The General tilted his head back, breathing deeply with his eyes closed before gathering himself and facing his men. He clutched something in his pocket before releasing it just as quickly.
“You heard his orders,” he said tiredly. “Torch it.” He gestured to one of the soldiers, a Fire Mage, who let a ball of flame flicker into his outstretched palm. The General indicated for the remainder of the soldiers to precede him up the stairs.
The Fire Mage walked slowly around the room, touching the paneled walls and books until each wall contained a small flame. The General nodded at him to exit the chamber. The Fire Mage left, which left the General alone in the small space.
He gazed at the flames licking the books on the wall. The girl’s soul watched as all written histories began to fall to the flames. Again, she felt nothing.
What was the destruction of knowledge if her people were gone?
Besides, all of that information was tucked away in Solace now, easily accessed by her at any time.
Just as the General turned to exit the room, the girl felt a strong pull to one of the books on the wall. A strange energy radiated from it, and the girl knew it must be saved. Her soul quickly floated to it, pulling it from its place on the shelf and letting it drop with athumpto the ground. The General quickly turned, scanning the room, but finding only flames. Just as he turned to go, his gaze caught on the book the girl had pulled from the wall.
He bent and quickly picked it up, trying unsuccessfully to open it.
“It is not for you, but you must keep it safe,” the girl said into his mind. The General jumped slightly, eyes wildly searching the room before he nodded and tucked it into the belt at his waist. “You will know whom to give it to, and when.”
He nodded again before continuing up and out of the Room of Knowledge, thick black smoke billowing in his wake.
Chapter 7
The Girl
The girl’s soul watched as the General made his way up and out of the cavern before she was snapped back into her body. She opened her eyes on a gasp, her physical body adjusting to the billions of memories and visions she was shown previously. Her bodyhurt, like she had run for days without stopping, and the accompanying headache threatened to pull her unconscious.
The girl took a few labored breaths, trying to suppress her ailments, when she started to smell the distinct, acrid smell of smoke. With a few grumbled curses and moans, the girl pushed herself up from the floor, wiping at the blood that was coursing from both her nose and eyes. She eyed the bowl with the thread and needle, but quickly dismissed the desire to add to the rug. It would burn, just like everything else here, and it wasn’t like any future Matriarch would access this room.
She had seen the futures. And there was not one where she had a child to continue the line of Matriarchs.
The girl stumbled her way to the door, pressing her hand to the lever on the inside, which unlocked it. The girl struggled to push it open, her arms shaking with the force, and barely edged it a crack. Too weak to open it any further, she pushed her body through and slipped into the burning room, assaulted by the heat of fire and smell of burning wood.
The girl pulled the neck of her kaftan, ripe with the smell of blood and sweat, over her nose and mouth, desperately trying to keep the smoke from her lungs. She pressed her body to the side of the wall, feeling along the edges in an attempt to get back to the secret panel that would lead her to the staircase and away from the burning house.
The smoke was dark and thick, the only light coming from the orange glow of the flames. Sweat beaded down her back and stuck her hair to her forehead. More than once she had to double over to cough, each time making her chest spasm and her throat split open.
Finally,finally, she reached the panel on the wall and blindly pushed around, looking for the hidden release. The flames at her back grew impossibly hotter, and she heard the support beams cracking as the flames licked higher.
Her breathing grew more rapid and shallow, her search for the button more erratic.
I can’t die here. This can’t be my end.
She let out a cry as she finally fell through the door, the mechanism unlocking with her touch. Miraculously, the smoke and flames had yet to reach the passage that led up and out, and the girl sucked in deep, greedy breaths of clean air. She was never more grateful for the humid air of her village than at that moment.
But it wasn’t long before the flames and smoke licked into the doorway, forcing the girl to her feet, willing herself forward by sheer determination and anger alone.
She pulled her worn-out body up the steps and out the main door of the house, just as she heard a groan from the structure, the floor caving in to the catacombs below.
The girl bent over, hands on her knees, as her body shook. She coughed and retched a few times, expelling the lingering smoke from her lungs before standing upright and surveying the damage to her village.
She’d seen each and every death through Solace, nothing should be a surprise at this point.
But it was.
It was one thing for the girl to see the destruction of her people from the safety of her Seeing Room. It was another entirely to walk amongst the dead, gazing into unseeing eyes as her bare feet squished through mud wetwith blood. The air was quiet and still, the only noise was the faint crackle of dying flames and the occasional caw of circling crows.
More than once the girl had to stop to empty the bile from her stomach, the horrors of the massacre of her people simply too much to bear.
She saw women with kaftans ripped and bloodied, still in the positions the male Mages put them in to rape them.
