Bab 4: 04: Dame Agatha
The temple of Saint Agnes was located in the heart of Breacia's capital city. This was the mourner's temple, known more popularly as the temple of woe. With that said, the city was far quieter than normal. As was tradition, the people were to mourn for a year with the passing of the King. Queens were to be mourned either one day, three days, or a week depending on their favor with the King. Unlike the Isles, a nation known simply as such, women did not have the same status as their counterparts.
Khane, capital of Breacia and it's second largest city, was unnaturaly quiet and still. As for the cause, it was simple: today was the penultimate day of mourning. All those who were able were to gather at the temple as the only current Saint and blessed of Soul Harvest, Saint Caelestis, made a speech. Lore was no exception.
All, regardless of means, were to wear any mourning attire they could get their hands on. The tailors of nobles were swamped with work. She was lucky enough to have both a personal tailor and the garments passed down from Queen to Queen.
Her arrival came early, predawn, when the sky was still dark and the city was yet to rise from its slumber. Perhaps not the most favorable of circumstance.
Lore wasn't just here for the traditional prayer and ceremony of mourning. No, she was here both to congratulate the young saintess on her position and request the insight of the gods. Braecia's Queen went alone, a sword at her hip and only having informed Fiore. There were many troubles she needed that insight for. Her pregnancy and future child, how to proceed with Andonis and Bird Empire, and what was best for her people as Queen. With the gods' grace, perhaps some of her worries would be put to rest. Or set aflame.
Saint Agnes' temple was a large fixture comprised of dark stone. Its outer facade told the tale of the saintess, from her birth to her ascension as one of few mortal gods. Agnes became the Maker of Thread, servent to the Arachne, a purveyor of Fate. For that reason, she was just as much a god to be worshipped as the god of the temple, Death. Arachne, Fate, was the highest of the gods after all.
A Lore of about sixteen stood outside the temple, dark eyes fixed upon it. Her grandfather, Laurie Drusus, stood behind her. He was the family head before her mother and was a battle mage of the church.
"Grandchild," he spoke in his gravelly voice, "do you know the meaning of Drusus?"
"Strength." Lore said simply.
"Aye," Laurie replied, "but that is not all. We are followers of the warrior god, the patron of Death." One of his heavily scarred and tanned hands moved to stroke his beard.
"I've never heard of this 'warrior god'."
He smiled, a craggy thing. His hand moved from his beard to point to the sky, then one of the carvings upon the wall of the church. In the aged script whittled into the stone beneath it was a passage.
'Dame Agatha, Saint Agnes' sister, was the greatest warrior of her age. In the war of the Crypt, Dame Agatha felled a thousand men, but she herself fell. It is said Saint Agnes took her sister's breath and put it in the sky as a star, and the remaining enemy soldiers were buried in a conflagration. Only when a great warrior is born will the star shine brightest. When one becomes a greater warrior than Dame Agatha, the sky will erupt in a brilliant conflagration, and the warrior star will go dark. A new warrior god will be born. So says the Lord Time. So says the Eon. - Prophet Bellona, year 6.'
"Dame Agatha was our ancestor, the first of the Drusus. When a great warrior strikes his weapon of choice, it is said the hand of the warrior god guides him. The hand of Agatha."
"But Dame Agatha wasn't a god," Lore protested, "not a mortal god even."
She traced a finger across the worn carving. "I haven't heard her name before either, not even in the Ballad of Saint Agnes."
Laurie's eyes glinted. "It's just a story. You don't have to make something of it." He patted her shoulder heavily, staring unwaveringly into her eyes the same shade as his, albeit one of his eyes was a blind milky white surrounded by rough scarring. "But know this: we of Drusus, we of the strong, are followers of the warrior god. Marina was born under the light of the warrior star. So were you."
Lore's thoughts swam angrily. "What does this even mean?"
Laurie hefted himself from where he knelt at her side. "I told yous you didn't have to make something of it. It's just the word of a batty old man."
Three days later, back in the hallowed halls of the Drusus estate, her grandfather died. As Lore looked out the window, she thought the warrior star was gleaming especially bright. Was the soul of Laurie Drusus being taken into Death's Hall of Masters? That thought was preposterous. Agatha's gaze wasn't a real phenomena—and where had that come from? It wasn't in the story or what Laurie had told her. She scowled.
A Cassion of ten came to stand by her side, his cheeks red and sullen with grief. "Do you think Grandfather Laurie will miss us up there?"
"Preposterous," Lore bit out, "A Drusus misses nothing and none."
Perhaps, if this was a different time or a different place, Lore would see the falsities to her words. But this was not that time or place. In the land of gods, where Agnes kissed the hands of Arachne, as Death and Eon oversaw the passages of the aftelife over Styx and that of endless time, the voice of madness laughed.
"Does that mean I can't mourn him?" Cassion whispered, unusually hesitant. "I'm sad he died, so I miss him. Isn't that okay? Even if I'm a Drusus?"
"The Drusus are the strong, warriors." Lore intoned quietly, before speaking in a more level tone. "We are the children of our grandfather and mother, and I doubt they've ever mourned a thing. So I don't know, Cass, I don't know."
The warrior star winked at her.
"We're also grandmother and dad and dad's parents' too though," Cassion pouted, "doesn't that mean we're allowed to miss him? Isn't it strong to miss him, do what mom didn't?"
