Chapter Three: Souls in the dark.
I stepped forward and that step echoed into the open space. Great columns of shimmering black stone, veined white held up a ceiling crafted with coloured artistry. There were gossamer curtains that fluttered in the light air, like ladies dancing in nothing but pale blue shimmer.
Along the veins of marble, were silver stories carved into them. I traced them with a finger-tip, recognising some of the script as Ekini. Some I didn't, but everything in this castle felt older than the village beyond its doors. The children left us at the doors, clustering outside.
Niam and Murhall guided us further inside. Every step sounded like a single note and as we walked together, our footsteps sounded like a haunting melody that rung high. Nothing moved inside the dark walls. Light streamed in through the high arched windows, but I saw no dust rising in the illumination of sun.
It felt like I was breaking centuries of silence by walking here. Silver burned behind my breast-bone, the marks etched into my skin pulsating. Nervous energy consumed me.
"What do they call this place?" I whispered.
Murhall answered. "Maethryn."
With bruised fingers, I brushed the hilt of Heslan's knife.
Figures moved out of the corner of my eye, but when I glanced towards them, they vanished with a sigh. Unease trickled down my spine. I had walked near death before, but now it seemed like there was tangible threads here. Whispers of life drifting past me, too quick for me to catch.
The hallway ended abruptly.
A great room, built like an Elven sanctum loomed. Circular walls surrounded us and pillars lined an outer pathway. There was a viewing platform above, with doorways covered by dark gossamer curtains. Viewing booths.
Four thrones.
The same four thrones stood there, with their slanted and uncomfortable seats. One was still cut down the middle, jagged and wrong.
"Four thrones for four Seekers." A familiar voice surmised.
Niam and Murhall bowed their heads, retreating. The Lady stood swathed in red and gold this time, with a circuit of gold placed on a bald head.
"Aviana Birchwood" She spoke in a voice that was soft, yet insistent. "You have come, finally. I am Isobel. Once the last Seeker, but no more."
"Not since Dratlan."
She smiled sadly. "Not since Dratlan."
A shadow of wings moved behind her, softly beating. It felt strange, to be so close to the culmination of so many of my questions. The feeling burned in the back of my throat and I felt a flash of fear – as ragged and vicious as a beast. "You know I have questions."
"I expect you do."
Like everything in the Abyss, Isobel was eerily beautiful. Her skin was dark, laced with silver scars, much like the marks on my own skin. Words in Ekini were etched into her skin, shimmering in the sunlight.
She walked as if weightless, rounding the great throne-room. "Do you miss your home, Aviana?"
"Immensely. I hope that you can help me get back there?"
She tilted her head, her eyes glittering. "You hold the strength of two of my brothers and you expect me to help you?"
"I've been a Seeker for a wet few months. You have been Seeker for...centuries?"
Her mouth curled into a sardonic smile. "I would have gone to you before. I felt your arrival into Ethelor, but I could not go to you. I cannot venture beyond the walls of Maethryn and if I left, this slice of safety would be shattered."
She stepped up onto the dais where the thrones sat. Silver strands cut down to the bones of her feet, like roots of a tree. "You are beginning to falter, Asha'da."
Asha'da ran a hand down her face, sighing tiredly. "As his power grows and yours wanes, Isobel, I can't keep his taint away."
"His taint?" I asked.
"You've seen the land beyond Maethryn?" Isobel questioned. "The rot. The smell. Ethelor was once host to such beauty, such splendour. My people lived from corner to corner, happy. Free. Now were are confined to no more than two hundred – trapped here because the Nirani prowl outside my bubble of protection."
"How has he done this?"
Isobel sighed. "If I knew, I would have stopped him centuries ago. Zeddicus has always been cunning, and only for the fact that he is weak, he would have faltered. Even without it, he can throw souls here into his taint to let the land consume them. Their limbs break and elongate, their minds wrapped into something feral and they fall wholly under his control."
"How can the Abyss hold living bodies and souls at the same time?" I asked. "It doesn't seem possible."
"And you have walked between lands, survived a power that should have burned you from the inside out..."
"And what didn't it?" I cut in. "It feels like we were shafted to contain a problem that shouldn't have been ours to begin with. Why was the Insurgent able to cross into Cadelith, to bide his time for centuries only to butcher my people! Why did I not burn to ash from the inside after breaking two tablets?"
