99. Rock

My eyes moved faster than my mind, taking in what they saw.

The low-walled terrace held a small crowd of twenty some, nearly all of them in Tintarian armor, all of them men save Thalia, her cerulean flowing around her.

Next to her stood Cian, Yro and Bamber, each in their respective element’s colors.

Hinnom and Peregrine, in the polished Tintarian black, wore breastplates with bronze filigree over the shark’s tooth sigil.

Jeremanthy and what appeared to be ten other older soldiers, infantry officers I assumed, stood with my husband, Thatcher, Perch and Fletch.

They had all turned to look at me, their eyes having been on the horizon.

I looked then to a sparkling Sister Sea, her sublime skyline no longer just punctuated by the imperial drake rocks but by ship after ship, bearing down on Tintar, all headed for that opening in the bluff rock, Pikestully’s main port that then led into the city center where thousands of people were evacuating.

Why look at a map when you could see one in real life below you from these bluffs?

“Edith,”

cried Alric, a look of such sadness on his face.

“Why are you here?”

I pointed at Cian.

I could not breathe.

I could not speak, but my hand stayed out.

“Oh, you bastard,”

snarled Thalia in Cian’s direction.

“It’s you isn’t it? The rat.”

“Thalia,”

protested an astounded Cian.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“He conspires with Perpatane,”

I gasped out.

“With my former husband.”

I stood straighter, left hand on the watchtower wall next to me, my belly cramping.

“Ormond Thrush.

He is a nobleman of Perpatane and close with the king, influential in his court.”

“Edie,”

Cian said, appearing to be still flustered by my accusations.

“You cannot think this of me.

We are both children of Mother Earth.

You know me.

I do not know this Thrush—”

Before he could finish, the watchtower doors slammed open.

Thrush stepped through, his sword outstretched, dripping in blood.

I thought he must have slain the guards and their scuffle had been masked by the crash of ocean waves and the shouting outside.

Thrush had always been a fit man.

He liked to ride and fence.

Yet, his muscled chest now heaved with his chasing me.

He pointed his sword at me.

“Edie.

You will never run from me again.

This is the last time.”

“You will not touch her!”

shouted Alric, drawing his own sword and breaking away from the crowd at the end of the small courtyard, his brows drawn, mouth tight.

Behind him, Fletch, Perch and Thatcher followed, their hands on their hilts.

And then, beneath us all, the bluff rock vibrated, causing everyone to stumble, everyone save Cian, his right hand extended before him, long fingers curling into a fist.

Abruptly, the section of low wall nearest me and Thrush shifted and grew in height so that it came up to where our chests would be, and it moved between us and them, caging in the rest of those on the bluff top, my husband and his friends rushing towards me, stopped by a thick, violent smack of stone into their armor.

Cian stood to one side, looking at the prison of stone he had erected, separating him from his fellow leaders.

There was a beat where only the ocean and the light wind in the air could be heard.

Then Thalia erupted in laughter.

“Oh, I see.

I see it now, Cian! You gave away so much yourself, man.”

She gave a little clap with her bejeweled hands.

“You cannot have that much power unless you gave up your very soul.

It is that third sacrifice, isn’t it? Not just blood.

Not just prayer and meditation and study.

The abstract.

The mind, the will, the heart.

Now I see!”

And she laughed again, but it was a laugh of rage.

“Explain yourself, Cian,”

hissed Hinnom, his eyes wide, but while his tone was angry, there was a wicked light in his eyes, as if he craved this kind of madness, this kind of fight.

“Cousin, how could you? Did you want the throne so much?”

Peregrine ranted, hand on his sword.

“Because I would have given it up to prevent the fall of my country, your country.”

“Scheming snake,”

Hinnom practically sang.

“I never liked you, Cian.

So composed, so prideful even when you were little.

I saw that grasping quality in you from early on.”

“What you saw,”

said Cian, now with intent and no more charade of innocence, “was a child with more sanity than either you or your brother.

Both of you want to keep Tintar in a dark age of war and vengeance.”

“There will always be war and vengeance,”

Hinnom intoned, diversion in his expression, almost as if he were watching a performance.

“But Tintar stands because Tintar is war and vengeance.

That is how the world works, cousin.”

Cian shook his head.

“It is time for a better Tintar.”

“You play a dirty game, brother,”

came the rumbly voice of Bamber, archpriest of fire.

“Your goddess will not forgive this so easily and she the most forgiving of all four.”

Cian’s face was without reaction, his right hand still clenched, the rock wall holding.

Alric was trying to scale the wall to get to me, but every time he got purchase over the end, the rocks at the top of the living wall would dislocate and replace, shoving him off.

He called my name, my true name, over the wall, looking at me.

“Edith!”

he cried again.

I met his tortured gaze, tears in my eyes.

Next to me, Thrush lowered his sword, standing at ease, already settling in their victory.

Thalia still laughed.

“Your goddess will not cover your bones in Nyossa, Cian.

No one will take you there when you die.

She would not even if we did.”

“You are confident in my being defeated and there being a body to take,”

he replied to her, calm but showing some aggravation at her amused disgust.

“Something comes,”

said Yro, his white eyes on Cian.

“Something is coming.

You brought this upon us and now, she will bring something even worse.”

“What the hell does he mean?”

Thrush asked Cian, who glared back at Yro.

The journal, I thought.

Gareth’s search.

Something’s coming of rock, roar and might

Something’s coming and with it, the stone sight

My eyes tore away from Alric’s and stared out again at Sister Sea, at the newly built warships flying the red Perpatanian pennant, closer now, the five drake rocks surrounding them, jutting up into the sunlight.

