Chapter 1
A lively squall surged through Sanctum’s valley, and all its dwellers paused to savor it. One never wasted a respite from their lowly living conditions, however short. For a moment, the thick green fog that ever burdened Sanctum gave way to a clear, flawless sky and a glaring sun. All the green-skinned denizens gazed upon this abnormal mercy in wonder. A momentary spark of hope turned all eyes to the temple on the hilltop, as they suspected the gale was an omen for the impending christening.
Stragglers who hadn’t yet gathered for the baptism quickly joined the crowd by the river at the foot of the temple’s hill with zealous anticipation. The horde was abuzz with talk of the meaning of the gust, while others stood in perfect silence and stared at their guardians’ matriarch, Lady Kerra Tullin, standing in one of the temple’s windows, staring down at them. With her short blue hair as potent as ever, she stood with a baby in her arms, swaddled in a crimson blanket. Her segmented breastplate shimmered with perfection in the light of the emerging sun. With her virile red eyes, she stood witness as the people of Sanctum gathered around the river for the ceremony. As the green veil encroached the sky once again, the temple’s door opened.
***
The sudden squall removed what seemed to be a permanent scowl from Maya’s face. She had never seen the sky during the day, and she wasn’t going to miss this extraordinary opportunity. Far above, instead of a beautiful darkness speckled with light, there was an endless blue with a single blinding orb.
Sorom’s arms. Is this what I, we, have been denied all our lives? Her eyes stung from gaping too long, and her eyes flicked back to her strawberry garden. This harvest can wait. She stood up with her half-filled basket of ripe—as ripe as they could get in Sanctum—bounty of green-tinged produce and walked around her house to the front porch. She sat on the steps and found that the odor in the air had returned even before the fog. Maya quickly realized her harvest had taken on the stench of the sickly green cloud that burdened the lackluster basin she called home. With a sigh, she slid her now-unappetizing bounty away.
She hadn’t always known how much her home reeked, but ever since she’d first snuck out of the “protection” of Sanctum, it had been impossible to overlook. All her life she’d been told to stay, not only because she and her neighbors were the descendants of exiles but due to what waited for her beyond the fog. But she had found no such thing. There was no nearby militia waiting to resume the Sanctumites’ persecution. In fact, Sanctum seemed nowhere near any trace of humanity. Certainly, she would be an oddity due to her coarse green skin, but would that be enough to connect her to one group of exiles hunted for a generations-old crime?
Dregs abound; no one even remembers our beginnings. The best answer I get is some ancient, unnamable covenant to end a hunt. Outside the occasional pack of wandering dread hounds, the world seemed to have forgotten Sanctum entirely.
Though an ancient faith bid them to stay of their own will, in truth it was a mortal threat that bound Sanctumites to the valley. The Ember Jackals, the so-called holy guardians of the valley, met violations of the covenant with cold steel and fire. The three holy tenets held no exceptions: none shall forsake the veil, none shall enter the sacred temple, and none shall pursue the river under.
Maya remembered Sanctum’s favorite tailor; Doren was his name. He had slipped into the river five years ago, and it had carried him underground before he could find his bearings. He’d been gone for an hour before he’d crawled back out, fearful and silent. Somehow, the Jackals had known of his venture and had come for him within minutes of his return. Within moments, the patriarch at the time, Lord Milo, Lady Kerra’s father, had burned his body to ashes. Doren’s screams had chilled her dreams until she was twelve.
What worried her most about the encounter, however, was how the Sanctumites had reacted. None had ventured after him. Some had dared to knock on the temple’s door to inform the Ember Jackals, but most had stood at the river’s six-pace-wide underground tunnel, waiting with silent ire. After Doren had emerged, they’d been on him in a fury, as if they had turned to dread hounds themselves. They had cursed him. They had bound him and beaten him. Even if the Jackals hadn’t arrived that day, Maya was certain poor Doren would not have lived to see another night. In the wake of his execution, some had had the audacity to hail praises upon the Jackals.
With the only competent tailor reduced to dust, the attire of the average Sanctumite had fallen to little more than rags. Each household had conserved what they considered their most presentable attire as prime bartering items. Most families had only one set of proper wear stowed away.
Maya’s suspicions of the tenets alone could make a pariah of her in the most merciful outcome. The consequences were enough for her to hold her tongue. She knew the Jackals had a keen awareness of events in the valley, but her blasphemous nocturnal escapades had proved they weren’t omniscient. She could pack as much food as she could carry and steal off into the night, but at best, that would make her a hunted exile. At worst, she’d run into a pack of dread hounds before she found civilization. With no bearing and no trace of civilization all the way to the horizon, freedom bode a heinous fate too familiar as its cost. Maya cast a mournful glance at the empty house behind her and breathed a shaky sigh.
