CHAPTER 32

“Where are we going?” Lanri asked, as she followed the hand that tugged her along. She genuinely had no idea, not only because she’d never been this far north of Cerene before, but because Seeker had cast that cursed spell, again.

”Rien à voir ici,” she’d said once they were out of Ithella and Mara’s earshot, and the world had simply gone dark. Lanri could tell she was excited, close to giddy, even. She had a pep in her step that she seemed to struggle to contain so Lanri could comfortably keep up, even with the suspicious cane’s help, and the hand tugging her along was quivering with excitement.

“Come on, Seeker,” she tried again. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Seeker teased. “Y’know. Once I let you see anything at all, again.”

Lanri smiled, and rolled her eyes. She wasn’t sure Seeker would see the gesture, of course, but she knew the angel would sense the intent in her thoughts. “Most people would just use a blindfold for this sort of thing.”

“Most people don’t have access to my methods,” Seeker said with a giggle. The Heartwarden stopped tugging on Lanri’s hands, and half a second later, she slammed into Seeker. She let go of her hand, instead wrapping one arm around her waist, and a finger on the other hand soon appeared under Lanri’s chin, tilting her head up. She couldn’t see Seeker’s eyes, of course, but she did her best to point her own to where she thought they would be. “Most people don’t have such a devoted and adoring pet to fawn over.”

Lanri giggled. She was quickly starting to love it when Seeker called her that. A hot glow moved closer to her face, and a heartbeat later, Seeker’s lips met her own. Seeker’s lips parted her own, and their tongues met for a fit of passion. Once the kiss broke, Seeker leaned even farther forward. “And most people don’t have the means to train their pets as effectively as I’ve been able to.”

Lanri swallowed. “Y–you’ve been training me?”

Now it was Seeker’s turn to giggle. “Of course I have, Dear,” she purred, pressing a finger to Lanri’s throat, but still holding her pressed tightly to her. “It wasn’t intentional at first, but… it has been, recently. Haven’t you noticed how much easier it is for you to let me do things to you? When I cast this spell on you in bed two weeks ago, you nearly panicked. Now? You’re barely even bothered by it.”

Lanri blinked, and smiled at Seeker. “I… hadn’t noticed that.”

“That’s the thing about clever mortals like you, Dear. You’re so quick to notice when things change around you, but as soon as you yourselves are the thing that’s changing, you can’t even tell, until someone points it out to you.”

Lanri thought about that, tried to think of what else Seeker might have done to her. She wasn’t worried about it at all; she knew Seeker was utterly benevolent. She was just curious. Seeker didn’t let her dwell on it, though, instead she broke off the embrace, and resumed them on their path.

It was a longer walk than she’d expected. They went up and down several hills, and took several twists and turns. The only thing giving Lanri any sense of direction was the setting sun, which she could feel softly warming her back.

Seeker giggled. “And here I was, hoping I’d be able to get you disoriented. I should have known better.”

Lanri blankly stared ahead. “Seeker, I promise I’m disoriented.”

“I suppose you are,” Seeker said, slowing down again. “Watch out. The next step is into water up to your calf.”

Lanri hesitated for a moment, but Seeker took a firm grip on her, and helped her down. In an instant, her feet, prosthetic and organic alike, were drenched by faintly warm water, and she felt her socks squish around in the leather of her boots unpleasantly.

She could feel they were standing on solid, flat stone. “A fountain?” She theorized out loud.

“Not quite, but very close!” Seeker praised her. It sent a feeling of satisfaction into her belly.

“So, what is it?”

Seeker walked around Lanri, wrapping her arms around her from behind. She leaned in, and whispered, “see for yourself. Voyez tous ce qu'il y a là.”

Lanri felt the magic hit her, and in seconds, her vision cleared. First, she could see the faintest dot of light, but the dot quickly grew wider and wider, until she could see normally again.

She and Seeker were standing on… a kind of artificial lake. It was as deep as the water of a fountain, and framed by stone, but almost a hundred meters across. In the center of it stood what looked like a small ruined building. It was made of marble, and peachy light poured out from within, through the open doorway, but also the gaps between the stones.

