The wyvern, first stiff and unmoving, lowered her face next to Krea’s.
Krea peered into the blood red eyes and held her breath. She forgot the sharp claws, the tearing fangs, and embraced the dying wyvern with body and soul.
“You are kind,” the beast told her, “I shall be happy to have you stay with me until the Ferryman comes.”
“The Ferryman will come for you?” Krea asked in surprise. The Ferryman came to take souls to be reborn, she had assumed they only came for the souls of humans. No one had ever told her otherwise.
“The Ferryman will come for both of us,” the wyvern said. She was silent for a moment, except for her labored breathing. “Or perhaps not.”
“I can’t have the Ferryman to come for me,” Krea said, her chest tightened. “I’m to be married!”
“Really? And this will bring you happiness?”
Krea winced, “My father will be happy. As for myself, I cannot say.”
“If you wish, then, I can give you a gift,” the wyvern said. “This gift will let you speak to the gods themselves. Accept this gift, for your kindness —” She coughed and gasped in pain. When she recovered, she said, “You shall become something different altogether, and if you accept this gift, and you will save my life.”
“I can save you?” Krea cried in joy. “I do not want you to die!”
The wyvern shook her head, “No, I will die... Just answer me this: Are you satisfied with the life your father has chosen for you? Or do you want something different?”
Krea thought of her father: Rabel was a good man, a kind man, but he was getting sickly and frail. If she didn’t marry Angus she had no way of taking care of him and, worse, no one else would marry her.
“My wishes do not matter,” Krea said, pulling a strand of her white hair, the hair so many thought of as a curse. “I have to marry my father’s apprentice or die in poverty. I cannot accept your gift.”
“You did not answer my question,” the wyvern said. “Tell me true, for yourself and no other, is that the path you desire?”
The truthful answer needed no thought: “No.”
“Then you should accept my gift,” the wyvern said. A bout of coughing wracked her body. “Chose quickly, while I still breathe!”
The wyvern gasped for air. Her head lowered to the ground, her eyes wide and imploring. She was dying.
Krea’s eyes widened in fear and then, impulsively, she cried out: “I will take your gift!”
The wyvern’s head dropped to the ground; the life in her blood red eyes faded away.
Pain ripped through Krea’s body. She felt like she’d been burned from the inside out.
She screamed and dropped to her knees. Tears rained down her cheeks. She clenched the blue Wyvern Flowers with her hands. The image of the field and the wyvern around her swam in her eyes. Krea fell forward to the ground, and the flowers’ honey scent pulled her into a deep and peaceful sleep.
Chapter Two: Home Again
Krea’s eyes opened to see Angus’s face peering down at her. His expression was stern. His black eyes were narrowed, his thin lips and chiseled jaw only inches away from her face. She saw no sign of her father. She knew where she was: in her bedroom, on her bed. She could not recall how she’d got there.
Angus’ face was so close that Krea could not sit up. She felt odd with Angus’ brooding silence so sinisterly close to her skin.
“Angus, where is my father?”
Angus lowered his broad shoulders with a sigh, “Thank the gods!” He lowered his face to hers. “We thought you wouldn’t come back to us.”
He stroked a hand across her cheek: warm and calloused. Krea jerked away.
He gripped her shoulders tightly, pulling back to peer deep into her eyes. With a growl, he said, “If you ever pull a stunt like that when we are married, I will lock you into a room and never let you out again, do you hear?”
Krea started to tremble. Angus released her and stepped back, raising his hands, palms out in a gesture of apology.
“Where is my father?” Krea repeated.
“Asleep in his room. He has been watching you all day,” Angus said. With a pleading look, he added, “Please let him sleep, he is exhausted. This day was hard on him.”
Krea knew he was talking about her journey through the woods and to the meadow. A wave of guilt washed over her. He was right, and she hated it. “I didn’t mean to! If it wasn’t for —”
“You are no longer a child, Krea,” he said over her words. “I know you haven’t had an easy life. And after this…” his words petered out. Abruptly he declared, “Your father and I agreed. We shall be married before the week is done.”
Krea’s jaw dropped. Angus wasn’t a bad man but Krea didn’t love him. He was not for her. She wanted to travel, to see the beauty of the goddess’s gifts, to have adventures... none of the things that Angus desired.
Around Angus, Krea felt lonely and small: like he was a hole in her world.
“Angus —”
“You’ll feel differently when we’re wed,” he said, guessing at her worries. “It’s best that it will be soon. Your father is a kindly man but he is getting sickly. We should both be worrying about him and caring for him.” The corners of his lips lifted up. “This time next week, we’ll be together and you’ll be Mrs. Angus Franck.”
“Angus, what happened? How did I get here?” She remembered the meadow, the bleeding wyvern, but nothing more.
Angus’ jaw tightened in some strange emotion. For a long while he was silent. Finally he said, “It doesn’t matter now. You are safe.”
Krea considered this answer. “I’m an adult now, right?” Angus nodded.
“Then you cannot keep from me what happened.” She saw the look in his eyes and grew frightened. “You must tell me!” When her strong words didn’t get an answer, she pleaded, “Please.