A tear slipped down Lore's cheek, glistening with the face of that store. "I don't know Cass," she whispered, "I don't know anything."
In a different time, in a different state of mind, Lore stood in front of the same place. She didn't give the portrayal of Saint Agnes putting Agatha's last breath in the sky a second glance.
Lore was a Drusus as much as a Bonaventura now, even if she wasn't so much the bold warrior she had been. A warrior of cunning now, perhaps.
Her dainty hand, covered in sheer black, knocked at the side door of the temple. Betwixt the door and her hand was the weight of memories refused and responsibilities accepted. Lore was not the same fool as her youth, but a different fool entirely. She was a Queen who would have to face the disdain of her people and the cruelty of noble court without her King at her side. She was being tested, by the gods, herself. Herself and nothing. The hand of fate and something that would always exist. If she played her cards right, she'd make it out alive.
Addicus' ghost weighed down on her. The words of Fiore, of her mother and brother. As a phantom thing, her grandfather's wisdom. But none of that mattered now, and maybe it never would.
A dainty hand, gloved in shadow and soaked with blood, knocked at the temple of woe. Saint Caelestis opened it.
Brown eyes and pale hair. A girl of sixteen, a reflection opposite of the youth Lore had been but a stature much the same.
"Saint Caelestis," Lore intoned.
"Queen Lore Bonaventura," Caelestis returned, recognizing her by the pin on her bosom just as Lore did the simple red robes that adorned her. "By will of the gods, we've a warrior Queen."
"By will of the gods, we've a saintess." Lore said wryly. "What do you mean by that?"
The Saint looked out into the alleyway in an vague worry. She sighed. "That's not something we can speak of here, my Queen. Come with me."
Caelestis made to whirl around in a cloud of gold spun hair, but fell in an instant. Reflexively, Lore knelt to catch the girl in her arms, missing a blow sent to her head by mere centimeters. Her eyes narrowed, her breath a hiss.
"What do you want!?"
The aggressors were silent. Lore backed herself to the wall, drawing the blade of sharp silver at her hips. They wore masks of crude oaken wood and thick black robes that swamped them. One carried a dagger that glint of poison, the other a thin rapier. Two more came to join them, one's mask marked by a choppy strip of black paint. Assassins, of a name and make Lore didn't recognize. Had they been the ones to take her husband? She had to resist the urge to cup her stomach protectively.
"Saint Caelestis of End's Arbiter. She who was born under the light of Caeser's star," the name of the warrior star in Braecia's more inland areas, a more derogatory name, "Lore Bonaventura."
"I said," Lore moved swiftly from her knelt position, pressing forward in a dance of veil and steel, "what so you want?"
Against herself, she was worried. Usually, Lore fought opponents who bore the mark of honor. Assassins, however, were not so much her forte. Usually the Palace Guard took care of them. Neither had she the chance to fight opponents of skill other than Marina, Cassion, Addicus, and Fiore in more than a year. Furthermore, the weakness of pregnancy and grief both held strong.
All the same, she kept herself with elegant poise, an assassin felled with a kick and then pushed to the other side of the room. Another's dagger was blocked with her steel as she held the wrist of a third. The individual with the marked mask remained unmoved, passive.
"I'm not some weakling to be exploited by the likes of you!" Lore seethed, ducking a blow, blocking another. Bashing with an elbow there, stepping on toes in the next instant. She was a flurry incandescent, but she felt her stomach turn and fatigue waited her bones.
"Interesting," the masked man purred.
Lore glared at him, kneeing an opponent in the groin. She felt a trickle of not sweat, but something with the viscosity of blood on her leg. The nausea only bubbled worse and worse, burning in her chest as she refused the urge to retch. When..?
Her vision began to blur, but she kept fighting. A hefty cleave with her blade and an enemy screamed on agony, clutching his arm. Or, rather, where it was.
Even injured, sickened, weakened. Lore was a Drusus, she would not fail her blows.
But her vision blurred and burned, seething as much as her heart did with the tempo of her rage. She couldn't rush, Lore wasn't Dame Agatha, and why was she thinking of that here? A blow to her leg and she buckled slightly, but she gave as good as she got. A gnash of teeth and blood, red blood and metal effused her senses and she burned.
Lore felt herself bend double and vomit, cruelly vomit as it felt like her insides writhed with the force of it. A cruel chuckle, cruel as it snuffed her broiling rage withon her. Then her vision went from blurred to dark, dark unconscious.
"A little birdy told a story," spoke a voice, "Braecia's Queen is dead and the little Drusus girl is stranded somewhere lonesome."
"Isn't that ball in a few days?" replied another.
"Indeed it is. Andonis will be making a move, I'm sure."
This voice, a third voice, was cruel. A beautiful murmur it was, but cruel indeed. Calmly, smoothly, sinister. "I wonder what our people will think of the waters in the valley?"
A laugh. "I think they'll revel in it."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
Angela_Erdosy
Angela_Erdosy A cliffhanger! Don't worry, this little arc won't be long. We're still a fair bit off from this book's climax anywho. Not sure if I executed properly, so I beg of you: give feedback.
That ending little tidbit... well, there's quite some importance to it.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, heavy as it is. As always, thank you for reading. See you next time.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone