Chapter One #2
The altarhouse was devoid of its usual hordes of priests fluttering about in pearly white garments, all probably congregating at this altar or that to plan their next move in lieu of their goddess’s arrival.
Mosaic murals depicting Menon commanding the ocean’s waves loomed over Ione from the alcoves punctuating the halls, and in the foyer, a grandiose statue of Ione’s great-grandfather, the Great Sage Llyr, peered critically down at her.
Ione stared back as they passed, contemptuous.
Llyr Artem was said to be so powerful he could flatten forests with tidal waves or summon cloudbursts to flood entire cities.
Famously, he was one of few humans in living memory who could summon Menon, entire: not just Her visage, not just Her voice, but all of Her.
Infamously, he was a pacifist, refusing to use his skills for retribution.
Which was rude of him, because now that was Ione’s job.
Admiring of his talents, Menon was said to have promised him innumerable gifts, from riches to immortality (and so much for that; he died long before Ione came to be), and when Ione was born with skin and hair as white as the moon, the high priests declared that this had been one of Menon’s promises: to be reborn in Llyr’s bloodline, to give the rest of them a chance at peace.
This granted Ione a few good years of love and admiration before Saros started wondering if this was some sort of divine joke.
Saros’s meeting room was located in the eastern wing, up a few flights of stairs and at the end of a corridor lined with paintings of other important people from the history of Oseidos.
She ran her fingers along a naked portion of wall where her portrait would someday hang, rubbed the dust from her fingertips, and let River hold open the door at the end of the hall.
“Hello, all,” Ione called when her parents and Saros quieted at her arrival.
She strode past them to pour herself a glass of wine from the carafe sitting before an open window.
She wrinkled her nose at whatever tea Saros had brewed today – something dusty-smelling, bitter; the old man was constantly at his little concoctions – and threw open the window to air out the room.
Then, hit with the stench of smoke and magic still hanging in the air outside, she sighed and pulled the window shut again. “Terribly inconsiderate of Sowelan to disrupt such a fine day.”
She sensed her parents bristling at the table.
Her mother Penina and father Ronan sat side-by-side at the mahogany table, practically one figure with one brain (her mother’s, although her father sometimes valiantly formed an opinion or two).
They wore abyss-blue mourning robes, too dark for Penina’s ash-blonde hair and Ronan’s fair features; Saros was nearly lost in his undecorated robe, although when he coughed into a handkerchief, Ione still caught the glimmer of fat sapphire rings on his scarred fingers.
Ione sipped her wine. “If it’s any consolation, I’ve asked Menon to send Her regards, but She remains stoic in the face of today’s tragedy.”
“I do feel consoled,” Saros said; he was too far away for Ione to see properly, but his voice had its customary evenness, sarcasm laced into a bland, pleasant tone. “But I don’t think the five hundred who’ve lost their lives are so thankful.”
The number hit her hard in the stomach.
Ione forced out an equally bland smile. “Where are the survivors being housed?”
Flanking the doorway, River and Cynthia shifted uncomfortably.
But Saros sat back in his seat, letting out an old, my-lungs-hurt wheeze.
“We’re still deciding. They’re rounded up in the atrium of the acolytes’ building now, with the healers seeing to them.
” And then the barb: “We considered calling you, dear, but I was afraid your healing might do more harm than good.”
Ione’s mouth twisted. In a sea of hydromantic skills and spells she was mediocre at, healing was not a strong suit. “That would put a damper on things if I accidentally froze an arm off.”
“My gods!” Saros laughed, and not kindly. “But would I be impressed!”
The thing was, Ione would be, too.
She finished her wine and set the glass down. “I’ll greet them. They’re still in the atrium?”
Penina stirred. “You want to greet them?” she repeated, like Ione had asked to play with a box of crabs.
Ione’s father Ronan took a more judicious route. “They’ve only just arrived, Bunny,” he said. “Why not let them get settled in, cleaned up?”
“It might prove helpful,” Saros murmured to Ione’s parents, coaxing. “You two have shielded her for long enough. Let her see what suffering her idleness has caused.”
Idleness. Rage made her breath catch, made her imagine, not for the first time, smashing her wineglass into his grinning face. She envisioned the blood, the horror. Finally, finally showing them what the woman Ione could do, if not the goddess Menon.
