The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (26 page)

The beleaguered hinge screeched as the remnants of the door exploded inward, boards breaking. Trenan rushed into the storeroom, Osis close behind.

Abandoned.

A table sat in the center of the small space, a bowl of dirty water on top of it; one chair, a crate, a couple of half-empty sacks of rice and flour, a dirty pile of hay, and an empty shelf mounted on the wall. Trenan stepped farther into the room, disappointed his instincts had proven wrong. Finding they were no closer to recovering the prince made his gut clench until he spied the trap door.

The cellar.

The worn and crushed thresh that covered the rest of the floor was absent from the top of the hatch, as though it had been recently opened. As if someone had climbed down, unable to replace the thresh.

“Have a look down there,” Trenan said.

Unlike Dansil, Osis responded without protest—the reason Trenan chose the sergeant to accompany him into the storeroom instead of the queen’s guard. In the master swordsman’s opinion, watching a doorway was the best use of the big lout.

Osis gripped the ring in the trap door with one hand, his sword held ready in the other, then glanced up at Trenan. The swordmaster stepped up beside the sergeant with Godsbane poised to strike, then nodded. His companion pulled the door open, dropping it on the floor with a thud, but nothing emerged from the cellar’s depths except the odors of stale urine and scat. Without a word, Osis descended the ladder, leading with the tip of his blade.

Trenan watched him go in the wan light spilling into the room from the shattered door. Normally, he’d have chosen to go himself, but navigating a ladder with one arm would require he put away his weapon, leaving him defenseless. The sergeant realized this and took action without needing to be told—another reason Trenan had chosen him over Dansil.

When Osis disappeared into the darkness under the floor boards, Trenan returned to the doorway and peered toward the far end of the alley. In the distance, Strylor leaned against the corner—nonchalant, but right where Trenan wanted him to be.

The master swordsman went back into the store room, making his way around its small and dim interior methodically. He paused by the table, peering into the dark and cloudy water filling the bowl set upon it. Lips pursed, he rested the crown blade against his thigh and plunged his hand in but came up with only a filthy rag.

Nothing but dirt and dust under the table and on the shelf. The amount of mouse shit he found in the rice as he sifted it through his fingers disgusted him; he squeezed the sack of flour, but it contained naught but flour. Finally, he crossed the room to the pile of dirty straw and kneeled beside it.

The pleasant scent of hay that usually reminded him of his youth in the country had long since disappeared from the sleeping area. Trenan’s nostrils flared at the mixed odor of filth and sweat, but he inhaled deeply anyway. For his troubles, he caught a faint, coppery odor. He set his sword aside and leaned forward, picking through the pieces of straw until he found one spotted with brown. Raising it to his nose, he sniffed again.

Blood.

Anger and worry and guilt flooded the master swordsman’s chest. He couldn’t be sure to whom this blood belonged, but he knew it was Teryk’s. The prince had been here, he was suddenly sure, but they’d missed him.

A crash from below the floor boards yanked Trenan from his thoughts. He snatched Godsbane from where it lay on the floor and jumped to his feet, hurrying across the room to the trap door.

“Osis,” he called. “Are you all right?”

For a moment, the sergeant didn’t respond. Trenan waited, breath controlled and sword gripped ready to strike. He opened his mouth to call out again, silently wishing he possessed two good arms to climb down the ladder to his companion’s aid, but the shuffle of footsteps below stopped him. A few heartbeats passed, then a woman appeared at the bottom of the ladder. She tilted her head up toward Trenan; the light from the broken doorway cast shadows upon her face, giving her the appearance of having only one eye. An instant later, Osis was beside her.

“Up you go,” he prompted.

The woman grasped the rungs and ascended the ladder.

“Please don’t hurt me, sirs,” the woman begged as she climbed. “Take whatever you want, but don’t hurt me.”

Trenan raised a brow. “We’re men of the king,” he said.

The woman reached the top and clambered awkwardly into the storeroom. Now she was out of the cellar, the master swordsman saw her missing eye was no trick of the light. When she spoke, he realized her eye wasn’t the only thing she lacked.

“I heard you say so when you knocked on my door. I ain’t got much for you to take, and I’d gladly offer you my wares, if that be what you’re looking for.”

