The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [51]
Sora Katra was just as Thorn had imagined from hearing the tale of the Forgotten Princess. She was an old woman, and her skin was as pale as her hair, milky white with a touch of green that hinted at rot. Her skin was wrinkled and her flesh withered, but her back was straight, and her movements were smooth and graceful. She wore a cloak of long black feathers over a rough gray robe, bound by a belt made of finger bones … trophies from those who’d made foolish deals with her. Her own fingers were unnaturally long, each one tipped with a raven’s talon. Despite the distance, Thorn could see her eyes—greenish-white and glowing in the dim light. “Eyes that saw your death as soon as they passed over you,” her father had told her. “Saw it … or set it in stone.”
It’s not real, Steel whispered. She said it herself… illusion, and a powerful one. Everyone here is seeing something different.
Steel’s words were comforting, but the unease remained. Though she knew it was a trick, Thorn still remembered lying awake in the middle of the night, clenching her fists every time she heard a bird land on the roof. A young girl terrified that those pale eyes would appear at the window, coming to claim a bone.
“Yes, we know each other, you and I.” Sora Katra glanced around the silent room, and it took all of Thorn’s resolve to meet her pale gaze. “But do you know this place? Do you know where you are, and why?”
Sora Katra raised her right hand and a medusa appeared in the shadows at her side. Venom dripped from the serpents coiled around her head, and her eyes were wide open; though most knew it must be an illusion, there was a commotion as many of the envoys looked away or shielded their eyes. And Katra wasn’t done. She raised her left hand and a troll stepped out of the darkness—a muscular beast, slime and boils glistening on its rubbery green skin. It held a human child in one clenched fist, and it raised the girl to its mouth and closed its jaws around her neck. With that, both images froze, leaving Sora Katra flanked by terrors.
“For a thousand years, you claimed this land as part of your kingdom of Galifar,” she said. “But it was never yours, and you knew it. You have numbers, discipline, ingenuity; you have crafted fantastic tools and powerful magic over the centuries. But you have always feared those beings that have powers you can never master. The petrifying gaze of the medusa. The troll’s gift to spurn the touch of steel. You fought these creatures in the past, slaughtered them when you could, pushed them away when that was all you could do. You carved out your peaceful sanctuary in the heart of the land, but you never drove the horrors from this land. Occasionally, your warriors would cross the Graywall, seeking to make a name, a new legend, to return as heroes of a new story. But you know as well as I how many returned.”
Katra lowered her hands and the images vanished. But something lingered in the shadows where they had been … a ripple in the darkness.
“Just over a century ago, you tore your great kingdom apart. You have spent decades killing one another, and the heart of Galifar is lost forever. And as you squandered the work of a thousand years, we created something new.”
She raised her hand and was flanked by massive figures … the bestial ogre guards, and trolls that looked even more fearsome than the one seen a moment earlier—trolls wearing armor and carrying vicious axes.
“My sisters and I each have our strengths. I am the voice. Sora Teraza, the vision. And Sora Maenya is our bloody blade. Alone, we are terrifying. Together, we are far more … and that is the lesson we brought to this place. Harpy, medusa, minotaur—any one of them a creature dreaded by your kind. But together, they could be a power this world has never seen. Every fear your people have—standing side by side,