As the moon disappeared from the sky overheard, the druantia held out a hand in the direction of the flute, and it came flying back to her grasp. The night had lingered on and on, it seemed, with tales shared, dreams written in the stars, and challenges laid before all who were present.
Nariah spoke of her exile and subsequent years in servitude. She spoke little of the content of her visions, aware that Rowan and the lords were unclear on the specifics of the annihilation the goddesses had in store for Ellonai. Instead, she shared the urgency that drove her through the woods to her sisters’ side, desperate for all the extra time she could get to evacuate her people, should she be able to convince her sister to let them leave.
Much of this plan formed as she was talking about it, but the more she talked, the more realistic it sounded. She didn’t need to tell Rowan about the eclipse being her deadline for deciding which side she would join. The most vulnerable time for her people would be during the ceremonial mourning of their king. What better time could the goddesses choose to strike, if not now?
When she finished sharing her woes, Rowan looked on her in a whole new light. Before, she imagined she was just another mortal to him—someone wanting something from the lords for nothing. Now he saw that she would go with or without them to save as many lives as she could, knowing that at some point her own may very well be forfeit. She would not be a pawn in a goddess’s game.
Following up after Nariah, Rowan explained how the lords had come to Ellonai from their own world—a world of goddesses and lords, of power and greed. Balances were in all places, but not in Trellana. No, the lords were merely tools with which the goddesses formed their newest hobbies: new worlds.
Escaping their home world, the six most powerful lords of Trellana fell to the sanctuary of three renowned goddesses of goodness: Mercy, Wisdom, and Glory. Here they lived for centuries under the veil of the three goddesses the Ellonian people served. Then came the three fallen sisters—three goddesses who were distressed when the lords in service to them fell.
Without offering up the fact that Mercy had been killed, Rowan explained that the lords had worked together to build a network of worshippers in monasteries within the mountains. With enough prayers, the lords hoped to secure their own freedom, and continue to serve the beings of this world.
When the druantia retrieved her flute, she tapped its hollow stem and pondered a while. All around the clearing, beings stretched and yawned. The night was waning, and dawn would arrive soon. Birds hopped down into the branches of nearby trees, but all heard their songs in the druantia’s presence.
“The favor you both ask of us is great,” the druantia explained at last. “To take a side against the goddesses who breathed life into our lungs is a high treason that would reduce us to ash. Vows cannot be broken, and the debt of creation is not one we can toss aside. True, these three you seek to thwart are not our direct creators, but they share both blood and spirit. Nature sees little difference, and has no place in war.”
Nariah’s heart fell. She hadn’t expected the druantia to take lives, necessarily, but maybe to at least shelter the people she evacuated during their escape. To help the homeless lambs Nariah snatched from the fire find a new home in the safety of the druantia’s sanctuary.
“We are but a stopping point—a place for rest, reflection, and renewal,” the druantia continued. “Your people would grow tired of the simplicity of our lives, the unchanging timeliness that we embrace from sprout to ash.”
“What then would you have me do?” Nariah pleaded, her hands grasping at her skirt so tightly they shook.
Rowan reached for her hand, but she stepped away. He was a good man, a good lord, she corrected herself. But Death and its innerworkings lay with his brother, not Life.
Meeting Nariah’s eyes, the druantia contemplated one moment more, then nodded, slapping the whistle against her palm and smiling victoriously.
“We shall propose a trade,” the druantia said. “A favor, of as of yet undetermined value, will be owed to us when next you cross this clearing.”
Nariah’s eyes narrowed. Unspecified favors felt more like goddess territory, and her gut sank with the very thought of it. Only items of ludicrous value had the prices hidden from the buyer before they agreed to buy. With all the favors and sins she already had to repay to the lords at some point, she wondered if she’d even have anything of value left. Hm… maybe she had a gold filling they could have…
“In exchange,” the druantia continued, undaunted by Nariah’s hesitation, “whatever souls you bring to our woods during your evacuation will be purged of the darkness that has tainted them, and the pure will exit on the other side, ready for their new life with a refreshed and recovered mind.”
Nariah’s heartbeat thudded in her eyes. There it was—the cure for whatever taint was so bad that even the goddess of Mercy did not think they could be saved.
“Nariah,” Rowan whispered, shifting forward to tug at her hand again. “Be careful. Remember who you’re bargaining with.”
