V3Ch75-Disgrace

This is the end of my career as a paladin, Samara thought for what might have been the tenth time as she stood beside Hamnet and six other priests in the twilight. Total disgrace. I’ll probably end my life in a prison cell.

But at least the nerve-shattering anxiety had taken the edge off of her recent, near constant state of arousal.

She stroked the silver holy symbol her sister had given her with one trembling finger. She wasn’t sure if it was truly working. The dreams had stopped… but was she supposed to miss them? This felt less like the Goddess’s protection and more like a new phase of the dream maker’s torment.

Movement passed in front of Samara’s eyes.

“That’s the patrol,” Hamnet’s voice hissed. He looked at Samara. “Go!”

The paladin swallowed, darted forward, and struck both the patrolling soldiers from behind with heavy blows to the backs of their necks before they could turn around.

“Well done!” one of her companions whispered loudly.

Then the priests dashed up the stairs, leaving Samara standing guard at the bottom. She dragged the two guards out of view, then stood in front of the stairs, pressing her back into the wall, wishing to be invisible.

I wasn’t even supposed to be here, she thought miserably.

But when she had delivered Asha’s message to Hamnet, he had made that a condition of any action on his part.

“What sort of forces does she think I have at my disposal?” the priest had asked irritably, crumpling the note in his hand. “We can’t rescue her. The combat capable priests in the city who haven’t been arrested or dispatched elsewhere are a handful! This is all because she got into political matters…”

Ultimately, Samara had agreed to accompany Hamnet and the other warrior priests on this mission, since it was the only condition under which they would agree to actually do it.

As she stood there, one of the unconscious men stirred. Samara’s hand went to her sword for a split second. His eyes opened and landed on her face.

Then she darted forward and punched him in the cheek. She felt bone shatter.

“Shit,” she whispered.

She hadn’t held back as much as she’d intended to. This was just a random soldier, probably low level, almost certainly classless. She didn’t really intend to hurt anyone. But she was afraid of being seen and identified.

There was a rustling from behind her. Then Samara turned and saw Asha moving swiftly down the stairs with the priests in tow.

Samara froze. Oh no!

Two of the men flanking Asha had blood visible on their robes.

“Who’s bleeding?” the paladin hissed urgently as soon as they reached the landing. “Quickly!”

She gathered divine energy around her palms, ready to heal the wounded, thankful to her Goddess in that moment for not having stripped her of her powers for her impure thoughts.

“No one we care about, sister,” Asha replied instantly, frowning. “Let’s go.”

Shit…

“D-did they kill someone?” Samara asked, tilting her head at the priests behind Asha.

“Hard to say, but—

“It had to be done!” one of the bloody priests exclaimed.

Asha turned and gave him a frosty glare, communicating How dare you interrupt me in the most concise manner possible.

“We must go, Samara,” said Hamnet from behind them. “You, too, Your Holiness.”

For the first time, Samara realized he was limping. Hamnet hadn’t been limping earlier.

What happened up there?

“I’ll see to your injury, Hamnet,” she said, her mind still reeling.

“Later,” Asha said firmly. “We need to go before the alarm is raised.”

There was a flicker of movement from the edge of Samara’s peripheral vision. It was the other soldier, stirring.

Asha took two steps forward and kicked him - just kicked him, without even using mana as far as Samara could see.

The man’s neck bent at an unnatural angle. The crack of bone rang through the Great Temple hall.

“Goddess…”

Samara’s sister turned back to her with a look of satisfaction clearly stamped across her face.

“He was complicit in keeping the High Priestess of Astara captive,” Asha said, rolling her eyes. “None of them deserve better than that.”

When did you become so cold-blooded, sister? Was murder always in your heart? Always something you were capable of, if you didn’t get your way?

The group hustled out of the Great Temple, and Samara quietly resolved to herself that while she didn’t expect to change her sister, neither did she have to spend more time around her. This would be the end of that.

Asha had helped her deal with her recurring dreams, and Samara had helped Asha to escape from royal custody in the very heart of the Kingdom of Niet.

Now they could split forever.

The High Priestess seemed to have a similar sort of idea.

“You go back to the base now, Samara,” Asha said quietly once they were a few alleys away. “The rest of us will make our way out of the city. But they’ll notice if you’re gone, and anyway, you have a job to do.”

“Oh. Right.”

For a moment, I thought she’d say it’s too dangerous for me to go with them. I forgot… how expendable I seem to have become to Asha.

Samara paused, turned, and called up the holy Healing Light again.

