“You mean you haven’t gone inside?” Maiya asked, her panic mounting as they walked. Up ahead, she could see a half dozen guards keeping watch in front of the Blessed Chosen’s quarters. “You do realize his room has secret exits, just like my own, right?”
“Exits we have been monitoring very closely, I assure you.”
“Of course,” Maiya said. “I apologize. I did not mean to doubt you. What do you propose we do?”
“Unfortunately, the Blessed Chosen is required for the transference of the title. The cult will never accept a new Chosen without the incumbent.”
“Right,” Maiya said distractedly. She’d always thought that odd. It was the Blessed Chosen’s ultimate trump card. He didn’t need to kill Maiya. He could simply abscond. It wasn’t as though he’d taken part in any of the cult’s activities, anyway. If he simply left, Maiya would be stonewalled—unable to take his throne.
Her questions were answered when the door swung open, and out emerged… For a moment, Maiya didn’t know who.
She wondered if the Blessed Chosen had escaped after all, leaving behind a doppelganger.
As far as doubles went, this one was about as poor as one could be.
Gone was the towering physique Maiya had witnessed kill her handmaiden with ease. Gone were the rippling muscles. The person before her stood hunched, holding a cane for support. His rich tan had given way to a lifeless gray. Heavy bags hung from under his eyes, and his muscles seemed to have vanished, leaving flabby skin behind.
This was no double. It was the Blessed Chosen, and he was on death’s door.
Maiya’s eyes flashed to the Sister, who stared at the man with shock and confusion.
Not her. That eliminates the Sisters. Who, then?
Maiya wasn’t aware of any poison that had such effects, though that hardly meant such a thing didn’t exist. It had to be poison. What else could be responsible for such a thing?
“I’d planned to reason with you,” the Blessed Chosen said, his voice coming hoarse and raspy. “Now, I only wish for this all to end.”
“What… happened to you?” Maiya asked.
“A curse,” the Blessed Chosen said, limping past her into the hall. “A curse for which there is no cure…”
So it was poison, after all, Maiya thought with a frown, though she wondered why he’d used the word curse.
Frowning, Maiya followed a few paces behind him. He could barely even walk. If some unseen benefactor wanted to help her out, she could hardly refuse. She only wished she knew who it was. Being in the dark never sat right with her. She wanted to be the one controlling the pawns. Not the other way around.
That was alright. Once she was crowned Blessed Chosen, she’d have the Children at her command. When combined with the vast Kin’jal intelligence network, whoever they were wouldn’t be able to hide for long.
Maiya was thankful that, for once in her life, crisis seemed to have been averted. No blood would be spilled today.
The next hours passed in monotony as Maiya partook in various blood rituals that were part and parcel for such a ceremony. Dozens of Children were in attendance, lining the sides of the large hall in the very center of the Sanctum, and it felt like it’d go on forever.
Maiya tuned it all out. She’d done this countless times and had absolutely no interest. Neither did the Sisters of Gray, nor even the Blessed Chosen, for that matter. It seemed to take all he had just to stand, and halfway through, he’d been forced to ask for a seat.
Maiya almost felt bad for him… Until she recalled the handmaiden’s terrified face the moment before she died.
Whatever pain the Blessed Chosen was experiencing, he deserved every last bit.
It was when the ceremony neared its completion that Maiya started to grow anxious. She knew there was something else to this ceremony. Some other, secret part. Despite her status as the Blessed Prophet, there was one door in the entire Sanctum she’d never been allowed access to.
A door that one person and one person alone could enter.
The Blessed Chosen limped forward, leading them down a low and narrow hall that descended to a lower floor.
The lowest floor, in fact.
Here, there was no gallery. Only a handful of the Chosen’s personal guard accompanied them. The only light came from the Magic Lamps they carried, casting long, hard shadows upon the hall.
This was not a place meant to be frequented. The cobwebs and mold made Maiya wonder how long it’d been since the Blessed Chosen had. After ten minutes of walking, she started to wonder just how far they were descending. This room was far deeper than the rest of the Sanctum.
The end came shortly after, with the hallway leading to a door so thick it looked like a wall. A healthy Blessed Chosen might’ve been able to open this door, but his current condition made that impossible.
His guards shimmied past Maiya and the Sister of Gray, and heaved it open, allowing the stale air of what lay beyond to assault them.
“She stays,” the Blessed Chosen said, nodding to the Sister of Gray as he wandered through. He pointed at Maiya.
“She comes.”
Maiya exchanged glances with the Sister of Gray, and nodded. With the orbs at her disposal, there was little the Blessed Chosen could do. Especially not when Maiya was on guard.
The door slammed shut behind her, sealing her in the dark room with the Blessed Chosen. She played her Magic Lamp orb around, but its dim glow was insufficient to pierce the darkness of the enormous chamber.
It was a room far larger than most of the Sanctuary’s other chambers.
“What is this place?” Maiya asked in a hushed voice, though she didn’t know why. It simply felt like the right thing to do.
“A relic of the ancient gods,” the Blessed Chosen said. “The place of transference.”
“I don’t understand. Why go through all of this?” Maiya asked. “If you wish to die, you could’ve just killed yourself, right? It’d have been far simpler. And… easier on your body,” she added after a pause.
“Would that I could,” the Blessed Chosen whispered. “Come. We must begin. Before we are interrupted.”
Maiya raised a brow. “Expecting someone?” Perhaps the one who poisoned you?
“Come!” the Blessed Chosen repeated, his tone firmer. “And extinguish your light.”
Maiya couldn’t see much anyway, so she shrugged and turned it off.
It was only then that she realized the room wasn’t completely dark. Just very dimly lit. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the more she perceived, and the more her confusion grew. The forms that her eyes took in made no sense to her mind. The lights that provided illumination were not placed on the walls, or even on the ceiling.
Nor did they originate from individual points, as she was used to.
Rather, the entire room glowed a dim greenish-blue. Lines of faint light that had no beginning ran along the ground, curving upward, tracing along the exceptionally tall ceiling before finally reconnecting with the lines on the ground in a loop.
There had to have been thousands of them decorating the entire space. All curving upward at the very center of the room.
Forming a structure that Maiya immediately recognized.
A tree trunk…
This was the same kind of chamber Maiya had inadvertently fallen into with Yamal and the Silent One. The one that Vir said had sent her soul into an illusion world. Only far, far larger.
The ceiling of the great room must have been no less than thirty paces high, stretching easily a hundred wide.
What is this place? Maiya thought in wonder as she followed the veins of light, leading her closer to the trunk. Not veins… Roots.