Red Hands (editing)

Chapter 10: Ice and Fire

Their blood was in my nose, the metallic stench so harsh I could taste it. This was the blood of my friends, my family, and everyone I'd cared for at the Nameless Divine's temple. I was breathing them in, their blood and their reek and their ashes in my lungs. Crumpling to my knees, I buried my hands in the cinders of the temple, barely noticing as the flesh burned from my bones, mingling with the miasma of my dead family. This was all that was left of my home. Somewhere in these ashes was Priestess Zelze, dead alongside Oggs and Wylo and all others who were dear to me. From the depths of Mars's cellar, I'd wished only to be back with them in the warm torchlight of the temple, gathered around Zelze at mealtime, serving bowls of soup to the orphans and laughing with them as she pointed out all of their odd, beautiful features and the wonderful beings they'd become. But this was as close as I'd ever get.

Some of them were still alive, moaning their last breaths beneath the shifting rubble. Mars's soldiers circled the stone remains like vultures, steel swords gleaming from their gloved hands in the early sunlight. I cried and protested and wretched each time they discovered one of the broken bodies of my family crushed beneath slabs of stone and gored them with the ends of their swords, cutting short their final desperate cries. Mars was behind me, his heavy hand digging into my shoulder, forcing me to stay on my knees.

"What've you done?" My voice came out in a harsh, croaking whisper.

"I believe you can see for yourself, my dear," said Mars. "The priestess was harboring fugitives of the crown. You're to blame, you see. You might as well have killed them all yourself."

"Please, the survivors -"

Mars's laugh echoed across the rubble of the temple, a high-pitched, shrill, tinkling laugh like the tolling of death bells. "Don't you understand by now? No one will survive you."

He tangled his hand in my knotted curls and yanked me to my feet by my hair, using his grip to stop me from falling back to the ground where the bodies of my family were lying dead and smoldered. Dragging me by my hair, he forced me, stumbling, over the remains of my home. He led me further and further through what'd once been the Ninth Wall's most beloved temple until we stood just outside the altar room where the orphans'd often congregated to listen to Zelze's old tales. There he released me, and I dropped to my bare knees, grabbing hopelessly at the embers. The sifting rock and ash filtered through my hands until my palms were empty.

I couldn't bring myself to raise my eyes. I knew what'd behold me. This'd been the most secure part of the temple. It was where Priestess Zelze would've taken the survivors, sealed the entrances, and comforted the sobs of all who'd considered this a refuge from the Elysian guard. But the soldiers'd already passed through here with their glinting swords, and I knew they'd left none alive in their wake. The altar room was a tomb for those I'd chosen as my family.

I could hear Mars's frigid voice in my mind, telling me that this was my doing, that this was my fault, that I was to blame for their deaths. And I knew that he was right. Mars spoke many lies, but this was not one of them. The broken stone beneath my knees, the ash in my lungs, the bodies strewn carelessly about me - All of this was my condemnation, my sin. If I hadn't sought protection here, if I'd never loved these beings, they wouldn't be dead. Maybe General Bloodhaven might've killed me in mercy, or maybe Mars would've locked me in his dungeon for my lifetime, but they wouldn't be dead. I did this.

Straining, I finally lifted my eyes to the altar room. Priestess Zelze was wrapped in her favorite black robes, her olive skin brushed with the black ash of our slaughtered family, her bones enfolding two small corpses on either side of her lifeless body. She'd done all she could to protect them even in death. And what'd I done? What'd I done to our orphans, our acolytes, our sick, our elders, our innocents? What evil had I unleashed upon this most sacred temple and all those it once preserved?