I stash the man behind a column, retrieve my bottle, and ease into the silent room packed with long trestle tables, heavy dust settled upon the tops like a sprinkling of sparkly snow. Frowning, I notice footprints in the powder coating the floor.
I set the bottle on a table and, softening my footfalls, follow the shuffled tracks to the back storage room, peeking past the door that’s cracked a smidge.
Brother Beryll is hunched over near the shelves of thorns, the firelight from a flaming torch casting his gray robe in shades of orange and black. My brow lifts as he uncorks a jar, pockets two thorns from the small stash, then plucks up another and repeats the process. Like a greedy, foul-smelling rat.
Now I don’t like him even more.
“Yoo-hoo,” I say, shoving the door wide.
He leaps so far into the air, he smacks the back of his head against the shelf, rubbing the hurt while he straightens, looking at me. His eyes bulge, mouth falling open, stare slashing from my bare chest to the spear in my fist.
“Y-you …”
“Yes,” I mutter, twisting the ring from my finger and pocketing it. My fake skin loosens its tight grip, like cool water spilled across my flesh—not that it makes me feel any less filthy.“Me.”
All the color leaches from Brother Beryll’s face, and he stumbles back, flattening against the shelves.
I advance.
His panicked gaze scrawls across my disgusting scars, and I wonder if he feels sorry for me. If he’s scared, or remorseful, or if he just sees me as a fucking animal that slipped out of its cage.
“I— I didn’t …”
“Don’t bother,” I bite out, upper lip peeling back. I slam my stolen spear through his chest, cleaving it between his ribs, shredding his heart. Blood bubbles from his gaping mouth, and he crumples to the floor. “It won’t save you.”
My pulse roars in my ears while I watch the light leave his eyes, hoping it will make me feel better.
Disappointed when it doesn’t.
Clearing my throat, I stuff the spear in its sheath and snatch a large-handled basket off the floor. I drag my arm along the shelves, sweeping the jars of thorns and ground Candescence into the basket’s hollow. Taking every last ounce into the production room, along with Brother Beryll’s torch, I uncork each jar and sprinkle the contents upon the wooden trestle tables—a pretty, morbid offering to the only God I worship. The onlyGodwho has the power to bring justice to this fucked-up, unbalanced world.
Death.
I crack the bottle of spirits, splash it upon the tables, then use the flaming torch to ignite all three. Color and light explodes, violent heat scalding my knuckles as I back toward the door slower than I should.
“Gleish nam vel arft tha ke, astan da. Gleish nam vel arft tha ke,” I rasp, then clamp my teeth down on the promise.
I will find you, brothers.
I will find you.
Seated against a crystal boulder, I dangle my hand in the blood-red stream that cuts through the grassy plateau in gurgling twists and turns. Around me, iridescent spires reach for pink, wispy clouds, their tips bearing little windows large enough to poke a head out.
Just.
Some spill tumbling vines with purple blooms tipped toward beams of morning light shafting between the gaps.
It’s a sight to behold—otherworldly—but Lychnis has never felt …normal.
It’s believed the Goddess of Light couldn’t stand to watch the decimation of her beautiful creations. That she tore from the sky on a crescent moon and fell like stardust, swallowed by the sea. That the ocean birthed her in the form of this island; the geyser her blood, forever flowing.
All I know is that it didn’t always exist. That the ocean hailed us—a call to arms that whispered through the waves.
‘Get apple! Get apple!’
‘I don’t want a fucking apple,’ I growl at Zykanth, scouring the tree his attention is narrowed on—ten times larger than it was last time I saw it.
Many moons ago.
