The Leering began to crack with power, the stone vibrating and humming as it tried to force her away.

Lia reached the Leering, barely able to see it from the haze of steam. The waters bubbled like a livid cauldron. Reaching out, Lia touched the image of the serpent with her glowing hand.

As Lia closed her eyes, she saw in her mind every girl and every woman who had ever stood before the awful Leering. In her minds eye, she watched them press their naked shoulder against the burning image and watched it sear their flesh with a brand they would wear the rest of their days. The kystrel was a token of their power, but their power came from the binding they received by touching the stone – a binding of a Myriad One inside their body. The Myriad Ones were given complete control over the hetaera, to use them as they wished until they were finally persuaded to kill themselves, thus releasing the Myriad One and making them available to join with another hetaera. The cycle had been repeated over and over for centuries. Young girls, inexperienced in the ways of power and manipulation, were suddenly wiser than their limited years, able to seduce and influence even the strongest minds. She saw Pareigis, a shivering little girl barely thirteen at the time of her binding. She saw countless others. The final girl, the one who had made the final oaths and promises was Hillel.

Lia felt the power of the Medium thrust through her hand as it touched the stone. The Blight began its work. Every hetaera had a brand on her shoulder, the brand of the twin serpents. The Blight infected the Leering and every woman who had the brand in her skin. Lia shuddered, realizing what she was doing. The Blight would take the form of a disease, a sickness, a plague that would ravage the land. The disease would be transmitted to its victims through a kiss. Lia’s mind opened up and she saw the devastation that was coming. It would come slowly, creeping stealthily. Every kiss from a hetaera would transmit the plague. Every victim would die an agonizing and slow death. It would take time, weeks and months, even years before the survivors began to understand who was causing the plague. Then every hetaera would be hunted and killed. Women would be forbidden to read or study from tomes. The deaths would still continue, plague after plague, secret after secret, until everyone in every kingdom had been destroyed. The last man alive would be the Earl of Dieyre. She saw him in her mind, alone in the world.

The glow disappeared from her hand. The curse had been invoked.

The Medium whispered to her. Bind it with the irrevocare sigil.

Lia wept at what she had seen. She sobbed as she realized that she was causing the death of untold thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Her hand had brought the plague that would destroy the world, save those who escaped on the ships. She remembered the Aldermaston of Tintern, how he said that the name of Ellowyn Demont would be spoken of good and evil by many. She remembered Maderos at Muirwood Abbey after she had passed the maston trial.

This hand – will impact the lives of millions of souls. Your name will be had for good as well as for evil. But to those who know the truth, they will always hold you in reverence for what this hand will yet do.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she raised her hand and made the sign of the eight-pointed star. The irrevocare sigil bound the curse to the Leering forever.

It was done.

Lia knelt at the foot of the Leering and sobbed, wracked with emotions too vast to control or even understand. A single thought burned through the storm of feelings. Colvin was with Hillel. Somewhere, the man she loved was with a woman she hated. A woman who Colvin believed was Ellowyn Demont. And one kiss from her would kill him.

* * *

Maderos had taught her the password to open the slit in the outer wall of the Abbey. Her feelings oppressed her with crushing weight. Colvin was in danger – immediate danger. Muirwood was also facing a threat. She could feel both looming in front of her eyes, a shadow that blinded her to all other thoughts. Thrusting through the dark shaft of stone, she entered the room with the strange basin and oxen and found Maderos standing by the shaft leading to the Blight Leering. The shaft was covered by a length of silk cloth, a narrow sheet that rustled as she disturbed the air with her presence. The shimmering sheet looked like an Apse Veil.

“Maderos!” she cried, joining him around the walkway. “Maderos, where is Colvin?”

The look he gave her was stern. He turned away and smoothed the fabric, letting it settle once again. “Billerbeck Abbey.” He stared up at the length of sheet and stepped back from it. “Yes, your pethet is there.”

“Maderos, please tell me. Has he…has he fallen? I know he is with her…”

Maderos waved his hand impatiently. “Do not ask me, little sister. Do not ask me about the pethet. What if he has fallen, eh? What if he has kissed the hetaera? Does that alter what you must do now?”