Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Ivy
From the bathing room I ducked into, I hear the creak of Stavros’s footsteps stalking by down the hall. He doesn’t know where I’ve gone, though.
I assume he stopped to pull on trousers before he rushed out of his quarters after me, and that gave me a decent head start.
He’s not so indiscreet as to bellow my name and wake half the school’s staff. After several minutes, the footsteps retrace their path.
I catch a rasp of a frustrated exhalation. The distant thump of a door closing.
Then there’s only silence.
I can’t quite rouse myself into action until the palace bell peals through the night—just one ring. Stavros and I turned in pretty early, but I’ve barely gotten any sleep.
Oh, well. That’s typical these days. I’m sure as shit not going back to Stavros’s quarters tonight, not even to take the sofa.
I don’t love the idea of hiding in the bathing room all night either, though. Everything around me is hard and cold. But I’ll need to be properly dressed before I venture farther.
As I set down my boots and straighten out the loose pants of my underskirt, I drop my voice to the faintest murmur. “Quite the mess I’ve gotten into now.”
Julita’s voice doesn’t lift with a wry remark. It occurs to me that her presence has dwindled to only the slightest tingle in the back of my head.
Of course. She’s always been uncomfortable witnessing any sexual intimacy between me and the men she once considered hers.
I can’t restrain a wince at the thought. I told her I was cooling things off on her behalf, and then I went and did the exact opposite just hours later.
She probably pulled back into the blankness beyond my awareness as soon as she saw that I wasn’t going to reject Stavros’s attentions. Maybe as soon as she realized he was offering them at all, consciously or not.
I’m entirely alone.
The knowledge weighs on me as I shimmy the underskirt on over my legs and then reach behind me to tighten the laces of my gown.
I can’t go back to Stavros, not after what just happened between us. I can’t reach out to Alek or Casimir—even if it wouldn’t put them in danger for me to openly seek them out, I wouldn’t know where to find them beyond the general area of the dorms.
I couldn’t even signal them to a meeting room. I left my locket behind in the pouch of my belt.
As I slip on my boots, I find I’m missing a different sort of weight.
I removed my thigh sheaths with their knives when I was stripping down for sleep a few hours ago and didn’t manage to catch them up in my hasty grab for my discarded clothes.
They’re lying on the floor in Stavros’s bedroom right now, no doubt.
I have my favorite blade in my left boot, and that’s all.
It’s served me well enough on its own plenty of times. But remembering that doesn’t stop a sense of gloom from washing over me.
I straighten up, fastening my cloak around my neck, and attempt to take stock. My assessment only leaves me more depressed.
I let desire get to my head and all but fucked a man who wanted to see me hung just a week or two ago. I drove away the one person who’s been by my side more than anyone through this entire ordeal—not that Julita’s had a whole lot of choice in the matter.
And now I’m adrift in this college where I don’t even belong, with nowhere to sleep, nothing to do, and no one to turn to while the most dangerous part of my association with the scourge sorcerers looms on the horizon.
Blast it all from sea to sky.
I hug myself against the tightening of my chest, and my mind latches on to the possibility that there is still one figure left I could appeal to. The one who insisted I stick on this path.
Girding myself, I ease out into the hall.
The Domi’s common areas are dim, the sconces put out. The streaks of moonlight through the windows at either end of the hall offer just enough illumination for me to find my way to the stairwell and out into the courtyard.
I pull my cloak’s hood up over my head, but as usual, the guards don’t raise any concerns about my leaving the security of the college. I guess it only really matters whether the people coming in have the right to.
The streets of the inner wards are nearly as quiet as the campus, although voices filter from a pub at the far end of the large square outside the temple. The temple’s lanterns are still burning, of course, welcoming worshippers through the broad doorway at all hours.
The huge worship room feels even vaster draped in the dense shadows of the night. I halt on the threshold, momentarily overwhelmed.
I’ve approached Kosmel’s statue enough times that I could head straight toward it blindfolded.
But my gaze catches for a moment on the voluptuous marble form of Ardone at the other side of the domed room, her perfectly proportioned body poised in a come-hither stance, her full lips curled in a seductive smile.
Maybe I should be asking the godlen of love and sensuality for advice this time.
The thought has barely passed through my mind when I’d swear the statue winks at me.
My pulse hitches. I stare at Ardone’s beautiful carved face, but none of her features shift again in the shadows.
It could have been a trick of the light. Or it could be one of those subtle ways the gods like to communicate with us.
I’m not sure which I’d prefer.
I tear my gaze away and stride over to Kosmel’s cloaked form. The lanterns’ glow turns the trickster godlen’s smirk crueler than it’s appeared before.
Kneeling by the base of his statue, I bow my head. I pitch my voice as low as when I spoke to Julita, wary of any devouts or fellow worshippers who might be lurking beyond my view.
“I’m tumbling even deeper into this insane game. I’d like to make it back out again. If there’s anything you can tell me or show me that will help me through, I welcome it.”
I try to open my mind to whatever his divine presence might want to bestow on me, though my gut stays knotted. My muscles brace in anticipation of a message I won’t actually welcome all that much.
Nothing comes. The temple remains silent.
The tension in my belly creeps to the base of my throat. The memory rises up of the reassuring touch I thought I felt when I prayed to Kosmel in the cave in the woods, and sudden tears prick at the backs of my eyes.
Have I somehow strayed too far from what he wanted from me, and now he’s cast me aside?
I shove down my emotions and reach for one of the dice scattered around his marble feet. A simple yes or no answer. Surely he’ll grant me at least that much.
I ask my question only in my head. Should I keep playing along with the scourge sorcerers?
The die rattles from my fingers. It bounces across the platform… and comes to rest against the side of Kosmel’s boot, tilted at an angle so both the five and the six face equally upward.
I stare at the die for a few thumps of my heart. It doesn’t budge.
A rough guffaw travels up my throat.
He might as well have said, “Fuck off, little rogue. You’ve got to figure this part out on your own.”
I push back to my feet, uncertain of my destination. At the same moment, a prickling sensation spreads across my palm.
Oh, no.
I have to look. I have to watch the three letters gleam against my skin in the instant before they fade away.
Now.
I’ve gotten the call to my initiation.