude. Like everything in my life, it was a season- in fashion, or not.
Crispin clears his throat from the doorway.
“I’ve finished. You can come in.”
“Remembering your family to the pantheon?”
“Does it help?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“It does. The mortal notion that a god’s eyes are trained on every living being at all times?” He laughs. “We have our hands full. We have our own squabbles, as you’ve learned by now. A small reminder among the din can earn a boon.”
“I didn’t do it just for my family,” I admit, still not looking at him. “I needed to see inside myself. Sometimes I wonder…” If I’m worthy, if I’m corrupted, if the darkness I feel in the echoes of the Oryllix might one day claim my heart.
I shrug.
“A brave warrior brings light to dark places. A truly fearless warrior brings light to the darkness inside.” Crispin kneels and runs his fingers through the ash atop a foundation slab that formed my makeshift altar.
“By avoiding all sin and vice, all cowardly offenses against the Father.” I heard it a hundred times from our abbot.
Crispin turns a wary look on me. “Truly? What man is capable of this? Can you name him for me?”
“Well...no. It’s what we’re told to aspire to by the Church.”
“Aspiration implies a possibility of achievement, Lir. Could you ever achieve a path free of all jealousy, wrath, lust, bitterness? Could I?” Crispin shakes his head, dismissing the question. “It’s an idea peddled to keep mortals shamed and meek. A man or woman who can look their own evil in the eye is one who can’t be herded. This is why the Church no longer teaches the true Guidance of Heijl. They seek their own dominion.”
Spoken by a man this would be blasphemy punished with the burning tree. From a god, though… “Why would a god stand for their deception? Why doesn’t Heijl intervene?”
“Because he seeks mortals who know the true path. And because…” Crispin laughs. “Look at all the trouble Mordenn has caused for you and me. Imagine how full the Great Father’s hands must be.”
&nbs
p; “Mordenn has a hand in the Church now.”
“You’re perceptive. He’s twisted the guts of the very institution devoted to thwarting him. See?” He steps back and claps my shoulder. “I’m not sure you needed my help.”
“You say that but–” He’s gone. I’m alone in my chamber.
I poke my head out and search for Crispin. He’s nowhere to be seen, but I can feel him, a physical presence pushing at the edge of my mind.
He’s gone east, through the garden, toward the sunrise.
Was he ever in my chamber? Sometimes I lose the line between what’s real and what’s part of the illusion. Maybe because my definition of real isn’t so solid anymore.
I follow Crispin, pondering his words. The machinations of the gods, how deep their influence is on the lives of men. More than I ever imagined before stepping foot in this temple. Before, it was a struggle of kingdoms; now, it’s a game played with mortal lives by the Pantheon.
I’m so lost to all this that I miss a subtle change to the garden. The trees are taller here, wide-canopied like the forests of my home. Rich oak and sharp yellow sap; the smells and sounds are like nothing I’ve experienced since Leaving Loria. Again, the garden has changed.
Eyes closed, I trail my hand along the boles of those massive oaks. Moss sticks to the sap, gloving my fingertips. The spongy, root-gnarled forest floor is wet with dew, and the air crisp with ripe bogberries. Robin and blackbird sing to each other in a steady warble; birds that don’t belong anywhere near here, but live in my heart. I know this forest.
My eyes sting, throat tight. I pass the feeling with long breaths.
I find Crispin beyond a natural gate of ivy-twined boulders.
He stands across an uneven clearing, back to me, a silhouette in the swirling morning mist. He holds a sword slung over each shoulder.
For a moment, it’s my father before me on autumn mornings, when my mischief and boredom grew too much for our castle walls. Waiting, expectant. Endlessly patient, even later, when teenage rebellion seduced me into arriving late or unequipped.
My feet can’t claim another step. If I hold in this moment, with my father across the clearing...I can be in that moment years ago. I can hold my father in the now, alive.
Crispin turns and strides to the middle of the clearing. Sun falls through the canopy and burns away the ghost of my father. I take my place in the clearing, penance for all those late, obstinate mornings.
“Why here?”
“I thought it might be more comfortable than the garden’s constant eyes. Put you in the mind of a student again.”
I nod, blinking until my eyes clear.
“The world has not forgotten them. I have not forgotten them. Your father was a good man, your mother faithful. Tagan would have made a strong king.” He touches my head, and my heart, light taps with one practice blade. “They dwell here, eternal.
He flips the sword, offering me its grip. “And you will have Esmanth back.”
“Thank you,” I say, because nothing else will come.
“Not there yet. Thank me when you’ve learned the lessons.” He moves back, slowly, brings his blade around in a warrior’s salute. He’s shirtless, clad only in loose pants, and I throw my armor and shirt to the tree line.
Crispin nods. “We train as we fight. Nothing withheld.” He drops lower, bending his knees and canting away from me, a stance I’ve known since I was a boy.
A duelist’s stance.
I grin, shake off the last of my grief. “I think I’m at a bit of a disadvantage, here. You being a god, and all.”
Crispin laughs. “What is a god? How does one measure them, define them?” He slashes a feeder branch from a low-hanging oak. “That’s like saying tree. We are numerous, varied in strength, shape, magic, intent.” He points at me. “Look at all you’ve done, how far you’ve come. Feel the strength you’ve gained – more than physical. To the common man, you are a god.”
“But inside–”
Crispin nods. “Inside, you’re still you. Still Tamlir Kynthelig.”
