ORNTH
A Rogue, Cleric, and Sacrifice
A dagger to the heart would have been painful if I wasn’t already numb from the abysmal spell engulfing the stone chamber.
Everything is how its meant to be.
The blood began to pool too fast for the medic’s tired hands. The poor soul had been sealing our wounds for the last fortnight with little rest. Death was by my side at long last.
The chaos faded as Brax ended the battle with a divine blast obliterating the last of the undead. A quiet end would be too much to expect apparently as panicked cries from Laurel demanded me to be alright. I almost laughed, but pain in my lungs and a gurgle was all I could manage.
I had told them this would happen. I told them I was alright with it. I thought they understood the cost. The price of their safety was woven into my very existence since the womb. I was always meant to die for them. I thought it would be on a greater battlefield, but down in a forgotten tomb was acceptable for me.
The copy.
The extra.
Brax’s indignant barters to any god who would care was almost worse than the shrill sounds coming from Laurel.
“By Luna’s grace, he does not deserve this fate, please see it, see him and rectify this injustice!”
I roll my eyes, and they stay slid back. I was always meant to die, and it was selfish of them to prolong it. What blood remained within me boiled. There should be at least a thank you coming from their spoiled lips.
We were triplets. Brax and Laurel were planned, expected.
I was a surprise.
Brax born marked by the constellations of Luna. He happily spent his long life on a pilgrimage to Her good graces. She rewarded him with radiance and visions of her divine calling, but he never made it to her temple. Always just out of reach.
Laurel’s skin was unblemished, but she moved with an ethereal grace since she could crawl. Slipping through the crevices of plush couches remaining there despite the distressed cries from the house maids. It amazed us all how someone so bright could call the shadows to her. One with a smile made to beguile coins from misers. Laurel was Brax’s hand in the pockets of visiting Lords, judging their proposed loyalties.
Both were our father’s weapons. A legacy to be boasted.
I was nothing. Giftless. A stain on the birth certificate. Given only the family name, Ornth.
“Dear brother I still feel you here,” Laurel’s voice slinked into my mind, calm despite the incredibly annoying noises she was still making.
“This is how it was supposed to happen, though I believed us to have more time. Time for me to explain, to bring Brax to an understanding. But here you are bleeding out on this dank catacomb floor. Playing the sacrificial lamb. Predictable as ever.”
I didn’t reply. Everything was growing too cold for me to care for Laurel’s riddles.
“You are slipping too deep, you mustn’t given into it, brother. Not before we change this fragile destiny of yours. I have found a new path for you,” she paused before adding, “Father won’t like it,” a knowing lilt to her tone.
Curiosity prickled now, an insatiable thing. Anything to annoy his lordship.
A loud thud and then singing armor and I pictured Brax falling to his knees, better to service his goddess I was sure.
A shuffling of feet then the small weight of hands behind my head.
“Drink and live. Drink and we shall seek our true revenge.”
Ash flooded my mouth. Gritty. I coughed around the sludge of brimstone and sulfur. Was I gargling some ninth hells latrine?
“Shit—shoulda shaken it, the good glowy bit is coming,” Laurel said as she adjusted my head.
I readied for the rest of the arsehole to make its way to my mouth, figuring it can’t get much worse. Then something akin to a needle hits my tongue, and I guess Laurel has hated me for a long time, so much so she can’t simply let me die with honor. Rather chooses to force feed me the torture rack from Hells Keep.
The sharpness fades, the needle now a melted pool of something sweet, washing away the foul residue with mint and berry. The sound of my smacking tongue and I know I can move. No evidence of fatal wounds when I take a shallow breath.
“Your eyes work too,” said an echoing voice.
I open one expecting to see the cobbled bloodstained walls of the catacombs, instead I see a table overflowing with food. Onyx floor flared with crimson carpets. My hand heavy with an empty goblet. What the fleeksfur?
“Ah, yes I do think it is jarring for one such as you. Bound to one realm unless gifted a key.”
I ignore the barb and the feast despite not eating the last two days roaming the forgotten depths. My mood was light and my mind was all there. Small blessings, because if that potion had stolen my wits I would have easily been tempted to fill my belly. The smell of the iron and salt was slight, but there all the same. As described many times in What to Expect of a Trickster. The food was rotten beneath the succulent glamour. Fey.
“Not quite, but we are kin so to speak. Will I continue to be forced to eves drop on your errant thoughts or will you begin to speak aloud?”
