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Maiya braced herself for a bloody battle. Against an enemy she knew next to nothing about, no amount of precaution would suffice. Nor would the Blessed Chosen go down easily. His assassination attempts and his show of force had proven that abundantly.
She didn’t know what powers the large man boasted, so Maiya would hold nothing back. She’d brought every orb she could conceal, precharging them all. The upcoming fight would be neither simple nor clean. It was, however, necessary.
At this point, it was no secret she was a mejai, and she doubted the Sisters would mind her breaking decorum by packing a few extra weapons for the ritual. There wasn’t a soul present who didn’t see this crowning ceremony for the farce it was.
Maiya only hoped the casualties would be few. She’d feel terrible if the Sisters, or any other innocents, got caught in the crossfire. The Children might’ve been deranged, but that didn’t mean they needed to die.
So it was with a great deal of surprise that Maiya arrived in her crimson ceremonial garb to find the Blessed Chosen absent.
“Did he flee?” Maiya asked the Sister of Gray presiding over the transfer of power. She still didn’t know the woman’s name, nor, for that matter, the names of any of the Sisters. Eschewing names was something of a mark of honor within their group.
“We do not believe so, Blessed Prophet,” the Sister replied, leading Maiya out of the ritual chamber and down a hallway. “We believe he has cloistered himself in his quarters.”
“You mean you haven’t gone inside?” Maiya asked, her panic mounting as they walked. Up ahead, she could see a half dozen guards keeping watch in front of the Blessed Chosen’s quarters. “You do realize his room has secret exits, just like my own, right?”
“Exits we have been monitoring very closely, I assure you.”
“Of course,” Maiya said. “I apologize. I did not mean to doubt you. What do you propose we do?”
“Unfortunately, the Blessed Chosen is required for the transference of the title. The cult will never accept a new Chosen without the incumbent.”
“Right,” Maiya said distractedly. She’d always thought that odd. It was the Blessed Chosen’s ultimate trump card, after all. He didn’t need to kill Maiya. He could simply abscond. It wasn’t as though he’d taken part in any of the cult’s activities, anyway. If he simply left, Maiya would be stonewalled—unable to take his throne.
Her questions were answered when the door swung open, and out emerged… For a moment, Maiya didn’t know who.
She wondered if the Blessed Chosen had escaped after all, leaving behind a doppelganger.
As far as doubles went, however, this one was about as poor as one could be.
Gone was the towering physique Maiya had witnessed kill her handmaiden with ease. Gone were the rippling muscles. The person before her stood hunched over, holding a cane for support. His rich tan had given way to a lifeless gray. Heavy bags hung from under his eyes, and his muscles seemed to have vanished, leaving flabby skin behind.
This was no double. It was the Blessed Chosen, and he was on death’s door.
Maiya’s eyes flashed to the Sister, who stared at the man with shock and confusion.
Not her. That eliminates the Sisters. Who, then?
Maiya wasn’t aware of any poison that had such effects, though that hardly meant such a thing didn’t exist. It had to be poison. What else could be responsible for such a thing?
“I’d planned to reason with you,” the Blessed Chosen said, his voice coming hoarse and raspy. “Now, I only wish for this all to end.”
“What… happened to you?” Maiya asked.
“A curse,” the Blessed Chosen said, limping past her into the hall. “A curse for which there is no cure…”
So it was poison, after all, Maiya thought with a frown, though she wondered why he’d used the word ‘curse’.
Frowning, Maiya followed a few paces behind him. He could barely even walk. If some unseen benefactor wanted to help her out, she could hardly refuse. She only wished she knew who it was. Being in the dark never sat right with her. She wanted to be the one controlling the pawns. Not the other way around.
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That was alright. Once she was crowned Blessed Chosen, she’d have the Children at her command. When combined with the vast Kin’jal intelligence network, whoever they were wouldn’t be able to hide for long.
Maiya was thankful that, for once in her life, crisis seemed to have been averted. No blood would be spilled today.
The next hours passed in monotony as Maiya partook in various blood rituals that were part and parcel for such a ceremony. Dozens of Children were in attendance, lining the sides of the large hall in the very center of the Sanctum, and it felt like it’d go on forever.
Maiya tuned it all out. She’d done this countless times and had absolutely no interest. Neither did the Sisters of Gray, nor even the Blessed Chosen, for that matter. It seemed to take all he had just to stand, and halfway through, he’d been forced to ask for a seat.
Maiya almost felt bad for him… Until she recalled the Handmaiden’s terrified face the moment before she died.
Whatever pain the Blessed Chosen was experiencing, he deserved every last bit.
