Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1)

by Christian A. Brown

  “Exquisite,” commented Morigan, though she could not read any of the letters. “What does it say?”

  Caenith’s fingers were too thick to point out the particulars, so he pointed along the blade as he described what was written. “In ancient Ghaedic, it tells our story. Here, of a wind that brought you to me. There, of a lonely smith, a broken wolf, a shattered man. You, the woman of fire and old magik. Our trip under Eod. The first time I tasted you…it’s all there, up until this moment. It may seem bare, only because our story does not end with this day; it begins. I doubt that as the seasons pass there will be room enough on the metal to inscribe it all, though we shall try.”

  Morigan kissed the instructing hand and held it to her chest.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Now I bind its hilt, find it a sheath that will fit, and you tend to those blisters on your hands. Cleanse the toil from yourself. My tub works…I shall join you when I am finished. So that we can consider a name,” said Caenith.

  “A name,” agreed Morigan.

  She wandered to the corner. Once there, she was amused and not terribly surprised to learn that Caenith’s tub had none of Eod’s modern conveniences—no faucets or taps, only an arm-operated pump. Thus, with more sweat and grunting, she got to work on filling the bath. At least the water she pumped was steaming and delightfully scouring on her skin, once she had undressed and slid into the tub’s roomy ceramic embrace. She was reclining with her ears under the water when she felt Caenith’s presence shadow her. For a time, Caenith watched the Fawn. He was holding their dagger and breathless at the nymph—her net of red hair, silky limbs, and lily-white breasts floating on the water. When he climbed into the tub, black-skinned and monstrously aroused, with his canvas of knots and veins coruscating in the sensuous light of dawn, Morigan was as terrified of as she was excited by what was to happen. Sex was not his intent, however, for they had not taken their oaths. Caenith set the dagger down on the rim of the bathtub, untied his hair, and doused his head. Then he scrubbed his beard and torso. After cleaning off enough of the dirt, he glided his hands up Morigan’s thighs and pulled her near so that their softest parts touched. She could feel that he was no longer hard with desire. In fact, his features were weighed with remorse. Morigan cupped the sides of his face and waited for him to say what was clearly troubling him.

  “You have cleansed yourself of doubt. You have put the pain of your mother in a box of memories, where you can honor and examine it as you wish. But I have yet to share my sadness and my wickedness with you,” said Caenith.

  “Your wickedness?” asked Morigan.

  Shamefully, the Wolf nodded and would not meet her eyes.

  “Tell me,” she insisted.

  “I…am old,” he sighed. “I have wandered to many places on Geadhain. My tribe in the East has long fallen, or been driven to dishonorable ends to protect our kind. I have seen the Salt Forests of the West, the Land of the Sun King in the South, Eod in the North, and all places in between. And once, the Iron City, too.”

  “Menos?”

  “Yes. Years, hundreds of years ago. I lived there. I…killed there. In the pits where men fight other men for the entertainment of masters and for coin. I was the greatest of that age. A…a monster, some would say.”

  Morigan could not claim to know much of the Iron City, only that its society was as barbaric as Eod’s was righteous. She knew that one could find any pleasure in Menos, no matter how dark, so long as one paid for it. The sicker the sin, the greater the price. Nonetheless, nothing could sour her feelings for the Wolf. She needed to understand his state of mind, though, for she knew he was a hunter, not a ruthless killer. She wanted to know what had driven him to abandon his virtue.

  “Why?” she whispered.

  Caenith fought for justification himself. What brought you to that pit? What kept you there? he frowned. As tight as their bodies were, and as raw as the moment was, a few of Morigan’s intrepid bees crept into the chinks in Caenith’s armor, which they had yet been unable to penetrate. The nectar in him was sweet with sorrow and self-loathing. The bees drank, and Morigan blinked.

