All night, I was plagued with terrible visions from the Deceiver. I saw the dead raised in droves from the grave. I saw as a bird sees from above, and the dead walked the land and covered the land like locusts. I saw the Deceiver tear down Eloei from His rightful place in the firmament. I saw a third, and the third was given dominion over the unknown world. Heed these words, my brethren in Eloei: just as the Lord Above Lords presides from the firmament, the Deceiver presides over his dark dominion from beneath a distant land. Yet the influence of the Deceiver has a wide reach. There are many paths to ruination and only one path to salvation. Indeed, the Deceiver may even come to you in the guise of our Lord Above Lords, so remain sober of heart and test all words vigilantly.
-The Testament of Kahlo Hadrizeen, First Prophet of Eloei, Chapter 25, Verses 3-15
Rayyaq Raleed, Qarda
The City of Embers, as it was sometimes called, had become the City of Flames.
True chaos had broken out in Rayyaq Raleed, far from the isolated uprisings that marked the beginning of Lanor’s reign as hierophant. One divine authority to maintain peace in the land had fractured into two. This was a full-fledged civil war.
Pillars of black smoke rose from red-orange fires raging across the city, a dark colonnade to support the firmament above. The paladins, soldiers, clerics, and commoners loyal to Lanor clashed with their counterparts who supported Ghamal’s coup. Swords and spears with hilts of gold tasted their first blood in a long while. Bodies lay dead and dying in the streets. Screams cut through the night like that memorable one on the night of Drakhman’s death, and Lanor bore witness to it all from the safety and security of Hasjal’s estate. She received all of her news from the four veracidins in Rayyaq Raleed still loyal to her.
The four who had survived to reach her, at least.
As a member of the Synod in Qarda’s capital, Hasjal was able to afford a luxurious palatial home that resembled the Palace of the Hierophant on a much smaller scale. They were gathered in the house’s central courtyard. Here, they were granted a square of the sky overhead, and they could pick grapes from the ornamental trellises while basking in the shade of four palms.
All these creature comforts only deepened Lanor’s guilt. She thought of all the loyal subjects in the streets—even those loyal to her traitorous uncle—and how they were suffering. She didn’t belong here in this shelter worlds away from that harsh reality. She thought back to the night of her father’s murder, when she’d told him how she never wanted to inherit his throne.
It was so much worse than she once imagined it would be.
“Ghamal decrees that whoever still stands at the end of all this,” said one of the veracidins, wide-eyed and jittery, “bears the Sanction of Eloei.”
“Of course he does,” said Hasjal. “If he dies, he faces no rebuke. If he lives and she dies, he can pretend it was divine will that put him back on the throne. And in the meantime, it serves as a rallying cry for his supporters.” The cleric paced back and forth in the courtyard, rolling a grape between his fingers. “Exalted Prophetess, far be it from me to besmirch a man of your blood—”
“Go on,” Lanor reassured him.
Hasjal set his jaw, clenching the grape in his hands. The juice trickled out between his fingers. “Ghamal is a snake of the lowest order!”
She nodded morosely. “If only I’d seen it sooner.”
“Go,” said Hasjal to the veracidin, and he clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Cooks await you in the kitchen. You’ve earned a meal and some rest, brother.” The veracidin only nodded gratefully and padded across the tiled floor to another part of the spacious house.
“Betraying you and your father was one great evil on its own,” Rashaj said to Lanor. Another cleric of the Synod, he was square-headed with a pile of curly hair atop his scalp, the sides shaved close. “But to turn the people against each other in this way? Qarda has not seen this devastation since the Sixty-Year Schism. It may be even worse.”
“Ghamal believes he has the Sanction,” said Zumhir. “He may regard us as evil, just as we regard him. That is the power of the Deceiver.”
“‘There is only one truth.’ The Testament tells us as much.”
Lanor tired of this line of talk. While the clerics debated their situation and cited sacred verses, she stood from her wicker aruud chair and wandered around the periphery of the colonnaded courtyard. A pair of paladins marched to the edge of the courtyard to supervise her.
“Exalted Prophetess,” said Hasjal, “with all respect, please don’t wander far. It’s for your safety.”
“Of course,” she answered. She even felt guilt for those inside Hasjal’s walls. He sacrificed his home for her—risked everything if the civil war spilled here to the outskirts of the city. All the other Synod clerics, soldiers, and everyone else gathered to protect her were risking their lives, too.
Did they act out of conviction that she was the rightful hierophant? Or were they simply hedging their best bets for the future of Qarda—wanting to remain on the winning side of history? The machinations of politics were beyond her. She had the insight to realize she was in farther over her head than ever.
Hasjal’s house was an edifice of red brick supported mainly by thick fluted columns. The walls and columns themselves were painted with rich pigments of vermillion and cyan depicting traditional Qardish rhomboid motifs. The walls of the main corridor leading to the atrium displayed illustrated scenes from the Testament, and each was a sight to behold. Such deliberate iconography was forbidden in the temple—while not an outright sin, many believed it to distract from worship—but here in Hasjal’s private domicile, the walls came alive with images of Kahlo Hadrizeen’s life. His triumphs. His struggles.
The scenes were each labeled in calligraphic Qardish script with lush purple ink. Kahlo Teaches Himself to Read showed a scruffy-haired, brown-skinned boy dressed in a plain beige cloth holding open a book by one of its covers, cocking his head quizzically. Kahlo Destroys the Altar depicted a young man tearing down bowls of burning incense in a pagan temple, to the shock and outrage of the Ralaheed priests. There was Ascent of Mount Tulaylal, where Kahlo climbed the holy mountain to answer the call of Eloei. But it was The Deceiver Tests Kahlo that most captured Lanor’s imagination.
She remembered the verses well, since it was one of the only stories in the Testament that ever really resonated with her. In it, the First Prophet was visited by a being claiming to be a messenger sent by Eloei, and it commanded Kahlo to throw himself off the mountain as a show of faith. When Kahlo refused, the messenger was revealed to be an illusion sent by the Deceiver.
How did you know? Lanor wondered, staring into the resolute eyes of the ancient man on the wall. She studied his stern face, the mighty arm outstretched to banish the evil spirit. The grotesque, burning, metallic face peering at him from the storm clouds looked enraged—just as the tome had described it. ‘The creature’s face became like that of a madman and like that of a tiger. It turned and hid its face from me in the storm.’
It wasn’t by faith, Lanor realized. If Kahlo had acted by his faith alone, he would have jumped off Mount Tulaylal to his death. The verses that followed confirmed that Kahlo hadn’t been guided or led to the correct decision, either—Eloei didn’t speak to him again until later, and only in a dream.
‘“He who weighs the sight of his eyes and the sound of his ears, with him I am most pleased.”’
He who weighs the sight of his eyes and the sound of his ears, she thought. She ruminated on those words, turning them over in her mind. Why would Eloei say a thing like that to Kahlo? Why not elaborate on the dangers of the Deceiver, or praise him more directly for his wisdom? For that matter, why wouldn’t Eloei send such a messenger, or at least test his faith in some other way? That was the custom of all the pagan gods in Ralaheed that were worshiped in ancient times; they all demanded sacrifices, shows of faith.
Maybe this was Eloei’s way of showing how He was different. Maybe this was to differentiate Him from the ancestral and nature gods that Ralaheed had come to worship in their forgetfulness of the Creator. Still, the questions vexed her. She knew she was only mortal, and fifteen years of age at that, but her mind still tried to grapple with that of a god.
“Admiring the artwork?” said a voice. It was Hasjal, who was approaching her from the courtyard. His sandals clicked on the tiles.
“You could say that,” Lanor answered.
“The Deceiver Tests Kahlo. A favorite. It still inspires me with awe, how Kahlo, Eloei grace him, held so faithfully to the truths that Eloei had already revealed to him. Even such a convincing lie couldn’t sway his belief.”
“It wasn’t his faith.” She spoke with a certainty that alarmed even her. It gave Hasjal pause. “If he’d been wrong—if it really was a test from Eloei—then he would have failed. He would have shown that he didn’t have enough faith to be His prophet.”
Hasjal furrowed his brow, trying as well to grapple with what Lanor was saying. “Then what was it?”
A chill of clarity ran up her spine. “It was his doubt.”
The cleric scratched his chin in thought. “His doubt, Your Holiness?” She didn’t answer right away, and her face burned with shame. Had she said something foolish? Whether sensing this, or seeing the merit in what she said, Hasjal continued. “Ah... I never saw it that way, Prophetess. Intriguing!” He nodded, apparently convinced by her wisdom. “Truly, you do have the Sanction of Eloei, Hierophant Lanor. I must reread the text when given the opportunity.” He bowed respectfully. “Prophetess, will you join us back in the courtyard? The paladins stand watch, but we worry for your safety in this corridor.”
