Things get steamy in this chapter of my serialized dark fantasy, Our Sister’s Mage! And by steamy, I mean not very, as it fades to black. Sorry but that’s how I roll in this novel.
This is my draft, so expect to see thing change in the final version. Have a thought to make it better? Let me know in the comments!
New here? Start with Chapter 1.
Our Sister’s Mage – Chapter 5
Inkeri wished her drink would stay warm longer. The tea, honey, and whiskey mix was always good for cold weather, but she didn’t drink her alcohol quickly. It was too dangerous for a Venandi to get drunk. She sipped it silently as Rosemary sulked across the table from her in Nick and Gessa’s inn.
Nick was out fishing and Gessa tidied up around the dining area, pretending not to notice the Venandi, except to get her drink. The inn was small, but well kept.
“It is too early to drink,” Rosemary finally said. She pushed a coin back and forth across the table in front of her and took another gulp of her drink; something considerably stronger than Inkeri’s tea. “Too early.”
There wasn’t an inappropriate time of day to start drinking when you’ve discovered your husband is dead, but Inkeri didn’t interrupt her. In the two days since she arrived, Rosemary had witnessed a Dark One’s arrival, learned her husband had died, and discovered the man had visited a brothel before freezing to death in the woods.
At least he wasn’t sacrificed.
Rosemary reached under her tunic and pulled a rose medal free. “Askel got these for us eight years ago.”
Inkeri studied the metal rose. Rosemary probably thought it was Thelven, but it was only silver as it didn’t upset Inkeri’s balance. She would have known if Rosemary carried Thelven on the ship. “When did he join the Kalderi?”
“Before we married.” Rosemary smiled. “It was the reason my parents didn’t like him.”
“Didn’t like a Kalderi?” That seemed odd for a wealthy family from Pan. They were all obnoxiously devout.
“Well, didn’t like me marrying him.” Kalderi didn’t make much money in service to the Goddess. They were practically volunteers in some situations. “But we were in love. And I loved the Goddess. My parents kept us well supplied, anyway.”
Inkeri nodded. She thought of asking where the body was found; thought better of it.
“I don’t think he got the rites in time,” Rosemary said. “Cleric Kennet did them anyway. He’s a kind man, but he didn’t get it in time.”
The rites ensured the dead went to join the Goddess. Good or evil in life, if you had the rites in death, you entered into eternity with Deidre. If you were a devout follower who died without the rites, the outcome remained the same. If you were not a follower…
“Some people worried he was the Dark One,” Rosemary said. “Said he’d been running around with a woman from the brothel. Probably cheating on me. Wasn’t worshipping the Goddess. Turned into a Dark One.”
Inkeri said nothing. It seemed unlikely; Dark One appearances rarely happened right after a death, even the death of a Harbinger. Nobody knew where their souls went, but they didn’t return within a few months. People needed something to blame though.
“No chance he was cheating on me.” Rosemary took a long drink.
Inkeri sipped her tea at the same time.
“He couldn’t get it up.”
Inkeri clamped down hard on the tea as it threatened to exit her nose, burning as it went like she’d inhaled fire.
Rosemary chuckled. “Sorry. Sad way to know your husband won’t cheat on you, but good to know now.”
Inkeri laughed and wiped her nose, grinning despite the remaining burning feeling which extended up past her eyeballs. It was good Rosemary retained her sense of humor.
Askel’s death likely had nothing to do with the Dark One. The man probably attempted to reach the mine upon arrival, gotten lost in the wild, and either encountered wild beasts or froze to death. But a Kalderi willing to leave the continent of Pan and sail to the other side of Addi in the service of the Goddess would have stopped by the shrine to offer thanks and check in with the local Cleric. Kennet, Nala, and Ulla did not remember seeing him.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Rosemary said.
“It does not,” Inkeri agreed.
Rosemary nodded and stared into her drink.
Inkeri closed her eyes and envisioned the layout of the town. Venandi always liked to know where things were, just in case they had to teleport there. A man leaving the brothel near the docks could walk south toward the shrine, but turn right at the road which ran along the western side of the massive hill and toward the mine. The road to the shrine was straight. The stairs up were straight. The shrine itself was visible to most of the town.
