When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (books under 200 pages txt) 📗

cheek and a piece wrenched inside him, as though she took a chunk of him along with it. He drew a shuddering breath, hoping to fill the unexpected emptiness, and tasted the same sickening smoke. Unable to stop himself, he turned his head and vomited on the charred grass at the edge of the river. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he retched again and again with nothing in his gut to expel.

He remained bent at the waist for a time, awaiting another bout of sickness, but his gorge settled. Like an old man not used to standing, he straightened, wiped wetness away on his sleeve. She stood staring at him, eyes blue, brown, hazel, green. Waiting for him.

"Who are they?" he asked, finally.

"You know who they are. Their legend was born that day. And today," she gestured over her shoulder, toward the wreckage at her back, "because of that day, the others are born."

She stepped aside for him to see past her. Fireballs had ceased falling from the sky, but flames continued raging in the courtyard, blocking much of his view behind flickering tongues of fire and billowing smoke. As it drifted, he caught site of the fallen Pillar and a thought struck him.

No living person in my time has seen the Pillars of Life.

A shiver rattled up his spine, and he stared at the column, searching for the figure trapped beneath it until the drifting haze obscured it again. His gaze followed the break in the gray, shifting curtain until his eyes fell on another silhouette. He was certain it hadn't been there before.

Twenty paces away, the thing was barely recognizable as a human. The figure's reddened skin shone with wetness; no clothing, no hair, nothing but crimson flesh pulled too tight over bone, features and distinctions smeared and gleaming.

Burned.

Teryk shuddered. What pain this person—male or female, the damage done made it too difficult to tell—must be in. The shape tottered its way across the courtyard, extending first one shaking foot, then another. The smoky veil parted before each step, allowing him to keep visual contact with his or her precarious journey. With each step, the prince expected the figure to tumble, dead or close to, but he or she pressed on, amended their path to avoid stumbling in a blackened indentation. Once past it, the burnt shape stopped beside the huge chunks of shattered stone he'd seen fall, smashed on the ground and across the bank of the river.

Over dozens of seasons after the pillars fell, workers cleared the rubble from Draekfarren, save one piece, which remained in Teryk's time as a reminder. Many considered it a tribute to the Goddess and her strength, others a warning about the fragility of life. King after king promised to rebuild them—including his own father—but other things always stood in the way: war, money, a lack of skilled labor. Work to return them to their former glory never began.

The figure dropped to its knees by the fractured pillar—beside the piece that survived in Teryk's life—shoulders hunched in defeat. Its body shook, sobbing, and the prince watched this once-human deformity lean forward, place its hand on the spot where the marble toppled on the first person he'd spied. Only then did he realize the ever-changing woman no longer stood before him. Here he remained, in a long-ago time, alone but for a body burned beyond recognition.

His heart sped in his chest.

Without knowing why he should, the compulsion to rush to the figure's aid overcame Teryk. He hurried from his spot by the river, weaving his way between smoldering bodies and chunks of rubble as he crossed toward the destroyed pillar. His soles thunked against the dead earth, scorched grass crunching beneath his heels as the stench of charred things invaded his nose. Debris forced him to watch his footing as he navigated what, in his memory, should have been gardens and lawns, not a burned space littered with detritus and devastation. But not just broken rock and shattered trees, many shallow indentations pockmarked the ground, each of them scarred to the dirt.

He skidded to a halt a few paces before he reached the disfigured shape kneeling by the fallen Pillar. The person laid a red hand on the other pinned beneath the cracked marble—a pair of charred legs protruding from under tons of stone. No more recognizable than the tight-skinned being of weeping sores before him. He stood watching, hesitant to interrupt despite the urge to rush over that brought him here, and one of Nanny's stories returned to his memory. Given the time and place he found himself, he realized who the two people ruined before him must be: the priest and priestess.

Rak'bana and Ine'vesi.

She threw her head back and cried out toward the sky, startling him, the sound emanating from her burnt and dry esophagus more croak than scream. He reached out a tentative hand, as though it might offer comfort to her ravaged flesh and tortured soul.

"Are you all right?"

The ridiculousness of his question struck him as soon as the words left his lips. He thought to apologize for his lack of compassion, but the priestess stopped screaming and jerked her gaze from the sky, turned it toward him.

"G... Goddess?"

Teryk gaped at her, then glanced down at himself. To his own eye, his grubby clothes looked no different, made him look no more like a Goddess than ever. He opened his mouth to say so, but she spoke again, interrupting him.

"I failed you, Goddess. See what my failure forced you to do."

Tears rimmed her eyes, and he realized she wasn't looking at him, but past him—no, through him. He pivoted, the heel of his boot crunching on the charred dirt. Chill sweat prickled on his brow in stark contrast to the fires burning around the courtyard; a shiver found its way up his spine.

"The scroll..."