She quickened her pace.
As they followed the crowds hurrying through Drassil’s wide streets Riv saw her sister, Aphra. She hurried over to her.
Because the two women she’d seen on the road, that night with Bleda, had been her sister and Fia, and since then Fia had disappeared from their barrack, had not been seen at Drassil. Aphra had been difficult to pin down every time Riv had approached her.
They stood in the midst of the crowds hastening to the Lore-Giving summons, a rock amidst a fast-flowing river.
Aphra blinked. ‘There’s no time for this.’ She scowled, waving a hand at the air. ‘The summons.’
Riv grabbed her arm, holding her fast. ‘I saw you,’ she said in a low voice, urgently, ‘on the road with Fia. Where is she?’
A flash of concern, then anger.
Aphra tugged free of her grip and strode on with the fast-flowing crowd, leaving Riv wondering what it was her sister was hiding.
The Great Hall thrummed with murmured conversation, full to the brim with Drassil’s residents. The tiered steps were not enough to contain everyone, crowds standing pressed close together in stairwells around the room. In the chamber’s heights Ben-Elim flew in lazy circles. They raised horns to their lips as a door opened and Israfil, the Lord Protector, strode into the room, a procession of Ben-Elim behind him. Golden-haired Kol was first amongst them, a score more, spread in two wide columns, and between them walked two figures. One Ben-Elim, one a woman in the training livery of a White-Wing.
Israfil stopped on the dais, standing before the figures of Asroth and Meical, giant guards looming behind him.
‘Faith, Strength and Purity,’ Israfil said, shouting passionately, far from the monotone recitation that was the normal way of speaking Elyon’s Lore. His eyes were blazing, wings twitching with pent-up anger.
‘For that is the Way of Elyon,’ Riv muttered along with the rest of the chamber, though she was unsettled by Israfil’s demeanour.
‘A crime has been committed, here at Drassil,’ Israfil’s voice boomed, a hush falling over the chamber.
Riv could see the two figures escorted in the midst of the Ben-Elim. One was the Ben-Elim Adonai, the friend of Kol. He had feasted with Aphra’s hundred the night Riv had kicked Vald in the stones, been seated on the table of honour, alongside Aphra. His skin was pale as milk, eyes dark hollows. The warrior beside him lifted her head. It was Estel, who had been sitting on the bench beside him the same night. Her eyes were red for weeping, face twisted with shame.
‘They are accused of improper relations,’ Israfil continued, ‘of behaving in a manner which has been deemed unacceptable between a Ben-Elim and a mortal of the Banished Lands.’
Whispered murmurs rippled around the chamber. Riv felt herself lurch in her seat, the horror of Israfil’s statement like a blow.
‘Elyon the Maker created us all,’ Israfil continued, ‘but the Ben-Elim he created as beings of spirit, without the desires of the flesh. We have become flesh now, as you humans are flesh, but that does not mean he created Ben-Elim and humans to lie one with the other. We Ben-Elim are the Sons of the Mighty, the Separate Ones, that is how Elyon made us, and that is how we shall remain!’ He held a hand up as shouts rang out. ‘These two have not committed that foul act, or their lives would be forfeit. But they have acted improperly, one with the other, and committed acts which if left unpunished may lead to the Great Transgression. To mix the blood of eternal with mortal.’ He paused there, his eyes blazing with wrath. ‘We are Ben-Elim, separate, pure, created so by Elyon. Our blood cannot become diluted, mutated. And that truth is the same for the mortals of these Banished Lands, whether mankind or giant.’ He paused, looking down contemptuously upon Adonai. ‘You would make us less, your thoughtless act threatening to bring upon this earth a new, tainted breed, corrupted by the weakness of human emotion, ruled by the desires of the flesh, rather than Elyon’s Lore. You would make us too weak to enforce the Lore of Elyon.’ He almost spat those last words, took a long, trembling breath to compose himself. ‘We were created separate, and our blood must remain so. The Lore demands it. By pain of death.’
He turned to the Ben-Elim flanking Adonai and nodded to them, at the same time drawing his sword.
The Ben-Elim gripped Adonai and forced him to his knees.
A hush fell across the chamber, across the whole of Drassil, it felt to Riv.
Adonai looked up at Israfil as he approached.
‘Don’t do this,’ Adonai whispered, though his voice carried across the crowds. ‘We are all Elyon’s creation.’ His eyes flickered to the Ben-Elim standing guard about him, lingering for a moment upon Kol. He stared back at Adonai with hard eyes.
‘Be silent, Lore-breaker,’ Israfil roared as he stood before Adonai.
‘Adonai of the Ben-Elim, I judge you guilty of breaking our Holy Lore,’ Israfil cried out as he raised his sword, ‘and in judgement I take your wings.’ The sword sliced down, a sound like soft wood splitting, an explosion of white feathers as the wings were sheared away, followed by a piercing scream, ringing out, another heaped upon another, seeming to Riv that they would never end, fading slowly to a piteous whimper as Adonai slumped in the grip of the Ben-Elim to either side of him. His two white wings lay in the dirt, speckled with crimson as blood pumped sluggishly from the two stumps upon his back.
Israfil and the Ben-Elim guards stared down at Adonai. Riv glimpsed a ripple of emotion on Kol’s face, something between pity and shame.
Israfil turned to Estel.
To Riv’s surprise the woman did not cry or whimper, but instead stood and returned Israfil’s gaze with a silent courage.
Like a White-Wing, Riv thought.
‘You, Estel ap Toril, are stripped of your rank and position in the White-Wings. You are banished, from this moment forth, from Drassil and the Land of the Faithful. You have two moons allotted to you to vacate this realm, after which, if you are discovered within our borders, you will be executed without trial.’
He glared down upon her, his sword still dripping with Adonai’s blood.
A white feather drifted down to the ground between them.
He stepped forwards and grabbed the White-Wing emblem sewn upon the shoulder of her training vest, ripped it off and threw it to the stone floor.
‘Do you understand your punishment?’ Israfil said.
Estel did not answer, just stared at Israfil.
‘Estel ap Toril, do you understand your punishment?’ Israfil repeated, quieter, yet more terrifying.
‘I do,’ Estel said, bowing her head, a sob rippling through her, quickly controlled.
‘Get them out of my sight,’ Israfil snarled and strode from the Great Hall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DREM