Page 2 of Angel in Absentia
Last year, they’d all been survivors.
Today, she cemented the transformation of her people, because today they became victors.
Her first step into the city incited an explosive roar of passion.
The people of Loda celebrated.
†††
The fire and lightning of passion and celebration did not touch this place. It was an island of custom and objective analysis, a surgical table where Clea would now have to face the scalpel of Lodain leadership before formally embracing her city again.
She’d learned that this custom had started ages ago, primarily as an inspection of humans and Veilin who’d returned from the forest from long journeys to ensure that cien had not begun to infect them.
Today, it was more of a formality, and to her, it was the subject of both dreams and nightmares. There were versions of this story where she would have stood before this council as someone to blame for the failure of their campaign. Now, by grace and strength and whatever else she could credit for their victory, she was here only for an examination.
It was more crowded than usual. The inner circle, represented by a horseshoe-like table, was staffed with four head advisors. The outer circle, typically empty, now held representatives of every city function and faction.
Beyond that to the right was a row of seats, nestled farther in the back of the room. These seats were for guests or additional attendees, often people from their sister city of Ruedom.
At the head of the inner table was her father’s chair, empty since her initial return. She would not consent to fill it until his death, despite his insistence. Next to it was his head advisor, and one of her many mentors, Catagard.
Clea stood with her helmet folded under her arm. Dae and Yvan were at her back on either side, filling the standing positions that the generals of the Golden Army always took during the examinations.
Yvan was not the same general she had left with, but every campaign had its costs, and it was a miracle that Clea too had not been replaced. Granted, losing her general was one thing. Death had become so common for Veilin that if a Lodain Veilinsurvived too many battles, they were suspected of cowardice. Clea, however, was the resilient Heart of Loda and was apparently expected to live forever.
The Heart was now testing its limits in inviting Yvan, a Virdain woman and warrior, into Lodain leadership, but it was a symbolic gesture as much as it was a controversial one, and Clea fully expected the decision to be criticized now.
“Very well,” Catagard began, and the room quieted at the sound of his voice echoing through the vaulted ceilings. There was little to absorb sound. There were only a few Lodain landscape portraits and the large board in the center of the tables with the map of Shambelin and an array of stone and wooden representations of landscapes, enemies, and armies. Clea remembered trying to play with them when she was a child and being reprimanded severely. Her eldest siblings had gotten away with it under the lie of practicing war strategy.
“You’ve provided multiple reports that were consolidated by our scribes,” Catagard announced. One councilmember to Catagard’s left, Ivy, flipped through the stack of reports slowly.
The wild blasts and heat of the battlefield seemed like they’d happened in a different world here. It was so quiet.
Two others seated on either side, Fillip and Ignat, watched her contentedly as if they knew exactly how this entire meeting would play out. Clea was somehow relieved by that. Fillip and Ignat, both dark-haired cousins from the south end of Loda, were of easy humor. Ivy, who also happened to be Dae’s aunt, had a temperament as sharp as her words. Steely blonde hair and gray eyes made her as imposing as her family’s long history of weaponry and military leadership.
Catagard scribbled something in his notes; Clea could hear the scratching quill from where she stood. Light streamed in from above and danced across the center war table. The symbols and figures that looked so small now were so large in reality. It was odd to have her world reduced to such tiny representations that councilmembers moved with their fingers.
The silence drew on painfully.
“We counted 2,321 Virdain refugees, 300 of which are Veilin,” Catagard read, his light-blue cloak, sewn with gold, glimmering faintly against the late morning light. Morning shimmered on his bald head as he looked up at her from the notes he held with a mangled hand.
Due to their blood and their healing ability, no Veilin had scars, but there were certainly a fair share of them missing pieces.
“And 405 Veilin casualties,” he finished.
“Yes,” Clea replied firmly.
Even the details of casualties were staunch and empty in this room.
Catagard scribbled some more with the feathered quill. They didn’t need her confirmation. The wealth of Lodain spies both in the Golden Army and the city had confirmed it. Her verbal confirmation to the council was only part of the ritual.
All of the councilmembers at last straightened and provided their full attention. Clea stiffened. This was where the true examination began.
“The Iscad Venennin came from the Wraithlands to the north and laid siege to Virday, but no Virdain captives seem tohave any recollection of the events before that. You conducted extensive interviews to confirm this, which seems to suggest a curse may have been used to disorient the population before the invasion,” Catagard recounted.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
It was unspoken that a curse of such vast and powerful reach was absurd, but Clea was sure the councilmembers had already debated such a detail privately in order to spare this audience the discomfort. In Loda, all emotional debate happened behind closed doors.
