3. The Girl
Chapter 3
The Girl
T he girl opened her eyes on a gasp, quickly cataloguing the aches and pains in her body from sitting so long in one position. The sun had moved more than halfway across the sky, indicating that the girl had sat in Solace for hours . She gazed around, looking for the thing that her great-grandmother said would appear and wreak havoc upon her village.
But she saw nothing. She heard nothing.
Except.
There.
On the opposite edge of the Valley, there was a mass of black. It undulated and writhed, and the girl strained to identify it. Her lips parted on a silent gasp as the mass turned into men—men clad in all black, who streamed down the hill toward her village. She heard the muffled clattering of hooves and war cries as they descended upon her home. They weren’t trying to be covert in the slightest, it’s as if they wanted her people to know they had come to conquer.
She stood transfixed as she watched a sea of black-clad people clamber down the hills opposite where she stood into the village below. What started as a trickle turned into a rush, and soon the hills were coated in black. She heard the screams next, the terrified screams of her people as they, too, saw the wall of death descend.
RUN!
The voice was loud in her head and the girl winced. But it jolted her stiff and aching muscles into action, and she half-ran, half-fell down the embankment. The girl was lucky that this side wasn’t nearly as steep or long as the opposite end. She still had time. Hopefully.
She reached the edge of the village just as the sea of horses and men swept into her home. The girl ran as fast as she could, chest heaving, heart threatening to jump out, toward the secret entrance of the main house. It was on the east side of the building and she would have to cut across a few streets in order to reach it.
The girl cut left and ran two blocks before she heard it—the wet squelching noise that accompanied swords as they cut into flesh and bone. The sound and accompanying pained scream made her come to a dead stop, and she searched for the cause. Her eyes fell on Allestra, a friend of her mother’s. Allestra made eye contact with the girl, blood pouring from her mouth and the wound in her stomach, staining the ends of her white-blonde hair and alabaster skin red.
The girl stood, horrified at the sight, and she moved to help.
“ Go .” Allestra mouthed. Her body fell limp, blood still trickling down her cheek.
The girl physically shook herself and continued running, the sounds of death and dying thick in the humid air. She reached the main house at the same time as a group of soldiers, and she flattened herself against the side of the building. The girl sneaked a peek around the corner, cataloguing the five men demanding entry to the main house. Strangely, apart from the black tunics and pants they wore, there was no unifying physical characteristic of these men—each was more different than the last. The girl was fascinated by their differences, especially since all her people looked the same—shockingly white hair and creamy ivory skin with some variation of blue eyes. One man was extraordinarily tall with pale skin and close-cropped red hair, another was short with dark-brown skin and hair to match. The girl stretched her neck a bit more to further inspect the soldiers but snapped back quickly when the tall man with red hair began pounding on the main door, a section of the house the girl had to traverse in order to reach the hidden entrance.
The girl’s heart pounded in her throat, and she fought to keep her fear at bay. If the soldiers turned or even glanced in their periphery, they’d see her pressed against the side of the house, and her fate would be the same as everyone else in her village.
The soldiers turned to brace their bodies against the door, intent on collapsing it, and the girl squeezed her eyes shut, her whole body trembling.
This is it. This is the end .
“If it’s the Matriarchs you’re looking for, you won’t find them inside,” a firm voice carried across the open space in front of the house and the girl peeked her eyes open. Standing across the way was her grandmother, covered head-to-toe in blood and ash, her normally neatly braided white hair singed and askew.
The soldiers stopped their breach attempt as one and slowly turned, their steps marked and assured as they circled the girl’s grandmother like a pack of wolves ensnaring their prey.
“And where would they be then, hmm?” the tall one purred, his eyes blackening as he came to a slow stop in front of her.
The grandmother flicked her eyes quickly to the side, making eye contact with the girl, and the girl froze solid.
Is Grandmother selling me to these men? Her heart felt like it would burst from her chest and the girl cowered where she stood.
But the flick of her gaze betrayed nothing to the soldiers. Instead, she squared her shoulders and drew herself to her full, considerable height before staring straight into the soulless black pits of the soldier’s eyes and admitting the one thing that was sure to seal her fate.
“Right here. In front of you.”
The soldiers tensed as one, but the girl’s grandmother pulled a long boning knife from somewhere in her kaftan before rearing back and stabbing the nearest soldier—a short man with a pocked face and beady brown eyes—repeatedly in the stomach.
Blood gushed from the wounds, coating her grandmother’s arm and kaftan before dripping in a puddle on the ground. The soldier cried out in pain and shock before pushing his hands into his abdomen in a vain attempt to keep his intestines from spilling out of the wound her grandmother so savagely inflicted.
The remaining soldiers around her growled predatorily before closing the distance between them, effectively closing her grandmother within the circle while leaving their friend to die on the outside.
“You’ll pay for that, bitch,” the ebony-skinned Mage spat as the telltale earthy brown wisps of Earth Magic manifested in his palm.
The girl’s grandmother tried to back up and escape her soon-to-be executioners, but she was much too late and severely outnumbered.
In a move quicker than lightning, the soldier had her grandmother encased in vines, pulling them continually tighter until her face was blue, her air stolen from her. The other three soldiers made no move to intervene, no move to save a Matriarch of Solace’s line, instead looking on with a vicious sort of savage interest.
“We had orders to bring you to Lord d’Refan alive, but I think he’ll forgive us this transgression. You did kill one of his . . . preferred Mages,” the red-haired soldier growled as the Earth Mage willed the vines tighter.
“He . . . is . . . no . . . lord ,” her grandmother spat as vines wrapped up her chest and circled her neck. “Only a monster . . . a Warlord . . . would . . . sanction . . . this.”
The soldiers surrounding her chuckled darkly as the vines around her neck slowly tightened.
“Any last words, witch?” the Earth Mage purred, violence coating every word.
The girl’s grandmother glared daggers at the Mage before spitting in his eye. The soldier growled an almost animalistic sound before tightening his palm, the vines pulling taut with the motion. Her grandmother’s eyes grew wide, practically popping out of her head, and her face turned an impossible shade of crimson. All the while, her gaze never left the girl, hiding in her corner on the side of the house.
Eventually—much sooner than the girl expected—her grandmother sagged against the vines, the life leaving her eyes, her gaze still trained on the girl. The soldiers released her from the vines with a noise of disgust before a Fire Mage—the tall red-haired man—set her grandmother’s body on fire.
The girl was still frozen in fear, her feet glued to the ground.
Run!
The voice inside her head was her grandmother’s this time, or at least the girl thought it was her grandmother. She hoped it was. The reminder jolted the girl back to her senses, and she took advantage of the distraction her grandmother had provided to carefully navigate her way across the main entrance toward the corner that held the hidden door. The fog of terror lifted, and suddenly the sights, sounds, and smells of what was happening to her village were all-consuming.
She smelled the burning of wood and flesh as Elemental Mages set fire to homes and businesses alike, careless of the fact that people were trapped inside. The smoke burned her eyes and ash fell in her hair like snowflakes, coating the ground around her and making the air thick and hard to breathe. The acrid smoke was so dense that it covered the afternoon sun, shading the entire village. As she snuck around the house, she heard the desperate screams of men, women, and children as they were butchered and burned alive.
The girl whirled to her left as the sounds of flesh slapping flesh and the unmistakable tone of male pleasure filled the air. A broad soldier lay atop a woman, his sword stuck into the throat of a man, pinning his corpse to the ground. Blood spilled from the wound in his neck, saturating the earth and creating a puddle that stretched to where the man’s wife lay face down on the ground, tears tracking through mud and ash on her cheeks as she stared woodenly at her dead husband. Her hand reached toward his, but his fingers were just out of grasp. Every few seconds, her fingers would reach further toward her husband as her husband’s killer thrust brutally into her from behind.