It was when the ceremony neared its completion that Maiya started to grow anxious. She knew there was something else to this ceremony. Some other, secret part. Despite her status as the Blessed Prophet, there was one door in the entire Sanctum she’d never been allowed access to.
A door that one person and one person alone could enter.
The Blessed Chosen limped forward, leading them down a low and narrow hall that sloped down, descending to a lower floor.
The lowest floor, in fact.
Here, there was no gallery. Only a handful of the Chosen’s personal guard accompanied them. The only light came from the Magic Lamps they carried, casting long, hard shadows upon the hall.
This was not a place meant to be frequented. The cobwebs and mold made Maiya wonder how long it’d been since the Blessed Chosen had. After ten minutes of walking, she started to wonder just how far they were descending. This room was far deeper than the rest of the Sanctum.
The end came shortly after, with the hallway leading to a door so thick that it looked like a wall. A healthy Blessed Chosen might’ve been able to open this door, but his current condition made that impossible.
His guards shimmied past Maiya and the Sister of Gray, and heaved it open, allowing the stale air of what lay beyond to assault them.
“She stays,” the Blessed Chosen said, nodding to the Sister of Gray as he wandered through. He pointed at Maiya.
“She comes.”
Maiya exchanged glances with the Sister of Gray, and nodded. With the orbs at her disposal, there was little the Blessed Chosen could do. Especially not when Maiya was on guard.
The door slammed shut behind her, sealing her in the dark room with the Blessed Chosen. She played her Magic Lamp orb around, but its dim glow was insufficient to pierce the darkness of the enormous chamber they were in.
It was a room far larger than most of the Sanctuary’s other chambers.
“What is this place?” Maiya asked in a hushed voice, though she didn’t know why. It simply felt like the right thing to do.
“A relic of the ancient gods,” the Blessed Chosen said. “The place of transference.”
“I don’t understand. Why go through all of this?” Maiya asked. “If you wish to die, you could’ve just killed yourself, right? It’d have been far simpler. And… easier on your body,” she added after a pause.
“Would that I could,” the Blessed Chosen whispered. “Come. We must begin. Before we are interrupted.”
Maiya raised a brow. “Expecting someone?” Perhaps the one who poisoned you?
“Come!” the Blessed Chosen repeated, his tone firmer. “And extinguish your light.”
Maiya couldn’t see much anyway, so she shrugged and turned it off.
It was only then that she realized the room wasn’t completely dark. Just very dimly lit. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the more she perceived, and the more her confusion grew. The forms that her eyes took in made no sense to her mind. The lights that provided illumination were not placed on the walls, or even on the ceiling.
Nor did they originate from individual points, as she was used to.
Rather, the entire room glowed a dim greenish-blue. Lines of faint light that had no beginning ran along the ground, curving upward, tracing along the exceptionally tall ceiling before finally reconnecting with the lines on the ground in a loop.
There had to have been thousands of them decorating the entire space. All curving upward at the very center of the room.
Forming a structure that Maiya immediately recognized.
A tree trunk…
This was the same kind of chamber Maiya had inadvertently fallen into with Yamal and the Silent One. The one that Vir said had sent her soul into an illusion world. Only far, far larger.
The ceiling of the great room must have been no less than thirty paces high, stretching easily a hundred wide.
What is this place? Maiya thought in wonder as she followed the veins of light, leading her closer to the trunk. Not veins… Roots.
Other than the other chamber, Maiya had never once seen a tree like this.
“It seems they used to exist in great numbers, before the Fall,” the Blessed Chosen said from up ahead, almost as if he were reading her thoughts. “Now, only a paltry handful exist.”
“These aren’t normal trees,” Maiya said, following him to a hollow where the roots split at the base of the great trunk, leading into it.
“No,” the Blessed Chosen said. “No, they are certainly not.”
“Are they… connected to the gods? The ones you mentioned earlier?” Maiya asked, unable to resist asking. There was something so mystical about this place. Her heart raced in her chest, and she wished she could tell Vir. After all, hadn’t he experienced something similar in the Ashen Realm?
“In a way. Though exactly how, I do not know.”
Maiya stared up at the great roots that curved up to form the trunk of this tree as she passed through the cavity.
The short passage led to a small chamber, within which a circular table sat, occupying a good half of the room.
As Maiya approached, she realized it was no table at all, but rather a basin filled with an inky black liquid.
“Grab a hold of it,” the Blessed Chosen said, taking a position opposite her and grasping the edge of the table.
Maiya obliged. The moment she did, the liquid began to swirl. It glowed with light… and a scene began to take form in the water in front of her.
“And so, the transference begins.”
Maiya hardly heard him. She was too transfixed on the image forming within the pool.