Angus swallowed hard. He bit his lips before responding, “You were found in a field of wyvern flowers unconscious.”
What about the wyvern? How could he leave that out? He was hiding things from her — she knew it.
“What else?” she asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Angus’ jaws worked as he searched for the right words.
“There was a woman next to you —”
“A woman?” Krea shook her head. There was no woman. Just the wyvern.
Angus gripped her hand, eyes full of regret, “Krea, the woman next to you was murdered.”
Her jaw dropped. She wanted to tell him about the dying wyvern, about the gift, and the pain. But she stopped herself. He will think I am insane. He will never let me leave this room.
“What do you remember?” Angus asked with a worried look.
Krea took a deep breath and lied: “I remember nothing.”
Chapter Three: Something Lost
Krea told Angus she was tired and pretended to sleep until Angus left the room. She clutched her pillow and sobbed silently, not from sadness but from rage.
As her rage subsided she considered the wyvern’s words. A gift that would allow her to speak to the gods themselves — that would save the wyvern’s life and change hers? Also, where did the wyvern go? And who was the murdered woman? None of it made any sense.
What was that searing pain? The moment the wyvern’s head fell — dead — to the ground replayed itself in her brain. The wyvern had offered her a gift. Krea had taken it. And then what?
Krea stood up. She went to the window, opened the curtains and let the sunlight flood in. Her room looked to the town, not the forest. The sunlight burned her eyes, and she squinted. Krea sighed. She needed answers. She wanted to go back to the meadow and retrace her steps, but knew that neither her father nor Angus would allow it.
Krea backed away from the window, turned and knelt to the altar below. Of Terrene, the mother goddess who molded the Monde,
their world, and created her children, all the holy beings who ruled and watched over it. Which would understand her problems? She searched through the dozens of antique carved wooden figurines, picking them from among candles, lace, incense, and sweets. This was a feminine problem, the wyvern was a woman, she was a woman now — as odd as that sounded to her — and marriage was her dilemma.
So she brought out Ametza, her figurine wore a long dress made of fish-like scales of a bluish green, its skin was made of delicately carved pearl, her hands stretched protectively upward holding a golden trident in one hand and a star in the other, with tentacles for hair that seemed to move on their own under a golden crown.
Krea lit the candles and incense. She prayed for forgiveness and understanding to the scent of cinnamon. The door creaked open, and in momentary rage she peered back to Angus’s face. Some things had to be private, to be hers and hers alone.
He smiled at her. She frowned in return. With a look of alarm, he shut the door and ran down the stairs.
After a moment, Krea turned back to the goddess. She clasped her hands again and prayed. Nothing happened. There was no feeling of warmth through her hands — the sign the god or goddess was listening — no illumination from the figurine. The goddess refused to hear her! Krea gasped, her heart beating so hard that she heard it in her ears. What had she done?
Why had the goddess refused her prayers? How had her connection had been lost? Ametza always listened!
With trembling hands, Krea searched through the holy figurines. She had never been refused before. Was it because of what happened in the meadow?
She was shunned. In growing desperation she tried every god in her personal pantheon, all the other patron gods of humans. Nothing.
Do all the gods hate me? Krea thought fearfully.
Finally, at the back of the altar she found a lonely figurine: Ophidian, the dragon-headed god. A figurine leftover from generations past when she had discovered in the set. He stood for freedom of choice, rebellion, and irreverence. He was the fire in all being’s bellies that humans were taught to ignore. She was told that he was dangerous and never to be contacted. He was the enemy of all her gods.
She had his image because she had to have all the images of the gods. His was a dusty, unloved figure. Secretly, in her wildest dreams, Krea had wondered what would happen if she’d prayed to him. Would he free her, or would he trick her with false words and evil laughter?
She put the figure on a small wooden pedestal above the others and surrounded him with lit tea candles. To the scent of cardamom, she clasped her hands together, and prayed for forgiveness, illumination, wisdom, and answers to her deepest questions.
Her hands tingled and the figurine started to glow. Ophidian answered her call.
Thank you most holy one, she thought. Within her mind’s eye, Ophidian’s red eyed gaze burnt into her, and the tingling began to expand to every part of her body. Then she saw his face, with his green scales and large sharp smile. He wasn’t just hearing her, he was seeing her. He speared her with a godly look: she couldn’t move even if she’d been foolish enough to try.
A god had recognized her. Only a few were so privileged. Most never knew the presence of a god until the Ferryman came to bring them to judgement at the end of their life. The pain from the day returned, but her body wouldn’t let her scream. The god’s head tilted.
“Hello, Krea,” he said. Then his eyes closed. His grasp on her vanished; the pain disappeared; and she was left oddly calm.
Chapter Four: Into Town
Her home was her mother’s pride and joy. Krea used to hate to clean, and really do any of the feminine arts. But when her mother died the house was all that was left of her.
Krea from then on cared for every inch of it with unstoppable compulsion, one that baffled even her father. The floors were always swept, fresh food always brewing on the stove, dishes were always steam-cleaned, and newly embroidered pictures with red thread — redwork — hung from the walls.
