The Warlord's Concubine (13 page)

The other women were deathly silent, watching in awe and fear as
the Seer shook and spasmed. It was terrifying to see, though not only
because of the power the woman held, but because Mirella—alone
amongst the women—knew something of the suffering she had
endured and must now still be enduring.

After watching long in silence Svella whispered to her. “The
last time this happened she was said not to come out of it for days.”

“We don’t have days,” Mirella murmured, already
uneasy about leaving the city proper. She feared that at any moment,
the abused and wretched would begin their revolt, and when she turned
her face back to the woman, she silently prayed for her to find peace
enough to speak.

With a shake of her head Svella added, “But when she came
out of her trance... she bestowed upon the God-King the warning that
won him the war against Ariste. It is said she is the line to the
spirits that lets our Lord and Master reign with the power of a
deity.”

The bridge of her nose crinkled in
distaste, but she said no more on it. Still, as her arms folded
across her stomach and she felt that mass move within her, she hoped
it wasn’t too late. For him. For them. “We need to
prepare for the rebels,” she said softly.

The warrior-concubines set up their command from within the Seer’s
chamber. The women charged with her care and security refused to
leave her be, and all understood the importance of getting whatever
news she had immediately.

Though days of planning and action turned up little. Svella shook
her head as she came in with her full armour on, acting untroubled by
the pregnant belly that looked well past its time. “The latest
searches have turned up nothing,” she said.

“This doesn’t seem right,” Mirella frowned,
finding herself restless and her nerves frayed in a way they’d
never been before. It was torture not knowing, being uncertain of
what was happening in the battle, of the status of their troops. She
was looking forward to fighting the rebels if only for something to
do, to take her mind off of her anxiety.

Mirella had gone out personally with Svella, the soldier-sisters
patrolling the streets. She had seen the terrible state of the city,
the invasion and isolation of Ariste having had drastic consequences
for the population. But through it they’d turned up nothing as
yet.

Svella opened her mouth to talk but then her eyes went wide as she
stared beyond the shorter Mirella.

That look of awe could mean only one thing, and as Mirella turned
and looked she saw the Seer sat up on her bed, peacefully still. She
was no longer the quivering mass entrapped in some violent seizure,
she looked serene and beautiful. She looked every bit fit to play the
part of the mother of a god.

She felt like she could weep, and was surprised at how much of it
was simple joy that the woman suffered no longer. At least for the
moment. A lump was in her throat and she moved forward to the woman,
brazen as always. Even surrounded by the elite guard, by those that
cared for the woman and held her in such esteem, there was no holding
Mirella back.

A gasp travelled through the other women and she saw as one went
to take hold of her and keep her from approaching the Seer. Instead
the ghostly woman stirred in her flowing blood-red robes and her eyes
fluttered open to look directly at Mirella. “My son marches to
victory... marches to death!” The way her voice went from
serene to shrilly-panicked in no time was chilling.

She felt her eyes burn but still she approached the Seer, kneeling
at the foot of the bed. She paid no heed to those behind her, instead
raising her eyes to the Mother of her God. She felt that horrible,
dry lump in her throat as she shook her head childishly, but still
she dared not speak. Dared not yet interrupt the woman’s
lucidity.

She watched as the pale woman’s eyes rolled back into her
head then fought it off, as if struggling to retain control. “He
shall find victory on the battlefield... but the enemy comes to steal
his prize from beneath his nose even now. If they are not stopped...”
she clutched the sides of her head and rocked back and forth, the
whole of the room seeming to change. She felt a shifting in the air,
the candles flickering all about though nothing seemed to have
changed.

“The princess,” she hissed, pushing herself to stand.
“Svella,” she moved to the other woman the brushed past,
“Let me know of anything else she says. I need some that can
actually fight.” Bitter resentment flourished up within her,
betrayal struck in her heart. “That little bitch will pay.”

