Free The Death of Promises by David Dalglish

longing of the calm and warmth they represented.
    “When will we take the tome?” Tessanna asked as she huddled with her head in Qurrah’s lap, using his body for shelter.
    “Tomorrow night. Let the priests be sleeping and unaware.”
    “What will we do?”
    Qurrah stroked her head with his hand.
    “Not far is a graveyard the priests use to bury their dead. I’m sure you sense it as well as I do. There should be a few salvageable corpses there. I don’t know how strong the priests will be, but I’d prefer to gauge their strength on my undead before risking harm to you or I.”
    Tessanna leaned closer to the fire and blew across it. As the flames soared higher, she whispered her question.
    “Do we have to do this?”
    Qurrah nitted his eyebrows as he stared down at her.
    “I doubt they will hand over Darakken’s spellbook willingly.”
    “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I mean me. Us. Am I really so bad, my mind that broken?”
    “I made a promise,” Qurrah said.
    “And I would free you from it.”
    Qurrah stroked the side of her face with the back of his fingers as an image of Tessanna and Aullienna playing in the grass outside the Eschaton tower smoldered in his mind.
    “The price,” he said, a sudden weight overcoming his words, “the price we have paid is already too high to turn back now. I will not make what we have lost be for nothing.”
    “But…”
    “No,” Qurrah said, pressing his fingers against her lips. Tessanna shook her head, freeing herself from his hand.
    “Do not think you can make up for her death,” the girl said, her black eyes seething. “No spell, no action, and no promise will wash it away. Do what you think we should do, not what you think will atone for your sins.”
    Qurrah stared at her, waiting for the anger to melt away into shyness or apathy. It didn’t. His guilt flared under her stare, and he turned, unable to face her.
    “I must have the spellbook,” he said to the ground. “Give me a chance to at least keep the promises I have made and not yet broken.”
    Gently, she pulled his lips to hers, even as the angry fire still burned in her eyes.
    “Of course I will,” she whispered into his ear after their kiss ended. “Keep loving me, and I will give you anything of me you wish to take.”
    The rain poured down harder, but they held each other tighter and weathered it as they always had.

    T he Sanctuary had once been two buildings, separated by a dirt path a mile long. The younger clerics lived in the southern estate, while the older clerics lived and taught in the northern one. After the Gods’ War, and the world became a far more dangerous place, the priests had built upon the northern rooms with wood, enlarging it to accommodate the younger brethren. The other building was torn down and salvaged. The graveyard beside it, though, was left where it was. In time, the travel down the dirt road south was viewed with pride and reverence, an inevitable walk they would all someday take.
    As Qurrah and Tessanna traveled down that road, mountains looming to their right, they could feel a great weight on their shoulders. So many feet had walked where they now walked, carrying upon their shoulders the enclosed body of their dead brethren.
    “Do you feel it?” Tessanna asked as they walked hand in hand.
    “Not ghosts,” Qurrah said, his eyes flitting left and right.
    “No…they do not linger in anger or sorrow. They hallow this road, and Ashhur grants their souls leave to gaze upon those who walk it. They watch for their brothers and fellow priests.” She laughed. “I don’t think they like us being here.”
    “Then they really won’t like what I will soon do to their own bodies.”
    Wooden stakes outlined the graveyard, each one with a small symbol of the mountain across the top. Smoothed stones marked the graves. They had no writings atop them, just a single image of the mountain carved in the stone. Qurrah counted the rows, trying to gauge the