"Penance" by Lyndsay E. Gilbert aka Liadan

I will do penance Dark Lady.  I will lower myself to the ground and even further still.  I will bring myself close to the burning lakes of the seven hells that fire may spit on my unworthy heart.  I will do penance, Lady of Night and Death.  I know that I have sinned. I know…

She had led thousands to war and stood in the spray of their blood.  She had fought ruthlessly onward, until the last of her assailants was begging for mercy at her feet.  The blood of warriors ran through her, consuming her with thirst for the kill. But her heart’s desire for honour had guided every sweep of her sword.  All since she had met her first enemy at the age of twelve. 

She had walked in the footsteps of her mother, and hers before that spanning generations back until the first of her family had stood beside the Queen of Demschalle. And together they had founded a World that would invade the house of Time and make the chronicles of fate bow to it.

Beneath only her mother, Astra Iztvan was the youngest general that Demschalle had ever followed into war.  And none had ever been so passionate or wilful. 

None had even been so innately independent…

*               *                 *

“Throw away your pride before you march out there, Astra.  Throw away your honour and your dignity.  And when you have done all that and you are standing in that field with the bodies of the innocent beneath you…you will have thrown away your heart!”

His silver bangles twisted like snakes up his arms, and as he implored her the moonlight glistened off them. He used so many gestures when he spoke.  He had always been dramatic.  She loved him for this when they were gazing into each others eyes by candle light.  She loved it when the lights were off and she was Astra the woman, not Astra the general.  When she took up her sword she could not smile upon his ways.

“When I march out there Arden, I am an emissary for the Queen and the Goddess.  And such powers cannot obey the whims of my heart.”  She knew he would speak of causes.  And she feared he would blaspheme.  This courtesan she had come to love hid a mind of brilliance behind his blank smiles and his simple dreams.  A mind that she knew was dangerous to him. 

He began to speak but she continued over him, fastening her ebony cloak across her deep red armour, “I should chide you for even speaking of war.  But you must not speak of my honour.  I must obey the wish of the Queen.  Matters of war are for no man to discuss.”

Arden placed a slim white hand at the clasp of her cloak, shivering as a breeze of the night air blew through the tent they stood in, “Why should a courtesan pretend to be as any other man…My life is made of internal war…”

Astra caressed his cheek, adoring the smoothness of his skin against her fingertips and wishing she could make his green eyes smile up at her.  Her own mind was in a dark place and she wished that the hunt she had pursued this past year should not have to end like this.

“The Princess of Steffan is condemned now by the Goddess.  She has taken the Queen’ own son into anger with her and has been found surrounded by traitors to the crown Arden.  I have chased them endlessly, as was my duty.  You have accompanied me and yet here at the end you tell me I will throw away my honour?”

He did not speak what he was thinking, but he stepped towards her and she was alarmed at the intensity of his gaze.  The smile without mirth on his red lips seemed to be saying but who speaks for the real Goddess, The Queen of corruption or Katryna Von Steffan?

The thoughts that had been on the minds of so many and the words on the breath of traitors,  whispered in ‘Holy’ circles.  But these thoughts were only her business because she was charged with exterminating them.  And what use were such words anyway…they had killed so many. 

Katryna Von Steffan had been the cause of many deaths for one who spoke so adamantly of life.  Her compassion, said to know no ends, seemed only a myth to Astra.  For she had fled through a forest infested with evil and had taken the Imperial Prince with her through such filth. 

And as for the prince, how could he stand among those disloyal to his mother?  Though once betrothed to Katryna, he surely could not love one now cast from the Goddess’s heart.  He must be loyal to Demschalle.  Not to his own desire.

“What will you do with them Astra?  What will you do when so many believe she is innocent…when all she speaks of is love?”

“I will do my duty to Demschalle Arden.  I will do my duty to you.  Some day you will be mine and no longer any woman’s mere fancy.” She felt the ardour in her own voice, it complimented the gaze in his eyes.  But she could hear his unspoken words, still hanging on his lips, you will not kill her Astra, you and I, and everyone else knows her life is immortal…for all you dislike her

“Will you kill all those that stand around her?  So many have come to protect her.  I can see their torches burning against the forest.”  He moved past her, his bare feet silent on the furs as he came to stand in the entrance of the marquee.  His lengthy chestnut hair streamed behind him in the breeze that was slowly welcoming a gale.  He crossed his jewel laden arms across his bare torso, shivering from the cold, “So many here in just one town of one world to stand for her…”  He whispered.

And the immensity of what he had spoke struck her.  For in all of Demschalle’s seventy- seven worlds surely there would come together an army with her name on it.  An army of mass dimension if ever she called it.

“I must protect the Right of Queens Arden, I must protect the word of the Goddess…” 

And in her mind she remembered Katryna the child, her ever changing hair dancing around her as she swung upon the tree ropes.   So innocently she had spoken that day, she had said, ‘The Goddess puts unique words into all our hearts…and so our hearts are the true pages on which to read the thoughts of the All Mother.’

“You will have throw away your heart…”  Arden said once more, and Astra could not look at him as she sheathed her sword and left the tent.

*               *                 *

  She could not shy away from the beat of her heart as she fought the circle of people.  It thundered in her ears, her blood rushing through her veins.  It did not spill, not one drop. For no peasant could match her in battle.  She did not draw her sword but fought them as they came to her, with only their bare hands. 

She could not throw away her honour, though with every woman she took down she could see Arden staring at her.  His deep jade eyes narrowed in accusation.  She could see him from the dark place of her minds eye.  And she imagined she should have to hold onto her own heart to stop it from flying her chest.

Her most trusted soldiers fought through the crowd beside her.  And she knew some had their swords drawn and she wondered if it would be better to take their heads in battle.  For she knew they would take the survivors of this revolt and their deaths would be terrible.  Still she found she could not draw her sword against the unarmed, none showed even the slightest flicker of magick.  She took to snapping necks to bring instant death.  Bodies littered the floor in her tracks, and she knew Arden was even watching from afar.  Watching as she twisted heads and did not flinch at the crack of breaking bones.  She must be merciless here.

As she fought she felt hatred mount inside her.  Katryna Von Steffan was surely no emissary of the Goddess.  She was a coward to wait in the centre of such an unskilled mob of peasants, relying on their protection.  She, who was famed for her skills of sorcery.  She was cowering behind the unarmed.  There would only be one that Astra Iztvan would draw her sword against this night.

The chaos was all too easily defeated.  They fought unskilled for all their passion.  Their beliefs had led them to bow at the skirts of the Death Mother.  Torches of light circled the mass of bodies and as the last fell Astra unsheathed her sword, waiting to face the coward that waited in the centre. 

She braced herself for magick, for words steeped in arcane curses.  Curses that would melt her heart in her chest.  Silence rung out, broken only by the sing of the sword in her hand.  She raised it high above her head.  There was only to be one strike for this night.  One strike to slice into the heart of a traitor.

*

Bring me my penance Dark Lady.  Lower me to dust and dirt.  Lower me further still.  The burning lakes of hell will not cleanse me of my sin.  For the innocence I have murdered.  I threw away my worthy heart, and a black one is beating in my chest…bring me my penance oh Dark One…I have sinned.

...to be continued...…