“What is this?” Lanri quietly asked.

“Your birthday present, Dear,” Seeker whispered, urging her towards the small building with a push against her back. They both walked towards the ruin, and as they went, the water ahead of them rippled and caught the light from within in a warped reflection that sparkled like the sun setting over the ocean. “I promised I’d take you places no living soul had seen in centuries. This place might not be quite that obscure, but I promise, nobody will understand it better than you, by the time we leave.”

A surge of excitement budded and flowered in her belly at the mere thought. This place was like nothing she’d ever seen. What was left of the building was no style of architecture she’d ever encountered in her studies, and the shallow basin of water was a bizarre feature she couldn’t even begin to conjure up an explanation for.

“Tell me, Dear, what do you know about Cerene’s past?”

“Cerene’s ancient,” Lanri began, recalling the superficial history of the region she’d learned in her village’s schoolhouse, and the books she’d read about it in the decade she spent at the First University. “Which part of the past do you want to know about?”

Seeker giggled, softly. “Eight to six hundred years ago.”

“The Namesake period. When the Serene Council ruled the region. The leaders of the major guilds – what we’d now call burghers – rather than nobility were in charge.” The building they were approaching did look like it could be from the Namesake era, she supposed. It was solid stone from what she could tell, and large chunks of it were missing, either destroyed by storms, or scavenged for later construction work in the region. Most of a millennium of wear could certainly have worn so much of it away.

“That’s right,” Seeker purred. “Did you also know they were terrible prudes?”

Lanri turned, and blinked at Seeker. “I did not.”

Seeker laughed, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, they were awful, Dear. Ishara’s priests were persecuted, forced underground. And marriages were entirely secular things, contracts with the Serene Council, rather than vows and pledges made to Ishara.”

Anger sprung up in Lanri at the thought of couples being denied the ability to wed according to the goddess’ will, quickly followed by a degree of shame that she’d not known this about her native land’s history. They got to the ruins of the building, and stepped up to a balcony that stood just above the water. Through the doorway, she could see that the peach glow that emanated from within was actually the light of many little braziers, each of them holding a magical fire of pink and gold flames that licked at and wrapped around each other like lovers in a frenzy.

“You can take your boots off, Dear,” Seeker whispered, as she started to do so herself. “I’ve cleaned the interior of sharp debris. It’s safe to walk barefoot.”

Lanri did as she was told, kicking off her boots, and standing barefoot on the surprisingly warm stone floor. It was bizarre, feeling the smooth stones beneath her feet when one of them was made of porcelain and leather, but she was quickly getting used to the asymmetry of sensations.

“You still haven’t actually told me what this is,” Lanri noted.

“I’ll give you another hint, then,” Seeker said, as she led Lanri inside, into a big hall with a ruined black and white mosaic floor, and half-shattered statues of black stone in alcoves. Directly ahead of the door, at the opposite end of the hall, stood a pedestal in a bigger alcove. Upon which a massive statue had clearly once stood, but was now gone without a trace. Bits of copper trim were still there, but most of that had been looted too, over the centuries. Seeker continued “We’re just a mile or so north of what was Cerene’s border at the time this was built.”

“It’s a shrine,” Lanri realized. “To Ishara?”

“That’s my girl,” purred Seeker, as she wrapped her arms around her from behind and whispered into one ear. “But what was it for?”

A dozen theories popped up in Lanri’s head, all at once. It was just past the reach of the apparently puritan Serene Council, so it was obviously a destination for pilgrimages. But there were so many reasons people went on those. They could have come here for blessings, for contraceptive spells, to be married. All of them were equally likely, and she dearly wished she had her notebook to keep track of her theories.

“A notebook?” Seeker asked. “I can get you one of those.” Lanri watched one of the arms that kept her pressed to Seeker reach into nowhere for a moment, and quickly re-emerge holding Seeker’s sketchbook and a pencil, both of which she pressed into her hands.

Lanri pushed herself away from Seeker’s embrace, and gave the Heartwarden a perplexed look. “Seeker, this is yours,” she said, as she used her knees to briefly hold onto her cane, opened the sketchbook, and started to leaf through the drawings. “I can’t use this as a notepad.”

