Chapter Twenty-Two Kian
Stepping into the city with Adela by my side is like sinking into a bubble bath.
A noisy, colorful, stinky-as-hell bubble bath, but the same level of comfort.
Even in the wee hours of the morning, it’s busy.
Vendors are setting up carts, children are selling flowers, shop owners are arriving to begin their daily tasks. And of course, they’re all gawking.
“The gutter trash is out in droves today,” Linden mumbles. Molvi shushes him.
I prickle slightly. I would also be considered gutter trash by Linden and the elitist snobs like him since this is Poyhia, the neighborhood where I grew up.
Around us, the crowds border on frenetic as news of us travels through the teeming streets. They push and pull each other, trying to see us as we make our way toward the temple square.
At first, I think it is just because it’s not very often they see a group of wet, dirty, exhausted order members trekking through their streets.
Especially in Poyhia, where beggars sit on every street corner and children sleep on stoops.
And then I realize they are specifically staring at me and Adela.
No one in living memory has seen a phoenix skull, let alone a pair.
Of course that is what has their attention.
People of the city are used to seeing priestesses and priests.
The main industry of Insborough is religion, and it surrounds us.
In the crowds, I spot those wearing the red robes of the Spinner, the navy of the Pupil, trying to make their way through the morning. Even they turn to look.
We pass my family’s street. They are out, watching, waving, calling out requests for blessings. The best way to go unnoticed is to fulfill expectations.
Aunt Ujvala’s eyes skim over me as if I am a stranger, and a relief I don’t expect floods through me. They made it. It takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to run over and check in on Ivo. I don’t see him with the others, but it’s early. No doubt he’s still resting.
We walk past a bakery, and the scent of fresh-baked bread fills my nose. My stomach rumbles, and I think to pop over and buy a bun until I hear one flour-dusted woman whisper to another. “Look at her dress. Her freckled skin and rough hands. What’s a keeper doing in Insborough?”
Adela stiffens besides me.
“A keeper? If she is, she’s a terrible one. Wearing a skull.” The second baker spits, a large glob of saliva landing near our feet.
Anger rises, and I can feel the phoenix’s awareness awaken, but Adela presses close. She’s quivering slightly and turning her head away. She needs my calm, not my ire.
Even without the cruelty of the women’s judgment, this must be overwhelming.
She’s never been in a crowd this size, or even seen a city outside of paintings or books.
She hasn’t seen streets wet from human and horse piss, or felt the urgent press of rowdy crowds, trying to get a glimpse of the newly matched order members.
I put an arm around her shoulder and whisper nonsense words into her hair about how she is safe, here, with me.
She practically melts. Goddess, I love the way she responds to my care. She would hate me if she knew the truth of me. But she doesn’t, and I do not let her go.
The closer we get to the temples, the nicer the neighborhoods become. The streets go from dirt-packed to wood to cobblestone and brick. And then we are there in the temple square, at the edge of the city.
The Temples of the Pupil and the Spinner are lovely. One made of stone, the other of whitewashed brick with stained-glass windows and gilt ornaments at the edges of their roofs and windows. Compared with the Temple of the Huntress, both resemble the valley’s small chapel.
The Temple of the Huntress is monstrous.
Its facade is a rare black marble, shot with gold and silver, glittering in the sun.
A building decorated with such extravagance that selling a chunk of just one small corner could bring in enough coin to feed all the inhabitants of Poyhia for at least a month. I hate it.
Whether sensing my annoyance or simply being on firmer footing now that we’re out of the crowds, Adela steps away. I miss the warmth of her body against mine, but I restrain myself from reaching out my hand to pull her back.
We follow High Priestess Sarai and Sister Roberta inside and are greeted by Sister Ihi, Sarai’s secretary.
The priestess is one of the few who has refused ornamentation on her jackalope skull so it remains bare of any jewels or gilding.
I like her better for it despite her proximity to the high priestess.
“Welcome, matched,” she says to us all.
Sarai and Roberta walk away without even greeting their compatriot, off to their typical duties. Or maybe just to take a nap. That’s what I wish I were doing.
But no, of course there are more rituals and rules to discuss first. Ihi walks us through it all, reminding us that over the next few weeks we will be working in the community as a chance to hone our magic further and discover better where we might serve the Huntress.
