Chapter Four
River
Serving was beneath him, but so was much of what Ione tasked him with.
Actually, even if Kai hadn’t, quote, viciously annoyed her in the garden, River already planned on monitoring their new warden.
River was nothing if not protective (read: territorial), and between Kai staring at Ione like she was a prize, and Saros staring at Kai like he was his new son, River’s new hobby was pest control.
As a good seleneschal should, he stood guard at the edge of Saros’s meeting room, waiting to be called to refill cups of tea or kill something.
As usual Saros headed one end of the table; Ione, the other, both ruminating while the other high priests discussed in low, anxious tones this shrine that was attacked or that ward that had failed.
Kai, who until now had looked half-asleep, perked up at ward failed. “That wee shrine over in Eastwick?” he asked, barely bothering to conceal his accent anymore. “I’ve been there. Wasn’t impressed.” He waved a hand. “Three mist wards! Should’ve sprung for something tougher.”
Typical that people with lives and families and dreams had just been killed, and his reaction was Fuck them.
A high priest across from Kai stirred. “You’re finished amending our wardstone now, aren’t you? How many ice wards did you weave?”
Kai rubbed his dark-rimmed eyes, nodding as he suppressed a yawn.
After three weeks of near-constant work, Oseidos was now fully protected – but if the ceaseless nighttime pacing River was forced to listen to from the bedroom beside his was any indication, Kai still wasn’t getting any sleep.
“Thirty-seven.” He pronounced it tirty-sebbin.
Nails on a chalkboard. “En’t nothing getting past that, like. ”
The other priests murmured approvingly. Even Saros nodded, lips pursed. It wasn’t much to an outsider, but River saw the admiration in his eyes. Coveted it. He’d spent eleven years of his life trying to earn that for himself.
From the moment River stepped onto Oseidos as a wide-eyed child of ten, Saros had been good to him.
Anyone else would’ve shipped him back to Sterlingdale after learning how severely River’s parents had misrepresented his magical ability – Oseidos needed to raise spellcasters, scholars, warriors!
, not some mundane guard captain’s brat from an inconsequential mainland shrine.
But Saros saw something in him, kept him, funded his training and education.
River owed everything to the Archpriest. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let some slimy spellcaster manipulate him.
“The people from Eastwick’s shrine,” someone else asked, “will we be housing them as well?”
“We’ve hardly enough space for the Caelosi,” Ione’s mother Penina said, sniffing, like she could smell them from here. “If we open our arms to every needy stray, we’ll be living atop one another like sardines.”
Ione lifted her chin. “They are our people,” she said coolly.
Kai pointed, his fingertip smudged with dried blood. “Shouldn’t’ve cheaped out on wards,” he said blithely.
Ione didn’t react. She had confided to River and Cynthia that she planned to practice temperance by pretending Kai didn’t exist.
There was more talk of weapons and coin, spellcasters and safe havens. River poured Ione a cup of tea, which she contemplated with a frown before he leaned in and whispered, “I prepared it.”
It was a premade blend of cherry and cinnamon, but that was enough to goad her into drinking. After a prank played on her years ago that she didn’t like talking about, but which River surmised had to do with laxatives, Ione refused to eat or drink anything Saros had touched.
Mollified, Ione smiled and thanked him, and across the table, one of the other priests raised his empty cup.
River restrained a sigh. Despite being the Goddess Incarnate’s seleneschal, during meetings like this River was a waiter at best and wallpaper at worst; aside from Ione, the other priests – even Saros, which stung – did not deign to acknowledge him as he served them.
Except for Kai, startlingly, who moved aside to let River refill his tea. “Thanks, love,” Kai murmured, and then twitched, like he hadn’t meant to say that. He pinched the bridge of his nose, mumbling Fucking tired.
“Yes, Warden,” River said as dully as possible. He gathered that Kai liked attention and made a sport of not giving it to him.
A hint of exasperation. “Gods, just call me Kai.”
“Yes, Warden.”
Kai shot him an incredulous look, and then half-grinned, lazy and lopsided. “Arright, ye dry cunt,” he whispered, amused, before returning his attention to the others at the table.
Bristling, River skulked back to the outskirts of the room and plunked the teapot back into its gilded tray. Saros either didn’t hear that or didn’t care. Likely the latter.
But it was fine. Soon enough, Saros would see Kai for what he was: a rat sniffing around for prestige, just like his mother.