She turned back to the painting on the wall. “In a moment. I’d like some more time with the art.”
He nodded. “Of course, Hierophant Lanor. Please enjoy it to the fullest. You are my most honored guest.” He left to rejoin the others in the courtyard.
It wasn’t enjoyment Lanor sought from the art, but rather understanding. She searched Kahlo Hadrizeen’s face again for the answers to her questions. There they were, just behind his eyes.
Just out of reach like always.
***
That night, sleep was fleeting and fitful. Paladins and soldiers stood watch in shifts, allowing the others to rest as they were able. Sixteen paladins were assigned to guard Lanor outside the windowless guest chamber Hasjal gave her for the night. It was the most secure room in his house, fortified with thick walls and tucked away toward the back of his small compound.
But rest eluded her. Every time her eyelids fluttered shut, she saw images of the Temple. Rhadiz Tal’s head soaring through the air with a tail of red-black blood trailing behind. His eyes—she remembered his eyes the most. And the thought that her uncle, her own flesh and blood, was responsible for such an act—and for plunging the holy city into civil war—made her sick to her stomach.
She saw it again and again. The head. The bloodstained sword. The stalemate. Over again like an echo, over and over. At times, the head belonged to her father; at times, it was Ghamal himself who swung the sword.
When sleep did come, it came in small doses. Even her dreams were unsafe.
She found herself in a dark corridor, a lit candle in her hand. It was the night of her father’s murder all over again—but this time, there were no torches burning on the wall. The glow of her candle was feeble against the howling dark.
At the far end of the corridor, which felt impossibly far beyond reach, was a pair of doors. Both of their outlines were lit from behind by a bright light, one white and one golden. Was it daylight? More fire? It was impossible to tell from this distance—the light didn’t waver, nor did any shadows break the light under the doors.
“Lanor,” came a deep, bellowing voice. It sounded familiar. “My chosen.”
“Hello?” she said, but her voice was weak again. “Who’s there?”
A deep rumbling sound. “You know who I am.”
She looked behind her—saw that her back was against a wall. She could only advance forward, so she took her first tentative steps, padding barefoot down the cold tiles of Castle Muadazim, or wherever she was. Her shoulders tensed. The voice was wrong—she didn’t know its identity.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
The ground rumbled beneath her feet; dust and crumbs of stone were shaken loose from the ceiling. “Nothing. I want to give something to you.”
A tingle at her back. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was excitement. “What is it?”
“What you deserve.”
The golden knob of the door on the right turned on its own.
***
Lanor awoke with a jolt.
Her sweat ran cold; it dampened her skin and her silk bedsheet, which she threw off her body. Images of Rhadiz Tal’s murder echoed in her mind, and then the scene from Castle Muadazim, her father’s body supine on the floor.
It was the memory of the two doors that resurfaced last. She vaguely remembered a voice, but it was gone from her mind in the next moment.
“Eloei’s blessings, Your Holiness.” A paladin stood in her bedchamber next to the door. His back was straight, his posture alert and ready for combat, while he held his spear vertical at his side.
His presence both unnerved and comforted her. She felt safer with him there, but the fact that he stood such close watch over her while she slept meant that she was not truly safe, even behind Hasjal’s walls. He bowed respectfully.
“And also to you,” she finally replied.
It had taken her well into the night to find some stretch of solid sleep. Now that she was awake, the sun was already high in the smoke-stained sky over Qarda. She shuffled out of her private chamber to the courtyard, but she found only armed men there. The others were assembled in Hasjal’s hall.
When she joined them, they stood from their chairs at his table and bowed in turn. Food was plated in front of them: buttered rice garnished with green herbs; laftih triangles stuffed with currants; fermented milk diluted with melon; ground goat with onions and Myrenthian spices. Between all the colorful, aromatic dishes were wooden bowls full of fresh-baked bead. It was a spectacle of decadence that belied their dire circumstances.
Was it a misguided illusion meant to bring them comfort in their darkest hour? Simple denial of the truth? Or was it a final meal of sorts, one last earthly pleasure before they were sent to the Hereafter? Lanor wasn’t sure which possibility was most alarming.
“Your Holiness,” said Hasjal. “Eloei’s blessings to you.”
“And also to you.”
