Chapter 7

Join your soul to ours.

Long after Sharo had left, Leiyn ran the conversation through her head. She propped her back against the wall, squirming as the lacerations across it prompted constant discomfort, but she could no longer rest. She feared lying down lest her body’s privations overcome her. The thought of waking to Sharo in her room had her wondering if she would rest easy in this place again.

Yet she had one answer. She knew what he wanted. Her essence. Her soul. Not her lifeforce alone, but all she was.

He wanted her to give it willingly.

Leiyn wanted to laugh away the thought. She could never do that. No matter what atrocities he visited upon her, no matter how he violated her spirit, she would deny him.

He won’t break me.

But she had to entertain the possibility that it was not truly what he desired from her. Perhaps he merely wished her to believe it. A way to channel her defiance in a direction that he found advantageous.

If he truly desired her willing soul, she could not answer why. He contained thousands already. What difference could one more make? Especially when Eteman souls, every bit as potent in mahia as hers, must be among them.

It’s a game to him. All of this.

From their first meeting, Sharo had amused himself with games of power. Diversion had seemed his only aim after so many centuries of existence. But Leiyn knew better now, knew how a desire for vengeance—and now a fresh start for his people—always burned within him.

But he might still revel in his domination over her after all the problems she had caused him. This might be the way he passed time while his machinations played out across Unera. Perhaps there was truth to that, a sliver in his stated desire.

Yet she suspected more remained. Sharo wanted something from her, something only she could give. So long as she held out, she still defied him.

I won’t break.

Leiyn roused, realizing she had nodded off even upright. Seeing nothing else for it, Leiyn groaned and levered herself to her feet, then set to eating, drinking, and relieving her body of its needs. She was far from healed from her beating, but if she had the strength to walk, there was still the rest of the Crypt of the Six to explore.

Staggering into the central chamber, she found only a single stubby candle lit upon the altar. The others had been extinguished as soon as they were lit judging from how many stood smooth and erect. Though none of the other prisoners were in sight, Leiyn could guess who had gone to the trouble of aiding her explorations.

Thank you, Zaki.

Prying off one of the candles, she lit it, then hobbled for San Luciana’s corridor, the next in line. Arias occupied this hall. She had seen the former Suncoat briefly when they gathered food, but had otherwise had few interactions. She was not certain she wished to have more.

She heard him praying as she approached his alcove. Pausing at the entrance, she glanced in to find him kneeling before the altar once more. She should have pressed on, given him up for lost, but found her feet rooted instead.

She had to try to reach him. So few of them were confined here. If they were to have any hope of escape, she needed to have more people on her side.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Leiyn said, voice raspy from lack of use. “But I wonder if we might go for a walk.”

Arias ceased his prayers and turned his head. Filthy strands of blond hair blocked his eye from view.

“A walk?” he repeated, speaking nearly as softly as if he still addressed the Saints.

“Down the corridor.” Leiyn gestured with her candle toward the depths of the long hall. “To see San Luciana’s tomb.”

“San Luciana…” The young man faced back toward the altar. “San Luciana is the patroness of Sincerity and Candor. She knows the truths that lie within our hearts.” He turned back to Leiyn, this time shifting to look at her with both eyes, though he still did not brush back the tangled hair falling over his face. “They’ll save us.”

“Who?” Even the mention of salvation had Leiyn’s pulse quickening, though she doubted his words.

“The Saints.” Elation spread over Arias. He halfway rose, then paused midway up, as if struck by a fresh realization. “We are kept in their Crypt. Close to their mortal remains. How can they not hear our prayers here? And, once heard, how can they refuse to answer them?”

As the soldier gained his feet and scurried toward her, metal chains clinking, Leiyn backed away. She misliked the feverish look in his eyes, the deluded logic of his words. Faith might be all that sustained them in this place, but in him, it had divorced him from reality.

“Are you coming then?” she ventured, eager to be on her way. The hot wax stung where it found skin instead of her fingerless gloves.

Arias’s stare lingered for a long moment. Then it drifted away as he turned back to the altar.

“I must pray,” he muttered, as direct an answer as he had yet given. It seemed all she would receive, for he kneeled before the altar once more.

Burying her disappointment, Leiyn turned and hobbled away, her chains the heavier for her dashed hope.