For the first time since they met the druantia, her eyes shifted from gracious to a steely warning glare in Life’s direction. Nonetheless, Rowan was right. A bargain for the salvation and purification of multiple souls could bring a price that even Nariah’s soul may not be enough to balance. The druantia’s flute cast impure souls into nothingness at the first sound. If all her people were tainted, all of them might die.
“I accept your proposal,” Nariah said, “with one amended condition.”
The druantia clucked her tongue, and her cheek twitched with obvious frustration, but she motioned for Nariah to continue.
“If this… taint… cannot be purified,” Nariah said, choosing her words carefully, “the impure are to be turned back to Ellonai. To me. They will not lose their souls.”
An impatient bird hopped back and forth on its branch, then broke out into a single note. A snap of the druantia’s fingers sent the bird up in a poof of golden flame, which extinguished as fast as it started. Not even a feather remained. One corner of the druantia’s lip curled in a daring smile.
“Are you sure that is the deal that you want?”
Nariah nodded, though she was not at all sure she was doing the right thing. Time was not with her, though, and her brain was too frantic to consider anything better on the spot.
“Very well! As you have asked, so it will be.”
Raising her hands above her head, the druantia clapped once, and the beings on every side of the clearing scattered. Grass rolled back and dirt sank to make room for the trees. The trail widened between them, and the horses, both looking fully refreshed despite Nariah forgetting about them, seemed happy enough to see her.
“You can command them with the word Eirath,” the druantia said, patting one on the neck. Her benevolent nature had returned, and the horses shook their manes and tried to nuzzle her open palm. “I spoke with them about it last night, and they agreed to stop when you say it, and start again when you say it again. Do you want your armor back?”
Nariah looked down at her gorgeous clothes, wishing she could keep them but knowing they would be a disservice where she was headed.
“Honestly, I really just want my old clothes back. The ones I brought from Ellonai.”
The woods breathed over her again, and to her amazement, an outfit which was completely identical to the ones she wore out of Ellonai appeared. The only difference was the condition of the cloth, which was freshly woven and sturdy, almost as though it was lined with some kind of soft chainmail between the layers.
“It is lined with a layer of Corpas Breath—a living stone. The crystalline sisters brought it with them, and the forest has fashioned it to your tastes,” the druantia said.
Nariah looked around for the crystalline beings, sad to see that they were not still present in order for her to thank them.
“You will find that your robes have been lined as well, lord,” the druantia said, turning to Rowan. He was back in his normal attire, and already climbing onto Lily’s back.
“Sunrise is here, and our time is done. But we will meet once more before your soul leaves this world, Nariah Alcon. When you come again, stay a while, will you? It would be nice to have a human dance among us for a while.”
Without another word, the druantia took her flute and blew a simple, nearly sorrowful farewell melody as she vanished into the trees. Nariah climbed up into the carriage, and the horses moved forward on their own. She hadn’t thought to ask Rowan if the lords planned on punishing her for taking Estes’s wagon, but if his dancing last night was any indication, she truly doubted it.
“Don’t worry about something as small as that!” Rowan laughed, raising his hand in a wave as he turned Lily around.
“I’m going to get Raiyer, and we’ll meet you on the other side.”
Nariah waved slightly, her fingers curling into her hand and lowering to the gem resting upon her chest. She had made a deal with the druantia—one that would seal her doom. But she also held a wish from a lord. Between those two things, Ellonai at least stood a fighting chance, right?
* * *
While the woods opened up into the desert lands of Ellonai in a more ideal place than where the royal guard would have to cross with her father’s body, she had lost an entire evening, from sunset to sunrise, on one of the longest nights of the year. Darkness had fallen over Ellonai and remained for almost fourteen hours the night before, and the guard had doubtlessly been riding hard all night to return their king’s body to his home before sunrise.
Ellonian culture forbade moving the deceased after sunrise on the day following their death, save to move them into the underground labyrinthian crypts on the second eve of their death. A royal funeral would add an extra two days to that tradition, as the body of a king or queen belonged to their people and their goddesses, not just their families.
The first day of death, the one of the actual passing, would be a day for familial memories and grieving. Deborah and Storm had been cheated of this, thanks to the goddesses’ schemes. On the second day, the body would lie in open stasis, on a temporary dais that replaced the old thrones. All castle doors were to be left unlocked that day. The people would stock the larders and treasury in preparation for their new royal, and pay a visit to give final respects to their eternally sleeping monarch.
It was that day that dawned over the fields which Nariah finally prepared to cross—her one chance to get into the unguarded castle and come close enough to Deborah to talk to her.
