Silver Veins

When Indra first tried to die, she awoke the next morning in a pool of silver-gleaming blood.

Hands wrenched her from the ground, throwing her into the wooden chair she always sat in, just across from the ivory one, the one that sat so empty now. She was slack in her seat, clutching the handle of the gleaming ritual blade hidden at her side. The Cardinals hadn’t found it amidst her robes.

With absent eyes, she stared about the sanctum. Behind the seething cluster, the paint-stained easel was empty. Yuralitas’s last painting on it was completed only two days ago.

A Cardinal moved to block its view, yelling something about the impossible. Her eyes drifted again, this time beneath the gossamer-canopied bed. It looked like a couple pigments were left uncovered, as always.

Another Cardinal snatched her by the wrists and thrust them out on display. The crown of metal lilies in his hair rustled with his movement.

“Look at her hands,” he said. “She’s stained.”

The skin of her hands was the same silver as the bloodstain on the ground.

“If you insist she did it, then go wash her!” another replied.

The same Cardinal, still holding her wrists, yanked her from the chair. She stumbled forward, only to be marched into the adjoining bath chamber. It was spacious and light in there, constructed from the finest marble. At the basin, her robe sleeves were yanked back. The Cardinal gritted his teeth—she was silver nearly up to the arms.

The running water was cold on her skin, almost a little sore from how raw the Cardinal scrubbed her. Some dried blood washed away, but the silver remained unmoving. Her hands smacked against the porcelain sink when the Cardinal threw them down. After he returned to the crowd in the bed chambers, he spoke. “It’s not a stain. She didn’t kill him.”

“I told you!” one said.

“She has inherited the remains of divinity, then.”

Indra’s hands were starting to ache in the cold water. She didn’t move.

“That is what shall become the next deity of these isles? A damned urchin?” another balked.

“Sorath will be dust in the ground, a mere memory before that power is truly hers!”

“Can a god go mad from low divinity?”

The ache was no longer advancing. It was distant at best.

“B-but we didn’t know how low he was. Not even the Diviner knew. He showed no signs. No deterioration. Never even spoke of the selection process,” another hushed voice gibbered.

“I think he’d been set in his madness for a while.”

Indra took her hands from the cold water. A faint warmth within them wouldn’t let her feel any more of the ache. She wiped herself on her silver-stained robes and strolled toward the balcony. The Cardinals were too lost in their clamour to notice her moving.

Outside, it was a beautiful view over the capital as always. The lands were lush. The sun hung in the cloudless sky, casting fulgid lights on the azure waters of the harbour. No matter where she looked on the seas, trading ships sat anchored, waiting for their turn to dock. The wharves were so often at capacity these days that a major trading guild commissioned the construction of more wharves. It was a shame they would never be seen to completion anymore, not with the god of these isles now dead.

Indra climbed the balcony’s railing. There was some shouting from somewhere inside, calling her name.

A gentle breeze blew by. Her blood thrummed, a familiar presence warning her away.

“Where are you?” she asked, right before stepping off.

The second time Indra tried to die, her bones pulled themselves back together. They wrenched back into her sockets as she stared at the cloudless sky from the bottom of a marble rock garden.

***

By the time she was pulled from the moonlit ocean waters, it was about the twelfth time she’d tried to die, maybe the thirteenth. A small fleet of fishing ships had found her tangled amongst their ropes. They were returning to the isles with a hefty bounty, so it was a simple courtesy on their behalf, but she couldn’t bring herself to be properly grateful for their care.

With dull eyes, she leaned herself on the wooden bulwark as the ship rocked on the waves of the night-black waters. The chilling winds stirred the ocean far too much for the moon to reflect properly. Nothing was stopping her from climbing the ledge and plunging back into the inky depths. She would be saving the concerns of the first mate if she did it. The deckhand wouldn’t have to keep mopping up everything she dripped, either.

With a sigh, she picked at the soaked wrappings that now covered her hands. Beneath, the skin was damp and waterlogged, but the Cardinals ordered her to keep them covered.

The syncopated footsteps of the first mate approached from behind. “Just lettin’ you know we’re dockin’ soon,” he said, voice gruff but warm. “You still sure you don’t wanna head below deck? S’a bit warmer down there. You look a wee bit…” he trailed off. “Cold.”

