Sindr’s eyes glowed. Not with light that died in him long ago, replaced with gnawing shadows. Not even with madness. With something primal – joy intertwined with fear of the unknown. A whole cosmic collapse of… hope.
Sindr was at the verge of implosion – if what he planned for them won’t work, he will fall to pieces.
Ona embraced her legs even tighter, seeing the men behind his back. Possibly the same one who desecrated her body. They won’t see her numb and soft like a rag doll anymore. If they touch her, she will sink her teeth in their necks. If they eventually tried to kill her… at least she takes few with herself.
“I see you are not unconscious anymore, Scholar” giggled the Praetor. His eyes embraced Isnan, like he wanted to swallow her, then slid over Ona’s frame. Slowly. Eyes set in a youthful child face, devoured her, like she was a peace of meat. “How you enjoyed the preparation for the ritual? I suspected you won’t cooperate, so I gave you relief from consciousness. Isnan dear,” his lips stretched into a wide smile. “You didn’t offer me your power, even seeing your sister in a situation not for frail minds… I assume either your bond is not as strong as I – or even you – thought… or you couldn’t draw your force out. Perhaps… yes!… perhaps you need additional stimuli… more final.”
His arms twitched when he turned to the inquisitors behind him. His left lid moved uncontrollably. Ona could swear he looks more bloated and wet, than when she met him for the first time.
“Take them to the altar, ah” his voice shook. Anticipation. And pain. “We will see which gods speak to us with more grace.”
The men dragged Ona and Isnan on their feet. Ona could swear she is about to trip and fall, when her legs refused to carry her. But one of the man lifted her up and placing her over his shoulder, he just went with her, like with a sack. Isnan was treated the same way. They heard the laughter of Sindr, chasing them, panicked and cruel at the same time.
“You will be relieved! Like a good witches, you will be purveyors of the healing! Pleasurable healing!”
Ona closed her eyes and allowed the man to carry her up, up, into the dark corridors above them, fear choking her, like a hand around her already clenched throat.
What do they plan?
Why she is not able to be strong anymore?
This powerless feeling was gnawing at her nerves and flooding her mind. She was not used to it. Not used to be exposed and without any weapon by her hand.
She caught Isnan by the corner of her eye… she will not allow them to harm her. She will do everything to save at least, use every mean and coincidence to not let them kill her or do something worse.
She didn’t have strength to claw at the back of the man who carried her – and even if she had, she had no chance to escape, surrounded by windowless walls and enemies. Her blood ran cold in her veins paralyzing her limbs. The drug which they forced into her, was still in her body – small amount, but enough to change her perception.
The chamber which they entered was illuminated with small lamps – not torches like in other parts of the building. The dim glow bathed everything in mellow shadows, soft and leaving more to darkness than to light. Ona was placed on the floor – not delicately at all – and she saw the reason why this room had to become the ultimate tool in a journey to offer the Praetor a relief from his torment.
By the wall, there stood the vast altar.
Shiny stone gleamed like glass, polished and cleaned.
“An end to a tool” grinned the man, passing her and shifting Isnan on his shoulder. “And beginning of the purpose.”
Ona was pushed forth and the knees almost buckled under her. But she managed to stay on her feet. Sindr Alusa was joining them, his face muscles moving uncontrollably. It was easy to see that he won’t bear the torture one day more – if this rite fails, he will drown in the muddy pond of madness.
The acolytes and inquisitors stood under each wall, looking at the Praetor with admiration painted on their faces. Ona could guess how his “magic” could look for them – something new, promising eternal life and end of fae shackles. They could even think his state is caused by his efforts in the battle with the folk.
And Sindr was only a poor lost soul, who was on the verge of insanity. Who could only squirm and make others squirm too.
She would pity him, if not what he did to her and her sister.
The childlike looking figure seemed misplaced among all these people. Perhaps he felt misplaced too, with his knowledge that the only real escape from the fae is… death.
