Fate Undone: A Novella

Chapter IV - Part I

IV.

"Try to rest child," said Mother Dimitra. Her body flickered and came into view, along with the whole room. She twisted the large key and the heavy lock slid into place. "All we have to do now is wait."

The string tied to the key's end fell back over Mother Dimitra's grey hair and rested on her neck. It looked like the weight of that key was the reason her back was so bent, but really it was age that did it. She patted Anna's shoulder gently and smiled a little, pressing dozens of wrinkles up along her cheeks and under her soft eyes. Then she shuffled away from the broad wooden door, her straight cane clicking against the hard tiles of the crypt with every other step.

Anna turned and scanned the whole candle-lit room, incredulous to what her life had become. Here were all of the priestesses again, just over thirty total, seated together on the hard ground in threes and fours, in between the candles by their feet and along every edge of the two dozen sarcophagi slabs lining the walls. Mother Dimitra sat down a few feet away from the door. All around her were the girls, whose long gowns of ivory silk were untainted; their young faces—some being of an age with Anna, while others being five years younger or older—were nervous, yet still filled with life. They whispered fearful things together in their small groups, none of them truly knowing what would soon happen.

I know, thought Anna. Her hand touched the dagger at her hip and she thought she would cry again, but at this moment, those ceaseless tears were too far away. The sound of falling buildings above their heads, of men shouting out, the sight of the crypt's door breaking open and the war spilling in...none of it had happened yet. Up above, the people being escorted out of the streets and into shelters were still confused as to if this was a real attack or not. But I've seen it all. I've heard it all. Then Anna remembered where she had just came from—not the temple as she walked down the steps and into the crypt with Mother Dimitra, but the tunnel hidden below their feet where eight fiery Eressians had blocked the path.

I've lived this night before, but I didn't know that would happen. And I don't think it was supposed to happen, just like the burning stable. If any of it was real, wouldn't I witness it in its entirety? Maybe this will be different. And if it is, I will be sent back again. But for how long will this torture go on? Or...will it just continue until I get something right? Is it me, then? Do I have to do something?

"Anna," said a meek voice.

She turned, spying the same friendly face that had called to her before. The girl was against the wall on the right side of the room, sitting by others but not really with anyone in particular. Further to the right, the room gave way to a short extension, like a thumb sticking free from a fist. There were more sarcophagi in the walls there—and the tunnel hidden beneath the tiles. As Anna approached the girl, she tried to not think of the bloody body on the steps that she had stolen a glance of twice now. That wasn't her. That was someone else, Anna tried to tell herself. That wasn't real.

Then another voice in her head asked, Is this?

Leandra was the youngest girl in the priesthood. She was thirteen—four years younger than Anna—but had been under the temple's roof longer than any of them. She was abandoned and found in a blanket on the doorstep of the temple as a baby. Her upbringing, as far as Anna knew, consisted of an unknown wet nurse and Mother Dimitra for a couple of step-parents. The girls of the priesthood were the nearest thing to her siblings, though many didn't share that same thought in return. Anna, however, certainly did. Despite her social inconsistencies with the other priestesses, Anna thought she would have made a great big sister; Leandra even told her that once.

"How you doing?" asked Anna, even though she knew the answer. She took a seat on the hard floor beside her friend and tucked her feet up.

"Scared," said Leandra, and she certainly looked it. Normally, beneath her tangle of black hair, she had eyes as wide and bright as her budding curiosity. Now those eyes looked tired, as if she hadn't slept in two days. The color in her cheeks had gone pale, too. Only her natural complexion kept her from going completely white. "What do you think's going to happen?"

Without wanting to, Anna heard the screams in her head and the echoing cries that cut deep with every choking wail. And she heard the barbaric laughter. "I don't know." She looked away from Leandra, struggling to think of how she could change the things that were coming. The tunnel led to the manor, but once the fighting started, that wouldn't be any safer than the crypt. We could hide. What if we take candles down into the tunnel and hide ourselves away? Nikos, Eleni, and father will eventually come. Maybe if we meet them there they can bring more soldiers, then we can double-back and...

Anna's thoughts paused, and that other voice asked, And what? Do what? Even if you convince the others to go blindly into a stale tunnel before the fighting starts, what good will that do? How will you escape a dead city? If you cross the fighting streets and littered alleys, do you expect to find thirty fresh horses waiting for you? If not, will you flee across the eastern field on foot with your friends by your side and savage horsemen to your backs? No. There is no way out of this. Admit it: if the city falls, so do its people.

But the tunnel was still the safest option. If the Eressians broke into the crypt to find it empty with only a hole in the floor leading into a dark tunnel, maybe they would go somewhere else. Maybe they wouldn't follow. And even if they did, it would be hardly different than the first time when everything went horribly wrong.

Anna stood up and began walking over to the far end of the room, toward the dimly-lit extension.

"Where are you going?" asked Leandra.

"I'm just looking."

Before, Anna had forced Leandra to tell her about a story she heard. Anna knew the girl well enough to know that talking made her feel better. It didn't calm Leandra completely, but it eased her mind a little. The story was about a group of idiotic thieves that tried to steal from the dead royals buried in the crypt. They came down with torches and a jar of black powder and blew open a sarcophagus, desecrating the corpse of King Panos and his valuables locked inside.

The thieves were tried and imprisoned decades ago, said Leandra. They're probably dead now. The priestesses at the time removed King Panos but the damage to the stones wasn't ever repaired. I guess they thought it wasn't necessary because nobody gets buried down here anymore. See for yourself, if you want.

And Anna had. The tile cracked beneath her weight, and when she kicked at it, it gave way to rotten boards and the tunnel.

She approached that same spot. The shattered sarcophagus of King Panos was in the wall to her left, filled with nothing but cobwebs and a few old stones. To the right were a few other resting places, belonging to dead lords that she and Leandra didn't know the name of. Anna walked back and forth, but the floor didn't look the same, as if there weren't enough cracks and chips on its aged surface. She stomped her foot, right where she should've felt it splinter and give, but the only thing she felt was a solid resistance, shooting its way up her heel.

She stomped again, harder.

"Anna?" Leandra was standing behind her, staring.

A few of the other priestesses were looking Anna's way, too. They probably all wondered what she was doing, and Anna actually hadn't the slightest clue.

There should have been a tunnel beneath her feet—a way out—but there wasn't.

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