The least she could do was not climb overboard again. “I’m alright, thank you,” she replied. “The cold isn’t particularly biting.” Not while that distant but familiar warmth cloaked her. The wind whipped her hair, seeped through her damp robes, but she couldn’t shiver.

“But you still must be feelin’ miserable, no? Thought we were gonna hafta bring back an Argent priest wrapped in burlap. Woulda caused somethin’ o’a stir.”

A stir would come soon enough. It didn’t matter what the Cardinals did. Indra hummed in response.

The first mate scratched the back of his sun-wrought neck. “Well, er, if you need anythin’, just holler.” After a moment, he shuffled off.

Soon enough, the distant, golden lights of the port town grew brighter, and the sounds of the clamouring nightlife, louder. It was hard to watch the humming streets, knowing the erosion would render them all to rubble soon. Fires wouldn’t light. Trees would go barren, even in the height of summer. Buildings would crumble, no matter how sturdy they were.

When they docked, Indra paused next to the first mate as she went to deboard. Maybe the truth would suffice as payment for their favour. “Tell your fleet captain that the fish will disappear from these waters in the coming days.” She pulled at the freezing wrappings around her hands. Yuralitas would have wanted her to tell the truth—honesty was one of the first things he’d taught her.

The first mate raised a bushy brow at her. “Eh? There’re so many of ‘em, though. We follow the preservation laws and all. What’re you sayin’?”

“Yuralitas is dead.” Her voice was hoarse. “I thank you for your continued contributions to the people of Sorath, but you will need to find new waters. If you can, perhaps point others you know in new, similar directions. The Argent Order can no longer serve Sorath.”

Before she could hear his confused exclamations of reply, she departed into the warm-lit streets. She pulled at the wrappings around her hands again, and they came loose, dropping onto the wooden wharf in a small, damp pile. The skin of her silver hands glistened beneath her tattered sleeves.

***

The news of Yuralitas’s death spread through the Sorath Isles like wildfire. Only a week later, from the temple’s spiring, marble sanctum, Indra sat curled up in her wooden chair, leaning against the window. The undulating white sails of the ships slowly inched their way out of the capital harbour. Perhaps she sped up the effects of the erosion with her words. People were already leaving the isles in droves.

Gutted of their core, it didn’t take long for the Argent Order to also fall apart.

It was another of several mornings that Indra spent at the foot of Yuralitas’s statue when yet another bishop burst through the doors of the temple. “Diviner!” His voice echoed through the arching, empty halls. He was the third one to enter like that in the past few days.

She opened her stale eyes from restless slumber, quickly blinded by the sunlight that streamed in through the open doors. She raised a silver-stained arm to cover her eyes while the other still held her blade.

“Explain this mass exodus! Nearly half of the western Isle is leaving!” His voice seethed with rage as he marched across the marble floors.

“I broke the Cardinals’ decree.” Indra remained lying on the stone-cold floor, staring at the ceiling while idly thumbing the Argent sigil carved into the blade’s hilt. It was the same lines she’d given the others. “Why bother with concealment? We can’t hide crops dying en masse.” Her throat ached as she spoke. “I’m saving everyone’s time.”

“You—” the bishop sputtered. “Are you mad? You think just because you were his personal lap dog that you can address me with such insolence?” He approached with echoing footsteps.

Indra didn’t move her eyes from the roof. It looked like feathery cracks were beginning to spread through the celestial frescos, right over Yuralitas’s statue. He’d painted those himself long, long ago.

The bishop stopped when his shadow stretched over her. His voice dropped low. “Is that ichor?” His eyes traced over the dried cascades of silver that poured from punctures across her robes. It was spilt on the ground around her, pouring down the altar steps like molten metal. “He left his blood with you?”

“Kill me if you so wish. It won’t do anything.”

“If this is what has become of the Argent’s legacy, then the Western branch is hereby dissolved.” The bishop tore his silver sash from his body and threw it at the ground before the altar. Without another word for her to hear, he marched back out of the hall and out the colossal entrance. The echoes soon faded into familiar silence. She was alone again, only with a faint summer’s breeze drifting in through the open doors.

The Northern and Eastern branches had both done the same. All that remained was the Southern branch. However, for all she knew, they had already dissolved without a word.

With heavy limbs, she moved to pick up the sash. She’d have to put it away with the others eventually. As she thumbed the delicate fabric, she wished she had a better explanation for everything. Not for the bishops’ sake, but for herself. She still couldn’t understand why Yuralitas left the remains of his power with her. She knew everything eventually had to die, but she didn’t understand how he expected her to cultivate life anew when she couldn’t even fulfill her role as the simple Diviner.