A Pleasure Mage stood nearby, his face contorted in a grimace as he pulled the Essence of both the soldier’s pleasure and the woman’s pain and funneled it into his waiting Vessels. One Vessel—a strikingly beautiful woman with olive skin and long braided black hair—had her eyes closed, teeth clenched, and fists balled as she absorbed the Essence of pain while the other Vessel—a huge, hulking man—was eliciting soft moans, just barely restrained from touching himself, as he absorbed the pleasure Essence. The girl was disgusted that the Mage would feed his magic off this display, especially when the Mage and his Vessels didn’t look much older than her .
The soldier found his release in the woman beneath him and stood, his dick still half-hard and wet from his release. Errant streams of cum dripped onto the woman’s exposed back and into the ends of her long white hair. The woman didn’t move, just continually strained toward her husband. The soldier pulled his sword from her husband’s neck with a noise that was simultaneously slick and grating, and swiped the tip of it across the dirt, cutting the woman’s fingers off at the knuckle.
The woman opened her mouth in a scream that was never voiced as the soldier drove the already bloodied blade into the base of her skull. Her mouth was frozen in her scream, eyes wrenched shut as her soul was ripped from the world. The soldier removed the blade from her neck and wiped it on the back of her kaftan before sheathing it once more at his side. He, finally, tucked his cock back into his pants, but not before pissing atop both of the corpses beneath him.
“Sometimes a good piss is just as pleasurable as a good fuck, eh, Lex?” the girl heard the soldier say as he smacked the chest of the Pleasure Mage standing next to him. The Mage stumbled and mumbled something that was inaudible to the girl, but the soldier barked a laugh before stalking away in search of his next victim.
The Pleasure Mage tipped his dark-haired head back and closed his eyes, seeming to gather himself before he, too, turned and followed the soldier. His Vessels, now recovered from his channeling, followed behind like the good dogs they were.
The girl finally ripped her gaze away from the carnage, remembering the words her great-grandmother had spoken while in Solace.
She must find the hidden room. She must not stop until she does so. And she must remember what happened here today.
The girl took a shaky breath and set her mouth in a grim line, pushing the memory of the soldier and the woman to the back of her mind. She did not have time now to process, but her memories would inevitably wait for her in Solace.
Her hands tremored as she finally reached the corner concealing the door. She shakily pressed on the little round carving of a sparrow, which released the small door with an inaudible snick . The girl glanced around, seemingly remembering her surroundings, before sneaking through the gap and into the secret tunnels that ran through the perimeter of the main house.
The girl pulled the door shut behind her, the darkness taking over and muffling the sounds of death from outside. Enough light trickled in from gaps between the walls to illuminate the way forward, and the girl found it easier to focus on her task once she could no longer see, nor hear, the crimes happening outside of the tunnel.
The girl made her way quickly through the tunnels, her hands outstretched to either side, feeling the bumps and grooves of the mud wall to her right and the wood-slatted wall to her left. In what felt like no time at all, the girl reached the point where the tunnels branched. One would continue along the perimeter of the main house, one would lead her down to the basement which housed the Seeing Rooms, and one would lead her to the main chamber of the house. The girl took the second option, descending the worn stone stairs into further darkness. She kept her hands on the walls as they narrowed and became solid cold stone—more for balance than direction. The girl, due to one of her many lessons, knew these tunnels like the back of her hand and could, quite literally, complete this journey blindfolded with her hands behind her back.
The girl moved quickly, making sure to keep her steps silent and sure, even though she was certain no one on the other side could hear her. If there even was anyone on the other side. She hoped, perhaps foolishly, that some of her people had chosen to hide in various corridors and rooms within the main house once they heard the chaos outside, rather than running into the fray. But the girl knew that was a fool’s hope. Her people were connected through Solace and lived that outwardly. There is no way that they would’ve hidden while their families and friends were killed—the death of her grandmother and what she witnessed with the husband and wife earlier were testament to that fact.
The girl’s footsteps were sure as she descended further into the dark, finally reaching the last stone step and finding footing on the worn and packed earth of the lowest floor of the main house. The darkness was even more oppressive down in the depths of the main house, but the girl moved with a quick assuredness that spoke of familiarity. If there was any chance of saving her people—or what remained of them—from the fate outside these walls, she would take it .
