Chapter 62:
The Beginning
Author’s Note: This is a bonus chapter, taking place well before Jade’s time. This chapter contains nasty deaths. If you do decide to stop at some point, let me know in the comments so I can tone down the descriptions.
* * A thousand years earlier, experienced in the old tongue * *
A bowl of cereal barley was placed before young Nomy. She smiled. Of the twelve summer harvests she’d tasted through her life, this one was the best yet. Her mother had toasted the grain in the oven, making it especially sweet and crunchy.
A shout outside startled her, and she dropped her spoon. Nomy and her mother froze, a tense silence falling over their small cottage. Her father was out working the fields, but the shout was far too gruff to be his.
Something was wrong. There was someone else here.
The door burst open, its hinges splintering free from the frame. Three large, armored men invaded their little cottage, each brandishing an axe bigger than Nomy’s head.
Nomy sunk into her shoulders, not leaving her seat as her wide eyes jumped between the men. They looked nothing like her father’s friends, sporting iron helmets and thick armored tunics. Each of them carried an axe, but none held any wood. The axe of the man in front was coated in blood like a butchering knife. Their little island had never seen war. She didn’t know why these terrifying men had invaded her home, but she was certain they meant her harm.
Nomy’s mother leaped up in front of her frightened daughter, shielding the young girl with her frame. “Get out!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Never had her mother shouted like that. Nothing before had ever warranted such panic.
The men scanned the small single-room cottage, their eyes tracing over their food baskets, dining table and messy beds. Nomy was still in her pajamas. Strangers weren’t meant to see them like this. Their privacy had been stripped away.
The men bared their jagged teeth through crooked smiles. They weren’t leaving. To make it worse, they moved closer, boxing in Nomy and her mother.
Nomy’s mother stepped back, tugging Nomy off the chair and keeping the girl behind her body.
The men pounced, latching onto Nomy’s mother and yanking her away. Cold stiff hands wrapped around Nomy’s thin arms, jerking her forward with such force she feared being pulled apart. Her mother screamed again, this time the words unintelligible.
One man pinned her mother to the wall, and the other raised his huge axe. Nomy was dragged out into the sunlight by the third man, losing sight of her mother and her assailants, and then panic truly overtook her. She wailed and cried, her own voice making her lungs hurt.
“Shut up. I am doing you a favor,” the man dragging her said.
She writhed and fought against his grip with all her strength, but he moved so fast she couldn’t even get on her feet.
Nomy stilled at the sight of a figure laying face-down in the field. He wore her father’s brown leather jacket, and he wasn’t moving. Blood was stained up and down his arms, oozing through his hair. He was dead.
Seconds after losing sight of her mother, the screaming from the cottage suddenly went silent.
“I spared your eyes,” the huge man said. He continued to drag Nomy down the path towards the shore. Her gaze stayed fixed to their shattered front door.
Eventually the other two invaders emerged from the little cottage, axes in hand with a bag of their family’s possessions over shoulder. Her mother was nowhere to be seen.
Waves of nausea overtook Nomy, and much to the disgust of the man dragging her, Nomy’s cereal breakfast came back up and coated his shoes.
He struck her hard, harder than she’d ever been struck before. It was nothing like fights with the neighbor kids. Her body shuddered from the pain, and she groaned.
The invader dragged her across the beach. The cottage, her only home, disappeared behind the hill, and the sight ahead made the young girl retch a second time. A large black sailboat awaited at her father’s dock.
Despite fighting with all her strength, Nomy was forced onto the boat. They set out to sea, and Nomy could only watch as the island, the only place she knew, shrunk further and further before disappearing behind the horizon.
She prayed their boat would sink.
Nomy stood silent before Master Rovius as he counted the bundles of wheat she’d harvested and stacked in the barn. She held her left hand to hide its tremble, not daring to show a hint of emotion and risk his wrath. He had proven himself spiteful from the day he purchased her six years ago. She was now eighteen, but despite having grown taller, she felt smaller in this land than she ever did on her home island.
She hated this part of the day. The sun had set, sparing her from further hours in the field, but now she faced Rovius’s scrutiny in the barn. He would inspect her produce for the day, and she would suffer consequences for anything to his disliking, regardless of whether the defect was her fault.
What’s worse is he seemed particularly irritated that week. His brows narrowed as he finished counting. Nomy pinned her eyes to her feet.
“Where is the rest?” Rovius growled.
“The- the rest?” Nomy whispered. She didn’t dare look up.
