Blood of the Goddess Book I: The Locust King
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Locusts at the Gate Chapter 2: A New Name Chapter 3: The Capital Prepares Chapter 4: The Princess is Dead, Long Live the Princess Chapter 5: Outside the Gates Chapter 6: Inside the Black Tent Chapter 7: Surrender at the Temple Chapter 8: The Cult of the Locust Chapter 9: The Locust's Tenets of Faith Chapter 10: Mourners on the Cliff Chapter 11: The Eye of Betrayal Chapter 12: The Dead King's Bedchamber Chapter 13: The Arms of the Goddess Chapter 14: Zayaan of the Narim Chapter 15: The Eyes of the Priestess Chapter 16: A More Permanent Disguise Chapter 17: Tribute Chapter 18: Sacrifice of the New Moon Chapter 19: The Lost Bird Chapter 20: Manah and the Priestess Chapter 21: Desert Creatures Chapter 22: Become the Swarm Chapter 23 The Price of Betrayal Chapter 24: Life Under the Locust Chapter 25: Wild Rose Chapter 26: The Lady Wren Chapter 27: Thought and Desire Chapter 28: The Lady's Captivity Chapter 29: The Wine Maiden Chapter 30: End of Childhood Chapter 31: The Children of Aisha Chapter 32: The Forest Runner Chapter 33: Three Sisters Chapter 34: The Hunt Chapter 35: Bones in the Forest Chapter 36: Lullaby Chapter 37: The Hunter's Horn Chapter 38: Ways Between Ways Chapter 39: Morning Star Chapter 40: A Prophecy for Baraz Chapter 41: Equinox Fires Chapter 42: The Lord Prince Takri Chapter 43: Evening Star Sets Chapter 44: Chaos in the Courtyard Chapter 45: Dasha Chapter 46: Memories Chapter 47: The Body Slave Chapter 48: Caged Beasts Chapter 49: Message from the Capital Chapter 50: Heresiarch Chapter 51: The Color of Blood Chapter 52: Winter Winds Chapter 53: The Bookmaker's Closet Chapter 54: Wrapped in Dignity and Beauty Chapter 55: Vessel of the Goddess Chapter 56: Cracks in the Walls Chapter 57: Two Brothers Chapter 58: The Court of Women Chapter 59: Favored of the King Chapter 60: The Sweetest Fruit Chapter 61: Daughter of the Temple Chapter 62: A Nation of Bastards Chapter 63: The Lute Player Chapter 64: Aisha's Prayer Chapter 65: Promises Chapter 66: Lives Lost Chapter 67: The Tea Maker Chapter 68: Object of Desire Chapter 69: Empty Shelves Chapter 70: Darkness and Light Chapter 71: The Love of Men Chapter 72: The Cursed Ones Chapter 73: Hiding Places Chapter 74: Old Men's Tales Chapter 75: False PropheciesChapter 72: The Cursed Ones
In the library bookmaker's closet, Aisha continued her search through the wall of compartments for a way inside the hidden space under the stairs. At the back of the compartment closest to the table used for bookbinding, she found what she was looking for: a worn spot on the wall behind boxes of rarely used leatherworking tools. She placed her hand on the wall and pushed, but nothing happened. She tried again, this time pushing to the left and the right to no avail.
It had to be the way in. No other part of the wall looked like this, all the rest were pristine and smooth beyond a layer of dust. This was the only one that looked different.
She stepped back to look at the wall from another angle while Old Scribe rubbed against her legs.
"What do you think, Old Scribe? Is this the way in?"
Aisha dropped down to sit on the floor and pet the old tom cat while she contemplated the best way to open the panel. The central portion bore a smudge about the size of someone's hand. She stretched herself on the floor, lying flat to better see the top of the compartment. There, on the top right of the compartment wall, faint scratches stretched down in an arc towards the middle of the smudge. This was the way in.
She placed one hand squarely in the center of the smudge and twisted. The panel slid upwards, revealing a black space behind it. Musty air heavy with the scent of old leather and parchment wafted out of the darkness. She reached in up to her shoulder and felt around inside, encountering nothing as far as her arm could reach in any direction.
She pulled herself back from the hole and closed it before Old Scribe became too curious.
"That is not a place for you, cat," said Aisha. "I don't even know if it is a place for me. I couldn't feel any floor in there. I will need to come back with some light if I want to explore further. For all I know, it is just an empty pit to catch book thieves!"
"Prrrrbttt?"
"No, I am not letting you in there, even though I am sure you would find lots of tasty mice," said Aisha. "We need you here, Old Scribe. You are the last of the librarians of Adyll. You know I don't count. Come on, we need to see how much daylight we have left. I can't afford to miss any more meals."
