Chapter 70: Divine
Valens’s skin prickled the moment that string of words took hold of the whole room. Spoken with such grace, with such ease that he turned, ever so slowly, as if taken by the allure of them, to see the owner of this voice.
Her face was pale but not sickly, crimson lips looking soft, eyes dark as riverstone. Her hair was black with hints of deep violet, pinned back with almost ceremonial precision, and her perfume smelled of lilac and daisies. There was an air about her that shifted subtly as if she wasn’t meant to be looked at, but experienced solely through presence alone.
She wore a long gown with long fitted sleeves and a high collar that fastened with a single carved jet button. The bodice was trimmed with black lace, the skirts sweeping to the floor in thick, heavy folds. All black save for the golden strings pulsing faintly in the light of the Bishop.
And finally, the locket around her neck, hanging from a velvet ribbon, under its surface squirming a mist so thick that even when he squinted Valens couldn’t see anything. The same wasn’t true for his ears, though, because when he laid eyes upon that locket, voices came to him.
‘Save us…’
‘Help us…’
‘It hurts…’
‘Cruel mistress…’
‘Mistress!’
Dozens of them spilled into his mind, papery whispers of pain and torture, of yearning and regret. Screams followed. Cries stabbed at his thoughts. A chorus of them growing louder by the second, making him nearly double down with both hands clamped over his ears.
Yet nobody seemed aware. Nobody did anything other than stare. Spellbound. Petrified. Eyes squinted in uncertainty and fear. Even the captain strained with his neck bulging and fingers clasped tight into fists, as if he fought with all his worth against the urge to turn back and take a single gaze at her face.
‘Save us…’