Chapter 8

Confusion and caution warred as Leiyn beheld Gran Ayda. The last time she had seen the leader of the Holy Catedrál had been when Leiyn shot an arrow through the elderly woman’s shoulder. Hardly the most aupicious of reunions.

The Altacura no longer suffered from that wound, it seemed. Her white garb was unmarred, and she moved like one free of pain as she set forward. If she saw Leiyn and feared retribution, she gave no sign of it. She did not even order her guards to accompany her as she stepped amid the ring of pearl posts.

But what had she to fear of her prisoners? Leiyn had felt the strength of Ayda’s mahia. While not as powerful as herself or the average Eteman, Gran Ayda was potent in her own right. Far more than those contained in the Crypt of the Six in their present state.

Leiyn limped forward, the coal in her chest reigniting. She might not be able to threaten the Altacura, but she would not cower before her coming. Defiance smoldered in her still, desperate and thin though it may be.

“Where are you going?” Nava hissed at her back.

Leiyn ignored her, much as Ayda ignored Leiyn’s approach. The high priestess had come to a stop before the grand orb of Omn, beholding the dark light of the jet stones contained in the glass. Leiyn stopped two paces away, trying to hide her labored breaths, wondering if the paladins would approach to haul her away. But though their eyes followed her, they remained at their post by the stairs.

After several moments, Ayda glanced over. Leiyn had hoped for residual fear in those veiled eyes, but the Altacura seemed calm and expectant. That denial of Leiyn’s power smarted more than she cared to admit.

“Tideraiser,” Ayda greeted her. Leiyn could not tell if she meant it in mockery.

“Puppet,” Leiyn shot back with a curl of her lips.

The Altacura’s expression remained placid. “I had wondered if you yet learned respect. That shall suffice for my answer.”

Leiyn stepped closer, unsure of her own intentions, but paused when the Altacura held up her hand.

“Please. Save yourself the shame and do not sully my clothes. We both know you have no hope of success.”

She could not be commanded. Could not be contained. Leiyn stepped forward again, testing her enemy’s limits. How close would she let her come?

An unseen force knocked her aside.

Her wounds screamed as Leiyn banged against the floor, splitting them back open. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she labored back to her feet. There was no hiding her panting now. It was all she could do just to remain upright without bracing herself on the dark orb.

“I did warn you,” Ayda said, emotion seeping into her eyes. There was the derision Leiyn expected, but more than that filled them. An emotion she found yet more repulsive.

Pity.

Leiyn fueled her inner fires with it, but not to attack again. Even she was not so foolish as that.

“Why are you here?” Leiyn snarled.

The Altacura quirked her lips. “Who are you to make demands of the Holy Mother? Has humility never occurred to you, witch? Do you glory in the titles lavished upon you for your bloody deeds?”

“Bloody deeds?” A bitter laugh worked free of her. “We both have blood on our hands, Ayda. After all you’ve done to the Veiled Lands, you’ve spilled oceans more than me.”

She had thought that could shatter the Altacura’s icy exterior. But Ayda’s eyes never shifted.

“I will not justify myself to you,” the high priestess murmured. “Nor argue with one who is my prisoner. If you will excuse me, I desire to pay my respects to my predecessors.”

The Altacura turned from her to gaze once more upon the dark orb of Omn. Still seething, Leiyn remained where she was. She knew she was unlikely to gain more from conversation with her enemy. Her wits were scattered, her body trembling even to stand.

Yet she had visited tomb after tomb and found no escape from this place. Only two passages remained, and she had little hope either would hold the secret to breaking free. If she could not turn Ayda to their side—which had always been a distant prospect—then she had to pry out as much information as she could.

“Who are they?” Leiyn spoke into the silence.

Ayda took her time in looking over. “Of whom do you speak?” she asked, seeming to regret the question even as she spoke it.

Leiyn nodded toward the defaced statue next to her corridor. “The Sixth Saint.”

The Altacura looked at the featureless statue for a long while. “San Davina,” she said at last. “Patroness of Passion and Sedition.”

Leiyn paused at those titles. “Odd characteristics for a Saint.”

“They account for why she is a Saint no longer.”

“What happened?” That they spoke civilly when Leiyn had tried to attack her but moments before was miraculous. If Ayda was willing to disregard it, Leiyn could do no less.

Ayda fell silent again. At length, her pale eyes traveled to Leiyn, made paler still by her sheer veil. “She sparked a revolution in Ilberia long ago. Until that age, witchery had been allowed to reign freely across the land. The Altacura of that time, Gran Saray, urged the reigning World King, Leandro the Third, to control those who would wield magic against them. The Caelrey saw reason in her words and acceded the deed to the Catedrál. Thus were the first odiosas leashed.”

Leiyn could scarcely comprehend the horrifying chain of thought. People so enamored with their power they would commit atrocities to prevent even the hypothetical of losing it.

The same as all Unera’s leaders.

