Page 23 of This Dark Descent
Damien held a small jug underwater in a barrel until it filled and then carried it to his bucket of dirt. “It’s a crime how little of this art remains.” He poured the water into the bucket, then used the mixing stick to stir it, the muscles in his forearms flexing. “I wish I could have seen it at its peak.”
Ari stilled in stirring her own bucket. To build a golem was not so different from enchanting a living animal, merely a different applicationof the same magic, and yet it was condemned and driven into obscurity because a kingdom with power sought to possess one without.
“I’ve never understood why the Enderlish hated it so,” she said. “Why they hated us.”
“They saw it as a threat,” Damien replied. “Golems kept the Enderlish army at bay for years before they finally broke through. The day the Enderlish flag rose above the Kinnish royal palace, the first thing they did was crack down on Kinnish magic. Before long the Sendian Church was calling it an abomination, a perversion of Sendia’s gift to humanity.”
“The Harbingers brought magic to humanity, not Sendia.” She might not know much about her own religion, but she knew that. Even the Enderlish agreed on that point, though they believed the Goddess Sendia sent them. In the Kinnish religion, there was no goddess, only the Harbingers. “Their religion stemmed from ours, didn’t it? How can they turn around and call us a perversion?”
Damien scraped the mixing stick along the edge of the bucket, then set the mixture aside among the rows of others. “You can do a lot of things when you’re backed by an army of that size. This continent had never seen anything like it before or since. If the Cataclysm hadn’t wiped out so many Enderlish troops, the Eternal War would have been over years ago, but Enderlain still hasn’t quite recovered.”
Most of that army was now in Celair, half made of conscripted farmers and shopkeepers. She’d heard whispers that the Council of Lords kept the real soldiers in the castle barracks and garrison towns throughout Enderlain, sending those they saw as expendable to die on the front lines. It wasn’t the level of the invasion of Kinahara, but it was enough to disrupt an entire kingdom.
Ari moved her bucket over to join the others. “How do you know all of this?” It was the sort of information she’d craved for years, but never had access to.
“My mother was a historian, and I take a particular interest in history,”Damien replied as he secured another bucket and filled it with dirt. “I also collect old books on the subject. You’re welcome to them any time, though for Reid’s sake, I have to ask that you be careful not to get clay on them. He can only take so much.”
A smile pulled at her lips. “Do you believe, then? In the Harbingers?”
“I put my faith in things I can see and feel.” Her disappointment must have showed on her face, because he added, “But I have books on Kinnism too, including an Arkala, and people who would be happy to discuss them with you, should you want that.”
She wasn’t sure yet what she wanted. There was far more to her culture and religion than belief and prayer, though those were two of the central tenets. Damien clearly excelled in another: the practice of study. Kinnism placed a high value on learning and using that knowledge to better the world, as the Harbingers had for humanity.
Ari was aware of those things, but that was as deep as her knowledge went. Everything she did know was only a reminder of something else she that didn’t—she could craft golems, but lacked the understanding of their past and purpose, knew the importance of community to her people, but had never experienced what it meant. Her culture was like a piecemeal tapestry cloistered away in a dark room, sewn together with stolen books and whispers overheard when her parents thought her asleep.
Her family had even lived outside their town’s edah, the community square central to all Kinnish towns. Because of all that, she’d never felt properly Kinnish. So much of her history, her culture, her people’s religion, had been kept from her by her parents. She had only the smallest pieces, a thin thread connecting her to another life that she wanted, more than anything, to know more about.
“I think I’d just like to start with the books,” she said at last, and he nodded.
Ari dragged over the last bucket and surveyed the lot of them. “Do you think we’ll ever go back?” she asked. “To Kinahara.”
When the Heretics’ magic erupted across the island, it did more than destroy buildings and take lives. It settled in the animals and trees, the water and the earth, a blanket of magic so thick it could suffocate. People near the epicenter of the explosion died from exposure mere hours later, rotted away from the inside as if from a verillion addiction. The stories she’d heard said that to this day, even minutes on the island were enough to sign your death warrant.
Damien came to stand beside her, and she found his nearness to be a comfort, though his words were cold. “No,” he said softly. “I think it’s gone forever.”
CHAPTER 9
MIKIRA
MIKIRA WAS FLYING.
She forgot the worries weighing her down like saddlebags, forgot their dangerous plan and the even more dangerous man she was in league with. The world fell away as Eilora barreled down the track, the wind pulling at her hair, the heavy thud of the horse’s hooves a steady rhythm that matched the racing beat of her heart.
Then they turned the last corner, and Mikira gave the mare her head, putting on a final burst of speed as they crossed the finish line. Eilora slowed and the dream fell away, nothing but a beautiful illusion. Each of her worries latched back into place like leeches thirsting for her blood, refusing to be shaken loose—her father’s predicament, the worried looks Nelda and Ailene couldn’t hide when she left each morning, the looming competition.
She led Eilora in loping circles, letting both of them catch their breath. It was the third run they’d done that morning, Eilora’s second enchantment for endurance lending her extra energy. Not many charms paired well with endurance during breeding, but docility was one of the rare few that wasn’t overridden by it.
“Not bad,” Reid called from where he leaned over the fence. Widget, his cat, sat on his shoulder like a small crow.
Mikira nudged Eilora toward him. “Are you feeling okay? That almost sounded like a compliment.”
Reid shrugged. “You’re getting better. Though you’re still giving Eilora her head too late, and your starts are sloppy. Also, do you have to grin like an idiot the whole ride?”
She rolled her eyes. “There we go.”
Four days of training and enduring Reid’s snide comments had left her mostly immune to them. She’d quickly figured out that he was all bark and no bite. No amount of sniping erased the fact that he made everyone tea each morning or that he got to the track at dawn when Mikira asked and stayed long after the sun had set. He reminded her of Talyana in that way, always so aware of the people around him.
Her heart wrenched at the thought of Talyana. She wasn’t the first friend Mikira had lost, but she was the most painful. They’d been inseparable until one day Rezek came to collect their monthly payment, and Talyana had told him to go to all four hells. He’d shot the vase of carnations she’d been holding right out of her hand.