“Your wares?” Trenan tilted his head. Did she have something hidden below in the cellar?

The woman nodded and a sly smile crept across her face, clearly showing her two missing teeth. She grasped the front of her dress and lifted it, revealing to Trenan the tangle of graying hair between her legs. The master swordsman turned away. Anger flashed in him at the woman’s assumption they’d come for that. Did other of the king’s soldiers demand such services of her? The thought made him sick. He forced it from his mind, concentrating on why they were there and ignoring the implied misconduct by members of the army.

“Put your dress back down. That’s not why we’re here.”

The woman did as Trenan said, then glanced from the master swordsman to Osis, who’d climbed out of the cellar behind her, and back again.

“Why else would two king’s men visit if not for a roll?”

“We’re looking for someone.”

“Ain’t no one here but me,” she answered too quickly.

Trenan’s eyes narrowed. “You haven’t seen anyone out of the ordinary in these parts?”

She shook her head briskly.

“A young man? Twenty turns and dressed in a merchant’s finery.”

The woman’s one-eyed gaze darted between Trenan and the door. When it returned to the master swordsman, she couldn’t hold his stare and looked at his feet. Her hesitation in answering lengthened, and Trenan knew it meant the next words out of her mouth would be lies.

“I ain’t seen no one.”

“I see.” Trenan stepped toward her and she raised her head. She took a step back, but Osis standing behind her prevented her from going far. “And where is your son?”

“My son? I don’t have a son.”

Trenan scowled and moved another step closer.

“The tanner told us he rents the storeroom out to a woman and her son,” he said. The woman flinched as though he’d struck her. “Where is he?”

The woman’s lips pressed tight together, the top one moving as she rubbed the space between her teeth with her tongue. Trenan resisted the urge to grab her by the throat and demand the whereabouts of the prince.

“He’s out, is all. I sent him to market.”

The thought of asking her why she’d lied occurred to Trenan, but he didn’t bother. She lied because the prince had been here—he’d known so as soon as he found the bloody straw. He pursed his lips and glared into the woman’s eye as he spoke to Osis.

“Go get the others,” he said, his voice tight and controlled, full of menace. “We wait here until this woman’s son returns.”

XXVI Ailyssa - Reception

Ailyssa’s disgust at the mention of what men did to her Daughter faded, dwarfed by Claris’ loss and her suspicions.

Since her arrival, Ailyssa had heard babies crying in the third floor nursery, calling for their Mothers’ milk or the change of their underpants. But she hadn’t realized the lack of small feet padding along hallways, the laughter of toddlers, the insolent tantrums of children.

There are none.

“No Daughter remains here beyond the first turn of the seasons,” Claris said.

Ailyssa barely noticed her Daughter speaking, her mind twisted by the day’s revelations—Claris loving a man, enjoying physical pleasure with them. Now, her Daughter’s Daughters had been taken long before the start of their blood.

“Why? Why take them at such a young age?”

Fabric rustled as Claris shuffled closer to her Mother until their legs touched. When she spoke again, she had leaned in, moving her lips close to Ailyssa’s ear.

“Some of the Sisters whisper that N’th Adenine Re’a has expanded the reach of Jubha Kyna, opened other temples.”

“As has Olvana,” Ailyssa replied, not grasping her Daughter’s implication.

“Adenine does not do it to honor the Goddess.”

Ailyssa faced Claris, raised her brows. “What do you mean?”

“It is not faith, but coin that drives her.”

“What does that have to do with your Daughters?”

Claris hesitated before answering; Ailyssa felt her brisk breath against her neck.

“Some men are willing to pay a great deal for unspoiled flesh.”

The skin on Ailyssa’s arms went cold.

“They’re…” Her voice caught in her throat and she swallowed. “They’re babies.”

“I’ve been told they take them early so they learn Adenine’s way of life. How young they are…pressed into service, I don’t know. I suppose it depends on how much money is offered.”

Ailyssa’s mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. What could she say in the face of such atrocity? Beside her, Claris’ breath shuddered. The older woman put her arm around her Daughter’s shoulders, pulled her tight against her.

“I…” No other words came out.

“Others suspect, too,” Claris said.

“Why doesn’t someone do something about it?”