“We were awaiting your arrival. If I may humbly ask you, would you be so kind as to grace us with the zahuahr?” He smiled sadly. “To be frank, your disciples could use a word of encouragement from the Prophetess of Eloei.”
She forced a polite smile to humor him. “Of course.” She stood at the head of the table, cleared her throat. In that moment, a room of her closest allies became the Hall of Unity in Castle Muadazim, though the Circle of Kings was a lifetime behind her now. “Praise be to Eloei...” The words caught on her doubt. “...Maker of the Day and the Era of Man. Preserve me, that I might preserve Your holy word until the Day of Reckoning. Let not my feet stray from the narrow way You have laid out before me. Hear me...”
What you deserve... The words echoed in her mind. She remembered just a piece of her dream, and at an inopportune moment. She pressed on anyway.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Hear me, First Prophet, and bring my words to the Lord Above Lords, just as you brought His words to us. In the name of Eloei the Benevolent, if it please Him, so be it.”
“So be it,” echoed the men at her table. And they all dug in to the feast before them.
At first, Lanor only nibbled at her food. It was purely to add necessary fuel to the fire of her body—she was determined not to let herself enjoy a single morsel. How could she, when her people would probably be starving soon in the wake of it all?
Then she took her first real bite. One taste of the tart currants in her laftih triangle made her tongue squeeze and her mouth water. She ate what was left of it in only two bites, the pastry melting in her mouth almost instantly, and the rest of the food on her golden plate didn’t last much longer. Everyone ate in silence until the silence was eventually broken.
During the meal, another veracidin was admitted to Hasjal’s residence. He was dirt-caked and looking thinner than even his comrades. “What news, brother?” Hasjal greeted him. The veracidin told him about the progress of the civil conflict, which districts in the city were in flames and which of them Ghamal’s forces had captured without incident. “How are the other loyalists faring? Will they retreat here with us soon, or have they... turned the tide?” The veracidin shook his head. “Understood. Wash and eat, brother.”
Hasjal had the cooks prepare only one meal a day for everyone taking shelter in his abode, including himself. He offered Lanor a greater portion of the food, but she refused it, saying he was right to ration it the way he did. There was no telling how much longer they would be trapped there, or what hope they had of escaping it eventually.
As day wore on toward the evening, the shouts and clangs of clashing metal from Rayyaq Raleed grew steadily louder, the violence oozing out in all directions from the heart of the holy city like a pool of blood. She ignored the sounds as long as she could. They continued well into the night.
***
In sleep, she returned to the dark hallway. The door on the left remained closed, a rectangle of white light against the shadow, but the door on the right was wide open, freely pouring out its wondrous golden light. Lanor felt she had no choice but to walk through it—the door was much closer than it seemed at first.
The amorphous golden glow solidified into the Palace of the Hierophant’s throne room. A huge audience was gathered before her, which was composed of people from all walks of Qardish life—beggars, courtesans, farmers, merchants, clerics, scribes, students and scholars, soldiers, paladins, veracidins, and even the Synod. All of them knelt on one knee, their heads bowed before her.
“I have called you here today to witness justice prevail,” she told the crowd. Her mouth moved and her voice spoke, but they were not her words. “This is the man who plunged our land into chaos and killed thousands with his lust for power!”
Lanor turned to see Ghamal standing next to her—only he wasn’t standing. She was holding him in the air with one arm, her right hand in a tight vise grip around his neck. He dangled from her grasp, thrashing his legs, clawing at her fingers. His wide eyes watered in fear and pain.
Lanor felt incredible strength in that moment. She had never been particularly strong, and as the crown priestess, she never had much use for strenuous physical exercise. She’d never had power like this before. Her muscles were different now, changed into something with even greater potential.
She knew that if she had the mind to do it, she could throw Ghamal’s entire body across the room. She could smash bricks. She could bend apart any irons placed around her wrist like when the paladins arrested her. She could certainly outmatch any man who fought her one on one with no weapons—and she felt that she might have even been able to withstand his weapons, too.
Ghamal had always been domineering in their conversations, even from her childhood. He only relented when Drakhman was around. Now the tables were turned, and he was squarely at her mercy.
All of his sins cascaded through Lanor’s thoughts. He betrayed his own brother, his own baby brother, because he coveted the throne so much. He manipulated his own niece for several moons and purposefully gave her bad advice—advice that not only cost Qarda in akkahs, time, and other resources, but advice that resulted in hundreds of Eloheed soldier’s deaths, or worse, in the distant land of Grackenwell.
