27th of Mattaeus, 1019 N.F (e.y.)
Baltazar grunted from a jarring bump in the road that sent their carriage rocking. He white-knuckled his wrist sitting in his lap to keep from pulling his arm against his side, but Recha noticed.
“Does it still hurt, Papa?” she asked for possibly the thousandth time since reuniting with him two weeks ago on her return trip to Zoragrin.
Baltazar had lost weight during his recovery in Puerlato. His uniform sleeves were baggy, and his face was thinner, revealing more of his cheekbones and jawline.
“No,” he grumbled, rolling his left shoulder while looking out the carriage window.
Recha pressed her lips tightly together to keep from grinning, only to smirk crookedly. “You better work on that before you see Mama Vigodt; otherwise, she’s going to scold you for such an obvious lie.”
“Hmm,” Baltazar hummed, unfazed by her warning. “I suspect I’m in for a fine scolding either way. Mama Vigodt’s likely been expecting this campaign to be over months ago and me home by now.”
“Was that the reason you always marched your troops so fast? Mama Vigodt always expected you home sooner than your commanding officers?” She giggled.
Baltazar snorted. “All women expect their men to be home sooner than the commanding officers.”
“That’s rather presumptuous of you to say.” She arched an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t think so.” Baltazar shrugged. “After all, you thought the campaign was over months ago when you took Manosete. But, as I told you, campaigns are more than decisive engagements and seizing a few key cities.”
Recha pursed her lips, unable to think of a quick, witty retort. Mostly because he was right, and she wasn’t going to admit that. The surrender at Manosete had been her last exciting day of the entire campaign. Her days after that had been mired in administrative and civic duties. Gone were days on the march. The political life of a marquesa had returned the moment she’d signed her name to the declaration, and there had been no going back.
“I believed the death of Borbin and his son, the rout of most of their army, and the capture of their capital would have taken most of the fight out of those who’d remained,” she explained, drumming her fingers on lid of the silver box containing the Borbin heirloom.
“Your stratagem was correct,” Baltazar said. “At that time, the quickest way toward securing victory over most of Orsembar was marching on Manosete and taking it. You provided the final morale boast to our soldiers that we were going to be completely victorious in this campaign and denied the remnants of Borbin’s army a significant place to rally. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
Recha’s cheeks warmed, and she went to straighten her hair to hide them. “Thanks, Papa.”
She caught her reflection in the carriage windowpane. The setting Easterly Sun’s rays caught the bags under eyes and the wrinkles at their corners, strands of hair hanging out of place everywhere, despite her relentless amount of combing. To distract her from how ghastly she looked, she instead focused on the setting sun and the reddish hew it cast on the drifting clouds as it descended. The sight was enough to think of something else that was setting.
“This was your last campaign,” she said.
“Yes,” Baltazar replied, sitting a little straighter. “I’m afraid I’ve marched my last mile. Although . . . it was a fine one.”
“You missed most of it,” Recha pointed out.
After Manosete had been taken, small fighting had continued for two months. That remnant of Borbin’s army had been found north of Crudeas four weeks after the surrender and had taken two days for the combined force of the Third and Fourth Armies to squash. The Second had arrived for the mop-up and race to secure the northwest corner of the marc. All of which both she and Baltazar had missed.
“I upheld my duty at the most important time of the campaign.” Baltazar waved it away. “That’s all that matters.”
There was something finite in his mannerisms, something final in his words, drawing out warm tears to form in the corners of Recha’s eyes. “You really are leaving me, aren’t you, Papa?”
Baltazar softly smiled back at her. “There comes a time for all old soldiers to go home, for marshals to stop giving orders, for calleroses to rack up their lances, and the weary footman to retire to his trade. It’s the best any of us can hope for.”
“Is that what you and Fuert Ribera talked about at Puerlato?” she teasingly asked. While he’d recovered in Puerlato, Fuert Ribera had been kept there as an honored guest. Rumor had it the two had become regular jedraz opponents.
Baltazar smiled reflectively out the carriage window. “I’m sure he understands. We can both enjoy our retirement, free of the battlefields and their holds over our families.”