“And why not? I use it to make a record of my most impactful experiences, Dear. And I’ve already got more drawings in there of you than of anyone else.” Seeker paused, and tapped Lanri on the forehead. “The one thing I care about that I can’t draw, though? Your mind. I’m not just okay with you scribbling your thoughts on a few pages, Lanri. I very much want you to do so.”

Lanri gasped a little at the heartfelt words, then nodded as she started to leaf through the pictures, in search of the first blank page she could start to write on. Two new sketches had appeared since she’d last seen this book, one on either side of the fold. On the right was a picture rendered in harsh lines, showing the mangled corpse of the man that had held her hostage, whom Seeker had dispatched without hesitating.

Lanri found herself oddly numb to the sight, not nearly as distraught that he was dead as she was about the auction-goers that she’d… She put the thought out of her head. The other picture was much nicer, a careful drawing of a priestess of Ishara in… She looked up at Seeker. “Is that my parents’ house?”

Seeker nodded. “That bandit mage was using her as a decoy, and had her huddled up in there. I told you it was in ruins, Dear. I just chose not to draw that.”

Lanri nodded. If Seeker said the house was so ruined she shouldn’t even see it, she believed her. It was nice to see the drawing, though. Even if Seeker had apparently omitted a lot of the signs of decay. She made a point of putting that thought out of her head, too, instead starting to write her thoughts about the ruins as they came to her.

Shrine of Ishara, Namesake period, pilgrimage site beyond the reach of the Serene council. Marble building, mosaic floor, several ruined statues, one (presumably of Ishara herself) missing outright.

As she wrote it, a thought occurred to her. She knelt down, and rubbed the small black and white bits of stone that had once formed a picture on the floor. “Seeker, didn’t you say the statue of Ishara in the other shrine – the one where I found the dress – was at least six hundred years old?”

“I certainly think it was,” Seeker agreed, giving her a curious look. “She looked like that when she made me, and it was her preferred look for centuries to come.”

“Do you think that statue might have come from here?” Lanri asked, as she pointed at one of the black bits of stone, which, just like what was left of the smaller statues, was as shiny as she remembered the statue being. “It’s only a few hundred miles, and a mosaic is a great way to use up the stone that’s chipped off in sculpting.”

Seeker smiled. “That would be one hell of a coincidence, but… I suppose I can’t say with certainty that it wasn’t.”

Lanri considered that. There was a bizarre, knowing aspect to that smile, like Seeker had some scheme in the works that she was inevitably going to be swept away by. She shrugged, rather liking the idea that this wouldn’t be the only surprise.

“You’re worrying again,” Seeker chided.

“Am not!” Lanri said, pressing her hand to her chest in mock indignation. “Wondering what else my beloved has planned for my birthday is not the same as worrying about it.”

Seeker conceded the point with a smile and a nod, then gestured towards the book in Lanri’s hands. “Keep going, please,” she urged. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.”

Lanri dutifully did as she was told, returning her attention to the shrine. Behind the base of the missing statue, a small doorway was hidden, leading… somewhere. She brought her pencil to the paper.

Doorway hidden behind base of missing statue, presumably a vestry beyond.

Whatever lay beyond it was dark, Lanri realized as she approached it. Oppressively so. She placed the notebook and pencil on the statue base, and leaned against it as she drew her wand. The rose gold inlays Seeker had used to repair it shone and sparkled in the dancing flames of the braziers. “Seeker?” She asked, hesitating before she cast the spell.

“Yes, Dear?”

“Faron’s flame was sort of… smart.” Lanri cringed at how she’d phrased it, but she was a student of history, not alchemy. She didn’t know the jargon. “I could cast it under a pot of water, and it would be hot enough to boil it. Or I could cast it straight into the palm of my hand, and it would… Well it would still be really hot, but cold enough to use as a light in an emergency.”

“I know. It was a remarkable bit of enchantment.”

“Well, is the enchantment you used to repair the wand smart, too? Can I use it for that?”

