Chapter Fourteen
There are many legends of the goddess that have been passed down—or, frankly, fabricated—by the natives of Akeisa. Most seem to center around standard themes of preservation and restoration.
For instance, their goddess’s primary temple is often lauded as a sacred place of healing. According to the locals, it houses the goddess’s heart, and therefore cannot be destroyed.
As said temple now lies in ruins, I do not concur.
Fallen Goddess: An Analysis of Primitive Belief
by Guildmaster Klement
The moment Einar opened the door to their rooms, he knew something was very wrong in Gwynira’s court.
For one thing, no servants lingered in their hallway, hoping for a chance to be of service to the goddess.
There were no new little tokens on the floor outside the suite, either.
No one was to be found when they stepped into the wide corridor that led to the main castle—except a single frazzled-looking noble who took one look at them and almost tripped in her haste to retreat back into her own quarters.
Aleksi and Naia met his wary look with expressions of equal uncertainty.
As one, they hurried their steps, their goal the Great Hall, where the court usually broke their fast. They found Inga hovering outside the room, looking perplexed.
“No one is eating, and everyone is whispering, but no one wants to talk about what is happening,” she said by way of greeting.
“Because they don’t understand what is happening,” Gwynira said, sweeping out of the hall with Arktikos and Isa flanking her.
The tightness of her eyes shot dread up Einar’s spine. “Has there been another attack?”
“No, nothing like that.” Gwynira turned to Naia. “You are familiar with the ruins of your former temple, I assume? The ones that sit on the cliff above the palace?”
Instead of answering, Naia pivoted on her heel and rushed toward the exit that led out into the gardens. Biting off a curse, Einar hurried after her. Even with his longer legs, she was out the door before he caught up, as if something was drawing her with a force she could not resist.
He pushed the heavy door open and stepped into the garden, only to stop so abruptly that someone crashed into his back. He barely heard Inga’s muffled curse, and it was not conscious thought that carried him forward, one unsteady step at a time.
No, thought had fled. Yesterday, the ruins had been barely visible on the cliffs above, just hints of shattered stone overgrown with vines. Today . . .
Today, there was a temple. Whole, the magnificent pillars shining in the sun as if it had been hewn from bright-white stone that morning, its very existence an impossibility. He parted his lips, and simply could not form words.
Thankfully, Aleksi still could. He stepped forward and touched Naia’s shoulder. “We should go and see—”
That was as far as he got before disorientation seized Einar.
The ground beneath him went soft, sliding like sand being washed away by the tides.
Wind roared around them, hot and out of place, carrying the heavy scent of tropical flowers and the joyful song of birds that he had only heard far, far to the south.
His heartbeat pounded so loudly it was all he could hear.
Or maybe it was the heartbeat of the island, because he could feel it all around him, frantic and strong and alive—just like he had on the beach, when Naia had wrapped them in her power and carried them to the secret cave deep in the heart of the island.
His boots hit solid ground abruptly. A breeze tugged at his hair, the sharp kind that immediately made Einar think of climbing the crow’s nest on his ship, and a bronze lantern stood a few paces in front of him.
As soon as they arrived, the wick shivered, and a bright teal flame leapt to life, dancing inside and casting light through the sections of the lantern that had been cut out.
Cut out. These were the lanterns that lined the way up to the temple ruins.
He forced his gaze past it, and saw a dizzying drop off the side of the cliff.
They were nearly at the top, with Gwynira’s palace far below, its garden buzzing with activity as the onlookers who had surrounded them only moments before spilled toward the base of the path.
“That was unexpected,” came Gwynira’s voice, and even her customary chill couldn’t hide the wild edge to the otherwise casual words.
Einar turned to see that Naia had brought Arktikos and Gwynira with them this time, and while the burly guard’s face showed little reaction, there was a hint of wildness in the Ice Queen’s eyes, too.
She watched Naia with a new wariness—and a new respect.
Naia barely seemed to notice. She strode up the path, each footstep confident, eager even. Einar followed her, only to stagger to a halt for the second time when the temple came into view.
It was magnificent.
