Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
“Templum of Dendra, bow for His Eminence, High Druid of Dendra,” a voice announced.
The herald struck every calf like a rod, the mass of them falling to prostrate on the ground. Lycandor pulled me down with him, tugging my elbow and hair. The sister slammed to the floor, and Demetri went with bitterness on his lips, sneering the whole way down, the crescent I could see of his face cold as the faintest of moons.
Murmurings stuttered to silence, despite the hundreds of bodies now swarming the sanctum: helms, shaved heads, the boxy headdresses of sisters.
“Rise.”
At the High Druid’s command, something other than my knees rose within me. Not my blessing, no, but boundless and unbridled hatred.
Chapter forty-three
Ashara
The End of Mercy
Though your sins are like garnet, soon, they shall be as white as wool; though they are red as blood, so too will they drift like the clouds. -1: 18-19 The Book of Dendralis
“It has been an age, my flock, since I have gazed upon you.” The High Druid’s voice was so like Lycandor’s. Both were rumbling, enough to pebble the skin. But whereas Lycandor’s was the purr of an earthquake or the richness of soil, his father’s was all wrong. It was not so much like the heaviness of rock, but the weight of metal. There was a sharpness to it, an edge, like it had been forged in a blacksmith’s fire rather than in the depths of the earth.
“You must understand, Grand Templum of Dendra, that the Blood God speaks to me most turns. It seems there is no respite from enacting His glorious will and making good on our pledge. But ‘tis a burden I gladly bear.” He pressed his colossal fist against where his heart might’ve been if he had one. Did it bleed red like the rest of us, or if cut, did it drip black?
“For a while, He hath gifted thee a reprieve.” I bristled at his words, as if something inside me was spooked, hissing and spitting. “His thirst, for the first time since the blood plagues, was satiated, and He chose to grant mercy at the grey laurel’s offering.”
Hundreds of eyes turned to me, each of them a smoking candle wick.
“It has been three phases since a debt of blood has been rendered,” he continued, drawing the singe of their gaze back to him on the throne. “But now,now, He grows parched.” A collective wave ofsomethingrippled through the sanctum, eyes now shooting to the fresco above as if wary of the Blood God’s attentions from way up in the clouds. “Those whose bloods He spared have chosen to squander His gift, and recompense must be paid.” He stood, the mountainous form of him made even more obscene by his position atop the dais. “You must understand, my children, this islove.”
The high-pitched wail of a youngling had my insides shrivelling. From a door adjacent to the foot of the dais, its thinpanels of lacquered wood, not the stained glass of the others, a sister appeared, her face obscured behind the head of a babe clutched to her chest. With her free hand she held another’s; a little thing still in their bedclothes, brown hair feathered from sleep. Then came five, six more—some clinging to their dolls, rubbing tired eyes, the small Os of their mouths yawning wide. Bouncing up and down, the sister patted the back of the one at her chest, her quavering cries growing louder. I had the sudden itch to cradle her, just like I had with the First.
“Give her to me.” The tremor of the High Druid rolled down the steps, halting the sister’s rocking hips. The sanctum held its breath, and I with it. She hesitated, her nose buried in the girl’s blonde ringlets. After a breath too long, she ascended the dais, a slowness to her steps, as if she wished to turn and run the other way. My arm held firm under Lycandor’s fidgeting, his knee twitching in time with his hand. All of us watched, justwatched, as she unstuck the child from the warmth of her shoulder and placed her into the druid’s metal-plated arms. The small thing reached out to him, looping her chubby arms round his neck like a daughter would do their father. Her fingers hooked into the chain of his veil, head flopping against him.
Her crying ebbed.
“His love is most righteous, most pure,” the High Druid continued, the girl on his hip, her blue eyes shuttering. “For what is love, really? Love too tender”—he stroked the child’s crown, those golden curls lost to the black smudge of his glove—“it turns to spoil.” His hand stilled. “Love without guidance, and we lose ourselves to chaos.” Shifting the child to his other side, he patted her cheek, coaxing her awake. “Love without expectation, the world turns to ruin, and the masses grow glutted, free to feast upon sin without fear nor consequence.” He smiled, and the red of his mouth glowed brighter than thesanctum. “His love is the right sort. A love that requires a surrender to obedience and recompense.”
Another child sobbed. The same sister who had carried the young girl, her back turned to the sanctum, now cajoled a line of sleep-dazed babes into order, seating them on the floor.
“But…what to do when someone denies His devotion?” Silence. “This eve, three acolytes, blessed servants of the Blood God, were found dead and mutilated inside the Grand Templum.”
A collective gasp reverberated off the marble walls and floors. I sizzled once more with the heat of their eyes, the burn of them enough to pepper me in holes, just like Demetri.
A small giggle broke the silence, the tinkle of it slipping free before a sister could clamp a hand over the child’s unknowing mouth. My eyes flickered to the wall of druids, knowing only too well the penance for laughter. But none of them moved.
“Those responsible will render their dues,” promised the High Druid. His invisible gaze bored into my brow, the heat of it enough to almost blister the skin.
“But what is owed?” He paused, as if we were to volunteer the answer. One rose from my throat, beading on the tip of my tongue.
Everything.
“Blood Demands Blood. Is that not what our pledge demands?”
The sanctum roared, the marble quaking—not with the demands of the Blood God, but with men.
