9

North of Kirlan

WHILE KNOT’S REFUSAL TO accept the position of Goddessguard had hurt, Cinzia understood why he had refused. She could not imagine what it would be like, to be without family, without home or background or identity.

But it meant that she would have to do what she had planned next on her own.

Cinzia wrapped her cloak—an old, thinning brown thing she’d borrowed from her father—around her shoulders as she made her way through the Odenite tents. The sun had set, and it was getting dark. Cinzia lifted her lantern, checking the candle within. Plenty of wax and wick to light her way.

When she got to the edge of the clearing, she entered the forest. The location she sought was northeast of their own camp, not a mile away.

She was going to see the Beldam.

Their scouts—they had scouts now, which was something Cinzia had never considered, but Knot insisted was essential with a group this size, facing such opposition—kept vigilance over the Beldam’s group at all times. While the Beldam and the Odenites who had defected with her had not expressed any outright hostility towards them, their intentions were still unclear, and any attempts to make contact and discern those intentions had been rebuffed.

But perhaps if Cinzia went herself, alone, the Beldam would listen. Unless they could finish the Codex translation soon—and that was unlikely—the Beldam was the only person she could think of who might have more information about the Nine Daemons, and about the Outsider that had attacked them the other day.

As Cinzia moved through the forest, dusk became darkness, the shadows of the trees grew until they encompassed everything, and Cinzia shivered despite the relative warmth of the night. She was alone in a dark, unfamiliar forest; she had not anticipated the fear that would creep along behind her.

Sooner than Cinzia expected, she began to hear voices carrying faintly through the trees. Lights flickered ahead. She stumbled on roots, and twigs caught in her hair despite her lantern, but she finally came upon a clearing, at the center of which was a small pond.

Dozens of tents were packed into the clearing, and four or five large fires burned between them, each one surrounded by people. She ought to know these people, she thought. Not long ago they were Odenites, though the number of Jane’s followers had always been such that she had found it difficult to pick out more than a few individuals from the crowd. And the people in this clearing had chosen to follow the Beldam rather than Jane—rejecting their Prophetess almost as soon as they’d found her.

For them, tiellans had no place in the new Church of Canta.

Cinzia swallowed hard and pushed those thoughts down. She was not here to debate that issue. She was here for one reason only.

Cinzia walked slowly into the camp, looking for any indication of where the Beldam might be. She approached one of the fires cautiously. Around the fire, people drank and sang and chatted with one another. Other than the conspicuous absence of any tiellans, it looked exactly like one of the fires in the Odenite camp.

It did not take long for her to draw attention. One person glanced at her, then two, and soon everyone around the campfire she approached was staring at her in silence.

They would not have forgotten her, of course: Jane’s sister, the first disciple.

“What do you want?” someone finally asked.

“I am looking for the Beldam,” Cinzia said, straightening her shoulders. “I need to speak with her.”

“Of course you do,” someone muttered, their voice not quite low enough to be shielded by the crackle of the fire.

“Where can I find her?” Cinzia asked. She did not believe any of these people would actually hurt her, but they clearly did not think much of her waltzing into their camp.

“In her tent, near the fire at the center of camp,” a woman said, nodding her head in that direction.

“Thank you.” Cinzia heard whispering as she walked away, but was grateful she could not make out specifics. She was not sure she wanted to know what the Beldam’s followers thought of her.

The Beldam’s tent was not difficult to recognize. As Cinzia approached the larger fire at the center of camp, she saw one tent in particular that stood taller than the others, doors wide open. She drew more stares as she approached the tent, but she did not care. She blew out the candle of her lantern before she set it down.

Through the open tent flaps, she spotted the Beldam sitting on a large wooden chair, furs lining the ground beneath her feet. She looked even more thin and wiry than the last time Cinzia had seen her.

“It seems you have upgraded your living conditions since leaving us,” Cinzia remarked. The furs, the chair upon which she sat, the quality of the tent, were all a bit much.

