Page 23 of The Garnet Daughter
The sibling elders lean forward to eye Elder Victoria, perhaps wondering what she is getting at just as I am.
“It called my friend an abomination.”
The energy in the gathering shifts a little, like the creature itself is listening.
Elder Oona hums to herself. “Omnesis rights the wrongs of the three worlds. If something or someone should not exist, threatening the balance it maintains . . . Your friend, is she Mother blessed?”
“Yes,” I answer slowly. “Born of the Temple of Divine Mothers.”
Together, they nod, and that sends a chill down my back. A person whose divinity should not have been, a trick of nature by an evil highest priestess.
“If Omnesis sensed the stone was in danger, it would have taken it back to its temple, the original resting place long before the bricks of Cosima’s Estate were laid,” Elder Victoria explains. “Of this I am not worried.”
It’s a relief but difficult to think of anything other than Ferren and the threat they claim she may be in. “It thinks she should not exist. Why did it not harm her?”
“It is not for us to know the timing of such things. We cannot see the ripples and threads of this world like it can. Regardless, it has marked her as an abomination and will likely right that imbalance.” Elder Isaac speaks this time.
“What can I do? How do I stop it?” My hands tremble in my lap.
“What can any human do for old gods?” he muses.
There are stories of the old gods working together with the faithful when the world was one, but now they are illusive and dangerous. Ferren herself barely made it out of the Albright’s cave alive, but she was able to persuade it. Surely Omnesis has worldly desires just like the other gods who dwell here. I could figure out what it wants, its weakness. It’s going to kill Ferren and any woman born in the same way.
“Thank you for your wisdom. August believes the beacon will transmit today, and we will leave you soon after.” I stand on shaky legs. As usual, they have divulged much information but, in the same sense, not enough at all. “Is there anything else I should know, elders?”
They are silent, staring straight through me, until Elder Victoria exhales like she is reluctant to answer. “If the highest priestess of Cosima is dead?—”
She hesitates for so long, I nod my head, thinking I misunderstood the question for a statement and nod again to confirm.
Then she leans forward like she is going to whisper. “Tell no one on Cosima you understood the old god. It spoke in front of you and others, but tell no one you made sense of its language. It is very important that the order does not know of this.”
I bow to them and then pause, not knowing her exact meaning. They distrust the order more than anyone, but some things are bigger than feuds between worlds.
I need to find August and make sure the distress signal went through. The situation is more dangerous than ever, and now Ferren’s life is a target for an old god.
My chest tightens, like my heart alone is folding the distance back to my friend, who is still grieving and now in danger herself. We have to get back to Cosima immediately. I have to warn her.
I duck under arches of woven grass and weeds shaped into giant crescent moons. They line the walkways and paths to each house. It has been so long since I celebrated this holiday. The last one was when I was a child, and Selene and I decorated the outside of our home the whole day, bickering about the perfect placement, and then spent the evening braiding lemongrass into our hair for luck.
I turn down the path that leads to the beacon plateau and see August walking it toward the village. Several children walk with him dressed in their finest clothing and giggling as if they havefound a new pet. One of the teen boys ties a lemongrass-braided band around his wrist. August smiles so big my stomach flips and forgets the worried nerves it just held onto so tightly.
When he spots me walking toward him, he waves and jogs forward, making sure to thank the village children over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I ask, and the words sound more accusatory than intended.
“They swarmed me.” He laughs, playing with the bracelet on his wrist, the dry green braid making a crinkly noise as he moves it.
“We need to talk.”
“Yeah, I need to talk to you too.”
“What is it?” Surely nothing is as important as what I have to share with him.
“I tried all morning, but I couldn’t get the transmitter to output a signal.”
“Oh.”
I was wrong.