“But . . .” Recha clutched the silver box until her trembling fingers turned white. Hearing him talk like that made this carriage ride feel like a final goodbye rather than a simple ride to a crossroads. “But you’re my marshal. What happens if something happens and it’s too much for Feli or Ross to handle? What if we can’t capture Timotio, and he raises a rebellion while we’re stretched thin? Then there’re the barons. All of them scheming and watching. And the other marcs! What if they all come against me at once? What if they aid Timotio? They’ll . . . they’ll—”
Rip you apart like the bloody marquesa you are!
Her throat seized up. Borbin’s final curse echoed in her head like a chittering mellcresa. Her shoulders felt too heavy to keep up. She wanted to double over, to curl up in her carriage seat for a week, alone and undisturbed by anyone.
A strong, callused hand took hers. She lifted her head to see Baltazar leaning forward, biting through whatever traces of pain in his side to squeeze her hand tightly.
“Recha,” he said in his low, fatherly tone, “that’s just your exhaustion speaking. You’ve come so far, but you’re looking ahead and only seeing the worst consequences all coming at once.” He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “Once you finally get some rest, I’m sure you’ll see that none of them can happen like you fear.”
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” she admitted, his hand a comfort, as it always had. She snickered. “Does it show?”
“Not when you need to show authority.” Baltazar gave her hand one last squeeze then sat back with a stifled grunt. “But if you were to come home with me, I’m afraid Mama Vigodt would lock you away in the ground’s cottage for a few days.”
That sounds wonderful. Unfortunately, she knew she didn’t have the time.
“I can’t,” she said with a sigh. “This little venture is probably the only place I know no one would come after me. If it weren’t for that, I would have put this off for another month or so.”
That was partially a lie. She wanted to see Elegida and had wanted to since returning to Zoragrin. That also meant upholding her bargain to Verdas and the likelihood of speaking to that spirit, too. The mixed mission did ward off any barons or tagalongs, though, which was a positive she happily accepted.
Two months of dealing with Orsembian barons, and then a couple of weeks reacquainting herself with the Lazornian barons had proven two things—at their core, they were all political animals looking out for their own interests, and they were all tiring. She was grateful for this small time alone with Baltazar.
“Are you ever going to tell me what sort of . . . arrangement you have with the Viden?” Baltazar asked.
Recha sat up. “I thought you didn’t want to know, so long as they were kept out of your way.”
“That’s when I had a campaign to marshal and didn’t want cultist fomenting religious arguments among my armies.” He folded his arms. “Campaign’s over now, and before I return to retirement, I want to make sure I don’t leave you in worse hands than simple barons who you’ve spent three years bludgeoning into place.”
“I didn’t bludgeon anyone.” She sniffed sharply at the comment. “I replaced several, sure. Some tested me and had to be made an example of, absolutely. But none were bludgeoned.” She chuckled, but Baltazar didn’t join in. She bit the inside of her cheek from him not falling for the diversion.
I could tell him. Elegida’s alive, and if I gather these artifacts to the spirit possessing her, it might give her back.
She dismissed the thought in an instant. He would react as she knew he would. He would demand Elegida be rescued immediately, probably even go so far as command their escort to storm Cuevo in a daring attempt. But that wouldn’t guarantee Elegida would be freed.
It was a question she had struggled for years to discern an answer to: how could she free someone from a being that could instantly possess them, body and mind, in an instant? The answer eluded her because she still didn’t understand how Verdas or the Viden cultist got their strange powers, and until she did, she couldn’t free Elegida by force. Baltazar wouldn’t be able to, either. That left only the old lie.
“It’s just a mutual agreement,” she said. “The Viden serve me, and I allow them to exist. You needn’t worry about them, Papa. I know how to deal with them.”
Baltazar leaned his head back against the seat, turning his frown to look down his nose at her. The silent stare almost worked.
“I only wish dealing with the other marcs would be as simple,” she said, changing the subject. “Worst situation or not, none of them will ignore what I just did.”
Baltazar remained unmoved, sitting there long enough that she feared he would press the Viden issue. Finally, after the carriage hit another bump in the road and sent it shaking, he blinked.