“You should be able to,” Seeker said as she stepped close and reached into nowhere again. Her hand emerged quickly, holding something that looked a little bit like a mace, but instead of a solid ball of metal, the head looked more like a metal basket. She held it towards Lanri, with the basket’s opening towards her. “I’d just cast it into this, though.”

“What is it?” Lanri asked, skeptically.

“Something made for the purpose,” Seeker simply said. “Lightly enchanted metal that’ll withstand the heat of even the dumbest fire spell. Mages like to use them as torches.”

With a shrug, Lanri aimed her wand into the basket, much like she used to do with her little lantern, and said “leudach lasag.” Almost immediately, a flame of pink and gold appeared within, dancing and sputtering like any mundane torch. “Why didn’t you use this when we were in the other shrine?” Lanri asked, as she took the first step into the dark room. The new flame sparkled off of many shiny things inside, hinting that there was a lot to be learned within.

“Vanity,” Seeker admitted after a moment. “I wanted to impress you.”

“Impress me?” Lanri asked, turning away from the vestry, and looking at Seeker, instead. “I promise, you’d already impressed me plenty by then. Seeker, I was infatuated with you from the very second I saw you.”

“That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try my best, does it?” Seeker asked as she stepped closer, and into the shadowed room with Lanri. “If I wanted to have you the easy way, I could have just flared my aura until you blacked out the first time we met, and skipped the courtship.”

Seeker wrapped her arms around Lanri again, this time from the front. She pulled her in tight, and smiled at her in the light of the torch. “But I didn’t want that. I wanted to earn that admiration in your eyes Dear. I wanted to impress you, be it through parlor tricks, or…” She trailed off, and snapped her finger. In an instant, a dozen more of the little pink and gold flames burst to life around the vestry, revealing it had been meticulously cleaned and decorated. Food and wine lined the stone shelves, and in the center of the room, a pile of pillows, furs, and blankets covered a bed-sized dais. “Or,” Seeker continued, “when parlor tricks don’t work, by distracting you so you don’t think too hard and figure out the rest of my plans for your birthday.”

Lanri dropped the magic torch, now useless in the light of Seeker’s array of little flames, and looked at the scene. She could feel a smile creeping onto her face as she turned her gaze back to Seeker, who was expectantly looking at her. “You set this all up for me?”

It wasn’t really a question, just an acknowledgement of fact. And Seeker took it as such. “I did,” she whispered as she led Lanri to the bed she’d made for them. It was still hard when she sat down on it, but the animal hides and blankets made it more than fit for what she wanted to do on it. She looked at it for a moment as she ran her hand across one of the pelts, feeling the coarseness of the fur as Seeker moved to one of the shelves, and retrieved a bottle of wine, alongside two metal goblets.

Seeker took only a moment to uncork the bottle, and pour two glasses. It felt almost heretical to Lanri, to use the ruins of what was once a sanctified… something of the goddess Ishara, and use it to celebrate… her. “Seeker, should we–”

“No,” Seeker told her as she handed her one of the glasses of deep red liquid. “This place was a sanctuary to escape actual heretics oppressing those who would bask in Ishara’s favors and blessings, Lanri. Us using it to celebrate your birthday, the equinox, and how we feel about each other isn’t blasphemy; it’s this place finally getting to serve its purpose again, for the first time in centuries.”

Lanri blinked at Seeker. “That explanation was impressive, too,” she whispered, as she carefully put her glass of wine down and threw herself at Seeker, locking them into a kiss. It lasted for a few magical seconds during which they giggled into each other’s mouth, and tumbled back onto the bed Seeker had made for them. By the time they broke it, Lanri was on top, straddling Seeker and eagerly pulling her top off. “Let’s see if I can’t impress you, too,” she said as she tossed the articles to the side.

She adored Seeker. She’d never felt so free to do what she thought was best before, never been able to just throw caution to the wind and act on her impulses. Even with her, she’d had to learn she could be bold. But now that she had, she felt liberated.

She reached forward, and started to unfasten Seeker’s cardigan. She knew Seeker had magic to take her clothes off, but she didn’t want to wait for that. She wanted to show Seeker how eager she was to be with her here and now.

