The Tattooed Heart (Messenger of Fear 2)

Messenger was no more fond of discussing menstruation than any other male, and I almost laughed at the fleeting look of panic that appeared and was quickly concealed. “Of course,” he said. “Take a day. Do you have, um . . . whatever you need?”

I resisted the perverse urge to panic him entirely by launching into a discussion of tampons and maxi pads and contented myself with a simple, “Yes.”

He left me alone then with a promise of twenty-four hours free. I had the odd thought that I needed to get my mother to call the school attendance line and excuse my absence, but that was another life. That was a life without Messenger, without Daniel or Oriax.

Or the Shoals.

I went first to the book of Isthil, and scanned page after page, looking for any reference to the place that even Messenger referred to only in hushed tones. I quickly became frustrated with the limitations of paper—if only the book was searchable! Can Isthil not release the Kindle version? But at last I found a few couplets on the topic of something called the Temple of Regret.

The brave who pass shall go forth free.

The weak, the fearful, evil, we,

True freedom’s comfort never see,

Till gathered up in misery,

And to the dread temple crawl,

The temple built of pain and gall,

There by regret learn, as we all,

That life misled leads us to fall.

And in our silent torment see,

Existence hangs on such as we,

And thus from sin and evil flee,

So man and all his world may be.

It seemed a silly bit of doggerel to describe a place I had been taught to dread. But it was the only reference I could find that even seemed to refer to the Shoals, if indeed this poetic “dread temple” was that selfsame place. Unfortunately Isthil’s rhymes did not tell me much, though it implied, as I’d already inferred from Messenger’s hints, that it need not be a final destination.

Could I go there? I suspected that I could. Indeed, I believed from things that Messenger and Daniel had said, that such a pilgrimage would be a necessary part of my training as a Messenger of Fear.

So, Mara, I asked myself, if you have to go eventually, why not now?

Because, I answered sensibly, I would be going alone, without Messenger as my guide and protector.

Yet, Messenger dreaded the Shoals for what he might find there. He feared finding Ariadne. I believe he feared he would find her hopelessly, helplessly trapped in whatever purgatory that place presented. The hope of finding his lost love was all that kept Messenger strong. I now knew that it was he who had subjected her to the torments of the Master of the Game. It was he who performed the Piercing that surfaced her darkest fear. And it was he who would have stood by helpless as she endured. It was all his duty as a Messenger, inescapable, but that knowledge would not blunt the jagged edge of his guilt.

The decision was made without me consciously making it. It had been made when I lied to Messenger in order to buy myself time. I’d wasted hours of that time searching the book of Isthil,

only to find meaningless gibberish that told me nothing new and did not in any way prepare me. And now, having stalled and gained nothing, I was left still with the same decision: I must go to the Shoals.

I did not need to know its location, I needed only to know that it existed, and then form the clear will to be there. But I was afraid; I have no reluctance to admit that. I was afraid. I searched the room around me for something to carry as a weapon, but what weapon could possibly defend me from what the book called a place of pain and gall? I had seen the Master of the Game. I had seen the Hooded Wraiths. I had felt the malevolent rage of the incubus, and the ever-so-enticing force of Oriax. What weapon could I carry to defend myself from powers such as those?

The Shoals.

I felt myself standing at one of those divergent paths, one coasting along passively with my training. The other path was the one not given but taken as an act of will. In deciding to take that path I was perhaps committing a grave error. I was perhaps altering my own fate in ways that might prove disastrous.

I had played along, gone along, occasionally cried out against unfairness, but mostly I had acquiesced and played the obedient apprentice. Had Haarm’s example somehow inspired me to rebel? That didn’t feel true, but it might be. I believed he had made a very bad decision, but he had at least made a decision. He had grabbed his fate and given it a good shake.

The Shoals.

Yes. It all led there. I had seen the rest of the process from confronting the accused to the recitation of evils to the summoning of the Master of the Game, and beyond that to the Piercing and the punishment. I had seen some destroyed and some reborn and one escape. But I had not yet seen what happened to those who were crushed by Messengers of Fear.