Claris shook her head against her shoulder. “Because we don’t know where they are. If we did anything, what might happen to them?”

“This is terrible. How can the Goddess let this be?”

“Let what be?” The voice came from Ailyssa’s left and the sound of it prompted Claris to her feet.

“N’th Adenine Re’a,” she exclaimed.

Ailyssa’s heart bounced in her chest and she pulled an unconscious gasp of air through her teeth. She stood unsteadily, arms reached out in front of her until a hand grasped hers.

“What can’t the Goddess let be, N’th Ailyssa Ra?”

The hand squeezed and Ailyssa realized it was Adenine who gripped her. She considered pulling away, but what would that accomplish? Would she run blind through an unfamiliar garden? Gain her freedom by fighting? Despair and hopelessness weighed on her the way the man’s body had pressed down on hers the night before. Maybe the Goddess let these things happen—as she’d let Ailyssa be cast out—because she didn’t care.

“Well?”

The hand squeezed harder. Ailyssa ground her teeth, memories of her friend Adesi banishing her, of waking up unable to see, and of being forced to couple with no chance of honoring the Goddess boiling in her chest and up into her throat. She could hold it back no more.

“Where are the children?” she said through her teeth.

“The nursery is on the third floor. Didn’t Creidra show—”

“Not the babies,” Ailyssa snapped. “The children. Where are my Daughter’s Daughters?”

Adenine hesitated three breaths before responding. “Daughter’s Daughters?”

“Claris’ girls.”

“I see: Claris is your Daughter. What a wonderful…coincidence.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

The woman tugged on Ailyssa’s hand, pulling her a couple of paces away from Claris. “They have been sent away for training. Does Olvana not separate Mothers and Daughters?”

“Not until their blood begins.”

The hand holding Ailyssa’s rose and fell as N’th Adenine Re’a shrugged. “So it is done differently at Jubha Kyna than in Olvana.”

Ailyssa chewed her bottom lip, eyes darting, seeing nothing. “But Claris and some other Sisters think—”

“Were you upset when they required you to give up Claris?”

“Of course.”

Adenine took Ailyssa’s other hand in hers, stood facing her. Ailyssa wondered if she might be wearing a placating smile on her face or if she’d bother wasting the effort on a blind woman.

“That happens here, too,” she whispered. “Any Mother is upset when her Daughter is taken, though she knows it to be the will of the Goddess.”

Why does she keep her words from Claris?

“But they’re so young.”

“Things are different here, N’th Ailyssa Ra.”

Ailyssa tilted her face away from Adenine’s. The rage tightening her chest loosened. Could Claris be wrong? A Mother upset and worried over her children?

“If this is the case,” Ailyssa said, the words drawn out as the thought formed. “Then let Claris see her Daughters.”

“That is not the Goddess’ wish,” Adenine said. “Did you see Claris after they took her to begin the rest of her life?”

Ailyssa’s shoulders sagged as though the air had been let out of her body. Of course she hadn’t seen her Daughter; she’d spent the last nineteen turns of the seasons wondering what had become of her. How much harder was it for Claris with her Daughters taken from her so much younger? Or was it easier?

“I didn’t. I’ve known nothing of her until today,” Ailyssa conceded.

“I know. Such is the way of the Goddess.”

Adenine released her hold on Ailyssa’s hands and her feet scuffled on the dirt path as she moved away a couple of paces. Without knowing where Claris stood—she hadn’t made a sound while Adenine and Ailyssa spoke—an immense pressure of being alone rested on her shoulders.

“Claris,” Adenine said.

“Yes, Mother of Mothers?” Claris said, shuffling forward.

“I have changed your schedule for today. Other Sisters will fulfill your appointments.”

“Yes, N’th Adenine Re’a.”

Relief flooded through Ailyssa. She’d worried that speaking out might end up in punishment for her—it certainly would have in Olvana. Instead, it appeared the Matron intended to grant her and Claris time to themselves. She parted her lips to thank Adenine, hoping to assuage the situation, but the Grand Matron spoke again before her tongue formed the words.

“You will come with me, Claris.”

“Of course, N’th Adenine Re’a.”

“Ailyssa, you shall wait here. I’ll send Creidra for you. I think you are ready to experience a Reception.”