River wasn’t close to his own parents, but at least he could say his mother didn’t kill ten people for trying to help command her fleets.
Saros had only pardoned Malia out of respect for his late friend, her husband.
The timing was bad, River reasoned: Saros’s wife and son had just died in an attack on Polaros Shrine up north, leaving the Archpriest bereft and sentimental.
Now, there was no end to the Mahina clan’s vie for power.
The clatter of a teacup slamming into its saucer startled River back to the present – Ione, lurching forward in her seat, anger flushing her cheeks the same shade of pink as her dress. “We can’t just evict them.”
Another high priest held up a hand like that had any chance of calming her. “We have a finite amount of space – ”
“We’ve housed them sufficiently thus far.”
“Yes, on cots in the cellar of the acolytes’ building,” the priest replied hotly. “It was temporary, Holiness. Temporary, until enough of Caelos was rebuilt so that its people could begin to return.”
Kai drummed his fingers against the table. “With the dormitory destroyed, Hilo and his people have been repurposing the southern wing of Caelos. The way he tells it, it’ll be ready to house around half the refugees now.”
Ione faced him, sceptical. So much for ignoring him. “And the kitchens?” she challenged. “The storehouses? The new wards? With Caelos located so remotely, I hope we’re not throwing the people who came to us for protection into a half-finished hovel and bidding them good luck.”
Kai cast across the table for a notepad and pencil. “If you wanna tell Hilo how to do his job, be my guest.” He slid them across the table to her; Ione let them skid past her. They fell to the floor with a sad-sounding plop.
Saros sighed. “No one is going to be left to suffer, but we do have to be choosy. Oseidos cannot continue to house every handmaid and mundane acolyte, and the ones who do leave us will, I assure you, return to a well-built and fully-equipped shrine.” He smiled, his gaze falling on Kai.
“When it’s finished, Caelos will be grander than Oseidos. And safer.”
“If Hilo doesn’t slack off,” Kai said genially. Then, catching himself, “And he won’t. Obviously.”
That was that, then. Ione glowered into her teacup; opposite, Saros kept on smiling, tranquil and triumphant.
Inwardly, River dreaded listening to them both revile one another to him later. Loving two people who hated each other made for an endless game of tug-of-war.
“Now, then.” Penina Artem shifted her focus to Jorah, Ione’s hydromancy teacher; Jorah flinched and forced out a polite smile. “If Her Holiness is finished worrying about an overabundance of low-rank priestesses taking up space on our fair isle – ”
“Her Holiness is not,” Ione returned smoothly. “Just as High Priestess Penina is never finished questioning her goddess’s will.”
Penina disregarded that. “ – I wonder how Her Holiness’s lessons are going recently?”
Jorah’s eyes darted between them, mouselike.
Not that River knew anything about hydromancy, but under Jorah’s questionable tutelage, Ione had come nowhere near mastery.
As wary as River was of the handmaid who couldn’t even look him in the eye, at least Ione’s little infatuation with her had actually produced some intriguing results: just having her over for lunch resulted in a small snowstorm localised entirely within the Artem flat’s kitchen.
As a bonus, Ione helped wash the dishes after they ate for once.
Jorah, for his part, coughed delicately and waved River over to refill his tea. Sighing, River obeyed. “Well, we – ” Jorah steepled his fingers. “We’re still working on control – ”
Ione stood, bored. “Oh, I’ve great control.
” She spun on her heels, snapping her fingers as she departed.
In the blink of an eye, the tea in their cups – and in the teapot River was still holding – froze so abruptly that each one shattered, blanketing the table with scarlet snowflakes and shards of ceramic.
The door slammed. Kai laughed and then hastily covered his mouth. Belatedly, a stinging pain shot across River’s palm; he glanced at himself, brushed the bloody porcelain fragments from the cut on his hand, and hid his clenched fist at his side.
Saros rubbed his forehead, letting the other priests murmur around him.
Jorah sucked his teeth. “She is too ruled by her emotions,” he demurred. “We’re working on breathing exercises – ”
“Which are going swimmingly, I see,” Penina ground out.
Kai waved a hand, gathering up the sticky slush of half-melted tea and evaporating it. “Hydromancy is an emotional art.” His posh accent was back; he was trying to sell Saros something. “It’s not so much suppressing your emotions, but understanding how to use them.”
“That is all well and good,” Jorah stammered. “But control is still – ”