Aidlais smiled at her when she took his hand. He squeezed her hand gently and cleared his throat. "Our Gods have a plan for all of us." It was the only response that seemed to make any logical sense. The Gods Who Are Many were absolute. They had to be, and it was folly to think otherwise. He had seen the face of God, and it looked very much like his own. The comment from before had struck him. She wanted to be happy with him. But he was an All-Sword. He had a whore and a life that lent itself to no wife, no children. All-Initiates were all on the Preventative to ensure that there were no bastard children of the All-Swords. Aidalis had heard that All-Sword Vanora Mara had a son, a lost son ; but if there was any truth to such things, Aidlais could not be certain.
Aidalis' mind drifted to the possibility of a life alone with Kieara. They could return to Igris. There could be a little house in the middle of the flat and open planes, a little house by the cliffs of the sea. They could watche the waves crash against the breakers at sunset, and he would tell her the stories about the lovers who leapt from the top of one of them, only to be favoured by the Gods and blessed to be one of the island spits in the distance. But that would not be the case. Not now. Aidalis had a duty to perform ; he had to take her to St. Esther's Pass. Aidalis clutched Kieara's small hand, and led the angel towards the Red Crossroads House once more. The sky was streaked with grey and orange, and Aidalis could smell human ashes in the air, the smell of what had once been people. A few people milled outside of the inn, and three of them stood out to Aidalis in particular ; perhaps it was their characters, or the smell of them. They smelled like violence. They smelled like blood.
One was a short, thin man with strong leg muscles, clad entirely in well-cared for studded leather armor, dyed a deep black. He was bald. His skin was pale, as most skin was in Donegal, and the sides of his low-set cheekbones were heavily pitted with acne scars from an unfortunate reminder of a past of pimples. More unusually, all places where pink should have showed through the skin, around the cheeks and lips, were shaded a chalky grey. it was as if the man didn't have a drop of red in him. On top of the plates of hardened leather, the man wore a thick red surcoat, with a white nine-pointed star emblazoned on the center of his chest. A black scarf wrapped around his neck, and one in the form of a sash wrapped around his skinny waist. Pinned to the scarf was a hammered bronze badge; a nine-pointed star with a scroll unraveling in the center of it. Aidlais recognized the form; it was the insignia of a Seeker of Ecclesiastes ; Seekers for short. They were educated in a special college in Lodain, where they learned the secrets of the Book of Voices by the scribe Malachi - and then, they had their Change. Aidalis did not know the specifics of their Change- he knew that it was not the same sort as his. After a Seeker's blood turned black, they were set loose in the world, to research the locations that the prophet Malachi described, or to determine possible solutions to the extra planar troubles faced by Donegal. Aidalis had worked with a few Seekers before, it was a common practice for most All-Swords. The All-Swords dealt with the demons and sinners alike, but Seekers provided the information needed to confront them. They were minds behind All-Sword muscle, and the two had sort of a sense of kinship between the two of them, the only ones in modern society who had been Changed. The Seeker was looking through a spyglass towards the smoking horizon, where Aidalis knew Perth lay.
At his side stood a young woman, clad in a heavy grey cloak trimmed with red-gold fox fur. She could not have been more than seventeen winters, and had a slender, gently curved physique, with small breasts and only the barest swell of hips. She had proud, strong features that on a lesser woman would have made her ugly, but leant this woman a unique form of beauty. She had large eyes, large lips, a large nose, and high, large cheekbones. Thick lashes curled around eyes the colour of the Cloven Woods; a mysterious green-grey. Around one eye shined a garish purple-yellow bruise, and only upon noticing that, did Aidalis see that her pretty bow lips bore a bloody split, and one of her cheeks was heavily scraped and scabbed over. Shallow wounds - but recent. Her wavy hair was a deep brown, and tied back in a carefully braided bun, fastened with a hammered copper clasp in the shape of a Winter's Maiden blossom. On her high and unblemished brow rested a copper circlet, forged to resemble thin twigs - the leaves were made of what appeared to be polished agates. Beneath the cloak she wore a long, many skirted, red-gold dress. Flowers were embroidered across all of it, and Aidlias could pick out that they were made of pure gold. This was some noble woman; it not only showed in her choice of clothing, but also in her posture; head held high, staring straight at the destruction occurring in front of her, in the distance. Her hands were folded demurely over the front of her skirts; she was clasping prayer beads between her hands. Under her breath, she murmured soft prayers in what Aidalis could assume was her native Perthish.