“Hello, Priestess Cinzia. It is good to see you again.”

Cinzia inclined her head, but before she could respond the Beldam continued.

“I have only done what my followers have requested of me,” the Beldam said with a smile. “They insisted I live in comfort. I could not disagree with them; I am growing old, after all.”

“Your followers?” Cinzia asked, raising one eyebrow.

The Beldam’s smile faltered just slightly.

“Madam, is this woman bothering you?” Two men, both tall and strong, approached the tent on either side of Cinzia.

This woman? These men knew perfectly well who she was. Her scouts had reported no signs of the Beldam’s group becoming larger. But she said nothing. With the men on either side of her, she quite suddenly felt very small and alone. This was exactly why she had hoped to bring Knot, and now she regretted not simply asking him to come, even if he had refused her request to be her Goddessguard.

“No, of course not,” the Beldam said, her smile once again wide and unbending. “Leave us, why don’t you? I imagine we have a thing or two to discuss.”

“Very well.” They walked away together, although Cinzia could not imagine they went far.

“Some of the people in the camp have taken it upon themselves to protect me,” the Beldam said, watching the two men go. “They insist upon it, though I think there is very little from which they could actually protect me.”

“You still fear the Nine Daemons,” Cinzia said. She wanted to get to the crux of their conversation as quickly as possible.

“Of course I do,” the Beldam snapped. “As should you.”

“That is why I have come,” Cinzia said. “I wish to speak to you of them.”

The Beldam laughed, a halting cackle. “You had your chance at that,” she said, “when I was still in your camp.”

“I did not, actually.” Cinzia took a slow breath. She would not back down. She had the high ground here, and she would not allow this woman to twist the situation into something it was not. “You promised to share what you knew of the Nine, and you did not. Instead, you began holding your anti-tiellan meetings in secret. You absconded with hundreds of Jane’s followers before we even had a chance to speak again.”

“Jane’s followers?” The Beldam sat back in her chair. “I thought they were Canta’s.”

“Jane speaks for Canta,” Cinzia said. “Those who follow her follow the Goddess.” The dissonance between the words she spoke and her lack of conviction in them struck Cinzia with tangible force. The Beldam was right to criticize her for the slip.

“You don’t really believe that, my dear,” the Beldam said with a smile. “You cannot hide your doubt from me.”

“My doubts are not part of our current discussion, Beldam. I thank you to let them lie.”

The Beldam pressed her lips together, but then nodded, once.

“The meetings I held were not in violation of our agreement. You said yourself that I could speak whatever I wish when I’m alone. That was all I did, Priestess.”

“But you shared nothing of the Nine Daemons with us,” Cinzia said.

“You never sought after me to ask.”

So you left the very protection you sought from us in the first place? Cinzia wanted to say. That was your solution?

Instead, she took another breath. “I am here to ask you now,” she said.

The Beldam hesitated, and for a moment Cinzia had hope that the woman might actually cooperate. Then, the Beldam frowned. “If you came here to talk about the Nine Daemons, you will only meet disappointment, my dear. That ship has sailed for us.”

Cinzia clenched her jaw. She would not get angry. There was no need for that.

“The more time passes before we do something about them, the more power they accrue. Is that not true?”

The Beldam’s frown faded, her eyes boring holes into Cinzia. “Their gathering power is not something we can halt,” she said evenly. “I have accepted that, and so should you.”

“One of their emissaries appeared in our camp a few days ago.”

The Beldam leaned forward. “One of their emissaries?”

“An Outsider,” Cinzia said. “If that word means anything to you. We were fortunate to deal with it quickly. If we had not been prepared, it could have killed dozens.”

The Beldam leaned forward. “What did it look like? Did you see it yourself? How large was it?”

Cinzia stood a bit taller. “I can tell you. I could even show you the body, if you wish. But we need to have a frank conversation about this.”

The Beldam’s eyes narrowed, and she sat back in her chair.

