Empire of Ashes

Chapter LXXVI - Soujorn

The priest had started the service in our absence, so we had to sneak between the divans to find two which were not yet occupied. All of the nobles were seated for the time being, and many frowned at the sight of the crown prince and a slave girl disturbing the service.

As we walked, Mikal whispered, "Today is Lithmas. Halfway between the first milking and the day of the dead. We will drink poppy-water to help shake our souls loose from our flesh, and then we give thanks to the gods."

"Poppy-water?" I asked quietly.

But he did not answer — he had reached a divan and sat on it, leaving me to claim the other. Sure enough, there was a ceramic cup waiting upon it, and I eyed it with suspicion while the priest droned on about striving for enlightenment and unlocking our full potentials.

There was a lot of droning. And then another priest arrived to drone some more, and then another sacrificed a lamb to the gods. The poor creature bleated and struggled from the moment it was dragged into the room until the moment its throat was cut. The blood was collected in a pail, and a priest carried it around the room and smeared some onto the forehead of everyone present.

It was horribly warm against my skin. Within a minute, I could feel it drying. A clumsy streak stretching from my hairline to the spot between my eyes, where it branched across each cheek and down the sides of my nose. It was supposed to be a five-pointed star.

It was only once every single person had been marked that we were told to drink our poppy-water. I lifted the cup to my mouth with reluctance. The contents was bitter and milky white, and I downed it all before it could make me sick. Then I lay back on the divan, staring up at the grey ceiling, and I closed my eyes.

Slowly, the droning of the priest faded away, and I felt my mind drifting. It was like being drunk, only more sudden. Within seconds, I was not in my body but rather above it. Floating, light as a feather.

And I saw without seeing. Without looking. I had no choice but to watch because I could not avert my eyes. I had left my eyes with my body.

I was standing in front of my farmhouse, only the walls were dark red instead of white, and the thatch was smouldering. The smell of smoke and rotting flesh choked me. There were a pair of little skeletons impaled on the fence — the twins, long dead. There was another skeleton lying on the road amongst the ruts and hoof-churned earth.

And then I heard Emri scream, and everything flashed red, and then I was somewhere else.

It was the inside of the chicken coop, cramped and dark, and my mother was collecting eggs from beneath the corpses of chickens. Each and every one of them was missing a head, but the eggs were perfectly intact. My father watched her, one hand resting on her back and a smile on his face.

Now the visions came in short, broken flashes. My sister Avelin kneeling beside Koli's crib, wiping blood from her tiny fingers and toes. An Anglian soldier laughing as he opened little Quin's stomach with a spear point. A beautiful meadow of wildflowers where Eirac and Colloe sparred with shards of bone.

And then I was falling, down, down, down, and I was back in front of the farmhouse. This time, it was normal. Exactly as it had been the morning before, the air heavy with rain and the clouds dark grey and threatening. The fields were green, and birds wheeled ahead.

I could hear the farm dog barking, I could feel the mud squelching beneath my boots, and I could smell fresh-baked bread and chicken shit. Emri was stumbling towards me, taking her very first steps at ten moons old, her dark hair wind-tousled.

"Come on," I had laughed. "Just a little further."

But every time I had said it, I had edged backwards just a little, until I had tricked her into walking halfway across the yard. I was not laughing now — there were tears welling in my eyes and a sob caught in my throat.