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The moon shone high overhead, and Ketheric Thorm’s world was crumbling all around him.
He knelt on cold, unfeeling stone. He bowed his head like a man defeated, too weak to support the weight of simply existing. He stared straight ahead, his gaze deadened—the splendors of the temple were as useless as shadows to him, the grand columns and mosaics as awe-inspiring as pebbles. All he could focus on was the space in front of him. A beam of pure moonlight, ethereal and beautiful, fell on a dais so perfectly it felt like a divine message from Selûne herself. On top of the dais lay a slab of marble, and on top of the slab lay a dead body.
The dead body of his daughter.
Ketheric was no stranger to grief. When his wife had died he’d held her in his very arms and cried, with deep, full-bodied sobs that emptied out his core. He wailed and broke any breakable thing in his path; he howled at the injustice and rent his garments—behavior that would have embarrassed him as a young man, but that at the moment had made utter sense. There was a comfort in losing yourself in anguish, in trusting the animal that was your body to unleash its fury. It was all part of being human, the only way to banish the torment of being alive and still survive.
But now the strings of vitality that puppetted his being had been snuffed out. Ketheric felt like a shade of a man, as hollow inside as a skeleton. His despair was a vast, heavy veil, an ocean so limitless the idea of land had never even existed. What was the point? What was even the point? He’d raised his precious daughter for so many years—he’d loved and nurtured her, fed her the bite out of his own mouth, would have sacrificed his own soul for her—and now here Isobel lay, dead and beyond reach. All it took was one second, one moment in time, and all the potential paths of her future were abruptly darkened. How could he keep going in a world so blackened? Why should he even bother?
The lightest of sighs sounded on his left. Ketheric suddenly remembered that he had company, here in this most private of places. The aasimar—Aylin, his mind spat, and would that we had never met her at all—stood tall and proud, silver-bright and gleaming. She clearly felt no shame at the intrusion, assuming with all her usual arrogance that she had a right to be here. Her divine features were unreal in their perfection, her expression as regal and remote as the tallest mountain’s coldest peak. A lone, pristine tear made its way down her cheek, the only proof of tarnishing grief.
Emotion erupted in Ketheric’s chest: hatred, potent and energizing, a blaze of fire eating at his insides. Life creaked slowly in his bones. He raised his head.
“Leave,” he said. His voice was deep, his tone commanding. The words reverberated in the space between them.
Silence stretched for a few moments more. It took a while for Aylin to realize it was her he was talking to—Ketheric watched as her face slowly turned to his, as her expression changed from blankness, to confusion, to outrage.
“I will not,” she intoned, as coolly pompous as was her wont. “You were always jealous of her love, Ketheric, hoarding it for yourself like it was a finite source, something to run out of. You will not chase me away from my rightful place. I will not betray the love I feel—have felt—for her.”
Ketheric stood up, a shambling, lumbersome act. “Love. What do you know of love, you—you immortal thing, you half-mutt child. You will live for untold centuries and more. Her life was a mere blink of the eye to you—but to me, to me she was everything.” He paused as he swallowed back the pain, his breath heavy in his lungs. Anger protected him like a shield. “I will mourn her for the rest of my wretched existence—but you, you will forget her with the same ease with which you draw breath. By the time her bones have turned to dust you will have betrayed her memory a thousand times over, and never even remember there was something for you to betray.”
Aylin’s expression mutated into a fearsome scowl, her icy eyes flashing. “Silence! You dare insult my love for her? You dare deny my grief?” She stomped over to him, the bulk of her body a threat all by itself. “You hateful, hateful man. If I didn’t want to sully the walls of this hallowed chapel, I would have ripped your undeserving head right from your shoulders.”
“Maybe you should.” Ketheric raised that undeserving head, his bare throat a taunt. “Go ahead! Kill her father in front of her own dead body. Defile this hallowed chapel. You will never meet Isobel in the afterlife, after all; you will never need to ask her for forgiveness.”
Aylin snarled, as inhuman as a beast. She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, lightning-quick, forcing him up towards her face with her unnatural strength. Ketheric’s blood pumped hotly in his veins, the adrenaline flooding his body a dark, heady rush. He met her gaze fearlessly, ready to die. How he would welcome oblivion at this point!
