#c: misc

Mirae did not sleep. She was too sickly frightened. Gone were the tender ministrations of the priest; her foot had been set and bound, just enough that she shouldn’t go lame from a badly healed break. It was doubtful she would live long enough to find out how well it healed. When she closed her eyes, the pain in her foot seemed to rise and fill every sense. Sometimes she managed to drift into an uncertain half-consciousness. Nightmares of the catacombs chased her into the twilight, waking her again with heavy footsteps and phantom death rattles.

The arrival of the temple guards was no relief; it only put her heart in her throat again. She had to hold her wrists out to be manacled. They would not touch her, except when it became clear she could hardly walk. Then one guard each took her by the upper arm and dragged her along. Mirae looked like a madwoman taken from the streets: one foot bare but for its splint, dress filthy. Her hair was stringy and white from her roughshod bath. Upon discovering that dye was running from her hair, the guards had continued dumping cold buckets over her until it had all washed out. She would have given anything for her spectacles. They would have made her feel more human and less defenseless. But the guards’ mouths had a grim set, and their grip tightened painfully whenever she made a small sound of distress. She knew better than to ask.

The main chamber blinded her. Mirae blinked into the blazing white, tears spilling over. Echoes folded in on one another until she couldn’t make out the original sounds. At last, she wiped her eyes on her shoulders and looked up. She stood in a high, long audience chamber. The vaulted ceiling was shot through with glass windows to give it the feel of an open courtyard. Above her to either side, shadowed figures looked down from railed walkways. Before her stood three priests—her eyes caught on Lihar—and a minister wearing the king’s colors. Great silver stars hung behind them, shining in the sunlight.

The minister folded his hands in his sleeves. “Mirae Sabek,” he began. She felt a chill despite the sun. Where had he learned the name she used? So few people knew her. She resisted searching the audience on either side of her. The minister stared at her remorselessly. He was not tall, but nonetheless he was daunting in his immovable air. “Two days prior, in Lodestar Night, a captured revenant was released. The temple guards present were murdered. And a second revenant was summoned through the forbidden working of necromancy.” His gaze did not waver. “You stand accused as the sole perpetrator of these crimes.”

Mirae’s mouth was dry. She stared dumbly. Out of necessity, she had lived an evasive life, riddled with omissions. But she had never prepared a lie to this scale. Perhaps one did not exist that would save her now.

“This is your one opportunity to defend yourself,” the minister said. He looked her over in disdain. “Though you may decline.”

“I…” Mirae rasped. “I’m not… I’m ordinary. I work here. I live in the wall district….”

“Explain the events of Lodestar Night. Why were you found fleeing the temple district?”

Her face crumpled. She found herself looking to Lihar. He watched, frozen in something like resignation. “I was frightened,” she managed. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to what?” the minister pressed.

Her mouth moved for a long time. Then she said: “Summon a-anything.”

The whispers on both sides grew to sharp murmurs. “A bold lie,” intoned the priestess nearest to the minister. “No spirit returns to this world naturally or willingly. Necromancy requires ill intent and great resistance to overcome the order of life and death.”

This revenant had been all too willing. His gratitude could have buried her. It had buried the two temple guards, cut down by his ready devotion. Stronger, she insisted, “I never meant for that to happen.” Lihar’s brows drew together fractionally, putting a grim and weary weight on his expression.

“Why do you look to the priest?” the minister asked.

Mirae’s eyes darted back to the king’s man. “He was kind to me.”

“Brother Lihar?” the minister prompted.

The elf stirred. Slowly, he said, “I found her that night. I believed at first that she had been attacked.”

Mirae willed him to show that same sympathy now. She was still frightened, injured, in danger. He had been so gentle that she had almost, for the first time in her adult life, felt safe. His gaze rested steadily on her and revealed nothing.

“Did you know this woman before that meeting?”

“No,” Lihar answered, and then, “we crossed paths for the first time earlier that day.”

“When?”

Sounding out each damning syllable, he said, “As we returned to the temple with the captured revenant.”

Dread certainty closed over each expression. Mirae could feel it pouring over from the walkways. “No,” she protested.

“Mirae Sabek,” the minister began again, a note of cool recitation in his voice.

“No, I’m sorry—”

“You have confessed to summoning a revenant responsible for killing two soldiers of the temple.”

“I’m so sorry, I never meant—”

“Regardless of any premeditation or involvement with the first revenant, the use of necromancy alone is sufficient.” The minister turned away from her pleas and bowed shortly to the priests. “In the king’s name, I authorize and bear witness to the church’s sentencing.”

The priestess bowed in return. “Guards,” she commanded, “take this necromancer to be executed.”

Mirae began to cry, and she had not cried in earnest in so many years. “I never wanted this,” she pleaded. She stumbled and fell into the guards’ iron grip. They hauled her backwards off her feet. “I never meant to do this. Help me, please.” No one moved. They looked away, except for Lihar. She shouted, “Help me!”

The chamber doors opened. She sensed the wrongness in the air just before the guard to her right fell. Hot blood washed over her arm and face. The sense of a sudden death so near was incapacitating. A second death shot through Mirae, and she collapsed.