The Stone Sorceress

Chapter 28 - 29

Chapter 28

The 85th were sat around a fire somewhere between Daoine Maithe's destroyed fort and Nunnehi, the sea kingdom in the east. The weather was overcast, and there was a slight chill in the evening breeze. When each person spoke, a puff of air was visible.

"I had to keep being a sorceress a secret. I couldn't tell anyone. Not when people think what they do of us." Astraea looked into the fire. "But I didn't have to suffer alone; I met someone whom I could trust. He was strong, caring, learned, and he changed my life. He said that he would protect me from any evil that came for me. I could see that he meant it."

"You were in love?"

"Yes."

"The sorceri are incapable of it," Aurora uttered. "Well where is he then?"

"He perished in the village."

Silence followed.

"So that's how I came to be there before you arrived."

Sabriel bowed her head, but none around that fire really knew if Astraea was telling the truth, except Eros. "You see," he said, "She innocently came to be one of us. Thereafter she has fought amongst us, saving me from the flames, and aiding Sabriel against the cursed queen. Yes she deceived us, but who can blame her, knowing the secret that she has to carry?"

The others thought amidst a vista that was like the truth, covered in darkness.

Typhon said, "What about your mother? She must have been a sorceress too."

"My mother was. But then the vita obscura happened." A tempest flared up in Astraea's face. It was like a creature crawled under the surface of her skin. Sabriel clutched her pistol tighter, but the fury abated as suddenly as it had appeared.

"There was a boy who would watch my mother." Astraea shuddered at the remembrance of him. "Pale skin, and sickly eyes.

Mother and I went one day to the wood where she schooled me in magic. We heard a cry before, rushing through the thicket, we found the boy on the floor with a pack of Arihant wolves encircling him. He wasn't altogether worthless because he appeared skilled in magic. He resisted the wolves, but their numbers overwhelmed him. Mother didn't hesitate, and fought them back." Astraea angrily looked to the floor. "Even to that loathsome creature she acted with such tenderness, a far better woman than I.

The boy's face grew pale: death was taking him. He coughed blood while my mother knelt beside him. He said she was a sorceress, he'd recognised the signature in her magic. Mother affirmed. He begged her to save him from death, promising that he would not betray our secret."

Astraea stopped for the passage of several moments, her long black hair wafting in the night breeze.

"He lied, the vita obscura came, he skulking at the head of their columns." Astraea's disposition grew agitated. "Mother might have resisted, she might have fled, the men were afraid of her."

Aurora didn't like the tone with which Astraea spoke.

"But she reached a bargain with them, told me to travel as far away as I could, and to always conceal my hands and arms. I, a girl of 12 went off into the world alone. Mother remained, I have no doubt what the bargain was: she gave herself up without a fight so that I could be spared."

Astraea could continue no more, and wept terribly.

"If I meet that boy, with the wolf bite around his neck, I'll kill him." The sorceress watched the fire burn, detached and dispassionate.

Eros glanced at Typhon who had since fallen into a deep reverie.

"Am I really so terrible?" Astraea said.

Aurora was sympathetic to Astraea, but there was something inside her that she was averse to. "Your words evoke many a tender emotion, but your kind has a history writ in blood. And you're not human, that's all."

"The princess is right, the sorceri of ancient times, once noble, inevitably turned evil. There were no exceptions." Sabriel appealed to Eros.

"What will you have me do? Kill her for what others have done before her, for what she might do? She isn't like them."

"But," the princess uttered.

Eros silenced her with a look.

Chapter 29

In the aftermath of his duel with Eros, Lord Sutekh had retreated to his opulent mansion, the location of which remains unknown to the author of this tale. He dismounted Phanishwar, entered his regal abode and, taking a book on swords, sat before his fire on a crimson red sofa. It was here that he remained for hours, absorbing every word on the page, digesting it, when, in the midst of his ruminations, the triumvirate of unknowns appeared out of thin air.

The demons stood at the centre of the room; the leader, as if floating across Sutekh's carpeted parlour came before him, a chill emanating upon the villain's spine.

"10 years have we been tasked with watching you, Lord Sutekh. We have always looked on, and under our gaze, our master was confidant that he saw all, that nothing was obscured."

Sutekh grew uncomfortable in his seat.

"However, it appears that we've underestimated you. You have something precious to our master, something that long have you concealed right before our very eyes." The demon hovered before Sutekh, the remaining two lingered nearby.

"I don't know what you mean?" Sutekh said, protesting his innocence.

"I was there!" the black creature was furious at the insult. "I saw all at Cannered-Noz. I watched your dear Astraea. I saw the fire dragon, and I saw the mark."

"I don't know what you mean." Shaken at the Spectre's ambush, his words stuttered from his mouth.

"You lie. Astraea is a sorceress. You knew and yet you hid her from Bahamut, he is furious!" The table before Lord Sutekh shook from the tenor of the demon's voice. "Your betrayal however, is not beyond repair, you may yet prove your fidelity to Him." Sutekh looked with melancholy at the demon before him. It leaned closer, "The abomination--"

"No," Sutekh uttered.

"The dark soul must be harvested from Lucretia," Sutekh shook his head, he remonstrated, but the demon said, "Astraea must die."

"No," he moaned.

"Kill Astraea, send her to the underworld, or else you will go in her place."

Sutekh was defeated, his head buried in his hands. This was a cruel, and wicked either-or. He loved Astraea more deeply than can ever be expressed. He knew her secret, and had protected her from evil. But now that evil would be himself. It was either become the assassin of the woman he loved, or suffer in purgatory. It was an evil either-or.

The demons stood interrogating Sutekh with their eyes. Dejected and defeated, his voice barely audible, rasped, "I'll do it."