“Even a slave should not be so dense. Where is the rest of the west field harvest?”
Nomy squeezed one hand in the other, trying to ease her nerves. That
was
the entire west field harvest. How could he not know? Did he not look out his balcony even once this week after he instructed her to gather the crop?
She had done her job to the word, not leaving even a stalk standing in the west field. But he was irate. She couldn’t help that the grain grew poorly this season. It must be so
easy
for him, blaming his shortcomings on her while taking no accountability himself.
Rovius stormed forward, his hard boots that she so dreaded stomped towards her unprotected body.
“That is the entire west field,” Nomy blurted out in a rush. She crossed her arms over her stomach as a shield, tucking her bruised shin behind the other.
Rovius gripped her shirt, tightening the material around her thin frame. Her muscles tensed, and she squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to be struck.
Rovius twisted her body to face the bundled wheat she’d collected. “And how is that pathetic little pile meant to last seven people through winter?”
Nomy’s mouth was open, and she was breathing fast. What was she supposed to say? She had no control over the farm, their fields or their rations. She harvested as he said, she planted as he said, and she ate as he said.
Rovius’s fist crashed into Nomy’s head, throwing her entire body off balance. She fell to the ground, crying out in pain. Rovius followed up with two more kicks to her stomach.
Nomy snapped her hands over her mouth and curled up, forcing her meal to stay down. She knew there wouldn’t be another for some time, and minutes of pain were well outweighed by days of hunger.
Rovius cursed her name, calling her a useless mouth and questioning why she should be allowed to live. He stormed out of the barn.
Nomy lay alone on the dirt floor. Her body hurt too much to move. It was unfair. It was wrong. The people of the mainland invaded her home, slaughtered her family and took her freedom, and they still weren’t satisfied. She’d done
nothing
to them. Rotten men like Rovius deserved the grief, pain and isolation she was made to endure, but he lived comfortably in his warm farmhouse, both parents still well and breathing, a wife and children to bring him joy. He should be the one to suffer.
Hours passed before the cold midnight air drove her to stand. She limped back to her shed and curled up for the night.
Rovius was still fuming the next day. His land was cursed, turning more baron by the year. He invited a priest of Ier to lunch on his balcony that overlooked the west field. As they ate, Nomy churned the soil below them, following Rovius’s orders to raise up the nutrients he imagined were hidden deep below.
“It is of no sense,” Rovius said. “I sacrificed a great number of beasts to Ier last season, yet this harvest has left us more wanting than the year before.”
The priest took another biscuit from the bowl. “A god that gives much, demands much in return.”
“I have no more to give,” Rovius said. “How could half my livestock not be enough?”
“Perhaps ‘tis not the quantity of your offering, but the clarity of your message,” the priest said. “Ier hears the prayers of many, and may have blessed you in other ways, not knowing your true need.” He gestured to the field that Nomy worked.
“Buying a weak slave is hardly a blessing. She is barely worth the food she consumes,” Rovius said. “I need a strong harvest that fills my granary. How do I make this known to Ier?”
“Cattle, hogs and goats do not speak a comprehensible tongue,” the priest said. “Send a messenger that can speak your words.”
Nomy stirred at the sound of a whisper outside. She was on the verge of falling asleep in the creaking shed before the noise had startled her.
She cursed and rolled over, dismissing the noise and tugging the coarse, prickly blanket tight around her shoulders. It was cold that night, the wind was howling, and the blanket and poorly sealed shed offered little insulation.
A man’s voice whispered again, and Nomy’s eyes shot wide open. She jerked upright and backed into a corner.
Someone
was outside.
Another whisper – that time the voice sounded scratchy. There were two of them. It was the middle of the night, and two men were skulking outside her tiny shed.
Her heart pounded in her chest. This couldn’t be good. Master Rovius never came at night. He seemed to despise just having to gaze upon her. If it were him, he’d be yelling for her from his farmhouse across the field.
She clutched a sharp stone, her only form of defense.
The door swung open with a bang. Nomy leaped to her feet, but a large figure immediately pounced on her. She swung the stone at his head, but he easily deflected her meager attack.
Only his short brown hair could be made out in the darkness. His overpowering weight forced her to the floor, and she screamed. He was so much stronger than her.
With little effort, he pinned her hands to her sides and dragged her from the shed to where his accomplice stood ready. His grip was so tight that her skin bruised. She didn’t stand a chance against them alone.
“Help!” she screamed.