It was all to prove a point—that Lanor was unfit to rule, simply because she followed all of his poisoned advice to the letter. He meant to usurp his own niece. When that didn’t work, when his lies were just beginning to be exposed, he ordered a paladin to behead the Synod’s archelder in Rayyaq Raleed’s Temple of Eloei, the second holiest place in the world. Rather than accept punishment for his acts of betrayal and deceit, he let unholy war descend on the city. It was a war that threatened to engulf all of Qarda and further destabilize relations in the rest of the world.
Not anymore. Lanor had set things right. Lanor was strong now—stronger than anyone. And now there was no one to stand in the way of true justice.
“Please,” Ghamal wheezed. He hadn’t the air for a more long-winded defense of himself, or to manipulate her with some speech. He had only his pleading eyes and his two words. “Mercy.”
“The traitor asks for mercy,” Lanor said, and her voice was soft and lyrical, yet it resounded through the entire throne room. “Some of you might also ask for mercy on his behalf. I ask you this: What is mercy but forsaken justice?”
She squeezed her right hand. Ghamal’s eyes bulged wider, his mouth contorting in an ugly shape. He made pitiful little choking sounds that disgusted her, so she squeezed harder. Then he made no sound at all. She knew what was about to happen—she averted her eyes and stared out into the throng of onlookers instead.
She felt the flesh give way, felt taut tendons snap and bones break under her grip, and the one became two. Warm revenge ran down her hand and arm. The crowd cheered for her—not just cheered, but threw themselves down at her feet in worship, crying, dancing, screaming, jumping for joy.
The surviving Synod elders bestowed a new crown on her head, one taller and even more magnificent than the Crown of Hierophany. The audience composed itself and applauded her now, all adoring smiles and happy tears. Then they all spoke to her in one voice, repeating the same chant: “All hail Empress Lanor! All hail Empress Lanor! All hail Empress Lanor! All hail Empress Lanor!”
And they meant it. There was no longer a shred of doubt in their voices that she was the rightful ruler of Qarda—no, of the world.
She turned her head and saw a smaller throne standing next to hers, and Drakhman sat on it, smiling at her, his eyes brimming with pride. He was cheering along with the others.
“See? I can even bring him back to you. This is what I planned for you, Lanor. This is what you deserve. Lift up your troubles to Me, and I will surely hear you.”
***
Despite everything that she’d seen, Lanor awoke slowly that morning. Her eyes eased open in the dim, windowless room, and her dream had left an indelible impression in her mind. She drew in one gasping breath upon waking. Her heart raced. It was not the sort of fear that made one scream, but rather a worse one, the kind that paralyzed a person beyond any outward reaction.
The paladin was standing right there in the doorway like before. He bowed and greeted her. She acknowledged him but said nothing. Her bad dream was like a lethal secret now, the sort of secret she couldn’t breathe a word of to anyone, or else something horrible would happen. She was scarcely able to admit its existence even to herself.
But the more she tried to push it down into the depths of her mind, the more it bobbed back to the surface. It demanded to be witnessed. It demanded to be felt. It demanded at least a portion of her attention for that entire day, so she spent it pacing the courtyard and trying to distract herself.
She refused all food that day. She declined to lead the kohfar, and then the zahuahr. Hasjal stopped asking after that. Lanor was in her own world that day, a world she kept dammed up in the confines of her own mind, and she was only vaguely aware of the happenings around her. She felt as though she were watching her own body from above. Another veracidin returned to the house after his truth-finding mission, and when he was asked what happened to his counterpart, he only shook his head gravely.
Lanor spent most of her day pacing the corridor with the murals. She spent the most time with The Deceiver Tests Kahlo. She scanned the First Prophet’s eyes again, but this time her gaze lingered longer on the monstrous face that retreated from him.
‘Lift up your troubles to Me, and I will surely hear you.’ She recalled the voice from her dream. The words—she remembered a verse from the Testament of Kahlo Hadrizeen. It was no accident that the words corresponded to a verse about Eloei.
Was that You? Lanor asked. My dream—was that You, or someone else? Her gaze was fixed on the monstrous metallic beast in the mural. She received no answer.
Her vision didn’t feel like communion with Eloei. Then again, she knew it could take many forms. Her last vision, back in the Temple when she spoke with the ghost of her father—that one ended in tears. But it was what she needed.
