Chapter Three #2
The thought was sudden and unwelcome, like a bucket of icy water tossed over my head.
I pushed it aside and focused on the next thing.
Just get to the next thing. Managing to remain collected, I turned and followed Valin, ancient hero of Sanctuary, toward the exit of the enormous council chambers.
As I passed Kleio’s corner, I met his gaze.
There was a warning there, though I couldn’t quite decide what it was.
The moment Valin and I stepped through the massive double doors at the back of the hall, I was blinded by the burning sun of Pavos.
Shielding my eyes with an arm as I hissed in a breath, I blinked rapidly to clear my vision before we stepped out onto the dusty streets and allowed the doors to close behind us.
Several of the Geist milling around outside of the palace looked up at us with interest as we passed, but Valin paid them no mind.
He didn't hesitate as he took the steps two at a time until his feet were pounding against the cracked pavement below.
I hurried after him, uncomfortable with the sight of the gods and trying my best not to marvel at their towering height, their incomparable beauty, or the way they seemed to literally glow in the morning sunlight.
My fragmented mind struggled to comprehend the religious grandeur surrounding me, the deities I now walked among, the gods whom I'd been taught to worship and revere since the moment I was born, now made flesh. And they stared at me as if I was as much a wonder to them as they were to me.
I cast my eyes to the sand beneath my feet to avoid the weight of their combined gaze and continued to follow Valin off the paved pathways and in between buildings, out of the main thoroughfare.
Examining the atmosphere of the city for the first time, I noticed it wasn’t a stone construction as Sanctuary had been.
There were no tunnels and no class-restricted platforms. There wasn’t even a wall.
Or rather, there was, but it was made entirely of glittering, translucent light so that one could see the endless expanse of sun-bleached sand stretching out into the distance beyond the city limits, so vast even I couldn't see where it ended with my enhanced eyesight.
I hesitated at the sight of the wall once we emerged from between buildings to a much more open space on the other side.
Feeling a sudden urge to touch it, I took a step forward, but Valin reached out and grabbed my arm to stop me.
I whirled to face him as he scowled down at me.
“Don’t touch the wall,” he said. His voice was low, gruff, and gravelly. It was the voice of one who'd seen and suffered through so many years his voice now reflected his own ancient prowess. “You’ll want to. It calls to us, somehow. But don’t touch it."
“Why?” I asked.
I knew Cosmo would be mortified by the way I'd been questioning gods and saints since I'd arrived, but I couldn’t help it. For the first time, I thought I might understand Milo of House Avus’ thirst for understanding.
“It’ll sheer your fingers right off,” he replied, already releasing me and turning away. “And anything else you plunge into it.”
Jaw dropping slightly in surprise, I pulled my gaze from the wall and hurried after Valin who was walking, it seemed, to the very edge of the city itself.
The landscape changed from looming marble homes accented with silver and gold, to respectable stone manors, to tiny wooden lean-tos open on the front end to the elements.
The people inside of them looked quite different from the Geist outside of the palace.
They were smaller in stature, thinner. And they didn’t glow.
“Who are they?” I asked, nodding in the direction of one particular lean-to where a group of women had gathered to boil and strip the leather off of some animal they'd skinned. An animal far bigger than anything I'd ever seen in Sanctuary, I noted.
Valin didn't so much as glance at them before he answered.
“Humans,” he grunted.
“Humans?” I asked. “What are those?”
“A race that existed here long before you or I, or even the Geist. They’re weak and they can’t use magic. They used to serve the Geist as slaves but, ever since slavery was ended, the ones who chose to stay in the city survive by bearing and raising sons to serve in the militia.”
I nodded, turning away from a frail mother attempting to nurse a screaming babe at her breast. The lean-tos faded out of view as we rounded a corner and found a sort of village within the larger city.
It was arranged in a circle, modest stone homes lining the exterior, long wooden row-houses arranged in front of them and, at the center, an enormous training yard at least three times bigger than the Mitte with various pieces of equipment and a few ominous looking iron cages.
Soldiers were already hard at work sparring in the yard or lifting the boulder-sized balls and tossing them as far as they could.
“This is…” I started.
“The militia,” Valin said with a curt nod.
“The stone houses are for the commanders. They’re all Geist, though most are relatively lowborn.
Very few noblemen serve in the militia. In front of them are the barracks.
That’s where the soldiers, like you and I, reside.
The smaller ones in the back are for the humans.
We’ve got our own little district here on this end of the city.
There's a depot over there in what's called the common area. That's where you can get any supplies you need or have a drink at the tavern if you feel like it. And then there’s the training yard. This is where you and I will be spending most of our time.”
I nodded. Training was something I understood.
It didn’t appear to be all that different here than it was in Sanctuary.
A mentor barking at you as you went through your exercises, partners hacking at you with wooden swords, heavy things to lift, a track to run.
It all seemed so familiar it almost felt like home for a moment. Almost.
“So I'm to be a soldier,” I said, pushing away thoughts of home. It wasn't my home anymore anyway.
“That's your purpose. That's what the Geist created us for. Beings stronger than the humans, capable of being Blessed with magic. Holy defenders protecting our gods from the forces that seek to destroy them.”
I turned to Valin, raising a brow. It didn’t seem like deities as powerful and lasting as the Geist should have anything to fear, anything to need defending from, particularly not by a comparatively weaker race such as we were.
Valin didn't turn toward me, though. He was too busy watching the half dozen men now making their way across the training yard toward us.
They all wore leather armor with more weapons strapped across their backs, chests, and hips than they could ever possibly need within the city itself.
They all bore stoic frowns and scars from past battles and none of them glowed.
I had to ask before they arrived. Kleio would've advised me not to say anything at all. But, blasphemous or not, I had to know what I was up against.
“And what, exactly, are we defending our gods from?” I asked, looking up at Valin.
He turned toward me slowly. That ever-present scowl remained on his expression but I saw the brief tick in his jaw, the slight widening of his eyes as if surprised by my question.
The men were close now, only a few yards away. I supposed that was why Valin lowered his voice to nearly a whisper when he answered me.
“Monsters.”