  She is in a roaring coliseum, underground surely, for the noise echoes painfully in the ear, and the dankness of death is like a fog in this airless space. At the center of the ring, she stands, screaming to the vile masters who cheer her from what they think to be safe distances, though she could bound to every one of them and rip off their heads with the merest wish. Her body is impenetrable; she could not be stronger or faster if she were steel and lightning. She needs no armor, no sword; those are for the fleshy piles of sundered limbs and spooled entrails that warm her feet.

  “I am death. I am the Wolf. Worship and fear me. You live only because I have not hunted you yet. I live because I am life. I am unbound by grief. I am alone. I am lord of all,” she rejoices. Yet all that exits her mouth is a garbled howl.

  In a breath, she returned to the world and spoke. “A wolf without a pack. A man whom time cast out. I can see the sadness that you carried with you. Too proud to die, too weary to live. You wanted to forget, as that was all that remained of you. You gave in to every black urge in your spirit. You surrendered to the Wolf. You let the beast ride you because the man was tired of living.”

  “Y-yes!” exclaimed Caenith. “Did you? Were you—”

  “I was. Slipped right in. I think I am growing stronger, but that is not the point.”

  “No, it is not,” scowled Caenith, and tried to look away again.

  Morigan held his head. “Face this. Speak of this. This is what you must do.”

  “My Fawn, you must know that I would never again—”

  “You can’t say that, Caenith. The darkness is there, waiting, in all of us. Sadly, it is wilder and more demanding of its freedom in you than in most. How long have you carried this, Caenith? This terrible guilt? Is this why you now create in silence? Seeking to balance through discipline and art the crimes you feel you have committed? Is that not just the other side of the sufferance? It seems no better than surrendering to the Wolf.”

  “You do not know what you say. I feel nothing but regret for those years. I took many lives. Hundreds, possibly thousands. The red haze I was in does not permit me to recall how many I tore in twain.”

  Morigan was fearsome as she said, “Lives that chose to be taken. There are worse fates in Menos than offering up one’s life to the sword, I hear. I am not one to lightly consider murder; every life is a loss. But there is a difference between death by choice and death by cold error or design. And what of your choices? If you are a man who can live many lifetimes, then be just that, Caenith. Live another life. You have already proven that you can. As a smith and a hermit. Now it is time to choose another. A life with me. Perhaps a balance of man and Wolf will bring you the strength that you need to tame each.”

  She could sense the conflict boiling under his twisting face in how his heart sped up and he suddenly wrenched her against himself, wrapping his grand limbs about her until she thought she might go numb. As he released himself of his ancient shame, his body slowly unclenched. He had not been weeping, although his flesh trembled with similar relief. He gazed upon his Fawn in wonder.

  “You are a woman like no other. I feel as if each new day you become something greater.”

  Morigan blushed and smiled.

  “I have thought of a name,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For my dagger. What is the old Ghaedic word for penance?”

  Caenith pondered, then replied, “Siogtine, though it also means the freedom that comes after. The quest and the reward are as one.”

  “Then you have earned your penance, and I shall be your reward.”

  The Wolf’s eyes caught the light of dawn peeking through the roof and flared it to glory.

  “If you will have it, I would bleed myself and swear myself to you. Tonight,” he declared.

  “I would have it,” answered Morigan.

  As th
e sun invaded the den, they washed each other clean. Sometimes Caenith licked Morigan’s pearly skin, as wolves do, and she accepted it, as she accepted him. Though their flesh was tempting to the other, any passion was restrained by the jittery excitement of what they were about to do. For Morigan, it was the final plunge off a cliff that began with exhilaration and had not relented since. For the Wolf, it was the elation of finding this most precious she-wolf and woman who could love him as not one thing but two, and whom he felt all the solitude of his life had prepared him to revere, honor, and protect. They dressed their glistening forms in what sooty clothes were about, having decided to see if the palace could provide them with finer attire. If not, they would make the blood promise as is. No petty mortal decorum would stop them. Tonight they would speak the oldest oaths and bleed their devotion into the other.

  Tonight they would be one.