A black hood was pulled over her head by the accomplice, and they coiled a rough rope around her frame, binding her arms to her sides.
“Help! Please!” she yelled and yelled.
They latched onto the rope and pulled her across the field, her feet dragging through the freshly cut stalks that she’d harvested the day before.
Nothing her small, thin body could do would save her from the situation. Two men were dragging her away, each strong enough to individually overpower her. Even unable to see, she knew the farmhouse was in earshot, but despite her cries, no one came to her aid. A sinking feeling began to envelop her.
If Rovius knew her plight, he probably wouldn’t lift a finger to stop them. Perhaps he had sold her, and these men were simply collecting what they had purchased. The hopelessness of the situation overcame her, and her screaming resigned to quiet sobs. There was no point in screaming. No one was going to help her. She was alone.
Nomy was tossed onto a stone slab. Unable to brace her fall, all her weight fell on her shoulder, eliciting a groan of pain.
The men hauled her to sit upright on the stone. They’d barely walked at all. They couldn’t have even made it beyond Rovius’s farm?
Nomy’s hood was yanked off, and she sat in disbelief at the sight around her. They were atop the north hill. Four large brutes and an older man surrounded her. Each brute had latched on to one of her limbs, leaving her completely immobile. Ahead of them stood Master Rovius and his wife, Mebia.
“What’s happening!?” Nomy asked him.
“Only listen. Do not speak,” Rovius said.
The men ripped the rough rope off her frame, scratching her bare arms red in the process. They pulled her limbs out straight, forcing her back flat on the stone.
Being held in such a vulnerable position raised her panic to a level she hadn’t felt since her last day on the island. “Rovius!” she shouted. “Stop them! Please stop them! Rovius please! Rov-”
She was cut off by a sharp sting across her cheek. One of the brutes had backhanded her at Rovius’s direction.
The slap had turned her head to the side, bringing the stone slab on which she lay into vision. Runes were carved across it, and they converged on the spot under her chest. What was this thing?
She had never been allowed up on the north hill before – Rovius had said someone of her kind would taint the ground. Once a year he would lead livestock up here, and they didn’t come back down.
“Slave, be content that you shall be of use for once,” Rovius said. “I am sacrificing you to Ier so that you can request his blessing upon my fields.”
“What!?” Nomy’s panic rose even further. She pulled against the men holding her limbs with all the strength her muscles could muster, but they only tightened their grips.
The old priest stepped forward. He grabbed her head and held it still, forcing her to look up at the night sky. “Girl, as you pass through the veil from life to death, there you shall encounter Ier, god of lunar harvest.”
Death!? “No!” Nomy shouted. “This is lunacy!” She writhed against the men, but she couldn’t budge an inch with the four of them holding her frame stretched out like a star. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She was only eighteen. Why did she have to die?
The priest lifted a heavy rock larger than her head. The bottom had been chiseled to a pointed diamond, resembling the tip of a spear. “You must ask Ier to bless these fields as you pass through the veil.”
“No! I shall not! I refuse!” Nomy screamed.
The priest lined the chiseled point of the heavy rock over her chest, casting her in shadow. It was so large she would have struggled to even lift it, and now they were about to bring it down upon her.
“Stop!” Nomy shouted again. “I refuse. I-” her words caught in her throat. She was hyperventilating, sucking in breath but unable to get enough air. Her stomach twisted like it was preparing to vomit. Her muscles ached from struggling against the grips of the four huge men. She was helpless.
The priest released the stone. A sudden, immense, burning pain erupted through her core. She tried to scream, but nothing came out.
Her vision blurred. She couldn’t even pull against the men anymore. She wasn’t ready to die. Her mind clung on – I shall not. I refuse. I refuse. The noise of the evening wind faded away, leaving the excruciating pain as her only sensation.
She blinked her eyes, desperate not to lose sight of the world she wasn’t ready to leave. The moon hovered over her, but everything else was black. The stone was gone. The men were gone. The hill was gone. She was lying on her back, half submerged in a thin plane of cold water, her body frozen – as if it were no longer hers to move. Death was taking her.
No
.
“I re-” she choked, her mouth full of blood. “I refuse!” she managed to shout into the darkness. This couldn’t be her end. It wasn’t right that she had to lose her life while Rovius continued to enjoy his. The barbaric mainlanders stole everything from her, and they were going to live on as if none of it mattered.
The freezing water chilled every part of her body. She’d never felt so cold before. Something was deeply wrong.
