by Krista Rose
I took a shaking breath. I’m here, Alyxen.
Are you- Did Hamund really- I could feel the betrayal lurking in his thoughts, the knowledge of what the Prince had done conflicting with his memory of a man who had tended to a dying boy. More heartbreak, more suffering. I desperately wished I could save him the pain, save any of them.
But I couldn’t, not from this.
Yes. I looked at Brannyn, mindless with grief, then at Kryssa, collapsed at my feet, and finally at Marla, her skin luminous against the dark glitter of blood. Yes, he really did.
He didn’t reply, closing off from me after a flicker of pain, and I was grateful for it. I could barely focus past the throbbing in my skull, and the thoughts and emotions of the others sharpened it to a blinding ache.
We had to get out of the Great Hall. I remembered at last that Alyxen had built the Prince an elevator for quick escapes, and looked around for it, spotting it on the far side of the chamber, where the fire had yet to spread its greedy fingers. I hurried to inspect it, my chain clinking against the floor with every step. The elevator was solid, meant to carry four if the Prince needed to flee with his guards. I nodded, approving, then returned to my siblings, the glare of the flames almost blinding me.
“Brannyn, I need you to carry Kryssa to the elevator.” I put as much command as I could muster into my voice; he was too far in shock for me to be gentle.
He didn’t look at me, only stood and lifted Kryssa into his arms. I grabbed the leather-bound chest from the desk, closing the lid to stack as many books and scrolls and maps as I could manage on top of it, and hauled it away from the flames. I knew we might need the money from it to seek out another healer if my sister took ill again.
I put the chest beside my blank-faced brother in the elevator, and returned to the room, searching for my missing dress. It was irrational to look for it with the fire creeping closer, but it had been my mother’s, and I did not want to leave it behind.
I found it beside a wardrobe nearly bursting with clothes, tucked into the shadows near the elevator. I pulled on a thick cloak trimmed in soft fur- I learned later it was ermine- and began piling as much clothing and fabric as I could grab onto a second one. I tied the corners together to make a hasty sack before returning to my brother. I pulled the levers, and marveled as we glided smoothly down toward the forest floor with hardly a lurch.
Alyxen was right to be proud of this.
We finally settled gently onto the platform beside the horse pens. The world was quiet; I no longer heard shouting from above. Kylee was waiting for us, and she rushed to help me with the things I had taken from the Prince. Beneath her scowl, I could sense her relief, though her eyes flickered as she glanced at Brannyn and Kryssa.
They’ll be alright, I assured her.
Of course they’ll be alright. She glared at me. Why wouldn’t they be?
Her anger made pain flare in my temples, and I winced, wishing I could rub it away. Not now, Kylee. I don’t have the strength to fight you.
She muttered a foul curse under her breath and stalked off, stowing the sack of clothes in the back of the wagon before swinging into the saddle of her stallion.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the still-smoking remains of what had once been the Darkling Prince, and I swallowed, ignoring the urge to look as I carried the chest to the wagon and climbed in beside the prone form of Kryssa. Brannyn sat beside me, his face blank as he stared out at the Forest.
Alyxen and Reyce arrived a few minutes later, sweating and out of breath. For a moment, Reyce’s eyes looked strange, but when he glanced at me again they were normal, tired sapphire reflections of my own.
“Where’s Teodore?” Alyxen asked as he climbed into the driver’s seat. Reyce scrambled up behind him.
“I gave him to Thellin.” Kylee scanned the trees as we started forward, searching for signs of ambush. “He’s too old for this journey, anyhow.”
Alyxen’s shields flickered, revealing his bitterness. “We’re all too old for this journey.”
I sighed, silently agreeing, and began the task of mending my broken family.
BRANNYN
I only looked back once as we rode away from the Camp of the Darkling Prince. From the ground, I could see the blaze and the smoke, but not the source. I thought of Tanner, and Digger and Breaker, and even of Bryonis. I hoped my friends had made it to safety, and nearly regretted what I had done.
