10 Years Before Plegian War II

There was no way of telling the time in the little storage cupboard. When the door was closed, it was always dark.

Occasionally, a soldier would open up to give them food and drink, and light would stream in. They would be offered the chance to go outside. But the crowded hall would always be visible behind the door, full of red-coated soldiers, and everyone refused.

Pheros looked out for Renaudin each time the door opened, hoping to see him around the figure of the soldier on guard. If he was out there, she would be brave enough to leave and get some fresh air. But she could never find him.

She wondered if he was having a good time. Perhaps he was deep in his cups by now. With the vast amount of soldiers in the temple the looted alcohol should have run out, but Pheros was certain that they'd probably transported a great deal with them from the capital anyway. The drunken roars of laughter and shouts grew in volume as the sun fell.

Perhaps he was upstairs, with the soldiers she could hear playing card games above them. Or perhaps he was one of the men who went up the steps accompanied by the clink of chains -- one of the men who slammed a door, and whose bedroom noises could not be heard above the rest of the roar.

Or, perhaps, as the head of their escort and a sensible captain, he was just sleeping somewhere.

Perhaps she should stop caring and do the same.

***

She woke up the next time the cupboard door opened. Sunlight streamed through, harsh and painful on sensitive eyes as it crudely washed out the dark. The survivors all sat up with a squint. Pheros was the first to shake off her sleep and rise. The others joined her, looking at the red-coated soldiers in front of them with suspicion.

They were offered breakfast, which was scraps of what the soldiers had been eating last night. Then the priests and priestesses were taken to the front of the temple.

A platoon of soldiers were already mounted and waiting, Renaudin at their head. His horse was no bigger than anyone else's, yet he still looked greater than them all. He was wearing his armour again but his helm was nowhere in sight, allowing Pheros another good look at the stern features of his face.

She looked away.

Other soldiers were holding onto mounts for them. Hierarch Briathos tried to protest -- none of them had ever ridden horses before -- but the soldiers forced them on. Pheros found herself being lifted onto the back of hers before she could even open her mouth. It was being held right next to Renaudin, and at this level they were eye to eye.

"Just put your feet in the stirrups," he said, "hold onto your reins like I am, and sit tight. You'll be fine."

Pheros did as she was told and then looked to Renaudin for approval. He smiled. She found herself smiling back before she could think the better of it. He was actually pleased with her.

"You'll be riding at the front with me," he said.

Her smile faded. "I beg your pardon?"

"It's perfectly safe. I want you to see Valm as I do before you leave us." He turned his horse away. "Come."

His soldiers moved their horses aside so that he could ride straight down the middle of them. Pheros' horse followed, and as Renaudin had not graced her with the knowledge of how to stop it, she found that she had no choice but to obey him.

At least it took her away from the other members of her temple, who Renaudin's men arranged in the middle of them. They shot her curious looks as they all moved off, but they said nothing about her presence at the head of the escort. Pheros wondered if Renaudin often took young women on and recruited them, or if they respected him too deeply to question his decisions.

The captain said little to her at first, which allowed her to concentrate on adjusting to the strange sway of the horse. When she was feeling comfortable was when he began to talk. He spoke about what Walhart wanted in more detail, most of it too complex for Pheros to understand. Soldiers were going here, soldiers were going there; it seemed soldiers were going everywhere. But when she could occasionally understand enough to make the right noises as he spoke, she would earn another smile of approval. She liked it, so she tried to listen harder.

They rode away from the village, leaving the rest of the soldiers to destroy the bodies and debris. Pheros turned around to look at it as their horses clambered up a hill, trying to capture the scene in her mind's eye so that she could keep it forever. But the evidence was already fading as the soldiers gathered the bodies.

Then they were over the brow of the hill, and the village was gone. She focused on Renaudin again.

He didn't always talk about Walhart. Sometimes he talked about the capital city, or the main barracks, or the soldiers he had been training. He explained to her how the recruitment and ranking system worked. He told her how long he had been a soldier for, which battles he had fought, and where he had been when Walhart had taken the throne. Pheros knew that she would not remember it all, but to feel his voice slip in one ear and out the other was a pleasure. After the nightmare of all she had seen yesterday, to hear him talk like this was soothing.

When night began to fall and they stopped to make camp, her heart dropped. Now her conversation with him was over.

But they all sat around the fire together, soldiers and survivors alike, and Renaudin drew her into his conversations with his men. Granted, she said little, but she liked the fact that he would catch her eye as he spoke to them all. She liked being included.

On the second day, she rode at the front with him again. Safely away from the ears of her holy companions, he asked her about herself. Most of his questions gently probed into her life at the temple and the way she was treated. She gave little away, but from the look in his eyes, she was certain that she'd still managed to display her misery.