I clear my throat, a necessary test after the ichor tonic Laurel gifted me.
“Where am I?”
“Oh, it speaks, crudely, but most of your kind lacks manners. Though if I was nameless I would probably skip the formalities as well,” said the now amused voice.
“Are you much like your kin? Names are a spell, would you give me yours?”
“A nice enough courtly manor, for what? A knight? Duke perhaps?”
“Might as well just call me Less. Gift-less, keyless, title-less, and so forth,” I retorted folding my arms.
“Well, do you want to die, Less?”
“I was always meant to.”
The creature tutted from all directions its displeasure palpable, but I didn’t flinch. What more could be done to me? I snuffed the thought before it could be answered. I was now healed and in a place unspoken, many nightmares could still find me.
Silence spread in the room. A measured sense of pricking and scraping on the skin of my neck. Something was tasting me. I sighed refusing to acknowledge the soft sensation. Tampering my thoughts again on how unnervingly gentle the exploration was.
The quiet remained so long I begin to think this is my fate. And of course it is. Laurel, the dimwit, poisoned me with some ancient curse, and now I was stuck in an ornate cell surrounded by delicious rot.
“Ornth. Thorn. North,” the voice returned, and I grit my teeth, “These are your true names, if you accept them.”
“Tentatively.”
A scoff.
“You’ve tasted me. Weighed me. Taunted me. All before you have even allowed me to look upon you, let alone give a name,” I smile to the empty room, “and yet you scorn my manners, or lack there of.”
“I give you names to choose from, a seat at my table, and you demand more?”
The dark corner shimmers, and I fight the urge to ready for combat. A silken thigh is revealed first. Satin fabric split into strips of silver and gold hugs the curves of her body. So much skin on display, yet her face remains hidden by the black shroud. A trick, either celestial or devil.
Devil seemed more likely the way it toyed with me.
“Those that have seen this realm are granted a choice that no other souls are given. You, Less, are my final chance. Will you return just as you were, a destiny of bloodshed and sacrifice, or will you return with me?”
Before I could speak a vision accosted me. My father and his throne. A serene expression as he held court with mother at his side. Her face as placid as ever with a thin smile to whatever lord was prostrating before them. I was pulled further into the scene. Shadows fell upon my father’s face. His smile became sinister and the throne larger. No longer a golden seat, but replaced with bramble and thorn. Each branch digging further into him, but rather than blood a thick sap pours from the wounds. My mother’s face twists trying to break free of whatever mask she was forced to wear, a warning on her lips.
“What is it, mother?”
Her eyes went wide at my voice, but when I tried to speak again a soft hand was upon my throat. A warning in the pricks of its nails, turning me to face the throne where my father now looked at me his serenity gone. In its place were hollow cheeks and burning eyes. Those eyes tell me I’m intruding, but his smile asks me to stay. He moves painfully slow, stretching his neck towards me, his mouth opening to reveal a row of razor teeth. Then the stranger’s voice enters my mind.
This is the battle that waits for you, Less. Let me aid you.
I squeeze my eyes shut willing the vision to dissolve and allowed the questions to fall from my head. Why me? What is the cost? Do they know?
“Not so curious about me? I’m hurt, but I suppose those are practical inquiries. You, because you drank the last transport vile I made. The cost is my friendship, I can be quite demanding, but with high expectations comes great reward. Strength, magics, and more—though we must remain a secret given your father’s allegiances. And at last I assume they refers to your womb-mates. Laurel suspects, Brax refuses my guidance. Why pray if you ignore the answers given? Honestly every order I give goes unanswered, and I don’t understand it. He begs faithfully, but is deaf to my call. A guise spell perhaps.”
My heart skips before knocking on my ribs. I look towards the figure once more. Happy to be back in the dining hall, but uneasy in my revelation. The woman wrapped in silver and gold, her face a black shroud. I count the days since the last full moon. I sense her smiling all the same as the pieces slip into place.
“Luna.”
“Answer me first, Less, and then we can really get to know one another.”
I pretend to think for a moment. I pretend to want an easy life of ignorance, but the threads that brought me here are too thick to dismiss. I take a small moment of composure before I stride to her.
“I am intrigued, and look forward to discussing terms over dinner. Not this dinner though, for obvious reasons,” I say bowing at the waist.
“I think I shall call you Thorn,” she grumbles.
Thanks for reading, bug me to write more and your wishes may come true.