Chapter Three Kian
Guarding the body of a recently deceased priest as part of asinine Huntress death rituals is as ridiculous as it is dull, especially when you have the overnight shift.
There aren’t even any histrionic mourners to hustle through as they gawk at his flaccid body, already stinking beneath its jewel-encrusted vestments.
But of course, that’s why I volunteered for this shift. Fewer potential witnesses. Unfortunately, there’s a snag I hadn’t anticipated.
I sit on the shined-up parquet floor of the apse with a sigh that echoes down the cavernous nave. Abundant candlelight, placed for maximum effect rather than efficient lighting, glints off the gilded ceiling and leaded windows, throwing the majority of the main sanctuary into dramatic shadow.
When I first joined the order as a scrawny fifteen-year-old, raw from the pain of my parents’ recent murders and bent on unclear but resolute vengeance, the Huntress’s temple terrified me at night, with its brutal and beautiful decor and haunting echoes.
Fifteen years later, I just find it dull.
I lean back against Brother Victor’s black-and-gold marble dais.
“Novitiate Kian,” my snag hisses, appalled by me as usual. A rule follower, ass kisser, and my ex, Ulric loves to try to bring me in line. Unfortunately for him, nothing brings me more pleasure than watching him squirm. Maybe that’s why we didn’t work out? “Get. Up.”
“No thanks,” I say with a wry smirk I know he’ll hate. I fake a yawn that turns real halfway through and stretch. “Thought I’d just take a small catnap here. You don’t mind guarding solo, do you?”
While I’m never one to pass up a nap, sitting with my eyes closed is a ruse like most of what I do as a novitiate in the Order of the Huntress.
The skull and robes that Brother Victor wears are encrusted with the rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls he’s earned through a lifetime of serving various high priestesses.
Even the gold filigree decorating the gaps between gems would fetch enough coin to feed a neighborhood of Insborough for an entire winter.
And it is all about to be torched in a funeral pyre.
I’ve got to get rid of Ulric so I can pop some of those precious jewels off Brother Victor’s decaying body. Stealing from the order is dangerous. If I’m caught, it will derail the goals I’ve spent a lifetime chasing, and just as I’m about to achieve them.
But I’ve been stealing the occasional gem or six from the skulls for a decade. I haven’t been caught yet. And the good my family can do with extra resources is worth the risk.
“You will give Brother Victor the honor and respect he deserves and do your duty as his guard,” Ulric growls, looming over me.
Too bad his growls don’t work on me anymore. “He’s dead. He’s not going to care if I watch him rot from my feet or my ass.”
Ulric splutters, then tries to force me up by looping his arms under mine.
Not many people can manhandle me, but Ulric has size to his advantage, being easily as broad as I am but significantly taller.
He leverages me to my feet and begins a tirade of admonishment.
“What if we were attacked? What if we were robbed? What if someone came in to deface the temple? You cannot defend Brother Victor from your bottom.”
I raise an eyebrow and lower my voice barely above a whisper. “You of all people know I can accomplish quite a lot from my bottom.”
Instantly, a violet-red flush spreads up his neck and onto his cheeks, visible despite his dark complexion and the low, flickering candlelight.
He’s just so, so easy to rile. I lean in to say something more, but then I see movement behind him.
Or think I do. I stiffen, trying to squint past him into the dark, shadowy recesses of the sanctuary.
He begins to turn, but I put a hand on his chest. He freezes instantly. “Relax, Ulric.”
He shoves away from me, glaring.
What I want to say is that I can guard him from the floor or my feet because who would risk the Huntress’s ire to steal from the decaying corpse of an ancient, mid-level holy?
No one besides me.
But I have a part to play. While some irreverence is tolerated in a Huntress novitiate of my standing, outright derision for the order would not be. So instead, I just say, “Have faith. The Huntress will protect us from thieves and vandals.”
Or at least, the threat of her retaliation will.
As soon as I think the words, a figure steps out of the shadows.
She wears a dark tunic tucked into dark breeches and a black coat with a flared skirt and black embroidery.
A waistcoat or something fitted and short for warmth might suit her tasks better, but my aunt has always loved drama.
At least her waist-length hair is braided tightly to her head, the salt-and-pepper strands shining in the candlelight.
Aunt Ujvala’s smirk matches my own as she steps fully into the light.
