Page 16 of Summer of Sacrifice

A dark, timbrous laugh trickled through her head and flushed up her chest.

“We don’t have the luxury of letting fear dictate our behaviour, most of all within our own council. So buck the fuck up, buttercup. Do not alter yourself around us. You were someone else for too damned long, and I don’t care what turmoil you have with Grimm, you just sat here and dealt out an exemplary plan. Stand by it and do not cower.”

Emile sat straighter, and she could see every deep line etched into his face. At least a century had caused those lines. One that he couldn’t even remember much of.

“I’ll do my best, Agatha.”

“Good.” She smoothed her mulberry skirts. “Your trial run begins now. We are headed to Araignée in the morning.”

His mouth gaped like a fish for only a moment before he gathered himself, stern and confident. “Of course.”

GAIUS

Arielle smacked Gaius’ hand away. “I know which one is which. Stop hovering.”

Gaius lifted his hands in a mock surrender Arielle could sense but not see, and retreated to sit on a nearby stool, watching her tinker with the chemicals before her. Over the last moon, he'd learned that she was not a woman who relished assistance of any kind. Nor was she a woman who gave up easily.

He considered telling her the gurgling liquid was turning a putrid green instead of its intended golden yellow, but she would have only snapped at him, then apologised, then asked him to leave if he wasn’t going to be helpful—even though helping was exactly what he was doing.

Arielle was the sweetest spitfire. And he was madly in love with her, terrifying as it was. He hadn’t slept a wink in the last moon. When he wasn’t working, he spent every morsel of a moment with Arielle, often talking with her until almost sunrise. It was strictly against the rules of Araignée to fraternise after curfew, but Sorscha had successfully gotten Asa to make said curfew later—and he suspected she was working on eradicating the damned thing. Most nights, he would sneak from his room and into Arielle’s with Sorscha’s help.

Despite his sleeplessness, the days were fulfilling, if not exhausting in and of themselves. Just after Arielle’s arrival, Lena and Paulo had both agreed he was ready to prepare elixirs for the residents. It was an immense honour. Something that made him feel that he’d finally found his place in the world. A place where he was both hermit and hero as Sorscha had said.

Each day, he rose early, spending the peaceful hours pre-dawn to use all he’d learned of chymistry—blending the spiritual and physical into elixirs. Lena would come in after the morning meal and send wisps of magic into each vial. Then, together, they and some of the others in the healing abbey—some mage, some mortal like him—would hand deliver them to each patient in the infirmary.

Gaius’ first time there had been gut-wrenching. “This is where their bodies heal of addiction, so their souls and magic may be healed as well,” Lena had told him that first day. And it was there that all the brothel workers Asa and Sorscha brought in from their Hunt healed. Some screaming, some trembling. Others slept like the dead or picked at their skin. “They hurt without the Sugar. It’s painful to watch, but I assure you, this is the better way. They masked their pain with the drug, and they cannot be whole until they can face life without it.”

Sorscha had called Araignée a cult, but Gaius took solace in the fact that all had come of their own volition, and almost all chose to stay. Once they were clean, no longer ruled by their addictions, they spent time with Lena or one of the other leaders doing what they referred to as Shadow Work—facing the inner turmoil and trauma that had led to the addiction in the first place. For many of them, it had begun with the syphoning of their magic by Chresedia for simply having something she wanted. It left them all but dead, their lives clinging to what was left of their magic. For others, they had spent time in The Order and had their memories taken, barely escaping with their lives. Some had merely had hard, painful lives that were not kind to them, or they were the fodder for being near a moment of Chresedia’s madness.

The journey in the healing abbey was how Gaius had confronted the difficult fact that his mother had been a mage. That she’d faced Chresedia and had not gotten away. Between Arielle and Lena, they’d all been able to piece together enough to land on what had truly happened that dark day to his family. Lena had not known his mother, but she’d known the Zivai family in the distant past through her mother.

Thinking that his mother could have been found by Asa or one of the others and brought to Araignée but was not… It felt cruel. A mist almost, but not quite, caught. Regardless, it had brought him an odd sort of peace and closure to finally understand for certain what happened to his family.

He was content to leave it at that, but Arielle insisted he could have traces of his mother’s magic living within him. Gaius, however, thought that was rubbish and dismissed it immediately.

“Gaius.” A voice interrupted his thoughts, one of the abbey healers poking his head in at the door. It was wonderful not to be called lord all the time. “Sorscha has returned.”

Gaius shot up, striding swiftly toward the hall. “Is anyone with her?”

“Yes. She arrived with several people.”

He pushed past the man, Arielle close at his heels. He shouted for the healer to extinguish the experiments they’d just abandoned. Arielle said nothing as they descended the stairs and walked briskly across the great valley of Araignée. She was likely just as anxiously excited as he was. Gaius clenched his hands in and out of fists, too many sharp-edged emotions coming simultaneously.

“Do you think he’s with them?” Arielle finally dared to whisper, struggling to keep up with his long strides.

“Gods, I hope so.”

Agatha and Sorscha had sent word a moon ago that he was safe. Whole. But they both needed to see for themselves. Their brother. Arielle’s brother by blood in lives she could hardly recall, and Gaius’ chosen brother in the only life he knew.

He could just make out five figures, mere shadows in the bright sun, near the cave entrance to Araignée. Had it truly only been a matter of moons since he’d walked through that cavemouth himself and never wanted to leave? It felt like a lifetime ago, all its own.

One of the shapes was thick and bulky, confusing Gaius until they came close enough to realise it was Sorscha accosting Asa, her legs wrapped around his middle. Before they made it two more steps, one of the other figures was darting toward him rapidly, wild copper hair flying out behind her. He caught Aggie mid-air as she jumped, wrapping her arms around his neck as he squeezed her in a tight embrace.

“Am I supposed to hug the queen like this?” he teased.

Aggie laughed and sniffled. “Oh, stuff it.”

She gave him one more squeeze, and he set her down, wholly unprepared for the assault of emotion that would slam into him the moment she stepped aside to reveal Grimm standing there.

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