Chapter 43 #2
“Of course you can. Nothing about this religion says you have to be chaste. Do as thou need, for thy own pleasure, and the pleasure of those you love,” he said as they walked through a set of doors, then another, deeper into the temple. “I admit, I would enjoy the company.”
"Not sure I'd enjoy being smacked upside the head twenty times a day," Leo muttered from the back.
“I doubt you would have allowed an insurrection to happen, Leo,” Kildare said. “The priests, while they meant well trying to keep me shielded, did not do their duty to Him and there are repercussions.”
"Ears like a bat!" Leo mouthed to Carter, who snorted, and Finn gave them a sharp look.
Another door was ahead of them and it opened as they approached, the room beyond massive and...adorned.
“I realize you have never been here, few have, but this is the room of names. The trees of all thirteen families, the purest of bloodlines in our order.”
Around them were massive etched and stylized trees in the walls, thirteen of them.
No names, only jewels inlaid in each trunk, one large diamond, obsidian, emerald, sapphire, ruby, opal, and more.
..a small podium in the center with what looked like a crystal bowl, small enough to fit in the palm of the hand, sitting there.
"Are we on these?" Leo forgot himself enough to ask.
“Yes,” Kildare said, “a drop of blood in the bowl will show you which. All descents of the original thirteen will be tied to a tree. Blood remembers.” He motioned to the bowl. “At your leisure.”
Emerson looked to Finn. “Should we? Make sure it’s safe?”
"I doubt the priests would lead us wrong, but certainly." Finn nodded for Emerson to step up to the bowl.
Pulling out his pocket knife, he looked to Kildare. “Just a drop?”
“Yes,” he said and smiled.
Emerson stuck the point into his index finger and then helped the blood to well. Turning his finger, he let it drip into the crystal bowl and watched it disappear. A tingle ran through the room as the ground lit, and then the far wall, the tree in the center, with a large citrine stone, glowed.
“Your family,” Kildare said as he pointed to the tree. Pinpoints of light glowed and were snuffed out ‘til it was just one. “And that is you.”
“I...wow,” Emerson said. “Do we have a name, the family I mean?”
“Long ago, the trees were known as their species. Ash,” he offered.
"That's so cool! Okay, do me!" Leo grabbed his own pocket knife and rushed toward the bowl, leaving the others laughing as he stabbed his finger and dripped it in.
Once again the blood disappeared, and a tree lit, pinpoints going out until there was two. Petra arched a brow.
“Rowan,” Kildare said.
"Why are there two?" Leo asked, looking confused. "Did I have a twin?"
“No, but someone else shares your bloodline. A cousin. Younger. Or a sister.” He smirked.
She looked to him. “All family ties still alive will be on each tree?” He nodded to her. “Didn’t you say you guys remembered sisters?” she said to Finn.
"Yeah, but where?" Finn shrugged, looking as confused as the rest of them. "Most of the women's communes have gone dark apparently."
"She'd better not have been in the harem." Leo's face had gone hard as granite. "I'll dig those fuckers up and murder them all over again."
"There are six more houses," Emerson said. "We need to test everyone in the harem, too."
Kildare nodded." As soon as we are done with you all. Who is next?"
"We came in here to find Petra's family," Finn reminded them all. "Let her see. And then maybe Easton, if he wants to confirm what we found in the journals?"
"Yes, please," Easton said in a small voice, looking shaken.
“Will you come with me?” she asked Easton, her nerves getting to her. “I’ll go...then I can be there with you?”
"Sure." He took her hand and squeezed it tight as they stepped up to the bowl.
“I need something...”
Rix was there in a moment, handing her his switchblade. “Here.”
She smiled at him and pierced her fingertip, handing the knife back to Rix.
Settling in, Easton crowded around her, and she steadied herself, liking the closeness of her snake.
The drop hit the bowl and the ground lit up, then the trees around the walls, all of them.
Lights blazed and went out, each on the wall until they were all dark.
She sighed, trying hard not to cry. None of the houses... None...
“My word!” Kildare said and bowed to her.
“What? What are you doing?” she asked as she looked around. “None of the trees are lit.”
“Yes, they are,” Rix said. “You’re standing on it.”
She looked down, and the three amethysts on the ground were lit, the roots around the floor glowing and pulsing.
“What...what does this mean?”
Kildare looked up to her. “You are Yarrow,” he said and bowed again. “Bloodline of the first, of Gaia, well, her sister Estra.” He chuckled. “Which makes sense...”
"Okay, that's going to need another history lesson," Finn said drily. "Assume we know none of this, Brother Kildare. What exactly does this mean?"
“When Gaia and He created their union, the thirteen came to them, to speak the gospel, and revel in worship. One was Estra, Gaia’s sister. She became High Priestess of the movement, and Gaia’s right hand. She was loved by both her sister and her mate, He Who Sleeps, and was doted on.