She grabbed the case of scrolls and headed out of the bookmaker's closet, making note of the direction the light came through the rotunda windows. It was early afternoon. She had a few hours left before her return to the dormitory for another bowl of increasingly watery lentils and a soak in the baths below to warm herself before sleeping. Maybe Nasreen would feel well enough to look at the copies of the architectural drawings after everyone was asleep.
We will make plans to escape together and find the Lady's Beloved. He will help us defeat Mahleck. And then everything will return to the way it should be, thought Aisha as she headed up the stairs to the study area above the library. I will be Queen, and Nasreen will be the Holy Mother. And the men of the Swarm will see how wrong they were. Nasreen can love Takri again. It will all be better.
She stopped at the top of the stairs and looked around the second-floor mezzanine, littered with dust-covered tables and chairs. During her tenure as librarian, she had only visited the mezzanine once. According to Baraz, it held nothing of value, which made it the perfect place to store the treasures Aisha had uncovered. She headed to a table at the opposite end of the room and took the scrolls from the carrying case one by one, hiding them inside a drawer used for writing implements, keeping the last one for her own use.
A few minutes later, she was back in the closet along with the scroll which she unrolled on the bookmaker's table. This one, while also written in ink on silk, did not bear any illustrations like the story of Light and Dark. Instead, a neatly transcribed black script covered the surface. Just from a glance, it appeared to be a scholarly writing rather than another story of long ago.
This is a true record of the travels of the scholar Marzana in the lands beyond the Great Desert as recorded at the hand of her faithful amanuensis, Azardeh during the 40th year of the reign of Queen Daciana, granddaughter of Mila the Beloved.
Aisha stopped reading for a moment. Travels beyond the Great Desert? The thought of any woman of Adyll leaving the safety of the plateau was shocking. Adyllian women did not travel outside of the borders of Adyll. This was an accepted fact of life. Even those who married a Narim did so on the condition the Narim abandoned life in the desert for the mountain.
Aisha’s daily lessons at the palace told her of the depravity of all foreigners. How they hated Adyll for its prosperity and superior culture, how women were treated as cattle by those in the lands beyond. The idea of travelling among the uncivilized barbarians left her confused, but perhaps it would help her to understand the men who now held her nation captive. She went back to the document.
During my travels in the east beyond the desert, there are many tales of cursed beings akin to our strigoi-viu. They are called by many names: strega, dampir, upir, moroi, egui, and preta. Some call them sorcerers; others say they are the undead. But they are all consumed from within by their own desires, burning away all that is good within them.
Beyond the desert and the mountains, far to the north among the people known as the Uruq there are stories of the cursed ones who drink blood similar to our old men’s stories of the strigoi-viu. Among the Uruq, the cursed ones are men of such evil the Earth herself rejects their bodies from her embrace. These men scream for death, but death cannot be found for them. The Uruq word stega comes from the same root as our word strigoi meaning to scream, for they rage against life, but death will not have them.
The first of the strigoi-viu was the most cursed of all. Far to the east, beyond the desert, beyond the great forest, in the mountains at the edge of the world lies the place of the First Men. As it is with all of their sex, weakness of thought prevailed among them. They were cowards who wished only to fill their own bellies, caring for no one but themselves. Among these selfish men, one made himself as god over all. He used his brethren to commit atrocities upon the surrounding lands to feed his hunger for blood and death until the land around them was laid waste.
He then turned on his own people, demanding the sacrifice of children at the cusp of adulthood. He bathed in their blood to renew his own youth. The blood of the strongest he consumed mixed with his wine. Those with the sweetest taste he savored, drinking slowly from many cuts. Of the sweetest he selected his lieutenants, poisoning their bodies and minds as he consumed them. Those who he desired the most he infected with his own evil, becoming curses to themselves just as he was.
When his people realized his hunger would never be sated, they rose up and surrounded his palace, burning it to the ground, allowing their own children to burn along with the cursed ones. In this the First Men became a curse unto themselves. Their land died around them, refusing to produce fruit for those who would not save their own children.
The men of this land died of hunger, and their hungry god remains silent in the ashes of his palace. The Uruq say this is how the salt wastes to the north of their land came to be.
Many of the oldest Uruq men I encountered told me ways to identify a strega. One must look for someone who has died without being married, a man who was the seventh son in a family of no daughters, or who showed poor hospitality to strangers. If a strega is present in a community, his presence will be made known by the failure of crops, or frogs and insects finding their way into maidens’ beds causing nightmares.
I find all of these superstitions fascinating. Their connections to our own superstitions suggest a common ancestry between the Uruq and...
The door to the bookmaker’s closet slammed open, causing Aisha to yelp in fear.
"What are you looking at so intently?" Baraz pulled the scroll off the bookmaker's table and examined it. "Where did you find this? It looks nothing like the other codices you have found so far."
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