Immortal Progeny (Fragile Gods Book 1)

by Philippa Ballantine

When Rowan called out, she urged her horse into a gallop with a couple of hard kicks. The tree branches whipped at her, but she plowed on, terrified of what she might find The Pierced Man doing to her sister. Instead, she pulled up short amongst a sea of bones.

  This unexpected sight made her breath jam in her chest. Life had been lost here, and very recently. Rowan and The Pierced Man sat on their horses looking at the carpet of skeletons, appearing as mystified as Vervain felt.

  It took a moment but she eventually recognized the great size of the bones meant they could only be one thing: the beasts from under the temple. Vervain sat back in her seat and looked over them with the sinking heart of someone who lost a great deal very suddenly.

  Every one of those great, hairy, beautiful beasts returned to a death they only recently conquered. The miraculous rebirth suddenly withdrawn, they lay scattered in vast, sad piles across the forest floor.

  Rowan was crying, silently, in the way of someone who had never been allowed to cry, her hands clenching the reins, tears gliding down her cheeks. Vervain noticed The Pierced Man put a hand on her sister's shoulder, squeezing it slightly. He was charming even in her moment of despair.

  Vervain urged her horse up next to Rowan. She didn't know her very well, but she shared the same aching loss in her belly. Resurrected, granted breath and life again, it seemed they fell back into death as quickly as they rose from it. It felt unfair, even though the Zoekers pointed out many times to her that unfairness was a constant in the world.

  "What happened?" Vervain reluctantly asked the only one who might have a clue. She did not like looking at his handsome, lying face, but she had to for any chance of understanding. Her Zoeker training held.

  The Pierced Man shrugged, his eyes not meeting Vervain's. "You are a shattered goddess, so your doings are fragile. Three of you came out of the God Void, but you are not yet united. The Middle Way is missing."

  Vervain did not know what he was talking about, but something of a proprietary gleam in his eyes unnerved her. She did not like being beholden to him, and she was just about to tell him so when the ground moved.

  The crack in the rock punctured along the meadow, and sent the huge bones tumbling down into an abyss. Grabbing hold of her horse’s reins, Vervain tried to hold the animal still beneath her, but as the ground under its hooves continued to roll there seemed little chance of that.

  The sound of trees crashing and the horses’ frightened cries filled the air, and she was lost in the chaos for a moment. She saw Rowan’s horse throw her to the ground before it fell into the widening pit between them. The Pierced Man rolled off his mount and got to his feet, but even his face was twisted with confusion and fear. Then a slab of rock twisted underneath him, and even his chimera reflexes couldn’t save him. He tumbled out of view.

  The ground shuddered for a minute, and Vervain was forced to slip off her mount too. When it finally calmed, it was with a deep rumble like an animal subsiding to its master’s voice. The clearing was now cracked down the middle, with trees thrown down as if they were just kindling, and for a moment Vervain stared across at her sister.

  They both knew what it was since they had both experienced it. Gentian Stonekeeper was not called that as a joke. Climbing to her feet, Vervain looked back the way they had come, towards the ruined temple, and there she was; that little round woman who no one would have looked twice at in the market. The uplifted earth was her doing, and it was easy to see where she had got the power from.

  As she stepped out from the darkness of the trees into the fading sun, the stains of blood around her mouth were obvious. Dried rivulets of it covered her lips and neck, and Vervain understood just how she’d escaped the destruction of her temple. She had drunk the blood taken from the sisters, and now they were in real danger.

  Rowan got to her feet first, and despite everything they had seen and experienced, she held out a hand to the one that had stolen her. Perhaps to her Gentian looked more like a ghost than anything. The Pierced Man was still not visible.

  “Rowan!” Vervain called, even though she couldn’t reach her sister across the deep chasm between them. She did turn her pale face her away though, but it was a broken mask and contained no real human expression.

  In desperation Vervain scrambled over the tossed about stone and cascades of mud, trying to reach her sister, but there was no way across. She was forced to listen as Gentian began to speak, and it was not in the tone she had used in the belly of the temple.

