Content warnings : Non-graphic/implied sexual assault, implied physical abuse, blood & gore, death, suicide. Please only read this if you have the mental and emotional energy to handle those topics. Take care of yourself.
Deani shifted against the stone floor. She’d hardly spent any time kneeling in the temple’s inner atrium during her daily prayers, let alone in the middle of the night – the cold was worse than she’d anticipated. Still, she didn’t know where else to go at this point, and Euphra had always told her that Nabia was the ultimate sanctuary.
Deani looked up at Nabia’s tree, the idol her life had been dedicated to. She spent half of her childhood trying to catch a glimpse, of what she didn’t know. The closest she ever came was two knots in the bark that could almost pass for eyes if she squinted hard enough.
“Can you see?”
No response.
“Hear?”
Still nothing.
“… Feel?”
The silence didn’t break, of course. Deani imagined if Euphra had been there – she would have offered some lame platitude at least. Where was she now? Was she, even? Deani flinched at the thought. Perhaps that’s where Nabia was, watching thoughtfully over the suffering of her faithful servants, over the woman who tried her best to raise her…
At the very least, Deani knew she had no excuse to expect Nabia to be with her anymore.
A crash sent Deani whirling around, heart racing. Seeing Yora standing in the doorway, the tension left her and her unconscious grip on her dagger loosened. He was here to save her like always, this time keeping her from sinking any deeper, though the lingering shake in her hands seemed an omen of a drowning yet to come. His face was red and splotchy, wreathed by sweat-drenched rivulets of hair. Deani’s gaze left his bloodshot eyes, travelling downwards…
She looked back up to his eyes, opened her mouth, and closed it again.
“It’s going well, my love.” Yora appeared next to her, leaving her staring flatly at the now-shut door. He grabbed her wrist, aggravating the ring of dull bruises as he lifted it and gently kissed her palm.
“Are they…?” Deani glanced back at the red stains.
“My men are taking care of it now. My heart must take priority, of course, especially since we couldn’t have done any of this without you.” Yora’s smile broadened, lingering on her for a moment before he turned to Nabia’s tree and let it fall into a thoughtful scowl. “A charred throne… It would be a pleasing metaphor, no?”
The air ripped its way out of Deani’s lungs. The temple’s control had to come to an end – she knew what that meant, agreed to it even – but she had purposefully avoided imagining the details of what that meant. Now, though, it couldn’t be put off any longer. As she looked at Nabia’s tree, she didn’t see the goddess. She didn’t even see the temple’s shadow. Instead, she saw Osdora hiding behind it the day she arrived, then both of them curling behind it every day since. She saw them growing, melting into each other just to squeeze themselves in as they snuck fruits from the offerings, giggled over the rare handsome worshipper, confessed their doubts and fears…
“Yora, one of my sisters -“
“You have no sister.” An answer to a question not yet asked. “I will be everything you need – brother, friend, husband… lover.”
Deani blushed under his darkening gaze. “Yes, but I… I will need someone with me until you can be my, um, lover… no?”
Yora’s laugh was sharper than she remembered. “You are too innocent to know what you’re saying, but if you’re that concerned about waiting… We don’t have to.”
“Oh.” Her muscles froze, caught between tension and slack. She looked at the door. “But you said that there was a, uh, a ceremony first. To bind us. First.”
“My god, our god, is not vengeful, love.” Deani felt the blood drain from her as he circled his arm around her waist. “We are to wed soon. He knows that. He will forgive an indiscretion, especially when it is in celebration of his victory.”
“I don’t think -” His lips stopped hers, bearing down until a bitter metallic taste filled her mouth. He pulled away, his chest heaving. Deani slumped to the side, twisting her knees as she went. She thought of the man who whispered promises to her, who made her heart flutter. Had his eyes ever been this wild? His clothes this red? Her hand went to her wrist, stopping shuddering only when she pressed into the bruises there.
Maybe they were, when she wasn’t looking.
She had to leave.
“No, you- you said we had to marry first, to preserve my, um, honour and -” Yora’s hand on her throat froze the words in her mouth, his thumb gliding against her skin until it reached her pulse. He pressed down, feeling the life within her.
“This is an honour, Deani. You will come to understand that.”
Deani looked at the gnarled wood. When she saw it again, if she saw it again, she knew it would not be the same. Whatever Yora and his men did with it, this was the moment she destroyed it.
She let her eyes lose focus until dark tendrils began winding their way out of the craggy bark like twitching fingers looking for something to grab. One found her wrist, burrowing into her veins, then another, then another. The curse found her, and the darkness came from the inside this time. She let it take her.