The pain of her injuries didn’t relent, pushing her to shut her eyes and let go. She clung on. “I- refuse!” She forced her eyes open.
A figure stood over her, the only other shape illuminated under the moonlight. He had the outline of a man, but his skin was too pale to be human. Shimmering robes of fluid glass hung from his shoulders. His eyes were pure white, absent of pupil and iris. Even from her point on the ground, Nomy knew he stood twice the height of any man. It must be Ier – the god to whom she was supposed to deliver Rovius’s message.
“M-make- their fields- barren.” Nomy forced out each word, struggling to speak through the blood and burning pain in her core. “Let them- starve.” She would suffer this one last time if it meant Rovius would suffer too. “Let them- watch- their children- die.”
The god’s voice boomed, echoing all around her as if being spoken by a thousand men – “Even within death’s hold, your final wish curses the living?”
“They deserve-” Nomy coughed again, blood spattering down her chin. “They deserve- to starve.” Every word sent a surge of pain from moving her diaphragm. She couldn’t express how they’d taken everything from her, but the core of her message would be heard. “They deserve- deserve to suffer.”
A smile crossed the god’s face. “Others have preceded you. They plead for life, for relief from pain, yet you do not?”
“I do not- care. Make them-” Nomy coughed again. “Make them wail.”
“Their fields rest beyond my influence, for I am bound within this realm,” his thousand voices said.
Was he not the god of harvest? Nomy wanted to ask, but her teeth grit shut as her injuries flared up again.
“I am Ier,” the entity said, as if having read her mind, “not god of harvest, but demon of the savanta. I speak lies to the ears of their priests, for they fail to discern that of demonic origin. I relish in their misery.”
He raised his hand over Nomy’s frame, engulfing her entire body in shadow. “Go, little Nomy. Be my agent in their realm. Take my name upon yours as Nomier. Live again. Make them wish for death.”
Everything went dark, and her body plunged deep into the water. Cold chills ran through her frame, and it soon became the only sensation she could feel.
Nomy’s eyes shot wide open. She was back on the stone slab, the four men still holding her limbs. Her vision was clear, and the pain was gone. She was breathing fresh evening air, and there wasn’t even a drop of water to hint at her journey.
The priest stood over her, his eyes fixed to her chest. The large diamond-chiseled stone had been pushed aside. Her shirt was torn and bloody where the stone had struck, but her skin was unharmed.
The priest reached for the stone again.
“No!” Nomy shouted.
He stopped, his pose frozen. He had
obeyed
her command.
“Zathius?” Rovius questioned the priest. Nomy hated that man’s voice. She wished he would never speak again. She wished they’d all stay quiet.
Rovius’s hands snapped to his throat. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The grips on her wrists and ankles disappeared. The four men leaped up in a panic, each of their mouths moving but silent.
Rovius’s wife, Mebia, took off running down the hill.
Stop.
They did. All of them halted, standing still and silent like statues. She could feel their minds. They were hers to mold, to toy with, to control.
Nomy sat up and rubbed her sore wrists, watching them. None of them moved. None of them spoke. All seven sets of eyes were pinned on her. Ier had given her a gift. She smiled. His words came to mind – ‘make them wish for death’.
With pleasure.
Nomy stood. With her will, she made Rovius, Mebia, the priest and their four hired goons sit in a circle around the stone slab. It was
their turn
to suffer.
Their voices remained silenced, and their bodies were her puppets, motionless without her guiding hand.
The hired thug with short brown hair, the one who pulled her from the shed, was made to lie on the slab. At Nomy’s command, the man lifted the stone high over his own chest.
She hesitated at the sight of his wide, fearful eyes, but then her gaze was drawn to the blood on the slab –
her blood.
He was made to let the stone fall. He could not speak, but he experienced the same pain she had. It wasn’t long before she could no longer sense his mind. He had passed.
She set the second hired thug to move the body and lie in his place. As before, she forced the man to lift and drop the stone. The execution was repeated with the other two thugs, then the priest.
Nomy saved Rovius and Mebia,
her masters
, for last. She wanted them to witness their imminent fate, to have time to dwell in dread as they had done to her.
Mebia was made to move the priest’s body and lie on the slab herself. She lifted the stone, and she fell to the same fate as the others.
Rovius lay on the slab, and he was the last to drop the stone. She would never have to hear his voice again.
Nomy left their sacrificial hill and headed to the farmhouse for a meal – a meal that she’d toiled to harvest but rarely was allowed to enjoy.
