560 - Carnage on the Lion Bridge

Antras had all the lights lit but I didn’t want them.  I wanted darkness.  I managed to cross the room to my chapel and lie down on the floor there.  It was almost dark enough.

I’d been surrounded and escorted back to my quarters.  “What’s happened to my guards?  Joras… is he all right?  I saw Ilinaras and Ruboras die.  Boras, Skorsas, Finaras, Tirias and Riodas… Are they all right?  Are they?”

“Please Spark… we will let you know… Akminchaer… please check him…”

The healer got me to clean up and checked me and I said I wanted to rest.  Gannara and Farasha were at Ky’s at one of her salons and they’d be back after the evening meal.  The Lesser baths were a place full of horror again, with the echoing bringing back the red of when my sire had made me cut a Yeoli’s throat.  The pink river.

Blood dripping and clotting along the railing and stone mane of one of the Lions.

Even the vote wasn’t stopping the insane bloodshed, the loss of my people.

There had been solas in the street, who had come to my defense.  I put my arms over my head and put my forehead on the floor.  It hadn’t changed yet.  It hadn’t stopped.  The arguing in the Assembly of Arko, my own winning the vote, the war, my father’s death, it hadn’t stopped the bloodshed.

I lay in the silence of the chapel and heard my own breathing echo back to me from the painted, gilded faces of the Ten.  Honestly… I had to add, out loud, ‘not yet’.  “It hasn’t changed Arko, YET,” I said.  But my voice rang hollow to me, rattling in my head and heart.  I felt as empty as a broken bottle.

**

ATTACK ON THE SPARK

_________________________

FANATICS’ PLOT THWARTED

_________________________

CARNAGE ON THE LION BRIDGE

_________________________

SEVEN GUARDS DEAD IN ATTACK

_________________________

“… a group of extremists, claiming the name “True Arko Shall Rise” attempted the kidnapping of the Spark of the Sun’s Ray Elect. 

Their stated intention was, according to the written manifesto they were all carrying, should they fail and be martyred, “To free the Spark of the pernicious and invidious teachings of foreign daifikas.  To hold Him safe and help Him understand that we, the Arkans who can see the decay, the disintegration of the traditional Arkan way of life, are His true friends.  We are His true teachers and would have re-trained Him in the restoration of Arko the Empire in all its glory, freed Him from His delusional training.  

We hold no ill intent, but only the highest good of the Empire and regret the deaths of the innocent guards upholding the evil doers teaching the Spark foreign, corrupt ways designed to bring the destruction of all Arko and the forzaking of millions.  Rest they in Selestialis, for they are misled, and martyrs to the most holy and sacred cause; the restoration of Arko's glory.

       

We, the undersigned, commend our spirits to the Ten, secure in the knowledge that if we do not succeed, we will be welcomed into Selestialis with open arms, for having tried.  Keep heart, Arko.”

The Marble Palace is pursuing all information on these attackers and the Spark of the Sun’s Ray has yet to comment on the entire incident.

Memorial services for the guards killed in the attempted kidnapping are being held in the Marble Palace Hall of the Fallen and the public are invited to attend, to honour these men who have given their lives in defense of our  recently voted in Spark of the Sun’s Ray Elect.