“Your position is still the same, Recha. You had three marcs to face before the campaign; you still have three marcs now. Take every foe one at a time and handle them each in turn.”
Recha took deep, measured breaths. Her shoulders rose and fell with the rocking of the carriage. Her head gradually tilted while she lost herself in the silent contemplation, broken every so often by the turning of the carriage’s axle beneath them and the wheels crunching the rocks of the road.
“Marqués Dion will be the most difficult to deal with,” she finally said.
“Oh?” Baltazar raised his head. “Not Marqués Narios?”
Recha stiffly shook her head. “To casual observers, yes. I just defeated and supplanted his greatest ally, killed his son-in-law, and his daughter is still in Manosete. It’s natural to suspect he’d be furious and plan the next several years of campaigns against me.”
“You don’t suspect he will.”
She drifted her head back, gazing up at the varnished wood of the carriage roof. “It may feel natural, but it’s not. Narios suffered a humiliating defeat last season, and we still haven’t had word on how he fared this year. He wasn’t allied with Borbin by choice, nor was Emilia’s marriage.” She smirked. “Who knows? He may be grateful that I cut that marriage short.”
“Is the widow?”
“Hmm?” Recha pulled her head down, frowning.
“Narios’s daughter,” Baltazar clarified. “Is she grateful to be a widow? Or is she like you?”
Recha harumphed. “Emilia is nothing like me. I don’t think the poor girl’s ever had to think for herself. Her papa spoiled her to want for nothing, and when she was married to Givanzo, the Borbins didn’t see a need for her to think either. She’s only sixteen! Oh, and I did discover that it was her own guard, not her, who insisted on more protection for her.
“As for being grateful, I’m not sure if she feels one way or another about Givanzo’s death. At my departure gala, she kept bouncing between Hiraldo and Luziro Ribera! If she wasn’t laughing at one of their jokes, she was laughing and trying to talk to the other.”
Baltazar chuckled. “At least she has good tastes when allowed to choose.”
“I guess she does.” Recha threw her head back against the seat and laughed, adding to Baltazar’s chuckles.
The relaxed posture felt too inviting to leave, and after finished laughing, she rolled her shoulders into the seat cushions and bit her lip as the politics came back to mind.
“If I treat Emilia right, work out her return, along with the Saran sioneroses, I can try to use them as gestures of good faith to start talks with Narios. If he fared as poorly as he has for the past several years against Dion, then he may welcome talks. Dion, though”—her smile slid away—“if any of them are going to be a problem, he’s most likely to be the one.”
“Allies usually are the first ones to become enemies,” Baltazar agreed. “That’s what made your uncle paranoid about me campaigning in Pamolid.”
“Well, Dion’s already paranoid of me. There’s a stack of correspondences this thick”—she raised her hand in an exaggerated gesture with her index finger and thumb stretched apart—“from Dion since our campaign season started.”
“I don’t suppose there was one thanking you for relieving pressure off Compuert?”
Recha lifted her head and shot him a flat look. “Not. A. One,” she replied dryly then plopped her head back. “From the start of the campaign, he sent messages that he was gravely mistaken of Borbin’s intentions and requested we reevaluate our campaign negotiations on the prospects of us aiding Quezlo in defense against Borbin. Then, after Borbin marched away to face us, there are a couple of correspondences that he claimed was mistaken, that they drove Borbin away and all was well.” She huffed dismissively.
“The worst came after Manosete surrendered. First, he asked if the rumors were true that we defeated Borbin in the field. Then he demanded clarification on the declaration I made the barons at Manosete sign. One went so far as claiming I had no authority to take the city nor keep it. And the last one I read came a few days ago. He is requesting if we can negotiate the providence of the cities down the Compuert Road.” She shook her head. “If he thinks I’m going to return those cities to him, he’s sadly mistaken.”
“And that’s what can spark the next campaign,” Baltazar said agreeingly.
