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The Tara River

The priest laughed as another group of knights entered. Sirona couldn’t breathe.

“Do not weep for the faithless, child,” he said, grandly. “There is no room under Anu’s protection for heretics and liars. None bonded to such a thing may go untested. Seize the household!”

Sirona couldn’t look up, staring into her father’s eye. He had been in the capital. The temple decreed heretics were supposed to be burned at the stake to cleanse their evil.

Only traitors were beheaded.

King Haron and Queen Blodeu were behind this.

Her father said that King Haron had always been corrupt and greedy, but after marrying Queen Blodeu, he’d become a fanatic lunatic. Queen Blodeu had ties to the temple of Anu and the god’s cult. Before their marriage, Haron was simply a corrupt king filling his coffers with ill-gotten taxes and gorging himself on wine and women. Now, he was using that same money to pay for the cult of Anu and Conna’s expansion across the northern continent.

People who couldn’t pay their taxes were forced to serve the temple as slaves helping to spread the cult or jailed until their families paid the debt. As Haron continued to raise the taxes to pay for the wars he and the temple waged across the continent, the number of temple slaves grew.

Her father held Haron’s zealotry at bay by paying the poorest of their subjects’ tax debts, so they wouldn’t be forced into the temple. He never agreed with Haron’s kingship or the way the temple preyed upon the people most in need of help. He’d always been a peaceful, righteous man dedicated to the well-being of his people.

Now, he was dead.

“I am innocent!” Aria cried as a knight grabbed her, “I have always been devout!”

“We will see,” he said, nodding down the hall before approaching Sirona.

He placed his hands on her shoulders, grasping them tightly. Her head shot up as if she had been struck by lightning and she looked up into his face, but his eyes were not on hers.

She felt the slipping over the curves of her body as if he could see through the pale blue fabric. She shuddered and looked over to Hailey who looked paler than she remembered, trembling in her dark blue robes.

“Yes… Like all children, you are still pure. You can still be redeemed,” he grew closer, drawing her up against him so she could feel the heat of his body, but her gaze turned to the knights marching down the hallway. She couldn’t even hear her mother’s protests and proclamations of her devotion. “You need only devote yourself to the temple to be saved from a heretic’s death…”

She felt sick as the temple knights started grabbing items from the table. Fine pieces of silver and expensive dishes. She remembered the proclamation about a heretic’s due.

As far as the temple was concerned, the staff and everything in Gunning was now the property of the temple to be cleansed before being turned over to the kingdom.

What would happen to the people who relied on the subsidies her father allotted them? How long would it be before they were forced into the temple’s service or imprisoned?

How many more young women and men would have to join the temple as acolytes to please the priests of Anu?

She looked down at her father’s head again. The world seemed to be spinning.

Father, what do I do?

She felt her eyes welling with burning tears. They spilled down her cheeks as she waited for the head to speak. It said nothing. The sack slipped a little further and she could see his expression. She gasped. There was no fear on her father’s face at his death. He did not die resigned to his fate or fearful. His stare had been resolute and strong.

She could hear his voice as if he was standing beside her, Daran’s do not bow to tyranny.

“Nor do they run from their fate,” she whispered.

The priest grabbed her face and pulled her head around to face him as he licked his lips. There was lust and evil in his eyes. His interest in her had turned her stomach for years, but that nausea was building into a burning fire in her chest.

“There is no need to weep for heretics–”

She drew the holy sword from his belt and cut him across his chest. Blood turned the dark blue robes near black as he stumbled back. Aria gasped in horror. Hailey’s eyes grew wide as saucers. Sirona’s heart pounded in her ears. She held the blade aloft the way her father taught her, straight back and proud.

“I will not bow to perverts and thugs!”

Sirona tore the rosary from her neck and threw it at the priest before turning and running.

“Sirona!”

“After her!” The priest called. “Kill her at first chance!”

It was every mortal’s fate to die, but if she had to die, she would not die weeping. She wouldn’t die a slow death serving leering men in temple robes. She would die one day, but maybe it did not have to be today or by these men’s hands.

Sirona turned down a hall sharply, catching a knight off guard and cutting him in his side before shoving him aside with a cry.

He crumpled with a pained groan, clutching his injury as she ran. Her heart pounded in her ears as she ran.

