Chapter Three Kian #2
She continues. “The life you’d lead here would be an easy one. You’d always know your role, where you’ll lay your head every night, that your next meal is guaranteed. Vengeance makes no promises for a future.”
I don’t understand my aunt’s intention here. She is nothing if not complex, but she’s generally steadfast. I need her to follow through on our agreement.
The plan was I’d mark the path we novitiates take to the valley, and she and a couple of the others would follow and hide out during the matching ceremony. Then, once everyone is drunkenly celebrating the matches, my family will help me destroy the remaining skulls.
It’s essential they’re on board before I leave with the rest of the novitiates tomorrow, or I will have to do it on my own. Panic builds. My breath comes sharp and quick.
My life has been lived alone, away from the warm community of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Instead I’ve been surrounded by priestesses, priests, and novitiates who could never know who I truly am.
I step around Ulric.
Even those closest to me.
Now, I am almost at the pinnacle of my goals, and I find I don’t want to do this last part by myself.
If I’m going to destroy the valley’s creature skulls and ensure the orders a generation of future priests and priestesses serve their communities instead of profiting off their magic, I need my family’s help.
And Aunt Ujvala needs me.
As the leader of a vast network of smugglers and thieves, she wants access the resources that can be found only in the valley. The priceless agate that gryphons lay alongside their eggs, the kelpie manes that can be used to heal wounds.
My parents were the only ones who knew the way in.
Their knowledge, and my family’s ability to trade for these rare goods, was lost when they died.
Aunt Ujvala has sought to find path often through the years, but she’s tired of sending out scouts who come back maimed or worse, never come back at all, because the intelligence they received about the valley’s magical border was incomplete or just plain wrong.
Aunt Ujvala sees my panic. She widens her stance and picks up her cane, smacking it in the palm of her hand.
“Let’s spar, my love.”
I shake my head. This is what we used to do when I was a teenager, had just joined the order, and was miserably scared. It was a kind of comfort, to practice like I did at home, just in case I needed to fight. It still is.
But it’s been years since I fought my aunt. I’m much larger than she is. A man in my prime. And she’s aging.
I shake my head, not wanting to hurt her.
“Come on.” She pokes at me with her cane. “You won’t win, but you’ll feel better. Get into your body and out of your head.”
Adrenaline surges through me with the panic that they might not come with me. That I’ll have to do all this alone. That I’ll fuck up. That a decade and a half of work will be for nothing.
I want to fight.
I attack, a flurry of movement. I get a single solid hit to her side before she’s bending away. I don’t hold back. As she said, I’ve never won against her.
I kick out at her feet. If I can get her on the ground, it’ll be over before we’ve begun. She launches her own attack.
Despite the fact that I’m on guard duty, no one actually expects anyone to come after a dead priest in his highest temple.
I have no weapon stuck up the ridiculous sleeves of my novitiate robe to defend myself with.
I put up my forearm, and the cane comes down with a hard crack on my left wrist. I gasp and shove her back, but the pain that shoots up my arm when I use my left hand is too sharp.
She sighs and gives me some space. I’m not sure what makes me angrier, her going easy on me or her gentle tone when she says, “Once you come home, you can follow in your parents’ footsteps, smuggling to the valley.
Or just stay here in the order and continue what you’re doing, funneling us resources and information while you make the world a better place. ”
My lip curls into my own sneer as I circle, trying to get close to her. She moves to the other side of Ulric’s prone form. I quickly reach over Ulric and hit her in the shoulder. She moves so the blow glances off her, but she’s still surprised I’ve landed a second hit.
“You’ve been practicing.” She looks down at Ulric. “With him?”
“He’s fun to fight,” I say with a shrug. Or he was, before I made him hate me.
She bobs forward, hitting me in the ribs three times in quick succession. I retreat to the other side of Brother Victor’s dais. She stalks slowly after me, rounding my side of the dais now.
I lunge forward. I will simply tackle her. As long as she hits the floor before me, I’ll win. She’ll respect that.
But she sidesteps and swings her cane again, connecting with the back of my knee.
I snatch it with my right hand on my way down, trying to wrench it from her grasp and maintain my footing.
She grabs tight with both hands, hovering over me and pulling with all her might.
