7 Omens #2
Realization coalesced into quiet, bitter clarity. Omens. The Order would scream it now, and the public would believe it. A land that had been threatening to collapse under the weight of its infighting could do so tomorrow. And she didn’t know if they were wrong.
Didn’t you bring this on us, northerner? A reckoning has followed in your wake. The gods have spoken and call for our end. The sky itself will laugh.
Why were the afflicted all saying that this was her fault?
Anguish and doubt clawed at her gut. She barely registered Cassandane and Anek’s arrival, or Harion vomiting over his robes and horse. She walked to the edge of the marketplace, seeing the hawk-eyed figure there too late to avoid her.
Plague, riots. Omens.
Inquisitor Verentia gave her a wary glance. “Petitor Sarai.”
So, it’s begun. “I am no servant of Ruin, Inquisitor.”
The woman splayed a hand toward the death around them.
“The gods say otherwise.” She indicated someone in a gray-green uniform at her side.
“Clanlady Dalvia Am Semni from Komis. She’s been monitoring the spread of the boil beetle plague and just arrived by Bridger.
Her Institute has been leading efforts to combat this. ”
Clan Am Semni. Along with Clan Kader, they were the last extant Clans from Ur Dinyé’s monarchical days. She hadn’t heard much of them unlike the powerful, infamous, and now-defunct Kaders.
“A pleasure. I’m sorry we’ve had to meet under these circumstances—” Sarai froze mid-recitation.
The woman was stunning. A sheet of white-blond hair fell to her shoulders, contrasting sharply with her dark eyebrows and hair.
Light seemed to weave through the strands and reflect around her. The effect was both ethereal and eerie.
Yards away, Anek’s jaw hung by their knees as they darted fascinated glances at her in between nodding at Cassandane and Kadra, whose back faced them.
Sarai recovered, offering a smile that drooped at the edges. “Is there nothing in the north that can stop this?”
“One can’t till a barren field for grain, Petitor Sarai.” Dalvia’s voice was surprisingly timorous. Her dark eyes met and fell from Sarai’s like someone unused to being perceived and discomfited by it. “The capital has everything. So, I thought it might have hope too.”
The gentle way she said it forced a ragged breath from Sarai. “The south is greedy with its hope, Clanlady. Don’t let them cheat you out of a high price.” She cast Verentia a sidelong glance and left, flinching only slightly when the Inquisitor called after her.
“One among us has indeed made an ill-fated bargain, and it isn’t the Order!”
The now-raging Cleric clearly believed the same.
“Make no mistake this country faces a war from within. The ungodly have wrested power from the righteous.” He furiously pointed at Kadra.
“We innocents pay the price. Despite the Order attempts at conversion, the north has always mocked our devotion to the Elsar. Now, they’ve sent Pestilence herself to decimate us!
A plague? No. This is evil work. Our brethren have been left madness-struck!
” The Cleric swallowed and turned pained eyes onto the crowd.
If the gods ever toss him aside, the stage’ll take him. Her nails dug into her clenched palms.
“We never saw such turmoil under Tetrarchs Aelius and Tullus. These usurpers have tried to convince us of their right to rule, but they cannot veil the divine truth. We have strayed from goodness. Only the High Elsar, in their infinite love, can save us,” the Cleric insisted.
“And all they ask is that we reject the Dark Elsar. That we destroy those who threaten the natural order and sow division, distraction, and debris in our great country. Our enemies will be our neighbors and countrymen, but if they can purge two Tetrarchs, we can purge them!”
She recoiled when cheers rang from the crowd and burgeoned into a battle cry.
Her tongue froze to the roof to her mouth, ice water sluicing in her arteries as she beheld a country in freefall.
This would spark civil war, and there was nothing she could do.
She had no answers, no cure. Only the ugly certainty that the Cleric had one thing right.
This was no plague.
“Boil beetles alone don’t explain this,” a voice confirmed behind her.