  “Don’t go with them, Rowan,” she said, walking along the unbroken edge of the earth. “They don’t know you as I do. They don’t love you as I do.”

  “You tried to kill us you old bitch,” Vervain screamed, throwing fistfuls of dirt in her direction.

  “Maybe you,” the Stonekeeper replied, not even glancing in her direction. “But not my daughter.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Vervain saw Rowan twitch, a twist of her shoulders that reminded her of a beaten animal. After everything that they had suffered under the temple, surely her sister would not go back to Gentian?

  “I only ever did what the goddess demanded,” the old woman said, crouching down and leaning towards Rowan. She really had no shame. “All that darkness, all the strange whisperings in the night, I kept you away from them, didn’t I?”

  At last she saw the Pierced Man was scrambling up the vertical slice of rock, and despite being a chimera Vervain hoped he could intervene in this madness.

  Rowan was nodding, but so far had not said anything.

  Gentian held out her hand towards her once daughter. “Some of the things that the goddess demanded I do, I didn’t want to. I swear, I didn’t, but that is what it means to have faith. You know that, Rowan.”

  Vervain’s sister was now climbing up to her. Throwing stones now wasn’t going to make much of a difference. The Zoeker sank back on her heels, unable to believe Rowan was so easily manipulated. It was as if the bloodletting had never even happened.

  “Yes faith,” Rowan finally spoke as she climbed the last few feet to the solid ground by Gentian. It was going to be a close call if the Stonekeeper or the chimera were going to reach her sister first. Vervain held her breath.

  Gentian smiled widely as the child she had stolen and manipulated for a decade took her hand and rose to stand beside her. Vervain’s cry of outrage dried up in her throat. All that suffering had apparently meant nothing to Rowan.

  The Pierced Man looked as shocked as her, though he was only a few steps away. When Rowan pulled the knife from her belt and slammed the point into the wrinkled throat of Gentian, it was with the smile of a fanatic on her lips.

  The Stonekeeper didn’t even have enough time to cry out as the young woman pulled her backwards against her in an awkward and deadly embrace. The stone responded to the death struggles of its keeper.

  Vervain was tossed from her feet as the earth buckled and danced beneath her. The angry roar filled her ears and rattled her bones. She had time to scream Rowan’s name once, and then dirt filled her mouth and she fell.

  Her last glimpse of her sister was her triumphant yell as covered in blood, the Pierced Man reached her. Then there was nothing but darkness and the wrath of the ground.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Penance and Realization

  The woman didn't stay kneeling in the street for long. While Amaranth looked at her with her mouth agape, not quite knowing what to say, the woman who called herself Fleabane's mother gathered up her skirts and got to her feet.

  "Quickly, we must get inside."

  As Fleabane and Violet led the horse and cart into the stables, Amaranth sat quietly, the dogs sitting silent behind her, the beetle-scorpions shifting at the base of her neck feeding off her own confused feelings. The lethargy of the place was coming back over her again as the giddiness of their ascent to the city began to wear off. For all of that, her reception in Penance disturbed her.

  She watched from the corner of one eye as the two women slipped a coin to
the stable hand, who took the bridle of their mare. Then Fleabane and Violet guided her down from the cart. Keeping to the shadows, they directed Amaranth between them into the house.

  Ceelut and Cedejo flattened their ears, but followed without complaint, offering no objection to the direction they were taking. Amaranth felt her limbs shaking the further they went, but luckily the room Violet rented was not deep in the boarding house.

  Up one flight of stairs, and Violet unlocked the door. Amaranth observed the slight movement of her hand just before she entered the room and wondered at it. Now was not the time for questions. All energy drained from her body, and it was an utter relief when the women deposited her onto the first of the two beds in the room.

  Falling backwards, Amaranth felt as though the room was spinning. Was that how the pit drivers felt when drunk? She heard them talking about it over the years, but it sounded a lot more pleasant.

  "I should be able to hear the water from here," she murmured.

