A Hand Weaving Chaos (Book 2 of The Fallen Gods Trilogy)

CHAPTER ONE

Darkness.

The aldar teres brought her to a place of total darkness, depositing her in a realm without light. She couldn't even tell if she was indoors or out. The absence of light made it impossible to guess her surroundings. Her eyes refused to adjust—no light existed to cast shadows or throw shapes into relief. Nothing but darkness.

In it, time ran on without measure. It could not be called evening, or twilight, or night. Those were all reflections of day. Only the darkness remained consistent. It encompassed her completely, leaving her in a bubble of waiting, living in its limbo.

There were smells though, and terrible sounds. She tried not to think about either's source since she doubted they would be very pleasant. Both nearly made her nauseous, but they were bearable because she had no idea what caused them. If her mind threatened to drift off into curiosity, she would ruthlessly pull it back. Life had trained her not to puzzle relentlessly over such details. If she could hide in her bedroom closet for two days while her parents' bodies rotted a handful of feet away from her, she could endure this too. She had to.

In this world of aldar teres, the creatures moved swiftly about her. Always she could feel them near her, hovering. As she huddled with her knees drawn to her chest and arms wrapped around her, hands swept by her. Bodies touched her. Clawed fingers grazed her hair, scrapped along her skin and clothes. They made guttural and chittering sounds that could have meant any number of things. They mauled her in a careful, intimate way that left her cowering at their nearness. They did not violate or assault her, but their closeness penetrated her. She couldn't stand their hands on her. It set her nerves on edge. Had Tamas ordered them to this behavior? This odd petting and fondling disturbed her. They all wanted to touch her, somewhere, anywhere. They stroked her like a cat. And when they finally tired of it, they left her lying on her side, sprawled in some unnamable filth until they came back to start all over again. She wondered what they wanted, then decided she might never know. No actually, she did not want to know.

They brought no food, but she wasn't hungry. She could not have eaten even if she wanted to. She had been brought to a place where she would exist without identity, she decided. A place of waiting. A place where she would ultimately lose her mind. Her name. Her feelings. Whatever methods she used to define herself. Perhaps that in itself might be a relief. To allow the darkness to wash her away in a blanket of mindlessness until the aldar teres wore her away to nothing under their hands. Maybe that would be all right. Eventually. Somehow.

Then abruptly, the confinement ended. Not because the aldar teres had broken her or because she had suffered so brutally or been utterly humiliated. All those things could still happen given time. For no reason she could fathom, it simply ended.

So like the first, the second portal opened, and through it, she went.

*

Because the aldar teres clutched at her body—at least four hands per limb lifting her above ground—and carried her like a sacrificial offering to be burnt at the stake, her first glimpse of the portal's other side was not what she expected. A scorching fire maybe. Or, a shadowy dungeon. Perhaps man-eating tigers and poisonous snakes. Her imagination didn't seem picky in its choice of terrors.

It turned out to be none of those things. In fact, by all rights, it should have been an exquisite relief compared to the torture she imagined. An oasis in the desert. Instead, it felt like tripping into hell.

First came the light. After so long in darkness, the hundreds of candles seemed like tiny suns. She had to shield her eyes in the crook of her arm, filtering out their brightness. When she could finally look without pain, she saw all the candles lined up against the walls to form orderly rows of light. She tipped her head back and saw a high arched white ceiling. It twinkled brilliantly as if someone had taken the time to anoint it with stars. No, not stars. Diamonds and flecks of gold reflecting the candlelight back at her.