forty-eight
Sulim was roused shortly after dawn, which her internal clock registered every morning. So while the chief’s windowless chambers only told time via clocks and the prompt arrival of mail and appointments, Sulim still instinctively knew when to open her eyes and face the day.
She did not get an opportunity to cuddle up next to Mira, however, for someone teleported directly into the adjacent room, their shadow making Sulim sit straight up with the sheet barely covering her naked chest.
“Lady Mira!” She vaguely recognized Kema’s voice as it hunted for Mira. Sulim grabbed her shirt and underwear off the floor but didn’t have the chance to dress before Kema barged into the bedroom, rousing Mira before even acknowledging that Sulim was also in bed. “Rah nor!”
Sulim recognized that Kema spoke in Julah, including her address to Mira—who currently pushed herself up in bed and moved the hair out of her face. Once she realized that Kema was beside her, and that Sulim snuck out of bed to dress right in front of their guest, Mira replied in groggy Julah.
They exchanged more words. By the time they switched to Basic, Sulim had everything but her boots back on… and had gathered that rah nor meant something like it’s terrible.
“The Relics, Lady Mira.” Kema braced herself against Mira’s shoulder when the chief swung her legs over the side of the bed, presenting her naked form to her distant cousin.
Both julah women spoke in a hush until Mira gently pushed Kema away to make room for her to get up and put on her robe. “They’re been stolen! By… your father.”
Mira was now more awake than Sulim, who spoke in her partner’s stead. “What are you talking about? We secured them in the inner sanctum last night.” How long had it been? Not even seven hours!
“I speak the truth. Please, come see for yourselves! We have witnesses that Hannu put up the fight of her life!”
Both Mira and Sulim hesitated before following Kema into the main room. “What do you mean?” Mira asked. “What fight? What happened to Hannu?”
Kema looked as if she had forgotten an important detail and was now not wont to share. “Hannu… she…” Both of her eyes darted between the two women slowly collecting themselves so early in the morning. “She is dead. Nerilis Dunsman killed her about an hour ago.”
Mira gasped, hand over her heart, but Sulim merely stared back at Kema, who turned away before anyone could see her puffy eyes and the reddened cheeks that had entered the apartment with her.
I only now see them because of the light in here.
And because Sulim was totally alert now.
Hannu… great Void… Only yesterday she had accompanied Sulim to Bow Village; only in another world she had beseeched forgiveness from the Void.
I hope she found it.
“Let’s go.” Mira regathered her bearings after cinching her armor. “Meet us there.”
After a curt nod, Mira took Sulim’s arm.
She didn’t have a chance to ask where they were going before they had suddenly teleported down to the inner sanctum, where a host of people were already gathered.
Sulim had barely been awake for ten minutes, and she was hit over the head with questions, tears, and her fellow mercenaries in black cordoning off corners of the sanctum right in front of the High Priestess’s statue.
On the stone floor was a body covered in a thin sheet. Blood caked the floor.
While Mira interviewed the people around her, Sulim stepped forward, recognizing Sonall by the body.
He was with the coroner, a wiry, middle-aged man named Dormer who had seen some busted bodies in his day.
Except this wasn’t a drunken mercenary stabbed in the gut during a fight.
Nor was it someone who blew their own brains out.
Never mind someone attacked by a wild jungle animal or fried because they stayed out in the desert a few hours too long.
“Don’t see a lot of this around here,” Dormer said, while leaning against the altar and gesturing to the body. “How the hell do you rule a cause of death when sorcery is involved?”
Sulim knelt where there was no blood and lifted the sheet. The rivulets of blood originated from Hannu’s orifices, her ears, nostrils, and mouth caked. Indeed, she had been dead about an hour based on how her blood had already dried on her clothes and skin.
“Looks like an impact injury to me,” Sulim said, unable to take her eyes off the damage done by one man who hadn’t even touched the body. “It’s in line with a critical head injury.”
“Minus the brains oozing everywhere,” Sonall grumbled from where he knelt nearby. “Poor girl. I didn’t see what happened, but I hear it was intense. Quick, but intense.”
“Never seen a julah on my coroner slab before,” Dormer added, as if he hadn’t heard the other two at all. “Something tells me I won’t get to cut her open, though.”
Both Sonall and Sulim shot him a dire look of warning. Eventually, Dormer took the hint and shuffled away—the chief wanted to talk to him, which should be a right treat for Mira. Enjoy that. For now, Sulim pulled the sheet back up out of respect for the dead.