Most everything in Vasti sat on a nearly tidy grid. The market square was literally a square on the east side of the main road, chopped into four smaller squares by smaller lanes. This inn sat to the east of the main road as well, past the market square and over the stream cutting a nearly straight line through the town. The shrine rose above all of it; he would have had to miss it on purpose.
“Will you go back when the ship departs?” Inkeri asked.
“I don’t know. When does it leave?”
“End of next week.”
Rosemary pushed the coin back and forth on the table again. “And how long until the next one?”
Surely the woman wasn’t considering staying? “Another two weeks, at least, assuming good weather.”
Rosemary stared down into her drink. “I don’t think it is true; the story about Askel. I don’t think he wandered off and died by accident.”
He did not wander off by accident, at least. “You think it was on purpose?”
“I don’t know,” Rosemary said. “But what they told me doesn’t make any sense.”
“Rosemary, you can’t stay here.” The woman was from Pan and wealthy and wouldn’t know a thing about surviving in the frigid north of Addi. She didn’t know anyone and didn’t belong.
“Would you leave?” Rosemary looked up. “If you thought they were wrong about your husband’s death? If you thought somebody may have killed him?”
Inkeri pushed her tea around the table. “No. I wouldn’t.”
Inkeri strode through the empty worship area and shook the lingering cold from her shoulders. Goddess knew what her hair looked like; a storm brewed outside and the wind whipped against her the entire walk up the stairs.
She’d visited four taverns and two inns over the day, and the closest thing she’d found to Harbinger activity was the ignorant theory Rosemary’s husband could have been the Dark One. No one knew of anything suspicious; nobody blamed their neighbors for evil deeds. Perhaps Vasti held no additional mystery, no evidence of the Divine or his minions, no further reason for her to be there. The Clerics could mark it down as just another random appearance of the Divine’s minions.
They were probably right. Inkeri would claim to keep looking though as it gave her something to do. She didn’t want to wait for the ship in the shrine.
Several candles lit the dining area as Kennet and Ulla sat at the table. The Kalderi seemed to have recovered some vigor even while Inkeri was there; a result of the Dark One’s rescue and reduction of stress. Inkeri would write to her Venandi son and let him know his mother was well.
“Inkeri!” Ulla waved a mug in the air as greeting. “Join us! We were just discussing important topics. You can have whatever he’s having.”
Kennet smiled, a rare sight, and drank from his mug. A smudge of dried liquid hung on his white hood. He pointed to a pitcher at the center of the table. “Help yourself.”
She peered into the pitcher. After a day of slowly drinking in some taverns and pretending to drink in others, Inkeri was tired of ale. She slid into one of the open benches. “Not today, but thank you. What important topics are we discussing?”
“Ones that require him to drink, apparently,” Ulla said.
“Again, you could have some.” He nodded at the ale on the table.
Inkeri laughed. “I’ve been drinking all day!”
“Ah, the busy life of a mage,” Kennet said. His eyes dropped to his cup at the insult. Clerics frequently claimed mages did nothing but drink and have sex between their rescues.
Inkeri picked up the pitcher and poured more ale into the Cleric’s mug. She wasn’t in the mood to argue. And he wasn’t entirely incorrect.
As if sensing the Cleric’s tension, Ulla said, “We were discussing an easy question. Why does the Goddess allow Dark Ones to appear at all?”
Inkeri snorted. The question ranked somewhere between “why does the Goddess allow suffering in the world” and “where did I leave my boots” in terms of difficulty to answer, but that never stopped people from asking.
She’d asked the question herself many times in school, and then silently many more times after she was on her own. Inkeri had asked that question out loud in more than one drunken stupor after Catherine’s death, but none at the taverns had answers.
Ulla continued, “And why does she need mages to rescue them?”
And why does she let them die?
“The Harbingers would say she can’t stop them herself,” Kennet said. “Of course, they also think the Dark Ones are here to help the Divine save us from Deidre.”
