Page 34 of A Kingdom of Lies

“Three left,” Duncan said, amusement dripping from his deep tone.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, mind racing. I silently scolded myself for wasting yet another question on something so pathetic, but it was a genuine thought. Unlike when we arrived, there wasn’t a Hunter in sight.

“Evening worship. And if I don’t show my face I may be disgraced by the Hand before we even have the chance of reaching Lockinge. It’s unbecoming for a Hunter to miss prayer, no matter the reason.”

His short reply only conjured more questions. I felt as though I was reaching in a river for gold, unsure which lump to pick out of the bunch.

“I didn’t realise the Hand was such a devoted follower of the Creator.”

“He isn’t.” Duncan’s jaw tensed, muscles feathering. Whereas I studied his face to see if it provided me any information beyond words, he only looked forward. His stare fixated ahead as though I was not by his side at all.

I was not a religious person, nor had Father been. Growing up in a household where Father scorned the Creator, rather than praised Him, it had made me look at the stories as no more than what they were.

Fiction.

The teachings of the Creator, the humans’ god, were preached within schools and whispered about during holy sabbats that I never found myself joining. The humans and the fey didn’t worship the same god; the Creator and Altar were different beings. Altar… the very god who’d graced me with his presence within Welhaven, tearing down his place of worship as my own father’s blood spoiled his holy place.

“So you’re cultists,” I said. “Crazed people who worship a god who would smite them down with sickness and plague if given the choice. A cult of blood-thirsty humans, who follow the Creator in a twisted way that the teachings never suggest.”

“As I just said, we don’t put our belief in the Creator.” Duncan paused in his walking, stopping suddenly.

“Well I don’t imagine you worship Altar, considering you hunt his children for sport. Or am I wrong, and this is all some big twisted game?”

“Ah, fourth and final question.” Duncan began walking again, his pace quickened this time as we split from the corridor and began our descent down a twisting staircase. The walls were narrow, so much so that I felt as though they pushed in from either side, restricting my breathing. I had to hold my hands out at my sides, steadying myself against the rough stone wall to prevent me from falling down. One wrong step and I hardly believed Duncan would break a sweat trying to stop me from tumbling down to the bottom.

“Then who do you worship?” I asked, chasing Duncan around the twisting steps until we finally reached flat ground.

“You will see.”

A shiver ran across my skin at his words. “When?”

“Tonight. I would like you to join me for this evening’s worship.” Duncan shot a look back at me, gesturing to an arched, doorless frame in our direction. Beyond was the courtyard and a dazzling glow of warm, orange light through yet another archway further away. “Once we are finished you will be taken to see your friends. Then, as soon as Althea is in a position to travel, it’s back on the road for us.”

I thought the heavy thumping was coming from my chest as I stared, in wonder, towards to the glow. But it was not my chest. It came from the ground, a thundering of feet as Hunters stomped in unison.

“Quick,” Duncan said, grin long and sly. He reached for me, fingers grasping my bare wrist. It was his touch that shocked me more than anything he’d said. The mention of prisons beneath castles and hundreds of captured fey. Gods and worship. It was the gentle grasp of his hand as he wrapped fingers around my wrist like a bracelet, a completely contrasting touch from that which bruised my jaw when he held me in the chamber room. “Tonight is a special mass, for we have a blood rite to witness.”

I couldn’t have refused even if I wished to.

Duncan guided me into the chilly courtyard, towards the glow of the door on the other side of it. I almost choked on the thick, incense-filled air; it climbed up my nose and dug deep into my throat, making every inhale feel like breathing underwater, and the exhale no better.

We waded through the short hallway that soon opened up into a room no bigger than the chamber we had left. Except this room was full of bodies. Hunters filled every possible space, each fixated on the podium raised at the far end. Without the countless candles that dripped wax down the walls and from the ceiling, it would’ve been impossible to see what happened inside. But the horror was illuminated in a red glow that danced off the dark, maroon habits worn by the people lined up like cattle upon the podium.

“–Duwar has been kept, starved, and broken, in a prison its own kin had forged. Tricked, it was discarded into hell with no hope to escape. Alone for no one to hear its crying pleas for forgiveness to the very ones who banished it into the dark place. Until Duwar was heard again, a small whimper in the shadows that the Hand had listened to, whispers full of promise–”

An old man spoke amidst the line of cloaked figures. His back was bent at an odd angle, as though he carried the weight of the world atop him. White hair fell in clumps from his head, knotting with the beard that hung down to the swollen belly within his plain brown habit held together with a frayed piece of cord. He swung a brass chalice on the end of a chain that spat out streams of smoke that coiled around his stout frame as he called across the crowd.

“Keep quiet and listen,” Duncan murmured into my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. “This wouldn’t be the place to draw attention to yourself.”

I forced down the bile that crept up my throat, wondering why Duncan would even care to give me such a warning. But that thought didn’t last long as I focused back on the words the old man continued to recite.

“You know what must be done for Duwar’s sustenance,” he wailed, bloodshot eyes scanning for a crowd as though he could hardly see an inch before him. “We must keep Duwar fed whilst we wait for its return as ordered by its voice. All hail Duwar, and the blessed mouthpiece they chose for a vessel.”

“Duwar,” everyone but Duncan and I repeated, as though entranced by the old man. “Duwar.”

“Let the rite begin.”

He stepped back, gesturing for the line of veiled beings, the same I’d seen walking within Finstock upon our arrival. There were five of them, each a different height than the one next to them.

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