Oria
Day 48 of Sleep, 913
Oria woke with a start, barely registering the muffled sound that had yanked her from a nightmare. She lay in her big girl bed under her lovely, lavender sheets. The noise didn’t repeat itself, but she knew she’d heard it right the first time. It was the sound of impact, probably wood on bone, and it was made by a monster.
She slept in total darkness when she could. Her father always insisted on opening the curtains to let the moonlight in, but she’d always get up and close them once he had left for the night. She found dreams easier to cope with in the dark, and it was for the best if she couldn’t see the monster.
It terrified her beyond imagining. A year ago, that small noise would have made her soil the bed. But the monster came more frequently these days, and she wasn’t just any eight-year-old girl anymore. She trained to be a Child of the Family. So, counting to five to calm her racing heart, Oria rose, the carpet plush between her toes.
Knowing it would be useless if she came face to face with the source of the noise, Oria grabbed her practice rapier and slung it around her waist as she made for the door. It glided open silently on well-oiled hinges, letting in cold air from the long hallway with its bare flagstones. Oria shivered and crept down it, away from the carpeted safety of her bedroom. She didn’t have to guess where the monster was headed; she followed, her course as steady as an arrow.
Every Thursday night—save for holidays and bad weather—the main rooms of the Toh house opened for the city’s destitute, providing a banquet to fill hungry bellies with practical, hearty food. The regular meals, shelter, and camaraderie drew a full house every week. Oria’s father used these charity nights to balance his noble standing and wealth with the duties the church required.
The small noises of the last servants finishing their chores filtered up to Oria as she wandered the halls. They’d be up early, too. The servants hated Thursdays.
“Pst! Little lady!”
The urgent whisper made Oria squeak in alarm. She spun around, drawing her rapier. A spot of deeper shadow stood out in the darkness behind her—a hunched-over figure, barely visible in the gloom. “Go back to bed. You don’t want to see,” the housekeeper, Koua hissed.
One of the older servants, Koua had been with the Toh household since before Oria was born. Her eyes sat deep in her skull, always jumping from shadow to shadow—the look that all the servants got before long. The look Oria desperately wanted to outgrow. The look of someone who has seen the monster.
“Not wanting to do something doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done,” Oria replied, parroting the common refrain from her tutor.
“Little lady,” the housekeeper repeated, “go back to bed.”
Oria shook her head and continued down the hallway. She didn’t sheath her practice sword, and Koua didn’t follow her. When Oria reached the corner, she looked back, but the housekeeper was gone.
The ambient household noises fell away as Oria tip-toed toward the chapel. Its closed door concealed muffled grunts, strained with effort, and a deep, heavy grinding shook the floor under Oria’s bare feet. When it stopped, she could only hear the whoosh of hot blood in her ears. Holding her breath, she toed open the door.
Moon light from the tall windows cast everything in a colourless glow. The moon shone brighter here than the rest of the house, easily illuminating the displaced altar and the pair of filthy, untrimmed feet disappearing into the gaping hole beneath it. Oria bit back a sob, tasting blood as her tongue caught between her teeth.
She froze in the shadows of the door, standing vigil and bearing witness as the monster’s victim disappeared underground. Sweat dousing her palms, Oria adjusted her grip on the hilt of her useless sword and gritted her teeth. As she watched on, a head and shoulders rose from the floor. The monster.
It grabbed the altar, heaving to pull it back into position with a grunt. The grinding sound returned as the altar shifted along a hidden track. The monster never looked away from its task, returning to its lair ignorant of its audience.
Oria waited for the click that locked the altar in place, sealing it seamlessly to the floor. The click she had heard on other nights, during other vigils. On other Thursdays. But the click didn’t come.
Before she could stop them, her feet carried her forward. She trembled, holding her sword in front of her, sliding her toes across the cold marble in a defensive stance. The gods looked down on her from the walls and the coloured Thaven glass in the windows, their chosen ones and heroes arranged beneath. Cai the Just, Menja the Strong, and Nhia the Beautiful took precedence as always.
She slunk between the long wooden pews, avoiding the lighter patches of stone where the moonlight fell, unnaturally bright. Behind the altar, a tapestry showed the Family together for a meal. Father Sky serving Mother Sun. Grandfather Mountain and Grandmother River placed on either side, smiling at their beautiful children. At each of the table’s ends sat Sister Moon and Brother Stone. The newest member of the pantheon, Brother Stone’s face showed uncertainty and a lack of confidence, his place setting that of a guest.
The weaver had captured three of Sister Moon’s four faces, each showing a different emotion. Facing the Mother and Father, she smiled, watching her lover serve his wife a roasted haunch of bison. Rage and wrath faced the viewer, sewn with such skill that looking too long at the intensity of it made Oria sick to her stomach. The last visible face turned away from the table, gazing out the window of whatever great hall the Family dined in. Tears streaked either side of it, and the servants often commented that she grieved for the lover she couldn’t have.
Oria learned to stop questioning that long ago, though she held other, private beliefs about what the goddess showed on that tearful face. To her, it looked a lot like ambition. The wrathful face watched Oria slink across the room. She tried not to meet its glare.
Two steps led up to the altar, and Oria climbed them with glacial slowness. She was sure the monster would hear her heartbeat at any moment, the treacherous organ beating against her breast with deafening effort. She kept her breathing low and steady.
A sliver of thread-thin light ran along the side of the altar where the seam met the floor, barely visible. Oria made to step toward it, to dare peek at the monster’s lair, but something stopped her in her tracks. It felt like a physical force, like a gentle but firm hand against her chest, but the space in front of her looked empty.
A line of moonlight marked the point she couldn’t cross, with similar moonbeams cutting through every other path to the altar as well. The altar itself glowed as though absorbing and amplifying the unnatural brilliance, shining in the dark.
Stymied, though Oria didn’t know what by, she hesitated and strained her ears in the quiet, hoping for a clue. In the past, she had stood outside the door for ages, waiting for an indication of what happened once the altar closed. She had never heard anything.
But tonight was special. Tonight, the altar hadn’t locked. On the very edge of perception, she could make out a rhythm, a chant rolling through the chambers below in a deep, monotone growl. Beyond that came a distant hiss, like escaping steam. After some time—she wasn’t sure how long—she realized it was not a hiss at all, but the echoes of harsh whispers.
Feet rooted to the stone, Oria rocked on her toes, unable to keep herself from swaying to the hypnotic melody. Her limbs sagged like sandbags, eyes drifting closed. As the hour crept by, the line of moonlight at her feet drew closer and closer, its celestial source moving in its arc.
As it touched the tips of her toes, the screaming started.
Shrill, high, and animal, the distant shrieks overwhelmed the chant. Oria stumbled backwards, guts twisting at the violence of the sound. Her heel caught on the step, sending her sprawling into the chapel aisle. Terror gripping her like a vise, she scrambled backward, retching as she forced her limbs under her and sprinted for the chapel door. Bile burned her throat as she slid into the hallway. Momentum and panic left her flight uncontrolled, and she slammed into the far wall. A tall vase sat nearby, graceful, arching lilies stretching toward the ceiling from its depths. Oria vomited inside.
As soon as she could keep her stomach, she raced back to her room on unstable legs and hid under her quilt, pulling it tightly around herself. She lay awake, not daring even to pray as she tried to remember whether she’d crossed the moonlight in her panicked flight.