Seeker smiled, and propped herself up on her arms to help Lanri peel off her top layer. She was shamelessly scanning Lanri’s chest with her gaze, an eager avarice plain to see in those magnificent blue eyes. “Another thing I’ve taught you to be better at,” Seeker whispered.

“What?” Asked Lanri, softly, as Seeker moved to sit upright, but kept her in her lap. With a single motion, she reached behind her and plucked the brooch from her hair, letting it fall down her back and onto her shoulders. The next breath Lanri took was a little sweeter than the ones before, laced with just the faintest hint of Seeker’s addictive scent.

“Assertiveness,” Seeker whispered. “You were so meek, so reserved when we first met.” She held up the brooch, with Seeker’s eye embossed on it, eternally looking to the left. “You were embarrassed and nervous. Now look at you. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and you’ve never failed to let me know what you want.”

Lanri smiled, and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears. “I can’t keep secrets from you, anyways. You can read my mind like a book, right?”

“That’s right,” purred Seeker as she tucked her brooch into a pocket. Lanri took that as a sign to keep going. She reached down, and pulled Seeker’s tunic up and over. The Heartwarden lifted her arms to help, leaving them both as topless as a statue of Ishara herself. “Before we go any further, though,” Seeker said, frustratingly interrupting Lanri’s attempt to kiss her again. “I have one more gift for my curious scholar.”

She tapped her on the forehead, and Lanri blinked. She’d assumed appealing to her professional interest was just a bit to distract her from what she had planned for them in this room. Merely a means, rather than an end in its own right. Her curiosity and urge to please Seeker battled with the need and desire that was building between her legs for a moment, until she swallowed and asked, “what is it?”

“How old am I?” Seeker asked.

“Nine hundred and thirty-three,” Lanri immediately answered. She didn’t even have to think about it, she realized.

“And how old is this shrine?”

Lanri thought about it. “I don’t know,” she admitted. The style of architecture was too alien to her to be recognizable. “But it was active during the Namesake period. So… at least that old.”

“Exactly,” said Seeker, whose smile turned mischievous. “That means I’m old enough to have seen this place in its prime, when it was being used by Ishara’s faithful.”

That tickled something deep within Lanri. “You saw it?! Tell me about it!” She demanded. She assumed at the time that Seeker was letting Lanri draw her own conclusions about the shrine because she hadn’t been there, and then that it was all just a distraction. But… the promise of a first-hand account was irresistible.

“No,” Seeker said, with a smug smile. “I’m not telling you a thing about it.”

Lanri knew a trick of words when she heard one, and her eagerness didn’t falter. She thought about it for a moment, then remembered the sketchbook Seeker had pressed into her hands before. “You drew it! You’re going to show me your drawings from back then.”

“You’re getting warmer, but it won’t be anything so mundane, Dear,” Seeker said. “It’s the equinox, it’s your birthday. Just telling you a story or showing you a charcoal drawing won’t be nearly special enough.”

“Magic, then,” Lanri realized.

“Exactly.” Seeker leaned forward, and placed a chaste kiss on her lips. “We can start whenever you’d like.”

Lanri looked down for a moment as she considered it. As… eager as she still was to bury her face in Seeker’s neck and a hand between her legs, she did genuinely want to hear – or rather, experience – what Seeker had planned. She nodded to signal that she was ready.

“Outstanding,” whispered Seeker as she lifted Lanri from her lap, and said “on your knees in front of me, please.”

Even now, it amazed Lanri how strong Seeker actually was. She could just lift Lanri like she was a puppy, seemingly not even needing to exert herself to do it. She quickly scampered around, and knelt in front of Seeker.

“You really are my single favorite mortal,” Seeker whispered, seemingly more to herself than to Lanri.

“You’re my favorite… anything.”

Seeker smiled, and briefly raised her eyebrows in a conspiratorial way, then reached forward. She put two fingers on Lanri’s temple, just like when she’d shared or taken memories in the past. “Are you ready?” Lanri nodded, and Seeker did so too before she said “réaliste comme la vie elle-même. Le feu t'éclaire.”