He let her speak right into the afternoon until she revealed that she had never been outside of Valm Harbour until a few months ago. Appearing to be genuinely surprised, he took over the conversation and described every place he'd ever visited to her. As a soldier, he'd travelled far and wide. He never spoke of the violence, and Pheros soon found herself enraptured by stories that seemed like fairy tales.

But on the third day, their ride was not so joyful.

Not long after they had set out, Pheros spotted smoke rising in the distance. She recognised the familiar sound of fighting long before Renaudin brought their escort to a halt. He moved away from Pheros and spoke with one of his men in low tones, consulting a map. Pheros thought that they were going to change course.

But then he looked over with a frown and caught her eye, and abruptly the map disappeared. The two men fell back in with the group, and they continued in the same direction.

Valm was a hilly land, and another slope was rising above them. They rode up to the crest and towered over the village below.

Pheros turned her head away.

"Watch," Renaudin said.

She turned back.

There was not as much death as she had been expecting to see. She caught sight of only a handful of bodies around the enormous crowds being escorted to the village temple.

They had bent at the knee.

"See how the people are treated if they agree to submit to a man who wants a better future?" Renaudin asked. "This is the last disturbance that will ever happen in their village. With Walhart as our god, war will never darken our skies again."

They rode away.

***

The days flew by. When Pheros went to sleep at night, she found herself looking forward to the conversations she and Renaudin would have the next morning. She liked the way he looked at her when she spoke and even when she was silent, and she was beginning to feel like they were friends.

She also enjoyed listening to him speak so strongly of Walhart's beliefs. Speeches made by someone with so much passion for a cause could never fail to be enrapturing. And bit by bit, he had swayed her.

She had sworn a vow that she could not break, but that vow had been about peace. And everything Renaudin had told her was the truth. She admired Exalt Emmeryn, but she would not rule forever. Someday she would die, and her replacement could choose to wage war all over again.

It was in the nature of man.

When they reached Valm Harbour at the end of the week, she was no longer looking forward to returning home. She didn't want Renaudin to leave her behind.

Yet as they rode through the town and up the twisting pathway to the temple, her heart clenched in fear. She had fallen in love with Renaudin's words. She wanted peace for the world. But she still knew that she wasn't brave enough to take up a sword, or a lance, or a tome, and pierce the flesh of humankind.

Her stomach knotted. Her mind swirled, orderly arguments for both decisions swirling into gibbering panic as the temple rose into view. When they halted outside the building and her colleagues dismounted, she remained frozen, her muscles locked in uncertainty.

"Ride with us, Pheros," Renaudin said. "I can see a warrior in your eyes."

Pheros looked at him. She could see someone she had grown too close to and someone who she liked too much in his eyes. She had learned what it was like to be valued -- but she wasn't meant to be.

She was back in the only home she had ever known now, with the seagulls calling, the ocean murmuring soothingly, and the afternoon sun lighting up the temple. To see Renaudin the warrior standing in the middle of her safe haven sent a bolt of shock through her core.

She realised that she hadn't just spent the past week feeling valued by him. She had begun to feel like she was one of his soldiers. Like she was one of them.

But she was a priestess of Naga, destined to scrub the floors, cook the meals, and teach others how to have faith. She was meant to change the world in smaller ways. To bring about peace with a different method.

She dismounted.

Renaudin held her gaze for a painful moment, disappointment filling his eyes. Could he feel the connection that had been building between them, too? Could he feel it being wrenched apart? Or had only she looked at him as more than a soldier, and maybe even more than an attractive man?

For one week, he had given back a piece of her that she hadn't realised was missing. He'd taught her to value herself, and his rigid belief not just in his god but in her, too, was something she would never forget.

Tears stung the backs of her eyes. I may not worship Walhart, but I would worship you.

He said nothing, in the end. No words were needed when his emotions were spread across his face, an open book for just a moment. Yes, he had wanted her with more desperation than any ordinary new recruit. She had taught him something, too.

He turned his horse and rode to the head of his men again. The reins of her mount were tugged out of her hands by another soldier. She was one of them no longer.

The escort rode away.

Her tears threatening to spill, she turned her back on them so that she would not have to witness every agonising movement in their departure. Her gaze fell on Maro and Geoffroi in the doorway of the temple, watching her with darkened faces.

Her lungs tightened as what she'd done dawned on her.

It didn't matter that she hadn't betrayed them. She had ridden with a captain of Walhart's army for a whole week, idolising him and in return being treated as something special. They would no doubt think that she had grown much too big for her boots. What would they do to her?

Maro tapped his foot and moved his arm as if he was guiding something through the air. He'd read her mind. She cringed, feeling the bite of the whip against her back in her imagination. The pain presented itself with too much fresh clarity. She had felt it too many times.

She took a deep breath. She was a priestess of Naga. Her job was to accept every punishment she was given. Her faith was tested in mysterious ways.