“No!” shrieked the Seer, her piercing scream blood
curdling. “It is too late!”

She stared at Mirella, and that gaze chilled her, as if something
inhuman was inside the pale woman. “An army marches through
secret tunnels in the mountains right now! No force of arms can stop
them!” she cried.

The other women seemed to get it, they all rose standing and froze
in some look of solemn resignation.

Mirella froze, her breathing stilled as she turned back to the
crone. “You can’t expect for us to sit and wait for our
deaths, Mother,” she said softly. Her footsteps were slow as
she approached the woman, and once more she knelt, her eyes holding
such reverence. “We carry your grandchildren. Your blood. You
said as much yourself. That I could be a Witch of the Coven.”

The other women crowded around the bed and Svella gave Mirella a
sympathetic look, she murmured, “It is not as you think,
sister.” She heard the scuffle of booted feet as another woman
hurried out of the room and then the remaining women began to link
hands about the bed. She heard chanting begin as the white haired
woman swayed.

Mirella was lost, but she wouldn’t let him down. She
couldn’t. Her eyes blinked away the tears once more as she
stared up at the Seer, “I would do anything for him,” she
said earnestly. “My life is nothing compared to his. He
deserves this city to fall to their knees.” She looked up and
around at the swaying women. “What’s not as I think? Have
you all given up?”

The doors swung open again and she saw as more of the Raven Guard
women scurried in. All about the chambers they began to join hands
and the chanting grew louder. Svella took Mirella’s hand and
squeezed it tightly, “Join in, sister,” she urged and
began to chant with the rest.

Her hand was trembling as she joined with them, welcomed into the
folds of women so unlike herself, but as the tears began to stream
down her cheeks, there was so little else she could do. At least this
felt like something. Like nothing. A sweet distraction at the
precipice of destruction and failure.

Her failure.

It was then she heard it, the old woman's voice in her mind. “Do
not despair,” it said, sounding so much younger and stronger
than it really was. “We do not resign ourselves to giving up on
him... we resign ourselves to sacrifice for him,” she told her,
though looking at the old woman she had not moved from her swaying.
Did not speak out loud.

Mirella blinked. Her heart quickened, and immediately she knew she
would not feel sad for this thing. For this sacrifice, and only the
loss of her child—his child—resonated within her. She’d
always known, from the first moment she saw him, that she would do
anything for him.

He’d done more for her in the short months than she’d
dreamed of in those tentative, uncertain moments of just meeting him.
In the days of new lust and love and appreciation. In the warm nights
of comfort in his bed, he’d always brought her to new heights
of devotion.

The old woman’s voice spoke to her in such a soothing,
youthful tone, “You are willing to give all. Your dedication is
admirable. I could not have chosen a better woman for my son,”
she complimented, the chanting becoming a hum on the air that seemed
to vibrate reality itself, everything beginning to turn bizarrely
blurry about her.

“Your child shall not be harmed,” said the Seer to her
again in her mind. “And you shall survive this to sacrifice
another day. Now I impart to you the secrets you need for that...”

It was then Mirella felt it. The earth shattering truth of the
Ka’reem women and their powers. She felt it. Their coven
commanded the ability to rip the earth asunder if they wished it.
They could destroy as well as create, but she saw it... flashes of
sacrifice. The Seer’s madness a price she paid for her son. She
saw then other women who paid various other fees for their power. All
terrifying. Their bodies shrivelled to husks. Some left hideous and
deformed. All suffered regrets no matter how hard they tried to deny
it, for the price was never easy to pay.

She wasn’t aware that the tears kept streaming, that she
could feel something so strongly, so passionately and with such
empathy as she did then. Years of being a servant, of growing up as a
dredge of society had left her with a hardened shell. She cared not
for the suffering of others, not after seeing how jaded they were
about her own pain. It was something practical and cruel that kept
her sane, but for that moment she knew the exquisite despair of so
many others and she could empathize. She knew that she too would make
this sacrifice and become someone different.