Qarda had blood on its hands. This much was true. Dridon in the distant past. Grackenwell. Myrenthos, most recently. One day, she knew, maybe in several generations, it would set its sights on the eastern land of Xheng Yu Xi as well, a much more formidable opponent than it had ever faced. But was this what the world needed?
Was this what Eloei demanded? Perhaps.
Did that make it right?
Her vision was an offer of sorts. She sensed that much.
Though her vision was extreme, and though it frightened her beyond words to the point that she thought she would take her vision to the grave with her, she couldn’t deny that some aspect of it thrilled her, too. The whole of Qarda steadfastly united under her rule for the first time. She would rule with honor, with righteousness, and with mercy—for those who deserved it. She would have vengeance on the most vile traitor she had ever known.
This is what you deserve.
***
She found the dark hallway again that third night. This time, the right door was closed, the warm golden glow sealed away behind it. The left door was open instead. White light seeped into the corridor and lit the dark stone like frost in Dhasherah.
Lanor stepped closer—the flame of her candle snuffed out in a cold gust of wind. When she passed through the doorway, the blinding white light was frigid all around her, worse than the coldest nights in Castle Muadazim—colder, she thought, than any winter had ever been in Qarda. Cold as the summit of Tulaylal. It was a cold that did not chill her but rather burned. She held herself, clutching her nightclothes close to her shivering frame.
When the world materialized around her, she saw a landscape buried under a thick layer of snow. Gray skeletons of dead trees stood somber watch, their branches creaking in every icy wind. Sunlight glittered on the untouched white.
She stood on a hilltop. Below her, there stood an army on horseback, the breaths of the soldiers and the animals making vapor in the bitter air. She raised her hand to make the four-fingered Eloheed benediction. When her mouth opened, no sound escaped at first; unlike her last dream, she had to summon the will to speak.
“Why are you here?” she asked them.
In unison, they shouted back, “To fight!”
The blustering wind howled around her, whipping her nightclothes violently. “For whom do you fight?”
“For Lanor! For our people!”
She took a closer look at the crowd, finding that a few of them were Qardish, with their gold-plated armor and decorated horses, but the others were dressed in crude animal skins and pelts astride saddleless steeds. “For what do you fight?”
This question they refused, or were unable, to answer.
In this world, Lanor did not have the same strength. She was fragile. Weak. She sensed that she would fail against the first blade or spear that pierced her skin. But in truth, the power scared her as it always had—not the power itself, but what she was made to do with it. And that was the heart of her fear from the beginning.
Now she was in a strange land with a hodgepodge of followers. They prepared for a war, but where, and for what, she didn’t know. “Is this what I deserve?” she asked. The crowd again refused to answer.
“Be careful,” said a voice, and this time it was softer. “Lanor... Lanor!”
***
“Lanor!”
Her eyes snapped open. She was being dragged out of bed. “What?” she asked, still half-groggy. “What? What’s happening? What’s going on?”
A paladin carried her in his arms. “Eloei forgive me for this indecency, Your Holiness,” he told her, eyes trained straight ahead. Her body shook with the sudden movements of him trotting in his armor.
“Forgive us, Hierophant Lanor!” said Hasjal. “Time is of the essence! The enemy is here!”
Behind the paladin who carried her, she saw down the corridor of murals leading to the front atrium. She glimpsed the chaos unfolding through a broken cherrywood shutter dangling from the windowpane. Soldiers and paladins poured into the compound two by two through a collapsed portion of the outer wall. It was only a glimpse—then she was rushed into the courtyard, the innermost room of the manse.
It was early morning. Through the open air window over the courtyard, she could see fingers of dark smoke billowing up into the sky from the city, the glow of burning red playing off the black. Things were worse now. Much worse.
They weren’t safe anywhere.
“The doors!” someone shouted. “Barricade the doors!”
Dozens of men worked to secure the entrances and exits of their palatial shelter. The sturdy wooden chairs were broken down by hand, and the tables by axe. Some of the heavier pieces of furniture were hauled whole down the corridors and jammed up against the entryways. This would not stop their invaders. It would, however, buy them precious time.
Lanor tried to help them as they worked, but everyone refused her as politely as possible. Hasjal eventually came to her and offered her a wicker aruud so she could sit. “Please, Your Holiness, rest,” he told her. “Let us take care of the heavy lifting.”
“All I’ve been doing is resting,” she muttered. Then, a moment later, “I’m sorry. Thank you.” She shook her head. “I just feel so helpless in here. So useless.”