I have a hold of it with only my one hand, the other still throbbing too strongly to be used, and I feel my grip slipping.
She must see it, too, because instead of fighting for her cane, she lets go with a shove. I land on the cold marble floor flat on my back. My breath whooshes out of me.
I stare up at the domed ceiling above us, with its mosaic of scenes—various personifications of the Huntress stalking and capturing her prey.
I try to remember how to breathe. The candlelight glints off the golden accents.
The art emphasizes the goddess’s stealth, boldness, and strength. It’s beautiful.
I want to tear it all down until it’s dust.
Ujvala leans close, taking her cane back, and the sympathy I see there makes me want to scream. “It won’t bring them back. No matter how successful you are, how badly you hurt the order. Your parents are gone forever.”
“And?” I say when I can speak again. “You won’t help me? Or what’s the point of all of this?”
“Oh, Kian.” She reaches out a hand, and I take it, letting her haul me up.
She steps in to me, hugging me tight, then steps back and brushes my hair out of my face, just like my mom used to.
I look away, hating that I want to lean into that nurturing touch.
“I will always help you, my love. Always. I came to give you the stones. And some vital information.”
“Cryptic.” I open the pouch, taking out a single red stone, polished smooth again. I rub it between my fingers.
“The valley has had an… incident. Two of their dragons attacked their matcher. The matcher is dead, as is one of the dragons. There’s also a newly dead kelpie.”
I imagine High Priestess Sarai’s glee at hearing the news.
A new dragon skull is a rare and priceless opportunity.
Not only are dragons the most powerful creatures to match with, but the closer a skull is to its death when it matches, the closer its bond to its priest or priestess, and more of its magic can be harnessed.
With magic dwindling, I cannot think of a better gift to lay at the high priestess’s feet than a dragon dead two days before the matching ceremony.
Or at mine.
Matching with a dragon would be perfect. It would mean I wouldn’t have to steal or seduce my way into getting some of Brother Thad’s fire. If only we had a way to ensure what skulls we matched with.
At our feet, Ulric stirs. Aunt Ujvala notices. With a quick, fierce kiss to my forehead, she turns to leave.
“Wait! Take the skull.”
“Think I’ll avoid a hangable offense.” Using the blade strapped to the inside of her wrist, she pops out a dozen of the largest, most prominent diamonds and rubies. “But an excellent excuse for his attack, and a lovely contribution to our efforts.”
Then with one more kiss to my forehead, she strides out, the clicking of her cane a soft and steady sound on the marble. She’s melted fully back into the shadows when I hear the clicking pause. But I know she’s still here. “Do not abandon me, Aunt,” I say to the darkness. “I am so close.”
“Never, my dear,” she replies. “We will be there.”
And then she is gone.
As expected, Ulric and I are hauled before a collection of high holies.
Our fellow novitiates line the perimeter of the room, instructed to watch our punishment and learn from our mistakes.
Like us, they are barefaced and in various shades of gray, from the charcoal of the still-pimply faced newbies to the near-white of us nearly matched.
Some look nearly gleeful in anticipation. Assholes.
Peppered throughout are the black robes of the fully initiated priests and priestesses who attend to High Priestess Sarai, including her two favorites—Brother Thad and Sister Roberta. Their emotions are mostly obscured by their various creature-skull masks, as always.
Brother Thad steps forward. He watches me closely for a reaction as he reads a list of our sins aloud: failure to secure the sanctuary, disruption of a senior priest’s most sacred rest, and the most grievous failure of them all—letting the thief get away after desecrating his skull mask.
I give none. Saying mean things to me is just a typical Tuesday; it’s not going to hurt my heart. But I still can’t stop myself from mumbling, “We are unarmed priests, not guards.”
High Priestess Sarai steps forward, her unicorn skull shimmering with diamonds and opals, a stark and glittering contrast to her flowing black robes.
“You are novitiates, not priests,” she replies, her words clipped and precise. “You wear no skulls. Your robes are gray. It would only be through my grace that you would be allowed to continue in the order at all, and I’m not feeling particularly gracious today.”
I go absolutely still. I knew we would be punished. Humiliated, beaten, disgraced. But easily replaced gems shouldn’t be enough to derail my entire mission. What an absurd thing to throw me off course, and so close to my matching.