She steered me by the shoulders so I faced the mythical door, and she stood behind me. A crashing sound from above nearly dispatched my soul. Followed by thundering footsteps like a horde had come stampeding inside of the church, running rampant in blind desperation, in search of something. It couldn't be raiders. Marauders from all corners of the realm knew parishes held no silver or anything of value.
"Akari," she said lovingly, not an ounce of fear detected. "We are running out of time. Only you can open that door."
I wasted no more time, and I complied. My hand was around the knob, and with a turn and click. The door flowed open. It was closet-sized, with nothing inside but a small chest. The lid of the chest featured an arched shape, embellished with the same intricate carvings on the door. The metalwork was carefully detailed with metal accents, such as decorative corner brackets, hinges, and handles. It wasn't locked, so I flipped it open to see the last thing I expected.
No gold.
No jewels.
Not even a dagger.
A horn. The horn had an elegant and elongated shape, reminiscent of a majestic creature. It curved gracefully, tapering to a fine point at the tip. That one thing that bore a symbol that I recognized—anyone in the eight provinces would. It was the mark of the Sajatai. A fabled hero. The chronicles of the Sagetai were woven into the annals of history, steeped deep in its foundation. And the very reason why all was peaceful within the realm. I couldn't locate the nexus between the horn with the Sajatai's symbol, and myself.
I took it and with it laid out on my palms to deliver it to my mother.
"Blow it," she instructed.
"I don't know how."
"Blow it or we die," she said, once again, so terrifyingly calm that a part of me even doubted that it was real. And my consciousness somehow slipped into a chasm of inertia. However, the riotous rampage upstairs moored me to that harrowing reality that it was all real and what I did and did not do would have irrevocable results.
I brought the tip to my lips, and I turned my face skyward as I blew into the horn until my cheeks burnt, releasing a long, solid blast, a single unbroken sound. A clear and powerful note that heralded even more chaos. Promptly, explosive sounds resounded above, one reverberant boom after another, causing the room to quake with a cascade of dust falling from above in sprays.
"Mother…" I whimpered, still breathing heavily. I dropped the horn to my side like a sword dangling in the grip of a dying hand. "What is happening?"
She flicked me an apprehensive glance, gutted by guilt.
"Something I should have warned you about many moons ago."
A knock rapped on the door, and I held up the horn in a defensive position.
"Get behind me."
She didn't, so I swooped in front of her, holding out the horn like it was a sword, and I scanned the room for anything to use as an actual weapon. I was not entirely sure if the metal candle wicks could do much or the provisional rations.
"Everyone is dead," a voice called out from the other side. The baritone of his voice penetrated the barrier like it was nothing. "You can come out now."
My mother stepped out in front of me and pushed my arm down like a lever. She went to the door and slid out the wooden bar and placed it aside. The door opened from the outside and a young man with predatory eyes entered, scouring the room to ensure there were no existing threats. Under his long leather coat, he wore nothing. Enticing my gaze to his devastatingly lithesome form that was ornate with dark-blue geometric lines that tattooed the hard angles of his body. Even the sharp planes of his face had repeated the rigid patterns at the corners and around his neck.
"You're unharmed?"
My mother nodded meekly. "Your entrances are ever-dramatic."
He freed a humoured breath from his nostrils. "I like to leave an impression."
His eyes flickered to mine. A galaxy blue, so bright and incandescent, and not of this world. An absent hand drove through his dark tresses, rippling with quality. He came close enough, and he dropped to his knees as if surrendering himself to a deity. He knelt and placed his hands before his knees and hunkered down to place his forehead against the back of his hand.
"Velar, she doesn't know," she said quickly.
He erected and whipped his head back to pitch her a glare. "What?"
He snapped to his feet.
She raised a diplomatic hand. "May the Almighty absolve me, but I tried."
"Did you?" I interjected, recalling no incidents where she tried to warn me about a mystical door that might one day appear and lead to an even more mystical horn that would summon a tattooed godling. "I fail to remember you ever trying to tell me about any of this. You only talk of chores and church."
"She will learn on the way," Velar said, making his start for the door. "I'm sure you have readied her departure."
My mother took the horn from me. And we all hiked back upstairs, and we emerged into a scene of slaughter. The wooden shutters on the windows were reduced to splinters scattered everywhere. The double doors were unhinged, one had collapsed on the floor and the other was clinging to the last bolt. Tables were upturned with bodies sprawled everywhere; splattered blood speckled over every surface.
The stench of carnage coiled around my throat, flooding my senses with that metallic, coppery tang. I inhaled sharply, dread decimating every breath inside of me when I recognized not one, not two, but over a dozen of familiar townsfolk whose butchered bodies were splayed. Even detached limbs were hung over side-lying benches. My stomach spasmed, and I emptied its content on the floor in an uncontrollable gush.
"I'll return with her things," my mother squeaked.
No matter how hard I tried to still myself, I trembled as if I was bare in frigid air. I peeked again at the unblinking stares fixed aimlessly into the distance. Eyes that have watched me since I was a child, and I them. Simple folks who I knew, like the baker, the blacksmith, and others whom I would smile and nod at from afar. Tears pricked my eyes from behind and everything began to spin sickly.
I dragged the sleeve of my dress across my mouth, collecting slithers. "You killed them all," I breathed.
"Or they would have killed you," he retorted remorselessly.
He went for me, but I shrank from him.
I removed my hand from my wobbly knee as I straightened slowly. "Why would—" bile burnt my throat, "—people I have known my whole life try to kill me?"
"They were fulfilling the bidding of another, not of their own," he answered cryptically.
My mother poked her head through, signalling for us to come out. I tiptoed to the exit, whereas Velar strode out, kicking away at limbs if he needed to. My eyes sprang to the chestnut brown stallion that my mother was leading by its leather reins towards us. She stopped him, then strapped on a saddlebag, with the horn sticking out, on the stallion that belonged to the exarch. She was stealing his horse. It was the fastest one among all the others in our sequestered hamlet that was nestled between grizzled mountains.
"Take care of her," my mother demanded.
A finger crisscrossed over his muscled chest, drawing an invisible x.
"I will take care of her as if she were your own."
"As if?" I repeated.
Velar made a look of mock surprise. "You did not inform her about that either?"
My mother clamped her eyes shut for a heartbeat. "There is no time. I am to blame for this," she said to me. She pulled me into a tight hug that ended so fast that I had no time to hug her back. "Go with him, Akari. He will tell you all the things I had no courage to utter. You were born for such a time as this, my child. Blood or not, you are mine all the same. Now go."
My whole world had been uprooted by its ends. Now she was telling me to abscond with a man I had never met. Any day before, if I was caught in the mere vicinity of one of the male species, I would have had to spend unending days in seclusion to think on my sins.
"We don't have time for you to dither about this."
"This," I yelled back at him, the word slicing the face of the night sky. "Are you plainly referring to this earth-shattering revelation that has revealed nothing? All I know is that my mother, who apparently isn't my mother, is sending me away with a stranger that massacred dozens of innocent people."
He mounted the horse and extended his hand to me demandingly.
I gawked back at my mother, refusing to believe this was happening.
"Go, so you can make it back to me safely," she said, soft-spoken, reaching for my face to cup my cheek. "You must go."
I held onto her wrist. "I am not going anywhere. And certainly not with him."
Velar dismounted behind me.
My mother's eyes darted beyond me, and her face contorted into a sob. "Velar, please, no—"
A hard whack against the back of my head sent my world tumbling into darkness.