Forget leaving; just visiting the forest could be the death of me. Last week, the morning after her most recent excursion to the forest just beyond the fog, she had received word it would be her duty to care for Lady Kerra’s child, Asher, after the christening. It had seeded a fear that her taboo actions might not have gone unnoticed.
Being a caretaker for the child of an Ember Jackal was the highest honor Maya could ever expect to receive. After a decade of painstaking care, while the parents crusaded about to places unknown, Sanctumites who completed the child-rearing were often rewarded with extra provisions, a raise in status in the valley, and other small boons. That is, these were rewards granted until Lady Kerra’s upbringing. In the face of their failure to produce their own children, diligent farmhands Yuria and Trent had been overjoyed when they’d been granted the honor. Despite what modest upbringing had occurred, on her twelfth birthday, Lady Kerra had returned and scorched the pair and the house down to ruin. It was a ruin that had gone untouched to this day. While her parents had used to recall the couple fondly, Maya had yet to hear one kind word said about them in public.
For ten years, Maya would now have to tend to a child that might one day burn her away to nothing. With Sanctum’s attention on her household and her new burden, along with random visits from the current matriarch, she would need to be more careful with her nighttime excursions. And they would need to be much rarer.
Despite the fresh air, her pondering left her scowling. Sanctum’s masses had gathered at the riverside near the temple. If she remained sitting on her porch, she would be the only drudge not groveling at the baby’s feet. With a begrudging sigh, Maya slowly stood and made her way over to the crowd. With all eyes soon to be on her, she didn’t intend to draw attention to herself while she still had the luxury of being anonymous.
Maya felt almost invisible among her neighbors as she followed the stoic few who stared at the temple—the only building in the valley without an ugly green tint. She had never understood how anyone could commit themselves to scrubbing and cleaning every day to keep Sanctum’s mist from staining the walls, fighting the inevitable. The faithful saw their work completely undone by the mist within hours of cleaning, yet they committed to start anew, ad nauseam.
Every house, every shack, and the granary, all of them had been built facing the temple, the highest point in the valley. In flesh and stone, all groveled before the holy. Sickeningly lowly. Yet though they would never be permitted entry, the scrubbers’ ministrations bore fruit in the sunlight. Despite its small stature, it oversaw the valley from its perch in the center. The stone walls stood without blemish; the pristine wooden roof was free from warping and rot. The golden trim glimmered its brilliance for all to see. Maya had to admit, in direct light, the temple looked somewhat divine. Perhaps she could believe that these Ember Jackals had been chosen by Sorom, Lord of All, to save and protect the outcasts who had been driven into this abominable valley generations ago.
Maya’s eyes fell upon one of the few clear windows in all of Sanctum and the one who stood beyond it: Lady Kerra, holding her baby. Unlike Milo before her, she always wore her blue-and-silver breastplate while in Sanctum. Her own son’s christening proved no exception. The sun gently kissed her fair skin. Her blue hair, rugged and uneven, barely dropped past her ear at the longest point. While her face was unscarred, it held a cold aspect to it, and on the rare occasion she smiled, its coldness contorted into something cruel. The blood-red eyes shot a gaze that promised only violence. Even those singing her praises gave a momentary pause if they met her eye. In her short life, Maya had yet to see a woman less motherly than the figure looking down from her perch. After watching her for a short time, Maya noticed traces of worry on the matriarch’s face.
Maya didn’t like to dwell on thoughts of baptism. It was bad enough to have seen the results twice already. Two of the young Jackals were among the masses; one had plunged in this damned river barely a year ago, still cradled in her caretaker’s arms. Imogen was the child’s name, if Maya remembered correctly. The other was already voicing his displeasure at not being the center of attention. Owin had been polluting Sanctum with his mewling voice for two agonizing years. They were indistinguishable from the rest of the town now, but when their once-pink-and-fleshy husks had been pulled from the river, their voices had both reached painful volumes and octaves.
Maya shuddered as she forced that awful sound from her mind. It reminded her of just how different she was from those blessed enough to be ignorant of Sanctum. To her, this green river was simply water, nothing more. But the river she had drunk from and bathed in all her life had such a harmful effect on outsiders. Maya looked down at her forearms. In full sunlight, her skin was an even more revolting shade of green, with a thickness and toughness rivaling bark. Would our skin return to normal if we left like the Ember Jackals do?
Maya shook her head and turned her attention back to Lady Kerra. Despite the morbid caress of Sanctum’s air and water, she always approached these christenings with an unshakable sense of indifference. Perhaps you’re a mother despite all this. I’d think you a dreg if even this didn’t faze you. Maya wondered if she should mirror the Jackal’s sentiment, since the little blade master would be her concern immediately after the ceremony.
