Sin and Sorrow by MIchael R. Fletcher

Author:MIchael R. Fletcher [Fletcher, Michael R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MRF Books Corp.
Published: 2023-12-03T16:00:00+00:00

AKACHI – GUILT AND DISGRACE

The Rada Loa are the oldest entities in existence, the very first sentients. They birthed the first gods, are the distant ancestors of the entire pantheon. They are the essences upon which the frame of this world is built, elemental in nature, ancient beyond reckoning.

From the moment this reality birthed life, death was born.

Mother Death, The Lady of the House, is the true master of Bastion.

—The Book of Bastion (deleted text)

Fajah forced Akachi to sit and eat while she went in search of ‘the kind of useful stuff that boys don’t usually think of.’ After the warm bath, muscles loose for the first time in what felt like a month, he was too tired to argue. Collapsing into a chair, he watched as she hustled about the kitchen discovering food he’d somehow missed.

Lifting the lid of an ugly clay jar that looked like it had been made by a child, she glanced at him. “Did you even look in these?” There were half a dozen similar jars, each painted a different colour.

“I thought they were art.”

“Kokumo’s children made them.” Reaching in, Fajah drew out a fistful of oat cookies. Popping one in her mouth, she handed him the other three. “There’s seven or eight more in there. Leave me two or I’ll be rude to you.”

“I’ll leave you four.”

“Just two. You eat the rest.” She slid the jar in front of him and returned to digging through a cupboard he’d thought was for pots.

Akachi blinked at the cookies in his hand. They were dry and crumbly, and he wished he had milk to soak them in. “We always used to have cookies and muffins delivered from the Crafters’ Ring,” he mused. “Once, when I was seven, Mom took me to the Crafters. She was having a dress custom made for some event I don’t remember. That was the first and last time I ate a cookie still warm from the Crafters’ oven. Best thing I ever ate in my life.” He shook his head, lost in the memory of flavour. “I told the baker I wished I was a Crafter so I could eat those cookies all day every day and he laughed. He said eating a cookie from the oven was ten lashes. All baked goods had to go to the Bakery District warehouse to be sorted. Apparently, there are laws as to what cookies can be available in each ring.”

The senators decided such things, though he’d never given it much thought. Judging from how fat they all were, most of the good cookies must have stopped in their ring.

“I never saw a single cookie in the Growers’ Ring,” said Fajah, still digging through the cupboard. “The awful food was the worst part of being an acolyte.”

Akachi, who’d sacrificed a man on the altar, taken a baby from a young mother, fought Loa tecolotl in the streets, and lost a fight with a god, said nothing. The food in the Quarter Cathedral had been infinitely better than anything in the Wheat District.

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