But he was doomed to disappointment. Already the aasimar was reining in her anger, her bullish breathing huffs gentling. By the time she'd wrested control back her expression had smoothed over like frost over a lake, imperious and untouchable.
“You are a pathetic worm, Ketheric, and have always been one. I will not betray Isobel—I will never betray Isobel—so be grateful. Your life is yours to squander.” She raised her chin, her cold blue eyes glazing over with superiority. “She is resting in Selûne’s grace; take what comfort you can from the thought, as will I.”
Ketheric laughed. He couldn’t help it—it tore out of him like vomited blood, hysteric and lung-shredding, as cathartic and uncontrollable as a babe’s sobs. “Selûne! Selûne! And where was Selûne during all this?” He lurched towards the half-angel like a drunk man, his movements off-balance. “Tell me, aasimar, where was you divine mother while Isobel lay dying? It would have been hardly an effort for her to save a mortal life, as easy as tossing a crumb to an ant. And for a follower such as Isobel! Pure in her faith, steadfast in her devotion. Why didn’t Selûne lift a finger for her? Have you even bothered to ask?”
But Aylin was unimpressed. “It is not my place to question the gods,” she said dismissively, as stoic as a drone and twice as blind. “If Selûne did not choose to intervene, then that must mean she had some other plan for all of us.”
Ketheric shook his head with disdain. “Fool. There is no plan, not for us. We mean nothing to them, nothing, don’t you see? We are no more than token coins for them to play their games with, to exchange between them like so much chaff.” He kept going, slow with intent as each thought came to him, the truth—the real truth—unfolding with each word. “The gods need us for our devotion, and in return they give us boons like bones to a dog. Even the most favored disciples are nothing more to them than cosseted pets, pleasurable to have around but easy to replace. We will never know their true intentions—and still we do their bidding! How masterfully they manipulate us.”
“Belief requires you to trust where there is no proof, and to love without conditions. Am I to explain the very concept to you?” Aylin shook her head, a twisted mirror of Ketheric’s own gesture. “I think I am finally starting to understand you, Thorm. You are a faithless creature, and for that you have my pity.”
”Let me show you what I make of your pity,” Ketheric said coldly. He spat at her, right there on her radiant cheek.
Aylin’s face was the very picture of disgust. She didn’t even condescend to wipe at herself, or react in any way. She simply hooded her gaze, contempt and haughtiness emanating from her every line, and turned away. “I will leave you to your fate, Ketheric Thorm. May it be the one you deserve.”
He let her go. His limbs trembled with unexpressed violence, with a rage that wanted to consume all yet had no concrete target. He needed to destroy something. There, on the table: silver cups and bowls, delicate incense holders and well-crafted idols. Only the most beautiful of offerings for the pure goddess of the moon. They tinkled prettily as Ketheric smashed them, glass shards and pale clay sent flying. A paltry satisfaction, but it would have to do.
As he stood there heaving in the aftermath, his own thoughts came back to him. They do not care. They only use us. Such a venal, base trade deal. But perhaps the gods were not the only ones who could manipulate to gain the things they wanted. Ketheric looked over his shoulder, at Isobel lying dead and serene upon her marble. She looked so young. So precious.
A plan was starting to form in his mind. Ketheric exited the temple, but instead of heading back to civilization he walked towards the forest, towards the untamed wilderness. Ketheric didn’t need a cleric or a scholar to guide him; he already had the required knowledge, the religious experience a remnant of an already-past life. If one sister goddess would not help him, then he would approach the other. The only difference between the so-called good gods and the evil, after all, was that the evil ones were honest in their cruelty.
At last he found a suitable enough place—deep in the thickest glade, the dense canopy keeping away the moonlight, all outside noises hushed. Ketheric knelt and spread his arms wide with the same shamelessness as he had once cried over his dead wife. He raised his eyes to the heavens.
“O Lady Shar, hear my words! Lady of shadows, of secrets, of the tender touch of oblivion. Heed my prayer! Let me be your humble tool. I will follow you into the darkest night without complaint; I will sacrifice all living souls for your might. And in return, with your undying grace, let me have the one thing I desire above all.”
Or else, a small voice in his head added, a ruthless premonition. A threat.