“With Dion, yes, but with Pamolid, Marqués Hyles could campaign against me next year out of sheer paranoia that I’m going to unleash you on him again. Not to mention making a fool of his nephew for years.” She groaned and threw her hands up, cupping and rubbing her eyes in frustration. “Add dealing with the Orsembian barons while changing their laws to match Lazorna’s, moving Orsembar into our army system, freeing all the sioneroses while also not bankrupting the marc, ruling two marcs at once . . .” She gritted her teeth and let out a strangled growl. “Everything was so simple when we were campaigning!”
She rubbed her eyes until bright splotches of color blossomed through the pitch black of her closed eyelids. When her eyes started to sting, she dropped her arms, letting them flop onto the seat. Her eyelids fluttered lazily open. The splotches lingered, denying the light for a few more moments before they cleared, and she found Baltazar staring at her.
“I might’ve pushed too far, haven’t I?” she asked.
“Recha, after three years of balancing Lazorna on a dagger’s edge, none of these challenges facing you are new,” he replied knowingly. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Of course he’d notice. She debated saying anything. Her frown deepened. The wrinkles of her furled brow felt like they were digging into her skull.
“It’s something Borbin said before he . . . before I killed him,” she admitted. “After all his pragmatism failed, and I made it clear that none of his promises would save him, he had one final curse for me. ‘May the others drag you down and suitably rip you apart like the bloody marquesa you are,’ he said.” She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned forward, ignoring the silver box’s edges pressing through her clothes and into her belly and legs. “I didn’t care at the time. I had what I wanted—Borbin at my mercy and him realizing he was going to die. I had my revenge.
“But after that . . . I kept thinking about what he said. Hearing it over and over. I tried to shove it away as the last words of an arrogant man. Focused on winning the campaign instead. But after Manosete and dealing with the barons, I can’t help but feel like I’ve done this all before. Just like three years ago, I’ve turned everything upside down and now have upset barons all around me, disgruntled calleroses with uncertain loyalties, and freed sioneroses who don’t know where to go.”
She bit her trembling lip and raised her head to Baltazar listening with concern. “What truly bothers me, Papa, is that I enjoyed the campaigning. I enjoyed marching with the armies, watching the battles, being involved with them, and the victories afterward. The months in Manosete were . . . torture in comparison. A return to the dull politics while hungry for every scrap of news from the armies. I was furious I couldn’t be at the second battle of Crudeas, to see the last of Borbin’s old army broken.
“I fear I might not be able to go back to ruling. I might get too addicted to campaigning. I . . . might become that bloody marquesa that Borbin cursed as.”
Baltazar’s thick eyebrows trembled from his worried frown. “Nothing more dangerous for a calleros than to lose themselves to the thrill of battle and find they cannot live without it.”
“I’m a marquesa. That makes it a hundred times more dangerous for me.”
Baltazar closed his eyes and exhaled deeply from his nostrils. His worry disappeared, replaced instantly with commanding stoicism. “Then there’s only one solution,” he said, opening his eyes and leaning forward. He held his hands out to her, and she accepted, reaching out to hold them in the center of the carriage while they held their heads together. “This must be your last campaign, too.”
Recha’s stared at him in shock. “But Papa—”
“Your duties are to your marcs now.” Baltazar squeezed her hands. “That dagger’s edge you’ve balanced yourself on for these last three years, perch yourself upon it and never step off. You hold a position of strength now, Recha, one the other marcs won’t easily advance against. Use it. Show the other marcs that it’s too deadly a gamble not to be cordial toward you.”
She squeezed back. “But what if they see me as a threat that must be brought down no matter what I offer them? What if I must campaign against all of them, season after season?” Her hands trembled. “Trapped following the Rules of Campaign in all but name.”
They sat in silence. She could see the other marcs making grand declarations, calling her the Bloody Marquesa. A blood-thirsty monster, killing her way to more power, marc after marc, and all her charity and any good were only in service to that end.
“You could stop,” Baltazar suggested. “You swore two oaths—to avenge Sebastian and to bring an end to Rules.” His lips trembled. “As a father who lost his son, I will be forever grateful that you upheld your first. Especially that it was you who did it.
“But that second oath”—he shook his head—“it’s too much. You can give it up. Focus on ruling Lazorna and Orsembar the best you can and be an example for the other marcs that they don’t have to follow the Rules of Campaign.”