She was meant to know his every word, but she still couldn’t understand his final words before his body vanished soon after: “Your final lesson is to forget about me.”

She gripped the blade in her hand, turning to face the silver statue above her. “Even if it makes me a failure of a Diviner, explain it to me,” she hissed. Its gentle gaze was forever frozen to look somewhere else. Her head ached and ached as a faint warmth pulsed in her veins. “You haunt my very being, yet you expect me to forget about you?”

She tossed the sash aside, staring down at the blade’s hilt as she gripped it with both hands. “What am I meant to learn from this?!” Gnashing her teeth, she plunged the silver blade into her chest. She wasn’t sure how many times she’d done it by now.

The initial shock of pain brought her to her hands and knees, knocking the air from her lungs, but the same warm thrumming warmth quickly dulled it. Ichor spilt from between her ribs as her limbs quickly gave out beneath her. “You won’t even let me feel pain,” she slurred. “Yet you curse me to live.”

The faint echoes of crackling flames flickered in the distance.

Her head went thick. Her body went cold. “Maybe the Cardinals were right,” she whispered as she shut her eyes.

In a sea of oblivion, that familiar voice made a faint whisper.

As small as a candle’s flame, it whispered of warmth.

It whispered of gentle, moonlit silver.

The small flame flickered; a memory flashed amidst the darkness. It was the same moonlight of the night she had first met him, when she had tried and failed to pickpocket a god.

As the small flame grew in strength, so too did the memory’s brightness. An old, bottomless hunger she hadn’t felt in years gnawed at her sides again. It was a cool midnight amidst the winding capital streets. The only light came from the golden lanterns strung between the dark shops that lined the cobbled roads. Crouched behind a stack of crates out the front of a patisserie, her cracked leather boots creaked.

Quiet footsteps traipsed down the road.

Clutching the rusted dagger in one callused, chapped hand, she took a shaky breath just like she remembered doing, waited until she could see the edge of his cloak, and leapt.

He’d never had his guard up. With light fingers, she swiped the small coin pouch that hung at his hip, but any mortal who thought themself quicker than a god was a fool. In a blink, he caught her by the wrist that held the rusted dagger.

“Starting to agree I was a madman, are you?” he asked with a small laugh.

Long, white hair that poured from beneath his hood glinted in the moonlight. The warm lanterns lit his delicate face. Right before death or in memory, he never looked different. Her throat clenched as she stared into his silver eyes.

“Hello, Indra.”

All it took was the sound of his voice for her tears to break.

The dagger and coin pouch slipped from her hands as he pulled her into a hug. She buried her face into his cloak, clutching him as her body shook with her sobs. A silver hand came to rest atop her head, just like it always used to.

“You’re not just mad, you’re cruel,” she squeezed out, face pressed against his warm front. She wanted to wrap herself in his hold, fall asleep forever. “Why didn’t you say anything to me? That you were dying?”

“I’ve been quite awful to you, haven’t I?” He gently pulled her away, tilting her head to look at him. “I didn’t mean for it to be like this. The Cardinals burnt me out quicker than I thought.”

She went to open her mouth, but Yuralitas placed a gentle finger over her lips. “I know your questions. I heard you.”

She closed her mouth again.

“However, I can’t answer them all. As part of your final lesson, you need to figure out some of it on your own.”

Indra bit her lips into a line. She grabbed fistfuls of his robes behind him, clenching with white knuckles.

“Given you’re back here again, I’m guessing you haven’t quite gotten it yet.”

“You honestly expect me to?” She croaked, burying her head against him again, cold in the night air. The clothes she used to wear were always ratty at best.

“Eventually, I do,” he said. “But coming back here won’t help you.” His hand rested atop her head again.

“What if I don’t want to get it?” she said shakily. “I don’t want to forget you.”

“Well, that wouldn’t do either of us any good.” His hand ran over her unkempt hair. “Before this memory, which way did you come from?”

She frowned. “Up the street. Why?”

“Then let’s go to the waterfront.” Yuralitas took her by the wrist again, gentler this time. They wandered down the cobbled road, past the barren shops, past the sparse, dark jetties. Indra remembered it being a still night out. The moon’s reflection was almost perfect on the water. Even the stars reflected. “Something about this lesson is that I need to learn from it as well. See, I’m actually a rather terrible teacher.”

