CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Fireside Chat

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“I didn’t see this one coming,” Bridget whispered.

“Aren’t writers supposed to be good at predicting plot twists,” Chris whispered back.

“We do, but…all the evidence pointed against survivors,” Bridget replied.

Distracted by their whispering, Bram couldn’t help but agree with the blonde archer. He was almost certain they wouldn’t find survivors in the Stargazers’ expedition. Yet here was one such survivor limping down the staircase toward them with the help of the sorcerer’s staff he used like a cane.

From his name and appearance—brown skin baked from too much sunlight, gray hair styled in a warrior’s dreadlocks, a face that seemed weathered by dusty winds—Bram deduced that this man hailed from Damasca, the oasis kingdom on the other side of the ‘Gabi Desert’ bordering Lotharin in the east.

As he recalled, his younger sister Samarah, the ninth princess, would soon be governor of this desert land that was once Lotharin’s most dependable trading partner. Bram hoped to renew the desert trade route, though such an endeavor would have to wait until after he secured his kingdom from the unrest brewing in the north.

“Kazem!” Ravi yelled, his face filling with relief.

The Shamvalan didn’t wait for the older man to reach that bottom step. He strode determinedly forward, past the bodies of his dead coven members, and reached the sweeping staircase where the flametail leopards stood guard. The beasts growled at Ravi, but they stepped back to let him through so that he could reunite with one of his missing Stargazers. They hugged like long-lost brothers, with the Damascan kissing Ravi on each cheek.

“Should we go closer?” Bridget asked.

“We should,” Rowan agreed. “I too want to hear that old man’s tale.”

Together, the five of them began their trek across the garden of the dead, with Bram scrutinizing their corpses more thoroughly as he passed. He noticed similarities between these dead to the ones he saw scattered around the last waypoint. Vines crept out of their bodies like the roots of a gnarled tree, suggesting that some sort of sorcery was at work here. It was a theory that Ravi’s fellow sorcerer would confirm once the party got near enough to hear his voice.

“…She crawled into their minds and made them think they were starving,” Kazem told Ravi, “That belief — her hunger passed onto them — that’s what killed them.”

“And now she feeds on what remains,” Rowan guessed.

The scene of the red-haired young woman in an emerald traveler’s cloak stepping onto the bottom rung of the staircase and causing the nearby weargs to lower their heads in obvious fear of her must have seemed bewildering to those who didn’t know her hidden truth. Kazem seemed to think so. The curiosity growing in his expression made that obvious.

“Curious that all these deaths were not enough to sate your mother’s hunger.” Rowan’s crimson eyes drifted to Scarfang, the only wearg not to cower at her gaze. “To be fair, I was much the same when I escaped my prison…”

She glanced mischievously in Bram’s direction.

“Thankfully, my prince was kind enough to prepare a meal in advance.”

“Prince?”

Kazem’s silver-eyed gaze studied Rowan, the otherworlders—his eyes narrowing slightly as it observed Hajime—and then lingered on Bram whose hair was back to its original pale gold.

“Hair as bright as sunlight and eyes of molten gold…” Recognition dawned on Kazem’s face, and he bowed his head like Ravi had done when they first met. “The Sovereign’s radiance continues to shine on the Imperium.”

“May her light never dim,” Bram responded appropriately.

The elder Damascan straightened up and then introduced himself. “I am Kazem Bashar, an elder of the Coven of Stargazers.”

“He’s also our Chief Diviner…” Ravi chimed in, further explaining, “Kazem’s our best practitioner of the Divination Arts outside of the diviners of the Delphyne Observatory.”

Interest flashed on Rowan’s face. “A prophet then?”

“Unlike the Delphynians, I cannot claim to know one’s future destiny. I am merely a diviner of portents gleaned from the heavens…” Kazem’s gaze drifted down to the bodies behind Bram’s party. “And I don’t always get them right…”

“Did you divine signs in the heavens that brought you here then?” Rowan asked.

Kazem let out a heavy sigh. “I may have…though I’m no longer certain.”

Bram, who’d followed the Damascan’s gaze, turned back to him with a furrowed brow. “This sounds like the beginning of a long tale…and here might not be the place for it.”

