Sage

Sage

Gabriela had managed to destroy several landmarks, half the port, and blew away everyone’s laundry hanging to dry before her father appeared.

Rhea’s spies reported the capture was quick, and she was not harmed. Supreme Capricorn had appeared and had her in shackles within seconds. It also helped that Gabriela didn’t fight back.

They took her to the old Goddess temple in the city - a twin of the one Rhea and Wraza now lived in. Supreme Capricorn then appeared before the city in a mandatory citywide address.

Basically, the Hands in the city strong-armed everyone to come to the temple square and watch as he announced the impending public execution of his daughter in two days.

It was all on point with what Gabriela had predicted - but for the pre-execution celebration.

“He’s brought an entire boat’s worth of prisoners bound for Leox and plans to burn them all tomorrow,” Rhea said, her voice cracking.

Minx clenched her fists, the table beneath her hands shaking with her power as she tried to take a breath. Sage reached out, placing a hand over Minx’s fists.

“Then we change our plans. We go today.” Sage suggested.

She understood the guilt and the rage Minx felt. These were prisoners bound for her birthplace to be tortured and burned. She would do anything to save them from that fate.

“No,” Rhea said, surprising her. “We go tomorrow and use the public spectacle to our advantage.”

Minx ripped her hands from Sage, slapping them on the table while she stood up.

“And let them burn!?” she cried.

“Calm down - of course not!” Wraza snapped. “We make a show of saving them, and while that’s happening, Sage and Kade will sneak into the temple and free Gabriela.”

Minx seethed, but slowly sat back down.

“He is going to expect that,” Sage said flatly.

“He’s expecting you two, not us,” Rhea said, grinning. “We lure him in with Minx, which will make him think you two are there to save her, and then we show up. He won’t know what to do.”

“Kill us all,” Minx muttered sourly.

“He can try,” Wraza retorted.

Sage didn’t like the plan, but they had no other choice. If wanted to spare the prisoners and Gabriela the horrors of burning alive, they would have to go through with it.

They took the tunnels to the other city just before the burnings were scheduled to start. Cloaked and keeping to the shadows of the alleys, they made their way to the temple square. Sage kept close to Kade - they were to split from the group the moment Supreme Capricorn appeared to announce the commencement.

Minx was on edge. Sage could see how her eyes burned and her fingers twitched. She’d seen Minx like this once before when she demanded her mother do something about the animal rescue in town.

They’d heard it was overflowing with abandoned pets and due to limited space would be euthanizing most of them. Sage knew Seraphina would have laughed in her face if she asked, but Minx was certain her mother would help.

To their shock and horror, she told Minx no. And Minx rioted.

It was the first and only time Sage had seen Minx stand up to her mother. In the end, she relented and not only donated to the rescue, but funded a whole new building to house additional pets.

Minx had the same look in her eyes as she scanned the growing crowd and the Hands building up the pyres. Determined.

Someone poked her arm. Sage turned to see Rhea nodding towards the temple and the group of armed Hands that appeared. They stood in a semi-circle atop the steps, brandishing their swords at the crowd below. A hush spread over the square and everyone’s attention was aimed toward the temple.

Sage’s heart pounded in her chest - this was it. The moment he appeared, she and Kade would slip off to a side alley that had a secret tunnel into the temple.

A figure emerged from behind the Hands, lurching towards the crowd. Sage squinted at the hunched man, then looked to Minx for confirmation since she was the only one who had seen him.

Minx had turned pale. She shook her head at the same time the strange man addressed the crowd.

“Welcome. Supreme Capricorn is delighted you all could make it to this glorious day. He is occupied with planning tomorrow’s historic event - the cleansing of a Maiden. But rest assured, he is watching over us and takes delight in those who are devout today.”

“You need to go. Now.” Minx hissed. Kade took Sage by the elbow and led her to the alleyway. She cast a glance back, seeing the others taking their positions.

“Something’s not right,” Sage whispered as they rounded the alley.