“What? But how—”

“It’s like how I was a rather terrible deity. Take the Cardinals. Say what you will about them, but under their hand, Sorath flourished. I couldn’t bring myself to stop them.”

“But they used you. They killed you. With you gone, it was all for nothing.” A soft but bone-chilling breeze blew past. She shivered, stepping in closer to Yuralitas.

“And you’d be correct. I should have stopped them, but I didn’t. Now that I’m gone, it’s too late for Sorath.”

Overhead, the night’s nebulous arms glistened. Indra stared at the god, incredulous.

“But in your case…” Yuralitas looked over her with a bittersweet, almost regretful look on his face. “You at least now have the foundations of divinity. You aren’t doomed to die with me like Sorath.”

“What are you even saying?” Her eyes stung with more tears.

“What I’m saying is that everything must end, and new, different things must take their places.” With his hands on both sides of her head, he thumbed away her tears. “Even gods.”

“You expect me to replace you?” She placed a silver hand atop his.

“Of course not,” he said. “Think about it in conjunction with my final words to you.”

“But I still don’t—”

“It’s okay, Indra. It’ll take time. But if you want a hint, I’ve practically given you the answer. Like I said, I’m a bit of a terrible teacher,” he laughed.

Indra wanted to punch him. Instead, she settled for bundling fistfuls of his cloak.

“Speaking of being a bad teacher, I did say I also need to learn from my own lesson. Forgive me for this.” He leant forward and placed a small kiss atop her head. “I’ll miss you, Indra.”

His hands pulled back, leaving the sides of her face exposed to the cold night air.

Before she could even reply, the flame blew out. The starlit sky was gone. The warmth vanished.

When her eyes opened again, she was looking at the roof of the cold temple, washed in soft moonlight. From the massive temple doors, a cool breeze blew in. Sitting on nothing but cold stone, when the air trailed over her, she was left to shiver.

***

She didn’t know how long she slept for after that, locked away in the sanctum. She knew it was probably blasphemous to sleep in a dead god’s bed, but Yuralitas never gave an opinion. The thrum in her blood never answered.

With every brief waking, fewer ships sailed out of the harbours, and fewer lights lit up at night. With every day, more colour drained from the lands.

If there was any word of the Cardinals' or Southern branch’s fate, it never reached her.

***

After a dream she’d already forgotten, it wasn’t long before she sneezed herself awake. She thought it might have been just the one, leaving her eyes closed, but a thick dust in the air wouldn’t leave her nose. Tears stinging her eyes, she threw open the gossamer canopy, kicking up a fine layer of dust. She frowned, sneezing again.

When it settled again, some ceruleans, navies and pearl-whites revealed themselves amidst the silt greys—the same colours used to paint the frescos. She looked up.

The paint had long flecked off the crack-fissured roof, leaving but the ghosts of celestial stains. Indra’s eyes widened in horror.

Beneath the bed, she scrambled to pull out the pigments, oils and whatever other painting tools were left. A few of the pigments had long decayed, the ones she remembered seeing beneath his bed the day after he died. To her luck, one was an exact pearl colour she needed to mix.

Bundling everything haphazardly in her robes, she hauled herself up to the top of the tallest bookshelf in the room. It was close enough to reach the ceiling, but if she wanted to reach the other side, she’d need scaffolding.

Setting all the pigments, oils and tools down atop the shelf, she struggled to set everything in order. She’d seen him mix paint enough times, but as she streaked the pearl pigment across the paint-mottled palette, she wished that painting had been her final lesson instead. Even if he simply died without a word, passing his divinity onto someone else, at least she would have the foundations to do something that honoured him.

Once the paint was mixed, she sighed. It was too runny, and the pearl had long since yellowed. She looked up at the ghosts of the intricate constellations just over her head. Perhaps some plain suns would suffice for now. What were constellations if not other, distant suns?

As she set down her paintbrush from her first, wonky attempt at a sun, she wiped her hands across her lap. Some paint got on her fingertips, staining them a delicate gold. However, no matter how much she wiped, it wouldn’t budge.

Perhaps it wasn’t the worst colour.

In response, there was a gentle thrumming in her blood, more distant than she remembered.

“I thought you weren’t talking to me anymore,” she mumbled.

It quickly stopped, and with tired eyes, she went back to paint the second sun.