We hear from Nala in this second chapter of Our Sister’s Mage, my serialized dark fantasy novel. Let me know in the comments what you think!
New here? Read Chapter 1
Our Sister’s Mage – Chapter 2
Nala’s thoughts raced as she stood with Liam following Inkeri’s angry departure, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. She relaxed her toes as she must have tensed them up and curled them and never let go.
The rescue was nothing like Nala had anticipated. The Chronicles only talked about the beauty of a rescue and official reports made it sound so simple.
Nothing she’d read prepared her for the panic of the town, the calmness of the Venandi, or her own heart crashing into her chest as she tried to remain focused on prayer. She didn’t expect the mage to vomit after either, but of course the writers would leave that part out of the reports. The Goddess’ chosen should look heroic.
Inkeri was just as Cleric Kennet described. She was powerful and beautiful. Short white hair, incredible muscles, and few signs of aging. No wonder people thought she was the best Venandi of this generation, perhaps century. She was so commanding and calm, even in the face of incredible danger.
And she hates me.
Nala inhaled and found a sob in her throat as a higher wave shoved the ship into the dock and water splashed up on the shore. Two sailors stuck their heads out doors on board; they’d taken shelter there instead of trying to make it past the Dark One to the shrine.
Rosy returned to Nala’s side and sat against her leg. She patted the dog absentmindedly as her stomach churned and the cold burned the tears in her eyes. Rosy yawned and wagged her tail like nothing abnormal had happened.
“This means the Dark One is gone?” Liam’s voice fell flat as he waved at the gravel shore between the town and the dock, where no evidence remained of the eternal struggle between the Goddess and the Divine except for her mage’s breakfast.
“It is gone.” Nala forced a smile. It didn’t matter the mage hated her as long as Vasti was safe. “The Dark One has been rescued and returned to the Goddess’ rest.”
Nala swallowed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Liam didn’t notice or didn’t comment. The shrine’s bell rang again, aggravating her growing headache. They’d probably keep ringing it until Inkeri arrived at the top of the hill to share the good news.
Liam pulled his tunic taught and flattened it, tugging it under his belt to keep it in place. “The mage isn’t very friendly.”
Nala also smoothed her cloak, though it was still in the same place. Inkeri wasn’t friendly, but she did rescue the Dark One. The Goddess had chosen her. “It was probably a difficult morning.”
He crossed his arms in response and stared out at the dark sea, like during every other discussion they could have had in the past several weeks. Since the Dark One arrived.
Nala shivered. The demon was unlike anything she could have expected. Although near transparent at first, it turned into something darker and even more sinister once bound. It looked like all of her childhood fears emerged onto he beach in physical form.
She’d not seen it during any of its earlier appearances. She’d been at the shrine or run there. Her nose threatened to drip along with her eyes, and she pulled her cloak as tightly around her as she could.
“We should have run,” Liam said.
Nala blinked and stared at him. He continued to avoid her gaze. He hadn’t argued when she returned, or when she prayed. She thought she was doing the right thing. The mage was there, so she thought it was safe. “I just wanted to pray.”
She’d run back without much thought, except she wanted to see what happened. But when that thing appeared and Inkeri bound it to this plane, Nala could think of nothing else but to pray. Inkeri had been so angry, though.
And Liam was too, it seemed. His voice was cold. “Next time, you should run.”
“There won’t be a next time, thank the Goddess.”
“Maybe not here,” he said, “but you might run into one after you become a cleric.
After I leave. Her head throbbed at the thought.
Nala was destined to leave Vasti and attend Cleric school, for the Goddess. She was several years older than others who went, but Cleric Kennet assured her there was no age limit. She would go when she was ready.
Even after school, she still probably wouldn’t see another Dark One. They were rare. And they didn’t go to the shrines, as clerics could rescue them there almost instantly, without a mage or their knife. Nala already had the prayer memorized, though she was powerless until she was a cleric. Cleric Kennet remained at the shrine at all times since the Dark One appeared, so people could always go there and find safety.
The bell rang again, calling the town to the shrine. Nala rubbed her temple. “We should go. People will expect to see me there.”
He nodded and turned up the hill. His squad of soldiers would already be there; assigned to that position each time the bells rang. The townspeople thought it was for their protection, but Nala knew mostly it was to help prevent the chaos and unrest some towns saw when faced with a Dark One. Vasti had been relatively calm, waiting for the Venandi. And now they were safe.
She followed him up and turned in front of the brothel. How did Inkeri know it was a brothel? There was no sign; it was just another plain, graying two-story wooden building. Flashes of color in the window caught her eye. None of them matched each other, and all were too bright for the building. Perhaps that was how the mage guessed.