Out of the desert and into Ellonai Nariah rode, never peeking her head out too far, never wanting to draw unnecessary attention to herself. The sun hung low in the sky at her back, casting the wagon’s shadows long across withering grasses. Sucking her breath in sharply through her teeth, Nariah’s eyes swept the crops that should be at the peak of their harvest.
There had been no drought that year, and she had worked alongside the others tirelessly to cull out infested or diseased spots before they could spread. By all rights, this should have been the most plentiful harvest in all of the ten years that she’d been a farmhand.
Instead, all the fields—from grains, to the grape vines she passed in the vineyard, to the root vegetable plots closest to the city—were crumpled and brown.
What had happened?
She scanned the fields for the workers’ tents, but didn’t see a single one. It made no sense; tents had held those positions in the fields since before Nariah’s father was even born. Fieldhands lived in the fields. If they died or were promoted to a position in the slums, another unlucky soul promptly took their place. It was just the way life was.
And yet now barren rectangles pocked the dried fields where the tents once stood.
Where were the fieldhands?
Dread grew within her heart as the wagon trudged up the long, narrow spiral amid the slums toward the market. Every window was black. Aside from the nerve-grating squeal of wagon wheels, Ellonai was silent. The air was surprisingly stale for being outdoors. Rotting excrement, meat, and produce poisoned the very air around her, burning her nose and lungs and bringing water to her eyes.
She held her breath as she passed the cave that served as the orphanage, hoping against hope that the children were okay, but no torch flickered within their small hovel.
The slum’s fire pits were filled only with ash. Food containers were filled with food so old that moldy white fuzz had overtaken most of it, and a black rot the rest. The blacksmith’s forge was completely cold; the purple fire crystals that kept it constantly hot had gone black.
Checking over her shoulder, Nariah wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or even more concerned by the fact that no one was watching her. Even the ordinary sense of heaviness she was accustomed to when under another’s gaze was missing.
Higher and higher she rode with Dark’s creaking wagon. Wash buckets reeking of mildew sat with laundry still heaped inside unmoving waters. A couple buckets had overturned, and a faint green slime had spread across the clothes that littered the roadway.
Only a short clip away from the market gates, she smelled death before she saw it. Then came a low, buzzing, sound, so faint at first that she was sure it was all in her head. Vapid fumes on the wind brought her picnic lunch up her throat before she could brace herself, and she barely made it the side of her seat before spilling the contents of her stomach out onto the cobblestones.
She wiped the back of her hand on her sleeve, then pulled her scarf up over her nose. The faintest hint of roses, fresh grass, and sunlight lingered on the scarf, somehow managing to block the odor on the wind. Not that it mattered much when she finally turned the last bend and looked up at the market gates.
Bodies lined the road by the dozens, each one impaled on a pike at least ten feet tall. There were no children among the victims, but Nariah recognized the names emblazoned on royal placards at the feet of each man and woman she passed.
She’d toiled side-by-side with every single one of these people. Sweated, bled, and cried with them.
These were the missing fieldhands.
She wanted to rip her gaze from their naked, bloated, decomposing corpses, but couldn’t. A bright gold sigil that looked as though it had been branded into the center of their chests before they passed drew her gaze. It was in the style of her father’s sigil, but something about it was off. Despite how long she stared, she couldn’t place what was different. Then it struck her. A falcon’s wings stretched wide and curved down, protecting the toppling crown which it clenched between its talons.
She paused, asking the horses to stop just below the closed market gate. There, tied to a stake atop a makeshift platform between her and the market, stood the charred remains of a wretched soul who’d been burned alive, but not allowed to burn to ash.
A pristine white placard leaned against the base of the platform, and Nariah had to dismount to read it.
Here stands the traitor, Field Guardian Roth Tre’Arta
Whose hands freed the accursed and bore her curse onto our heads.
As his actions brought fire into our lands,
So too shall the fire be sated with his blood.
Nariah’s blood ran cold, her breath slowing. Freed the accursed. Her. This was the man who’d given her a job. The one her father had charged with overseeing her. The man who’d suggested that she should throw herself on the goddess’s mercy.
“Irony!” Nariah called out to the murderous goddess for the first time of her own accord, turning her eyes to the earliest stars breaking through the twilight. “This was your mercy? Being burned alive? Him and every fieldhand who served beneath him?”
Irony’s laughter was all Nariah received in reply.
Then it dawned on Nariah. Mercy was dead. Most likely killed at her sisters’ hands. No, this wasn’t mercy. This was Irony—that the one man who saved the damned was damned himself.
