Chapter 29 #2
I narrow my eyes at him. “I think questioning should cover that too. If he was taking other girls to stash them at brothels for whatever reason, there’d have been talk among the kids.” I pause. “But I suppose we’ll know as soon as we see these ones whether he’s roped them into the conspiracy.”
Stavros’s face darkens with a momentarily serious cast. “Any major sacrifices would be immediate cause for concern. Devouts don’t usually offer up that much of their bodies when they’re already dedicating their whole lives to serving their godlen.”
“Do you think scourge sorcerers would still be able to draw on someone’s gift if they were living far outside of town?”
He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Who could say? It’s not as if we’ve got a plethora of accounts to go by. Torstem could have stashed them away to call on them later.”
“Later as in now, it seems like.” Another shudder ripples through me with the memory of what the law professor said to his “ladies” in the brothel attic. “I’d hope the clerics would notify the royal family if they had a spat of new devotees with unusually intense sacrifices.”
Stavros’s tone turns droll again. “I’d hope no one teaching at the royal college would get involved in world-shattering magic, but we don’t always get what we want.”
I remember the agony that wrenched through me a few days ago and bite back a wince. No, indeed we don’t.
The distant ringing of the city bells is echoed by equally distant town clock towers around us, marking the first hour of our trek. Not long after, the vegetation along the road becomes unrulier until it’s sprouted up into the forestland I saw from a distance.
The horses clop along, Stavros’s stallion keeping the same steady pace and Toast huffing at the shadows of breeze-tossed leaves. I click my tongue at him and pat his neck, and he settles a little.
Stavros eyes the two of us but makes no further comment on my choice of steed. He reaches down as we pass a bush dense with small, dark green leaves and snaps off a twig.
I can’t stop myself from staring when he pops one of the leaves into his mouth. “Do you take up a horse diet when you’re out riding?”
He laughs. “It’s kindlebrush. Excellent wood for starting fires when dry, good for a snack when green. They have a nice flavor and keep your energy up. You can take a leaf if you’d like. We wouldn’t want that beast to tire you out.”
I wrinkle my nose at him but pick a leaf off the twig he holds out to me. The waxy oval breaks apart under my teeth with a burst of tartly sweet juice and a peppy tickle through my nerves.
“Never heard of it before,” I say, studying the twig he’s now tucked partway into his saddle bag. “Is that a soldier’s trick?”
“Something like that. My parents taught me a lot of strategies for getting by if you’ve got nothing but the landscape to survive off.
” Stavros aims a grimmer smile at me. “My mother and her squadron were once stuck in an ambush in the woods near the Seafell Channel for a full week without supplies.”
“Ah.” I give the vegetation around us a more appraising look. Edible leaves would seem a lot more appealing if it’s that or starvation.
I shift my attention back to the former general, turning another question over in my mind but unsure if I should pry.
Stavros doesn’t meet my gaze, but he must feel it. “Whatever you’re thinking, you can spit it out.”
“I was just wondering what it was like being raised by two generals. Did you literally grow up on battlefields?”
A hint of nostalgia softens Stavros’s chiseled features.
“To some extent. But after I was born, my mother was mostly stationed at the main fort in the Pinch, to monitor any bids for territory or trade interference from Velduny, Icar, or Bryfeen. Which isn’t a frequent problem, so it was more of a defensive position.
I usually lived with her when my father was caught up in the more active campaigns fending off Darium incursions. ”
“You didn’t see him often, then?” I venture.
“Oh, he was still around quite a bit.” The corner of Stavros’s mouth kicks up in a fond smile.
“His gift allowed him to travel from one place to another in a blink—he could pull that off a couple of times a day before he exhausted himself. In theory, it was to serve the army, but he used it at least as much to drop in on us whenever he had a stretch of quiet.”
“That’s quite the gift.” Imagine all the things I could do—and steal—with a talent like that.
“He gave up quite a bit for it. A kidney and part of his liver and various other internal parts that he could reasonably survive without.” Stavros chuckles. “It meant he had to give up alcohol, but he always said that wasn’t any great loss since he’d never liked the taste anyway.”
It’s strange, listening to him talk about his childhood. Hearing the affection in his voice.