The sound of crunching gravel met them as they rounded the corner to the Main Street leading south. Carsten scurried toward the docks, red faced and panting as he slowed from a run. His plain work trousers and shirt were usually as tidy as Liam’s uniform but now lay untucked from the effort. The middle-aged baker had arrived in Vasti twenty years earlier when Nala was a baby, but never lost the look of a city dweller from Addi’s western coast.
“Is it true?” Carsten claimed to doubt the Goddess’ existence, but had still followed news of the Dark One and the impending arrival of the Venandi like everyone else in town. “Is it gone?”
“Yes.” Nala applied her calmest, most serene face. She hoped her eyes weren’t still wet. “We are safe.”
Carsten shook some and nodded. He rubbed his arms as he must have left his shop too quickly to grab his cloak. “What was it like?”
“Beautiful.” It was supposed to be beautiful. She’d believed it was beautiful. Now it didn’t feel anything other than frightening. “The Goddess’ mage rescued that poor soul from an eternity as a Dark One.”
He glanced at the retaining wall between the town and the dock and down onto the shore. “Did it fight?”
“Not like I would expect,” Liam answered. “It appeared to think about it, but the mage was too fast.”
It was supposed to run or fight, and it didn’t really do either, Nala realized. That’s what all the reports said. Dark Ones ran once bound from the mage, or they fought the mage. They didn’t just stand there. She’d have to ask Inkeri. If she could work up the nerve.
“It was over very quickly,” Liam continued. “The first sign appeared on the shore, and by the time I could draw my sword, she appeared in front of it. Saved a sailor, too.”
Even if Liam didn’t like Inkeri, he’d appreciate her skill at combat. Nala liked that about him; he could find the good in people. She’d have to leave him in Vasti soon if she left for school. She swallowed and shut her eyes for a moment. The bell rang again.
“I beg your pardon,” Carsten gulped and tried to control his breaths. “It is just, well, for these many months we’ve been plagued by this thing and the mage just made it go away?”
Carsten had always been honest about his lack of faith in the Goddess. No doubt this experience would challenge his thoughts. Nala opened her eyes and smiled, like she was supposed to. “Such is the power of the Goddess.”
He nodded, but frowned. “I’m thankful, of course. It is just confusing. What did the mage have to do to get rid of it?”
Nala thought back to the shore and Inkeri as she faced the smoking, wraith-like demon, and shuddered. “First, she bound it to this plane by calling upon the Goddess and commanding it to stay.”
“And it did?” Carsten asked.
“It did.” The thing materialized into its solid form in front of the mage. “Then she stabbed it with her bone knife, and it vanished.”
The simple version in the books was much cleaner than reality. They left out the screeching and the scent. Nala wondered which dead Venandi provided the bone for Inkeri’s knife. Her stomach lurched.
“It just seems so fast,” Carsten said.
Months of fear and waiting, all over in a moment. It was disorienting even for Nala, and she’d known what to expect.
“Carsten,” Liam said, “you could go up to the shrine. You don’t have to thank the Goddess, but you could thank the mage.”
Nala cringed. She didn’t know if the Venandi would be polite to the baker, or scare him away from the Goddess.
“Her name is Inkeri,” Liam said.
“I might do that.” Carsten looked over his shoulder at the road leading south and where it met the hill. “I just might. But first, I promised Ezra I’d bring him some blankets.”
Ezra was the oldest in Vasti. He couldn’t climb the stairs, so he’d be at the bottom with his blind wife while everyone else trekked up tot he shrine. Carsten employed them both, though it was unclear how much work either actually completed. Nala smiled; Carsten always helped, even if he didn’t believe.
“Thank you.” Carsten bowed. “Thank you so much.”
He turned and ambled back down the street, much more slowly than he’d come. The bell rang again; even though it was unnecessary. The road south was clear of people other than Carsten. Everyone had run to the shrine. Except for Nala and Liam.
Nala stood in the doorway to the east garden and stared at the remaining people in the shrine. Liam pressed against the outside of the building, next to the door, cloak thrown back in the warm late afternoon air. He’d sent most of his soldiers back to their barracks to rest, and a few to the mine to share the good news.
The doors all stood open to increase the air flow in the building. Stone walls, the stone floor, and the wooden ceiling kept the warmth and the smell inside while people blocked the main door at the front of the building and Nala barred the side door into the garden.
Green plants and the first budding purple flowers of the season lay in disorganized heaps across the offering platform wrapped around the front half of the hundred-foot to a side room. These weeds were the best the people could offer to the Goddess in this season. Ten plain, wooden benches, once aligned in an orderly fashion that morning, lay in random patterns across the stone pavers. The back half of the shrine was empty, save for the people, as not that many usually visited the building.
“Praised be the Goddess.” An old man rocked as he stood nearby, muttering his prayers up at the white-stone statue of the Goddess at the center from of the room. “Thanks to our Sister, the Goddess, for her holy mages, the Venandi.”