He’s not wrong, but I think he’s still downplaying things. “And who are you?”
He gives me another half-smile, turns to gaze out across the garden, and though she’s hidden to us, I’m sure he’s looking toward Andraste. “I am Crispinus. I’m the salt of Ostia’s sea water, the black soil of my father’s farm. I’ve crafted temples that span the realms, waged wars across the cosmos, and I was guided through time to witness the seeding of the world tree. A thousand lifetimes, yet I’m still a consul’s son, an idle noble boy laying in the sand. And I’m still brought to my knees by her.” He looks back to me. “I still make mistakes, and still win and lose battles. In my heart, I’m a man.”
He attacks on that last word, a lightning quick snap of his wrist so sudden it almost lands. Instincts screaming, I dart back in time, my blade coming up for a block that barely holds. The crack reverberates across the clearing, sending a column of fussing birds into the air.
The impact snaps me from the last of my lassitude, and I laugh. “That was black hearted.”
“Well, I’m also a god.” Crispin’s eyes are merry. “Who do you think taught men to cheat?”
He drops back into his duelist’s stance and this time I match him. All mirth drops from his face. His expression hardens to the mask I remember from Maeve’s arena. “Defend yourself boy, if you’re able.”
I’m ready when his blade cuts forward. He’s fast, his cut precise, but I’m faster. Our blades meet with an impact that rings in my shoulder.
Any exaltation I feel at blocking his attack dies as he changes stance, transforming his strike in a way I’ve never seen. I have one style and he has countless.
His wrist rolls and his blade jumps, a quick snap that ignores the laws of momentum and impacts my wrist with a sharp crack. Pain lances up my arm, and I gasp. Only my gifts keep my blade in hand.
I dance back, shaking off the ache. “You’re going to have to teach me that one.”
Crispin’s smile is grim. He doesn’t attack. In fact, judging by the step he takes back, he’s waiting for something.
The second my hand heals up…
Realization douses me.
My wrist isn’t healing. I reach deep inside; Meridiana, Finna... I feel the others, but Freya’s gift is gone.
Crispin watches me.
“Cheating?”
“I’ve done worse in my time, but no. As I said, once more a student. Gods stop learning because no true learning is painless.”
He readies, leveling his blade and stirring panic in my chest.
He circles and I follow, no other strategy forming.
“Risk. Without risk you learn nothing.” Crispin slashes forward, from calm to furious motion in a blink.
I pivot, let the blade pass so close I feel its friction. It sings by, trading places with my deathblow.
Crispin is already rolling back. Blunt steel impacts my cheek hard enough to snap my head back.
I stagger back, spit blood oozing from a throb in my face. He watches me, emotionless. He’ll kill me here if I don’t keep up with him; that’s how it feels.
Risk. His words make sense. A deadly calm settles over me, and I steady my breathing. I’d thought this a practice session with an ally. Without healing...that’s what he was trying to say. Even with my gifts I can still be outdone, overwhelmed. I have to learn to fight like my life depends on it.
My wrist and my face tingle, swollen. When I flex my jaw it grinds like fragments of stone. But I can still move, still think. Crispin hasn’t pulled his blows and I’m holding myself together. That’s encouraging.
But gods, it fucking hurts. This makes me determined to not get hit again.
Our movements are locked together, blades high. Crispin’s eyes watch mine, sentinel. Never watch the blade, never watch the feet. It was one of my earliest lessons. A man’s intent is a book if you know how to read him.
But Crispin is a god, and when he attacks,
I see nothing. His face is perfectly blank, his gaze empty. I’m fast enough to block, but still running to keep up, still on the ropes. Forgoing a counter-attack, I flail back for some space.
He bears down, launching a furious barrage of strikes. I grunt as each impact lands, and even with Kumiko’s speed, Callista’s strength, his hits stagger me. I’m sure he wasn’t this strong in the arena. He takes ground step after step, relentless. I grow clumsier as my blocks grow slower, less precise on shaking arms. All the while his face is stone, eyes betraying nothing.
And then, he breaks me. His dull blade pushes through and smacks my breastbone, a crushing blow. A ribs cracks, leaving my lung a flailing sack of meat. I choke on a grunt and throw a burst of flame between us, desperate to give myself some breathing room.
Fire licks his skin as he glides through it, ignoring it, and his blade snaps my hand.
This time, I drop the sword. I fall to my knees, gasping.
So much for not getting hit again.
Crispin steps back, blade slung over his shoulder. I clutch my chest and use an old trick the monks taught me for ignoring pain. It’s one I haven’t had to rely on since I arrived in the Temple, not since my gifts, but I need it now. I take the agony, the lancing heat coursing through me, and lock it in a box, in an empty room. I leave it here and walk from the room. All constructs of my mind, and it’s a technique I never really mastered, but it helps.
“Up,” Crispin commands.
I can’t. I shake my head, aching too much to speak.
“That’s because you’re not using the gifts the Artifacts have given you.”
My eyes dart to his face as mine flushes hot. For the first time, I feel rage. “Like hells. You ignore fire, your moves practiced. Thousands of years to train. I can’t heal.” He waits while I pant through a wave of nausea. “The arena proved I can’t compel you. And last I checked, you aren’t trying to poison me.”
“What a sad tale.” He gestures to my sword.
“Can’t win.” I don’t pick it up.
Temple of Cocidius Page 40