She could feel him wincing at the periphery of her vision. He clearly didn’t know how to respond in the moment, since she was being useless and was right to feel helpless. She may have been living in her own tomb. When a squadron of soldiers called for his attention elsewhere in the compound, he readily excused himself.
Lanor sat in her wicker aruud for many hours. Morning became midday. Midday threatened sunset. Sunset bled into the night. In time, the land fell eerily silent as the siege ground to a halt. They remained in the courtyard when the stars came out, barely poking through the veil of smoke, and torches were lit in their sconces.
“Attrition,” said the cleric Zumhir. “They mean to starve us out.”
There was no feast like the prior day. Everyone but Lanor ate only small loaves of bread and sipped cold, stimulating tea. She thought she might never touch the beverage again after what Ghamal had done to hers in the Synod chamber—if she survived the ordeal.
“We have stable stores of grain, beans, honey—plenty to last us,” Hasjal replied. “They will be waiting at my doors a long time.”
“Are there contingencies, brother?”
Hasjal didn’t answer at first. He sipped cold tea from his frosty glass. “Yes.”
“What are they?”
Hasjal shook his head. “We won’t need them.”
“And if we do?”
The host shot a glance at Lanor. “Then we will use them. For now, we will persevere here, and we need only keep up our daily prayers. Eloei will surely protect us.”
“‘I have given you feet, that you might walk,’” said one of the paladins, standing steadfast at his post. His voice shook with the delivery of the verse as he addressed a Synod cleric far above his station. But he stared straight into the corridor dutifully. “‘I have given you signs, that you might know the way. But the journey is yours to take.’ These are the words of Eloei.”
Hasjal nodded. “Right you are, brother. Right you are. Eloei has given us our means. Soon, He will give us signs to show us the way. But only if we keep our faith in Him.” After that, the two men said nothing to each other for the rest of the night. No one said much of anything.
Day broke over the courtyard what felt like an eternity later. Lanor still had not slept. It was the hint of morning that finally relaxed her shoulders—the same threat was ten times the fright at night compared to the day—and her body sank into the curves of the aruud.
***
“Ghamal and his followers have besmirched My name,” said the voice.
Lanor found herself in the dark corridor once more. Behind her was Hasjal’s front door, cherrywood, barred with broken pieces of a mahogany table. Before her were the same two doors she’d come to know in recent nights. They were both closed, but both of their knobs turned incessantly on their own, twisting, fidgeting, like they were about to turn themselves loose from their escutcheons. The doors thrashed and banged insistently in their frames.
“Be careful, Lanor.” The voice sounded the same, yet she could tell from the way it hit the corridor walls that it came from a different place.
“Be resolute. Have faith, Lanor, and it will be rewarded.”
“I know your heart.”
“I offer you what you deserve, Lanor.”
“There are many paths to ruination and only one path to salvation.”
“Take vengeance on the usurper who killed your father. I give you justice. I give you peace.”
“Be careful. I know your heart.”
“Ghamal and the others have become unclean. They desecrate My city. They desecrate My home and lay waste to My people. Will you let it go on? What will they think of you then? What would Drakhman think of you?”
“The time is drawing near, Lanor. Soon I will be powerless to stop them.”
“The power is Mine alone, Lanor. The glory is Mine alone. Forever and ever. Take this gift and use it to the fullest. You remind me of him—the man named Hadrizeen. Your glory will outlive even his.”
“You have to choose.”
“You know the choice. You know what must be done. You know what you want to do. You know your heart. It has to be this way.”
“It does not have to be this way, Lanor.”
“Choose.”
“Make your choice.”
“You have to choose.”
“You know your choice.”
“Choose.”
“Choose.”
“CHOOSE!”
Lanor put all her chest and stomach into a scream that drowned out both voices at once. She grabbed hold of the doorknob, twisted it, and threw it open. Beyond the threshold was the future—the future that would seal countless fates.
Behind her, there was a visitor. A gold-plated axe bit into the cherrywood door. Her eyes were open, and the dream fell away from her sight, and it was all real. Her choice was made.
As a paladin on the other side of the door pried out his axe to swing again, Lanor stood from her wicker aruud. She marched straight down the corridor. Paladins and clerics alike shouted and begged her not to go, scrambling after her—she ignored them.
All right, she thought. I’ve held up my end of the deal. Now You hold up Yours.