Yora had long since gone, leaving her lying on the floor with gentle words and a peck on the forehead. She heard noise for a while, maybe distant, maybe just outside the door. Either way, it had long since faded by the time Deani got up. Her legs creaked from the chill that had seeped into them, but the sharp sting between them overshadowed any other comfort.
She wasn’t sure how she ended up in the hall, only that the next stumble brought her to a door – her door. Her feet trailed in a dark tacky liquid with her, not that it mattered much. The room was drenched in it already. Osdora’s eyes were still open, so Deani thumbed them down before laying next to her. It almost felt like before.
“Hey Osdora,” she whispered, “Remember that boy I told you about?” Deani paused as if waiting for a reply. Though smiles rarely graced Osdora’s lips – they were more often cracked and lightly bloodied with worry – she’d never looked quite this sad. Deani sighed. “I think you were right about him.”
Osdora’s hand slipped from her stomach as a gust of air escaped her corpse. Deani grabbed the cold flesh before it could fall and held fast. A stray cat had died in the temple’s gardens when Deani was a child. She had cried for days until Euphra told her that all things became one in death, a sea of souls rocking and cresting into infinity. It sounded so peaceful.
Years later, she would ask Yora the same question, just out of curiosity. He told her that animals simply rotted when they died, but people would be rewarded or punished depending on whether they were good or evil souls. Nonbelievers were always punished, though – rejecting his god was the most evil action possible. That’s what he wanted to save Deani from.
Deani sighed, squeezing Osdora’s stiff hand. “Either way, I will see you again, Dora.”
Deani awoke to a soft hum and a hand stroking her hair.
“Euphra? I think I’m sick…”
The hand froze, nails digging into her scalp for a moment before relaxing and smoothing her stringy hair back into place. “You’re fine, love. I’m the one who was worried sick. What were you thinking, wandering off like that?”
Her breathing stopped. The light was still so soft with her eyes closed, warm and red and pulsing with life. She opened them slowly, hoping to minimise the pain, but as soon a crack appeared, the stark light washed over them.
“It’s done, then.” Deani felt betrayed by how steady her voice was. Turning away from the light, she realised Osdora was gone. Yora had taken her place, his hand somehow even heavier and waxier than hers.
“Almost, love. We’ve been waiting, but I hated to wake you. The people are outside. You just have to announce it. Then, our future begins.”
Dean started to laugh, only for it to fizzle out in exhaustion. “I don’t think I’m presentable.”
Yora frowned, looking her over. “It’ll have to do. We can’t delay any longer.”
“I don’t think I can move.”
“Then I will carry you. I must serve you as you serve me, after all.”
Deani debated sagging into his arms, forcing him to drag her out from the temple gates, but she knew she didn’t deserve it. The door creaked open as a guard came to check on them. Before Yora could scold him, Deani got to her feet and smoothed her robes.
They deserved to know who did it.
Sharp, heaving breaths. That was all Deani could muster between her screams. She hadn’t even been able to finish the announcement before the wailing started. The guards had dragged her back inside while Yora and his men descended onto the crowd. Deani had seen children among them – had Euphra given them their first blessings? Who would give them their last?
Deani’s eyes turned to the two guards left with her. How she wished they would meet her eyes and see. So few people saw. That’s how she’d ended up here. Blindness. Her wails quieted to deep sobs, letting her hear the guards’ laughs, tinged by the wine of victory –
“They told us this land was wild, but they never said how fierce the animals were!”
“The half-blood favours the bitch who bore him, that’s clear enough. Not just vicious, but dim too – he still thinks he can play lord, and this heathen whore his lady!” A solid kick to the jaw silenced whatever whimpers still snuck their way out of Deani’s throat. The taste of iron filled her mouth as she let herself sag to the floor.
Deani closed her eyes and waited. There was blood on her, some dried, some still flowing. Perhaps if she waited… Her breathing slowed, but with time the flows became trickles, and then nothing more than new dark and crusty trails. Hear tears, too, had long since dried to clean streaks. She opened her eyes again, wondering what the guards would do if she attacked them. Yet as she turned to face them, she realised they were no longer anywhere to be seen.
Alone.
Peace started to rise in Deani, only to pull away as she heard the crackle of fire. She let it go. Pushing herself up, she crawled towards the window and lifted herself just far enough to glance outside.
Not a charred throne, then. A pyre. The wind shifted and Deani gagged on the smoke. She dropped back down, trying to escape it, but a haunting sound drew her back up. For as many screams she’d heard that night, none matched this – it was only when Deani squinted against the light that she realised why.