The prince’s gaze drifted past Kazem’s shoulder and over to the large leopard man glowering at him from the top step. To Bram’s surprise, it wasn’t him who first offered the olive branch. That honor belonged to Scarfang.

“I smell the blood of those ‘others’ on you,” the wearg leader growled, though not in a menacing way like when they’d met in the forest. “Why did you attack them?”

“Because they’re my enemies too,” Bram answered truthfully.

The weargs closest to him made a noise that sounded almost like a scoff to the prince’s ears.

“It’s the truth.” His gaze swept the staircase. “And the enemy of my enemy is not my enemy…but perhaps — my friend?”

Scarfang growled. “You want to use us.”

“I want us to be of use to each other.” Bram glanced over his shoulder at the three otherworlders; Chris who stayed alert with his shield at the ready, Bridget who was writing furiously into her notebook, and Hajime, who, despite the danger, was looking wide-eyed with wonder at everything around him. Bram wanted more allies like them to aid him in the great undertaking, but only now did he realize they didn’t all have to be otherworlders. So, this time he thought to use diplomacy instead of the sword. “To build a long-lasting partnership that will benefit both our tribes.”

The growls of skepticism grew louder, though Scarfang at least seemed to be considering what Bram said.

“Perhaps we can discuss new alliances and heavenly portents somewhere with a warm fire…and tea?” Rowan suggested.

The trickster smiled impishly at the wearg leader.

“Assuming you have enough control of your curse to have a proper conversation,” she teased.

The corners of the leopard man’s mouth curled downward though it seemed even he didn’t dare to growl at the rebel trickster of legend.

“Mother’s fed recently. Her curse won’t trigger while her hunger is sated,” Kazem answered for Scarfang.

“She’s fed…” Bram’s brow creased. “Von Galen’s soldiers?”

Kazem nodded. “Scouts infiltrated the ruin an hour earlier…they now address Mother’s needs.”

“Good,” Rowan sounded delighted, “this will make the soldiers wary of coming in so soon, which means we do have time for tea.”

If Scarfang’s beastly face could grimace, Bram thought he might. Instead, the wearg leader relented to the trickster’s request and summoned the party to join him at the top of the staircase.

The second floor of the Red Ruin’s main hall seemed to Bram like the typical nave of a god’s temple. It was a wide spiral chamber with cloisters in the walls for each cardinal direction. Statues lined these walls, though they were left in such broken states that it was impossible to tell which god or goddess they venerated. A raised dais dominated its center like an antithesis to the hole at the heart of Rowan’s prison. On this dais was a cold hearth aging with long neglect.

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Seeing it reminded Bram of the fun night he had shared with a gang of story-loving bandits. Strangely, though the hearth brought a smile to his face, beside him, Rowan was frowning.

“An altar of fire…” she whispered.

Looking suddenly annoyed, Rowan plucked the sage torch from Bram’s hand and threw it into the hearth. It caught fire quickly, giving birth to a roaring flame that drew the others to the dais like moths.

“This was not an act of worship. I simply wanted warmth,” she insisted to no one in particular.

“You know who this Red Ruin belonged to?” Bram guessed.

Rowan’s frown twitched. “It belonged to She Who Burns.”

Inwardly, Bram wondered if Rowan’s annoyance stemmed from knowing that a deity had once called this hall hers or if there was a deeper connection between the ‘Burned One’ and Aarde’s goddess of fire.

“Yes, this used to be one of the Torchbearer’s temples…” Kazem sat on the ground beside the hearth. “It’s also quite old. The few furnishing that retain their original forms are ancient and predate the Imperium by at least a thousand years.”

He lay his staff beside him.

On closer inspection, Bram noticed it was styled like a tree branch with a green crystal woven into its tip.

“I’d wager to say Brigid’s presence hasn’t been felt here for at least that long,” he added.

Hajime, who sat cross-legged on the dais next to Bridget, elbowed her lightly on the shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you were named after a god, Bridget-san.”

“I think he meant Brigid with a G…the, um,” Bridget checked her notes, “goddess of fire, crafts, smithing, and architecture…”

Chris, who sat on Hajime’s other side, whispered, “I didn’t think she got that you were trying to flirt—”

“I-I wasn’t,” Hajime cut him off quickly.

Seconds ticked by while the party basked in the warmth spreading from the hearth, a warmth they realized was banishing the eerie chill of the hall and taking with it the harsh whispers in the air.

