Chapter Sixteen
Sixteen
When the final blow fell, when the Green God succumbed, its effects were felt leagues and leagues away. In Acerna, the petals plummeted from those celebrated rosebushes. In the orchards of Evene, rot bloomed on all the fruit.
There were no survivors beyond those first few hours. Poison pervaded Novena with such ferocity that anyone—soldier, priest, Chosen—who didn’t flee immediately remained permanently, entombed in a bramble crypt.
—FROM THE AFTERMATH OF ARCADIUS, BY PRIOR MATTHOS (RESTRICTED TEXT)
WE RIDE FOR HOURS before Nolan finally breaks the weighted silence.
“Caius was doing what the Goddess has entrusted him to do.”
Oh, I know. How I fucking know.
“Though,” he continues, “I will admit that his implementation leaves something to be desired.”
“You mean the part where he clearly enjoyed roasting that woman alive?” There’s a bitter edge to my words and I don’t even care.
You don’t have to watch this.
That’s what Nolan said. But I did. Because I’ve already spent enough of my life looking the other way.
For as long as I’ve wanted Tempestra-Innara dead, craved being free of them, I still served.
Still did what I needed to survive. Still lapped up the Goddess’s attention like some godsdamned thirsty kitten and…
And that’s how I would have continued, day after day, year after year, if not for Emmaus’s assassination attempt.
Standing by while the Goddess and their devoted throw burn-the-heretic parties.
But the fact that Nolan said what he did means he doesn’t think I’m weak for not wanting to watch a heretic burn.
That he doesn’t revel in suffering, like Caius and so many of Belspire’s residents seemed to. I like that about him.
“Yes,” Nolan agrees. “But we follow the Goddess’s will whether or not we enjoy the particulars of it. Magda will not be the last heretic we encounter. Would you spare them?”
“No, of course not.” Where is this questioning going? “Unchecked heresy is obviously bad. But we weren’t sent to punish heretics. We were sent to find the reliquary.”
“Yes,” he says.
A minute of silence passes.
“In the dungeon,” he begins, as I knew he would, eventually. “What you said to Magda…”
“Disgusted to find out a heretic has been given the divine gift?” No point in dancing around it.
He considers for an uncomfortable measure of time. “No. Rather it… it makes me wonder how many more of our blood brethren might have come from a similar beginning.” My shoulders drop a bit. “You were a child,” he continues. “A child cannot be blamed for their parents’ sins.”
Tension returns in an instant. Because we both know that’s not true. They can be blamed, and they can be punished. But I’m in no mood for that conversation. Time to change the subject.
“Speaking of my illicit past, look what I found in the library.” I pull Jogue’s diary out.
He blinks at it. “You stole a book?”
“From the restricted section, no less. And they’re lucky I didn’t go back for a few more after what they pulled.” I return it to the safety of my jacket. “I haven’t gone through it closely, but I found a picture of the Storm Goddess surrounded by followers carrying what I think are reliquaries.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I got a little distracted by that whole thing where we were almost forcibly locked away.”
“Does it say anything about where the reliquaries were kept? Or where the heretics might have found one?”
“No,” I say. “Only that the Storm Goddess kept the vessels close to her. But that was a long time ago. The reliquaries could have traveled to the end of the Devoted Lands and back since then. And honestly, it’s mostly filled with descriptions of places long gone, stuff like that.”
“Hmm.”
“Oh, don’t pout. I may find something useful yet. Or, if we’re lucky, we won’t need any more help than what Magda gave us.”
“Yes,” he says. “Novena.”
“Novena,” I echo quietly.
After Belspire, the distance between Nolan and me narrows, and our travels fall into an easy rhythm.
Ride during the day. Camp during the night.
One of us makes a fire and cooks (Nolan).
One of us tends the horses (me). We buy supplies from farms that we pass, though Nolan remarks that he wishes there was time to hunt the copious rabbits we see along the roads.
I tell him I don’t like rabbit, but I’m happy to make time to catch a trout.
The nagging feeling of being away from the Goddess’s light has grown, and though Nolan must be feeling it too, he doesn’t mention it, so neither do I.
