“They’re the sweetest thing in the world. Mama. You have to try one.”
Cei shifted the enormous wicker basket to her hip with a small grunt of effort; hearing it, the boy– thirteen years old and already quickly catching up to his father in size– scrambled to aid her.
“Oh, Emelius,” she chided him, pantomiming a schoolmarm’s glower. “I may not be a young woman anymore, but I’m hardly a frail flower. When I was only a few years older than you, I was training to hunt and slay demons after all.”
The lad cut a chunk from one of the apples with his pocket knife– scarlet, they were, and plump, and fading to golden at the base– and proffered it to her with his fingers. For some reason, the sight of his hands tugged at her heart. By the Archons. His hands are already big enough to wield a claymore. But she ate the chunk right from his hands, just as not so long ago, she’d fed him and his siblings with hers.
“You’re right, they are sweet indeed. And they should be. These apples are special– it’s the first crop from some very special trees. I carried the seeds all the way from your grandfather’s orchards, and I gave them to your father as… a parting gift, once. But in truth, they aren’t the sweetest thing in the world. You are!”
Emelius’ face screwed up, exactly the way that a teenage boy’s does when his mother dotes on him as though he were a bairn. Cei chuckled. “In seriousness, my darling. Saint Axiel and Saint Anne teach us that we plant our intentions, our will, our character, along with the seeds, and that a righteous and honest heart will reap the greatest bounty come the harvest. In the case of these trees, it is certainly true. And it is the case with you and your siblings as well. My love for your father was the best thing that had ever happened to me. It was the light that led me from a life of loneliness and bloodshed to… Well, here.” She motioned around the sunlit orchard; just beyond the young trees, the pastures curved as gently as an alms dish, bisected by the creek. “And it should come as no surprise that you and your siblings, born as you were from it, are wonderful in every way.” She turned to the tiny shrine to the two Saints, set between two trees, and touched her heart. Emelius did the same, and they said in unison “Fiat voluntas eius”.
“Speaking of which, where are your siblings?
“Calli is helping Father in the stables.” These days, Abelard’s spine was still straight and his eyes and mind still clear, but he’d had difficulty bending low to tend to the horses’ hooves. Fortunately, Calli adored her father and rarely left his side; she gladly assisted him with the harder tasks.
“And the twins?”
Emelius grinned. “You know Lyonel and Leofric. They could be anywhere.”
That was certainly true. The twins had arrived only recently, a double miracle from Aeo when she’d thought her childbearing years finished. Fortunately, they tended to tire each other out, like hunting hound pups, which made them considerably easier for aging parents to wrangle.
Cei and Emelius each took up a huge basket brimming with scarlet apples and made their way toward the farmhouse; a thicker-than-usual plume of white smoke curled merrily from the chimney, which meant that Abelard–by far the better cook of the two of them; Cei had no gift for it– had begun making the noontime meal. Halfway there, though, Calli burst from the stable and ran at full speed toward them, upset on her little face.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“Mama, you have to come to the north gate. Something keeps scratching and scratching and won’t stop, and I can’t get it open.”
Cei frowned. A familiar tingle traced its way up her spine… something wrong, something off. Something she hadn’t felt in over a decade. “That’s strange. Did that terrible goat get out again?”
Emelius shook his head. “No, Sosimar’s locked up in the barn after he ate Father’s rye loaf.”
“Emelius, take your sister and go help your father with the meal. I’ll be there shortly.”
Cei watched the children depart, then turned north to the rock wall that bordered their lands. As soon as she saw the gate, she heard the sound. Scratch scratch scratch. A frantic sound. A desperate sound. The foreboding turned into alarm. She was unarmed– her sword and Abelard’s warhammer were locked in a chest in the attic, untouched for over ten years– and carried only a pruning sickle. I don’t expect another miracle, she thought dryly. But she took it in hand, and crept quietly to the gate, then in one quick motion unlatched it and yanked it open.
And her jaw hung as agape as the door, because outside the rectangle of the doorframe was her beautiful farmstead, an azure sky and green fields… and within the doorframe was the maw of the Utterdark itself, the inferno, the stench of brimstone and spilled entrails. A field of battle, it was, strewn with corpses. An entire legion of Gladium Aeo and Knights of the Reclamation, Ordo Hasta and wizards of the Circle, torn limb from limb, their guts carpeting the blackened earth.
And scratching at her gate was Reniel, horribly wounded, burned, slashed, blistered, barely clinging to life. Slung over his shoulder was Lyra… but though he clearly was attempting to carry her to safety, it was too late. A half dozen arrow shafts sprouted from her, and her blood blackened one side of Ren’s tunic, and Cei could see that her skin had gone grey and cold.
“Cei!” Ren begged. “Please come back. We need you. We’re losing the fight. The demons are winning… because you abandoned us.”
“N… no…” She glanced over her shoulder, at the apple boughs in the breeze, the merry smoke spiraling from the chimney. Around the big oaken table in the farmhouse, Abelard would be slicing a fresh loaf of rye bread, and butter would be melting into it, and the twins’ cheeks would be as fat and rosy as the apples, hovering above it…
“We need you, Cei. Please. Come on. All might not be lost, if you just come and put this on.”
Beyond the portal, a column of black fading to red appeared, standing on its own power somehow, though no one’s body filled it. It was the garb she’d donned when she was first promoted to Inquisitor-General, including her headscarf– she hadn’t covered her hair since coming to the stead. Glowing softly beside it, levitating, was Saint Claria’s frustratingly elusive longsword. That, too, she had never seen since coming here, and somehow she had always known she never would.
“My love? Is something wrong?”
Abelard was coming up the path behind her. She must have taken too long, and he had come to check. He needed a walking stick to make it up the steep steps to the gate, but in his other hand he held his farrier’s hammer at the ready; perhaps he too sensed something amiss.
Cei met his gaze and felt her heart ripped asunder. The love of her life, her whole world, the one who changed everything, the one who made the world begin anew.
“You have to choose, Cei,” came Ren’s voice from beyond the gate. “You. Have. To. Choose.” He gasped in pain, and fell to his knees, and Lyra’s lifeless body fell to the ground, her cold hands seemingly reaching toward the gate, beseeching Cei.
“No,” she yelled. “NO!!! I… can’t… I can’t… Don’t make me do this…”
“But you have to.” Ren’s voice, again. “You have to choose. You have to wake up.”
Wake up.
Wake up….
“Wake up, Inquisitor-General.” Ren’s voice. “You were… quite the life of the party last night.”