“How did you hear?” Sulim asked.
“I didn’t sleep much last night,” Sonall responded, hand hanging on the back of his neck as he massaged a muscle that often acted up.
“Kema and I were out for a walk around the fortress, and we heard the commotion. By the time we got here, it was over. Caught a glimpse of the blond bastard making out with the Relics, but all we saw was Hannu here. Apparently,
a couple people were nearby and heard what was going on and saw him blast her.”
“Out for a walk, huh? Giving her the tour?”
“That’s what you heard?” Sonall lowered his hand, snorting.
“Sure. Had to show her the smithy, the pharmacy, the training pits… the classics. Even showed her some of the old horses we still have from…”
He cut himself off. “Anyway, do you have any clue what the hell we do now? The man made off with our treasure, and we’re down an ally.”
“No.” Sulim shook her head. “I have no idea what’s—”
The floor knocked her knees out from beneath her.
Before Sulim collapsed on top of Hannu’s corpse, Sonall snatched her and flung them both out of the way.
Votives and half-dead flowers flew off the altar, littering the floor where Sulim had been kneeling only a moment before.
People inside the sanctum screamed and covered their heads as Mira flung a protective ward over most of the room.
While the simple chandelier hanging from the ceiling swung back and forth with the mighty strength of a hurricane wind, it did not snap from its bolt.
Yet the earthquake did not relent for another minute.
While people covered each other, huddled in the large doorway, and crammed into the corners of the room before trying to shove themselves beneath the few stone benches in the room,
the ground continued to slide left to right and bounce up and down until a crack formed in the floor and the statue of the High Priestess slightly rocked on her altar.
“Watch out!” Sulim shouted the moment she noticed. “Get away from the statue!”
Dormer and Mira looked up over their shoulders. Mira grabbed the coroner and teleported toward Sonall and Sulim. In the split second they weren’t in the room, her ward faltered. They were immediately knocked backward when they reappeared, and the ward went down the moment the statue fell forward.
“No!”
Mira’s voice was delayed, just like her arm, which reached out to correct the scene before her. Yet her mother’s statue tumbled toward Hannu’s body, hitting with such force that half the fortress must have heard it crash, break, and crumble as the earthquake finally subsided.
Shock littered the sanctum long after the shaking stopped. A few crawled out from their hiding places, but many more stayed in place while waiting for a possible aftershock.
“What’s happening?” Sulim didn’t even realize she had spoken until she heard her own voice. “What was that?”
Mira only had eyes for the sight before her—the statue, shattered, eclipsing Hannu’s body where she had vainly attempted to protect the Relics. In some twist of irony, the High Priestess finally embraced the girl who had worshipped and praised her so much in life.
“I ain’t touching that,” Dormer whispered. “It’s cursed.”
Mira lunged forward, Sulim soon following. As some of the others appeared on their feet, Sulim stood next to Mira next to the scene of the shattered statue like some ill-fated omen.
“The Relics,” Mira whispered. “It’s bad enough they’re together like we had them. They’re supposed to be where they belong. The planet is…”
“Coming apart. Got it.” Sulim inhaled a deep breath for strength before turning toward Sonall behind her.
“You and Kema go find Master Marlow if he’s not already on his way. He’ll know more about what’s going on.”
When they embraced trepidation for a single second, she said, “Do you two not hear me? Go!”
They took off, parting through a gathering of scared mercenaries and the support staff that kept the fortress functioning. It was barely past dawn when most of the staff were waking up to start the day—for the others, this was the beginning of the last day of their lives.
“We need food.” Sulim went right into disaster management mode, delegating so people felt like they had something productive to do while the others got fed and washed.
Mira, despite being chief, could only collapse onto her hands and knees beside her mother’s destroyed statue and the body beneath it.
“Ma…” That’s what Sulim heard when they were mostly alone, finally.
If Hannu had been alive before, she certainly wasn’t now.
The statue had landed squarely on her, forever etching into the floor where one julah had made her righteous last stand against a man a hundred times as powerful as her.
She never stood a chance, but even Sulim knew that Hannu’s faith and belief in the Void was so strong that she faced death with dignity.
“She is blessing Hannu,” Sulim told her soulmate, who picked up a piece of marble that had once been the statue’s mouth. “Think of it that way, then remember that all statues tumble one day. Even your mother’s.”