Chapter 16 #2
I drew in a deep breath of the thick air as the carriage began to move, smoothing out the fabric of my cloak and thinking of the guard who I had gifted knowledge of that treasure to.
I didn’t know what to make of his escape.
I had been enraged by the news of it, but that anger did me no good.
I had been in need of a man capable of carrying out the task and he had seemed like the perfect choice.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t use one who I had already lured under the command of my goddess.
There was ancient power in that place where the coin was housed.
The kind designed to keep the lost gods away.
It was why I couldn’t send just anyone to retrieve what I required from the cavern.
Why I couldn’t go myself. So a dead man walking seemed like a good bet for an alternative.
Now I would need to find another to send in his place.
But finding a trustworthy man willing to risk his life like that was a difficult choice indeed.
I would have to return to the royal prison and pick another shortly though; my goddess’s need was great and her commands were clear. I needed to gain that coin.
The carriage moved steadily through the empty streets as the cooler night air wrapped around it and my muscles began to tighten more and more with each second that passed, my need to serve my goddess growing in intensity as the desire to please her filled me.
It seemed to take an age and no time at all to reach our destination in the ninth ring, the Temple of Herdat situated to the west of the central part of the city where the ground rose and offered it a position high enough to be seen from all around.
Even after the old gods and goddesses had disappeared and the first lie of the Fallen had cursed us, the temples had remained.
Each of them housed priests and priestesses who devoted their lives to the worship of their lost deities despite the empty ears their prayers fell upon.
I had been like them once. Praying and devoting myself to a god who couldn’t hear me.
But I was the only one dedicated enough to seek her out.
I was the only one who had roused one of the ancient ones from their slumber and sought to return her full power to her.
The carriage rolled to a stop and I pushed the door wide, not interested in the formalities of waiting for the driver to do it for me when my goddess awaited.
I strode up the black stone steps which stood out so starkly amongst all the white, passing through the double doors which always remained open, welcoming death at all times of day or night just as the Fae had learned to do so long ago.
Once, when immortality had been theirs, they had allowed themselves to forget the power of death.
Only a few had coveted it the way it had deserved to be coveted.
Of course, all had feared it and it hadn’t been unheard of through accident, anger or war, but it wasn’t inevitable the way it was now.
Now the world and the Fae all fell prey to it.
Now all of them were ready to worship it the way they should and accept the true power of the goddess I served, yet like so many other things, they’d forgotten to do so.
They’d forgotten to show respect to the goddess who could offer them so much in death if only they served her.
But I planned on reminding them all in due time.
The air grew colder with every step I took into the vast space within the temple, the pungent scent of incense filling the air and the repeated swish and crack of a whip breaking the silence as one of the priests kneeled before a side altar and indulged in the pure worship offered up by inflicting his own pain.
I glanced at the torn skin of his back, my lip curling at the shallowness of the wounds and the desire to tell him to strike harder rising upon my tongue.
But I held it in check. His poor attempts at worship would go unnoticed once the goddess got her claws into me once more anyway.
And he would be reminded clearly enough of what true suffering was required to satiate her need and enhance her strength.
I strode beyond the empty space which was left clear for the priests and priestesses to kneel upon during their morning worship, heading for the darker area beyond the carved archway at the rear of the temple.
My skin prickled as I strode into the room, my gaze falling on the black stone altar lined with sharp spikes that awaited me.
Beneath the spikes were fine holes in the stone, the space below the altar sacred and reserved solely for the occupation of a hungry goddess in need of blood and pain to strengthen her.
I sighed in relief as I undid the cloak and let it fall from my shoulders, my naked body peppering with gooseflesh from the frigid air within this space, the dark corners of the room thickening with the sultry presence of the goddess as she was drawn here.
She still hadn’t awoken fully. No matter how much I offered her, it wasn’t enough.
But in the moments when I gave myself to her to punish and torture, she did manage to speak to me.
She offered up commands and advice, helped me see a way through the challenges before me and gave me all the encouragement I needed to go on.
It was she who had told me of the power that coin held, though I still wasn’t certain of the full truth of it. Only that by taking ownership of it, I could claim that power for myself.
Priests and priestesses moved into the room from shadowy alcoves around me, each of them taking up a chant of worship as I climbed the steps to the altar and laid myself upon it, the sharp slice of pain from the spikes cutting into my flesh making me hiss and moan in pleasure, though we had barely even begun.
The servants of the Temple of Herdat all wore deepest green in the colour of their hooded cloaks and long robes, each of them loosely tied to easily expose flesh whenever blood was drawn.
They were devout and spoke little beyond the words of prayer and chanting, knowing well that their time was wasted on anything else.
A rush of energy passed over my skin as I felt Herdat’s power gathering, her attention fixing on this place and this offering which she needed to experience so often.
It wasn’t enough. I knew that. But the Fae of this city were all too caught up in their own petty lives to be easily drawn to a life of worship, so it had been a difficult task to encourage them back here.
More came now than had done last year, or the year before that, but still it wasn’t enough.
She needed agony and death to bring her back to us and no matter how much I offered, it still hadn’t come close to enough.
I closed my eyes as shackles were secured around my ankles and wrists, the iron biting into my flesh and making my stomach roil from its foul power before the chains which secured them were cranked tight.
Four priests took up position at the wheels which tightened the chains, each of them chanting louder and more forcefully as they prepared to tighten them again, to force me down onto the spikes harder and harder.
They wouldn’t stop no matter how loudly I screamed.
Not until my blood had spilled down through the holes in the altar and my body was utterly destroyed between them.
Not until I fell silent and death took me once again, the way it did month after month.
Then they would leave me, untether my wrists and ankles and allow the goddess to rebirth me, if that was what she so desired. I had made close friends with pain and death in the years since my eternal life began, and I lived for these nights more than any other now that I had a taste for them.
“The time of the risen Prophet draws ever closer. You must prepare yourself.”
“I have done all you asked. You only need point me wherever you desire,” I pledged wholeheartedly.
The wheels began to turn, and I opened my mouth as I allowed myself to scream. Holding back the cries of pain were only an insult to our goddess. She wanted to hear them. They strengthened her just as surely as the pain and blood itself did.
“Do you enjoy the power I have offered you?”
A low and terrifying voice pushed into my mind as I screamed and bled upon the spiked altar, gasping as I felt the presence of Herdat more sharply than I did at any other time.
“Yes,” I moaned, my voice a cracked and damaged thing thanks to my ongoing screams.
“She scorned it.”
“Who?” I panted.
“The one you seek. The one you shall bind to your will. She scorned it, but her power remains. She holds the key to what you need. She holds the power to remake the kingdoms and force the Fae to heel once more.”
“I’ll find her,” I swore as the hot spill of my blood washed from me and the wheels were cranked tighter.
“Raise the Prophet. Seek the coin. Seek the last of the Fallen. She is the key to the destruction you desire. She is simply, death.”
My following screams grew so loud that I could no longer hear her as the agony within my flesh stole all else from me, but I clung on to her words as I endured more and more of the torture.
I kept them close and held them tight within me even as I surrendered to the excruciating pain of another death and a night spent building up to it.
I would find what she bade me to seek. I would find it and I would return Herdat to her full power no matter the cost.