“General Harper Tilcot,” the Lieutenant General said again, “leaves behind a beautiful,lovingwife, and cherished newborn son.”
“It’s a desecration,” Carly said again, her voice low butstrong. Heavy with meaning that made me look. “On pain of punishment, we will not allow such a violation.” A weighted pause, and then, “Are you with us, sister?”
My heart squirmed where it was impaled by a poisonous barbed hook. Pinned to my ribs, bleeding through a thousand tiny cuts all at once, for I knew that look. I could smell the reek of what she offered as it oozed from her pores.
It was a trick that had bitten me too many times to count, for my deepest scars weren’t from the fire of elite weapons.
Not from the lash of cruel whips, chains, or brutal, punishing flesh.
No, those earnest, wretched lies hadalwayscome from the simpering promise of friendship.
Again, I pressed against the captain’s thigh. Seeking comfort from the man who’d let me see what he really was.
A man who lived in the shade between truth and lies, but made no apologies for what he was and felt no shame.
My only ally.
My enemy.
He let rough fingers tangle in my hair, rewarding me with a ribbon of elite strength that made me shiver and cringe away from this priestess and her pretty lies.
And so, from between the points of my modified canines, I hissed an ugly truth, “I am not a priestess, and you are not my sister.”
Something painful flashed across her brows, there and gone before I might give it a name. But she schooled her features, nodded, and offered a tiny, sad smirk, before she said, “Something I hope will change with time.”
Before I could respond, she set her hands on her thighs. Palms up, the gold at her wrists caught the morning sunlight and threw glitter into my eyes. Blinding me for the instant it took for Carly to start humming.
So quiet at first that I wasn’t sure of the source. Couldn’t separate it out from the confident droning voice of the Lieutenant General as he spun beautiful lies about a man who’d been a monster.
But then another voice picked up the hum.
And another.
And another.
One after the next, each of the priestesses in the audience sang the same quiet song of mourning. Each of them assuming the exact same position where they knelt on silken cushions at their master’s feet. Palms up. Heads bowed.
The Caledonians began to shift. Uncomfortable in their seats as they tried to locate the source and didn’t think to look down. Discounting the slaves they thought already too beaten to consider even the smallest act of rebellion.
A delicate heat surged through the air, and acting on some unfelt trigger, the priestesses’ song escalated as it evolved.
Entrancing all who might hear it, designed to wash away anger and fear. To leave nothing but a sweet sorrow felt through the ages. Loss. Grief. An ode to suffering, and a loving farewell.
The priestesses sang in a language understood somewhere primal. Remembered in the blood, where ancient ancestors had gathered around a fire and celebrated their dead.
I was enthralled.
Drawn to the shimmer of raw power wetting the wind, I watched through wide eyes, unable to blink. Hypnotized by a flavor more beautiful than the pure, unfiltered chaos of the riot. It was the very wind itself. Delicate and trying to be precise.
Reaching for the sort of focus they couldn’t quite grasp.
Awed, I bore witness as the storm swept over me—aroundme. Leaving me untouched in the centre of a cyclone. Alone in the heart a blizzard, surrounded by priestesses who knelt with spines unbent. Their silent protest a sweet song that shivered through my skin with fingers that burned with the beautiful ache for sisterhood.
Beseeching.
To join them and belong.
I pulled a breath between the points of my teeth…
