Chapter 1
Chapter one
Ashara
The Owl
“In the first year of Thromarra’s dawn, three hundred cycles ago, tides of blood rose from the deep.
The blood plagues.
His fountains sputtered forth, and the windows of the beyond were opened.
And the veins leaked upon the earth for one hundred cycles.
Our Father, as punishment for our wickedness, greed, and ambition, had unleashed His almighty penance upon the lands we call home.
Ferrovia, upon Garnet Mountain’s easterly ledge, was the first to drown.
From holes and cracks in the ground, His crimson flood bubbled and pooled, turning all those in its mighty wake to stone—bloodstone.”
Unbeknownst to him, Druid Capriche had been befouled by an owl.
Roosted in the chappellum’s beams, it peered down at him, appearing to admire its fine work.
A wet smear marked his shoulder, streaking his pauldrons and robes in green-brown and white.
I pressed my lips together, swallowing a smile, intent on examining the straw at my feet.
If my gaze found Demetri’s, it would be our undoing.
It was hard to take the sermon seriously when he was dripping in bird shit, but laughter in the chappellum was no small sin.
Should the acolytes detect even the tiniest snigger…
well, I was unsure of the penance but hadn’t the nerve to find out.
“The First to be swallowed by the blood plagues was a child.”
The parable of the First was told every phase; with each new moon came the reminder of why Thromarra still endured to see another.
Leaving the safety of straw, I returned my gaze to Capriche, making sure to avoid his shoulders.
Instead, I traced the spire of iron melded to his helm; it twisted upwards, absurdly long, pointing to the beyond.
Can he joust with that thing? Demetri had asked me a phase or two past. Threading my hands, I returned to examine my lap, begging my lips to heed caution whilst Capriche droned on…and on, and on.
“The child we ordained as the First. She was the first, but not the last, to be turned unto stone. Our Lord is unprejudiced in matters of flesh. Mankind had fallen so low that none were spared the heights of His wrath, even the babes.” The babes like Adelaide.
The promise of a smile wilted to nothing, slain by the frost of her absence.
I eyed Demetri across the pews, checking to see if he had indeed nodded off—Capriche’s monotonous drawl enough to tempt even the most devout to shutter their eyes.
My gaze was drawn instead to the narrow sliver of bench beside him.
A thigh-width of unoccupied oak that may as well have been a valley, such was the depth of her absence.
His arm was draped across its back as it always was, as though unaware Adelaide’s brambled curls no longer existed beneath it.
Someone squeezed my hand, and I fixed my stare forwards, my mother’s eyes burning holes into my cheek.
“‘Behold!’ proclaimed the Blood God, ‘that I, Father to all, bring the plague of bloods upon ye, to destroy all flesh for your transgressions and sins. You have cast me aside. You have betrayed me, my children. And now, everything that lives, grows, and dies, shall perish in the blood that was owed.’”
A faint trickling drew my attention left.
A lad, no older than nine or ten winters, shuffled in the pew, face puce like beetroot.
The sweet musk of urine rose from the straw, a dark patch spreading at his crotch.
By the pits. It was hardly a choice, humiliation or pain, but the Dendralis forced our hands, nonetheless.
Every Seventh Day, chappellum was mandatory.
Once the doors of judgement were sealed, no one from the enclave was permitted to leave, not even for the latrine.
It was either mess yourself in the pews or face the acolyte’s belt.
Now, I chose to fast on the morn of sermons, having learnt my lesson both ways.
By next phase, the lad would do the same.
“The First welcomed her death, her offering. It was a privilege to be chosen as the first to render her due.”
Had Adelaide thought the same? Had she been grateful to deliver her render before the seed of womanhood could take root? Was it a blessing to remain a child eternal?
“And thus, His great, bloody tides rose higher. Taller than mountains, broader than valleys. After the First, it swelled to a monstrous wave, crashing down over the mountain to the towns and cities beyond.”
Every Thromarrian knew what happened next. We were not permitted to forget.
“Thromarra ran red.”
Capriche’s large hands elevated towards the stained rose window above him, framing the pulpit. It bathed the light stone of the chappellum in crimson, each fragment of glass tinted red. The tips of his fingers caught the light, as if dipped in fresh blood.
“Fathers, brothers, sisters, and mothers turned to stone with His blood-stained touch. Though most relics were lost to the passage of time, the First endured. Her eternal resting place now atop our Grand Templum. May She serve as a reminder to all those who forget: Blood Demands Blood.”
“Blood Demands Blood,” we echoed.
The owl fluffed its wings, spooked by the noise.
My mother reached for my hand, threading it with her own.
Her thumb, grooved and scarred from needles and pins, rubbed small circles atop it.
Relaxing into her side, I let Druid Capriche lull me into a perverse sort of calm.
Death. Offering. Sacrifice… Always the same message, though the parables changed.
Our lives were the cost for the Blood God’s mercy, all of us chained by the threat of His wrath.
“For many cycles, the tides raged and raged. The kingdom of old crumbled; rulers fled, stone or dead. Thromarra was bleeding, and the plagues would not ebb.”
I rested my head in the crook of her neck, inhaling her familiar scent of bay leaves and boiled thread.
I would listen to a thousand sermons, caked in my own waste, if it meant I could keep her for longer.
But her offering drew closer with each passing turn.
I’d lose her eventually, just like my father, who’d been offered before I was born.
Some days, it was easier to forget, the truth quieted by the busyness of our hands, lost to needles and trimmings and thread.
But on the Seventh Day—I glanced at the owl—on the Seventh Day, it roared in my mind louder than Capriche.
“Until the Dendralis, loyalists of the Blood God, sought to spare mankind from the terror of the blood plagues. Though humanity deserved the scourge of His wrath, our Lord can be merciful to those who pay homage.”
