The Scourge of Muirwood (Legends of Muirwood 3)

“You are Chione, the Unborn. Depart!”

On the third command, the wind stopped. The Myriad Ones were gone and Myrrha slumped to the floor. Her body convulsed and then she slowly, shakily, lifted herself up on her arms. She looked confused, bewildered by her location. She looked up at the Prince, her face a mixture of dread and sickness. She looked around quickly, scanning the floor.

“Was I…dreaming?” she whispered. “Where is the babe? Oh, you hold her. Was I asleep?”

The Prince stared at her. “Yes…in a way. What do you remember?”

“A room was full of serpents. One of them bit me. Where am I? My lord? Is this Dahomey?” She glanced around the room. “These are Pry-rian curtains. The rushes are from our moors.” She looked up at him, then her face quivered with horror. “What have I done,” she whispered, gasping.

“You are a hetaera,” the Prince answered sadly. “How can you use your power without your kystrel?”

Her hand went to her shoulder, as if it burned her. She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “What have I done?”

“I will tell you, Myrrha. You will not wish to hear it. You killed your mistress, my wife, the Princess of Pry-Ree.” His voice was thick with emotion. “You killed her with your hands. Days before, you murdered a man with a dagger. His body was found, but no one knew who had done it. It created suspicion. It caused distrust amidst my servants. After this child was born, you went to the corpse and handled it. The bodies of the dead bring diseases. You carried those diseases on your hands and touched my wife as you washed her. She is dead from the milk fever because of your hands and what you touched. Why do the Myriad Ones want my daughter?”

Myrrha’s eyes blazed with terror at the Prince’s words. As he spoke, it was as if she had witnessed everything she had done but from another’s perspective. The horror of it made her face twist with pain and dread.

“Answer me,” the Prince said forcefully.

The girl doubled over and vomited on the rushes. She trembled and quivered, her face turning as white as milk. “I am undone,” she moaned. “They will kill me if I betray their secrets. I will die if I do not, for I am a vessel of the Myriad Ones.” She looked up at him fiercely. “Save me, my Prince! I beg of you, save me!”

* * *

“We buried Lia this morning. We covered her body with stones, just as the vision showed me. There were serpent bites all over her body and she was black and bloated. Colvin wept silently, crouching before the makeshift ossuary. He kissed her forehead, despite the threat of venom there. I thought he was going to take the kystrel from her bodice, but he did not. The knowledge that she had succumbed to the hetaera test crushed his spirits. It is dusk now and the fete is about to begin. Tonight we will depart Dahomey, arm in arm. We are lovers now, in secret. He will defy them. He will betray the young king and forswear his oath of fealty. Together, we will sail for home where we can marry at Billerbeck Abbey, bound together for all the ages to come. My work here is complete.”

- Ellowyn Demont of Dochte Abbey

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE:

Ereshkigal

The struggle for Lia’s soul began with the serpent’s bite. When the venom from the fangs entered her blood, she collapsed in agony. The snakes engulfed her, slithering around her, biting, striking, piercing her skin with their poison. Her body convulsed and she became rigid, paralyzed by the venom but still awake. She could sense the Myriad Ones snuffling around her, she could hear the eager whine in their voices. Lia could not move, but she could hear everything. Another bite, another sting in her flesh. The venom overwhelmed her physical senses.

Darkness engulfed the room as the torch finally failed. Strangely, she could see. There was something in the dark, a form shifting, coalescing from the blackness and rising up until it formed the image of a woman. She had felt the presence before the venom had made her fall. The Leerings in the room shuddered with power as the woman appeared, their carved faces distorting, the stones glowing white hot. She wore a violet robe, decked with gold and jewels and precious stones. She was devastatingly beautiful, the sheer essence of her drew Lia in with admiration. A child of Idumea, a presence and a force that went beyond anything Lia had felt. She felt ashamed looking at her, for the woman was staring at her, eyes silver-white. In her hand she clasped a golden cup. Mist wreathed the rim.

Daughter.

Lia shuddered at the greeting, for it was full of warmth and empathy, not the anger of before.

“I am not your daughter,” Lia whispered, staring at the woman. The gold gleamed about her wrists and throat. The violet shape of the robe clung to her tightly, swaying as she approached. She paused to stroke the side of a Leering and it burned even hotter.