Then I remembered Marla’s face, cold and still with death. My rage flickered briefly before it was smothered by my grief. She had asked me to forgive her, and I had. But how could I ever forgive myself?
I shuddered, before turning my back, and my thoughts, away from all that had come before.
LANYA
18-19 Alune 578A.F.
I am not strong, not like Kryssa. I am not brave, like Brannyn, nor clever like Alyxen. I am not as self-sufficient as Kylee; I am not even as insightful as Reyce, though he seemed less so in the days that followed our departure from the Camp, his eyes dark with a child’s fear. The weight of all that had happened lay heavily upon us all.
No, I am nothing like the others. What I am, in the end, is practical, and that sometimes feels more curse than blessing.
My brush with horror at the hands of the Prince was truthfully not as awful as it could have been. That is not to say I was not affected by it. Far from it, in fact. I would have liked nothing more than to curl into a ball and weep for days. But I could not, not when Kryssa was all but mindless. Not when Brannyn’s grief battered against me until I thought I would drown in it. Not when Reyce and Alyxen and even Kylee stared holes in me when they thought I wouldn’t notice, their collective terror swamping my own.
I remembered when I had been little, and Kryssa had brushed my hair while the others slept, her voice both bitter and wistful as she told me of our mother’s vision. Heaven had whispered to her, claiming us as the Gods’ chosen, and she had died for that dream.
I wanted to laugh at the sheer folly of it then, seated in that wagon as we fled the Camp of the Darkling Prince. If we were the Gods’ chosen, it was only because they liked to play with broken toys.
The horses Kylee had procured for us were young and fresh, prancing along merrily at a good pace. We did not stop at all that first day, nor well into the next, resting the horses as infrequently as we dared before continuing on. Our tracks were too noticeable in Alyxen’s altered wagon, and too easy to follow so deep in the Forest; we were looking for a road, one that would take us away from the darkness we had escaped, toward the mysterious, hopeful unknown.
I barely slept that first day, though the others did, rotating through shifts of napping in the bed of the wagon and driving it. I was exempted from having to take the reins so I could care for Kryssa: a daunting task, considering the damage.
Her mind had not fully healed from her ordeal with the Crone, and she was bleeding memories again. They mixed in her head in a terrifying, dizzying way, like a kaleidoscope of madness. The Prince’s perversions gnawed at her, disturbing and vile, and I was forced to delve through it, delicately piecing my sister’s mind back together, locking the memories away once more. I had seen the remnants of the Crone before; the memories repulsed me, but they were already familiar. The Prince’s mind, though disgusting, was mild by comparison.
But then I found his memories of the women that had refused him, and the reason why his chambers had been built directly over the pens of the pigs.
My stomach heaved, and I threw myself to the edge of the wagon, barely managing to reach it before I was violently ill. Who could do that to another person? I shuddered, and wondered if I would ever be able to forget this new horror.
The others turned to me in concern, but I waved them away. My skin was clammy as I sat back down, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I glanced at Kylee. “Don’t eat the pigs.”
She swallowed, white-faced, and said nothing.
I was careful to make sure that particular image wa
s buried as far as I could hide it.
It takes time to repair a broken mind. Even when I thought I was finished, I still had doubts. Was something left undone? Would all my work unravel?
I was also concerned because I had discovered Vitric within Kryssa’s mind. She had called for him when she was ill, his name a bright, shining light in her darkness. Now she kept the light locked away, treating his name like a memory, though it burned just as strongly.
I sat back, staring around at my siblings, my gaze pausing to rest on Brannyn’s face. What did we lose to remain together? How strong would the Gods make us become? Would we always be forced to choose between safety and happiness?
Were we meant to live our entire lives alone?
The thoughts depressed me, and when I finally allowed myself to sleep, somewhere in the morning of our second day, I dreamed of a life of emptiness.
20-25 Alune 578A.F.
It began to rain late in the second day, a chill, soaking spate that left us drenched and miserable as we huddled beneath the Prince’s cloaks. It continued for days, slowing our progress, though thankfully it erased signs of our passage.