“I’ve got this strange feeling of déjà vu like we’re back inside that circle of trees y’all said was blessed,” Chris commented.

“Maybe the goddess can hear us talking about her?” Bridget wondered aloud.

“No…the gods never return to a place they’ve abandoned,” spoke a voice that sounded less savage than it had been a few minutes ago.

Scarfang had shifted back into his human form and even wore trousers like a civilized man. He was still mostly naked though, his rugged bare flesh reddening more under the hearth’s light. In Scarfang’s hands was a proper tea set which he then set down in front of Rowan.

“This is Mother’s home now.”

Seeing a man even larger than Bram diligently pouring tea for the trickster caused many brows to rise.

“And we, her children, have become her thralls…”

Not forgetting his manners, the wearg leader offered tea to the others.

“As have those who remain among our expedition,” Kazem sighed.

Ravi, who had just accepted a teacup from Scarfang, turned his head to Kazem in surprise. “There are more survivors?!”

“Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Phecda, Merak, and Dubhe…our seven youngest… However, ‘survivor’ might not be the best way to describe their condition,” Kazem revealed.

On that eerie note, the last surviving elder of the Stargazers’ expedition began his tragic tale.

“About a year and six months ago, I and my fellow diviners gleaned insight from the heavens…” He began. “They brought us dark tidings…a revelation of blood and conquest…”

Even Bram, who’d studied theories from all manner of sorcery, could barely understand the art of divining signs in the stars. For him, the idea of one constellation twinkling too brightly on a night when the twin moons were dim didn’t immediately mean that a god was angry. Nor did he believe that the positions of heavenly bodies—the falling of a red comet—meant war was on the horizon. However, as he listened to Kazem describe his visions, Bram couldn’t help but think that the divination arts might not all be poppycock.

“We dreamed of a crimson wolf rising from the blackest pit to bite at the heavens…” Kazem’s voice quivered as he revealed this.

A surprised Bram glanced sideways at Rowan. The trickster caught his look and winked back at him.

“We saw countless stars falling from the sky to alter the land they fell on.”

This time, Bram’s gaze drifted to the otherworlders. From the discomfort on their faces, they too must have noticed what Bram observed.

“We saw giants of blazing hair and golden eyes making war on the land. They sundered mountains and upturned rivers with each swing of their mighty fists, while the armies they led trampled on the bodies of innumerable dead…”

Bram noticed that all his party’s gazes had turned to him. Even Ravi. He couldn’t help but look back at them with some embarrassment.

There were many more visions, and with each disclosure of their portents, it became clear to those who shared the secret that the Stargazers’ revelations were about the great undertaking and the royals’ game of succession. However, the connection between these two circumstances and the coven’s expedition remained unclear until Kazem revealed, “We saw a forest burning, of a great ruin crumbling, a weeping voice calling to us, desperate for our aid…and we believed that this was how we could turn the tide…”

The Stargazers brought their discoveries to the city lord. However, Baroness Lena of House Leyen had been skeptical of the divination arts just like Bram was.

“She might have listened if only her ears weren’t poisoned by others who coveted what was ours,” Kazem sighed heavily. “We couldn’t wait for her to change her mind…time was of the essence.”

Believing in the righteousness of their cause, members of their coven set out on an expedition to the Red Forest where they thought they might find the answer to stopping the coming era of violence. During their search, they met a tribe of weargs that called the uncharted western half of the woodland realm home.

While pouring more tea for Rowan, Scarfang added, “We warned you not to delve too deeply into the forest.”

“And we should have listened,” Kazem admitted.

“But you didn’t,” Rowan guessed as she accepted her tea.

“No, we couldn’t…” Kazem’s weathered hands balled into fists. “For even then, we were already enthralled by her…”

Ravi placed a hand on the Damascan’s shoulder. “Tell us…”

“We heard her in our waking and saw her in our sleeping.” Eyes alight with misery swept through the hall. “She brought us here, and our presence in this cursed place — the magic in our veins — this she used to wake from her long slumber.”

“She tricked you,” Hajime guessed.

“And then used you like batteries,” Chris weighed in.

“She sounds…” Bridget stopped writing. “…Horrible…”

No one disagreed.