She felt along the earthen walls until she came to a shoulder-height wooden latch a few paces down, built into the left side of the wall. The girl pulled the latch out from its place and pushed it up. The barely audible click as the latch unlocked the wooden faux panel that would lead into the Room of Knowledge was deafeningly loud in the quiet space, and the girl paused, hardly daring to breathe, listening for any indication that her movements were detected. After a few moments that felt like forever, the girl cautiously pushed the panel open, revealing the Room of Knowledge.
It was more of a cavern than a room, in all honesty, and the name of the room always confused the girl. Why not just call it the Cavern of Knowledge? The room had started as a room millennia ago when her people first came to the Valley. Legend says that Solace raised the mountains and grew the forest to protect her creation after the Sundering, and as their community expanded and time passed, so did memories and futures. Most of these memories and futures were recorded in some physical form and placed down here for safekeeping, a backup if Solace—both the goddess and the place—ever fell. As that knowledge grew, so did the caverns.
The girl’s heart thundered in her chest, threatening to expel from beneath her breastbone as she quickly glanced around the room, searching for intruders, or any signs of life. Satisfied that no one was there, she turned and quickly pushed the faux panel back into place with a slightly audible snick . The panel, when closed, looked like any of the walls surrounding the space—all were coated with a variety of markings that depicted the rise and fall of various civilizations and peoples. Most Keepers couldn’t read the ancient inscriptions—as time went on, some knowledge had to be sacrificed in order to preserve the minds and sanity of the Keepers as a whole. The girl guessed that she would be able to understand those drawings as soon as she ascended to the ranking of Matriarch. Her family line was the only one left with the ability to hold all memories and all futures, as the burden was shared between generations.
The girl shivered as she remembered her great-grandmother’s words. Soon, she would be the only Keeper of Memories.
And then she would die.
The girl gently traced her fingers over the pictures and symbols lining the fake wall. She wondered if any of the stories and predictions entombed here showed the downfall of her people .
Did a descendant of Solace see this future? Did they try to stop it? The girl shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts. It never did any good to dwell on things that she couldn’t change; doing so was a quick way to insanity—another lesson from her great-grandmother.
The sounds of angry voices and pounding feet came from the direction of the main entrance to the Room of Knowledge, across from where the girl was currently standing. Her pulse spiked again, her heart beating in her throat. A sweat broke out across her body—she forgot one of the commandments from her great-grandmother in Solace. She stopped moving.
Her breaths came in short, shallow gasps as she heard the bodies moving closer. She could make out the sounds of at least five soldiers, if not more, and the muffled voices of her mother and great-grandmother. Her heart sank from her throat to her stomach. There would be no good to come from the soldiers holding her family captive. She had seen firsthand what these soldiers did to their people, the brutality they offered. The girl was torn between running to the alcove that contained the hidden Seeing Room that only the blood of a Keeper of Memories could access, and simply handing herself over to the soldiers. At least she would die with her family.
The girl took a deep, fortifying breath and closed her eyes. Time seemed to slow as she reached for Solace. It came faster than it had even earlier this morning. The girl didn’t have time to dwell on why this was the case, but inherently she knew it was because her grandmother had died—the responsibilities and advantages that came with being a Keeper of Memories were already slowly passing to the girl. Instead of fully immersing herself in Solace, she reached for the bonds of her mother and great-grandmother within the space. She found her mother first, and sent a series of images, showing her mother where she was and her ultimate destination.
All of this happened within the span of a heartbeat, and the girl waited with bated breath to see if her mother had received her message. When there was no response, the girl closed the connection to Solace and folded her hands in front of her. She shut her eyes and listened to the sounds of the approaching group, making peace with her inevitable fate.
She counted the steps of the group as they got indeterminably closer to her position in the Room of Knowledge. Suddenly, instead of the sound of footsteps, the girl heard the muffled sounds of shouts.
“You bitch! You bit me!” a soldier, the girl assumed, exclaimed.
