thirty-four
She had procured most of the ingredients she needed for the ritual that had landed her in prison.
The only thing missing was enough numbroot, which was the hardest bit to acquire without raising suspicion.
All the others were common household ingredients, let alone on Yahzen, where the government did not care to oversee controlled substances and left that to individual Houses.
But numbroot was a tad different. While every estate’s apothecary had a stash—and, indeed, it was openly sold at every healer’s parlor—the ritual required thirty grams, which would be noticeably absent come inventory time, never mind raising the suspicions of a healer.
On Cerilyn, it had been easy enough to get.
Mira told her clients that she needed some, and they nicked it from the fortress’s stores, which was already common enough on a planet known for its addictions and vices.
Here? She would have to get some a little at a time.
Five grams from House Dunsman. Another five from House Lerenan.
She would pop into a healer’s clinic and complain of an aching ankle—could she just have some numbroot, please?
It was easier than waiting for him to get around to sorcerically healing her “hurt” ankle.
It would be slow, but when she had all of the components necessary for a dark ritual, she would do it. She would strike down Marco di’Flare from multiple galaxies away.
If for no one else, then for Sulim. What did that bastard think he was doing, inviting her to run away with him?
Just to let her die like that? He didn’t care about her.
Just like he didn’t care about Graella, whom he also tried to have eliminated.
He sure as hell didn’t care about Mira, who could have killed him like she killed the bastard who attacked her hundreds of years ago.
She didn’t often think about that sorry sod.
The man was the son of a human diplomat who got too frisky and thought he could overpower the woman the same size as him.
I didn’t even need sorcery. Mira had grabbed a knife and plunged it into his stomach.
Her mother and Ramaron made it disappear.
A story was disseminated about the man running off with someone, never to be heard from again.
And until Mira later murdered the ruthless chief of Second Tribe for her crimes against humanity, she didn’t think about him again.
She would think about Marco for the rest of her life.
He took her from me… Mira lay in one of the High Temple’s many courtyards, picking one adjacent to her parents’ apartment where only the Premiers passed by with any regularity.
While she sketched on a drawing pad, her pencil flying over the page with the fury of unfinished love, she thought of what she would do if she could get her hands around that bastard’s neck.
I’d watch the light leave his eyes, just like Sulim’s did.
Mira couldn’t stop thinking about it—dashing into the scene of death, Sulim barely barreled by her husband’s body as they lay entwined in their own blood.
His eyes were closed—hers were wide open.
Fear. Shock. Abandonment. I abandoned her.
Mira’s pencil broke against the page. I wasn’t fast enough.
She wiped her hand over the tip, restoring it with sorcery.
I could have saved her. And the others. But mostly Sulim.
Then I would have taken her far away from there. Procured a divorce from the Gardiahs. Severed all ties. Ensconced her on Yahzen, where no mercenary would dare to touch her.
She pushed so hard with her pencil that it fell out of her hand. It rolled across the paved path through the courtyard, landing at a man’s foot.
Her father bent to pick it up before handing it back to her. With her eyes locked on his, Mira summoned her drawing pencil out of Nerilis’s hand and let it fall atop her drawing pad.
“Word has reached me that you were involved in some of the deaths at the… event,” he got right to saying, although Mira’s own father couldn’t bring himself to say what had actually happened. “I’d say that I’m surprised, but I’m not.”
“Yeah, well, it was either innocents or them. If you saw what I saw—”
“Save it,” he softly said. “I’m not upset, believe it or not. But some authorities from Arrah wish to speak with you. Your mother is going through those channels, so she can tell you more, but I thought I’d let you know. Because your mother will try to claim all of the mercenary deaths as her own,
but I think you should.”
“I’m sorry, did you say I should claim her kills, too?” Mira scoffed. “On Cerilyn, that’s just rude. People lose good bets doing that.”
“Your mother’s image cannot be harmed right now.”
“But mine can?”
“Nobody is looking at your image. Anyway… from what I understand, according to the Treaty of Cerilyn, you’re not in any legal trouble.”
“No, I’m not.” According to the treaty, anyone could attack, maim, or kill a mercenary in an act of self-defense if said mercenary was carrying out a contract.
Every time they depart for a mission, they might end up in a body bag, and nobody will care.
