Forged by Malice (Beasts of the Briar, #3)
Elizabeth Helen
Part One
Absolution
Prologue
Isidora knew the monsters were coming. It wasn’t the sight of the smoke curling over the fog, the felled trees, or even the wails that bounced off the mountain’s path.
No, it was the smell. A horrendous stench belched from the bowels of the Below. Something akin to rotten waterlogged crops. The monsters’ presence seeped over Mount Lumidor in a cloud of rot. Isidora knew wherever the wretched creatures traversed, no more plants would grow.
She pulled her scarf up over her mouth and inhaled through the fabric, masking some of the odor. The scarf still smelled like her mother, who had wrapped it hastily around her shoulders as Isidora had left. “We’ve asked for help before, as did many others. There is nothing they can do.”
Isidora had gone anyway because she had to do something. Had to try. Try for her village, and her mother, and her little brother. Because surely this time the High Clerics would listen. Listen as she explained there were monsters on her doorstep.
One step in front of the other, she dared not look back to see if there was smoke rising from her village.
Smooth rocks slipped beneath her mud-caked boots; the ground was wet from last night’s rain. A damp mist settled through the trees as night drew closer. Isidora kept moving. The scent of decay diminished, and she inhaled deeply, air growing thinner as she ascended.
Then there it was, piercing through the haze like the tip of a sword: Queen’s Reach Monastery. It was so much bigger up close. Black metal arches seemed to pierce the sky itself. But here, in front of it, she was shadowed by the massive door, over five times her own height, and inlaid with iron bolts.
But she had not climbed all the way here to cower before a door. Isidora drew in a deep breath and knocked. It sounded so quiet to her, but a moment later, the door slid open.
There stood a woman dressed in robes of white and gold, a hood shadowing her gaze.
“I need to see the High Clerics.” Isidora made her voice loud. “I need their help.”
The robed woman ushered her inside. “Follow me.”
Isidora thought that entering this place was not unlike stepping inside the maw of a terrible beast. One made of metal and glass instead of flesh and bone.
Two members of the Queen’s Army flanked the door, spears held in tight grasps. But they were facing inward toward the stairs and a strange contraption was in the center of the chamber. Several other fae dressed in the same gold and white robes as the woman paced the entrance hall.
“This way,” the woman said, sliding open a strange metal gate.
Isidora followed her into a small cyclical room, like a cage made of twisting metal. The woman closed the door, then tapped the side of her nose, a bemused smile on her face. “Well, you don’t want to take the stairs, do you?”
The woman traced a rune on the door, and the whole cage rattled, then shot upward. Isidora’s stomach lurched, and she grasped for purchase on the sides.
With a musical laugh, the woman said, “I believe my expression was the same as yours the first time I rode this. I wasn’t much older than you.”
Isidora struggled to catch her breath. Outside, polished metal whizzed by, then a blast of air on one side as half of the cage was exposed to the world. Isidora saw the mountain, and the bright spot of the capital carved into the side of it. Florendel …
“It’s quite the sight,” the woman said, removing her hood.
She was beautiful. Young, with short brown hair curled behind the most delicately pointed ears. But it was her eyes that made Isidora stare, as blue as the river at midnight. “Are you a princess?”
The woman laughed again. “No, I’m one of the Golden Acolytes. We worship the light of the Above.”
“Oh, yes.” Because of course she was. There were no more princesses left in the Spring Realm.
“What’s your name?”
“Isidora.”
“Beautiful,” the acolyte replied. “A very regal name.”
“I was named after the late High Princess.” Isidora made herself unclench her hands from her skirt. High Princess Isidora wouldn’t have clutched her skirts in fear. “What’s your name?”
“Wrenley.”
“I like your name, too,” Isidora said. Wrenley reached down and clutched her trembling hand.
The cold air on one side vanished, and metal again enclosed their cage as they slowly rose higher and higher. A small lantern dangled from the ceiling, waving back and forth, casting a ring of buttery orange light. Something glittered on the acolyte’s neck.
Wrenley caught her gaze. “We are each allowed one thing from our life before we decide to dedicate ourselves to the Above.” She gestured to the string of seashells around her neck.
“It’s lovely,” Isidora said, letting her finger trail over the most beautiful one, a golden nautilus shell.
“My father was a flower merchant and used to bring me a shell every time he returned home from trading in the Summer Realm.”
Cold air blew Wrenley’s hair back from her brow, and Isidora turned to see nothing but clouds on one side of the cage. They were so high. Pressure grew in her ears.
“We’re almost there.” Wrenley stood.
Something flashed in Isidora’s vision, a streak outside. She gasped, stumbling back into Wrenley’s legs. What was that? A bird …
But birds didn’t scream.
Wrenley only said, “I believe fate has brought you on this day for a reason.” The cage clattered to a stop. “Step back.”
Isidora did. A thick, glistening liquid pooled into the cage before dripping through the grates. Wrenley covered her hair with her hood, then pulled back the gate. She stepped wide over the wetness.
It was blood, more black than red, and Isidora couldn’t help but follow the trail to a corner of this new room, to where a broken body lay, a body in golden robes.
The golden robes of the High Cleric. Fear tightened in Isidora’s chest. Those who she had come to seek help from could not even help themselves.
“There is someone here to see you,” Wrenley said.
Wrenley’s words drew Isidora inside. And she knew they were at the highest point of the monastery. Windows of stained glass rimmed the circular room, except for one that was shattered. Red, blue, and green shards littered the ground.
That streak falling outside the cage … That had been a High Cleric as well.
White-and gold-robed acolytes bowed before the center of the room, where three shadows stood. Shadows of dark metal and wavering black robes.
Wrenley squeezed Isidora’s shoulder and took an empty place around the circle before the shattered window, becoming as anonymous as all the other Golden Acolytes orbiting the shadows.
And Isidora was very much alone.
Her eyes darted from the lifeless High Cleric on the ground to the shattered window. There had been five High Clerics ruling this monastery for as long as she could remember. As long as anyone could remember …