  The bed creaked a little as Violet sat on it. She placed a cool hand on Amaranth's forehead. "I took care of it for you," she said, her voice soft. "I suspected it might distress you."

  How could she know that when Amaranth didn't even know it arriving in Penance? This was not a good place, but the woman Fleabane claimed as her mother seemed nice. Ohian seemed nice too.

  It occurred to Amaranth she didn't have a lot of ways to judge the quality of a person. She'd been trapped in the pits her whole life, consumed with survival and eking out an awareness of the wider world through the minds of men who made their living by the suffering of others. Of all the things she contemplated happening, her own shortcomings were not among them.

  Perhaps she should have cried? Was that an appropriate response? Would that help her chances of survival? Amaranth let out a groan of frustration. The truth was she had almost forgotten how to cry. It never meant anything in the pits.

  With no one else to rely on, and her body shaking with exhaustion she couldn't explain, Amaranth knew she had no choice but to trust Fleabane and Violet.

  Mustering what strength she could, the girl levered herself up with her arm, and examined them as closely as she could. Violet remained on the bed beside her after she withdrew her hand and bent her head. Fleabane stood by the door in the shadows, but didn't meet Amaranth's gaze either.

  "What am I to you?" she asked finally. "What would make you send your own child into the pits to look for me?"

  Violet sighed but made no answer.

  Amaranth clenched her teeth together for a moment, wishing she could make humans obey her as progeny did. "Why don't you answer...if you don't I will leave!"

  She half expected them to tell her she couldn't.

  Violet's shoulders slumped, but she nodded. "If that is your wish."

  Amaranth wished she had both hands at that point so she might slap the woman and not fall back on the bed like a fish. "Fleabane," she snapped, "you know what I am. Somehow that meant enough for you to go to the pits. I demand you tell me!"

  Fleabane tilted her head, and rocked back on her feet for a moment, before she choked out, "I cannot. No one can, it is for you to discover yourself."

  Ceelut growled softly, but remained sprawled out with his fellow progeny in the space by the door.

  "Very well," Amaranth said, clenching her fist, "then what can you tell me?"

  "You are in danger," Violet spoke up. "There are chimera here in Penance. They are here for you, and if they find you they will take everything you are and make it theirs."

  "Ma, we met one already when we left Damnation." Fleabane whispered, apparently not so very proud of her achievement. "I killed her. That's where we got the cart from."

  Violet let out a tight controlled hiss, and closed her eyes, as if she could not believe her child's incompetence. "Then they will already know Amaranth is alive."

  She wanted to ask why anyone beyond the pit drivers of Damnation would care, but she didn't want to hear the same circuitous argument. Amaranth had to get as many clues from Violet and Fleabane as she could, if she stood any chance of finding out who she was.

  Flicking her eyes between the daughter and the mother, she tried to read their expressions as best she could. It was not her greatest skill since her experience was so limited. Amaranth chose to remain silent, hoping they would drop some juicy morsel.

  Violet got up from the bed and began to pace. "I had hoped we would have a few more days, a chance to get to the temple without any interference, but that is lost now." She stopped and glared at her daughter. "Go at once and take the cart away from here."

  "Where?" Fleabane asked, her face turning sullen. Amaranth began to get the feeling there was no small measure of resentment between the two of them. Her own mother had been in her life for such a short time Amaranth only thought of the childhood bond as a sweet shelter. Observing what happened around her told her it could obviously be so much more complicated than that. It was all very instructional.

  Violet waved her hand. "It doesn't matter, over the edge of the cliff for all I care. We have no chance of pretending Amaranth has not come to Penance, but we can at least keep the chimeras from finding this house immediately."

  Fleabane's face set in ugly lines, as she crossed her arms in front of her. "We weren't followed."

  "But the cart," Violet said slowly, as if talking to a very small child. "You brought the cart here, and now we can't be sure."

  Fleabane looked positively mutinous, but she gave a short nod. "I'll deal with it," she replied before turning and disappearing out of the door.

