Chapter 21.

  A New Duty.

  Theodren arrived at the church to find the door thrown open and the rattling of its contents echoing within. Two horses waited outside, saddlebags packed with the odds and ends of a man on the run.

  Theodren held out a hand motioning for Reina to stay behind him as he eased his way through the open door as stealthily as his bulk allowed. From Theodren’s study, muffled ramblings spilled out into the nave, followed not long after by the portly and disheveled frame of the Mayor himself.

  “Mayor?” Theodren called out, incredulously. Sylverworm squeaked as he froze like a rather large mouse before a cat. “A-ah father Stormwall! I was just erm…” The mayor looked around, seeking an excuse or an exit. “Packing?” Theodren supplied glowering at the man. “Borrowing.” the Mayor shot back. “I’m afraid I really must be going, much business to attend to and all that.” Sylverworm tried to shuffle past the large man but was stopped by Theodren’s meaty palm on his shoulder.

  “Why are you in my church, Mayor.” Theodren eyed the large man’s soul, watching as the colors of fear and deceit swirled together in his pitiful soul. “I was simply sheltering from those awful inquisitors. I had no idea they were here until I saw the smoke on my way up to pay you a visit! Truly dreadful those Golden Shears, rather glad I missed them!”

  Reina stepped out from behind Theodren. “Liar.” She hissed. The Mayor jumped. “Ah s-sister Reina, you’ve returned!” Theodren’s head snapped from Reina to the Mayor. “Returned?” He growled.

  “Ah, well, you see.” Sylverworm fiddled with the ring on his finger making a small ‘click!’

  The Mayor lashed out with the speed of a desperate man, backhanding Theodren and leaving a thin scratch that grew purple and angry within seconds.

  The large man stumbled back. Clutching at the burning in his cheek as he cursed, cycling vitae through the sickened wound on his face. “What did you do!?” Theodren roared, surprised at the poison that held his vitae in a deadlock.

  “Just a little something I picked up on my travels. Now if you don’t mind I will see myself out.” Sylverworm moved to shoulder past Reina, deeming her the lesser threat as he kept a wary eye on the big man, chuckling to himself as he went.

  His laughter found an abrupt end as Reina’s hand seized his throat in an icy grip. “What’s so funny Mayor?” Color drained from his face as she squeezed tighter. “We went down to the village, just like you said.” Her vision blurred with angry tears, but she would not look away from the fat, quivering mess of a man in her hand. “We found him among the common folk just like you said.” Her grip tightened as black tendrils spread up the Mayor’s jowls and his life drained into her palm. “I killed EVERYONE! And you, sent me there.”

  He scrabbled and clawed at her with pudgy hands that had never known labor. Trying to infect her with the same poison ring Theodren was fighting with his Vitae. But the life she drained from every fat and bloated cell of this cowardly bureaucrat replenished her faster than any poison could destroy.

  “Don’t! Please!” The Mayor begged, as his portly cheeks turned gaunt and hollow at her touch. He fell to his knees but Reina would not let go. “Reina! Stop!” Theodren shouted, color returning to his face as he wrestled down the poison.

  “He knew! He knew we were coming! He knew what Hardwright would do!” Reina blinked as the darkness of the Mayor’s soul opened up before her mind's eye. She sank her nails deeper into the man’s fleshy neck as she hissed. “You kept our coming a secret so you could use the chaos to make yourself more important!?” Her outrage echoed throughout the church, waking Theviana into a cry as she was disturbed from her slumber.

  The mayor’s voice came out raspy and fragile. “I didn’t think they would kill everyone.” A furious snarl pulled at Reina’s face. “Just a few, you thought. Just a handful of lives lost in the scuffle, so you could step in and look like a hero to these people as you drove us away with your authority.”

  The black tendrils had spread throughout the Mayor’s body, draining him of the excess he had accumulated throughout his life. His eyes grew dull as death overtook him. She screamed her pain into his slackening face. “IT’S YOUR FAULT! IT’S YOUR FAULT! IT’S YOUR FAULT!”

  Theviana wailed in her arms as Reina screamed at the shriveled corpse. Theodren walked behind Reina, placing a soft hand on her back as she screamed and cried at the drawn and sunken face of what used to be the Mayor. He pulled Theviana from Reina’s limp arms as she sobbed.

  Theodren looked down at the mummified corpse that all but confirmed Reina’s deal with death. What she had done was terrifying, but Theodren couldn’t bring himself to fear the broken woman before him, all he felt was pity.

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  Reina spun, throwing herself into Theodren’s arms. She beat at his chest, screaming into the rough fabric of his robe. Theodren held the crying babe up and out of the way of Reina’s flailing fists as both babe and woman cried in his arms.

  Unsure of what to do, he wrapped his free arm around her, rubbing his calloused hand up and down her back as broken, hiccuping sobs wracked her small frame.

  Overwhelmed as he was, he almost didn’t notice when Reina’s cries, as well as time itself came to a stop. “Oh my children.” Theodren’s head snapped up at the familiar voice. There, planted in front of the altar, was Yggdrazil, the Tree of Life. A storm of emotions waged war inside Theodren’s head. Relief at her presence battled resentment for her absence when he had needed her most.