“Her bloodline was the one to consecrate this temple, this land, and keep it for him.” He looked to her, still standing there, though now Easton was wrapped around her, which she was grateful for, not trusting her own knees to hold her up.
“It is the most holy, and explains why you were gifted her. The Antrithos bloodline was the most accepting, the most magical because of purpose. He sent her to you because we needed a rebirth.” He smiled.
“And my family?”
He shook his head. “There has never been a male Antrithos bloodline, because they have always mated outside of The Order.” He looked to them all.
“A failsafe in a way, to keep Gaia’s bloodline in the world.
Estra’s last living descendant we knew of was almost one hundred years ago.
The matrons said she passed without an heir.
” He smirked. “Even then they hid your line for Him.”
"Why do I feel like everything we've ever known is a lie?" Leo said sourly. "I've never even heard of the Antrithos bloodline."
"Does this mean that her orphanage wasn't Order? Or that it's been a secret for a hundred years?" Carter asked, looking as confused as the others.
Kildare shook his head. “I don’t know of any compounds in Ohio, so it is very possible they were an offshoot, and were hiding. Devotion, or rather, High Priestess, do you have any information of the women that raised you?”
She told him what she had told the guys, the matrons, the weird little things they did.
Kildare nodded to all of it and when she finished he looked to Carter.
“Definitely Order, but hidden. Considering the state of things since around your father’s time I can see them taking matters into their own hands, or there was divine intervention.
I think you need to see for yourself, though. ”
"We have plans to visit when we get back," Carter said with a nod. "I just hope they've kept good records. A lot can happen in a hundred years."
“Indeed. Are you okay, Priestess?”
“I...I’m not sure I like that name but...yes. Knowing you belong somewhere...” she trailed off and looked up to Easton.
"Well I guess we should get this over with," he said bravely, taking the knife and stabbing his finger, probably harder than he needed to. They all watched as the blood dripped into the bowl and the room lit up.
Bright, it bounced from tree to tree, and landed on a tree, the opal there pulsed and then burned strong.
“Cypress,” Kildare said, pride in his voice. “You are an Ambrose, and the last of your family line.” He looked at him, affection burning in his eyes. “My line.”
"So it's true then? All of what was written in Emerson's dad's journal? The Elders had my mother killed and I was just thrown out like trash?"
“Honestly, I don’t know. I know your grandfather was killed in their insurrection.
Last I knew your mother, who would have been Glynnis, was pregnant but then she disappeared.
We assumed she’d died in childbirth.” He shook his head.
“As far as I knew, you had died with her. Once the other Elders took over, The Order hid me, hid the other two priests that were of the old guard. We ran things from the shadows for the priests, which is why things didn’t progress like they wanted.
I didn’t know you existed. I honestly didn’t believe it was you after you were brought in.
It wasn’t like I could check, they didn’t know I was here.
If they did?” He shook his head. “Now I know.” He walked forward and produced a knife as he did.
“I cannot offer you regrets, but I can offer you my life, in penance for your own.”
"Why should you pay for something you didn't know about?
" Easton shook his head. "Your knowledge is more important to us right now than some silly honor killing.
I've seen and dealt enough death in my life, Brother Kildare.
Maybe you could help us make it be that no other child ever has to go through what I did. Consider that your penance."
He looked at Easton once more, then nodded. “We all have a second chance it seems, and you are a paragon to our blood, Easton.” He bowed to him.
Easton nodded uncomfortably, clearly not happy about the way the priest was acting but unable to say anything about it.
"Well then." Finn rubbed his hands together. "Now that's all settled, perhaps we should get a move on with the more practical stuff?" He headed for the door. "Come, Brother Kildare! We have an Order to revamp!"
"Sometimes he's a really imperious asshat," Leo said to Carter, who snorted.
"Just be glad you aren't the one in charge," he reminded Leo. "Heavy is the head and all that."
Kildare shook his head. “Much like his father when he was young,” he said softly. “Priestess, I think you should go back and see where we are with that thread of this tapestry.” He looked to her.
She nodded. “There is much to do here...”
“And much of it you cannot do,” he offered. “But you can do this .”
She nodded again, looking to Easton and Carter. “I don’t think I want to go alone.”
"I'll come with you," Carter offered. "I have to speak to the priests still about options for therapy," Easton told her. "But depending how quickly that goes, I might be able to come with you, too."
“Okay...but if not, that’s good. We can talk when we get back, yeah?”
Kildare looked to her. “If you find what I hope you are going to find, bring them back,” he said softly to her. “We can’t function as two separate entities, He and Gaia wouldn’t have wanted that. And you, you have the bloodline to do it.”
She nodded. “I...yes, I’ll try.”
He walked after the guys then, Easton following, leaving her and Carter in the room alone. Smiling to her lover, she took his hand. “Come on...let’s go and solve this mystery.”