Chapter Twenty-Eight
Adrian
“Your gods took my son! Someday, they’ll take yours too.”
— As Spoken by Livia Cairns, Mother of a Culled
“You have questions,” Prima’s voice rang out calmly in the tent as Gryfon turned away to pull a shirt on over his head, frowning and glaring at Prima all the while. “Understandably.”
I hardly dared to move, afraid any sudden movement might cause her to think better of telling me the truth.
I’d been kept in the dark for so long already, by so many people, I wasn’t even sure I could trust whatever it was she was about to tell me.
Even so, she was the only person who was offering me any sort of explanation at all.
I couldn’t risk missing out on that. Not now.
Not with my family, my home, and potentially my life hanging in the balance.
“You’re lucky you have someone to ask your questions,” she mused, eyes trailing to Gryfon before snapping back to me. “I certainly didn’t.”
She settled in again, this time on the commander's own cot.
She leaned back against it, gripping the edge with her hands in a show of comfort I thought rather out of place in present company.
Then again, he had been shirtless when I'd entered. Perhaps there was more intimacy to their relationship than I knew. Something about that created a burning sensation in the depths of my gut I fought hard to ignore. I glanced to Gryfon for some sort of indication as to whether or not her ease was out of place but found his gaze set firmly on me in a glare I thought might blaze straight through to my soul if he wished. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased at having been interrupted with his visitor.
“Go on then,” Prima said, waving impatiently, brow arched in preparation.
“You said the Geist can't enter Sanctuary,” I accused Gryfon. “Why not?”
“Ah, to understand the answer to that question, you must understand the history between our people and theirs. Obviously, you haven’t been told that particular tale.
I’ll make it short and sweet for you. The Geist aren’t from our world.
They came here and started either killing or breeding with humans, the original non-magical inhabitants of this world.
That breeding created us, half breeds, or Verdunn as they so generously called us.
When their war against the humans started, or perhaps genocide is what I should call it, they didn’t know what to do with us.
Some Verdunn sided with the Geist, some with the humans.
They, of course, killed all those who sided with the enemy but the optics would have been bad had they tried to kill those who fought on their behalf.
Still, they couldn’t be allowed to dwell amongst them, dirtying up their precious city with our impure bloodlines.
So our ancestors reached an agreement. The creation of a city, a peaceful paradise in which all would be provided for us to live as we wished for generations. A Sanctuary.
What they neglected to tell us or what our ancestors were too foolish to realize, was that Sanctuary was hardly more than a prison and, even worse, a breeding farm in which they used their cruel Trials to create super soldiers they could send against the humans still resisting their rule in this world.
They took my partner for that task after he betrayed me over two thousand years ago.
Now, they’ve taken yours as well. And countless others.
They’ve built an army against the humans and the ingenious weapons the original inhabitants of this world have managed to create against them.
And, when they tired of providing for Sanctuary as they swore they would, they created the Underground.
They made our people slaves. And they used the Culling to fill the ranks of servitude sitting beneath our home.
For a long time, the Geist still posed a threat to Sanctuary.
Mostly, they ignored the self-run city, focusing instead on the human cities still figuring out a way to defend against them, chasing down every Fallen they could find and worrying about those they could not.
But it was only a matter of time until Deimos' attention returned to the habitat of those with half the blood of his enemies.
Whispers arose in the city of the gods, claims that Deimos was considering going back on his deal with our ancestors.
There were soldiers to be harvested from the city, resources to take, servants to be captured, all defenseless, all believing he was a god.
Sanctuary was ripe for plunder. But, before he could make a move against it, could throw away a treaty over a thousand years old, someone stopped him. "
She gave a pointed glance to Gryfon whose jaw clenched as he glared at her. My lips parted in surprise at her insinuation. Gryfon had somehow stopped the Lord of the Geist from invading Sanctuary?
"This someone sacrificed a great deal to ensure Deimos and all of his ilk could never set foot in Sanctuary.