I suppress my smile, hiding any reaction from Ulric, who has not seen or heard her. He’s pacing across the marble floor of the apse, the echoes from his hard-soled boots ringing through the vaulted ceiling.
He lectures me on the importance of guarding the dead priest; how High Priestess Sarai would be so disappointed in me; how I can’t mess up our positions in the order now, after over a dozen years of grunt work and servitude, just days away from the matching ceremony where we will finally pair with skulls of our own and be inducted as full-fledged priests; how I probably got my white novitiate robes dirty on the floor and they will be a pain to wash.
But I hear little of it. It’s boringly familiar.
“Ulric, will you get me some ale?”
He gapes.
I don’t blame him. It’s a ridiculous request. He is not a servant to fetch my things, nor do I even like the bitter, bubbly alcohol, but I can think of nothing else to get him to leave the sanctuary, and Ulric is a natural caregiver. There’s a small chance he’ll agree.
“You fetch the best ale,” I say honestly. He always chooses the best options for my palate, somehow knowing better than me what I might actually like.
“I… choose good ale?” he splutters. “You want me to leave my holy post guarding our brother, to get you ale?”
Rolling her eyes at me, Aunt Ujvala takes a step, her black cane softly clicking on the stone floor.
Ulric hears the step and startles. Before he can turn, Aunt Ujvala quickly closes the gap between them and wallops him over the head with her cane. He collapses, his face hitting the floor with a moist smack. The sound echoes through the cavernous room, and I wince on his behalf.
“So much for subtlety, Aunt.”
Aunt Ujvala steps over Ulric’s prone body, moving straight to the high dais where Brother Victor is displayed. She takes in his deep-red vestments—the color of blood, the color of death—but her focus is on his jackalope mask.
“When I was a girl, the dragon-wearers used to burn the priests in public. Right in the center of the city.” She makes the sign of the triune goddess over the priest’s body. “People would come and watch, sing songs of praise to the Spinner, petition the Pupil, offer sacrifices to the Huntress.”
Her tone is strange, almost wistful. She sighs and turns back to face me. Gone is the mischievous smirk of earlier. The worry on her face makes my blood run cold. She looks old. Or perhaps just her age. I still think of her as she was twenty years ago, when she took me in after my parents died.
She hands me a small pouch, and I open it, finding the small red stones my family uses to mark paths. I try not to think about how similar in color they are to Brother Victor’s death robes.
“Will you come home?” she asks. “After?”
Home. I’ve spent fifteen years here in the order, fifteen years of plotting and planning, figuring out how to infiltrate and then ruin the most powerful religious order in the world.
It started as revenge for my parents’ deaths at their hands, but it’s grown into so much more than that. A fight for change, for equality.
And while I have every confidence in my impending success, not once have I thought about the after.
Going home had never crossed my mind.
“Or perhaps you want to stay?” She looks down at Ulric.
She has never met him, of course, but she knows who he is.
She’s heard me talk of him, and no doubt she has informers of her own as well, keeping tabs on me and those close to me.
You don’t lead the largest smuggling ring in Camphor without having eyes and ears everywhere.
I clench my fists and grind my teeth. “Stay?” I let loose a harsh laugh. “In the order? Amongst the hypocrites and power-thirsty priests?”
She holds up her hands, as if I’m a wounded animal who might attack her without provocation.
She’s the closest thing to a mother I have left.
“You know they’re not all bad, my love. They do good in the community.
Defend the downtrodden, feed the hungry.
Take in the orphans and give them a life full of hope and meaning.
” She glances down at Ulric’s unconscious form, and the softness in her eyes sends anger shooting down my spine, hot and tingling.
Ulric isn’t the orphan she’s speaking of, but it is not the order who’s provided me with hope or meaning. I’ve done that myself by continuously honing my plans and striving toward my goals.
“They charge for healing, for hope.” I gesture around the sanctuary—at the golden candelabras, the marble floors, the beeswax candles burning for no one, the statues carved of rare rock and studded with gems, even the silk of a dead man’s robe.
All flagrant displays of wealth, and for whom? “They hoard resources and power.”
“Who doesn’t?” She steps forward to put a warm hand on my shoulder. “If you joined them in truth, you could embrace the good and continue your work. Change the bad from within.”
I shrug off her kindness and pity. I need neither.