She placed her hands on Hamnet’s leg, and then, when he pointed downward, she knelt and saw where the leg was swollen to an unnatural degree.

It might be broken.

He had been leaning on the others quite a bit.

She spent a few minutes healing him. The swelling went down.

And then the alarm went up.

Perhaps it was the Goddess’s holy light that had drawn attention to their position, but suddenly, there was a shout.

“There they are! Seize them!”

Asha took off like a loosed arrow.

The priests scattered, and Samara ducked into the nearest alley that she could and began silently climbing one of the nearby walls, looking down at the silver holy symbol her sister had given her and praying.

Please, Astara, please… I don’t want to die here. Please, please… Just let me get out of this Kingdom unpunished, my honor intact, I’ll be a good servant to you and never ask anything of you again.

Torchlight flickered from the mouth of the alley, and Samara froze, six feet in the air, her body forcefully jammed between the walls of two buildings.

Then the torchbearers passed.

“This way, they went this way!” the men shouted.

Samara breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Astara,” she whispered.

She resumed climbing. Her faith honestly felt quite weak that night, but she had to credit some higher power. She knew she wasn’t escaping by any merit of her own. When she reached the rooftop, she lifted the holy symbol from around her neck and kissed it.

“Thank you, Asha,” she added.

She probably ran away so swiftly to provide a distraction so I could escape, Samara told herself. She sacrificed her own opportunity at stillness and stealth to give me a better chance.

That was a much better message for her than, My only family member ran off and abandoned me to my fate after I risked my life to free her.

Realistically, Samara knew she wasn’t truly out of danger yet. Asha wouldn’t rat her out if she was caught. At least, Samara hoped and believed her sister wouldn’t. But any of the other priests could. 

Quietly, discreetly, looking over her shoulder and silently praying in her own mind the entire time, Samara made her way back to the Nietian Army base.

She managed to sneak past the sentries on patrol and back into the private room the Army had provided for her.

Samara closed the door behind her with a little sigh of relief.

Thank Astara, it’s over…

“Where were you?”

The paladin practically jumped out of her skin. She turned, already knowing who she would see, having recognized the familiar voice.

“Can this wait for tomorrow, Hailgrim?” she asked impatiently.

“What were you doing out so late at night, Lady?” he asked in reply.

“That’s none of your fucking business!” she nearly yelled in response. “You’re not my father. Just like you’re not the Hero’s father. Give me some fucking space!” She took a few deep breaths as she finished.

Shit. He didn’t deserve that. The Hero would be a lot better off if Hailgrim was still with him, training him, guiding…

“Hailgrim,” she began.

“I’ve seen you talking to priests,” he said, his words rolling over the beginnings of what she wanted to say. “The other day, when I happened to be in the market. Locals, not the Divine Trust people we brought with us. I think you were seen by others too. Maybe it is ‘none of my fucking business,’ but I wanted to say, it’s a foolish move if you’re getting involved with local political affairs. You don’t want to be connected to conflicts that you don’t understand. When temple authorities and royal houses fight, it’s always ugly. Maybe it’s not my place to say anything, but if your sister is under house arrest, like the rumors suggest—”

“You’re right,” Samara interrupted, heart pounding, desperate to just get rid of him. “It isn’t your place. Will you please get out? My sister, my business.”

“Fuck, Samara,” Hailgrim said, exasperated. “Fine. Get some fucking sleep, all right? You know we move out tomorrow.”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “I know how to sleep, and why. Good night, Hailgrim.”

He growled his reply, shook his head, and slipped past her through the door.

That was the rudest she’d ever been to him, she recognized as the door shut again. He had handled it like it didn’t bother him, but she knew him. Hailgrim had a rough exterior and a soft interior, like a certain tropical fruit she was fond of.

I’ll find a chance to apologize to him on the journey, Samara thought. Assuming I make it out of Enh. What in Kur am I going to do now? After I leave Enh, assuming I successfully make it out of the city with the Army, assuming we survive the Defiant Necromancer, what the fuck do I do? If anyone tells the truth of what happened tonight, I’m an accessory to murder. Possible more than one, depending on what happened to the person the priests attacked on the second floor of the Great Temple. Perhaps I can take ship from a port in the Salt Waste. I’ll say the Goddess has another mission for me.

It was sacrilegious to use Astara’s name in that way, but it wasn’t as if the Goddess hadn’t told a lie or two in her various epics.

Samara would just have to wait until morning to find out if she would even escape the city with the Army - or if the shame of her crime would become public knowledge before then. She lay down, still occasionally stroking her holy symbol and praying, until she fell into an uneasy sleep.