The man had never come to the shrine before the Dark One. Now he’d found his faith in the Goddess and made the trek daily, struggling up the hundreds of stairs even when the Dark One didn’t appear. The rescue drew even more people to the shrine, even some of the few settlers who lived outside of Vasti. Many who had never studied the Chronicles of the Prophets, or forgotten what they’d learned, heard Cleric Kennet speak on them at length.
The whole room smelled of sweaty, dirty people. Nala would have to clean it out later and organize the offerings, such as they were. She stared across the room, where the smaller wood door to the kitchen and sleeping area lay closed behind the people and fire. Ulla stood there, preventing entry to the cleric’s personal space and sparing Inkeri any interruption to her rest. She was too old to actually stop anyone, but it was her job as the shrine’s Kalderi.
“Wonder why Inkeri isn’t out here helping?” Liam crossed his arms. “They came to see her. To thank her.”
“I’m sure she’s tired,” Nala said. She offered a smile; he always got aggravated when he was hungry or tired, and he’d not eaten all day. “Just like everyone else.”
He scowled. “They came to thank her. It isn’t that hard to stand here.”
“They came to worship the Goddess,” she corrected. This wasn’t true either as many had come with the bells to hide, but they’d remained to worship.
Liam shrugged as his eyes drifted across the side garden, which was at least as large as the worship area. Several townspeople sat outside, praying amidst the well-tended plants and flowers, laid out according to Nala’s sense of organization. It was too early for most flowers, but the Goddess would understand their intent, if they were faithful.
“Seems like part of her duty.” He nodded at the people in the garden. “These people trudged up here.”
Surely he didn’t think climbing the stairs was as difficult of decades of training and fighting against Dark Ones and Harbingers? “I think her duty was to rescue the Dark One, which she did.”
“Duty doesn’t end after a battle.” Liam should have been an officer with his education, but instead he was a squad leader assigned to the middle of nowhere, quoting books nobody recognized.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re not doing anything but standing there.”
“I was ordered to come stand here.” He rested his hand on the sword at his side. “And somebody had to defend you since you wouldn’t leave during the rescue.”
This again? “With your sword, which wouldn’t have helped anyway?” Nala regretted it as soon as she said it, but didn’t want to back down. This wasn’t her fault.
He waved his free hand aimlessly in the air as his volume rose. “I suppose I should have just left you then?”
“Maybe next time you should,” she snapped. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. They would have died if Inkeri had failed, with or without his sword.
“Well, since I’m not your man, maybe next time I will.”
“Not my man?” Had she said that?
“That is what you told Inkeri after she yelled at you.”
She did say that. “I…”
The old man cleared his throat inside the open door. Three of the people in the garden dropped their heads, pretending not to listen. Nala blushed, ears and cheeks burning with the rush of blood.
Inkeri had called Liam her man. The mage had known, somehow, and it aggravated Nala. They weren’t married. He wasn’t her man that way, yet. He probably never would be.
Liam leaned forward and dropped his voice to an angry whisper. “I thought we were still together. While you figured out your plan.”
Her plan, to serve the Goddess. Like she was doing right then. Like she’d been doing when she prayed at the docks. The whole reason they didn’t know if they were together is her plan always came into conflict with being with him. Like right now.
“We are together.” Nala tried to control her voice; to be less angry. “It has been a stressful day, that’s all.”
“When I’m stressed,” he said, “I don’t forget who I’m with.”
Her anger flared. “No, you just get rude and condescending.”
“That’s—“ He let out a deep breath. “I ought to go check on my soldiers.”
So he could yell at them too? “You should eat.”
“Maybe I will. But here comes Cleric Kennet.” He nodded back into the building.
Nala looked through the door and found Cleric Kennet to her left, near the front of the room. He moved along the eastern platform toward the garden door, grasping hands with people as he passed. His patched green robes dragged along the floor as he walked, and the white hood appeared gray from many years of use. Wispy silver hair floated above his head with each breeze through the door, and his sagging cheeks rose only slightly with each smile.
He’d spoken at length in the hours following the rescue, as everyone in town able to ascend the stairs filled the shrine. He was the only reason the town hadn’t fallen apart while they waited for Inkeri to arrive. The Dark One would appear, stir up panic, and then leave. Many said it moved items, and at least one fire was blamed on it. Dark Ones could have that power, of course, but it wasn’t common. Cleric Kennet convinced everyone to wait for the Goddess’ mage.
She bowed her head forward as Cleric Kennet approached.
“Nala. Liam.” Cleric Kennet glanced at the worshipers in the garden and the blue-gray sky above. “The Goddess has made her presence known today, that’s for sure.” His voice was tired to the point of sadness, though the truth brought everyone comfort.
“She has,” Nala agreed.