Mira picked up her pencil and continued sketching, if only to keep her hands occupied.
“Mira.”
The pencil rolled onto the ground again, but she did not look up.
“In my sermon this week, I will be discussing the loss of a soulmate and what—”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Nerilis did not push back. Instead, he turned and left without another word.
Mira glanced up from her sketchpad, teeth on her bottom lip as she let her pencil continue moving without her conscious input.
When she beheld her sketch of Sulim lying in repose on her concrete slab in the Temple, she focused her imagination on how satisfying it would be to hear the upcoming news of Marco di’Flare’s death.
She had not seen her mother for two days. Since awaking in the middle of the night and seeing the unholy terror of two red eyes hovering over her, Joiya made herself scarce, speaking only to her husband but otherwise disappearing.
Mira did not think much of it. For all she knew, Joiya had gone off to do her research, to visit someone who was sick, or back to Lerenan Estate to spend time with her mother.
She did not always tell her daughter where she was going, and why would she?
Mira had grown. She had a life of her own.
She merely had to decide what to do with it now that she was out of prison…
and already grieving the loss of the soulmate she barely knew.
She did not expect to see someone distantly related to them scurrying through the main Temple, though.
Certainly not while Mira wandered around, trying to decide if she should bother her father or visit some old friends she could harass for numbroot.
I’ve got how many deaths under my belt now?
She would never have to buy her own drinks at the tavern in town.
But she was distracted by the sight of Hannu in her pristine yet wrinkled Temple whites, making a break for the back hallways that led to the Sanctuary.
Mira followed, keeping a distance so she didn’t call too much attention to herself.
Sure enough, Hannu helped herself into the antechamber of the inner sanctum, a place that even Mira hadn’t been allowed until her own father escorted her. What the…
She forgot everything else on her mind. For one thing, what was Hannu doing here?
She had gone back to Adelah Estate, the last Mira heard.
And what gave her the right to go into the into the Sanctuary?
She was “just” a priestess, and something told Mira that her mother was not training her replacement as Keeper of the Void.
Hannu hardly qualified for such a high honor, especially if she were still on penance.
Unless this was part of her ongoing penance…
Mira entered the antechamber. The only other door, the one leading to the Sanctuary, was shut. There was no one in the antechamber with her.
She closed the door behind her. When she focused on what she heard on the other side of the door, she heard two voices chanting together.
That does it…
Mira had been through it all. She had killed.
She had done her time. She had loved and lost.
She had been raised by the High Priest and his lofty wife.
If she couldn’t investigate what her distant cousin from another family was doing in the fucking Sanctuary, then what the hell could she do!
I’m the one who has done some dark magic.
She was the one who knew parts of the Old Ways that her own father wouldn’t touch. If she hadn’t earned the right…
“Ma?”
There her mother was, kneeling before the holiest altar in the universe, hands clasped in prayer as she chanted over glowing runes. Hannu sat on the other side of the altar, prostrated on the floor, and chanting in harmony with the would-be High Priestess.
Neither of them noticed Mira, who could only stop and stare.
“Do you know who she is?”
She didn’t turn her head when she heard Rahara’s voice in the back of her mind. The woman was not there. She had been banished from Mira’s dreams, yet somehow, she lingered in the waking world. Was it because of the thinning veil?
“Close your eyes and listen. The song is strongest here.”
Mira closed them, letting darkness wash over her until all she perceived was the distant chanting and the slight, sweet scent of her mother’s sorcery.
As the world faded away, Mira opened her mind and listened for Rahara’s voice.
Instead, she heard another—booming, throbbing, high-strung and frenetic.
LOOKUPDONTLOOKUP
Mira clamped her hands over her ears, but in here, she could not escape the echoes of the past, or of the Void.
ascendascendASCEND
She opened her eyes. While nothing was displayed before her, she looked up.
“Oh, my…”
There, where the ceiling should have been, was the translucent outline of a singular eye staring back down at her.
Love, loss, and longing swelled within Mira, who could not look away. In that spark of life, she witnessed a timeline of events that culminated in this moment.
The First Dance of Life. The Creation of the Julah. The Founding of Garlahza. The Coming of the Avatar.
Events that pulled her under, things that she should not have known about because they were lost to history.