by Mara Amberly
Cassia handed Alexa one of her knives. “Watch my back!”
Alexa didn’t like this plan at all but what was the alternative, walk away? She didn’t want that, not if she and Cassia had any real chance of saving the unconscious sister. If she stopped Cassia, she’d spend her life wondering if they could’ve done more.
Cassia was quick on her feet as she crept toward the two remaining men.
Alexa didn’t know how Cassia was going to do it – or what she herself could do, but she had to try. If she didn’t help, it was more likely Cassia would fail.
The red-haired priestess slunk through the trees to get behind the first of the men. Nervous and full of dread, Alexa followed.
It happened quickly. Cassia took a step forward from between two pine trees and put her hand over the first man’s mouth. Almost too easily, she brought a knife up to his throat.
“Sorry, more spoils for Rathor.” Her voice was a breathy whisper as she cut him. There was a shriek, even muffled by her hand. The second man drew his knife a moment too late and charged toward her.
Cassia pushed the dying man at her remaining enemy and raised her still-bloodied knife in defence. Flames licked around the blade, which she’d summoned without thought or intention. She had her sheathed sword as well, but never got around to drawing it. The man lashed out with a large knife, managing to slash Cassia’s arm.
Alexa rushed at him from between the trees, desperate to help her sister. She’d intended to draw his attention away from Cassia so she could finish him off, but it took both of their efforts to bring him down quickly. It was strange – almost surreal – to stab this stranger she didn’t know. The knife just sank in so easily. This was a person; a man. He might have a family.
Don’t think about that.
Alexa felt emotionally desolate, because she prided herself on being a good person. Suddenly, she was helping kill someone. How was that right? There wasn’t time to think and there should be! It was something she couldn’t take back or change, but she and Cassia had to help stop these people from hurting the other priestesses and destroying their home.
Alexa’s eyes dampened with tears, but she followed Cassia to the outbuilding, where she was already pushing the door open. Inside, it was engulfed in flames and it was hard to see in or breathe for all the smoke.
“There!” Cassia said.
The priestesses found the blue-clad Sister bound on the floor and pulled her out. She was miraculously still alive.
“Sister Brigita?” Alexa asked, helping her sit upright.
“She was my earth magick teacher until I failed that class,” Alexa explained to her sister.
Cassia looked around, ensuring no one crept up on them.
Sister Brigita was an older woman in her mid to late 50s. Like many who spent their lives favouring earth magick, she had a stocky build and her eyes were green-flecked brown. Her hair was a blend of grey and brown, and her face and clothes were stained with soot.
Brigita groaned as she came to. “Please untie me!” she begged.
Alexa still had the knife Cassia gave her, so she knelt to cut the ropes that bound Brigita.
“I see you dealt with the men,” Brigita stated in a grim tone, as she wiped her stained hands on the grass.
“Yes, we did,” Cassia replied succinctly.
Brigita merely nodded. “We must help the others.”
Brigita rose to her feet, swaying slightly while her balance and clarity of thought returned. When Cassia and Alexa were ready, she started walking toward the temple, keeping among the trees.
“A lot of them attacked us at once without provocation,” Brigita explained. “I was out on the grounds with a class of novices at the time. We were near the entrance to the crypts so I collapsed the ground under the men and opened a passage for the students. Some of the attackers have abilities as well. One of them held me in place so I couldn’t follow the others, and then they tied me up.”
Alexa put a calming hand on her shoulder. “You’re free now. That’s disturbing, that it could and did happen here. Did the others get away?”
Brigita glanced around – there was no sign of enemies here, but there weren’t other Sisters either. It was eerily quiet compared to the temple on a normal day.
“I – I think so. They weren’t caught when I was so they may have got away. It was only a few minutes ago, I think. Right before those men dragged me here.”
There was another outbuilding nearby – the apothecary; Cassia, Alexa and Brigita made their way over to it. It had a tiled roof and windows with shutters, but no panes of glass. The air stank of smoke and more curled through the gap in the slightly open shutters.