I can’t quite picture the massive man beside me as a little boy, but he was one once. He had a life so far beyond the little I know of him.
The question of what happened with his best friend, the one he said a riven sorcerer killed, itches at me. But I’m not so foolhardy to risk bringing up that subject over simple curiosity.
I lapse into silence instead. And curse it all if that silence doesn’t feel almost… companionable.
When we emerge from the woods, our destination lies in clear view up ahead. There’s no mistaking the peach-toned marble walls of Inganne’s temple, nor the kites of a rainbow of woven colors that bob on the breeze over its walls.
I’ve read that as long as Inganne’s blessing lies on her temples, those kites stay buoyant regardless of the weather.
The temple stands on a gentle slope, with a low marble wall around the base of the hill and buildings placed at intervals up the rise to the sprawling structure at the top. Sunblot saplings sprout here and there across the grounds, their brilliant orange blossoms nearly glowing in the daylight.
The godlen’s sigil, the circle with its star-like center and outward curving lines, marks the stones on either side of the gate and the lintel of every doorway. Carvings of Inganne’s favorite creatures—larks, butterflies, dolphins, and otters—cavort across many a stone surface.
There’s plenty of cavorting among the living inhabitants of the temple as well.
Devouts dressed in orange robes sprawl in the grassy courtyards and sway to the music a few of their fellows are piping and strumming into the air.
I spot a line of figures playing leapfrog through the garden and an artist smearing paint across one of the building’s walls in a vague image that might represent a sunrise.
Laughter bounces off the buildings. Actual butterflies flutter between the many flowering plants growing haphazardly throughout the grounds. Toast stares at one that glides over the wall and nickers when it lands on his nose.
We take all this in from the gate, neither of us feeling totally comfortable marching straight in without an invitation. There are no guards, and none of the devouts seem to be paying attention to our arrival.
Well, Julita says, it certainly is an… interesting place.
She sounds as if she’d prefer to flee in the opposite direction.
When no one greets us after a few minutes, I exchange a glance with Stavros. He swings off his horse and ties the stallion to a tree near the gate, so I do the same with Toast.
“There’s some good grass here, and I’ve left you enough rein to reach it,” I tell my steed. “Be good.”
Ignoring the stallion’s incredulous look at my command, I hurry over to join Stavros.
The magical atmosphere of this temple isn’t as intense as the towering Temple of the Crown in Florian, but a tingle wriggles into my skin as I pass through the gate. I resist the urge to rub my arms against it.
I’m here for a good cause, not to do harm. Out of all the godlen, surely Inganne would see my current motives as more important than my past actions.
Stavros peers around us as we continue into the temple’s grounds, searching for someone in charge. But having seen the way Inganne’s devouts worship her, I’m even less sure that they really go for authority figures around here.
“Welcome!” several cheerful voices call out, but then the joyful figures go back to their pastimes. I can’t wrap my head around being that unconcerned, full of pure contentment.
Finally, as we reach the largest building at the top of the slope, a white-haired man with a wizened face steps out to meet us properly. The ornate clasp on his robe marks him as a cleric. He glances us over with a twinkle in his bright blue eyes that reminds me a little of Casimir.
Well, Inganne and Ardone are said to be sisters in joy, just rather different aspects of the emotion.
“Welcome and blessings, esteemed visitors,” the cleric says with a dip of his head. “What brings you to the Temple of Artful Dreams?”
Stavros must have encountered devouts of Inganne before, because he doesn’t look all that taken aback by our reception. He bows his head in turn to the cleric.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your worship,” he says smoothly. “There are three devouts we believe serve at this temple who we’d like to speak with, if possible. Privately. They may have information from their time before their dedication that would benefit the royal family.”
“I’m sure they could spare a moment for that cause. Come inside and give me their names, and I’ll bring them to you.”
He leads us to a small room with mismatched chairs and paint splattered across the walls in chaotic fashion.
Once he’s left with the names Stavros gave him, the former general leans back in his chair and takes in the space with a bemused expression. “They do know how to entertain themselves.”
I sink deeper into the plush cushions of my seat. “I suppose that’s all Inganne really wants from them.”
“I wonder.”