Page 137 of Scourged
“It’s a troublesome thought indeed to realize that our goddess has abandoned us. But as I said, Priam has spoken to me. He has shared how we might still save our country and our families.”
More silence answered Ksee as she paused. Anniliese’s heart thudded in her chest, her fingers back to playing with her black stone necklace.
“Priam has long hidden behind his Consort, hiding his true strength from us. But no more. Tonight, we will beseech him for his blessing and call forth the truth of his power. We know him as the one who escorts our dead, but he is so much more than that. With his power, we will become unstoppable, regardless of whatever pretty gifts Qhohena and her cursed sister may throw our way.”
Fear—true, sickening, twisted fear—wormed its way into Anniliese’s gut, settling low, just beneath her lungs. It clenchedtight, wrapping around her insides, even as the gardens erupted into cacophonous cheers.
A slow smile spread across Ksee’s face. She turned back to Lord Shawth, dipping her head to him once more.
“We are ready for you, My Lord.”
Shawth nodded, and the other Royals rose from their seats as he took his first steps down the dais. The six Royal lords of Onita followed him down the garden path to where Ksee stood in the center, patiently waiting with her six white-clad priestesses kneeling behind her, each as still as a statue.
Nothing about this felt right to Anniliese. Nothing at all. But there was nothing she could do but watch.
Ksee turned to her priestesses. “Rise, followers of Priam.”
They rose as one, heads still downcast.
From a pocket concealed deep within her gown, Ksee withdrew an object. A flat bit of shining black stone, inscribed with runes and letterings in a language Anniliese did not understand. The Royals strode past Ksee, each moving to stand behind a priestess.
A priestess for each lord.
When Anniliese saw the glint of six steel knives appear, it took every bit of her control—every single year of court training, every brutal slap across her ribs and thighs, every night sent to bed without dinner for speaking or acting out of turn—to keep herself from crying out. From breaking right there. From doing anything other than what she did.
Which was … nothing.
Ksee turned to the first priestess, Lord Beauchamp standing behind her. The High Priestess murmured a few words over the stone, either too quiet or in a language that Anniliese’s ears refused to register.
The girl’s hands trembled beneath her white robes.
“Thank you for your sacrifice. Be with Priam.” Ksee’s prayer rang out across the gardens.
Just before Lord Beauchamp slit her throat.
Air choked in the priestess’s lungs, her hands grappling to hold in the fluid as her lifeblood poured from her neck. It dumped over Ksee’s hands, over the object she held.
Beneath the blood, the runes pulsed a strange orangish gold, like the color of a dying sun. A ringing started in Anniliese’s ears, and she swore the sky darkened, just a touch.
Ksee moved to the next priestess. This time, it was Lord Cordaro who was to end her life. Those runes pulsed brighter, the air buzzed, the sky dimmed.
Again, with Lord Campion.
It was soon Anniliese’s father who held a blade to a young woman’s throat. The girl couldn’t be much younger than Anniliese herself, and yet her father pressed cold steel to her pale neck and drew it back, spilling ruby blood across the stone in Ksee’s hands.
Anniliese feared she might be sick. But she held her back rigid, her hand wrapped tightly around the choker at her neck. As if desperate to know that it was not her throat, not her blood.
Not her.
It didn’t help much.
Next, Lord Laurent. His cut was deep and brutal, and the girl’s head nearly split from her body as she collapsed to the ground.
By the time Ksee arrived at Lord Shawth, the grassy garden floor was slick and seeped with blood, the High Priestess’s white gown stained ruby-red. The strange stone pulsed brilliantly, and above them, blotting out the setting sun, gathered a dark mass of writhing shadow.
It felt the same as the hallways of Lord Shawth’s family wing. Vile and evil and wrong, something that shouldn’t exist in this world but was filled with wild glee to be here.
Shawth brandished his weapon. Ksee lifted her voice.