On perhaps our fifth or sixth day, we at last found the road east, and Brannyn came out of his catatonia long enough to check the map and tell us that it might take another week and a half to reach Fallor. I stared up at the endless grey skies with a sigh, uselessly wishing for a break in the weather.
Mist rose from the earth in the evening, creating a haunting fog that roamed across the ground and all but obscured the road ahead. We had just agreed to stop for the night when Kylee leaned forward, pointing out across the gloom. “What is that?”
I squinted through the drizzle, following the line of her finger, and frowned. It looked like a bonfire, but who could keep a blaze going amidst all this rain?
Perhaps it’s magic, I thought, and shuddered, memories of the Crone crowding around me. But the others were staring toward the light with more hopeful expressions than I had seen in days, and I was tired of being cold and wet, so I swallowed my fears, and nodded. Alyxen started the wagon forward again, leading us toward the mysterious fire.
The mists parted before the hooves of the horses, and swirled in our wake. The rain muffled the sounds of our passage, so that I almost felt like we were ghosts as we approached what was clearly an ordinary flickering fire, set into the earth beneath a stone bower that protected it from the rain. A building rose out of the fog behind it, windowless and dark, the rain-slicked grey stone gleaming in the light of the abandoned fire. The entrance gaped, shadowed and ominous, like the mouth of some great forgotten beast, waiting to swallow us.
Alyxen slowed the wagon to a halt, his nerves filtering into the horses so that they pranced with unease.
“What is this place?” Kylee whispered, her voice barely audible above the crackle of flames. Her face was pale as she clutched Nightking’s mane, and he nickered softly, reassuring.
“I don’t know.” I glanced down at Kryssa. She was still sleeping, her face serene in dreamlessness. She had only woken a handful of times since leaving the Camp, chased by nightmares into disorienting, fearful reality. Each time I had forced her to eat, and had made her drink my pitiful attempts at tea, before she had sunk once more into healing oblivion.
I wished she were awake now, to make the choice about what we should do. But she was not, and Brannyn gazed at me in apathy, his grief leaving him numb to the dangers around us. The others watched me, waiting; it would be my decision.
I took a deep breath, and straightened my shoulders. “I’ll knock.”
I climbed from the wagon, their eyes following me as I crossed before the heat of the fire pit and walked up the smooth, shallow steps toward the doors, nearly hidden in the shadows of the entrance. As I drew closer, I could see faint light shining between the seams, and the air grew warmer.
I swallowed, bracing against my memories, and knocked as confidently as I could manage. The sound of my knock echoed within; had my siblings not been watching, I would have fled back to the safety of the wagon like a frightened deer.
I heard nothing from inside, but I did not know if it was because no one was responding to my knock, or because the doors muffled the sound of their approach, or because my heartbeat was thundering so loudly in my ears that it all but deafened me. I raised my hand and knocked again.
I was ready to knock a third and final time when I heard a noise from the other side of the door. I jerked back as it opened, spilling light and warmth across me.
For a moment, fear turned the figure before me into the looming form of the Crone, blood streaming from the shadows of her throat. I blinked and the image faded.
She was young, though it was impossible to judge her exact age beneath the delicate filigree of the black mask she wore, which left her eyes shadowed and mysterious. Much of her dark, curling hair was covered by the crimson hood attached to her robes, cleverly cut to be both loose and yet cling to every ample curve. Her arms were bare and smooth, tan despite the early spring.
“Welcome to the Temple of Vanae,” she murmured. Even her voice was lovely, a melodic dropping of vowels that made me sway toward her almost involuntarily. “Do you seek to honor the Goddess?”
“Ah-” I glanced over my shoulder at my siblings, drawing her attention to them. “I- we- are seeking shelter, my lady.”
“Of course.” Her full lips drew back in a smile, warm and comforting. Her eyes sparkled beneath her mask. “You may claim sanctuary for one night.” She drew the doors open wider. “Please, come in. I will send someone to care for your horses.”