Damp crawled across her back as the whip came again in her mind, carving a new river of blood across her skin with every strike. She could hear herself mumbling her prayers quickly, her voice rising and falling with each fresh wave of pain, shaped by her sobs as she repeated it, waiting for the moment when Naga would decide that she had begged enough.

But Naga was never listening.

She imagined standing up from the temple floor and turning to catch the whip mid-air. She felt it draw blood from her palm, and she grinned and relished the pain. She wrestled the whip away from Maro and turned it on him, hot anger flooding her veins. It would not be cooled when she hit him. It would be fuelled by the sweet release of revenge. To hear the crack of the whip against his skin after all of his torture would feel so right.

The feeling faded. She saw the two men standing across from her as they were again.

She would never be strong enough to protect herself and turn on them. Not if she stayed here. No divine force had ever saved her.

If she wanted to stand up for herself, she only had one option left.

She turned around. The horses had descended the pathway and vanished.

She ran after them.

"Pheros!" Maro thundered.

Now that she had made the decision, she was not afraid any longer. She knew that she was leaving him behind.

She tore down the winding path to the village. The people of Valm Harbour stopped in the street and gawped at her as she sprinted past them, the skirts of her robe pulled up into her fist to allow her to take bigger strides. She wove around anyone who would not move, knocking bags off their shoulders or boxes from their arms.

If she lost Renaudin, she would be stuck here forever.

Finally, as she was approaching the edge of town, she saw them in the distance. They were striding out onto the main road that would lead them back the way they had travelled.

"Captain Renaudin!" she cried. "Captain! Captain!"

They were so far away that she thought they would not hear her. In the first second after her cries, they continued walking.

"Captain Renaudin!"

The escort halted, and the soldiers turned their horses around. Pheros hit the main road, her hair a tangled mess over one shoulder and sweat dampening her robes. As she careened towards the platoon, they parted to allow Captain Renaudin to ride back through.

She fell to her knees before him as he halted. "I changed my mind. I want to fight. Please, I want to fight for you."

Renaudin watched her with a blank expression. Fear filled her veins. She had made her decision in front of the temple, and he did not want someone who was liable to change their mind. She was a fool.

But then a smile played on his lips, and she realised that he had only been trying to hide his relief. He threw himself from his horse and drew a dagger. "You were almost too late."

Her eyes fell on the blade.

Amusement curved Renaudin's lips into a wider smile. "Don't look so frightened, Pheros. I'm not going to hurt you. The blade is for the blood oath."

Her heart lifted. "I'll be sworn in right now?"

"I see no reason why not. It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said fervently. "More than anything."

"Good. You can stay kneeling. I am going to tell you the oath, and you will repeat it after me. Am I clear?"

"Yes."

"Yes, sir," he reprimanded, but his tone was gentle.

"Yes, sir."

"I, Pheros, am a loyal follower of Emperor Walhart and a dedicated woman of Valm. I believe in Emperor Walhart as my god, and from this day forwards no religion shall be mine but him. I swear to this as his soldier and his follower. I swear to this as a sister of Valm. I swear to this by my blood, and I will let my blood represent the life that I am prepared to lay down for him."

Pheros repeated the oath, her voice trembling.

Renaudin closed the distance between them and took her hand tenderly. "It's custom for the captain of the platoon the soldier will be joining to perform the blood oath in the place of Emperor Walhart himself. Is that all right?"

Pheros nodded.

"Then I, as Captain Renaudin and your future leader, provide my blood in the place of our god. Let us be bound by an oath that will never be broken."

He drew his dagger across the palm of her hand. She flinched, but she didn't pull away. She vowed that she would be a stronger woman from this day forward.

Renaudin handed the dagger to her. "Your turn. Repeat it, making the obvious adjustments where necessary. And cut me."

Pheros swallowed, her throat like sandpaper. "I, as Pheros and your future soldier, provide my blood for myself. Let us be bound by an oath that will never be broken."

She hesitated. Renaudin raised his eyebrows. Do it.

She traced the dagger across his palm, her press so faint that she thought it would not draw blood. But the blade was sharper than she could have imagined, and she made the cut.

"This is the bit most are uncomfortable with," Renaudin murmured. "We mix our blood."

Her head span. "All right. You do it."

He pressed their palms together without hesitation. She wasn't certain if she could actually feel his blood dripping into her wound or if she was imagining it, but she tried not to let the nausea that rose within her show.

"You are now a warrior of Valm." Renaudin dropped her hand, his expression hardening back to that of the lion captain she had met on the harbour.

She stared at her wound and slowly closed her hand into a fist. The oath she had made felt as tangible as the pulse rocketing through her palm. She had betrayed Naga, the greatest sin of all in her old faith.

She was ready to let Walhart turn her into the person she was meant to become.

She lifted her head high, smearing the red blood from her hand down her traitorous, white robes.

Renaudin nodded at her. "Pheros, warrior of Valm. Rise."

THE END