“I’ve . . . considered it,” she admitted. “I’ve thought about the . . . enormity of it. Stopping all the marcs from campaign against each other year after year”—she snickered—“part of me thought it insane that night after swearing to it.
“But then I started to rule and kept Lazorna out of the campaigns. I saw the good it did. Those years of peace. I was planning for a bigger campaign in the future. However, the people lived well, not burdened by those needless annual campaigns.
“And then there’s me. I got my revenge, expanded my power, and then stopped? Everyone will claim I did all of this for my own gain. This will all be for me, and that will tie Lazorna’s and Orsembar’s peace to me, too. It’ll end, and they’ll both return to following the Rules of Campaign the moment I’m gone.” She shook her head. “I can’t leave my people to suffer like that.”
Baltazar flashed a comforting smile, his bristly mustache fanning out. “Then my original advice stands. This needs to be your last campaign, too. Be the marquesa who rules from afar, one who seeks diplomacy first, campaign second. Spread the tales of how you freed the sioneroses and have armies that can defeat foes three times their size.”
She smiled with him. Her vision blurred from the few lone tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes and left warm trails down her cheeks.
“Promise me two things, Recha,” Baltazar requested.
“Anything, Papa.”
“If ever I saw two people grow up destined to be together, it was Sebastian and you. But now that you’ve avenged him, don’t wed yourself to his memory. If you find someone whom you can love again, don’t forsake it. Don’t go through life alone. Man or woman, people need more than duty to carry them through life, and Sebastian wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
Oh, Papa. She blinked more tears away. I don’t . . . I can’t . . .
“I . . . can try.” She swallowed her doubt to give him the response he wanted. “What’s the second?”
Baltazar looked down at her hands and caressed the back of her knuckles with his thumbs. “Don’t let any more blood stain these hands. That’s what calleroses are for. Promise me you’ll use these hands to build that new world you swore to make. No more killing.”
Recha interlaced her fingers with his. “That I can promise, Papa.”
“Hmm,” he hummed approvingly and nodded.
The carriage slowed to a gradual stop. Horses snorted and trotted around the carriage, and moments later, a knock came at the carriage door.
“We’re at the crossroads, La Dama,” Cornelos called.
Baltazar grunted, amused. “We made good time.”
He pulled away, but Recha held on to his hands. She didn’t want to let go. She knew he would be gone the moment he stepped out of the carriage. She held on, willing this moment to last just a little longer—seconds, minutes, however much longer she could cling to.
Baltazar noticed, and he smiled broader. “It’s all right,” he assured her. He pulled his left hand away to wipe the tear trails away from her cheeks. “You’ll accomplish more than any ever dreamed. And we’ll all be proud of you—me, Mama Vigodt, and your true papa and mama, all of us.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. His mustache tickled her skin. Then he opened the carriage door, allowing the red, setting sunlight to flood in. She blinked her vision clear to see the outline of three men on horseback around a waiting, saddled horse.
Baltazar grunted and carefully climbed out of the carriage, measuring every step until he stood on solid ground.
“Are you sure you can ride, Papa?” she called.
“I’ve always promised Mama Vigodt I’d come riding home,” he shouted over his shoulder. “I can’t break my promise now.”
Recha sighed, shoulders deflating at how romantic the sentiment was.
She watched him strain and pull himself up into the saddle, biting her tongue to stop from ordering him back into the carriage or to quit being stubborn and accept Narvae’s helping hand.
Baltazar let out a low groan when he finally mounted and sat straight in the saddle, passing a nod to each of his Companions.
“By your leave, La Dama,” he said to her. “It was a privilege and honor to serve.”
“The honor was mine, Field Marshal,” Recha happily replied.
“I’ll tell Mama Vigodt to expect you once you’re done with the Viden.” He wheeled his horse around, kicking up a cloud of dust, his Companions on his heels.
“Papa!”
“Don’t make a liar out of me!” His teasing reply was echoed by Narvae laughing and Bisal letting out a whooping holler.