Kade grunted but didn’t comment. She kept her pace with him, casting looks behind them.

“Stop that. We have to keep moving.” Kade grumbled. “We have no choice but to move forward with the plan.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have done this,” Sage grumbled sourly. But she knew he was right. They had no choice but to keep going. If anything, she had more of a reason to barge into the temple and save Gabriela than before.

Besides, they hadn’t heard anything from the bud Minx gave her, which meant she was okay.

Kade found the storm drain grate and opened it for her. She slipped under, then followed the tunnel that ran deep beneath the temple. Sage held an orb of power out to light their way through the musty, damp tunnel, but she barely paid the walls or floor any attention. Her feet were moving quickly, like they had a mind of their own, spurring her on towards the end.

Something deep inside her was screaming, clawing at her to get out.

Heart racing, she took rapid swallow breaths as she began to trot, then sprint down the dark tunnel. Kade kept to her heels. He didn’t ask her what was wrong. He didn’t need the bond to tell him she was scared and something was urging her to hurry.

Down the darkened tunnel they ran, Maiden and Demon shoulder to shoulder until her lungs ached and her legs screamed to stop.

But she didn’t stop, not until she saw the light of her orb glinting off the iron door. It was composed of thick bars with several heavy locks. Sage ran straight for it, throwing all her power into the orb and chucking it like a baseball into the door. The orb exploded against the bars, disintegrating them.

They didn’t miss a step, nor did they slow their pace. Sage leaped over the fallen bars and up the stairs that sat behind the door. Taking them two at a time, she barreled through the door at the top and into a service quarter.

Two Hands were sitting at a table enjoying a meal. Sage knocked them out with an arc of magic before they had time to react.

Then she felt it. The entire temple shook.

The bud in her hand vibrated as a static noise screeched through it. Sage nearly dropped it to cover her ears, but the bud turned black and curled up on itself. She clenched her fist around it and took off down a hall.

Another tremor shook the temple, and this time she heard someone screaming. Not from outside, which is what she expected. It would have meant the others started their part.

It was from the main chamber in the temple.

It was a high-pitched, delicate scream. A scream that haunted her still on dark nights and brought with it the ghostly memories of a candlelit cave, the gentle light reflecting off of raised knives before they plunged into her body.

It was a scream of sheer terror mixed with grief.

Sage forced her legs to move, willing every cell, every molecule of her body to move faster, faster as she followed the screams to a giant oak door.

No one guarded the door, which should have struck her as strange but didn’t. She didn’t have time to think logically.

Sage wrapped her body in her magic and rammed the doors. They exploded under the weight of her power, splintering into thousands of pieces as her body tore through it. She skittered to a stop, nearly gagging on the miasma that lay across the room like a thick fog.

The chamber was large, with vaulted ceilings and silvery tiled floors. A giant sculpture of the Goddess stood against the middle wall, her wide unfeeling eyes baring down at the scene below.

A man was sprawled out, his crimson blood staining the tile around his head as he bled out from a gaping wound in his right temple. Sage could see his brain matter through the gushing blood. Her heart skipped seeing the mangled body of Gretch beside him. Her milky eye stared blankly at Sage as she approached.

Gabriela knelt by her father’s body, her hair flowing freely from her broken braid, her spectacles crooked on her nose. She had a cut across her left cheek, deep and angry, but she didn’t seem to notice as she looked down at her father. Tears stained her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around him and screamed.

It wasn’t a scream of anguish born of love - but of what could have been. Sage recognized it - she’d felt the same after her mother betrayed her. It was the pain of realizing you never had a loving parent, and now, you never would have that chance.

But it wasn’t the blood or the fact Gabriela was crying over her dead father that almost made Sage fall to her knees.

It was Vinciei, towering over the scene like a vengeful Goddess, glowing with her stolen gifts as she raised a knife - the same knife she’d killed Kami with.

And plunged it straight for Gabriela’s heart.