It was the same conversation everywhere, anytime somebody asked. Nobody had any new theories about the Dark Ones in centuries. The Clerics had moved on to the theology associated with making new Clerics and Venandi, and the Venandi had just moved on.
“Where did they come from?” Ulla asked.
“Who?” Inkeri put her elbows on the table. “The Harbingers?”
“Yes,” Ulla said, “why do they even exist? They make about as much sense as the Dark Ones.”
Inkeri sat upright and proudly repeated one of the few things she remembered from the Venandi instruction. “All evil arises because of other beings on other planes who send their demons to this plane to harass her loyal followers and create chaos. She has blessed humanity with ways to fight these creatures, and is very pleased by her warriors.”
“Very nice,” Kennet said. “I’m surprised you can still remember that. I assume you’ve not been practicing.”
Inkeri laughed. “Not really, no.”
“Still doesn’t explain the Harbingers,” Ulla noted.
“No, it doesn’t,” Inkeri said. “The Divine, or whatever it is they worship is able to find evil people and they join his cause.”
She looked to Kennet to see if he would correct her with the official line, all about how these men and women were confused; deceived by an evil spirit and led away from Deidre. They couldn’t be evil themselves, of course, or it wouldn’t make any sense for Deidre to save them upon their death if they received the death ritual.
But Inkeri knew differently. They weren’t confused. They were evil. What the Goddess did with them after they died was irrelevant.
Kennet said nothing.
Ulla said, “I just don’t get why you’d follow something to cause more suffering. Don’t we already have enough?”
“They probably think the Goddess causes the suffering,” Kennet said. “Many are led astray by such thoughts.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ulla said.
“Is it?” Kennet asked. “Inkeri rescues Dark Ones with the power of the Goddess, yet her holy symbol causes immense pain to do so.”
Ulla leaned forward. “You’re not saying Deidre causes suffering, are you?”
“No,” Kennet said, “I don’t know where suffering comes from. I’m just pointing out the Harbingers are not completely insane.”
Ulla stared down into her water. Inkeri had seen a lot of suffering, starting at an early age. The Goddess might not cause it, but she sure as the abyss didn’t do anything to stop it.
The Chronicles of the Prophets were full of words of wisdom from men and women across the ages who the Goddess had spoken to, or who claimed she spoke to them. She wouldn’t admit it to Kennet, but Inkeri had studied those words repeatedly looking for answers. She found none.
Inkeri inhaled and decided to change the subject, lest she take out her thoughts on her table mates. “I saw Rosemary again today.”
Kennet pulled himself from whatever thoughts about suffering held him. “Tragedy about her husband.”
“So he really never did stop by here?” Inkeri asked.
“I didn’t see him until they brought him here for the death rites.” Kennet shrugged. “He must have been in a rush to get to the mine.”
“Odd.” Inkeri agreed it didn’t make much sense, but there wasn’t any reason to suspect foul play. The man stopped by the brothel, probably paid some woman to disappoint her, and then set off for the mine after too many ales. She’d never convince Rosemary.
Still, there was something odd about Vasti, but Inkeri couldn’t find it. If the rich woman from Pan could figure it out without getting herself in trouble, then good for her.
Inkeri rose, afraid to have too many more theological discussions. “Well, I will leave you two to settling the problems of the world.”
She closed the door between the hallway and dining room behind her as she entered the darkened hallway. The wind picked up speed and sounded like howling from inside the stone building.
Light spilled out from Nala’s open door on the right side of the hall. She passed it as quietly as possible, as she wasn’t sure she could handle the young woman after a day of pretending to be social.
Soft light also crept under her own door. Nala or Ulla probably prepared for her arrival, but her anxiety rose in response, regardless. She’d spent all day looking for Harbingers; what if they’d come looking for her?
They wouldn’t have a candle lit.
She pushed open the door to her room without stepping inside anyway. As the door swung all the way open and hit the wall softly, she spotted the true reason for the candles.
Wesley.