No matter what happened, Krea still had her home. Not Angus’s home — regardless of the way her father treated him.
She placed her large-brimmed hat on her head, her dark glasses on her face, and her lace parasol in her hand.
“Be back by sunset, love, I worry about you,” her father said, as he hugged her. Rabel was not usually an affectionate man. Occasionally, he would slap Angus on the back, or smile and laugh with him, but not Krea — not since her mother had died.
She could feel her father’s frail arms trembling to hold her. Behind him, Angus was staring at her.
“I love you, too,” she told her father.
Rabel grasped her tighter. “I know you don’t feel ready to be married but you shouldn’t worry. Marriage is a sacred bond, a gift from the gods. We are supposed to grow with our partner.”
Krea nodded, not even attempting to give him a smile or look of understanding. She could feel the fire well in her chest, and shifted her eyes.
Angus put you up to this, she thought.
“Your mother felt the same way when we were married, she was the same age as—”
“Mother never told me that,” Krea said, turning towards the door.
#
Angus drove her to the town in their buggy. Lilly, their mare, was slow and nearly as old as her father. Krea was silent. Usually, she couldn’t keep quiet.
“Making me suffer, eh?” Angus asked.
Krea gave him no answer. She didn’t even wave to the passengers on the train as it puffed by them on its way from the outlying villages into town.
“I’m not a bad man, you know,” he said. “I think most men in my place would have run away and —”
Krea shot him a murderous look but bit back her words, thinking of her father and his aching bones.
Angus raised his hands in a pacifying gesture. “I’m merely saying I care about you, and that I could be a good husband if you gave me a chance.”
Krea shifted her eyes to her feet. Her stomach heaved in protest. She was getting married! No, it is too early!
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Krea,” Angus said, laying his hand over hers.
She wanted to move her hand, but thought of the years to come. Did she want their marriage to start out with him angry? She knew she wasn’t ready but she was given no choice in the matter. Like it or not, she could not forget her father, his bent back, his thin hair, his frail frame — without Angus’ help, he would soon be too poor to eat. Krea couldn’t do that to her father. She couldn’t dishonor him without also dishonoring the memory of her mother and all that they had done for her.
She nodded, and expected him to move his hand away. They held hands for the next hour.
The wyvern had promised her something different — she had never said it would be good.
Chapter Five: The Shaman
Their first stop was the temple. There they separated, Krea joining the young maidens and Angus joining the young men. The small kingdom was known for this temple. It was almost as large as the Castle in the town’s center. It had to be to encompass all the gods and their places of worship, but this temple didn’t simply have a line of statues like others, each god had their own room or rooms dedicated to them.
The King had declared the temple was a reflection of their dedication to Ametza. Its large arched white doorways and windows of colorful stained glass were meant offerings to the goddess herself, a show of their love and faith.
Krea and the other girls were led to a room near the great knave. There, the shaman would introduce them to the sanctities of marriage.
The room was open, with large arcs providing no barrier to the grassy cliff and stormy sea below. In the middle of the large room. The shaman stood in the massive hand, a statue of Ametza’s hand. The shaman’s eyes were yellowed and bloodshot, and her skin a blue, a symptom of excessive harnessing of power
of Ametza.
Krea’s hand itched, she hid it in her dress. She sat along with a small group of young women on cushions in the stone temple, and tried to scratch as quietly as possible.
The other girls were a few years older — mostly eighteen — they were all to be wed within the week.
“You all have a sacred duty to fulfill, “the older woman said, “For the night of your wedding will start the beginning of a sacred act.” She paused dramatically. “Marriage.”
Krea’s stomach lurched. This was not supposed to happen — not now. She shouldn’t be here: she wasn’t ready to get married.
The shaman, by some instinct, snapped her head around and locked eyes with her. With brows furrowed, she said, “Krea, you should be grateful you will be able to perform this sacred and selfless duty. People like you rarely have a chance.”
The other girls looked at Krea and giggled. Krea’s cheeks turned bright red. But her embarrassment turned to rage, and she knew exactly what to say. “Tell me Most Holy One, have you performed this most sacred and selfless act?”
“Or course not!” the blue-skinned shaman swore. “I chose to serve our goddess,” she continued hastily. Pride swelled her voice as she added, “Indeed, there was never another option for me. I was fated for this.”
Krea clasped her hands and bowed her head. “Of course, Most Holy One, refusing so many offers had to be a test for you, was it not?”
“That is enough!” The shaman barked, her blue face beginning to glow red.
All the girls were laughing now, but Krea was not. Krea looked straight into the shaman’s yellowed eyes, and scratched hard at a new itch on her finger.
“Forgive me Most Holy One, I felt the goddess urge me to ask questions today, so I had to obey,” Krea lied.
The older woman took a deep, calming breath. “Of course,” she said. But the look she gave Krea was one of pure loathing.
Before full dismissal, each girl got a chance to speak to the Ametza one by one, kneeling in the giant feminine hand, as if they were literally in the goddess’s palm itself.
Twin Soul Series Omnibus 1: Books 1-5 (Twin Soul Series Book Sets) Page 2