Euphra was using her last breaths to sing a hymn as she burned alive. It was the same song she’d hummed for Deani on her first night in the temple, trying to calm her to sleep. The next morning, Deani had awoken to Euphra sleeping on the floor next to her, still holding her hand. The hymn became their private evening ritual for a time, and even after she had settled, she’d occasionally ask Euphra to sing it again. The last time she’d heard it must have been years ago, Deani realised, when she still dreamt of becoming a leader in the temple, of drinking from their pool of prophetic water that was their land’s very lifeblood.
A sharp pain pulled Deani from the memory. Glancing down at her wrist, she realised her veins, blue just a moment ago, were now a roiling, writhing mass of black. She gasped at the pain as her body boiled from the inside, once again plunging into darkness.
It was different, this time.
The darkness softened, revealing something just in front of her – a golden thread, gently pulling her chest forward. She soon saw others, too, shooting off in every direction. There were hundreds of them, their soft glow softening the space. Deani let her thread take her, crawling through the fog of pain until she heard a sharp ping. Her cheek stung, and she moved to touch it. Pulling her hand away, she found her own black blood staining her fingers. Turning to face the source of the sound, she saw another golden thread snap, its frayed end whipping towards her and slashing her cheek. One after another the threads severed, each leaving a shallow gash in its wake.
Deani closed her eyes and bore it.
When the assault ended, she found the void much darker, with only a few tenuous threads left. The one in front of her tugged harder now, so she pushed on, keeping her eyes focused on the few soft lights left. Somewhere, she heard the metal clanging, laughter, voices… and then finally a soft burbling. The blackness receded back into her, and she found herself bloody-kneed by the sacred pool.
Seeing her reflection in the water, Deani couldn’t help but grimace. Her hair was dark and matted, her skin mottled red and blue and black. This was where it had all begun, she realised. If she hadn’t fallen in that day, if Yora hadn’t pulled her out… There was no point in imagining it now. Her heart twisted as she remembered her vision.
Yora, haloed by the golden light of a champion, standing in front of the temple.
Euphra would be proud, to know her first vision was true – if it was a vision, that is. Deani’s mind refused the thought, though it still found footing deep in her subconscious.
A boy, framed by the midmorning sun, saving a dazed girl.
Deani knew now why Euphra always said she wasn’t ready for anything, let alone the responsibility of a prophet, but she was all that was left now. She slipped her trembling hand into the water, bringing a shallow handful back to her bloodied lips. A strange rasping noise came from behind her and Deani turned toward it, fighting the sluggish muscles in her neck. By the time she could see the temple in the corner of her eyes, it was already crumbling. A moment later, she watched it blow away like ash in the wind. The plants around her withered and died, the rich soil fading and loosening until it was no more than dunes. The animals died not long after, falling under the relentless sun. Where once a city thrived in lush valleys there was little more than sand, sky, and the few emaciated figures still unfortunate enough to be crawling through it.
Deani choked, forcing the water to dribble out of her mouth. She looked down and watch the droplets, no longer clear but black and steaming as the rest of her blood, sprinkled across the grass, causing it to wither. Her blood, too, had managed to snake its way down to the pool, where she saw a growing patch of thick sludge.
So that was the future she had wrought, the future she would leave her people. Poison.
She heard screams in the distance.
Was that the future she was leaving them? She saw the golden threads disappear, she saw the pyre and the blood and the bodies. No, if that was the future, it would not belong to her people. It would belong to Yora’s.
A faint smile split Deani’s lips. She bowed forwards, thanking Nabia for the curse she’d given her. She knew now that it was a blessing, as all things from Nabia were. If she’d understood that earlier… Euphra had never told her if the visions were warnings or mere notifications. Perhaps this was Nabia’s will, an act of fate itself.
Either way, Deani would ensure that her final prophecy was true.
Rising, she stripped off her robes, peeling her scabs off with them, and neatly folded them next to her. She took one last look at her reflection before sitting on the edge and sinking in. The water turned dark and viscous, frothing around her – but it wasn’t enough, not for her. She wanted to fester alongside this land, to haunt it forever and ensure its destruction. Yora, his men, their descendants, their conquerors, anyone who laid claim to this land would inherit little more than a wasteland, Deani would make sure of that.
It would take great magic, but that was what Nabia left in her blood.
Taking one final gulp of fresh air, Deani slammed her head onto the rocks with a resounding crack. She watched her blood melt to dust as she collapsed.
She smiled.
seryfia 
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