On the second morning after Belspire, when he’s finished his morning prayers, he suggests we spar.
I agree, realizing I haven’t passed so many days without training in years. Prior Petronilla would be ashamed.
I know he’s good with a sword; I’ve seen him fight.
But going up against him, even mockingly…
He moves without an ounce of hesitation.
Finds every opening and presses it. Even with my two sickles against his one blade, he triumphs the first two mornings we fight.
On the third, I turn his sword away with one sickle and finish with the other at his throat, but not until after he leaves a scratch along one forearm.
It isn’t deep, but still, he helps me wash and wrap it.
The next several mornings we have to end in a draw, or else risk losing half the day.
It’s stupid, but I’m almost disappointed when we begin to get close to Novena.
As little information as we have to go on, it could be where the heretics have hidden the reliquary, which means we need to be ready.
And not only for whom we might find. The conflict between the Green God and Tempestra-Enoch was environmentally devasting.
Poison fumes emanated from the city for years.
The land grew toxic and twisted for miles around.
Still almost a day away, we pass into brittle, emaciated forests where only the most tenacious plant life seems to have taken root, and the needle-eyed birds don’t sing.
Not exactly welcoming. And it isn’t encouraging that we haven’t seen another soul since turning off the main road onto the one that leads by Novena.
When we crest a hill that overlooks the city, I understand why.
I expected devastation. What we find falls closer to a nightmare.
The hole left by the divine conflict is massive, a great round maw punched into the earth, gaping as if trying to swallow what remnants of the city surround it, like it did the temple that once sat at its center.
What’s left of the city’s buildings are skeletal, blanketed by a hellish briar.
Blackened vines thicker than wine barrels.
Thorns the size of my forearm. At first glance, it has the appearance of life, the roots and other growths twisting menacingly before pouring over the edge of the hole. But it’s clear nothing here is alive.
The Endless Storm, the hellscape writhing before me… it’s hard to believe the heretics hang their faith on such adulterated remnants of divinity.
Mortimer shimmies uncomfortably beneath me. I pat his neck. “Looks like a fun place.”
“Don’t stop,” says Nolan. “We’re just travelers passing by, remember?”
Even though we haven’t seen anyone since yesterday, that doesn’t mean there aren’t eyes watching.
Especially if Magda’s deduction is correct.
We travel several leagues past the former city before tying up the horses and doubling back through the woods.
If there is anyone here, we don’t want them to see us, or to scare them into fleeing.
By the time we get back to Novena, the sun has started to set.
Sharpened by dusk and shadows, the old battleground is even more ominous, the huge, black pit frankly menacing.
When true night falls, we move. Nolan and I are shadows, silent as we make our way through the ruins. It’s slow going, navigating the labyrinth of vines and thorns. And a little disconcerting. We see nothing living, not even the sort of vermin that manages to persist pretty much anywhere else.
Move, then wait. Move, then wait. We make a pattern of it, circling our way around the massive pit, keeping to sheltered nooks as we search for any signs of human trespass.
Nolan is focused, intense. It reminds me of the fight in the Cathedral, his determination then—full commitment, injury or death be damned.
Both of us have vowed to return the reliquary to the Goddess, but our reasons couldn’t be more different, and it’s gotten hard to ignore the seed of something—guilt?
—that has sprouted within me. Not that it alters my plans in any way, but now success will mean sacrificing the strange, fledgling comradery that has grown between Nolan and me. Part of me regrets that.
But it’s a stupid part.
As long as I’m bound to the Goddess, there is no room in my world for anything so weak and fragile as… whatever it is we’ve cobbled together.
By midnight, I’m growing wearied with our fruitless search.
I suspect Nolan feels the same when his occasional shifts in position grow more frequent and noticeable.
But the plan was to spend the night searching, so there’s no talk of giving up.
Instead, I swallow yawn after yawn and pick through what Magda said to us, looking for another explanation for what she overheard.
Maybe she lied. Or, more likely, she was simply mistaken, putting together snippets of information in the wrong way.