The last time they’d come up here, it had been nothing but a tangle of collapsed stone pillars and rubble. Weeds had been lovingly cut away by faithful hands, but there had been no hiding the destruction that time and war had wrought on the place that had once been the goddess’s sanctuary.
On their first visit, Einar had pinned Naia to one of those broken pillars, savoring her sounds of pleasure as she rode his tongue until the winds whipping through the toppled stones had stolen her cries.
They were toppled no longer.
Massive columns formed a wide circle at the top of the cliff, carved from a pristine white stone shot through with veins that sparkled in the sunlight.
The roof was made of hammered brass shiny enough to become a beacon when the sun hit it.
The vines that twined around the columns sported impossible blossoms in teal and gold, the scent of them carried on a soft wind.
Only the massive tree at the temple’s entrance remained unrestored, its tired branches twisting empty and lifeless toward the sky.
And here were the servants that had been missing from their hallway, interspersed with villagers and sailors from the harbor.
Their whispering stilled as Naia approached, and a path opened up before her.
One sailor jerked off his hat and dropped to his knee as she passed, and then another, until there was a wave of movement that followed her footsteps.
Einar glanced at Aleksi, who nodded. They took the first step at the same moment, following her through the crowd of kneeling islanders and up three broad steps that led to the sheltered heart of the temple.
The floor was a breathtaking mosaic of the brass spiral of the goddess’s emblem against the light blues and teals of a tropical sea.
Einar was almost loath to set his heavy boots on its pristine surface, but Naia showed no such hesitation.
She walked toward the altar at the center of the temple, and extended her hand.
Her fingers hovered just above a small hammered-metal censer that sat at its center.
Joyful teal flames leapt toward her fingertips, burning even though the censer was empty.
Einar glanced back, but no one else had followed them into the temple. Even Gwynira and Inga had halted at the base of the steps, as if this place was too sacred to enter without an invitation.
And it felt sacred. Einar barely dared speak above a whisper. “Is this how you remember it?”
“No,” she said just as softly. “This is how it was, down to the last stone.”
Sudden whispers rose behind them. Naia, who was still facing the altar, turned her head, just a little. “Tell them to let her pass.”
Her words must have carried. Einar turned in time to see Inga and Gwynira step aside. A tall woman with her hair braided with bits of sea glass moved through the crowd, her flowing robes marking her for what she was—a priestess of this island. But not the one who served in the local village.
She climbed the steps, and Einar felt unsteady for a moment, as if he knew this woman. Her hair was reddish copper and sun gold going silver, and her ancient eyes seemed caught between green and blue, almost the same color of her robes.
Then her gaze found Naia’s. The woman smiled, and the shock of recognition tore through Einar.
He had seen that smile thousands of times.
He’d seen it barely more than a day ago, on the painting that hung in Petya’s cabin.
This woman—but younger, standing on a cliff above the sea with flowers braided into her hair . . .
The priestess stopped just short of the altar and bowed her head to Naia. “My lady, I am Agata, High Priestess of Rahvekya, the keeper of the island’s memory and guardian of the eternal flame.”
Agata. Petya’s wife.
Alive.
Einar frantically gestured to Inga, who finally left the doorway and floated to his side, her face alight with curiosity.
“I need you to go to my ship and ask Petya to come here,” he whispered.
When her eyebrows went up, he continued.
“She won’t want to leave, but I know she will if you tell her . . .”
“What?”
Would she believe? After all of the miracles of the past few days, how could she doubt? Faith was the bedrock of Petya’s world. “Tell her that her wife is alive.”
Shock widened Inga’s eyes, and their deep brown melted into the first hints of pink. Then she inclined her head and hurried away.
The exchange had only taken a few moments, but in that time Naia had rushed forward to seize Agata’s hands.
She said something in a liquid language that Einar only recognized from the oldest prayers Petya had taught him in his youth.
Most of it went too quickly for him to hope to guess at what she was saying, but he understood one word.
Theron.
The god of storms.
Agata listened with fierce attention and narrowed eyes, then nodded. “Forgive me, goddess, if I answer in the common tongue. I have little practice with the ancient language of the island. Few speak it now.”