Page 82 of Master of Storms
“I know that feeling.” Andromeda lifted her wine and drained it. But there was a sense of relief about her as she lowered the glass and said brightly, “Another glass?”
“Another glass,” Solveig conceded, with a respectful—and knowing—nod to the queen.
* * *
Appearances must be kept.
They had sought her out in order to ascertain if she was a threat to Andromeda’s position, but once the truth was gleaned, Solveig found the conversation much easier. Platters were brought, and the three of them laughed over the frustrations of being female in a court of maledreki, and the ways in which to manage them. Lighthearted, gossipy talk that went nowhere, and was dangerous to none of them.
However, she too had her purpose in coming here.
Solveig plucked a piece of dark rye from theSmørrebrødplatter,and added a sliver of pickled herring to it, waiting for the precise moment when the conversation lulled. “I am curious about something, if you don’t mind me asking…?”
Andromeda waved a languid hand. “Please. You are our guest.”
She tried to think how to word it. “You know more about the mystical than I do. I have always been taught that when adrekidies, and we set their body to the bonfire, their spirit rises to ride the horizon forever. But I heard a story about a body that was burned, and no spirit arose. Is it possible?”
Viveka didn’t quite tense, but her fingers tightened on the pear she was carving. “The goddess gifts those who lived their life with honor by an endless flight on the horizon. They’re the ones we see each night when the winter nights are long and cold. Forever seeking the winds. And those that dishonor the goddess are absorbed back into her. She was the one who gave them the spark of their soul. And She is the one who will crush even the merest remnants of it, if they betray her teachings. They cease to exist.”
“So thisdrekiwas absorbed into the goddess?”
Viveka bit her lip. “Most likely—”
“No. There would have been signs,” Andromeda broke in. “A spirit is not released from the body until we are returned to fire. We say the fires burn clean when the soul is pure, but for those who will be extinguished, there is a dark, ruddy-colored smoke, and the fires flicker. You will see a dark form rise, a spirit in anguish. But it will be trapped in the flames, and not free to rise to the sky. The fire consumes it. If no spirit arose then….” She looked troubled. “It was because therewasno spirit to rise.”
Solveig nibbled on her slice of bread. “How would that happen?”
“There is a darker side to Chaos magic,” Andromeda admitted. “A Chaos practitioner can steal another’s soul and trap it for their bidding. If the body dies, no spirit arises, for they are cursed intokunuk la’atzu.”
“Seal.” Solveig managed to roughly translate. Her Sumerian was limited. “Seal of….”
“The spirit world.”
She’d never heard such a term before.
“It’s a prison of the soul,” Viveka said. “An object, usually, that a practitioner creates a spirit world inside, where one can trap a soul. There were many seals created in centuries past, though I believe the making of them is lost to this era. It was forbidden in many cultures. They burned the books that spoke of it, and destroyed thosekunuk la’atzuthat they found.”
“What would one of these objects look like?”
Suspicion darkened Viveka’s eyes. “I don’t know. They called them soulstones.”
“A rock?”
“I don’t know. It’s forbidden to know of such things.”
But Andromeda knew. Once again, her gaze sought her wineglass. Solveig recognized it, though to push now, when they were already suspicious, might prove dangerous.
She considered everything she knew of Queen Amadea’s death. “Could adrekido it to themselves? Could they trap their soul inside thiskunuk la’atzuin order to escape persecution?”
Even Andromeda’s eyebrows rose at that. “It is possible, though I doubt such a practitioner would do it. You would be trapped in there. Possibly forever.”
“Why do you ask?” Viveka leaned toward her, her gray eyes glittering. “Do you know someone who has done this?
“No, it’s just a story,” she murmured, realizing she’d stirred their suspicion too far. “It seemed so farfetched, but it has been toying at my mind.” She lifted her glass. “More wine?”
The two of them shared a look.
“More wine,” Andromeda agreed, though her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