San Luciana’s burial chamber did little to lift her spirits. It was a mirror to San Hugo’s, with glass-topped pedestals, holes where tapestries had hung from the walls, and a sealed coffin atop a dais in the center. The only difference lay in the decoration of the coffin. The Saint of Sincerity and Candor was exemplified by her symbol, that of the dove with spread wings cradled in her uplifted hands. The woman with closed eyes carved upon the lid looked round and homely, fitting well the role of “Holy Mother.” Her hair was hidden by a headscarf, and her dress was unadorned and as plain as what the present Altacura had worn on the day of the battle.

The day Leiyn had lost to Sharo. Lost Clouded Fang.

She tested the coffin’s lid and the glass pedetals, but as before, they were beyond her feeble strength to shift. Tottering away, Leiyn seethed even as she longed for sleep. Even if the thought of Sharo appearing again made rest an impossible prospect.

Passing Arias with barely a glance—he still prayed before the dusty altar—Leiyn lit another candle, extinguished and replaced her half-melted one, and made for her alcove. Without access to her mahia and reserves of lifeforce, she had to sleep. Sharo would find her if he wanted to, one way or another. She could not change that.

Her body did not comply. Though Leiyn lay down on the stone, shifting again and again to spread the pain across her tortured limbs, sleep would not come. Fear staved off the effects of exhaustion.

When she could tolerate it no longer, Leiyn rose and returned to the central chamber. Her heart pattered unhealthily, and her gut twisted, their prison fare making her ill. She ignored the warning signs and lit a fresh candle at the altar, then made for San Carmen’s tomb.

Nava was sleeping when she came abreast her alcove, but the mask seller startled awake as Leiyn passed by the entrance. Wincing, Leiyn backtracked until her candle illuminated the Asraichean’s face.

“Sorry,” Leiyn mumbled. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Nava waved away the apology. “I barely sleep anyway.” With a stifled groan, the middle-aged woman climbed to her feet and made her way, bow-shouldered from her chains, over to Leiyn. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“No more than before.” Leiyn nodded down the shadowed corridor. “I’m seeing what lies at the end.”

“Oh. That.” Nava looked about to spit, then seemed to think better of it. Perhaps it was superstition that stopped her, or the practicality of not wasting water. “Looked my first evening here,” she continued. “Just another of their ‘Saintly’ tombs.”

“San Carmen’s?”

The Asraichean nodded.

Leiyn buoyed her flagging resolution. “Can’t hurt to look a second time.”

“Can’t help either,” Nava pointed out, then sighed. “Guess I’ll come with. Wouldn’t want you to collapse in my tunnel.”

Leiyn stared, baffled, as the mask seller moved past her. There was nothing for it but to follow.

They walked in silence, broken by the clinking of their chains. Questions swirled around Leiyn’s head, ones that would not fall silent until spoken. Nor could she enjoy the possible windfall of an ally from an unexpected place.

“Shouldn’t you be mad at me?” Leiyn glanced sidelong at Nava. “I’m the reason you’re here.”

The mask seller shrugged, still facing forward. “Would it do me any good to be bitter about it? To make you my enemy?”

She finally looked over, her gaze still lacking the anger Leiyn expected. The anger she deserved. Nava raised her brow.

“We have enough enemies, I think. And all my life, I have seen others get what they didn’t deserve.”

The same as you, Leiyn thought, remembering the bullying Nava had suffered at the hands of the city watch, solely for her indigenous heritage.

“Besides,” the Asraichean continued, “I did deserve this in Ilberia’s eyes. I wanted World King Baltesar to die. I helped you do it in some small way.” She shrugged, a bit of her vivacious spirit relapsing. “I’m guilty, too.”

Leiyn wanted to refute it. To say that providing masks and a scrap of information should not doom her to a death in prison. But she doubted it would make a difference.

“Still,” Leiyn settled for. “I’m sorry.”

Nava smiled wryly. “Aren’t we all?”

They lapsed back into silence. Leiyn noted the condition of the corridor as similar to those of San Hugo’s and San Luciana’s, the same empty sconces lining the planed stone.

She asked another of her niggling questions. “How’d it happen, them capturing you?”

Nava’s expression flattened. “Suncoats came the day after the king’s death. They threw a sack over my head and hauled me from my home. I spent a day or two in the castle dungeons, then they shipped me over here. Been here ever since.”

Unless Leiyn had lost more days after the battle, Nava had not been here as long as Zaki. Nor nowhere near as long as Belen.