Scarfang took up the baton of the tale. “We should have stopped you from coming here like our ancestors kept outsiders away, but we didn’t know what would happen. How could we…when we children of the forest have walked these halls for many years without troubles.”

“A wearg’s curse is not born from sorcery but has its roots in divinity,” Rowan explained. “You would have been of no use to this spirit, which is why your ancestors were sent to guard this place. Not to protect this ‘Mother’ but to keep her bound.”

A smile that seemed so sinister under the harsh light of the fire flashed on Rowan’s face.

“You deserved to be cursed by her for failing in your charge.”

Scarfang didn’t argue.

“But to turn her jailors’ descendants into her attack dogs…I wish I’d thought of that,” Rowan laughed.

It was both a girlish sort of giggle and malicious laughter that made the hairs on the back of everyone’s arms stand on end.

“And you…” her cold gaze snapped on Kazem. “What else did you do?”

The Damascan flinched at the sight of those crimson irises.

“This mother may have woken, but weakened from long captivity as she was, she should have little power remaining to herself. A year would not have been enough to strengthen her hold on this vast woodland realm or enthrall weargs in service to another god…not without a host,” Rowan spoke with the breath of experience.

Kazem paled.

To Bram, it was clear from the shame on the Damascan’s face that Rowan had read him like an open book. Indeed, he too had been curious about another mystery. Throughout Kazem’s lamentable tale, not once did he mention his coven master. And now, Bram had an inkling of what might have happened to her.

“It is as you’ve guessed…” Kazem’s fists unclenched. “…The spirit had awoken but could do little…and even though she tricked us, we did not think her evil.”

“Why not?” Hajime asked.

“Because she told us her story, of how she’d been betrayed by love, violated because of love, and then imprisoned for her love,” Kazem said, sighing afterward.

Bram and Ravi glanced at each other. Recognition flashed on both their faces.

“And…because she showed us a way to stop our visions from coming to past…” Kazem’s hands clenched once more. “To join with her and wield her power over the forest so we might save Lotharin from what was to come… Such a feat would make our coven the greatest in all the land.”

“Your master agreed to be the spirit’s host, and with the body of a powerful sorcerer under her control, she’s become an unruly thing…” Bram, who’d been listening quietly, couldn’t help speaking out now with ridicule in his voice. “The weargs were broken with hunger they cannot control, but you were bewitched because of your desires.”

Kazem lowered his head in shame. Even Ravi, who’d remained behind to look after their home, couldn’t help but look embarrassed.

“What of the young ones?” Ravi asked. “What part have they been forced to play?”

“They serve Mother like we serve her, but in a very different way.” Scarfang looked suddenly uncomfortable. “She hungers for many things…and they fulfill her needs.”

“Holy shit,” Bridget whispered.

“Eh?” Hajime glanced sideways at her. “What’s wrong, Bridget-san?”

Bridget leaned in to whisper something into Hajime’s ear, causing his face to flush crimson.

In his time of feigned debauchery, Bram was a frequent guest of the ladies of the ‘Pillow Court’ in the capital. So, he wasn’t ignorant of what Bridget must have told Hajime, because he also assumed this was what Scarfang meant. If true, then ‘Mother’ seemed far too curious for a spirit. First was hunger, then greed, and perhaps anger too. If she was driven by lust as well, then Bram assumed she would indulge in all seven ‘Great Evils’ unless they stopped her.

A hand clasped around his.

Bram glanced sideways at Rowan who had lost the anger that had marred her face throughout this fireside chat. She was smiling impishly at him now, and he suddenly recalled that she could sense his emotions. Under her playful gaze, the prince’s cheeks flared the color of apples.

“Ahem,” Bram cleared his throat, desperate to change topics, “our path forward is clear.”

“Indeed,” Still smiling, Rowan put down her teacup, “I would meet with this indulgent spirit who thinks herself a trickster.”

Kazem looked at them with surprise. “Y-You want to meet Mother?”

Chris spoke for everyone when he said, “That was our quest, ain’t it?”

One by one, each member of the party nodded—even Ravi.

“Then…” Kazem bowed so low his head hit the dais floor. “Please…save the young ones. Our master too, if you can. Please…”

They all heard it then, the chime of resolution encroaching in their ears.

ALERT! The Quest [Save the Master, Save the World] has been updated.