Silvus seized her shoulder in a steadying grip when she started and slipped on a patch of ice. She twisted out of it, and his silver eyes followed the motion with mild curiosity.
“Do you travel in packs?” she asked tightly with a glance at Verentia and the warmongering Cleric.
Masked as usual, he tilted his head. “A bitter feeling, isn’t it? Powerlessness.”
“What would you know of powerlessness?” she bit out with more venom than she’d intended.
“You might be surprised.”
She closed her eyes at the even way he said it. Right. He’s a northerner too. Shame stifled her anger. “I’m sorry.” She registered his start of surprise. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Ideological differences aside, it can’t have been easy to climb up the Order.”
“It wasn’t.” An air of bafflement laced his brief pause as though he’d surprised himself by admitting it. “Eleven years ago, I lost everything. I had no talent at lightning magic, and the Academiae had no place for me without coin. The Order was my best chance at power.”
She watched the Cleric spew vitriol. “Has it been worth it?”
“It will be.”
“Then, I hope the knowledge warms you at night when the land goes to shit.” She made to stalk past Silvus, but he cut into her path. She halted a handspan away, glaring up at his strangely taut features.
“So, you resent my choices and not me,” he mused.
“I don’t know you well enough to resent.”
“You don’t know them, and you care about their deaths.” Silvus considered the blood-soaked marketplace. “Why?”
She stared. “Who wouldn’t?”
He dipped his head, eyes slitting in disbelief. “Do you see yourself as benevolent, Petitor Sarai? Any aspirations to Sainthood?”
Anger gathered in her throat. “Only to basic decency, though I suppose the Order wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand a savior complex when I see it,” he murmured.
“Childhood neglect, a hunger to fix chaos and a delusion that love is earned through sacrifice. The afflicted give endlessly, usually to their own detriment.” He transferred his attention to the mob like she was no longer worthy of it.
“Petitor Sarai, you’re tragically boring. ”
Every arrow found its mark. Pierced through, she swallowed, swamped by a fury so all-encompassing that her vision swam crimson. “Do you have nothing better to do—”
“I don’t. Who are you saving?” He languidly stepped forward, edging her boot with his.
She stumbled back. “It isn’t yourself—half the country despises you.
It isn’t the south, given the madness you’ve brought here, and it certo isn’t the north, which you’ve scarcely glanced at since becoming Petitor. ”
“I didn’t bring anything here! And I’ve corresponded with the coalition of northern Praetors—”
“Every month? Every two months?” His smile widened when she ground her teeth.
“Without a Bridger, word takes much too long to travel across the country. You barely catch up to a northern locale’s going-ons in one letter before you hear of a new crisis in the next.
You have no understanding of what the north even faces now. Who are you saving?”
“Everyone I can!” she spat. “Can you say the same?”
“Why should I? You fought two Tetrarchs, a Guild, and the Order and got this in thanks.” Silvus indicated the riotous crowd.
“People like you are exactly why Aelius thrived for so long.”
Pale eyes traversed the length of her shaking frame and lit with what looked oddly like elation. “Others like him will rise. And you’ll be just as powerless when they do. Unless…”
“Unless?” she echoed, rage evaporating into scorn. Her pulse slowed its slamming against her ribs. “Unless I ally with the Order? Now, that’s boring, Inquisitor.”
A frisson of fury on his veiled face. “We needn’t be enemies. Abandon your Magus Supreme, or you won’t survive what’s coming.”
Dread arced through her. “So, the Order plans on targeting Kadra.” If they find out that he’s—she shoved the thought away. “Thank you for the warning. He’ll appreciate it.”
Silvus’s face gained a dangerous edge. “He’s had such a stroke of luck, hasn’t he?
” The words formed a strangely dulcet hiss as though he was struggling to modulate his voice behind that veil.
“He merely had to die for you to trust him implicitly. Did he fuck you hard enough into believing that you know him?”
Air fled her in a rush. She willed herself into blank composure. “I think I’d prefer that we be enemies, Inquisitor, seeing how you treat prospective allies.”