A hand wrapped around hers – River, not-so-subtly escorting her to the door – and Ione schooled herself.
Breathed, smiled. Someday, when Menon’s power manifested, Ione would do that and worse to the Archpriest. Humiliate him, banish him, something slow and satisfying.
But until then, the other high priests and even her own parents had far, far more loyalty to their Archpriest than they did the weak mortal shell Menon chose.
“Failing Menon’s timely intervention,” Saros called sweetly after her, “the new warden will arrive this week and we’ll all have a little peace of mind. Try to make a good impression.”
Breathe, smile. A flash of teeth. Ione was weak, an ornament, a symbol. But even the weakest, prettiest lionfish had venom enough to kill.
Ione had always been sun-sensitive, which was fitting, if annoying.
She blinked back tears, half-blind as her seleneschals dragged her across the plaza outside the altarhouse, each reflective white cobblestone like needles in her eyes.
The heat cooled and dimmed, signalling that they were safe beneath a wisteria pergola.
“I don’t know how you two deal with this,” she grumbled, pulling the sleeves of her silk robe to cover her hands.
River let her thread an arm through his. “Welcome to summer.”
Cynthia walked ahead, one hand reaching to brush the violet flowers above them. “It’ll only get hotter,” was her contribution.
They followed the shaded path between buildings, nodding or curtseying to lower priests and acolytes bustling through.
To all but Saros’s inner circle, Ione was just House Artem’s only daughter, a veritable princess due to her bloodline but as mortal as anyone else.
A safety precaution as well as a shield for Saros’s pride: better that everyone thought of Ione as just another priestess, and not the reason they all continued to hurt and grieve.
The path opened to a busy market street lined with stalls.
As far as temples to Menon went, Oseidos was huge, sprawling over most of its isle and containing not only the main altarhouse but dozens of smaller shrines, shops and homes, and a wealth of picturesque water gardens.
The market was quiet today despite the density of the crowds, countless whispers droning like insect wings.
The sun felt too hot, mocking, and Ione fought to hold her head high as River and Cynthia steered her through the throng of apprehension.
Once or twice she smelled ash, heard murmuring about Caelos.
“They burned brighter than the sun,” someone hissed to their companion beside the fishmonger’s stall. “Hundreds of them, like comets.”
“Crashed right through the ceiling,” someone else said. There was an eagerness to their tone, fear mingling with the excitement of sharing a lurid tale. “Half the dormitory, gone.”
“I was reading about this fish the other day,” Cynthia cut through the anxious murmurs, her tone falsely cheerful. “It’s called a coelacanth – ”
“Thank you, Cynthia,” Ione said, not missing River’s quiet Oh, gods. “I don’t need you to distract me.”
She’d meant for this. She wanted to hear the dread ringing out in her home. Wanted Menon to hear it, to react.
The acolytes’ building loomed at the end of the cobblestoned path, a three-storey, enormous circle of apartments surrounding an inner garden that rivalled the size of the shrine’s altarhouse.
The front gate hung open, and although Ione couldn’t see much of the inner atrium from here, she heard the rumble of voices, hundreds of frightened people waiting to be healed, counted, placed.
She hadn’t realised, until Cynthia nudged her, that she had halted before the gaping doorway. A chilled breeze blew, making the trees above shudder; loose leaves cartwheeled past them into the passage, seeming to draw them in.
The brief darkness of the passage opened up to a bright, walled courtyard, the ceaseless sun overhead beating onto her shoulders.
Priests and healers darted back and forth, poking and prodding at their new charges.
Ione tried to pick out the features of the newcomers, commit them to memory, but at this distance she saw only the faint shapes of bodies.
She smelled the smoke on them, the unwashed blood, the heightened fear.
They huddled close, clinging to one another in their grimy, ash-grey clothes; now and then the high, shrill cry of a frightened child rose above the exhausted chatter.
Ione touched her fingertips to her heart, her neck, searching for her own pulse. For Menon’s. All this suffering, and not a hint of divine fury within her. Nothing but her own shame, her own self-loathing.
What was wrong with her?
“Lady Ione, what brings you here?” came a voice, startling her – Mikau, her healer, a hand on her shoulder. They leaned in, brown eyes dulled from overwork, and whispered: “Your Holiness, you shouldn’t be here. It’s all very…” They sucked in a breath. “tense.”
Another child sobbed nearby, wailing for his mother.