“It might not be a good idea to breathe in too much of the smoke here,” Alexa said, realising some of the ingredients that burned could be poisonous. There was no sound of voices, but Alexa forced the shutters of the nearest window fully open and peered inside. It looked empty but she could see the flickering of red flames as they claimed the apothecary’s benches and supplies as fuel.
“Anything we can salvage before it burns?” Cassia asked.
Alexa shook her head. “It doesn’t look like it.”
Cassia first, then Brigita and Alexa circled around the side of the building, staying close to the wall and trying to remain out of sight. Cassia was the first to notice movement by the front of the temple. She raised a hand, urging the others to stop. A man ran out through its open double doors, where smoke drifted from the main temple building. Several other men followed him. They had their mouths covered and were coughing from the smoke.
“There’s no sign of our sisters. Most of them must still be in there,” Brigita said, distraught. “I wonder if they’re trapped by the flames or they can’t get out. They’ll suffocate or worse. If only Sister Beryl was here, there is no better water sorceress in all of Kalle. Maybe she’s up there trying to put out the fire.”
Alexa could only hope, but she knew the men would try to kill her if she was.
Closing her eyes and concentrating for a moment, Alexa tapped into her body’s energies and tried to amplify her vision. She had a nearly unobstructed view of the temple, but the building was at an angle. She couldn’t see much within the windows other than climbing flames. The whole temple seemed ablaze now from within, even though the outer stone looked incapable of burning. There was no sign of the missing sisters.
“They might get to the windows and try and escape that way, if they can,” Brigita said in a worried tone.
Cassia rushed away from the outbuilding without warning. She dashed from one tree to the next, then straight across to the side wall of the temple. Peering around the edge, she sized up the men who stood outside the entrance watching the temple burn.
“Cassia might be able to control the fire,” Alexa said, uncertainly. “Cause it to die down.”
Brigita nodded hopefully, but she wondered if it might already be too late for that. Cassia had little chance of stopping a fire of this magnitude on her own. She wasn’t that good.
Cassia beckoned to the ladies to come over and join her, then pointed toward the back of the temple.
Brigita looked over at Alexa for a moment, before she turned and ran for the side of the temple. Alexa moved to follow, but hesitated when she saw that one of the men had noticed Brigita. He talked to the man next to him and pointed at Brigita’s position. Alexa waved to the ladies and made a sign for Brigita to stop. The earth sorceress didn’t see her, but Brigita saw Cassia gesturing her to stop where she was. Brigita altered her course and found cover behind a tree.
Alexa knew that Brigita was unarmed, unless she had some hidden weapon that the men hadn’t taken from her when she was captured. Two men, both bulky with hair the colour of sand, moved purposefully toward Brigita. One drew a wickedly long knife from a sheath on his hip and the other had a mace.
Alexa was horrified that these men would burn the temple and use these weapons of war on peaceful priestesses. The word ‘disgusted�
�� didn’t adequately sum up her feelings. The men moved closer to Brigita now like hunters stalking their prey.
Whoever these men were, they paid careful attention to their surroundings. Alexa saw them glance in her direction, though none seemed to notice her. Cassia was still around the corner of the temple, so far unnoticed. Brigita was stuck in the middle, halfway between Alexa and the temple.
The men crept closer; a dozen paces away from Brigita. Alexa noticed a change in Sister Brigita, almost like she was gathering her courage. Alexa’s heart sank, as she thought the elder priestess might charge the approaching men, but that would be foolhardy at best. Perhaps she had another plan in mind. Alexa prepared herself to help Sister Brigita if she was attacked.
A large object entered Alexa’s field of vision for the merest of moments. Whatever it was; the object shared its colour with the temple and it was plummeting. There was in fact a reason for this. Alexa winced at the deafening thud as a massive statue from the temple’s rooftop landed on the men, flattening them both and crushing several pine trees. So large was the impact that it sent up a cloud of dirt, dust and debris.