Rage battled with Nariah’s resolve. Estes’s horses whinnied behind her, nodding back the way they’d come with their heads as though telling her they needed to go back. She should probably trust the horses, she knew, but she’d come this far. Besides, Rowan said he’d bring Death with him. Nariah shuddered at the thought of Rowan in a place like this. From the looks of things, Raiyer had already been here in force. None of it would surprise him.
Clasping the gem on her chest, Nariah turned her face once more to the sky. Her body shook, but her spirit grew stronger. Even now, with all this death, there was a breath’s chance that she could make things right before the goddesses destroyed all of Ellonai. If not, the druantia would help her save however many Nariah could bring her.
One question lingered in her mind as she turned her back on the grizzly scene and approached the gate to the market. Who ordered this mass slaughter?
Her father must have been the one to give the order to slaughter anyone who’d associated with Nariah, since he was still alive until mid-day the day before. No one else had the authority to sentence people to death. He also mentioned that they were tainted… that they deserved to die. But that sigil didn’t belong to her father…
Maybe it was Deborah? Nariah shook her head. The bodies were too bloated to have just been killed that morning. Unless Deborah acted without her father’s approval, she was innocent of this crime against their own people. Unless the goddesses had poisoned Nariah’s most beloved family member against her, Nariah had a chance to win forgiveness from her sister.
Turning her eyes straight ahead, she grasped the market gate and shoved. It swung open with no resistance whatsoever. Beyond the gate, the market’s central square had burned to the ground, and a crater as deep as the fountain had once been tall now marred the city’s center.
“Mortals!” Irony cackled in Nariah’s mind, snorting over her own laughter. “They think they know best about everything, so I’ve graced them with the realities of their farses. Aren’t you glad we’re on your side, Seer?”
Nariah tried to ignore the cruel goddess, but hated the thought that compared to what Irony would do to these people if left unchecked, a burned market and dozens of dead fieldhands was nothing by comparison.
“Hold!” The single word broke through the silence like cannon fire.
It was then that the feeling of being watched returned. Nariah looked up to see what were once slum-dwellers now peering down at her from market vendors’ homes. Suddenly, it all made sense. A curse destroyed the center of town, the fieldhands were blamed and murdered for it, and as a result the fields withered and died in the heatwave of summer—probably hurried along by the goddesses for good measure. More kindling waiting for the big bonfire the night of the eclipse.
The supernaturally fast withering of the fields would bring talk of more curses from this superstitious lot, though Nariah could no longer say at this point that were wrong. So of course everyone moved up a level. The slum-dwellers moved to the market to escape the cursed fields, and the market-dwellers moved up to get as far away from the cursed market as well.
Who knew an exile with only show-magic could incite such destruction?
A regiment of gate guards in blue uniforms filed into the market square in a three-wide formation. Each held a torch in one hand while resting their free hand on the hilt of a blade. Nariah raised an eyebrow. When did gate guards begin carrying swords? Since they stood defense atop the gates, they were normally archers, but there was no quiver or box in sight.
“Princess Nariah Alcon of Ellonai?” A tall, brutish man Nariah didn’t recognize stepped forward from the center of the front line.
“I am,” Nariah said, the words falling from her lips before her brain could stop them.
It had been so long since someone in her home town called her by any positive title. That, combined with the introductions to lords and the druantia, had her being much bolder about admitting her identity.
Regret washed over her when she realized she was facing down an entire regiment of guards. There was a big difference between introducing herself to a lord, and introducing herself to the mob who’d wanted her dead just a few days prior and seemed intent to follow-through on that anger now, based on the bodies lining the slums outside.
Bracing herself for a rushed attack, she reached out with what little power she had to the rubble scattered about. There was easily enough there that she could make a show of a whirlwind of rocks if need be, just long enough to escape back to the carriage.
To Nariah’s surprise, the guard bowed, followed by the others in his regiment.
“Her Majesty, Queen Deborah Alcon, has sent us to receive you, her most honored sister, and escort you to the Royal Hall for your ceremony of mourning,” he explained as he rose. “Have you all you need with you in order to attend?”
Nariah nodded, but had no words. Tears shimmered in her vision, but she held her eyes wide to keep them from falling. After all these years, her sister had welcomed her home. It was truly too good to be true. Suspiciously good, yet tempting all at once. She wanted to believe that the past, the horrors, were behind her. That this wasn’t just one more trap by the goddesses.