Gareth’s writing came to me then.

I believe a slice on the fleshier part of the left palm, cupped until full of blood and then poured out onto the body of the goddess will result in this.

This is of course unusual for earth temple staff as they usually prick their right hand on the sagaris pointed end hanging to their right.

This makes the mention of the use of the left hand’s blood one of significance.

The mossy rock on the top of the keep is likely the best place.

I brought my right hand to the top of my sagaris, eyes blurring on the sea before me.

Distantly, I heard both my first and second husbands saying my names, one Edie, one Edith.

In my head, I heard myself asking Thalia, what happened to him?

There was an earthquake.

We have not had one since the days of ancient Tintarians, those blessed with earth magic able to move mountains and manipulate boulders to erect buildings.

He was on the bluff when it happened.

It was a mystery, Edie.

No one knows why he was up there or what possibly could have ever caused that quake.

And his poor body was mangled beneath the rocks, most of them must have been jagged.

One of his hands was completely severed from the rest of his body.

One of his hands, I thought.

It would have been the left one.

Only the left hand of blood will summon the stone drakes

Only the left hand of blood makes them form and quake

I looked down at my left hand with its intricate ranunculus tattoo.

Cian’s hand was still outstretched.

From the inside of the cage of shifting stone wall, Thalia, Bamber and Hinnom yelled at him, the latter seeming to jubilate in being incensed.

Yro’s eyes were open and he was looking up at the sky as if he were alone, praying to Brother Air.

Alric was calling my name, his tone rising in panic, while Perch, Thatcher and Fletch all tried to scale the wall with him.

Jeremanthy and his men were conspiring as to how to exit the cage of Cian’s wall with its ever-moving rocks.

He had enclosed them up against the bluff’s edge and the other side of their prison was a deathly drop into thin air.

I looked down at my right hand, and flipped both sides of the sagaris scabbard outward, lifting the axe out of its hole in my belt.

I hefted its handle into my right hand, so that I held it in the middle of the length.

I stepped back so that I was supported at my back, shoulders against the watchtower.

Alric shouted my name again.

“What is that?”

said Thrush, just now noticing my weapon.

Something’s coming to split, to cleave, to surge

Something’s coming and slabs and crags will merge

I looked out again at those five, dark black and gray monoliths that never moved despite the force of Sister Sea.

Now the warships were even closer.

One of his hands was completely severed from the rest of his body.

For that is what Gareth Pope had not written down, his final conclusion as to how an earth Tintarian could summon the five stone drakes and reassemble them as mountain monsters of a long ago age.

My left hand will deliver them, his last entry had read.

My right command them.

It was too much magic for the mere shedding of blood.

The summoning required a whole hand.

Only the left hand of loss will bring forth the wonder

Only the left hand of loss to sacrifice and to sunder

He had sacrificed his left hand.

An earthquake’s crashing rocks had not severed it from his body.

He had done it himself, in a bid to summon the drakes.

And the magic, perhaps it had been too much for him and he had lost control, forgetting to employ his right hand to command the drakes, his mind filled with the agony of the severing of his own left hand.

He had been prepared for the rush of magic, but not the reality of the pain.

Somehow, in some way, I knew that in the core of me.

But, in knowing this, in learning from this, I could be prepared for both the pain and the power.

I could be prepared when I cut off my own left hand.

I have loved you too much, my mother wept in my ears.

This hurts, girl.

Both of us.

Tears streamed down my face as I looked at my man, shouting my name, beating his fists against the flow and the scrape of the rock wall, hurling himself at it.

Thrush, standing closer to me, sword raised still, was hollering at my holding up of my axe, thinking it was for him, not knowing it was for me.

I looked back out at the sea, at the stone drakes.

Five for five fingers, I thought.

Something comes of rock, roar and might

Something comes from first the left and then the right

In my ears, my goddess sung to me, a lullaby of a mother to her baby.

So strong, my girl.

This is the end and I be here with you through the last of it.

Keep your right hand steady before and after.

That is the trick of it.

Do not let the pain fill your mind.

And then, through all of the commotion around me, over the punishing tirade of Thrush, over Cian’s bitter replies to his accusers, decrying Tintar as a country of brutes in need of a better ruler than Hinnom, over the shouts of the Procurers, Jeremanthy and his soldiers, over Thalia’s sarcastic belittlement of Cian, Yro’s chanting of some worship to Brother Air, over Bamber and Peregrine’s damning Cian for his betrayal, I heard my true Knelling.

Not only did Mother Earth speak, but the other three gods of Tintar had their say.

Father Fire said, in the voice of an imposing ruler, you have had rage.

Brother Air said, in a voice that barely used more than a whisper, you have been free.

Sister Sea said, with a clear and inviting voice, you have gone deep.

And then my goddess spoke, tears and stones in her voice, you have loved me, girl.

And I, you.

If you do not bleed out, the magic itself will take your life.

It is a wealth of divinity.

Know that I love you.

I will greet your body in my wood.

But I am here.

For the last of it.

I slowly stretched out my left hand, admiring the ranunculus one last time and the slim silver wedding band on the ring finger.

I placed it beside me, flat against the watchtower wall, the scarred palm facing out.

On my right side, I held the sagaris out, level with my chest.

I turned to my husband and spoke his name.

In his efforts, he did not hear me and I spoke it again and he paused to look up at me, the other three Procurers with him, staring at me.

“Husband,”

I said, my words a choke, hoping he saw the love in my eyes.

“Take my body to Nyossa.”

He screamed my name.

And I brought the blade down on my left wrist.