Standing not two inches beside her was another woman, one with shining black hair, tied to a long braid that hung over her shoulder, between the full swell of her breasts, down to the center of her wide hips. Her features were less strong than the girl's. Lovelier, perhaps, than the girl- this woman had soft cheeks tinged with brushes of soft pink ; her plush lips looked ripe and plump. A mole rested an inch beneath one of her doe-like brown eyes, which did not mar her beauty, only caused interest. She was certainly older and less chaste, or so Aidalis assumed. This was evidenced by the woman's plunging neckline, going down to the base of her sternum. He guessed her age at twenty eight or twenty nine summers, older than himself. She wore a long, form fitting red gown that was cut dramatically short in a style similar to Kieara's, in two tapering Vs that ran parallel to each upper thigh. Practically, to keep her bare breasts and thighs from being exposed, she wore what appeared to be an under-dress of deep maroon that trailed unto the ground, and kept her breasts within a silken gown embroidered with black-threaded stars in an interlocking pattern. The woman was clutching at the girl's shoulder, as if to provide some comfort to the younger woman. Aidalis speculated that perhaps this woman was some sort of tender - he would have guessed the mother of the girl if they had not looked so dramatically different. She was speaking Perthish as well, in a soothing tone but with a thick and heavy accent that Aidalis recognized well; that was the sort of voice that the common-folk in Tir Caredyr spoke with. This woman had no noble blood, and had likely grown up in the poor area of the capital, known only as The Greys, for the colour of all the buildings in the area. Yet, her clothes were expensive, and spoke of both wealth and taste.
The Seeker had sensed him, and turned around to stare at Aidalis and Kieara. The All-Sword had always found Seeker eyes disturbing. They were normal in colour, hazel, but the tear ducts and eyelids were all turned a deep, dark black - as if somebody had outlined their whites, making them stand out too strongly. The Seeker bowed his bald head, his deep grey lips twitching. "All-Sword Saul. Lady Elohim." The man's voice was heavily tinged with a Gaulish accent. At the word 'Elohim', the woman with black hair turned towards the angel and Aidalis, brushing her white fingertips across the girl's cloak. She spoke too, now in the common tongue, "Ladeh Wynne - come an' look ah the ang'l dear." The older woman shot Kieara what looked like an apologetic look, and then gently steered the younger woman- Wynne- by the shoulder. Wynne merely stared blankly ahead and continued to mouth prayers. What Aidalis had first taken as noble pride now showed itself as a young and frightened woman, paralyzed with shock. The darker haired woman stroked Wynne's hair gently with her white hands, murmuring something to the woman in Perthish. The Seeker watched the two for a moment, before turning to address the All-Sword once again. His voice was monotone, as every Seeker's voice was, "Lady Wynne of Perth was salvaged from the ruins of her county. The rest of her family was not so lucky."
Aidalis boggled behind his mask. He recalled the shriveled woman who had commanded Perth's substantial resources with a withered, iron fist. She was finally dead and gone. And so were the rest of them. This must have just been the youngest daughter, some well loved lady that the rest of the family had taken pains to see nourish and flower. And now, she was some shocked, trembling thing. The older woman nudged her shoulder with a hand, and eventually Wynne performed a proper, if stiff and unsteady, curtesy. She mumbled a greeting, and the older woman sighed. She released her grasp on her charge and took a step forward. She curtsied before both the All-Sword and angel with grace- to which Aidalis offered a small nod in return. " 'M the ladeh's guvehness, Sisteh Maeve." Her dark eyes lingered on Kieara, "Yeh hono' us wit' yer presence, Ladeh Angel." She bowed low to the angel, and then straightened once again.
Aidalis tilted his masked head to the side. "What happened to Perth? Is there a way of cutting through the country to the docks?" Maeve shook her head from side to side causing her long black braid to swing from side to side. "Yeh don' wanna know--" she began, but was quickly cut off by the Seeker's monotone, "Lady Wynne and her handmaiden Maeve were extracted from the wreckage of their burning estate by an All-Sword like yourself, though shorter and slender." The Seeker glanced towards Lady Wynne, who had now broken into tears, which ran down her face in rivulets. Maeve sighed, and reached over to lead the girl inside, discreetly. The Seeker merely stared blankly at Aidalis and Kieara and continued with his explanation; "Demons had destroyed the majority of the estate, and had come across Lady Wynne and Lady Maeve. Eventually, All-Sword David came upon them, and aided them."
Aidalis leaned forward slightly, hand tightening around Kieara's. Beneath his masked face, deep furrows had formed. His jaw was tense, strung tight with anxiety. The Seeker, seeming to sense this, leaned instinctively back on the balls of his black soled feet. His words were quick and spoken under the breath, but they didn't hold any sort of tone beyond the dull and flat monotone of all Seekers; "I do not know what became of your brother, All-Sword. Last I saw, he had rushed into the burning town after delivering my person and that of Lady Wynne and Maeve to the border, and giving us directions to the Red Crossroads House. Perhaps he has been killed; there were terrible roars and cries from town." Aidlais found himself cringing at the mechanical delivery of the Seeker's words, but they were not meant with cruelty. Merely with dull efficiency. The Seeker leaned closer though, taking a few steps into Aidalis's square of space, dark and strange eyes too closely lined up with Aidalis' own; "It is important that you take Lady Wynne to Tir Caredyr. She requires a skilled doctor - and soon. I can only assume you are going that way, if you have the Lady Elohim in your company."