Recha watched them as they grew smaller and smaller on the horizon. Four comrades, four Companions, who had ridden off to battle countless times. Now they were each returning home, riding into the setting Easterly Sun, never to ride forth again.
A few more tears ran down her cheeks, as she couldn’t imagine anything more fitting and beautiful for men such as they.
“La Dama?”
Recha blinked and turned to Cornelos, who stood by the carriage door.
“Should we follow after them?” he asked. “Postpone your visit to the Viden until later?”
She sniffed and shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, Cornelos. Let’s be off.”
~~~
Recha drummed on the lid of the silver box in her lap. The rhythmic thumping saved her from the nauseating silence of Verdas’s sitting room.
How much longer? She’d been waiting for over an hour.
Vastura’d been there to greet her upon her arrival and had ushered her through the estate. She’d denied her from seeing Elegida and had asked her to wait, that the Master wasn’t ready to see her.
What does a spirit have to get ready for?
She rose from her chair, keeping the silver box in hand. She moved around the chair to the small window, fanning herself. The room was chokingly humid, and the faint smoke from the wicks of the burning oil lamps irritated her nostrils and made her nose run. She checked around the edges of the small window, and as she suspected, there was no way to open them.
This little cottage is no more than a prison. She ran her fingers around the edges of the windowpane. Through her own reflection, she peered into the sheer void of night. The faint glint from the odd window of the surrounding mansion barely cut through, leaving a black sheen across the glass. How am I going to get her out of here?
A shriek ripped through the cottage. A door slammed open. The doorknob struck the wooden wall with an earsplitting crack.
“Get out!”
Elegida!
Recha spun on her heels and dashed into a sprint without minding her skirts. She instead furiously kicked them out in front of her. She turned a corner and narrowly missed a cultist fleeing down the hallway with a look of terror on his face.
“Please, Master,” Vastura said, her urging voice coming from the bedroom at the end of the hallway, “tell us what is wrong? How can we help?”
“There is no help!” came the shrieking reply. “None!”
Recha sped down the hall and shoved her way into the room through two other cultists, both women clutching their hands to their chests in utter shock.
“Elegida!” she cried and stopped two stumbling steps into the room.
Elegida lay on the bed. Her entire body was arching upward toward the ceiling, as if she were trying to fold herself backward. Her feet, shoulders, and head were the only parts of her body touching the mattress. Her hair splayed about the top of bed, and she clutched her head with her hands. Vastura was the only cultist trying to calm her, possibly because she was the only blind Seer present, as well. The two other cultists huddled in a corner, as stunned as those in the doorway at the sight.
She’s going to snap her spine!
“What are all of you doing?” Recha demanded. She carelessly tossed the silver box on the bed and leapt on Elegida. She knocked her legs out and wrapped her arms protectively around her sister, forcing her down and holding her as she started to convulse, scream, and kick.
“La Dama!” Vastura shouted. “You must unhand the Master!” The Seer’s milky-white eyes grew wide, and her face was stricken with aghast concern. The cultist reached for her with an outstretched hand.
Recha easily slapped it away, snarling at the woman. “What have you done to my sister? Get out! All of—”
“That’s not your sister!” Vastura cried, shaking her head furiously.
“What?”
Two hands seized the sides of Recha’s face. Ten wet, sharp fingernails dug into her skin and wrenched her head to look down. Recha instantly broke out into a cold sweat, goosebumps raced down her body, and her strength failed her.
She stared down into two flesh-pink, glowing eyes and a mirror image of her face twitching and snarling between hysteria and unbridled rage.
Verdas was the one in control. Verdas was the one going insane.
Verdas was terrified.
“Do you . . . feel it?” the spirit whispered.
“Feel what?” Recha asked back. “Ah!”
She hissed from the fingernails digging deeper into her scalp and was forced to let go to grab Elegida’s wrists to keep the spirit from clawing her face. Verdas clung to her and, no longer being held down, began to sit up. Recha hissed, tugging on her wrists, but the grip was like iron, bringing their faces close together.
