Beautys Justice – By Alexa Santi #6
“I am a truth-teller, not one who can read thoughts. I can only tell you if he lies or not.”
The man looked from Firchara to the god and back again before he launched himself at her feet, clutching at her hem. “Please, mistress. Please, persuade him to hear me out. For mercy’s sake, he must hear me out.”
“I will try,” she assured him.
She turned to where Ulfjadir sat on his throne. Even to her, his expression was enigmatic.
“You feel I should hear the tale of a liar?”
“I can tell you if he lies again. If you agree to hear him out.”
The petitioner retreated back down the short stairs and rose to his feet, wiping his eyes and nose with his sleeve. Behind him, the other man stood poised, his hand hovering over the knife in his belt as the armsmen watched him warily.
“No more lies. I swear it. But… but…”
“But you wish to be heard privately,” Firchara said.
“Yes, my lady.”
She turned again to Ulfjadir, who shook his head. “It has never been done before.”
“But it is allowed?”
“It could be allowed. If I choose so.”
Folding her hands at her waist, Firchara waited, watching the god as he contemplated his decision.
“Armsmen,” he said at last. “Clear the room.”
They waited as the grumbling petitioners were herded from the Great Hall, one or two looking as though they considered a protest until a glimpse of Ulfjadir’s expression changed their minds.
Absently, Firchara patted the still-sniffling man on the shoulder as she would a distressed child, until his breathing gradually slowed back to normal.
When he was calm at last, she returned to her chair at Ulfjadir’s side.
“Now,” Ulfjadir said. “Begin.”
“I did not kill her,” the man said.
“Truth,” Firchara said.
“But I did … I did.” The man sighed and ran his hands through his hair, tugging it as though the action would organize his thoughts.
“I ignored her pleas. I told her that her sadness was only a fleeting thing, that having a child to care for was more important than her moods. I told her… I said… I said terrible things to her.” He looked at Firchara, his eyes filling with tears again.
“She jumped. I tried to stop her. No one must know. Her family, our living children, they could never bear the shame. They can never know.”
Ulfjadir contemplated first her, and then the man.
“I didn’t murder her,” he said again. “But I did.”
The silence was long. Firchara waited on tenterhooks.
“You are not guilty of murder,” Ulfjadir said at last. “But your actions did contribute to her death, did they not?”
The man’s head bowed in shame. “Yes.”
“If he returns to the mortal lands, they will kill him if you do not declare him innocent,” Firchara said.
“He is not innocent. His actions—and lack of action—contributed to her suicide.”
“Yes,” Firchara said.
“But you feel he deserves mercy, despite his actions.”
“Yes.”
The god’s silence was long, but Firchara bit her tongue. The decision must come from Ulfjadir, and him alone. She could only advise, not judge.
“He may stay here and serve the palace if he chooses,” Ulfjadir said at last.
The man sighed, closing his eyes briefly. “Thank you, my lord. Thank you, my lady. I swear I will make myself useful. I only wish…”
“Wish what?” Firchara asked.
“It hurts me to know she is suffering in the shadow lands because I did not help her.”
An unexpected wave of magic surged up from her heart, something fresh and different, sweet and serene. Prompted by the new sensation, Firchara bent to take the petitioner’s hands in hers. “She does not suffer. She is at peace, and awaits you with forgiveness.”
The man’s face lit up, and he bowed to kiss her hands reverently. “Thank you for your mercy, my lady. Thank you.”
He bowed low to each of them before shuffling back to the doors. They opened, and petitioners poured into the room.
Ulfjadir beckoned for her to lean close and said in a low tone, “I thought you could not lie.”
“I cannot.”
“You know suicides are given no mercy in the shadow lands. They defied the gods by their actions.”
Firchara looked deep into his eyes, willing him to understand. “She has been released from punishment. I know it.”
He shook his head. “Impossible. Only… no, it would be impossible.” Ulfjadir stared at her for a long moment before turning his attention to the next petitioners.
Firchara, too, was shaken. She could not explain how she knew what had happened in another realm… but she did. She knew it as surely as though she had witnessed it herself.
He was different at supper that night, and through all of the next day.
Quieter. Contemplative. Panes of glass continued to appear in the wall of her room, revealing more and more of the landscape outside.
Already it was more glass than Firchara had ever seen in one place, more than even the wealthy Lord Ohrean could afford.
And it continued to appear, even through his silence of the next several days.
On the day before the summer solstice, Firchara looked up in alarm at a growing sound inside the Great Hall.