“Was Rhun already here?”

“The beastman?” Nava shrugged. “He was sent over with me. The one-armed lad arrived last.”

Leiyn did not know why she needed to know how it had all happened. She could not change their capture. She could only try to lead them free.

She glanced around and behind them, looking for prying eyes. If a lyshan wished to overhear them, she doubted she would ever notice them. Still, she kept her voice hushed.

“If we had a chance to escape here, would you take it? No matter the risk?”

Nava looked over slowly and held her eye. There was fear in her gaze, but beneath the numb mask were the coals of determination.

“I’ve little to live for down here,” the Asraichean murmured, matching her volume. “Yes. I’d do it.”

Leiyn nodded. It was good to have another ally in her fledgling plans, though she did not know how a mask seller might aid in an escape. But Leiyn knew one thing: She might have acted rashly in the past, but she would not endanger Nava unless it were necessary.

More than I already have.

The corridor opened into the terminating chamber. Unsurprisingly, it was in an identical state to the previous tombs. Leiyn did a cursory perimeter around its edges, searching for anything that might have been discarded or forgotten in the evacuation, but found nothing but dust and dampness.

“Nothing here,” Nava said from the entrance, where she awaited her. “As I said.”

Casting the mask seller an unimpressed look, Leiyn moved to the tomb at the chamber’s center. San Carmen looked tall and thin in the impression upon her coffin’s lid. Her face was skeletal with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, but even in a carving, there seemed a deep-burning fire in her eyes. The fervency of faith, if Leiyn had to guess. Thin dark hair hung to the Saint’s shoulders, shoulders covered in metal pauldrons. Curiously, the Saint wore more armor than that, a full cuirass paired with her plain dress. Her hands rested on the hilt of a greatsword, its point resting between her feet.

San Carmen was depicted more as a warrior king than an Altacura. In life, Leiyn had heard she composed herself in a similar manner. Justice, in the Saint’s eyes, was delivered on the edge of a sword, and she had shed the blood of many rebels in her crusades.

Leiyn ran a finger over the dusty features. If Gran Ayda were ever raised as a Saint, she might be depicted in a similar way. After all, their current Altacura had far more blood on her hands than San Carmen ever had.

As her finger traced the length of the sword, a different thought occurred to her. “Help me with this,” Leiyn called over her shoulder, then set her hands to the lip of the coffin lid. She started pushing before Nava reached her, to no effect. The Asraichean joined her efforts, the pair straining to push it aside.

It was to no avail. When at last Leiyn relented, they were both panting and sweaty, yet had not even shifted the lid. It was sealed beyond their strength.

“Why did you want in there?” Nava asked when she caught her breath.

Leiyn pointed at the carved greatsword. “She’s always shown with this. Might mean she was buried with it. We could use a sword.”

The mask seller eyed the carving skeptically. “It’d be rusted beyond use.”

“Even a rusty weapon is better than none.”

Nava did not argue the point, no doubt realizing the futility in it. Instead, the mask seller turned for the entrance, only pausing when Leiyn did not follow.

“You mean to try again?” Nava said over her shoulder.

Leiyn cast a last glance at the coffin. Perhaps with a third or fourth person, they could open it. Could claim a weapon and increase their chances of being able to fight free. Perhaps even break free of their bonds.

It was more hope than she’d yet had.

Returning to the entrance, Leiyn walked back down the long, dark hall with the mask seller by her side. Still catching their breath, they remained silent until they came abreast of Nava’s alcove. Leiyn turned to the mask seller, expecting to part ways, when a familiar rumbling echoed from the central chamber.

The great doors to the catacombs were opening.

Leiyn shared a startled look with Nava. This was no ordinary visit. They had only just received fresh supplies and could not expect more for two days, by Leiyn’s estimation.

She feared what this meant. Every surprise thus far had been a bad one.

Yet she joined the mask seller in heading for the grand central chamber. They gained the entrance just as the five visitors reached the bottom of the stairwell. Four were paladins. As the front two parted and stationed themselves to either side of the stairs along with the second pair, they revealed the one they escorted.

She was a woman of diminuitive stature clad in plain white robes. A sheer veil fell over her face. It was not enough to hide her identity.

Leiyn knew her. She could hardly forget the face of the most powerful woman in Ilberia. One of the most powerful people across all Unera. 

The Altacura had come calling.