That’s why he craved the Feirne people. They were not only battling faeries. They were magical themselves. Touched by the goddess, beloved children of the order against the chaos of immortality…
“Isnan, child” Praetor’s small hand touched her sister’s hair and caressed them, while her head was hanging down. “Now… you will be placed between the will of the gods… and failure. If you fill yourself with power, drain me of the shadows that reside in my head, I will release the Scholar. The gods need to listen to their beloved, don’t you think? However you call them… you are all their chosen ones. Witches. The purifying flame, burning the illnesses, attracting the creatures with their warmth, scaring the nightly monsters away with the brightness of a day.”
“You know nothing about the goddess” Isnan’s voice was firm, unshaken.
But Sindr only laughed.
“The goddess? The lie which we all feed each other! Isnan, my cute, silly Isnan, if you spent so many years in purgatory, in a night world where a human goddess is a fodder for jokes and where we all are just toys for immortals… you would know which gods were imagined by humankind to ease the souls” his hand grasped her hair hard and pulled, getting her head closer to his. Isnan didn’t make a sound. “The goddess is a pretty face behind the real power.”
“Let her go” hissed Ona.
“And you, Scholar!” Sindr croaked… then his body was shook by the loud cough. “You was chosen as my very personal sacrifice. To make… ah the GODDESS… fill your stubborn sister with flames – enough of fire to purify me and end all of this.”
“The goddess will not allow it” Isnan’s voice trembled but there was force in it, something Ona always admired in her. Strength built on own heart and own will. “If she released the shadows from your head, they would flood this valley. End the lives of so many people. She might allow me to suffer, but it’s lesser evil.”
“Oh, shut up, Isnan dear” cut the Praetor and hit the ankle of the man that carried her, strong enough to make his brow twitch. “Bind her and let her watch. Maybe she will beg the gods herself.”
Isnan was trapped on the chair – it creaked when they were binding her legs and arms. It was the same chair Arolart was sitting on when she drank the first portion of the drug. Ona’s heart wanted to leave her chest. Her legs still fumbling, her body still weak. How could she let it happen? She was to save Isnan, not make them use her pain against the goddess and all human of this city and nearby villages.
“And she… on the altar!”
The man grasped her immediately again and with the strength of a bear, they hit her back against the cold stone of the altar. Ona lost her breath for a second, her lungs trying to draw air in – in futile. She saw Sindr who took Isnan’s head in his small child’s hands and turned just on the altar – and Ona on it.
“You will look… and you will brim with godly power.”
“You are delusional” groaned Isnan, but Sindr with unnatural force, managed to lock her head just on the right spot – Ona’s frightened face.
“Maybe! Aren’t all who want to die delusional? The afterlife is better though than living in this casket. Maybe I will grow into a tree… like these wretched fae… I hope Lorian Ain’Dal fills many of them. For the fear he gave me, for the pain he stitched into my body and soul. I hope he rots in similar limbo to my own.”
Ona didn’t know what he talked about and about whom, but her eyes landed on the butcher knife, dirty, sharp, rigged. It shone before her pupils like a black star falling from the sky. She will not survive and all efforts Isnan offered to this valley will be futile. If Praetor won’t gain what he desired, the blood he spill will be an ocean.
… and she felt pain.
Her right ear exploded with it – as sharp as the knife’s blade. With shock, she moaned, not screamed – her nerves barely connecting until she saw her ear next to her, rolling over the marble fracture of the altar.
Isnan watched. Ona knew why. Not because Sindr held her. Not because she liked what she was seeing. Because it was only thing she could do for her.
Not leave her alone.
And Ona… Ona was dragged through broken glass of her own sanity. With each cut, with each slice burrowed deep into her skin, to reveal how much she – and Isnan, or maybe even the Goddess – can stand. Her vision blurred, pain was going through her like jolts of lightning – bright, cruel, sharp. Ona’s limbs were a house of open, raw, pulsing nerves, each tugged and pulled at. Bloating, and hot, screaming as they were forcing her flesh off her body.