Isobel's wane smile did not flicker. "Do you not see the connection?"
"If I did, I wouldn't be asking the question." I did not have time for games and guessing.
Asha'da sucked a breath in through her teeth. The two Zentin retreated to the pillars.
Isobel drew herself taller and levelled me with a cutting stare. "Sacrifice, Aviana. Whether it is because you believe so wholly in what you are doing, or because you are so determined to protect people. Sacrifice – done without question. With the knowledge that you could die."
I paused. "And how can it tell?"
"How do Zentins do what they do?" She tilted her head, voice as soft as smoke. "They can whittle down past the bravado, the confusion and fear to the small seed that has sprouted what you have become, why you react the way you do? Could you convince a Zentin that you did something out of your heart if you hadn't."
I thought of Kohen, a beautiful soul and seemingly innocent, but more in tune than any of us. He threw his lot in with me at that camp in Dratlan valley and never doubted me. He had convinced Mahon to trust me. He might have even saved me from being executed before I even woke up.
He would know if I did something out of selfish or need. He would know in an instant.
"Both times, I wanted to keep people safe."
"And would you have died to keep them safe?"
"Without a doubt." I said. "Not that it mattered. In Dratlan, they died anyway and I lived."
"But you didn't know that." Isobel said. "Your kind of sacrifice means nothing if its done knowing that you might survive."
"I need to know everything." I pinched my brow, feeling an ebbing headache. Behind each throne, a pane of coloured glass stood nearly three stories high. "The why, the how, the solution."
"You have come so far." Isobel said. "Your patience cannot fray at this moment."
Incensed, I said. "Yes, I have come so far. I have come so far with little to no answers. I have fought and grieved and bore the weight of great responsibility. And I still bear that responsibility. There are people waiting for me, relying on me and I have to go back to them with answers or all this time they've spent wondering if I'm alive, or grieving over me, would be wasted." I sucked in a ragged breath. "I don't have time for my patience to fray. The second I fell into the Abyss, I have been on borrowed time."
I wasn't being coy. Or sensitive. Not in the way that I should have been, but I didn't have time to be toyed with or handled with silken gloves. I needed answers and I would not let those answers break me.
"I want to go home." My voice softened. "People that I love are waiting for me. I've mourned the loss of loved ones and I don't want them to feel that."
"Then I imagine you have questions?" Isobel arched a brow. "I could begin at the very beginning, but then your friends would be waiting considerably longer."
I eyed her. "Who is the Insurgent to you? A friend? Brother? Always an insufferable thorn in the side?"
Isobel drew close to the four thrones and rested a hand on the broken throne. She traced the veins in the stone, her face shrouded. "The four of us were once mortals. Once. Too long ago to truly remember where we came from, but we were once Zentin. We called ourselves Seekers, but in truth that is a Cadel phrase. We didn't have a word for us – we were protectors. We were not bonded by blood, but we were brothers and sisters. There was me, Zeddicus, Ardgal and Eocha. We sought justice and retribution. We sought to protect those in our borders. We protected Ethelor for centuries and we traded with the Elves on our border."
"The border into Cadelith?"
She smiled bitterly. "We could once travel into Cadelith without trouble. Our people began to settle in Cadelith – we were an easy people and caused no trouble. The Elves welcomed us and the Zentin built homes and farms in Cadelith. There was no true danger really that we were needed for. We became complacent. Blind. Zeddicus began to speak of merging the two Empires into one – of robbing Cadelith from the Elves but the Zentin would not have it. We are not a war-faring people – though once the Zentin had the numbers to turn an entire Empire to madness, they would not do it."
She looked at me with the same burning eyes that all Zentin seemed to have. "Zeddicus would not listen."
"And you could not see something warped in his mind?" Even as I asked, I remembered Kohen on the rise. His unsettled manner when he couldn't sense the Insurgent.
"We were ignorant to his maneuverings. Complacent and weak - then, it was too late. He slaughtered Zentin and Elves in their hundreds, poisoning our land. Tainting it. We fought him, but Eocha fell."
She swallowed and Asha'da face grew weary. It must have been countless centuries since that event, and yet, the pain still looked raw.