  Yggdrazil’s branch reached out to rest a warm leaf on Theodren’s face, cleansing and closing what remained of the poisoned wound the Mayor had left. “You have suffered much, haven’t you?”

  Theodren’s attempt at a brave face cracked under the unexpected concern and care of his god. “I failed them.” He whispered, “I failed them all!” Tears of shame threatened to spill over from his eyes as Yggdrazil’s branches poked and prodded at him like a mother fussing over her child, wiping away scars and bruises from wounds he would not heal for himself.

  “I was supposed to protect them, but I couldn’t do anything when they needed me!” He shouted, shaking as he lost the battle for control of his emotions.

  Yggdrazil waited silently as Theodren collected himself. “Where were you?” He asked, fixing a hard stare on the god. Yggdrazil’s branches drooped. “I was not strong enough to cross the veil.” Theodren blinked at that, unsure of what her answer meant. She continued.

  “For eons I waited, gaining strength to create my form once more after Odrain’s betrayal. For millennia still, I waited for a worthy champion.” Theodren was dumbfounded at that. After his failure to protect the townspeople, he found it hard to believe that he was worthy of anything.

  “For all my waiting, I was still too late to aid my only champion, when you needed me most. For that I am sorry.” Yggdrazil’s proud trunk seemed to bend toward him in a sort of bow that shocked Theodren. “Please, don’t…” Theodren choked on his words. “I couldn’t save them. None of them, not even the child.” He shifted Theviana who gave a gurgle in his arms.

  He stared at Theviana in disbelief. “She moved! How is she moving?” He gasped, pulling down the blanket that concealed her tiny mouth. A cry filled the air as she squirmed in his arms.

  “She is as much mine as you are.” Yggdrazil answered, referencing the tiny spring of Vitae in the babe's heart. Theviana’s cries reached a new pitch that echoed off the stone walls of his church.

  “She is a hungry one.” Yggdrazil crooned, extending a twig to caress the tiny mop of red hair on the child’s head. “Hungry.” Groaned Theodren, as his shoulders slumped. “I have nothing to feed her!”

  A chuckle came from the Tree as a peach appeared on her branch. “All you have, is all you need.” She said as the bottom of the peach protruded and then split, forming a nipple from which nectar began to drip. Theodren watched as Theviana suckled greedily at the peach brimming with nectar and Vitae.

  He watched the process, fascinated as the god’s Vitae was able to push back but not eliminate the ring of cold and mysterious potential that surrounded the child’s own spring of life water.

  “Yggdrazil, what is that cold power in her soul?” He asked as he held the babe closer. A sound like tree limbs rubbing together escaped the Tree. “That would be my sister, playing her own game.”

  Theodren arched a curious brow at the god. “This Acher, is as much the babe’s power as her Thread and Vitae are. That my sister would make a deal with a mortal.” Yggdrazil poked at Reina. “Much less part with a soul that had already crossed her door, is even more surprising to me than the power itself.”

  Theodren’s head spun at the implication. Three world shaping powers in one child. Whatever her path would be, it would be an auspicious one. Theviana pushed the peach out of her mouth half asleep. Snuggling her face deeper into Theodren’s chest as she returned to her slumber.

  Retribution slithered from the collar of his tattered robe. Reaching out, it plucked the peach from Yggdrazil’s branch, absorbing it into the length of itself, before returning to its shelter in Theodren’s sleeve.

  “Your vineling grows well.” The god noted. The man Retribution consumed, flashed before Theodren’s mind. “She ate well yesterday.”

  Yggdrazil was silent for a time, as she studied the man before her. “What will you do?”

  Theodren told the goddess of his father’s lands in the north, and his plans to keep the child safe there. “And then?” The Tree prodded. Theodren was silent. His need for revenge burned at the core of his very soul. Only once the child was safely in the hands of his father’s people, could he throw himself unreservedly after Cardinal Hardwright. His teeth ground at the thought of the man’s smug smile.

  “I will have justice for the lives he took.” He answered. Yggdrazil considered his words for a moment, before pulling her branches back into herself. “Seek your vengeance, but I would remind you that life, is not to be taken lightly.”

  He nodded at the Tree’s words. Before Theviana’s resurrection, his mind was bent toward a cruel extermination of the entire Divine Order, but now… he looked down at the sleeping babe in his arms. Vengeance was not enough. Not for her. To his eyes, the world was broken. Cruel men like Hardwright held sway over the lives of good and honest people. Men who treated the lives of common folk as merely inconveniences to be disposed of.

  Theodren did not want his Godchild to see the world as he did. She would need him not only to teach her about her Thread and her Vitae, but to teach her that true power is responsibility to those without strength of their own. The child’s weight in his arms seemed to double in his mind.

  A new duty formed in him. He would seek out men like the Cardinal in every position of power they held. With a view of their souls, he would pass judgement, and if need be, retribution. He would not allow men like Hardwright to poison his Godchild’s world before she could even take part in it.

  Determination filled his soul as he settled upon his new task. Yggdrazil seemed pleased with the plans forming in his mind as she faded from reality. Leaving behind a single flower, that floated gently toward the trio as time returned to its natural pace. Its gentle descent found its end on Reina’s tear stained cheek.