It was intended to be a city for our people and our people only.
To this day, they're unable to enter the city. So they won't touch your family, they can't. That doesn’t mean, of course, they won’t find some way to affect them if it means getting to you.”
She was frowning now, her impassioned speech bringing out more emotion than she seemed to have expected.
Gryfon stood nearby, arms crossed, clearly displeased that she'd mentioned his involvement at all.
I couldn't fathom why. If he truly was the hero she hinted he was, I couldn't imagine why he wouldn't want that more widely known.
Then again, hero status would mean he'd have to sacrifice his hard-earned reputation as a surly asshole.
“So, they still aren’t safe,” I said slowly. “Not entirely.”
“No one is safe in Sanctuary,” Prima muttered. “Ignorant, yes. But safe? Never. Not as long as there's a Culling. Not as long as they keep pledging those foolish oaths and entering those dangerous Trials.”
I frowned, trying to process all I'd just learned.
“What’s it like now?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
I looked up to find her eyes gleaming in the soft light of the candles flickering in the corners of the tent.
I could have lied. I could have assured her Sanctuary existed in the splendor it must have been during her time.
But I didn’t. I told her the truth of it, all of it.
I told her of the class separation, the way those in the lower rings lived, the religious fanaticism of the upper rings, the elitist society of the Major Houses, her house in particular.
I told her about Cosmo and Myrine, but not Dante.
I could tell she suspected my connection with her former house by the way she narrowed her gaze at my detailed explanation of her ancestral home but I didn't verify those suspicions.
Finally, I told her about the violence that was brewing there now, about the line of acolytes who'd shown up at Cosmo’s orders to keep me from returning to my family after the ninth Trial, about the zealots who'd hailed my partner and I as saints only to be slaughtered in the streets in front of us, and finally about the beheading of a boy from the lower rings to force his brother through the Culling arch that I'd seen just before we broke out of the Underground.
She listened to it all with a frown, expression hardly changing as I detailed what life in her so-called paradise had become.
Upon the utterance of a few such details, Gryfon’s gaze finally swept away from me and to her but she never offered a reaction, even for his benefit.
When I'd finished, she sat in silence for some time, so long it was Gryfon who broke it first.
“Prima,” he said slowly, cautiously.
“It's as we feared then,” she interrupted him with a sigh. “Another revolution based on a religion that worships false gods.”
“Another revolution?” I asked, gaping at her in awe.
“For a proposed paradise, Sanctuary has quite the bloody history,” she told me, brow arched once more.
“Not that you would know about that. I’m certain they do quite a good job of hiding such history from you.
But it happens, I’m afraid, every few hundred years or so.
Those at the top become corrupted by their power or the High Houses begin to fight amongst themselves for more.
They base their arguments on religion, invoking the Geist’s names to stir the public to their sides.
Violence erupts, tensions rise, people die.
We tried to intervene in one such dispute over a thousand years ago, even went to the Geist to beg their assistance.
Do you know what those supposed gods called it? Population control.”
I shuddered at the cruelty.
“People are dying,” I said. “Innocent people.”
“And they will continue to,” Prima replied, rising from her seat. She passed me on her way to the exit.
I whirled around, stunned by her indifference and her sudden departure.
“You intend to do nothing?” I snapped, enraged by her sudden disinterest.
“Perhaps I could,” she replied from just before the flap. She raised a brow again as she spoke. “If I had someone capable of removing the wards surrounding the city.”
My fists clenched and I grit my teeth, chastened.
“You were supposed to be training her,” Prima said then, turning to Gryfon who finally stepped forward from the shadows.
“I can do nothing with her until she manages to actually call the dark,” he replied, gruffly.
“I’m trying!” I cried out, throwing my arms up in frustration.
“Try harder,” Prima said firmly, turning back to me. “And Gryfon, help her. You can’t possibly expect the girl to do everything herself. Need I remind you, you are the most suited to assist her.”
Gryfon’s jaw ticked in annoyance.