Lanri took in a gasp of breath as she felt the power surge through Seeker, and past her. It was one of the longer spells she’d ever cast, and it was accordingly overwhelming to experience. Quickly the magical flames Seeker had used to light the room grew brighter and brighter. The pink and gold flames writhed around and through each other, quickly drowning out the rest of the seemingly darkening room, until all Lanri could see was the balls of floating light. They started to shift, an intricate dance that moved with clockwork precision.

They were fascinating to watch, rhythmic, regular, repetitive. Their paths wove into and out of each other’s way like they were gems being braided into the hair of a noblewoman, and ever so slowly moved up as they went along.

Lanri had to tilt her head back farther and farther to watch them as they slowly started to converge above her. They settled into a circle, then started to slowly get dimmer, and the room started to return to the world. Slowly, she could start to make out the shape of the space, then the individual stones in the walls. And whispers. She heard whispers, and muffled voices, coming from the next room.

“… l’heure…”

She couldn’t quite understand it. There suddenly being any voices at all unnerved her deeply. “Seeker, I–” She cut off as she realized Seeker wasn’t sitting on the bed anymore. She looked around for a moment, trying to find her. All she could see was the room.

It was different, though. There were harsh shadows radiating out from the middle of the room, from a chandelier that now hung where Seeker’s flames had come together. The dais they’d appropriated as a bed was different, too. Despite still being soft to her touch, it now looked like the bare stone underneath the pelts, and was covered in little bottles and bowls, some of them burning incense that smelled like the monastery in Cerene.

The voices continued in the room beyond, just past the edge of understanding. Try as she might, she couldn’t make sense of them. “Seeker?” She asked, looking for her angel. She could still feel the soft bedding beneath her, even though she couldn’t see it.

Maybe I could…

She cautiously reached out to where Seeker had been sitting, just in front of her, and poked the empty space. She felt her! And as soon as she did, pink and gold colored light rippled out from her finger, revealing more and more of Seeker like invisible paper burning away from the statue it was covering. Once she was fully visible again, the angel was still topless, and still grinning.

“What in the hells did you cast on me?” Lanri asked. “Am I… Am I dead?”

Seeker snorted. “No, you’re not dead! You’re just hallucinating a little.”

Lanri was inclined to agree, and nodded as she looked around the room further. “Do you see all of this, too?”

Seeker raised her hand, and rocked it back and forth in a gesture of more or less. “I can see it, yes. But… illusions like this only really work on mortal minds. I can see it, but I can see how unreal it is in a way I couldn’t begin to explain to you.”

“And this is… really what it was like?” Lanri asked. Looking around, she saw pottery and clothes that the leadership of the First University would have been willing to kill to get a chance to study in such good condition.

“It is,” Seeker assured her. “Would you like to look around?”

“All the gods, yes!” Yelped Lanri as she pushed herself off from the bed. She stood unsteadily on her feet for a moment, then looked around for where she’d left that cane. “Uhm…”

Seeker smiled and sighed, then picked something invisible from the floor and offered it to Lanri. Lanri stared at the empty looking hand for a moment, before Seeker rolled her eyes and simply put what she was holding into her hand. The same effect of smoldering embers spreading across the surface in a wave revealed Lanri’s cane to her.

“I must look as stupid as Kukaro’s jester right now,” Lanri mused, imagining herself hesitating to accept things offered to her, and looking right through people.

“That’s an insult to his Mirthweavers, Dear. Jester has never, not once in the centuries I’ve known her, looked even a bit as stupid as you do right now.”

“Jester?” Lanri asked. “That’s an actual person?”

“Yes. She’s to Kukaro what Mischief is to Ishara,” Seeker explained before giggling, and pointing at the doorway leading to the rest of the shrine. “But you’re getting wildly distracted from what I’ve got planned for you, Dear.”

“Right,” agreed Lanri, banishing the thoughts about the god of whimsy and taking the first few steps in the direction Seeker was pointing. Almost immediately the voices became louder and clearer. She still couldn’t make sense of what they were saying though.

It was only as she stepped through the door that it clicked in her mind. They’re speaking the divine language.