Even Mauricio, perhaps the finest figurehead she had met, still broke faith with the Many Tribes and would have allowed Isla’s murderer to walk free. Power was perversion. Sharo and his lyshans were the truest testament to that. When concentrated in too few hands, power spread tyranny across the world. No ocean could arrest such contagion for long.

“San Davina,” Ayda continued, “then a priestess of some import, spoke against the formation of odiosas from the start. In part, it was because she had an Asraichean mother. You know of them, the Asraicheans? One of the native tribes of this land long ago?”

“Yes.” Leiyn kept her temper carefully leashed.

Ayda’s gaze flickered to Leiyn’s hair, to her auburn tress. Grown under the influence of Leiyn’s mother, whose spark resided in her daughter after all these years. “Yes, I suppose you do. Due to her heritage, San Davina believed the isle of Refugio to have once been a sacred place that had become defiled by the Catedrál. She knew of its origins. As do you and I.”

“A world titan.” Scraps of stories wove together in Leiyn’s mind. “San Inhoa was said to have calmed the volcano of this island. It was her miracle. You’re saying she…slew it?”

The Altacura gave her a thin smile. “Yes. Holding aloft a symbol of Omn—what has come to be called Inhoa’s Star—she called upon the Almighty and smote it with the sun’s might. Or the writings of her tell.”

Leiyn tried to imagine how that could be possible. Even having witnessed Clouded Fang beheaded—she flinched again at the memory—slaying a world titan seemed many magnitudes more impossible. Even in death, it retained enough power that it could have drowned Leiyn had her ash dragon not prevented it. How much more potency had it possessed while alive? And there was the method of her slaying, that she “called upon the Almighty”—obvious Omnist propaganda if she had ever heard it.

“It was the creation of the Odious—as odiosas were first known—that sparked San Davina’s revolution. Fomenting resistance from within and without, she opposed the resolutions by all means short of violence. Hunger strikes. Embargoes. Obstructing trade routes and clogging markets. Rather than turn the people against her and her followers, more swelled to their ranks everyday. The common people always bristle at the yokes of civilization and long to throw them off. No matter the cost to themselves and their society.”

Sensing she was being goaded, Leiyn held her tongue and let the Altacura continue her monologue.

“As commerce suffered and resistance turned into riots, Leandro the Third could no longer tolerate her obstinancy. He issued a threat to Gran Saray that if she did not quell the burgeoning rebellion, he would ensure the Catedrál came under royal control forever after.

“So quell, the Altacura did. Odiosas forged in the belly of Refugio were sent onto the streets. As the Instruments they are, they obeyed the commands of their masters without compunction, putting down the riots by any means necessary.”

Quell. Leiyn curled her lip. She could imagine all the blood that simple word obscured. But beyond the gory history, another part of the story caught in her mind.

“Forged in Refugio,” Leiyn echoed. “You mean that odiosas are made here?”

“Of course. I assumed you knew. Did you not free one of them in Southport—momentarily, at least?”

She thought back to the man she had liberated before other odiosas had commanded the kraken of Anchor’s Refuge to attack the warehouse where he was kept. Wynn of Saints’ Crossing—that had been his name. When she had broken through the burning hand repressing his mind, the seal that made him subservient, she had glimpsed something far greater. A memory of when he had been made into an odiosa.

The looming presence behind the hand.

Leiyn had wondered what could expunge the minds of those made into odiosas. Now she knew.

“The world titan,” she said slowly. “You expose their minds to it. Make them lose themselves. Then you place your lock over them.”

Ayda smiled, her eyes remaining untouched by it. “There is more to it, but yes. In broad strokes, that is the process.”

Her stomach turned at standing before the woman who allowed such reprehensible things to be done. Perhaps who conducted them herself. But while the ranger in her yearned to claim justice for those wrongs, Leiyn focused on what she could actually do.

Perceive first. Then I might preserve and protect.

“But Davina’s revolution didn’t prevail,” Leiyn prompted.

“Correct. The swift and severe repression of her disciples was followed by just as swift an execution of the priestess. With that, the next era of the Holy Catedrál was assured.”

Leiyn turned to the defaced statue and thought of the woman who had inspired it. All that she had suffered to stand up for what she saw as right.

A familiar story.

“If San Davina opposed the creation of odiosas,” Leiyn said, “and was executed for her defiance, why was she interred down here?”

Ayda smiled, Leiyn’s question seeming to please her.. “Through a twist of fortune. Had a different person followed as Altacura, it might have been Gran Saray who had that honor instead, for the Odious were seen as a miracle by many. Yet it happens that the Altacura to follow Gran Saray, Gran Olwen, admired San Davina and her resolutions. After her election, Gran Olwen revealed her sympathies to the shock of all. Suspending the creation of the odiosas, she canonized Davina of Caertis as both a martyr and the Sixth Saint.”

“And built her a statue and tomb.”

“Just so. While the remains of the first five Sacred Saints were always kept by the Catedrál, their home was not here. It was in secret that Gran Olwen began the construction of a new catacomb, one to house all six Saints. Yet she never saw its completion. Gran Olwen did not reign long, for many opposed the radical policies she introduced. Without odiosas, mahia began to run wild, and the common people and priestesses alike feared witches in the wilderness. That fear grew until a council was convened, and Gran Olwen was deposed and summarily executed, just as her idol had been not long before.”