He grinned from her bed, sprawled out on her blanket as he leaned back against the wall, pretending to read a book. Warm furs lay to his side, smashed between his body and the wall. He was just the same as the last time she’d seen him. Curly brown hair fell in tangled heaps down to his shoulders, with a strand threatening to block her view of his matching dark brown eyes.
Eight years. She started to reach up and check her hair, but stopped awkwardly halfway. Too late now.
He raised his eyebrows at the open door. She checked down the hallway before she turned and slowly pulled it closed. She slid the wooden bolt across the frame and closed her eyes to compose herself before she turned around.
“Wesley,” she lowered her voice so the others couldn’t hear her talking. Or she hoped the others wouldn’t hear her talking.
“Inkeri.” His voice was restrained but louder than necessary. Wesley jerked his head at the door behind her. “The storm is loud. Besides, what are they going to do if they hear me?”
She took a few steps forward, basked in the new mossy and leather smell of her room, and failed to contain her smile. “Kennet will kill you if he finds you.”
He cocked his head, just like he did when he was eighteen. “He’s an old man.”
“How did you get in here, anyway?” With Ulla and Kennet in the dining room, there was no way into the hallway. “How long have you been here?”
He held up the book. “Long enough to get halfway through the little acolyte’s book of poetry.”
“You took that from Nala’s room?” Inkeri stifled a laugh.
“I got the wrong room when I came in. Figured I should take something to read while I waited.” He smiled, a smile that no doubt caught the attention of every woman he met. “Besides, I wanted to give them a reason to be mad if they found me.”
She rolled her eyes and moved closer, keeping her voice low, and tossed her cloak over the chair. “You know exactly what I mean though. Why are you in Vasti? I’d heard you’d come this way a few years ago, but I didn’t expect you’d stay.” Even if I did look for you.
“Like the scenery.” His eyes tracked up and down her form. “Though it has recently improved. Drastically.”
“I bet.” After he’d left the mage school with no warning and no explanation, Wesley had gone from port to port, finding whatever women and employment appreciated his intense work ethic. She raised an eyebrow. “What trouble are you causing here?”
He spun and swung his feet over the edge so his boots thumped on the floor. “Are you suggesting Vasti and its incredible beauty, charming locals, and freezing cold weather aren’t reason enough for me to be here?”
Inkeri flinched at the boots. She didn’t want anything to interrupt their reunion, especially Nala. She stepped in front of him, legs almost touching as she looked down. “You can’t have a job here in town; Kennet would know.”
Wesley’s warm hands grasped hers and pulled them forward. “Maybe he does know and didn’t tell you.”
“That seems unlikely.” She resisted the urge to lean down and kiss him, though she wasn’t sure why. It was inevitable. “He’d have a fit.”
“Perhaps.” His breath smelled like mint, just like always.
She rolled over the options in her mind as she leaned away, though he still held her hands. There was only one thing of value in Vasti, and that was the silver. She cocked her head to mimic his earlier expression. “Are you stealing silver from the mine?”
“No.” He dropped her hands and put them on his hips. “I haven’t set foot in the town’s mine. The army has their own side gig there anyway. Don’t think they’d appreciate me.”
Interesting. She didn’t care about the mine’s side operation, but it explained why those soldiers never came to town. Did Liam know?
Inkeri squinted her eyes as she stared down at Wesley. There might be something else out in the wild of importance, but the silver still drew her attention. Greed was a always great motivator. “Just please tell me the mine doesn’t have harbingers.”
He grabbed her hips. “Always thinking of the job.”
“Trying not to die.” She leaned down, brushing her forehead against his. Warmth like that from her symbol spread throughout her body, but without the blistering pain.
“I haven’t noticed any harbingers,” he mumbled.
She considered Wesley might not be able to identify a harbinger if they went so far as to sacrifice a child in front of him, but his hands squeezed her hips and rolled her over onto the bed and all the thoughts left her mind.
“I didn’t really come here to talk,” he whispered into her ear.
“Oh…” Her breath caught in her throat.
He paused and leaned back. “Is this the first time we’ve done this in a shrine?”
“The Goddess smiles on us,” she said. Hope we can keep this quiet.
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