It was a sound she had heard only once before in her life, when a whirlwind had crossed through the sea and rushed out onto the land, tossing cottages and fishing boats out of its way like leaves in the wind.
As the sound grew louder and the torches on the walls flickered, the petitioners in the Great Hall shrieked and ran for the doors, desperate to avoid being pulled in the whirlwind’s wake as it sped toward Ulfjadir’s throne.
Armsmen tried to control the unruly crowd as they fled.
The torches on the walls dimmed further, as though a storm cloud passed before them, and a figure clad in dazzling white stepped forth as the whirlwind died away.
“How dare you interfere in my realm, brother?!”
Instinctively, Firchara slid from her chair and fell to her knees, head bowed, submitting to the wrath of the goddess.
Ulfjadir’s hand rested on her shoulder for a reassuring squeeze before it slid to her elbow and raised her to her feet, slipping an arm tightly around her waist to support her.
She buried her face against his chest and clung to his tunic, tremors wracking her body as she pushed down the urge to run as fast and as far away as her legs would carry her.
“Welcome, sister,” he said, and Firchara admired his calm even as she felt his heart beating fast beneath her cheek. “May I offer you a cup of wine?”
“We had an agreement,” the goddess growled, her voice echoing through the empty hall. “You judge the living; I judge the dead. How dare you change the decision I made?”
Daring greatly, Firchara peered out from under her lashes.
The goddess was a creature of unearthly, shimmering beauty, in the form of a human but clearly not human.
She had been born a goddess, not made one, her name spoken only in whispers if it was spoken aloud at all: Nyoljia, goddess of the dead.
Ulfjadir was silent for a moment, then inhaled and squeezed Firchara’s waist, as if for courage. “It was not I. It was her.”
“Her?” Firchara cringed at Nyoljia’s tone, burrowing even closer to Ulfjadir as he kept a protective arm around her. “But how? She is only a mortal, with a mortal’s magic.”
“I do not know,” he admitted. “But it is true.”
Firchara heard the rustle of the goddess’s gown as she moved closer, could scent the magic that surrounded her, wild and strange.
Gathering all of her courage, she opened her eyes and moved her head to meet Nyoljia’s gaze.
The goddess’s eyes were pale silver with a darker silver ring around the iris, and her pupils were vertical, like a cat’s.
Not human at all.
They contemplated one another for a long moment before the goddess threw her head back and laughed, the sound ringing through the room as it echoed off the walls.
“So you did find her first. Congratulations, brother.”
“She found me,” he said. Firchara glanced up at him, puzzled, but still too afraid to speak in front of Nyoljia. He squeezed her again, his grip comforting even in her confusion.
“You need not fear me, mortal,” Nyoljia said. “I shall not take you with me. Unless you wish it.”
Nyoljia smiled at her, and Firchara was dazzled. The smile flooded her with promises of warmth, safety, contentment, peace. Only the feel of Ulfjadir’s strong arm around her prevented her from stepping forward to embrace the goddess.
“Enough, sister,” Ulfjadir said sharply. “She is mine.”
The goddess laughed again, and Firchara was abruptly back to herself.
“We will have another discussion of… boundaries once all is settled, brother. Good day.”
This time, Nyoljia faded from view with none of the spectacle of her initial entrance, light returning to the room as she vanished.
After a long moment, the door at the end of the hall creaked open and the bravest of the armsmen peered in.
“My lord?”
“Give us a moment,” Ulfjadir said, and swept Firchara into the empty antechamber, half-carrying her when her knees would not support her. “Do you need to sit down?”
“Yes. No.” She clutched at him. “Don’t let go of me.”
“I won’t.” He sank into a chair, drawing her onto his lap, and she nestled into his embrace with a sigh.
“The first encounter with my sister can be quite… unnerving. But she is, in her way, as concerned with justice as I am. Innocents never suffer once they are in her care.”
Reason was beginning to return to Firchara’s addled mind, and she straightened a little.
“What did she mean?”
“Who?”
“Your sister. The goddess.” Firchara a little pulled away so she could look him full in the face, alert now to his every fleeting expression. “What did she mean when she said you found me first?”
To her surprise, he laughed, a short, sharp laugh. “I ought to have known that would not pass you by.”
“What did she mean by that?”
He was silent for a long moment before he said, “I cannot tell you.”
“Cannot, or will not?”
“Cannot. It is a matter of prophecy, and saying it aloud would irrevocably alter its course.”