“Lady Sirona!” Mary cried in shock, held by a knight. “What–”

Sirona paused for a moment, wanting to ask about Hailey, but the thud of boots behind her drowned out her thoughts. She ducked into the kitchen where pots of water were boiling, ready for food. She tipped the boiling pot over towards the oncoming knights before grabbing an empty pan. She scooped a pan full of embers and flung them at the knights. They cried out in agony as she turned over the table, chairs, and stools before fleeing out the back door.

“Stop! By order of the king, heretic!”

“She has the Herald’s sword!”

“Catch her!”

Sirona rounded the manor towards the stables. A young temple knight jumped out in front of her brandishing his sword. She struck him in the chest with the herald’s sword and disarmed him before whistling for her horse.

She heard her neighing loudly and rushing towards her.

The young knight glared at her, “May Anu smite you.”

She bared her teeth in a sneer and drove the sword through his chest. He choked and stumbled back before rolling down the hill taking the sword with him. Sirona mounted her horse and urged it down the hill. She heard the thud of boots behind her.

“Murder!” Someone cried, “On your horses. After her!”

“We will impale her body in the capital’s square, by the grace of Anu!”

“Faster!” She urged her horse as it broke the tree line.

She glanced back at the sound of whinnying horses. She had the head start and the advantage of knowing this forest. If she could just keep the advantage of the distance until the sun faded, she could send her horse north towards the border into the wild, unclaimed forest along Conna’s northern border. Meanwhile, she would head south and travel under the shadow of the higher lands and head towards the kingdom of Durin, one of the only kingdoms that still stood against Conna on the continent.

“Faster! We’ll lose her in the dark!”

She guided her horse left then right over a knotted mess of raised roots that would have snapped its ankles and carried on. Soon, she heard surprised cries and the pained whinny of horses.

She pulled her horse onto a secret path headed towards a small hunter’s path leading north. She slowed the horse as the thickets grew thick and slipped off the saddle.

“Take the hunter’s paths north then around to Durin, as fast as you can,” she whispered, staring into the horse’s eyes.

It neighed and nudged her towards the thicket before taking off at a quick gallop. She slipped into the small opening between the trees, finding a bit of footing on the craggy rock of the steep slope. Quickly, she pushed the leaves around to cover her footsteps before resting her full weight on the craggy rock and beginning to climb down the slope.

Her foot slipped. She held back the yelp of surprise and scrambled to grab hold of something. The root of a tree bent as she grabbed it, but it didn’t crack or break. She took in a sharp breath as she stopped skidding and looked up towards the road.

“The horse tracks lead north!” She heard them thundering past. “Quickly, we’ll lose her in the forest!”

She climbed down the rest of the way before hurrying down the narrow path along the river bank as fast as she could. She couldn’t outrun horses, but the gully running beside the path curved west and was a faster path to the Tara River than the path she’d set her horse on.

If she hurried and kept pace, she might make it just as her horse was crossing over Gunning’s territory line. It would take several days for her horse to take the network of paths back south towards Durin, but if she hurried, she would be over the border by then.

The sounds of the horses faded into the distance as she ran. The cool cursed blue of the river in the distance was the only light she had as the sun continued to set. She jumped across the small stream and followed the gully as it wound its way west towards the Tara River.

By the time the light of the river grew closer, the sun had set, and she was feeling hopeful that her plan had worked.

Something whizzed by her, barely scraping her arm. The arrow embedded itself in the side of the gully and she turned to look over her shoulder where a group of knights were pointing and shouting at her. A few were climbing down the slope to follow her.

“Shoot her! Shoot her!”

She cursed and hurried around the curve as another arrow flew towards her. She turned south as she reached the wide bank of the Tara River and hurried downstream.

She hiked her skirts up and ran, hoping to be able to lose them in the coming night. She rounded the river’s bend as the sound of clunking armor grew louder and skidded to a halt and cursed.

The slope she had planned to climb to get back onto higher ground and the southern merchant’s path had collapsed. The hill had turned into a mudslide, blocking her path down the bank. Her heart thudded in her chest as the knights grew closer, yelling into the dark about searching for her.

“Nowhere to go, heretic!”

She turned slowly as they rounded the bend.

The lead knight sneered, “You’ll pay for what you’ve done to the Herald of Anu and the knights you attacked! Come back and maybe we’ll show you some mercy.”

She lifted her chin, “All mortals must die, but it is how we live that sets us apart.”

She took a step back and thought of her father. She imagined him staring into the king’s eyes as the blade came down and took his head.

She turned sharply and ran into the river to her death.

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