Lamps shined through the windows of the farmhouse. It was still occupied. She would offer Rovius’s offspring the same fate the mainlanders had granted her – live in servitude or perish.
Nomy took a deep breath as she walked. She could feel them – the minds of those in the farmhouse, the minds of the nearby village of Lystra, the minds of thousands across the mainland, all vulnerable to her will. She would be a scourge to their nation.
They would all suffer as they had made her suffer. They would regret the day they invaded her island and ripped apart her life. They would fear Nomy. No. Nomy was weak, helpless, pitiful. Nomy died on that slab.
They would fear Nomier.
Author’s Note:
This is the end of the book. Thank you for reading! I may publish more bonus chapters about Jade and Trevus in the future, but for now the book is complete.
Good suggestions in the comments have inspired me to go back and make some smaller changes in the book – like making Lord Reger a bit more memorable. If you have any ideas on how this book could be improved, please let me know and I may add them.
I have similar stories planned for the future, so keep this book in your library and follow me to be notified.
136k words. 450 pages. Published over 35 weeks: mid-September 2023 to late-March 2024. Initial drafts started August 2021.
You did a phenomenal job bravo 👏 The plot was very well thought of and executed 👏 Thank you for this good read ❤
Good catch! 👍
Good for you 👏👏
This is really difficult to read 😖😖
I agree
Thanks so much for this story, it is …wow…lovely!
it is not the violence that is disturbing but the extent of the emotions that accompany it. The piece doesn’t read like a cheap shock flick.
Please refrain from altering a syllable in this chapter: it is perfection and fattened up the story in the most unexpected way!
Outstanding and brilliantly written story I can’t wait to read more of your stories!! It was so so good
@FalcaWing yeah, I thought the same
@FalcaWing fun (or not I suppose) fact is that they weren’t called vikings but rather when they went raiding it was to ‘go viking’ though a lot of waht was known about them for some tike were accounts from their enemies. The people who went viking didn’t really keep written records. At least not in the way we typically look for them, as the women would weave tapestries as a way of recording and telling histories. Though for many cultures you either sewed or weaved some kind of bed spread before marriage.
@FalcaWing yeah it could have been horrible…
Now I feel a but bad for Nomier, no wonder she became bad – awesome chapter!!!!!
don’t change a thing, it’s perfectly written to get you in the right mindset in this chapter. Toneing it down would do this chapter no justice.
he didn’t have to see his kids starve in the end. still somewhat nice of her
you really play well with words, those tiny details are so awsome and easy to miss.
I like him
very good don’t ask the gods for that. ask for his downfall
and he wants her to conve his needs to the gods. if it was me I would have the gods curse his lands even more 🤣
he’s going to send his slave, 😱
So sad to see it end but also glad to have had the chance to read it. This was definitely one of your bests! I love seeing your writing improve with experience. It’s well described but not overly so either and has a lot of diversity in the words and sentence structures. I also love how the twists and answers are there long before they happen but they aren’t overly obvious or so unremarkable that they are easily forgotten. I can’t wait for your next new book! I’ve read all of them from your other account. <3
@rileysing vikings did things like that too, so that sounds plausible
thankfully for the mother, sounding by the timeframe, they only killed her mother instead of doing other things to her.
A lot of sacrifices to the demon
For death they will beg and plead, scratching at their very minds to save themselves
I knew that’s how the name would come!
Ya know…. Nomy-ier, think we’re seeing where this is going
This sacrificed human clings to her bitterness, even in death
Honestly, they brought this upon themselves
Ask for something much more powerful
Because the ones with the god believe it’s the good option.
You really think she will heh? You don’t think she’ll request something more… Deadly?
Sorry I was gunna sing ‘The devil went down to Georgia’ to really shiver your timbers
Nobody would speak more of his plight than his wife. poor girl
Where your cries for help are for no-one but the very stars
I don’t think he wants you to defend yourself dear
Yeah, send his wife
Ah yes, the old ‘death will fix any issues!’ solution
Seems like you should do something about that, kiddo
You obviously can’t look out your window to see the harvest, so your mouth is far more useless
If you can blame the property, people will, even if it’s their own fault.
He’s looking for a reason to be mad
Poor kid forces into slavery
She went through so much
aw, poor kid
Didn’t spare her eyes from her father though
Yeah, I figured he was already dead, poor girl
Poor baby
Gotta love how intense and raw the situation is
@rileysing ritualistic sacrifice of people is a thing they just used to do.