Cleric Kennet took a deep breath of air as if he was cleaning his lungs. “I was not expecting the Dark One to appear so quickly, but it is gone now.”
“Praised be the Goddess,” Nala knew she should feel grateful, but she just felt tired from the rescue and angry with Liam.
“Nala, I was wondering,” Cleric Kennet said, “if you might help me. There is a woman here, a visitor, and I just had to tell her that her husband died two months ago.”
He pointed back into the building, across the fire and past the people. The woman who had stood behind Inkeri at the docks waited near the front door to the shrine, head down.
“What does she need?” Nala asked.
“She has no place to stay,” Cleric Kennet said. “I’m sure Gessa and Nick will have a room. They are good people and can help comfort her. Could you take her down there?”
“I can take her,” Liam said before Nala could speak. At her glance, he added, “I need to go eat anyway.”
“That would be kind of you,” Cleric Kennet said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll go now.” Liam nodded to Nala and bowed to Cleric Kennet, then weaved his way around the worshipers and benches in the room to approach Rosemary. She barely looked up before following him out the front door.
“Her husband?” Nala thought back. “Was he the one they found frozen and asked you to do the death ritual?”
“Yes. Some even wondered if he was the Dark One returned, but of course that’s unlikely. He was a Kalderi, she tells me.”
Ulla was a Kalderi; those who worked for the Church of the Goddess but were not clerics. They usually remained in their home town. “How did he end up here?”
“She said he volunteered,” Cleric Kennet said. “He was on his way to teach, presumably at the mine. He never stopped by here, though.”
“Did they tell you he was coming?” Nala asked. Cleric Kennet received regular reports from the Church, and they should have told him about a Kalderi set to arrive.
“Not that I recall.” Cleric Kennet tapped his cheek with his finger. “The man apparently stopped by the brothel as soon as he arrived. I didn’t mention that to her, of course.”
“No, of course not,” Nala said.
Cleric Kennet looked out over those in the garden again. “So much sadness, even after the rescue. Now they’ll return to thinking about their sufferings instead of the Dark One. Not much will change, but they won’t come here as often to pray about it.”
Nala said nothing. She never knew how to reply to his depressing thoughts.
He turned back to her as suddenly as a man his age could move. “I hope to meet with you and Inkeri later about the rescue. It seems wise to record it.”
“Of course.” Nala tried not to sputter. She didn’t expect to receive an invite to the official meetings. She was but an acolyte.
He frowned. “She will likely repeat herself about your actions.”
Inkeri had told him. Nala ducked her head.
“It was a rash thing to do,” he said. “Don’t do it again. But don’t let a Venandi’s wrath bother you either.”
Nala looked up. “I thought you liked her?”
“I like her just fine, for a Venandi. She serves the Goddess well for her duty. But they aren’t meant to tell us what to do, Nala.”
“Yes, Cleric Kennet.”
Cleric Kennet had served at a Venandi school teaching history for over a decade. It is where he’d met Inkeri. Nala wondered if his view of the Venandi had started dim and remained the same, or if his time there had soured him toward the Goddess’ chosen warriors.
“They suffer for the Goddess, you know,” he said. “That holy symbol on their chest. It can kill them if they aren’t worthy. I don’t think they think clearly about things other than about the Dark Ones as a result.”
“And the Harbingers?” He’d said Inkeri was known to hunt them almost as efficiently as she hunted Dark Ones.
He shifted. “Some would argue they are not the Venandi’s duty, and thus they may not be as clear about them.”
“What do you think?” Nala asked.
“I’m not sure it matters. Inkeri believes they are her duty, and you won’t convince her otherwise.” His gaze shifted to inside again, and he smiled at someone. “Make sure you also eat. It has been a difficult day.”
“Yes, Cleric Kennet.”
Cleric Kennet dropped his eyes, nodded, and returned inside. His robe dragged even more than normal as his shoulders sagged under his exhaustion.
Nala stared across the room then along the outside edge of the building. She couldn’t start cleaning yet, she didn’t want to walk around and have to talk to people. Unsure of what to do, she crossed her arms and leaned against the building.
The silence overwhelmed her almost instantly. Without anything to keep herself busy or anyone to talk to, the mornings’ events came rushing back. She rolled into the wall and pressed her forehead against the cold stone. She’d almost died. Liam had almost died. The Goddess’ mage had yelled at her. Liam had yelled at her. Cleric Kennet was unhappy that she’d been yelled at.
This isn’t the place to cry.
She pushed off the wall and turned toward the back of the shrine, scurrying away from the garden before the tears came. Nala made it to the back of the building and found no one there in the unkempt woods. She found an oak, placed it between her and the shrine, and sat down to do all the crying she’d avoided all day.
If the Dark One is gone, why do I feel so terrible?
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