“What the hell just happened?” The shout came from the man near the temple’s front door.
Alexa chose that moment to run straight across to the corner of the temple where Cassia hid, before it was too late. Brigita joined them both there, a grim smile on her face.
“It breaks my heart to have damaged that statue, but it was necessary. You might almost say it’s poetic: the temple fighting back against the ungodly.”
Alexa’s curiousity got the better of her. “Which one was it?”
Brigita answered with a straight face. “Gevrus, the Wanderer.”
“I’d say he wandered somewhere unexpected,” Cassia said with a smirk.
For an order that prided itself on peace and compassion, Brigita and Cassia seemed grimly satisfied with their success so far in combatting the enemy. Alexa was trying not to think about it too much, other than strategically. She released the shallow breath she’d been holding, her green-eyed gaze flicking around just in case anyone out there was watching them. There were trees and burning outbuildings. There could be anyone out there, but if so, she couldn’t see them. She just knew there were still men by the temple door.
“We should hurry. What now?” Alexa asked quickly, because the fallen statue was sure to attract attention.
Brigita had an opinion about that. “We go around the building, and if no one’s there, we try the laundry.”
Cassia nodded, acting on Brigita’s suggestion at once. Alexa and Brigita followed. They made it around the back of the building unhindered. One man stood watch within the open laundry doorway. Summoning her power, Cassia watched him carefully until she was ready. The power flickered in the palms of her hands, rolling and forming into small fireballs. She gave a nod to the other Sisters, then rushed forward and threw them in the man’s face.
He screamed as they burned him. They didn’t do much damage at all, but they served as a painful distraction. Cassia drew her sword and finished him quickly. Alexa stayed around the corner until it was done.
“The way is clear,” Cassia said matter-of-factly. She cleaned her sword on the man’s shirt and sheathed the weapon. It was too large to use easily in tight spaces so she drew her knife instead.
Alexa moved into the laundry cautiously, noticing the bodies of priestesses on the ground. Their clothes were crumpled and they were covered in blood. The fallen priestesses had many stab wounds and cuts. Six. No, seven. Eight dead. Alexa recognised familiar faces. The priestesses had all known each other. Alexa saw them every day.
“Oh no, Jaysa!” Alexa said, recognising her friend among the fallen. She circled around her, and then knelt down beside her to hold her hand. There was nothing she could do. Jaysa was gone. They’d started on the same day as novices.
“How could they do this to you – to any of you? This should never have happened. If we’d been here–”
Brigita’s voice cut into her reverie. “We’d be dead too.”
Alexa felt Cassia put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. “Let’s go.”
“May we meet again, my friends,” Alexa whispered to her fallen sisters, tears rolling down her cheeks. She closed Jaysa’s eyes and stood up shakily. There was too much going on to properly think and mourn, but Alexa didn’t look forward to the time when she would.
Alexa saw Cassia open an inner door. Cassia held her knife in her hand in case it was needed.
“Are you ready?” Cassia asked, and received answers of yes from both ladies.
Alexa drew her knife, just in case. Smoke wafted out through the door, but seeing no immediate threat, the three ladies made their way inside.
It was hard to see and harder to breathe with all the smoke. The priestesses stayed low for reasons of stealth and air quality, and made their way past rows of hung robes and large washing basins. Several more women lay dead, one of whom had been a teacher of Cassia’s. Once they passed the laundry, the corridor opened ahead.
“It’s getting harder to breathe in here, Cassia. Upstairs is going to be worse,” Alexa said worriedly.
She covered her mouth with her robe, coughing several times as the smoke burned in her lungs. There was no fire here; the smoke must have originated upstairs.
“I’m not giving up,” Brigita asserted, “and neither should you. We owe it to our sisters to try and save them with everything we’ve got. We’re in this together. They may be depending on us, and very likely are.”