"And he ripped her apart, sapped them of everything that she was and with that, he tried to pull Cadelith under his rule. He needed the magic to control the Elves he believed. But he only succeeded in ripping the two lands apart and shrouding Ethelor in darkness. Centuries passed and the land was quiet. Ardgal and I remained, but we thought Zeddicus had died. Then he returned four centuries ago and we fought once more. Fought him until he was nothing but a wisp of a demon, a skeleton of what he once was. Before he fled, he butchered Ardgal, stripped him of his power, confined me to this prison and fled to Cadelith."
"And there, things get...complicated." Asha'da cut in, arms crossed. She looked between the two of us, then to the thrones. "It was then that he chose Devin Trevil to be his second-hand. He burdened Trevil with Ardgal and Eocha's power...and his own."
"Why?"
"I have a theory." Isobel looked beyond me. Light cut across the lines of her powerful face. "I have had centuries to think on it and I have one theory."
"And that is?"
"It was killing him. This magic. Power. Energy. Whatever you wish to call it. We took it out of the unfettered belief that we would be protecting our people. When his mind started turning, he began to grow sick. Tell me Aviana, have you seen him?"
"I have. He looked like a rotten corpse." The thought unnerved me. He had been powerful then – and he had stripped himself of his power. "Does that happen to all who bear that power?" I ask. "Does everyone rot?"
Isobel took a moment. "I don't have an answer to that question. I have not rotted."
"I have not died. I should have died after the first- definitely after the second, but I did not."
"Devon was falling apart at his joints during our final disagreement," Asha'da looked beyond me. "He bore three, but if I hadn't of killed him, they would have. His skin was sluicing from his body, like sludge. Still, he fought with the strength of more than one man."
"How long did that take?" I asked. "For that to happen. He survived taking on that burden, but it was killing him." Was it killing me? Would I feel my body dying from the inside? I didn't know.
"I didn't speak with him much after he butchered my children." Asha'da told me. "So, I don't have an answer to that. Months? He definitely did not have years. But his sacrifice was not a noble one. His sacrifice was his children. Yours would have been your life."
I remembered Aran Herve then and the son he had drowned in the lake. Power. He had done it for power. A sacrifice.
"And the last tablet." I pinched my brow, trying to settle the blooming headache. "Where is that? There is Dratlan. Aldwynn. Is it another Keep? Is it Saor Keep? Caisle Keep?"
The flaming haired Elf smirked. "It once was the largest Elven Keep in the entirety of Cadelith. It was the home of the last Elven King. King Alaeran."
My stomach dropped. "No."
She let out a peeling laugh. "Right under their noses."
"You hid one of the tablets in the palace. In the Emperor's home?" My incredulity faded to sickened amusement. If it wasn't me who had to go and get it, I would have been entertained by the idea. 'Gwen would laugh,' I thought.
Isobel glanced back over my shoulder once more, brows pinched. When I turned, following her gaze, there was nothing there. Only the two waiting Zentin and a long, dark hallway. "I have been a terrible host." She murmured. "Why don't you bring Asha'da and Aviana for a bath, Niam and give them something to eat. Murhall, stay here. I need you to fetch someone."
She looked to me again. "I can feel your exhaustion. Enjoy what is to come tonight. Bathe. Eat. Rest. A doorway into Cadelith may rip your tired mind and body to shreds."
Something Mahon would surely blame me for.
"I feel as if I should be trained." I shifted, uncomfortable now. "To learn to wield this power?"
Her lip curled. "You are a beacon of burning silver light. The longer you stay, the more Nirani will be drawn to this little haven's borders. I cannot risk them breaching my barriers."
"I could not either."
"Then you know you must leave." Isobel held my gaze. "Whatever happens."
I frowned, but agreed. "Whatever happens."
I bade my goodbyes, recognising the wisdom in her advice. Naim led us through the dark halls again and back into the light of day. We were led out into the village where the females drew us away to great pits of steaming water. The heated water was hidden from view by woven dividers but beyond it, the women stripped and washed openly.
I washed in tiny pool of water first and a Zentin woman approached me, holding a bucket of water. She wore nothing but a slip, her smile warm and welcoming. Her hair was plaited in neat rows atop her head. Like most of the others, her eyes were a burning gold. "May I wash you?"
