Mist Rising by Eve Langlais
Chapter One
A prophecy, foretold centuries ago and mostly forgotten, commenced its deadly course on a dark and foggy night.
Bong.
Agathe’s snoring abruptly ceased and turned into a snort loud enough that it jerked her awake. She lay on her pallet, stuffed with so many raked leaves her body sank into it like a cloud, and listened.
Heard nothing. She must have imagined the noise. She rolled to her side and began breathing deeply for a return to sleep—
Bong.
Her eyes shot open. Not a dream then, even as the ringing of the bell proved surprising for many reasons. First and foremost, because the Abbae rarely got visitors. Built into a cliff face overlooking the Abyss, the journey to its crumbling walls was a treacherous, several-day hike that few bothered with. Why would they when easier-to-reach and better-equipped places existed? Only the most desperate ever ended up at the Abbae, known as The Ninth Shield. It didn’t have a fancy name. Nothing in the Kingdom did.
Purpose. That was all that mattered. The Abbaes of the Shield existed only to defend King’s Valley atop the mountain. It held all of civilization in its cities, towns, and hamlets.
Of the nine Shield Abbaes, only a handful remained active. There was nothing to defend against anymore—there hadn’t been in centuries.
Bong. The bell sounded again, and Agathe could almost swear she heard impatience in its tone.
Who is that ringing this time of night? Few people ventured out after dark, and even fewer this close to the Abyss. The Ninth Shield sat at the end of the road. There was nowhere else to go but down, and that was certain death. The world consisted of the mountain and the Abyss, with the last stop on the way down being this Abbae, the Ninth. Only the most desperate ever made it this far.
Finding out who stood outside involved much creaking. Agathe roused from her pallet, her joints aching as they did every time she lay in one position for too long. The discomforts of age. Yet she had a job to do, even if the task of gatekeeper should have gone to a younger acolyte. Compared to the other remaining Soraer, Hiix and Venna, Agathe was the most agile one left. These days, with their low recruiting numbers, most of the Shield Soraers chose to serve in the Abbaes closest to the rim, giving them easy access to King’s Valley with its many towns and amenities.
No one saw the point in replenishing diminishing acolytes so far from the lines of supply. There was no profit anymore in delivering goods on what was a four-day round trip to a handful of people. Agathe and her two remaining Soraers did the best they could, even as they grumbled about those in charge who had clearly forgotten their core directive: to guard the King’s Valley against the Abyss.
There be monsters hiding down there.
Not that the citizens of King’s Valley ever saw any. The mist made sure of that. The mountain spire, the top cradling the valley, jutted upward from a fluffy expanse, the mist much like a cloud, thick and impenetrable. It could have been only a few hand spans deep or bottomless—no one ever lived to tell. The old stories claimed the mist used to rise at night and bring terrible danger with it.
Bong.
Who is at the door?
For a moment, Agathe clutched the neckline of her nightgown and wished whoever rang would go away. A part of her really just wanted to ignore the whole thing and return to bed. She was too old to be dealing with strangers at the gate in the middle of the night. Nothing good ever happened at this hour. She’d lived long enough to know that. Only death ever knocked this late.
Still, she’d lived a long life and wouldn’t leave it a coward. Nor would she shirk her duties.
“I’m coming!” She reached for a shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders. She also let her hand hover over the pommel of the sword gathering dust in a corner. In all her decades of guarding the Abbae, she’d never encountered any threat. The legends of monsters were thought to be fables. Or if real, then extinct.
The worst creatures they’d encountered were the tarrodax, flying beasts that thought small children were tasty snacks. A pity they didn’t go after just the bratty ones.
She tucked the shawl over her head, covering her gray hair, wisping from its many braids—strands gone thin now, compared to the lush mahogany waves of her youth. She slid on her slippers—the footwear she wore the most often these days due to comfort.
The bell didn’t ring again. Perhaps whoever it was had left. Wishful thinking. She couldn’t go back to bed until she checked.
Agathe stepped out of the room by the gate—hers now for more than fifty revolutions of the world. She’d been in her third decade of life when tragedy hit…a horrible accident that claimed her family. The memory was staggering. The intense grief had brought her out of the valley to follow the winding path down the cliffs. In a daze, numb with grief, she knew of only one way to stop the pain: let the Abyss take it and her.
Only as Agathe reached the end of the King’s Valley and stood on the rim of their world had she hesitated.
Was it the right thing to do?
No one would miss her.
She was all alone.
You don’t have to be alone. A voice had spoken to her, not out loud but in her head.
The very idea of caring for someone else squeezed her heart. She couldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever.
She had nothing to live for.
Don’t jump. You have a purpose yet. Those words had burned themselves into her soul, and even now, decades later, the idea that she could be important seemed ludicrous. Born a simple serf who’d married a man she loved and had children—only to lose them all—how could she have a purpose?
Will you serve me?
“Who are you?” she’d asked, not expecting an actual reply.
I am Niimweii. Goddess of the Shield.
The memory of that powerful reply still shook Agathe to the core.