Lifting its tail feathers, the owl scooted to hang its behind over the ledge.
Surely not…
“As prophets of the Blood God, He chose in His divine wisdom not only to bestow the druids with blessings and power, but also to reveal a mercy—a pledge by which His plagues might be stayed.”
I nudged my mother’s ribs, alerting her to the owl. She remained fixed on the pulpit, intent on obedience. But I saw it: the quivering lift at the edge of her mouth that mirrored my own.
“The pledge was simple, a vow to return unto Him what was owed. The Blood God created you in His image, Enclave of Dendra. He hath given you the very blood that flows through your veins.”
Capriche cleared his throat, readying to recite the words that were branded into every soul within the wide reach of Thromarra.
“For what blessings He bestows, He has the right to reclaim. For Blood Demands Blood, and though He demanded hers first, we all must render our due.”
As he delivered the pledge, a splodge of watery-yellow fired down from above. It splattered the pages of the tome at his chest, the Book of Dendralis, the sacred text of the druids. Small morsels and lumps catapulted outwards, sticking to his chest-plate and veil.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
But my eyes, traitorous little things, drifted to that curled crop of hair on the opposite side of the aisle.
Amber irises collided with the green of my own, and in them glistened pure, unadulterated joy.
Oh, Demetri was burning with it…the desire to laugh.
Without the threat of penance, he’d be hunched over, near-retching with the force of his cackle.
But we knew better. By the First, we knew better, and so should everyone else.
My mouth tremored, fighting a grin, but I shook my head. Be sensible, I willed him. His reply was a wink.
Capriche’s helm tilted, and his eyes, though invisible to us, skimmed over the enclave.
A sharp sniff, and his chainmail rattled with the huff of his breath.
He examined each face, one by one, his veil of iron scanning each row.
The cold splash of his attention landed upon me, and any lingering amusement was quickly doused to ash.
My mother’s comforting touch turned warning, the pads of her fingers digging into my bones.
Someone sniggered near the front.
Our inhales robbed the chappellum of air, heads whipping towards its source. The offender recovered quickly, masking his laughter behind a splutter of coughs. Oh, but I’d heard it, which meant so had the acolytes, and so had Capriche.
“A shortbow for the owl…and a penance is due.” He slammed the book shut, sandwiching shit in its pages. Foolish, really, for once it dried, there’d be no saving the scripture.
The acolytes stationed at the foot of the pulpit circled the man. Descending upon him in flanks of crimson, they hauled him to his feet—a cypress, probably, his shorn sides fading from ashen blond to grey. I let my eyes fall to my lap, my stomach no match for what the Dendralis called justice.
“Have mercy, Your Holiness. I was caught unawares. I meant no harm,” he babbled.
A quick glance, and Capriche had turned to enter the vestry behind the pulpit, ignoring his pleas.
“Please.” The man fell to his knees, hands clasped in the air.
“I am a cobbler, Your Holiness. I have need of my hands, or my family starves. Mercy, Your Holiness, mercy.”
They would not give it, and neither would our Lord, for the Dendralis and the Blood God confused mercy for change; they’d swap one pain for another and call it a kindness.
Capriche paused, angling his helm down to examine the soul at his feet, its twisted peak now pointing to us in the pews. Maybe he’d get off lightly: a punch to the gut or a slap to the face.
“Just the tongue, Pietr,” the druid announced before turning his cloaked back on the enclave.
The acolytes wrestled the man, writhing and thrashing, into some forced semblance of calm.
I fiddled with the sleeve of my gown, twisting and pulling until a button came loose.
From the red folds of his robes, an acolyte procured two sets of tools, holding them aloft to the crowd. Tongs and a blade.
Wood groaned as some made to stand, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the penance.
Others hid in their hands; a few had even started to cry—his family, perhaps.
I grimaced, stealing a look at Demetri, his warm eyes already on mine.
He pointed to my lap, lips molding in the shape of two words: Don’t look.
Focusing on the pale greens of my skirts, I traced their weave with a trembling hand, heat pulsing in my veins with every beat of my heart. It leafed outwards, sending tender shoots through the hollows of my body. My skin blazed.
An anguished scream, then the tink of metal on metal. A rip…gagging, gurgling, choking.
I raised my head, finding Demetri already swivelled towards me.
After a small nod, his face paler than before, I let myself look.
A bloodied heap quivered in the straw, the ground growing red where he lay.
The acolyte skewered his tongue like meat on a spit, the flesh limp on the blade, its base jagged and torn.
I clamped a hand to my mouth, not wanting to shower vomit on the couple in front, my palm a furnace.
Plucking a nail from the knot of his belt, the acolyte waltzed down the aisle, holding it aloft. A trail of blood followed him behind.
We waited.
Capriche had long since vanished. In his absence, the owl cooed softly, its gentle hoots harmonising with the cobbler’s wet cries.
Then came that uneasy feeling: inevitability.
Before sunset, its body would hang upon the Doors of Judgement, too.
The heat inside me cooled, leaving nothing but a clammy sheen in its wake.
“The sermon has concluded, Enclave of Dendra. Blood Demands Blood,” another acolyte announced before descending the dais.
His gaze honed on the doors, pupils like twin eclipses, blown wide and dark.
I could never tell them apart, what with their shaven heads, red robes, and waxy, pale skin.
That, and the dull, glassy sheen to their eyes.
I’d seen it before, in the lines of dead mackerel strung from the fishmonger’s stall.
“Blood Demands Blood,” we parroted, more quietly than before. Blood did demand blood, and as we exited through the arched doors, it was clear the Dendralis’ pledge rang true, for nailed to the wood, speared with iron, was the proof.