The TwiceBorn

Sing To Me A Softer Song

"And even though this life, this love, is brief, I've got some people who carry me."--Dermot Kennedy

There shall come a time, all swords will bear against the darkness. This darkness can take root in the most pristine of souls and the best shall be felled by shadow yet those who are true unto me...even though the sun itself may shed tears on the day of the Great Epiphany...in the end, blessed are those with bloodied sword and bowed head.

Sacred Write, Final Canon, Brede's Conspectus.The words echoed through Lord Kenric's brain as he stood on the wooden observatory he'd had built for morning meditation and to lead the brothers in prayer on still mornings, when the heat of the sun was still well at bay.

He always chose a few favored brothers to stand with him and the younger ones...especially the younger ones.... were always so excited to be chosen. They would laugh and brag to their friends, but when the time came to stand upon the observatory and look out over the grounds and beyond that, the town, they would become quiet, almost melancholy. It was as if you could see the power of Brede bloom within them, as they surveyed their world from somewhere other than ground level. It was truly miraculous and...

"Lord Kenric! It's the devil's bitch, the boy lied!"

The voice came from faraway but the excited finger jabbing outward by his shoulder was difficult to ignore.

"That's her, idn't it? That's her! It's time, Lord Kenric, am I right? It's time, what do we do? What do we do?"

What do we do indeed?

Kenric ran a quick inward check of himself, something he did on a regular basis, something needed, he felt, but never so much needed as it was now. Hands folded behind his back, face expressionless despite the crushed feeling within his chest that made it all but impossible to draw a full breath. In spite of his heart beating sickly inside of his head and the back of his throat. He assured himself he still appeared calm. In control.

That filthy little guttersnipe at the tavern had lied

Which shouldn't be surprising but Kenric, as he gazed out across the grasslands, realized just how much stock he'd put in the boy's words. How much...hope. Yet there she was, having crawled up out of the shit-filled bowels of the UnderRealms, with an army of demons slithering about her, climbing on her horse, her saddle, her shoulders, they were everywhere, reminding him of the squirming little beetles that always showed up a day or so after one of the devil-riddled peasants had spat up the last chunk of blood and died. He didn't know where the beetles came from, but they always showed up, busily moving back and forth, usually on their frozen-in-horror faces, trundling over the glazed eyes, squeezing themselves into the ears to go Brede only knows where, they came before the worms did sometimes, so eager to dig through the flesh and muscle, and that's what her army looked like, slithering, crawling, and trundling about, waiting for their chance to move through Refuge, nothing but a corpse of a town anyway, what did it matter?

My temple

Kenric drew in a deep, shaking breath and tried to focus his runaway thoughts.