Philippa Ballantine - Spectyr

“Then let us unshackle your people,” she said, slipping on her Gauntlets and facing the Temple.

“Thank you.” His fingers tightened on hers, apparently immune to the sting of the runes, and then together they walked down toward the Temple. With every step, as long as she didn’t glance at him, Sorcha felt her equilibrium recover.

As they got closer to the Temple, she couldn’t help it, she began to chuckle. “Oh, your mother is quite modest.”

Onika’s laugh was loud and unexpected as he got her point. The Temple was shaped like a beautiful woman lying on her side, one hand propping up her head, the steps leading to the interior literally burrowed into her belly button. It was the bright red of the city of Orinthal but not nearly as charming.

“That has to be the crassest thing I have ever seen.” Sorcha giggled. “And I grew up in Delmaire!”

“I think you should mention that when you meet her!” The Prince’s laugh was long and genuine.

A mass of people were clustered around the Temple door. This was indeed where Orinthal had migrated to. Onika untangled his hand with hers so now he stood alone. “Follow me.”

The people turned and then, like a wave breaking on the shore, dropped to their knees, abasing themselves before the Prince. It was not because he was their ruler. It was because he was unmasked. Hatipai had them in her control right up until the moment her son appeared. It was one thing to have belief in a goddess, but when a god walked among them in the flesh, it overrode all that.

A hot wind was coming off the desert and straight into Sorcha’s face, flinging bits of sand into her eyes and mouth, but while she held her hand up and swore, Onika only kept moving forward.

“She’s not far now.” His voice was soft as he stepped carefully over and past the prostrate bodies. Sorcha followed in his wake ashey climbed the stairs and into the Temple of Hatipai.

“I will go in first,” Onika said, and with his godhood, false or otherwise, about him, Sorcha could not deny him.

Inside, the heat was the first thing the Deacon noted. Most Chiomese buildings were deliciously cool—but obviously the geistlord cared little for human comforts. As Sorcha looked around, she realized that in fact humanity cared little for those comforts, either. They were packed in here tighter than pickled herrings. It made it hard for them, but still the people of Orinthal managed to squeeze back a little, allowing their Prince farther into the Temple.

Above the crowd, there was a dais. Sorcha was pushed to and fro and had to stop and crane her head to see what was up there. Desperate to see, she was angry with the crowd, the foolish damn people. Finally, she saw.

It was a shadow of gold, hanging together like a faint mist that was trying to hold on to human form. A suggestion of wings flared out, twining and sparkling, and when she opened her Center, the shadow burned in her Sight—much as the Rossin did. A geistlord indeed, then.

Among the crowd she caught sight of the mustard yellow robes of the Chiomese Deacons, and yet they were just as smitten. Every face around her wore the same idiotic look; all logic, all reasoning washed away in fanaticism.

And the humans were not the only observers in the Temple. Through her Center the Deacon saw the shadows that filled every corner of the Temple: the shades of Hatipai’s followers. Even after death, the so-called goddess kept her hold on them.

Sorcha struggled to keep her feet as the crowd surged forward, and she realized with horror that she was no longer in Onika’s wake. The people had closed around her, and he had moved on. She pushed, shoved and swore, but it was as effective as a piece of flotsam fighting against the sea.

She was being pushed toward the far wall even as Onika walked up the stairs toward the remains of his mother. Then with a cry, she saw Raed. Her throat clenched, because if there was a better picture of sacrifice waiting to happen, she’d never seen it. He was bound upright on an X-shaped device that looked like an unholy melding of the torturer and the Tinker’s art. Two long articulated armatures sprouted from the frame and hovered ready over Raed’s naked body.

At the side of this device stood a gray-bearded man wearing elaborate robes, with the symbol of Hatipai over the broad sash of a royal Chancellor. He looked remarkably well for a man that should have died back in the palace.

Sorcha wished Raed would turn and look, but his eyes were cast down. Only the training and discipline of a Deacon kept her from raising her Gauntlets right then. Instead, she lowered her head and began shoving and twisting her way toward the dais. She didn’t care how many toes she trod on or whose ribs got bruised in the process.

From her nearing vantage point Sorcha could now see the Grand Duchess Zofiya, but it took her a moment to recognize her. She was not in her usual dress uniform. Instead, she wore a thin white robe that left little to the imagination. In her hands, held stiffly out before her, was a sphere like the one the Prince had used. This one was larger but full of the same silver liquid. Zofiya’s face was as expressionless as a statue—very unlike her usual restless nature. This is where faith gets you, Sorcha thought.

Ahead, the golden, ethereal form was bending toward Onika, and her words were loud and echoed off the walls of her Temple. “So, you have returned, my wayward son, returned to take your place with me?”

Onika threw off his cloak, and his voice too was impossibly loud. “I’ve come to finish what I should have generations ago, Mother.” And then he swung down with the blade into the swirling mass of golden light.

Sorcha was now six rows of people away from reaching the theater of events, but she was blind without Merrick. The moment hung impossibly. Some of the people in the Temple began to wail and surge forward, carrying her with them. And then Hatipai’s laughter boomed over everything.

It was not the sound Sorcha or Onika had been expecting, and now the Deacon’s stomach clenched into a tight, painful knot. The crowd around her caught their goddess’ mood and began to laugh too. It didn’t make them any easier to get past.

Onika sank to his knees, his shoulders slumped.

“You really should not believe everything you read, my son.” The golden mist solidified, an echo of a grinning woman’s face.

The treacherous Chancellor laughed; his voice cracked like he’d been left too long in the desert heat. “We made the book, the prophecy, and you swallowed it down.”

Onika’s head sank to his chest as Hatipai enjoyed her moment. “You were always my backup plan, dear boy. The carrier of my flesh, should I lose it.”

“Mother.” His voice was angry, frustrated, lost. “Let her live . . . let my boy live.”

“Never!” Hatipai’s wings flew wide. “Every one of my flesh must die or be sacrificed—there will be no god or goddess but Hatipai!”

What else could he do? Sorcha felt herself on the edge of angry tears. The Prince was a pawn in this game but a good man despite everything. She threw herself toward them desperately. Now she was only two ranks of people away from breaking free, but this close, people were less likely to give way.

Hatipai looked at her son with a fierce look that hovered between rage and sorrow. “I knew you’d read the prophecy, and I knew you’d forget . . . a mother can always take back what she has given—if she has the will.”

The goddess moved, but the Prince made no move to try to escape—there was, after all, nowhere to go. Unlike a geist, a geistlord could indeed hurt. That beautiful face was ripped from him with a terrible sound that all could hear, and then blood poured down the steps. He stayed on his knees for a while as the mist drained him, and then his body toppled. It slid down the steps slowly and then to one side with an audible thump.