Together, she and Deborah could right the atrocities of their father and save their kingdom from the goddesses on their own. The lords wouldn’t even have to put themselves in Irony’s sights.
Whether it was from the bleak state her ravaged kingdom had found itself in, or the gratitude she felt overflowing within her, Nariah’s head spun until numbness settled over her. She would have to decompress later, she knew, to process all that would change now that her position had been restored. But for now, she could finally mourn her father in peace.
The walk to the castle was strangely routine, with men flanking her on all sides in case an overzealous citizen were to attempt another mob. Those very citizens watched on in shock, whispering their complaints and superstitious woes with unveiled cynicism.
Deborah might let her exiled sister return, but winning their people over would take more than a royal decree. Fear was so powerful a thing that it had hardened her own father’s heart toward her when it came to casting her aside to whatever fate the wilderness held for her. How much more would a complete stranger want her to leave?
The Royal Hall, the main hall of the castle—and originally the only room within it—loomed over her as they approached. Made entirely of rough-cut cedar logs and hand-carved stone, the hall sat on the peak of the mountain itself, it seemed like, for no other place was higher. The curved roof would ward off demons and evil spirits, much like the roof of the temple behind the hall on the other side of the mountain.
Even from this side, the chanting of the monks and the smell of incense carried to Nariah on the wind. Her heart leapt for joy. Deborah hadn’t forsaken the goddesses’ truths like their father had. Maybe, if the rest of their people returned to their worship, the goddesses would protect them once again.
“You are not wrong,” Irony interjected, “but the chances are beyond slim, and Justice is not on your side.”
The mere mention of Karma’s name made Nariah wince. His banishment had not been entirely unlike her own—cast out due to fear of the goddesses more than anything he had personally done. She only hoped he could show her mercy for her part in this, when everything was said and done. In the meantime, only Nariah’s vision of Karma facing off against Death hinted at the showdown to come.
“This is where we leave you, milady. We will be at our posts if you need us.”
Nariah gave the man a smile, but he either didn’t see it or didn’t care, because he turned and left as though she no longer existed. In the moonlight, his skin almost looked turquoise…
Shaking her head, Nariah turned to the doors. It had been a long day, and her mind needed to be in the right place for the grief and reunion to come.
Resting her hand against the cool door handle, Nariah took a deep breath and exhaled slowly one final time before sliding the mahogany double-doors open on their tracks in the floor. She stepped inside, and the doors slid closed behind her, leaving her in a darkness that was somehow even darker than the unlit footpath outside.
Silence hung thicker than the incense infused air around her head. Sliding off her slippers, Nariah felt around on the cold tiles blindly with her feet for the carpeted aisle runner that led to the dais. At last, soft fur tickled the sole of her foot.
“Deborah?” Nariah called in a whisper, gritting her teeth and holding her head up high as she made her way down the aisle.
Darkness and quiet were both normal parts of a royal’s death rights, but not quite to this extreme. While thick drapes covered the stained-glass windows at every mourning ceremony, low black candles typically lit an altar placed behind the deceased’s body, to allow mourners one last opportunity to see their royals before the entombment.
Why were there no candles?
“Deborah?” Nariah whispered again.
Her stomach clenched into knots. What if Deborah wasn’t there? What if someone had set a trap for the Oracle they wanted dead? Sweat broke out on the back of her neck.
Nariah’s toes struck the first marble stair of the dais, and she sucked in her breath at the pain. Skirts rustled somewhere ahead of her, followed by the clicking of heels on marble.
“Did you think you would find comfort in the face of a dead man, Doomsayer?” Deborah’s silky, deep voice purred, dripping disdain. “That a heretic like you would be permitted any semblance of home, even in death?”
Knees buckling, Nariah stumbled to the floor. No trap laid by the goddesses awaited her, but a recommitted sentence from her baby sister’s lips drove a much more painful blow far deeper into her heart than they ever could have. Tears stung Nariah’s eyes, and she squeezed them shut against the loss of all she had hoped for.
Why had she ever come back to the castle with the guards? Why didn’t she just start evacuating people in the market? What had she hoped would change?
Deborah stopped walking so close to Nariah that the new queen’s velvet cloak brushed her exiled sister’s face. Cold fingers brushed across Nariah’s cheek so briefly that she wondered for a moment if it was only her imagination.
“No,” Deborah whispered. “You have no family here. I pronounce you dead, Nariah Alcon of Ellonai. The darkness of the tomb I curse upon your all-seeing eyes. The flames of the pyre I curse upon your body. No one will even gather to hear you scream.”