"I..."
"You feel like this is odd." She set down the bucket. "We are strangers. My name is Saorla. You are Aviana. We know each other now."
"It's nice to meet you," I matched her smile. "Sayr-la. Am I saying that correctly?"
"Perfectly."
I looked beyond her to find Asha'da being scrubbed by another Zentin. Saorla smiled. "We welcome guests and friends returning by washing them of their journey's troubles. It has always been our tradition."
"Then I'm honoured you would include me."
Soarla squeezed out a sponge. "We don't get many newcomers, if at all. And those that do come now are tatters of souls, desperate not to fall into the taint. They are not..." She paused. "This is not the place for my worries. You will see later. I hope it doesn't upset you."
She drew the sponge over my skin, where the dirt and grime had formed its only sort of armour.
"I don't mind if you tell me your worries," I said.
"Your shoulders are only bone and flesh." She said. "And enough worries rest on them. Let yourself relax. If only for a moment."
I could see other Zentins lounging in pools of steaming water, laughing together. It reminded me of the bathing rooms in Dratlan – the females would always bathe together, trading whispers and tips. We had never been truly alone there.
"I heard that your country doesn't have Zentin anymore." She paused. "Just one."
"Kohen."
She washed my hands gently. "Your mind illuminates when you think of him. You love him dearly."
"I have made great friends in the Legion, but he is the first person I learned to love again." My throat tightened and I tried not to think of him. My last memory was his blood stained torso. His weak voice. "When I see him again, I will tell him that."
"He knows. He would feel it, as I have." She said.
"Sometimes people need to hear it." She would know I was talking about more than Kohen, but she kept silent. She washed me down, pouring warm water over me and scrubbing under my nails. Other females drifted closer, helping to wash out my hair. They scrubbed my scalp and then combed their fingers down through my hair.
When I got dry, I was given a fresh set of clothes as my other clothes were brought away to be cleaned. My offer to wash them myself was denied – politely. I had been travelling in them for a while, not having time to stop and clean them. We were given time to sleep, nestling in a little hut with fresh blankets and the whole village seemed to fall silent as we were settled in.
I woke to Saorla nudging me. Evening had fallen, casting the village in a soft glow.
"It is dinner-time."
She led me out beyond the houses to where great pits were dug into the ground. The water in the holes in the ground were boiling. I watched as a Zentin hefted stone into it, making the water spit and hiss. "We cook together in great groups."
"Does this tire you out?" I asked. "All these minds together?"
"Some Zentins are able to numb it." She said. Children sprinted past us, shrieking at each other in Ekini. "Some Zentin who are more nuanced in their mind-reading, cannot. It is the curse for being stronger than the rest of us. They find solace in spending time alone, or in the presence of creatures and people who are unburdened by trouble."
"Like Kohen?"
"I think, with your friend, he had two choices. Being the only one of his kind around, he could either supress his ability or hone it to his ability. He must have honed it. Muffling the ability can...lead to..." Soarla shook her head. "It is unheard of."
Great crowds of Zentin gathered. Some were chopping vegetables and helping heft great steaming stones into the water to keep it boiling. Steam rose, bathing the camp in a mist.
"These feasts are a one of a kind," Asha'da stepped past me, inclining her head to an elderly Zentin who was being helped along. The woman, whose long ears dropped at the top, glanced at me with milky eyes. A child trailed behind her on chubby legs, holding onto the elder's skirt.
I was seated on a stump and Saorla pushed a bowl of steaming stew into my hands.
'Kohen would love to be here.' I would have given anything to have him here in this moment. To be surrounded by his people. To be able to ask questions and learn about his culture from living Zentin, and not from memories and dusty biased books.
I ate and listened as they talked. Sometimes they would fall silent, but it felt like there was still a conversation happening that was spoken without words.
The elder raised her head and spoke in a soft, tremulous voice. "I have eaten."
The Zentin fell silent for a beat. Then, somewhere in the throng of smoke and bodies, a chord was struck. The Zentin sang as they appeared to live, open and honest. The great pits were covered and we moved away from them anyway. Saorla drew me up for a dance and I went willingly, for the first time, unsure of how the movement was meant to go. Asha'da spun children in the air, laughing.
