The old woman’s gaze went to him. She smiled to herself, a private triumph, and then continued.
“You are stronger than I,” she said to Selena. “Stronger than these who protect me. I am no fool. My protectors may kill one or two of your crew but you have only to speak a word and ribbons of light will burn us to ash. Speak another word, and a sirrak will appear to crush our bones. I know this. It is why I permitted Ori to return your weapons of steel and powder. It was useless to withhold them. To destroy us, you need them not.”
“Why bring me here if you know it means your death?” Selena asked, trying to inflect her voice with a boldness she didn’t feel.
Accora took a step toward her. Selena leveled her sword at her naked breast but the woman paid it no mind.
“Because, child, I have been waiting for this moment for three years. Because last night I saw into your heart and soul. I read your thoughts, your dreams, your memories. You sailed from your shining house of the moon with your heart full of hope, and that hope is at war with your truest nature. Murder in cold blood. The mighty Skye, who opened the hole in your breast almost as surely as the god did ten years ago, now decrees how it shall be closed.”
Selena’s sword arm began to fall. Behind her, Julian hissed a warning, but she hardly heard.
“And your High Reverent with her admirals and Justarchs and bickering Paladins. Fools, all. Kill Bacchus, they tell you, and your agony will end. Ha! You cannot kill Bacchus. Not with your light or your sirrak or your best intentions. He will rip you apart and piss on your bones, and your pathetic Alliance will pity the poor girl who died in glorious service to their cause. And with the same breath, they will sigh with relief that the Tainted One no longer haunts their hallowed halls with her dragon shadow following after. No, you cannot kill Bacchus. Not until I show you how.”
The silence in the night was thick. No one moved or spoke, but stood rapt—even Julian—as Accora stepped past Selena’s sword to stand close. Selena could feel the woman’s breath on her skin. Her eyes were clear and blue, but a zealous fire roared behind them. Selena saw herself reflected there and nothing else.
“Poor girl. A used girl. First in the war with the Zak’reth and now again. The Alliance is using you through Skye, and now I will use you too. I will hone your magic and teach you how to use it in ways the fools at the Moon Temple, in their pious ignorance, never imagined. I will turn you into a weapon that will kill Bacchus, for I know him best, and without my tutelage, your quest was doomed from the very beginning.”
She reached out and ran gnarled fingers over Selena’s hair. “And when it is done, my child, I will let you draw your pretty sword across my throat and you will never be the same again.”
Bloody, bloody Bastian,
Killed the captain
The first mate said,
‘What do we do?’
Then bloody, bloody Bastian
Ran him through.
--child’s rhyme, circa 205 New Dawn Era
Changing Course
Celestine walked empty halls that were full of echoes. Dust motes danced in the air, choking her, stinging her eyes. An echo rumbled toward her, like an avalanche. Her own voice.
“The god doesn’t demand perfection.”
“No, it demands more than that.” Archer’s voice, louder, deafening. “Connor and Selena Koren are living proof.”
As the last words faded like a thunderstorm that moves on, a shadow fell over her. A horned head, a wing, a strong arm. Selena’s Vai’Ensai, Celestine thought, and turned.
But Kyre loomed there, not Ilior. He raised a scaled, tree-trunk arm and pointed. Celestine swiveled to look and Connor stood on the quarterdeck of a ship, hands planted on his hips, a sword gleaming in the sunlight as bright as his smile.
Then Ilior’s voice spoke Kyre’s words, and they echoed from the deep caverns of time, where the dragons lived.
“I’m here for him.”
Celestine woke with a start, and sat up quickly in her small bed. In the weeks since Archer had sent a ship to Isle Devala after his son, the nagging itch in the back of her mind had become unsettling in its urgency. Until now. Now it was gone, and the truth came to her, like a flash of lightning illuminating a black sky. She gasped and threw off her coverlet.
“Sera!” she cried. Her sleeping gown flew off in a flutter of white linen.
The door opened. “Your Reverence?”
“Ready the sloop for the Citadel,” Celestine said, drawing on her leggings. “Now.”
At the Citadel, Celestine hurried past captains and sailors and higher ranking officers, all of whom stopped to nod in deference to her station. More than one failed to conceal a knowing glint in their eye that the High Reverent was here again to visit the Admiral. Never mind that Archer had barely spoken to her in the weeks since Connor’s disappearance. Celestine ignored them all, intent on reaching her friend before the words behind her lips burst out of their own accord. At last, she reached his office and breathed thanks to the Shining Face that Archer was there, poring over a chart.
“Connor hasn’t gone to the Devala Isles. He’s going to Isle Uago.”
Archer didn’t glance up. “Uago?” he muttered. “What for?”
“Our last bird came from Uago. From Selena Koren. She hired a ship to Saliz from there. Connor will go to Uago to follow her trail.”
He shook his head, his gaze still on his chart. Lines demarking various routes and currents curved from Isle Lillomet, all pointing to the same destination. “That’s nonsense. She could be anywhere. Connor went to Devala,” he tapped the island chain in the center of a whorl of black ink, “so he can call storms and talk to animals to his heart’s content.”
Celestine leaned over the desk to face Archer, demanding his attention. “What does Connor want more than anything? What has he striven for his whole life?”
“To be a Paladin for the Shining Face of the god,” Archer began. “But he—”
“Exactly. To be a Paladin. And the Paladin he knows best, the one who has been living in the Temple for nearly his entire life is Selena Koren.”
“Koren is a Paladin for a god that doesn’t Hear him…”
“No, but this Wor’ri does. This is his chance to become a warrior for his own god, one that has blessed him with his own…unique talents.”
“All the more reason he’d seek out the druids on Devala,” Archer said.
Celestine bit her lip. Archer’s logic made sense and yet…He’s entirely wrong.
“He’s going after Selena Koren,” Celestine said. “I know it. I know him. Your son is a skilled swordsman, partly by inborn talent, but also because of his unrelenting drive. He wants to be distinguished, and not for his illness. To be distinguished in spite of his illness.”