Even in the shadow of this impending burden, Maya found only dread. Lady Kerra, possibly the only creature more vicious than a dread hound in this valley, was entrusting her spawn to Maya. Lady Kerra, who at twelve years old had scorched her own caretakers. Lady Kerra, the head of the holy order Maya must obey, despite being only five years Maya’s senior. Maya found the whole concept outlandish, almost a joke. Armed strangers give us their children to raise and butcher those who stray from orders. Holy indeed. Maya found herself scowling once more as Lady Kerra’s fierce red eyes snapped from the river directly to her.
A tremor of fear resonated deep within Maya’s body, and she froze in place. For that moment, Maya’s doubts and derisions of the Ember Jackals fled to the darkest corners of her mind. Afraid to take her eyes off Lady Kerra, Maya took wary and stiff steps deeper into the crowd around the river.
She never could stand the gaze of an Ember Jackal. No matter what service they did for Sanctum or how courteous their words were, those violent crimson eyes seemed to always betray some deeper intention, like a dreg filing its fangs.
Maya interwove her fingers together and looked down at her feet for a few seconds before daring to look back up. She was relieved to see the Jackal was no longer at the window.
***
Kerra wanted to believe that the sudden wind was a good omen. Would Asher’s sword rival even Rill’s, the first Jackal? Would the brilliance of his soul bring prosperity to both Sanctum and the kingdom of Dunmarch? Would her wish for a better life for Asher be realized? Such thoughts brought some relief to the weight in her chest. Good in any regard is good enough.
The Sanctumites soon converged on that sickening river. As Kerra looked upon its waiting embrace, whatever hope she had for Asher’s future felt so far away, far beyond the other side of that unforgiving stream. She sought a way to avoid this rite of passage, and repeatedly she imagined Asher falling prey to the evils of the world without this necessary evil. Ten years. Ten damnable years.
She was pulled from her musings by the persistent sensation of being watched. She looked to the crowd and saw young Maya scowling at her.
Maya’s face shifted to one of fear, or perhaps remorse, before the girl shifted her gaze.
Unhappy about my choice, I’m certain. It’s in your best interest that I never match your sentiment.
Maya had never been the most devoted follower in her mossy little village. Kerra would often find the girl staring at her family with questioning scrutiny instead of blind reverence. Kerra liked her for that, never afraid to question despite her diminutive stature. Kerra was sure that in Maya’s care, Asher would likely have the best mindset possible when stepping out of this pit. He would move into the world with cautious steps instead of striding forward as if he’d already conquered it. Unlike the two rats already here.
Even if Maya had been just as fervent as the rest, she would still have been the best candidate, as she had managed to spite the world around her and make a bountiful and prosperous garden full of strawberries amid the harsh valley. No matter how many seeds the Ember Jackals supplied the townsfolk, only the hardiest of produce survived. Fifteen and orphaned for two years, Maya had managed to defy the odds and scratch a living off the land.
As Kerra watched Maya shuffle back into the crowd, she heard a resigned voice behind her.
“Still stalling?”
Kerra turned to find Nash, his expression one of pseudo-amusement. But as their eyes met, it turned sorrowful. He looked like he wanted to have one last argument, to say one more thing to stop this ordeal. He approached and gently stroked their son’s head. “When does it begin?” he asked, sighing.
Kerra cast a solemn look upon their sleeping child. “As soon as I walk out that door.”
He retracted his hand at a glacial speed and forced a smile. “Well, may as well get started while there’s still a giant beacon of hope in the sky.”
She nodded and walked reluctantly to the door. She took a deep breath and gripped the handle. She gave the metal a hard squeeze before letting it out. Kerra’s face hardened into the face that Sanctum knew as Lady Kerra. She twisted the knob and opened the door.
Five seconds.
As she stepped outside, the Sanctumites fell silent. She surveyed her audience before looking up to see that her stalling had allowed the green mist to advance upon the sun. She looked back to the river as she descended the hill. Only the squelching of the sickly grass under her boots dared to make a sound.
Just five seconds.
Asher coughed, Sanctum’s air irritating his young lungs. Kerra didn’t look down. She knew that no rocking, no milk, no lullaby would remedy Sanctum’s embrace. An incomparable pain grew in her chest as his coughing grew louder and more desperate.
Five seconds.
Kerra waded waist-deep into the river, her only thought a desire to finish this malevolent ceremony as quickly as possible. She removed Asher’s red blanket, placing it upon her shoulder, and held him bare above the waters. Kerra plunged Asher under without a word.
One.
In the beginning, there was nothing. No rotting. No writhing. No sound. In this moment of clarity, Asher opened his eyes and gazed upon his mother. In this moment of ignorance, Kerra believed it all. She believed the sun had carried forth the best omen Kerra could have hoped for—as if the boon had been inherited by blood, the waters could not harm him. She dared to believe that little Asher had truly been sent from Sorom himself and would be unhindered by the obstacles his predecessors had encountered.
The moment ended.