Someone he potentially would no longer love.

She acknowledged the regrets she’d have, and still knew
she’d do it. Sacrifice all she valued, even His love, in order
to save His kingdom.

Mirella had offered up all she could, and the chanting took on
such a powerful force. When finally she felt the shuddering of the
room coalesce it was as if all the women were one. Their unified
purpose causing them to see into powers beyond.

The Seer guided them, she knew that innately, their sight
travelling through the stone of the palace and into the mountains
themselves upon which it was built. She saw then in the tunnels, the
soldiers travelling ancient hewn paths the nobles and miners before
them had made. Their numbers seemed endless and beyond the mining
paths the soldiers in such numbers were marching through great halls
hewn by beings that could not have been human judging by their choice
of style.

There had to be hundreds, at least a thousand, of them. All
heavily armoured and bent on coming to Ariste and taking the city
that Kulav had won.

Together the witches—for she was one of them now—put
their will to it. The walls of the cave began to shake, pebbles
slipped from the stonework above. The soldiers did not notice it at
first, but as they did she saw the looks of panic on their faces.

An earthquake, they cried. She didn’t hear it as such, but
sensed it. Terror took hold of them and as rubble began to fall in
their midst striking some, knocking them wounded or unconscious, the
rest began to scurry as they could. They trampled one another, losing
their military discipline as the stonework began to crumble.

The rest was bloody horror.

The women had ripped an army to pieces with their minds and as
they came out of the spell they knew they had felt victory. Though
the price...

Several of the women collapsed, others went to them. Some cried
out in warbling pain or madness. Mirella however...

Nothing had changed. She felt it. She was as before. She was free
to see things all as they were: the Seer collapsed, the anguish on
her sister’s faces. Then felt the rumbling that should’ve
ceased. That had killed so many soldiers and now shook the palace
itself.

She didn’t quite feel panic, not as she felt she should.
There was newfound concern and affection for the women, brought about
by the shared experience, but it wasn’t panic. Her eyes moved
over them, over her God’s Mother, over her sisters and the
price they paid.

What was her price?

Her hands went to her stomach, to her womb, and felt for a stir,
for that familiar life within her, even as she felt the ground
tremble beneath her. “We need to get into the open air,”
she said, though she had no idea if she had whispered it or screamed
it.

She felt the same, yet the shock had made her mind fuzzy.

Things all happened so fast from there it seemed, as if it was all
a haze. She felt the reassuring life within her stir, knew it was
well, and all about Svella and her gathered the women that were still
able and got them to bring the others to safety.

It was barely a moment too soon, for one of the stonework statues
toppled, crushing the bed upon which the Seer formerly lay as the
quaking continued. Then out into the courtyard they still felt it.
More than that they heard the mountains themselves groan and quake.
It was such a terrifying sound.

It was as if the world itself was crying out in agony at their act
of violence and then... she saw it even from where she was. All the
other women gawked around her. The mountain began to crumble, great
slabs of stone sheering off the side of the collapsing rock cliffs.
Falling down into the pass out of which the God King had rode but
days before.

Rushing to the parapets Svella and her
stood on shaky legs as the quaking finally slowed and came to a stop.
He may have ridden through that passage to war, but he would not ride
back along it. It was closed. And no force she could imagine—short
of the terrifying powers they just wielded—could dislodge such
debris again.

The quakes had finally stopped. Svella and Mirella had rallied the
sisters to reassert control over the situation. The city was in a
panic after all. Nobody knew what had just happened, talk of dark
signs were on everyone's lips.

Svella slumped down in a chair at their new headquarters, cradling
her pregnant belly. She was well overdue now, and looked enormous,
weary.

Mirella, meanwhile, had been doting, caring on the other women. On
her sister’s. She wasn’t much use in battle, but she
excelled at tending to others, and for the only time in her life
aside from her God, she wanted to help them.