Once Was: Book One of the Asylum Trilogy (17 page)

“May Annwn bring you peace, Lady,” I called in hopes my words would reach the High Priestess within her prayers.

Thorny vines wrapped tight around the trees as I passed them, barring the way behind me. When I left, I could not return, even if Sheelin were visible to all who searched. Cresting the last ridge before commencing my descent to the beach, my heart stopped. Smoke rose from Madani. Even across the vast waters, I could see the fire rising.

Chapter Fourteen

If only I had been faster, Bas; if only I had answered the calling faster, perhaps I could have saved them. There are no words, Lady of the Shadows, for the darkness in my heart this day. To You and Aya I lift my voice in prayer for guidance.

Show me the way.

Grimoire of the Goddess, Forty-Eighth and possibly final Oracle of Bas

M
y
ink
smudged across the page from my tears. I refused to believe that I could be the final Oracle. I would start a new temple. I could do it. Cade, as a smith, could take on the mantle of a priest. We could do this together.

Liand would not win. I denied him.

“I deny you!” I yelled to the dark sky. My grief was still raw, and the misty rain stung where it touched.

While my heart and soul blazed with flames reaching the sky, my ritual fire’s embers were naught but cold ashes. My time on Sheelin had taken two, if not three days in Madani. While I was away, Liand’s men marched on my people.

Liand’s Divide was no more.

The last city standing against the new regime had fallen. Five days travel by horse cart would take me to the first village outside his control. Those Madani natives loyal to the old ways could restart there.

No!
Bas cried within me.
Save them here where their blood has been shed. This is their home. Your home. Do not run, Oracle. Heed My voice. I speak through you now. You are Goddess-voice, and the Goddess says Madani will rise again under the old banner.

I would resurrect my people like the mythical phoenix from its ashes. The ashes of Aya’s forge would nestle the ember of our heart’s fire for years. My sweat, tears, and blood would bring new life to their veins. Together, we would purge Madani of the intruders.

I just had to get to Cade first.

My mind was still reeling from watching Sheelin simultaneously dissolve into sea foam and sink beneath the waves, a shimmer of its magic catching in the moonlight. In Heartspace, that place one sees the world from when wishing, I could still feel Sheelin’s thrum of magic. She was still there but gone all the same.

Not gone, however, were the whispers. “I do not recall that rock.” “Feel the real sun.” “The best time to attack is at moonset.” The moment I reached my cove, needing to catch my breath before attempting to infiltrate the military controlled town, Sesha’s memories overwhelmed me. I saw everyone’s lives. It was as if the Oracles compressed the entire holy library into one living compendium. My brain was full and had to somehow recompartmentalize my own memories, ones that were now trivial in comparison to the knowledge and wisdom I held.

Forty-seven women’s combined memories called out in greeting as I snuck to the edge of town. Old conceptions blurred as they were overlaid with what my eyes took in, like a map being rewritten. Where a line of oaks and ash once stood, a stone wall crumbled and smoldered from war. I was the librarian of vast tomes of knowledge, and my books needed new scribes to correct passages no longer valid. I was the first Oracle to leave Sheelin once crowned.

“Can you feel my fire?” Tristynce cooed in the back of my head. She was a priestess of both Aya and Bas, doubly marked. I knew her from the histories. “I know you’ve called down my fire before. Now do it with my knowledge.”

Her daughter, her true flesh and blood, sung in my veins. “New Oracle, feel us. I walked the other realm unlike any other. Let us show you. Open your thoughts to us.”

I opened and a new world appeared. Shades of black and white overtook my vision. Black space where I could not walk, gray where I could, white for sleeping minds. If I focused, I could see inside their thoughts. Awake people showed in shades of pink, the healthy shade of a baby’s cheeks. Their thoughts were harder to perceive, but with a moment of intent I could bypass their protections.

It was a skill long forgotten by the clergy, but dreamwalkers had been able to do it before, and now I knew how. No pink lights flared within my mind, and I used the emptiness to walk into the city unafraid of what awaited. No living person could surprise me now as I walked the realm between both worlds.

I was rounding the marketplace when my heart broke. The breadmaker’s wife lay across the display table, loaves of bread bloodied beneath her. Avarin, beside her on the ground, held a sack of wheat to his chest, blood frothing upon his lips. A white mind turned to the softest pink glow; he had not long in this world. Seeing me, his eyes went wide with relief.

Lips parted, trying to speak, and I slid between the two tables to kneel beside him. Prying off the sack, I saw his front was covered in blood. Too much had been broken.

“Rest, and I can heal you.” I was not sure I could, but I had to try.

“No, little Rose. Too late. Just make it stop hurting.” Our tears mingled on his bloody cheeks as his cold fingers tightened on mine. “I-I-was wrong. Save us.”

I focused on his words as I reached inside him with my magic. His heart labored to keep his chest rising and falling with fresh blood. “Rest well, Avarin, baker of Madani’s finest bread.” I closed off his ability to feel any pain.

“Not rising properly, Little Rose.” His hand fell away from mine, leaving the two coins I had given for my breakfast just days ago. “Live well, Priestess.”

I sat there as his eyes closed, held onto his arm long after he stopped breathing and had chilled to my touch. When I could finally drag myself from Avarin’s side, I was numb with terror. If they could do this to the breadmaker, what would I find when I arrived at the forge?

Step by step, I dodged down streets where no one walked. I felt out the empty spaces and stayed to them. Finding no awake mind near the forge, I was unsurprised to find it empty. Praying he had been selfish, I ran for the curing house and pried open the cold cellar door. Swords lined the walls surrounding the ladder, and a note sat upon the table beside a metal rose and handful of wilted petals.

*

They’re coming, Roseen. Liand has ordered me to be taken to Lorilindo to make the sun sword. Save Madani. If anyone can, it’s you. Until we meet again, in this life or in the next.

Yours,

Cade

My scream was inhuman. I felt Bas calling out for Her fallen priestesses, Aya for His priests, and the world crying for the deaths about to occur. Lightning crackled in response to my pain. Dead. I wanted any of Liand’s men inside Madani dead.

“For your mate, Daughter.” Bas’ voice mingled with that of Tristynce’s.

Seventeen bolts of lightning dropped from the clouds, brilliant purple light filling my sight as seventeen minds stopped existing. I would rain destruction down on any who stopped me.

I was going to win this war, and they would need asylum from me.