Chapter 43
Chapter forty-three
Ashara
The End of Mercy
“It has been an age, my flock, since I have gazed upon you.” The High Druid’s voice was so like Lycandor’s.
Both were rumbling, enough to pebble the skin.
But whereas Lycandor’s was the purr of an earthquake or the richness of soil, his father’s was all wrong.
It was not so much like the heaviness of rock, but the weight of metal.
There was a sharpness to it, an edge, like it had been forged in a blacksmith’s fire rather than in the depths of the earth.
“You must understand, Grand Templum of Dendra, that the Blood God speaks to me most turns. It seems there is no respite from enacting His glorious will and making good on our pledge. But ‘tis a burden I gladly bear.” He pressed his colossal fist against where his heart might’ve been if he had one.
Did it bleed red like the rest of us, or if cut, did it drip black?
“For a while, He hath gifted thee a reprieve.” I bristled at his words, as if something inside me was spooked, hissing and spitting. “His thirst, for the first time since the blood plagues, was satiated, and He chose to grant mercy at the grey laurel’s offering.”
Hundreds of eyes turned to me, each of them a smoking candle wick.
“It has been three phases since a debt of blood has been rendered,” he continued, drawing the singe of their gaze back to him on the throne.
“But now, now, He grows parched.” A collective wave of something rippled through the sanctum, eyes now shooting to the fresco above as if wary of the Blood God’s attentions from way up in the clouds.
“Those whose bloods He spared have chosen to squander His gift, and recompense must be paid.” He stood, the mountainous form of him made even more obscene by his position atop the dais.
“You must understand, my children, this is love.”
The high-pitched wail of a youngling had my insides shrivelling.
From a door adjacent to the foot of the dais, its thin panels of lacquered wood, not the stained glass of the others, a sister appeared, her face obscured behind the head of a babe clutched to her chest. With her free hand she held another’s; a little thing still in their bedclothes, brown hair feathered from sleep.
Then came five, six more—some clinging to their dolls, rubbing tired eyes, the small Os of their mouths yawning wide.
Bouncing up and down, the sister patted the back of the one at her chest, her quavering cries growing louder.
I had the sudden itch to cradle her, just like I had with the First.
“Give her to me.” The tremor of the High Druid rolled down the steps, halting the sister’s rocking hips.
The sanctum held its breath, and I with it.
She hesitated, her nose buried in the girl’s blonde ringlets.
After a breath too long, she ascended the dais, a slowness to her steps, as if she wished to turn and run the other way.
My arm held firm under Lycandor’s fidgeting, his knee twitching in time with his hand.
All of us watched, just watched, as she unstuck the child from the warmth of her shoulder and placed her into the druid’s metal-plated arms. The small thing reached out to him, looping her chubby arms round his neck like a daughter would do their father.
Her fingers hooked into the chain of his veil, head flopping against him.
Her crying ebbed.
“His love is most righteous, most pure,” the High Druid continued, the girl on his hip, her blue eyes shuttering.
“For what is love, really? Love too tender”—he stroked the child’s crown, those golden curls lost to the black smudge of his glove—“it turns to spoil.” His hand stilled.
“Love without guidance, and we lose ourselves to chaos.” Shifting the child to his other side, he patted her cheek, coaxing her awake.
“Love without expectation, the world turns to ruin, and the masses grow glutted, free to feast upon sin without fear nor consequence.” He smiled, and the red of his mouth glowed brighter than the sanctum.
“His love is the right sort. A love that requires a surrender to obedience and recompense.”
Another child sobbed. The same sister who had carried the young girl, her back turned to the sanctum, now cajoled a line of sleep-dazed babes into order, seating them on the floor.
“But…what to do when someone denies His devotion?” Silence. “This eve, three acolytes, blessed servants of the Blood God, were found dead and mutilated inside the Grand Templum.”
A collective gasp reverberated off the marble walls and floors. I sizzled once more with the heat of their eyes, the burn of them enough to pepper me in holes, just like Demetri.
A small giggle broke the silence, the tinkle of it slipping free before a sister could clamp a hand over the child’s unknowing mouth. My eyes flickered to the wall of druids, knowing only too well the penance for laughter. But none of them moved.
“Those responsible will render their dues,” promised the High Druid. His invisible gaze bored into my brow, the heat of it enough to almost blister the skin.
