Midnight Moon

Chapter 46 - The Rivers Will Run Red

The darkness had truly settled when they arrived in Kazeal Valley. The night was quiet - not unnaturally so, but Veanna's tension made everything eerie. The only sound was the gentle rushing of a stream, which the path they followed met and curled alongside. Its waters seemed black and endless in the darkness, as it snaked through the valley and out of sight.

The path was overgrown with grass and scrubby plants, though a trail was discernible that had been eroded hundreds of years ago by mourners coming to lay royals to rest and pay their respects at the tombs. The visitors had dwindled over the years, and now no one came to wear the weeds from the path.

Veanna cleared her dry throat. "How much farther to the crypts?"

"We should be able to see them any moment," Neyerith answered grimly, his expression unnaturally solemn.

Calu fidgeted nervously, fiddling with his cuff until Tia snapped at him to stop. The Outlander displayed no tics or nervous movements, though one hand constantly gripped her sword hilt, and she hovered in Veanna's shadow.

Veanna was trying not to show her fear, hiding her sweaty palms and forcing deep breaths past numb lips as she stared at the dark line where land met the horizon. Eventually, a new irregularity loomed on the skyline, a gentle slope that fell away abruptly where it met the path. The stream curled around the other side of the rise, forcing the trail to end.

The carved stone doors to the crypts towered above them, their apex high enough that Veanna might have been able to touch it only if she reached up to her full extent. She halted, her eyes tracing the etchings of her family's crest as it evolved through the generations. That snowdrop, and the blood racing inside her, drew her to her kin who lay beyond.

Tia passed behind her, moving swiftly to one side of the doors. Veanna turned to watch her stride up the incline beside the entrance, drawing her sword as she went. Tia scanned her surroundings as she climbed, shoulders taught, and Veanna tensed in kind. Then the other woman stopped dead in her tracks, a choked noise falling from her lips.

Veanna moved after her in a heartbeat. Tia put out her free hand, trying to turn her away, but she crested the rise and froze. She felt Neyerith and Calu come up behind her and halt in turn.

The ground was stacked high with bodies. Judging by their dress they were soldiers, but the green of their uniforms had been stained dark red with blood. The moonlight crept through a chink in the clouds, casting sharp shadows over vicious slashes and gaping holes in the bodies. Some of them had burn marks or signs of broken bones, but even those corpses had been carved open, their lifeblood leaking into the surrounding earth.

Calu retched behind them, the only sound in the night. Veanna felt nauseated, but couldn't quite bring herself to look away. She stared, horrified and repulsed by the scene before her, the image burning into her mind as though to serve as punishment for the death of so many of her soldiers. They were hers to protect, and they had almost certainly been killed by the Order - the bodies were still fresh, blood trickling from wounds and filling the air with a cloying, metallic scent. They had died, as always, because of her family.

A hand rested on her shoulder, and she lifted her eyes from the massacre to Neyerith's gaze.

"Don't look," he insisted quietly, and she gave a slow nod. He scanned her face and pulled her gently closer, his arms wrapping around her. She realised that she was shaking, hard enough that she had to curl her fingers into his jacket to feel steady on her feet. She refused to cry, though. That would come later, when all this was done.

She pushed down the panic and the outrage, centring herself. She pulled slowly out of Neyerith's embrace, the air chilling her instantly. Neither of them looked back at the pile of corpses, but Veanna's eyes were drawn to Tia as the other woman moved.