  II

  How quickly the day fled in preparation for their union. While the plan was for an unassuming ceremony, everything changed once the lovers appeared at Thule’s chamber, invited themselves in, and informed him of their intentions to be wed by blood and ancient promises. The sage received the news with a pale bleak face, like a man who had been told that he had days to live.

  “I should tell the queen, if you will permit me,” said Thule. “A marriage of this sort—of blood and promise—is historic. These are not customs often seen, and I would like to partake in them, too, if there is room.”

  Caenith stepped forth and clapped the old man’s shoulder as if they were comrades. “In the Fuilimean, the blood promise, one or each supplicant can be accompanied by a parent, mentor, sister, or brother. Any who loves them, wholly and truly. I have no one. She has you. The greatest honor among those gathered to celebrate the promise is with the one who binds us. I think that you should tie us.”

  “Tie you?” questioned Thule.

  “With a braid woven of our hair,” explained Morigan. “It’s quite a simple ritual, as Caenith has described it to me: a binding, a sharing of blood, a trading of promises. I’ve never heard of so romantic and modest a ceremony. I can’t think of a better way for us to be wed.”

  “To swear to each other,” corrected Caenith.

  Blood, spoken vows, physical binding. Sounds more like magik than observance. How much you’ve grown, Morigan. How scared I am for you. So brave and unflappable…and armed, too! Good kings, when did you get a knife? Or that fancy bracelet? You will end up a warrior queen before I know it, fretted Thule.

  Caenith clapped the old man again, as he had not replied, his eyes glazed over in thought. “What say you?” asked Caenith.

  “Yes! Of course. I shall bind you. I am pleased beyond words to have this duty.” Thule bowed. “If there is to be a wedding, or promising, or what have you, we shall need to clean the two of you up. Proper attire! A lady should be clean, anointed, and dressed in more than rags. A man”—Thule appraised the hulking monster in the room, who hadn’t worn a shirt in all the time they had been acquainted—“well, ideally a man wears clothes. Nice ones. Top and bottom.”

  “Oh,” said Caenith, genuinely surprised. “I can agree to that. However, finding a tailor who can swath my frame could prove a challenge.”

  “The palace has many a skilled needle. You needn’t worry about that,” said Thule, and ran out into the halls to flag down a servant. As luck would have it, he happened to catch Mater Lowelia herself, en route to some emergency that required a belt full of solvents and rags. When she heard of a ceremony—which, despite Thule’s mention of blood, she could not conceive as anything but a normal wedding—her cheeks lit up like candles.

  “Deary mittens!” cried Lowelia, once she’d arrived. “We can’t have you two together! No fruit before the feast or you’ll spoil your appetites! I don’t quite know what witchery the good sage was prattling on about—blood and nonsense—but I do know that good, honest suitors don’t see their brides before the promised hourglass! I’ll be taking you out of here, my rose. We need to dress you up right and pretty and burn those tatters you call clothing!”

  Mater Lowelia swooped to claim Morigan’s hand and tugged her out the door. Morigan waved to the Wolf.

  “I’ll see you tonight!”

  “Tonight, my Fawn,” vowed the Wolf.

  “Does she know? Of Menos?” asked Thule, as soon as they were alone.

  “I told her,” declared Caenith plainly. “She has seen what I am. I shall strive to be the man that she sees in me, not the creature I have been. You, of all people, should be familiar with that journey.”

  Thule nodded. As for what Caenith had shared with Morigan, whether it was the details of being the ancient pit-fiend or secrets even deeper than that, Thule was unsure. He bet on the latter. Whatever the man was, Thule was no longer cautious of his aims with Morigan. He even respected the smith a little. Affably, Thule slapped Caenith’s arm, and then winced as his hand smarted from the blow.

  “Let’s see if we can’t turn you into a gentleman,” said Thule.

  “You can try,” the Wolf said, smiling.

  III

  “What a vision!” cried Mater Lowelia.