She wanted to look at Isnan too. But all she saw was an apparition changed by tears. But she felt sister’s soft caress on her hair, even if she wasn’t able to really touch her. A caress she remembered – and it returned to her with love.
The Goddess… was not by her side.
It was a lie. Even if releasing Sindr’s torment on the valley was a cruel deed, Isnan was a Goddess’ beloved.
But Ona was not.
“Are you ready to be fucked by your Goddess?” she heard like through mist – Sindr’s youthful voice. He talked to Isnan. To her sister. Who she will lose soon.
“You will never know how it feel being loved by her” Isnan choked on words, but they left her mouth strong, even if shattered.
“Do you spread your legs, when she enters?” Sindr hissed. “Do you moan like a whore? I truly wanted to see it, how you become a god’s slut.”
Ona’s tears trailed through her cheeks, when another cut reached her skin. Searing pain, blood. She was delusional when she arrived here – she truly was foolish enough to think that this world can offer them both something more than suffering. But Sindr was as well. He will kill them, but he will be left with the fae shadows, sentenced to live the eternal life.
And no cruelty will change it.
Her stomach was pierced by the knife.
Isnan screamed.
Terrifying, loud wail of someone who sees her own blood spilled. But flowing from a body of her sister.
She felt acids flooding her torn insides.
Goddess…
She won’t come. She will keep the villages safe. But she will sacrifice her children – for greater good.
“NO!” Isnan voice was full of pain. Maybe even with more suffering that Ona felt, spread on the altar like a butchered hare. “NO!! Not her! NO!”
Ona started to drift away, where her pain was just a ghastly reminiscence of itself and her mind slowly, but inevitably, was collapsing into the void. Her limbs becoming numb, her eyelids heavier by every second.
Her stomach sinking, she didn’t feel her innards anymore. Her body became soft, like wool. Let them cut her – she will just abandon herself in a dream. A dream that will be more potent than any pain – an eternal slumber.
Maybe she will find peace in it. Isnan… forgive me… Tiyan… I hope you found better end than me…
She felt touch. Warm touch. Distant yet burning her soul with… flames. It overflown her, soothing all raw sensations, allowing her to take a deep breathe. Her body was cut in so many places, she saw it from above. Her fingers severed, her limbs carrying so many wounds. The hands made of warmth traveled over her spirit form, almost like a mother’s touch. She relaxed, even if her body was dying. Her soul felt peace. Is death always like that? Pain, then warm, no – hot feathers of a dove over her skin. Like a kiss.
Like a rebirth in another – better – world.
“Use your power, you wretched wench!” Sindr. “Use it or you end like her, but for you, it will be much worse! USE IT! Kill me! Remove it from my head!”
He comes.
He wants us.
He devours us.
Crash him.
Distort his power.
You are beloved.
Beloved of the flame.
Release the night from this human’s mind.
Kill him.
Kill him.
K i l l h i m .
Who?
Ona’s eyes opened.
Isnan tossed in the grasp of two inquisitors. Screaming, but Ona couldn’t hear it. Sindr was laying, on the floor, with eyes full of terror and… hope. The cultists under walls looked at the scene, not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to react.
Isnan’s hair looked like an ocean wave crashing against the stone harbor. Floating around her like a spider web of tangles.
And Ona…
She raised from the altar. Her guts spilled over the stone, but she felt not life animates her anymore. She felt life gave up on her, offering her into caring hands of the…
Flame.
Her mind collapsed under weight of what was happening. But her hands were ready and willing, stronger, hotter. Isnan screamed, her eyes escaped into the back of her skull.
Ona, with her entrails tangling between her feet, walked at the Praetor. Her eyes glowed with the last throes of the flaming life.
Kill him.
Kill him.
KILL HIM.
So we could live again.
Sindr started to laugh.
His laughter was like pins in the brain.
And Ona wanted so badly to remove them.
She was the witch, a goddess’ beloved. Chosen by the gods, their power on earth polluted with life. She was ready to release the shadow.