We traded partners rapidly as the music grew faster. Arms linked with mine before we were spun away and then I was spinning with a laughing woman, so fast that I thought I would be spun up into the sky. I faltered and in the rapid pace of dancing, was thrown from the dancing crowd.
I paused at the edge, hands on my knees. Breathing harshly, I thought again. 'Kohen would love this.' I tried to soak it all in; the sights, the smells and the feeling burning inside my chest. If only for him to be able to feel it in my mind. It wouldn't compare, but I could try.
And I would build a door.
Build a way back here after the Insurgent was defeated. To help rebuild Kohen's people in Cadelith. It was the least I could do after everything he had done for me. So I ate the food they offered and danced even though the travelling had left me exhausted.
Evening fell and the village became shrouded in mist. Lights swung in the gloom as the children were brought to bed, but the adults were quick to return. Every door was left unlocked, the windows opened to the world. The elder was escorted to bed and as she passed, her hand whipped out.
Gnarled fingers held onto my wrist. She looked in my direction, but those milky eyes didn't focus on me. "We have many guests here. Some return unbeknownst to all but me. For those who fade, the sun can be brutal."
After a beat of silence, she smiled with sharp teeth and released my wrist. No one else commented on it, but drew her away.
"She rarely addresses new-comers." Asha'da commented.
"As rare as they are," Saorla replied. "As we age, other's emotions can muddle us. The stronger we are in our youth, the more likely that is."
"There are so much things to learn." I murmured.
Saorla smiled at me. "You won't learn them tonight. You should go and take a walk. The night air can clear your mind before sleep."
"A walk alone? That sounds treacherous here."
"We are protected. Nirani cannot pass through her protection."
"Then I will walk." I agreed. "Goodnight to the both of you if I don't get a chance later."
The flaming haired Elf smiled at me and I felt that familiar brush of nerves. Travelling alongside her had only numbed the feeling of awe and despite her declarations otherwise, she was still a hero to me. It was her name that had given me strength in dark moments. No protests could take that from me.
I slipped away from the noise and walked along their earthen pathways. I paused to examine their flowers, catching the delicate petals. I didn't recognise them – whether they could make medicine, if they could make a poison or if they were pretty to look at.
The soil slowly began to fade to black stone underfoot. I could hear the music and laughter behind me and I slowed down, eyes closed. Kohen would feel a touch of melancholy seeing this memory, but I hoped it would help him.
Or would it cause him more pain? Could I return and convince some Zentin to come with me? Or ... could I bring them back to Cadelith to help Kohen, or was that causing more problems than I realized. I tipped my face to the darkened skies and released a long breath, trying to stamp down on the fierce longing for home. It felt like I would always be wishing for home – wishing for Dratlan, wishing for Adotlan.
Ahead, I caught sight of a slender figure standing in the dark. Their shadowed face was turned up to the sky, their arms tucked behind their back.
The sight was startlingly familiar, the faint beats of an old memory striking me. I slowed, uncomfortable. The strains of music seemed muted now and the houses of this little haven hidden by a rolling fog. The figure didn't acknowledge me for a moment, but eventually released a tired sigh.
"It is beautiful out here," An ethereal voice called out to me, tinged with sadness. "But the longer I look, the more I realize that it is nothing like home and I grow bitter at the sight of this sky."
My chest tightened to the point of pain and I reached for Heslan's knife at my hip. My hand trembled as I drew it. "Face me, stranger."
The lithe figure paused, then turned slowly. A hood was drawn over his face, masking his face except for the cut of an angular jaw. A mottled hand swept back that hood, exposing brilliant silvery hair that was immaculately plaited down his back.
That twist in my chest pulled tighter.
I yielded a step, and Heslan's blade shook with my hand. Months of roaring grief quietened, sucked out by a vacuum. My blood thundered in my ears and his name trembled on the tip of my tongue; though I had known it for years, it was garbled on my tongue. "Kendon?"
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Welcome back to Aviana's world.
Tell me your thoughts, theories and conspiracies.
Did you expect our surprise guest? Do you think it's another trick?
Do you think this might delay Aviana returning to Cadelith?
Until next time - Saoimarie.