It’s a temple, I told the others. Come inside. Brannyn, bring Kryssa.
I’m going to stay with the horses, Kylee said, thankfully too tired to be belligerent. I’ll join you once they’re seen to.
The others piled out of the wagon, their arms filled with our belongings. Brannyn lifted Kryssa gently, cradling her against his chest; she stirred briefly, her mind surfacing for a moment, only to sink once more into sleep.
The priestess- she was a priestess, I was sure of that now- looked concerned when she saw my sister. “Is she ill?”
I hesitated. Was there any simple answer to Kryssa’s ailment? I remembered the fear we had faced in the Camp, the threat of death that had hung over her for months before the healers had left. I did not dare trust strangers with the truth- but I did not want to lie to a priestess, either. “She has a headache, my lady,” I answered at last. It was nearly true, after all. “She just needs sleep to recover.”
She nodded, and crooked a finger before turning back into the hall. The slim smoothness of her back was exposed, scandalous and erotic in the flickering glow of the dim sconces that lined the hall. I followed, drawn to her sensuality like a moth to a flame, nearly hypnotized by the subtle sway of her hips beneath her robe.
The hall was lined with beautiful mosaics of people locked in passionate embraces; after a brief glance at them, I kept my eyes on the priestess, feeling blood burning along my cheeks. I had known that Vanae was the Goddess of Pleasure, as well as Beauty and Fertility, but I’d had no idea her worshippers embraced her tenets so… ardently.
The hallway ended at another set of double doors, these embossed with gleaming golden symbols I did not recognize. The priestess did not pause or look to see if we were still following, but pushed open the doors and walked into the large atrium beyond.
More masked, red-robed priests and priestesses waited within, seated on low couches or lounging on thick, comfortable pillows. The women were dressed similarly to the priestess leading us, in backless, hooded robes; the men wore robes that only covered their back and legs, leaving their chests bare and glistening with oils.
I swallowed, my ears filling with the sound of rushing blood.
The priestess walked casually between them toward a dark-skinned woman on a dais, who reclined on a couch draped with red-and-gold silks. She looked at us through the eyes of a gold-filigree mask as we approached, he
r eyes black and unknowable. The flawless smoothness of her skin gleamed beneath the lights of candles and wrought-iron lanterns scattered throughout the room, and glittered on the large gold bracelets that wrapped up the length of her forearms. Two girls in white robes and blank white masks knelt on either side of her couch, their heads bowed and eyes trained on the floor. I guessed them to be initiates, a little younger than me, though their complete stillness made them appear like statues, only the rise and fall of their chests revealing that they were actually alive.
The priestess that had led us into the room stopped before the woman’s couch, and knelt, spreading her hands before her, palm up. “Your Grace, these supplicants seek shelter and sustenance, in honor of the Goddess.”
The woman looked us over, her eyes lingering on Kryssa’s limp form. “So I see. Rise, Melore.” Her gaze turned to me, pinning me in place, and I felt as if all my secrets unrolled before her, both the awful and the mysterious alike. “I am Nephele, High Priestess of Vanae. What are you called?”
“Lanya Rose, your Grace.” I curtsied awkwardly, aware of every eye in the room being upon me. “These are my brothers and sisters. It’s an honor to be invited into your Temple.”
Nephele’s eyes remained upon my face, and I kept my features still, though I could do nothing for the flush that ran along my cheeks, embarrassed because I was dirty and stained with travel, and I hadn’t been able to bathe since leaving the Camp.
Nephele’s gaze never wavered; I could sense amusement within it, and sympathy for my discomfort. She gestured with a graceful hand. “Welcome, Lanya Rose. It shall be our pleasure to grant you, and your family, the hospitality of our Goddess, and honor Her with your comfort.”
I blinked as she clapped sharply, uncertain what she was offering. Melore stepped forward to take my elbow as other priests and priestesses rose around us, moving in a shared, effortless sensuality that left my knees trembling. They bowed to Nephele.