“Yours is a bloody history,” Leiyn noted dryly, hoping humor hid her disgust.

“Bloody and convoluted,” Ayda agreed. “But we do not choose what has happened in our past. Only how we will shape our future.”

“Haven’t you done enough?” There was no hiding her vitriole now.

The Altacura stared, eyes flat. “Lessons may always be learned from our forebears. What lesson would you learn from San Davina?”

Fight to your dying breath. Spit in the face of tyrants and fanatics.

Leiyn stilled her tongue and held Ayda’s stare, compelling an answer from the high priestess.

“Very well,” Ayda said at length. “I shall impart my personal lessons. Outright resistance gains nothing. Those irksome to the Path of Light shall be removed. Far better to walk along it than deny its imminence.”

Leiyn almost spat at the conclusion. “You learned to be a coward.”

“Call it what you will. It does not change that the Epoch of Belief must arrive. Even I, Head of the Holy Catedrál, can only be a servant in ushering it in.”

A laugh worked free of Leiyn. “Keep telling yourself that, Ayda. Whatever helps you sleep.”

“My sleep comes easier than yours,” Ayda countered. “Or is this stone soft?”

Leiyn only shook her head. Her bruised body robbed the thought of amusemsent.

Ayda turned away, but paused. “Do not think I harbored any illusion of turning you from your heretical thoughts, Tideraiser. I know the hearts of those I keep here in the Crypt of the Six.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.” The Altacura held her gaze, unblinking. “You are a rebel born. You flout authority at every turn, fight until your dying breath. Is it not so?”

Leiyn bared her teeth, more a grimace than a smile. “Yes. It is.”

Ayda did not seem displeased by the response. Perhaps she found satisfaction in being proven correct.

“In truth, I did not come for such pleasant conversation, but to visit the remains of my patroness, San Inhoa. Good fortune in your fight, Leiyn of Orille.”

The Altacura turned and strode toward the first corridor, her patron Saint overlooking her gliding progress across the gloomy chamber. Leiyn had not seen how she produced a small orb of lighted pearls, but she held it aloft to light her way.

Part of Leiyn longed to follow, to ambush the Altacura in the dark corridor. But between the confrontation and her recent explorations of the catacombs, it was almost beyond her strength merely to stand. Leiyn watched the leader of the Catedrál disappear from sight, then turned and made for her own corridor.

She stopped short of it, halting at the feet of the defaced statue. Knowing the story behind the forgotten Saint, Leiyn took in what features remained of San Davina with fresh eyes. The stone hands looked to hold a palm frond, a symbol of peace. A peace for which she was executed.

In the end, Davina had failed. Her remains had been cast from the Crypt of the Six. Her legacy debased, her name discarded.

Is that to be my fate?

She wished history were not so cruel. Yet, time and again, it showed itself to be.

Leiyn lowered herself to the lumps of stone serving as San Davina’s feet. Propping her back against them, she faced the corridor down which Ayda had disappeared. Mindful of the watching paladins at the foot of the stairs, silent in their vigil, she tried to keep her eyes open. Mostly, she failed.

She roused at the quiet footfalls signaling Ayda’s return. How long the Altacura had spent at her patroness’s tomb, she could not say. Weariness pooled in Leiyn the same as before, but that was no surprise. With her shackles, she expected it would be many days still before she experienced any semblance of recovery.

Still, Leiyn levered herself to her feet and met Ayda’s gaze. To her surprise, the Altacura’s gaze seemed to hold no lingering resentment, but were evaluative instead. As if their conversation before had not been the confrontation it seemed, but a test.

For Sharo, no doubt.

The high priestess gave her a nod, so slight that Leiyn wondered if she imagined it, then turned and made for the stairs. Her paladins formed up behind her, armor clanking as they marched back up. A minute later, Leiyn heard the doors creak open, then closed. A final clang told of the drawbar falling into place.

Leiyn leaned back against San Davina’s statue. She had hoped for more from the visit, though she could not understand why. The Altacura was Sharo’s puppet. She had played a part in Leiyn ending up here. And she seemed to hold no small measure of disdain for her prisoners.

Yet, prior to that battle, before Leiyn shot her through the shoulder, it had seemed they verged on tenuous agreement. A touch of rebellion lived in Ayda, a rankling at her invisible chains. Perhaps it was of a different strain than Davina’s, but with her continued acknowledgment of the Sixth Saint, perhaps it did not deviate so much as she thought.

Hopes. Wishes. Just wind. Just words.

Whatever Ayda’s private feelings, her actions were complicit with her master’s atrocities. Leiyn could not hope for aid from the Altacura. If she wished to help, she could have freed them already.

The only escape from the Crypt of the Six would be of her own devising.

Leiyn returned to her corridor and room. Turning endlessly over the same thoughts, the same futile plans. Hoping against hope she would glimpse something new.