It was frightening and difficult, but the three women pushed on. The corridor opened on to a large central room with a massive spiral staircase that circled upwards. The room’s furnishings were burnt and the carpets were blackened – as if someone had tried to burn them and failed. The sight of the temple like this was a memory Alexa would never forget. There were no enemies in here – only the smoke, the threat of fire, and the fear for their lives.
The women hurried up the stairs. This room had a high ceiling, which meant that breathing was easier at first, but as they made their way up to the next floor, it got harder. The smoke was so stifling that Alexa, Cassia and Brigita had to keep their noses and mouths covered. Their eyes streamed from the smoke. Once on the next level, they immediately began searching rooms. Alexa called on her magick, using it usher in fresh air, forcing the smoke back along the corridor.
“Oh, that’s so much better,” Brigita said in relief, but in some ways the relief was short-lived.
In room after room, they found priestesses’ bodies. Some had been stabbed, others had fallen victim to magical combat.
“Oh my gods, they’re dead. They’re all dead!” Cassia cried.
It was the most devastating sight made even worse by the fact that they could so easily have met the same fate.
Fire crept along the walls, and wherever she saw it, Cassia subdued the flames. Even so, the damage was extensive and they couldn’t be sure the ceiling wouldn’t come crashing down.
Alexa found a locked door near the end of the hall.
“This door’s locked with an enchantment!” she said to Brigita nearby.
Alexa tried to break the lock using her abilities. All of the simple options failed and it took a hard blast of elemental air to shatter the spell that sealed it shut.
The bodies of over a dozen sisters lay inside, all bound and collapsed near the door and window. Brigita cried out in horror when she saw them, while Alexa wept. The sisters checked each of them to make sure they weren’t merely unconscious. One after another, Alexa found them dead. Her sense of hopelessness was overwhelming, then she heard Cassia’s shout: “There’s one alive!”
The girl couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Alexa recognised her as one of the new initiates, or rather, soon-to-be initiates. She hadn’t been at the temple long and hadn’t yet been initiated into the order. The young woman’s hair was dark and tangled, and her eyes were blue, marked by sadness. Tear
s streamed down her cheeks as she looked gratefully at the ladies still alive. Cassia immediately cut her free.
“I’m Hermea. Hermea D’Laris,” she said gratefully as she was freed.
“That’s why you don’t give up,” Brigita murmured to Alexa meaningfully.
CHAPTER SIX
The fire had taken hold in these rooms; the walls blackened and drapes burned. Rafters smouldered, while the marble shell of the building was relatively undamaged. Cassia subdued the flames as best she could and Alexa tried to channel fresh air in, but it was more difficult when they reached the next level. They found one of the enemy dead near the staircase with no signs of injury.
Alexa knelt down to search him. She offered his sword to Brigita, but she waved it away.
“What about a knife instead?” Alexa asked.
There was none on the dead man, but she offered Cassia’s knife to Brigita. The elder priestess took it from her and Alexa took the sword. She hoped Cassia hadn’t meant it as a gift.
“Thank you,” Brigita said, holding the knife in readiness should she need it.
They found the second floor dorm locked. The sisters knew they’d wasted a lot of time fighting the men and trying to get doors open, but it couldn’t be helped. They could’ve moved on to look for unlocked doors, but they didn’t. It took their combined strength to get the door open and they found more dead inside. Not many sisters would’ve been in the dorm during the day, but the room had well over a dozen women in it, collapsed on the floor and on beds.
It was a firm reminder that these men, whoever they were, had fully intended to wipe out the Sisters of Destiny. Cassia’s eyes flashed in rage.
“They’re all dead. Every single one of them, as we will be soon if we don’t get out of here! Those bastards are going to pay for this. I am going to hunt down every last one of them and make them suffer for what they’ve done.”
“Cassia, you’re better than that. You’re so much more than that. You deserve to not have them define your existence. Haven’t they taken enough already?”