  Violet didn't even watch her go. Instead, she got up swiftly from the bed and set about packing her few belongings into a bag. Amaranth watched her cautiously. Her progeny dogs did not move, but laid their heads on their paws, only a glimmer of their golden eyes peering out at the happenings in the room.

  "I'm not going anywhere," Amaranth finally said, though it was quiet enough Violet had to spin about.

  "What did you say?" It wasn't spoken harshly, but nevertheless Amaranth had to clear her throat and try again.

  "I said, 'I'm not going anywhere.’"

  Instead of reacting with shouting and hand waving, Violet let out a sigh. "I am sorry, Amaranth. I know this must be very confusing for you, and I wish I could tell you more, but there are rules about such things. Rules written in the air of this place. I would not risk your..."—here she paused as if picking her words with great care—"inheritance for anything."

  It was a strange thing to say, but Amaranth was becoming accustomed to strangeness. With a tilt of her head, she tried another tactic. "Then I will go with you, if you tell me your story—yours and Fleabane’s."

  The older woman pursed her lips. "I suppose…if I am careful I can do that."

  When Amaranth nodded for her to continue, Violet spoke while finishing packing the last of her meagre possessions into the bag. "I was once a priestess of the Lord of Thorn—I had been for most of my life until that point." She gestured Amaranth over to the door. She peeked out into the corridor, and then glanced back at the younger woman. "I came to Penance for the first time when I was only twenty years old. I was pregnant with...my daughter. I hope that is enough for the moment, because I am not sure if we will make it to the next safe house."

  Amaranth stared up at her. She was still unsure about Violet, but there seemed to be no deception in her tone, and the dogs did not react to her as they had to any of her real enemies. Something about the way the older woman held herself suggested she was frightened of what lay in the city, and more frightened about what might be coming for them.

  "For now," Amaranth replied, "I will follow you."

  Violet went to touch her arm, but jerked her hand back as if she had suddenly realized something. She opened the door and led the way out. Amaranth and Ceelut and Cedejo padded after her. What once seemed like a welcoming house, now felt as though it was packed with dangerous shadows. Every creak of the floorboards made Amaranth wince. It w
as worse not knowing exactly what Violet and Fleabane were so frightened of. Amaranth saw so much in her time since escaping the pits that anything seemed possible.

  They made it to the doorway just in time to see the back of the cart disappearing into the rain and darkness. Fleabane might have been a terrifying companion, but Amaranth felt like she was a connection to the pits and somehow that comforted her. Though her past had been terrible, she had at least known what she was facing.

  Violet jerked her head in the opposite direction, and their motley group followed after. The older woman kept to the edges of the street, and Amaranth tried her best to keep up since she was setting such a quick pace. In the cold and the rain, Amaranth found her breath harder and harder to take. She would not call out to Violet—she didn't want her weaknesses to be noted just yet. Ceelut pressed against her side, offering his strength, while Cedejo roamed back and forward sniffing the air.

  The rain must have been keeping the citizens of Penance indoors, because they only encountered one group of cloaked and hooded penitents on the main road. Violet watched them, as did the progeny dogs, but they passed on without incident. Amaranth began to wonder if she fell in with some kind of paranoia-filled woman. Had they just left a perfectly good house for a pointless dash in pounding rain?

  She followed Violet as she turned into a narrow alleyway, though Cedejo let out a low growl of complaint. Amaranth pushed herself hard and managed to catch hold of Violet's arm. Both of them were soaked through, but when Violet turned around, her eyes were still concerned.

  "Not much further," she said, shouting just a bit to be heard over the pounding rain. "The inn ahead is run by a friend."

  Amaranth could no longer conceal her exhaustion. "I don't know if I will be able to make it much further." She leaned against Ceelut, wrapping her arm around the great animal's neck.

  Violet glanced between the two of them, and her shoulders slumped. "They took so much from you, didn't they?” It wasn't a question and Amaranth caught a glimpse of simmering anger beneath it all.