“That heat!” Verdas hissed. “That . . . all-consuming heat.” It let out a strangled groan. Tears leaked from its eyes in a constant flow. “I thought I felt it . . . flickers . . . flares . . . here and there weeks ago. And I just . . . denied it.” Its lips curled and let out a cruel chuckle. “But there’s no deny it, that heat belongs to only one. He still exists! He’s back!” Verdas threw its head back and screamed, sending Recha’s ears reeling.
She pulled back and accepted the cuts to her face to free herself from the spirit’s grip. She pushed away, rubbing her face to check for blood, finding a cut on the right side of her temple.
“What is it talking about?” she demanded to the other cultists, but they all stared at her, speechless.
Suddenly, Verdas’s wail cut off.
Recha watched as it slowly wrapped its arms around Elegida’s body, bringing its hands up to grip the shoulders. It lowered its head unnaturally slow. Elegida’s face was as pale as her dress. Verdas let the jaw hang agape, eyes bulging, and the pink pupils shrank to pinpricks.
“Two!” Verdas gasped. “The atmosphere crackles and boils. They stir. It will all happen again! They will all stir! Kiso-einshin . . .” The spirit devolved into babbles and slowly tipped downward, folding Elegida’s body in on itself and gently started to rock.
It’s finally happened. Recha watched, unable to move. The spirit’s finally shown it’s insane. How am I supposed to free Elegida from . . . from . . .?
She angled her head and listened more closely. Everything Verdas sputtered sounded like meaningless nonsense. Crazed gibberish. Yet, there was something . . . in the cadence of its voice. Pauses. Some of the babble sounded like it was repeated, repeated phrases mixed into the nonsense.
Is that . . .? She leaned forward. Does . . . this spirit have its own language? Do spirits have languages? Of course, being that Verdas was the only spirit she knew of, that was a question she’d never thought to ask. One glance around the room proved the other cultists were just as clueless as she.
I can’t let this go on. Elegida’s still in there.
Recha reached down and took hold of Elegida’s shoulders, cupping the tightly gripped hands. “Verdas,” she called. “Verdas, who are they?”
The babble instantly ceased.
Verdas raised its head with unnatural stiffness. Every facial muscle twitched and spasmed. The lips moved, smacking, and the tongue and throat clicked inside, as if the mouth was dry. Pink, dilated pupils bounced back and forth, as if the spirit were searching for a word on the tip of its tongue.
Then the pupils snapped back, growing larger. The facial twitching, lip smacking, and tongue clicking all ceased at once. There came a staggering exhale, making the jaw tremble.
“Dragon,” the spirit let out in a hush.
The pink in Elegida’s eyes recoiled, fading from the pupils like draining water. The glow from the crystal around her neck grew feverishly bright then winked to a faint distant star in an instant.
Recha stared into those milky, unresponsive orbs that were now her sister’s eyes, feeling the tension leave her body from her grip on her shoulders.
“Elegida?” she called gently.
“R . . . R . . . Recha?” Elegida’s voice was soft and hoarse. Glistening pools of tears blossomed around Elegida’s eyelids. Her chin wobbled, and her cheeks flushed. “Recha!” Elegida wailed, throwing herself into Recha’s lap and burying her face in her skirts.
Recha threw her arms protectively around her, holding her sister close. “It’s all right,” she said comfortingly, rubbing her sister’s shoulders and back. “I’m here now. Your sister’s got you now.”
The rustle of movement on the carpet caught her attention. She snapped her head up and glared at Vastura and a couple of the other cultists inching closer to them.
“If any of you touch her, I will have you all executed,” she threatened, snarling and clinging to Elegida. “Every single member! Get out! Out!”
Elegida wailed louder at Recha’s scream, forcing her to gently stroke her fingers through her hair while calmly shushing and rocking her. At the same time, she fixed a sharp glare on each cultist as Vastura gathered them up and left.
Finally alone, she held Elegida in her arms, calming her through the wails and tears until they stopped, her body stopped shaking, and she listened to her sister’s soft, steady breaths. Her mind began to crawl with every shush, every gentle rock, and every soft breath. While she got Elegida to sleep, sleep denied her as a repeating question circled inside her head.
What’s a dragon?
THE END OF
FOR THE BLOODY MARQUESA!