“But what is owed?” He paused, as if we were to volunteer the answer. One rose from my throat, beading on the tip of my tongue.
Everything.
“Blood Demands Blood. Is that not what our pledge demands?”
The sanctum roared, the marble quaking—not with the demands of the Blood God, but with men.
He waggled his finger, and the space fell silent. Then, he pointed to the great dome overhead.
“Do not be fooled into thinking we are as deserving of recompense as our Great Father, for His due is matched to what we have taken. Such an exchange is profane. It reeks of glutted offal and the taint of pride. For what man dares to claim parity with a god? None. Isn’t that right, little ones?”
Encouraged by the sisters, the children shook their heads, their rosy cheeks wobbling, wisps of hair bobbing around them like clouds.
The one clinging to the High Druid’s chest peeled herself from his chainmail, her pink face crisscrossed with the indents of his veil.
At the snapping of his large fingers, the sister rushed back up the dais to reclaim her.
My eyes were no longer on her, or the children who should be far, far away from here, but fixed upon the man of mesh angled towards me, haunting the steps as he preached from up high.
I longed to wash his words from my ears. I was tired, so very tired of the Blood God’s love. Perhaps His hate would be kinder. I glanced up at Lycandor, his helm fixed upon his father, unwavering and steady.
“No. He demands much, much more. Above all, from those who have shunned His devotion and turned their backs to His love.” My own writhed, the scars of His love twining like snakes.
“But first, a penance,” he announced. “A penance for the sins of this night.”
I tried to mirror the same detached stillness as Lycandor beside me, his knee no longer twitching. I couldn’t help it though, the small smile that tugged at my lips at the memory of Pietr’s crotch, blooming like a rose. In that moment, it most certainly felt like devotion…the right sort.
“This sister”—the Druid of Dendra motioned to the one at the foot of the dais, knelt on the marble, bound by an acolyte’s belt—“pledged to the Blood God in a vow more sacred than marriage, hath served Him most unfaithfully.”
Booing, mockery, and chants shook the ground. The sanctum was absent of pity, full instead of the scrunched, reddened faces of monks and acolytes: the stomp of their boots, the curl of their fists, their demands for recompense.
The sisters, though. The sisters made no gestures or jabs, their hands knotted, lips pulled in thin, tight lines.
“This sister aided the laurel responsible.”
My stomach panged, knowing he spoke about me.
“Enabling the death and torture of her most cherished brethren.” His draped head loomed over her from his spot on the steps, and he opened his arms, fingers splayed wide. “Druid Vetrius, bring forth the evidence.”
A squeeze to my elbow, then his hand dipped to his breeches, removing something from the depths of his pocket. A scrunched, small square of parchment.
I lunged for it, but he was quicker. Shackled by his fingers, he thrust my arms down, clamping them to my sides. Murmurings buzzed in the air, like a thousand fruit flies whirring over our heads.
“Enough,” he commanded, the word just able to breach the links of his veil. “Or I will have to have the acolytes restrain you.”
Baring my teeth, I sneered up at him, heart leering over the small ledge it had perched itself on, my hope dwindling ever lower. He presented Demetri’s letter to an acolyte, who, with a quick bow, ferried it to the dais.
The High Druid accepted it with pinched fingers, as if presented with a dead rat, shaking out its folds and stretching it wide.
“I will find you. Hold on a little longer. We will take wing, or else plummet together. I shall slay them all, for thee.” Demetri’s words were hideous in his mouth, each more warped than the last. But the final ones…
“Lies.” My voice was soft, the sound still enough to draw heads. “Lies!” I repeated, bellowing this time. Lycandor’s arms criss-crossed around me as he squeezed, urging me still.
I glanced at Demetri, shaking the hair from my face. His hickories were not on me, though. No, they were stuck to the back of the sister, as if he had not heard the false confession at all. His mouth was open, jaw swinging loose, his bottom lip shaking.
“With her hands,” the High Druid roared, motioning to the sister at his feet.
“She sculpted her betrayal: unlocking doors, smuggling provisions, exchanging heresies between the laurels.” He shook the square of parchment before bringing it to the live flame of a candelabra.
Its edges curled, singing brown, black, and red as Demetri’s promise smoked to nought but ash.