  Morigan studied herself in the oval looking glass, as agape as the woman behind her. She was astonished at what the mater had conjured up from only a bolt of fabric, a spool of thread, a pair of shears, and an hourglass or two. Absentmindedly, Morigan stroked the sensuously sheer crimson shift. She turned from side to side to admire its deep neckline and deeper back, and fidgeted with the plaited belt that cinched the garment to voluptuousness. She fiddled with the small sheath at her waist, Caenith’s gold bracelet, and the snipped firebuds bound up in the woven crown of her hair. With the prick of her weapon like a thorn, the slimness of her form, and the bloom of her scarlet beauty, Morigan could have been a living rose. She had never felt so lovely; she hardly recognized herself.

  “If you were a rose before, you are a queen of the garden now. Oh, look at how you shine!” exclaimed the mater, as she put a hand over her mouth and fought back tears. Mater Lowelia’s emotion was infectious, and Morigan’s eyes misted as well. A moment later, they found themselves in an embrace.

  “As pretty as the queen herself,” whispered the mater. “Don’t you dare share that, now that it’s been said, but it’s the truth.”

  “Thank you, Mater,” said Morigan, still holding the woman tightly. “I haven’t had a mother in too many years to count, but you are certainly close to one. You will join us tonight, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  Once they were done squeezing the tears out of each other, Mater Lowelia pulled back and fluffed the garment, and then lovingly tucked any loose bits of hair back into Morigan’s crown—leaving a few crimson twists near her ears.

  “You are a daughter to me on this day,” admitted the mater.

  The bees buzzed and stung Morigan’s head with a vision.

  She is a handful of life, made still and pale from death: an infant’s corpse wrapped in white cotton, whose wood resting box is far older than its occupant. She was not even a year when she died, when that monster took her—

  “She died. Your daughter,” blurted Morigan.

  Cannily, the mater eyed the young witch. “I was warned that you could sniff out thoughts like a truffle hog. Yes, my daughter passed well before she could ever grow into a flower like you.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, no, my rose, perhaps you should. I have not thought of my Cecelia in some time. Not remembering is almost the same as forgetting, and that is a disservice to the dead,” she said, her cheeriness wilting to gloom. Sighing heavily, the mater padded over to the bed in this humble room; her living arrangements were as simple as what Morigan had slept in, if a little more untidy, with a loom and sewing board in one corner and a dresser in another. Morigan left the mirror and knelt by the mater. The older woman was wringing her hands, and Morigan took them, steadying the tremors of emotion in the woman. The mind-wit
ch had to will the bees not to drink in this current of sorrow, and they unhappily droned at their confinement, but went no further. The mater tipped her head.

  “It’s an awful tale. I shouldn’t spoil your wedding day with it.”

  “It’s not a wedding, not exactly. And I’ve seen far worse than you might think,” replied Morigan. “As Caenith has explained it, the cleansing of one’s personal ghosts is an important step in the blood promise. Each of us has done this, and I feel that I am a wiser, stronger woman for doing so. If you have not thought of Cecelia, then you should. I am an ear, if you want it.”

  “You’re likely right,” sniffed the mater. “There is a wisdom to you that is not seen on younger faces. What a strange girl you are. I shall tell you, then, and I’d warn you not to make the same mistakes, but you seem much smarter than I am. When I was around your age, I made a terrible choice with whom I chose to love. My husband, Trevor Borvine”—her face crinkled in anger, and she spit on the floor—“well, that should give you an idea what I think of him. A wretched, worthless boor as poor and small in every way that your choice of gentleman is rich and grand. Came from an established line of failures. I should have known better; any woman would have.”

  The mater reclaimed her hands and hung her head in them; it was a while before she continued. “My little Cecelia must have been crying, as children do. I only stepped away for a speck to check on the laundry drying on the roof. Bloody stone that was Trevor never moved unless the ale ran out. I never allowed him to be alone with her for long. I worried that he might do…well, that he might do what he did. Shook her. Scrambled her tiny brains and then put her back in the crib when she went quiet. I don’t even think he knew she was dead. I remember that sound, even though I was outside. Her tiny scream, then the coldest and longest silence.” Both women shuddered. “A calm you know ain’t right to hear.”