Then we will take our final oaths and settle into new roles as full priestesses and priests.
The more she talks, the more exhausted I grow. It’s overwhelming, how much they want us to do. And I have no way out.
Or do I?
I have accomplished my goal of destroying the skulls, and thanks to Lathai’s grief-fueled storm, I don’t even have to dodge suspicion.
There’s an emptiness, or maybe just a quiet that I haven’t quite gotten used to, now that I’ve accomplished the main part of what I’ve been working toward for so long. I itch to fill it. But with what?
I’m not sure what I want anymore, or what my life could even be. I suppose I could leave it all behind and watch from afar as it begins to crumble. It will take years, and it’s not something I need to actively participate in. I have done the work I set out to do.
I could do something outrageous, like join a traveling troupe or begin a new life across the sea. Or perhaps I could go back to my family. Oh, the comfort of that, to be surrounded by people who truly know and love me again.
But then I see Adela perk up as Sister Ihi goes on and on.
She’s so eager, so bright. She’s excited by the opportunity to roll up her sleeves and cover the gray hems of her matched-novitiate robes with the filth of my city.
This new world is just opening up to her, and I find I can’t bring myself to walk away from her vitality quite yet.
I could stay in the order and continue to try to undermine them. Pass information to my family, disrupt their plans, just cause mischief. It’s not a future I imagined, but I realize that is one area I failed to plan for entirely. What would happen after. Perhaps I don’t have to know for sure.
There’s no one insisting I decide right in this moment. It could be enough to give myself some time and space to explore whatever this thing is between Adela and me. And meanwhile, I can figure out what I want for myself, without striving toward any secret goals.
Suddenly Ihi is done with her instructions and dismissing us. “Meet back here at seven tomorrow morning. In the meantime, rest, eat some food, and, for the goddess’s sake, get cleaned up.”
She leaves. The other novitiates all go separate ways—some to eat, some to bathe, and some toward their rooms.
Adela lingers.
I turn to go to my own room, but she stops me. “I thought I could join you today? Maybe?” There is a note of hope in her voice that makes me squirm. Or maybe it’s that I want to say yes.
When I gaze into her wide, hopeful eyes, I can’t shake the images of the matching hut engulfed in the fire I set. The future of the valley, of everyone Adela loves, reduced to ash by my hand. Just moments ago I was admiring her excitement, and now I’m withdrawing from it.
But it’s because today I need to disappear for a bit, to check on Ivo, and make sure Aunt Ujvala doesn’t hold any permanent grudges. If I show Adela around the temple and then suddenly run off, she’ll certainly notice my absence. And she’ll ask questions.
“I need some space and time today, I think. It’s my first day back…” I gesture to the temple and nearly choke on my next word. “Home.”
Adela shrinks away from me slightly. Voice thick with hurt, she says, “If you change your mind…”
I want to reach out, to soothe. But she’s not mine to have to care for.
Proprietary feelings flow from the phoenix, clear and unwelcome. I shove them aside.
“I won’t change my mind.” I don’t look back. I leave her in the cold marble hallway and scuttle to my room to hide, like the coward I am.
A few hours later, after a restless nap, I sneak out a side door typically used by the lay kitchen helpers.
I wear the neutral clothes of a working-class man and carry a lumpy pack that contains some stolen bread and cheese and mead.
And the phoenix skull, because the last thing I need is for someone to find it left behind.
It’s raining, again, and chilly, but I make the trek back across the city.
I pass the neighborhoods with cobblestone streets and large homes with small yards and flower boxes at the windows.
The spaces between the homes get tighter and tighter the farther I get from the temples until there is no green anywhere.
There are, however, brightly painted facades and the occasional mural or mosaic.
Even we gutter trash enjoy beauty. We just don’t have the time to devote attention to nurturing flowers within the stink of Insborough’s filthy streets. We’re too busy cobbling together an existence.
The rain mixes with the dirt and shit, both animal and human, but it doesn’t have anywhere to go.
The temples haven’t bothered to improve the waste and runoff areas in the Poyhia neighborhood.
But of course they haven’t. The orders only care about who and what they can leverage for power, and the poor have none.