Solace Shattered

by Anna Steffl

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Hera Musette again snapped the reins. “His miss.”

  The Solacian was lying. She was a bitter, homely woman who resented her sister’s choice. Degarius’s jaw twitched. How dare she make such an accusation? His Ari wouldn’t think twice about that bastard Lerouge. Degarius had seen what it cost her dear, sweet spirit to love him, only him. With her kiss, he’d felt his every better sentiment returned to him double. The Solacian had to be lying. He drew his cape tighter around Ari and in a deep growl said, “Go faster.”

  As the horses sped, he looked searchingly at the woman in his arms. His Ari. His gaze fell on her locket. He remembered seeing it at bonfire night during the future-telling game they played. When he looked into it, she was all he could think of. His future. What he most deeply longed for. He couldn’t say it aloud, could hardly say it to himself. What had she seen when she looked into the open locket’s blue stone? Had she loved him even then and been fighting it, too?

  Wait.

  He had just seen the locket again. Prince Lerouge had it.

  Why in all hell did Lerouge have her locket? Degarius’s mind went numb.

  Sarapost House, Shacra Paulus

  “Prince, wake up,” a servant said close into Fassal’s ear, drawing him from a dream in which Jesquin’s gown had just slipped into a silky circle around her ankles and she was beckoning him with a sultry come-hither look.

  Eager to resume the dream, Fassal drew a pillow over his head. “Go away.”

  The servant poked Fassal’s shoulder. “Redcoats are here asking for the general.”

  Fassal curled to the wall. “He’s not here.”

  “They insist on seeing you.”

  Fassal propped himself on his elbow. “Fine.”

  Wearing last night’s wrinkled coat over his nightshirt, Fassal lumbered downstairs. Caspar and the smell of coffee greeted him. At least a servant had sense to brew it. From the slits of his sticky-lidded eyes, Fassal acknowledged the redcoats in the dimly lit sitting room. “To what honor do I have this call?” he asked the officer, although he wished the man to the devil for waking him before breakfast. The party had lasted until the wee hours and entailed the drinking of an enormous amount of wine that left him with a proportionately painful headache. “Caspar, down.” The beast was jumping on the officer. The brute only obeyed Degarius. “Take him away,” he called to a servant. “Coffee?” he asked the officer.

  The officer declined. “When was the last time you saw General Degarius?”

  “Last night at the party.” Fassal took a cup. The fortifying taste of the coffee took the edge off his annoyance, but did little to wake him fully.

  “Do you know where he might be?” the officer asked with a brusqueness that broke through Fassal’s lethargy.

  “Has the war begun?” Fassal asked with sudden acuity. “Is the army marching?”

  “No sir. But, do you know where he might be?”

  “Getting married.” Fassal smiled. His own engagement had finally prompted Degarius to make up his mind. That is how it often was with engagements. One man’s happiness inspired another’s.

  The officer presented a silver brooch. “Do you recognize this?”

  Fassal turned over the pin of a buck’s head. “It’s Degarius’s Valor in Service medal. I am sure he’ll be much obliged to have it back. Where did you find it?”

  THE END

  An Excerpt from Book III of Solace, Solace Arisen

  YOU, IN WHOM ALL IS POSSIBLE

  Solace

  Pale light crept into the bottoms of the gathering room’s east windows and into Superior Madra Cassandra’s consciousness. It would be a fine day for travel. In a moment of amused reflection before calling the sisters sitting behind her from their meditation, she noted that the high windows were designed to let in light but not the distractions of the courtyard outside. They did little, however, to deter inward distractions. But today, perhaps, it was allowable to be distracted. Last night was Princess Lerouge’s Coming of Age Ceremony and today Musette and Arvana would be coming home. The duty with the relic was over. Hera Arvana’s letter, announcing she’d made Lerouge champion, had come two days ago. What a mercy that Hera Arvana had fulfilled the Founder’s duty within the time allotted and before the draeden made any show of force.

  Madra Cassandra lifted the small bell that rested on the wide arm of the Prioress’s Seat, a heavy chair whose back was to the assembly so that she, as the other sisters, could face the Founder’s icon during meditation. She rang the bell once, and it chimed so pure and clear in the confines of the room’s stone walls. The sound would be lost in the wider world. So was the case with her soul. It had found within these walls its place to sound most pure and clear. She folded her hands and began to say aloud the closing prayer she had said thousands of times. Knowing it by rote, she ceased to hear her own chanting as she strove to feel the harmony made by the voices of the hundred women with her in the gathering room.

  Illuminate our souls with Your Light,

  You, in whom all is possible,

  Dark and Light.

  Judge and Forgiver,

  Mother and Father,

  Pour upon us that which in you is Love.

  Use us for the purpose that your Wisdom chooses.

  Draw us closer to you every moment of our life

  Until in us is reflected your Joy and Peace

  As it was in the Founder and the shacras.

  In the silence after the prayer, the superior made her own petition for Prince Lerouge. She raised her gaze to the Founder’s icon, and her heart went out to Hera Arvana. This duty had been a trial upon her protégé, but surely, by fulfilling her purpose, she was closer to joy and peace.

  Over the muffled rustling of a hundred women trying to rise quietly, came the creak of the gathering room door, breaking the superior’s concentration. An unsettling feeling overtook her as she gripped the arms of the chair, pushed up, and took the cane resting against the seat edge. Over the back of the Prioress’s Seat, she saw a frazzled Hera Musette and the unsettled feeling turned to dread. What was so urgent to bring Hera Musette back so early in the day...and to violate the solemnity of the morning meditation?

  “Please, you must come.” Hera Musette’s usually forceful voice came out in a plea so thin it nearly died in the air before it reached the superior.

  In the hall, before the superior had time to ask why she had come at such an hour, Hera Musette blurted, “Forgive me, I know he shouldn’t have been admitted beyond your offices, but I had him take Hera Arvana to her cell.”

  “Him?” the superior asked. “The prince?”

  “Maker have mercy,” Hera Musette said, then sighed. As they went through the halls, Musette alternately answered questions and told a story that brought the superior lower with each word until it ended with, “I pray we aren’t too late for the last blessing. Surely she’ll be far from the Maker without it.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  With her ever-patient family, the impatient Anna Steffl lives in Athens, Georgia, home of the New World gods of football and alternative music. She has held a string of wildly unrelated jobs, from frying chicken to one that required applying for a Department of Defense security clearance.

  Find Anna at:

  Website: www.annasteffl.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/annasteffl

  Twitter: @AnnaKurtzSteffl