At least that isn’t a no, Cinzia thought.

“Goddess rising,” the Beldam whispered. “It really is happening, then.”

“Of course it’s happening,” Cinzia snapped. “If you had any real knowledge, you would understand that.”

The Beldam waved a hand. “Knowledge does not equate with understanding.”

Cinzia stalked forward, and before she was aware of her actions, she grabbed the Beldam by the collar, thrusting her face into the old woman’s. “You will tell me what you know, before I—”

Someone yanked Cinzia backwards, sending her sprawling into the dirt outside the tent. Cinzia coughed, looking up to see one of the men who had approached earlier. Despite the fear swelling beneath her, she felt an overwhelming anger raging on the surface.

She stumbled to her feet, ignoring the man, and looked back at the Beldam. “Come with me,” she pleaded. “See for your—”

A stinging blow connected with one side of her face.

Cinzia blinked, looking up in shock at the man who had struck her. Her vision was blurry, the man’s face out of focus. “Why would you—”

The man’s fist came down again, and Cinzia collapsed to the ground, her vision fading in and out of blackness. She breathed in the dust, felt the dirt beneath her fingertips, and then there was a sharp pain in her abdomen. Had the man kicked her?

A part of her wondered where Canta was in this moment. Where was the power she had felt, protecting Jane from assassins? But another part of her knew better. If she was not receiving that power now, it must be for a reason.

But Goddess, this hurt.

Another kick thudded into her belly.

“That’s enough,” the Beldam said, but as she said it Cinzia felt another kick crunch into her ribs.

“I said that’s enough, Simmon. You’ll stop this instant.”

Cinzia heard a muttered response, and the kicks stopped. The moment they did, pain exploded in Cinzia’s belly. She curled up, moaning.

“Goddess rising, you idiots are more trouble than you’re worth. Help her up, for Canta’s sake.”

Arms slid beneath Cinzia’s shoulders roughly, yanking her to her feet. She doubled over and another burst of pain cramped through her abdomen.

“Why?” Cinzia managed, the question coming out in a rush of air.

“What kind of world do you think you live in?” the Beldam asked. She had not moved from that wretched wooden chair this entire time. “What did you expect from this encounter? To be treated like a noble? A priestess? What?”

Cinzia’s gut, her face, her whole body hurt too much to reply.

“There is no room in the Sfaera for fairness, Priestess Cinzia. Freedom, true love, redemption—all take up far too much space to be allowed. They are fictional concepts, twisted from a reality that hasn’t existed since the Age of Marvels. Constructed by historians, writers, storytellers, so we could escape the mundane world for moments at a time. That’s all they are.”

Finally, the Beldam stood, her legs quivering as one of the men rushed forward to steady her. Goddess, the woman was frailer now than she had been only months before.

“There is no fairness, no freedom, nothing of the sort,” the Beldam continued. She took an old, gnarled cane from the man who had steadied her, and shooed him away. “There is only truth and the inevitable pain that follows. The truth is that the Nine Daemons have been plotting to re-enter the Sfaera for thousands of years. The truth is that their success was always inevitable. The truth, Priestess Cinzia, is that we don’t stand a chance against them. And now, the pain will follow.”

Between gasps, between the waves of unbearable fear she felt, between spikes of pain, Cinzia raised her eyes to glare at the Beldam.

“If you…” Cinzia stopped to cough violently. “If you care about… truth…” Cinzia rasped. The pain still pulsed through her, but she was regaining her composure. “…then tell it to me. I am willing to take the pain that comes with it.”

The Beldam looked at Cinzia for a few moments, then the wide smile returned to her face. “Come visit me again, Priestess Cinzia,” she said, waving her away. “I enjoy our time together. And yes, if it is truth you are after… perhaps, next time, we will have a real conversation.” The old woman nodded, and the two men on either side of Cinzia dragged her away. Somewhere in the darkness of the forest, they released her, and let her lie.