“You deserve far more than a bite, and I only regret that I cannot be the one to give it to you,” her mother spit with so much vitriol even the girl cringed at her words. Her mother was always soft-spoken, with kind eyes and gentle words of encouragement and love. To hear this from her mother was such a contrast it shocked the girl into opening her eyes.
The group paused and she could just see the outline of their shadows against the curve of the wall. Three more steps and the soldiers would see her.
Move! Her mother’s voice screamed through her mind, forcing the girl into action. The girl needed no more sign or encouragement, and she scampered from her position to the alcove set into the wall not fifteen feet from where her mother and the soldiers stood. The girl heard her mother and the soldier trade a few more barbs, but the girl tuned out their conversation, their voices muffled in her effort to concentrate.
The girl removed the small knife she had strapped to her belt and quickly sliced her palm. She winced at the sting—in her effort to move quickly, she had sliced her hand deeper and longer than she meant. Biting her lip to contain a whimper of pain, she squeezed her hand into a fist, allowing the blood from the cut to coat the entirety of her palm.
She quickly sought out the proper stones that framed the alcove and pressed her bloody palm to each in quick succession. An all-seeing eye for visions of the past and future, an arrow drawn in a continuous circle for the passage of time, and a rune that her great-grandmother told her symbolized the line of Keepers. The stones glowed white for a moment before another nondescript stone popped open, revealing yet another lever. The girl quickly grasped and pulled it from its position until she heard a clunk , indicating that the mechanism to open the door had engaged. She quickly pushed the stone lever back into its place, effectively opening the door to the Seeing chamber while also concealing the lock.
The girl pushed the door open, intending to hide herself within, but a scream of pain stopped her in her tracks. Mother . She whipped her head toward the sound, and instantly wished she had not done so.
There, not twenty feet from her, was her mother, on her knees in front of the soldier she had bitten. His hand glistened with blood from where her mother had not just punctured his skin, she ripped through tendons and muscle until the glistening white of bone shone in the low torchlight .
The soldier’s back was turned toward the girl and the alcove, his attention focused on her mother. His one good hand wrapped in her hair, wrenching her head back at a painful angle, and her mother’s hands had shot up to grip the soldier’s own, trying desperately to loosen his grasp. His other hand, slick with blood, clutched a dagger, the pommel angled toward her face. In one brutally strong motion, he brought the handle of the dagger down and into her mouth.
The girl heard the clank of the metal hilt and handle as it hit her mother’s teeth, and her mother’s accompanying scream was muffled by both the dagger’s pommel and her now broken teeth. The girl sucked in a sharp breath. The soldier removed the hilt and brought it down again a second and third time, breaking her nose and cheekbones with an audible crack . Each time her mother gasped in pain, tears tracked down her soot and blood covered face.
“I’ll cut out your tongue next time, whore,” the soldier said as he roughly shook her mother’s head by the grip he had on her hair. He forcibly threw her to the ground, her mother’s hands not reaching in time to catch her fall, and her face hit the packed earth with a sickening crunch. Her nails dug into the earth as her body writhed in pain. The soldier viciously kicked her in the ribs, causing her mother’s head to lift off the ground momentarily as her body desperately tried to protect itself from the new danger, only for the soldier to aim a second swift kick at her face. The toe of his boot caught her nose with a wet crunch , and her mother flopped to the ground, unmoving.
The girl didn’t realize she was crying until she felt wet splashes on the neck of her kaftan. She sniffled quietly, but her noises blessedly went unnoticed. The soldier picked up his dagger and wiped the pommel on her mother’s kaftan, staining the usually white garment a macabre shade of red.
“Get up. Lord d’Refan will be here soon and, unfortunately for me, he needs you alive,” the soldier said as he roughly picked the girl’s mother up, her head lolling to the side, blood running freely from both her mouth and nose. “But don’t worry, I’ll have my fun with you before the day is done.”
Her mother opened her eyes at that moment, and her gaze connected with the girl’s. She gave her one sad smile before inching her chin up, barely indicating that the girl needed to hide. The girl gazed at her mother one last time. With tears falling freely down her face, she entered the alcove, closing the door securely behind her.