48. The Girl
Chapter 48
The Girl
T he girl stretched her arms over her head, her bones and joints cracking from disuse as she lay on the bed in the dark and cramped hut.
Sunlight , she thought. When was the last time I saw the sun?
She had seen it in her dreams, sure, but she couldn’t feel it. And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel another vision threatening to crest into her consciousness. She had witnessed the death of one of the last remaining Keepers recently, and she wondered if the lack of visions was a result of the dwindling number of her people. Laioken—or the Librarian , as he referred to himself—was one of the last, most hidden of her people, and they had never seen eye to eye when it came to the girl’s plans. As much as she despised Laioken, she still watched his light fade, his soul absorbed by Solace. After that witness, her visions had tapered off, becoming jumbled and unclear.
Her visions were muddied again, one of the Children of Fate inevitably exercising their free will and deviating from the paths she had so meticulously led them toward. It would take months for her to correct everything, and she groaned in frustration.
The hallway in Solace flashed in her mind, briefly disorienting her, as she climbed from the bed, her muscles almost giving way. She steadied herself before taking tentative steps forward, her body in the hut but her mind in Solace.
It was becoming more like that, recently, her mind beginning to fuse with her goddess. Eventually, that is all that would remain. Her body would be here, but she would be with Solace.
The girl often wondered if the goddess would be able to control her physical form once that happened, or if she’d fade into nothing.
Slowly, the hallway disappeared to reveal the dark and hot interior of the hut. It was just large enough for her bed and two chairs, but there wasn’t much else she needed anyway. She shuffled to one of the chairs and grabbed a linen wrap, tying it around her thinning hair and emaciated frame.
Oh, the glamorous life as the voice of a goddess .
The girl finished tying the wrap as images flashed across her vision again. She saw Cael in pain, a body the girl couldn’t see under him. As she tried to make sense of the scene, it disappeared. She sighed and rubbed her temples, filing the information away in one of the rooms in the hallway.
She reached the door to her hut, which was really just a flap of fabric, and pushed it to the side.
Instantly, the scalding heat and relentless sun of The Sandstones hit her, causing her to throw her other arm over her eyes in an attempt to block the assault.
Well, there’s the sun .
She stepped out of the hut and hissed, realizing too late that her feet were bare and the hard-packed sand that comprised The Sandstones was blazing hot. The girl ducked back inside, quickly pulling on a pair of leather sandals by the door before exiting again.
The sun was high in the sky, indicating that it was nearly midday. She expected Cael and his retinue to return today with a guest in tow. The girl practically vibrated with excitement. This should turn the tides in their favor in the war against the Warlord.
Soon, Solace. Three Children of Fate will be here, within our grasp.
The girl plodded through the camp, the bustling of Mages and Vessels halting to pay deference to their leader.
“Mother.”
“Matriarch.”
“Solace. ”
They murmured as her feet carried her slowly across the tan rocks. She had chosen this place as her base of operations because it was relatively uninhabitable, and was an ancient place where gods once walked the earth. The Warlord would never think to venture here, and the girl scoffed slightly at the thought of his shortsightedness.
The girl found a spot on an outcropping of rock where Cael often gathered their followers together and waited. Cael’s second, Folami—a dark-haired, dark-skinned beautiful woman native to The Sandstones—approached quietly, the beads in her hair clicking together as she moved and sat in silence with the girl while they waited.
Soon enough, the sound of horses thundering across the open expanse reached her ears, the tittering and gasping of her followers not far behind.
The prodigal son returns .
The girl squinted against the sun, trying to make out the shapes moving quickly across the desert stone and into their camp, but she could discern less than a dozen distinct shapes.
What happened? Solace, why was I not shown this? The girl vibrated with rage as the horses and Mages came into view.
“There’s too few.” Folami spoke what the girl was thinking. “Why are there so few?”
Fewer than a third of the Mages she sent to that backwater village in the Borderlands returned, and no Child of Fate in tow.
The fact that Solace hadn’t shown her this possibility was alarming, and a cold sweat broke across her brow and back. Her vision flickered to the hallway again, but Solace didn’t provide any further explanation.
Frustrated, the girl pushed to her feet and stalked to where Cael flung himself from his horse. He was dirty. Sweat caused the dust from his ride to stick to his skin, darkening his complexion and turning his normally light hair a faint hue of red.
His gaze swung to the girl’s and his expression was one of contrition.
“You failed ,” she hissed, and her palm cracked across his face. The sound of her hand hitting his flesh rang out, the camp growing quiet at the show. She hadn’t hit him in years, but she suddenly felt that she couldn’t control the anger and the desperate feeling of failure that sang through her blood.
“ Months , years , of planning, and you fuck it all up,” she seethed. Cael stood still, his cheek growing red where she struck him .
“I’m sorry for the loss . . .”
“That’s not the failure! I have plenty of men and women willing to die for our cause.” She flung her hand behind her. “You were told to return with the girl and I. Don’t. See. Her.”
Cael bowed his head, and it took everything for the girl not to kill him on the spot.
“You need him still. We need him still. Be patient, daughter, ” Solace’s voice rang through her head, and she almost wept with relief at the sound.
“While not what you requested, I did bring home something that might appease you. Someone . . . better,” Cael said cryptically, his eyes meeting hers, searching for acceptance.
The girl gave a jerky nod. “Show me.”
Cael turned on his heel and approached a horse in the rear of their company, a hooded and tied rider suddenly visible through the throng of people that had gathered around the exhausted and battle-weary group.
Cael pulled the person from atop the horse, their feet stumbling as they hit the ground before Cael grabbed their upper arms to steady them. He then grabbed their tied hands, pulling them toward the girl as they stumbled and tripped.
Cael stopped in front of the girl and ripped the hood off the figure, revealing their face. There was no fear in their expression, only a deep-seated hate. They spat at the girl’s feet to a collective gasp from the onlookers. For the second time that day, the girl slapped someone across the face.
“Cael, see that your Mages are fed and washed. You may visit the pleasure tents tonight, if it pleases you. Just don’t let it get out of hand again.” The girl gave Cael a pointed look and he nodded his head jerkily. “It appears all is not lost,” the girl mused.
She stepped closer to the figure, pulling their hair back until their neck was craned to look into her eyes. “Hello, Bondsmith,” she said, a serpentine grin on her face. Solace’s maniacal laugh rang through her head as she had the prisoner dragged back to her tent.
“All is not lost, daughter. ”