Chapter Twenty-Seven Adela
When Kian and I returned to our rooms last night, we found a small ruby for each of us on the tables beside the bed, with notes of encouragment. A kind gift from High Priestess Sarai.
Kian forgoes adding his to the phoenix skull for unspoken reasons of his own, and I cannot bear adding mine. It makes me nauseous. So it sits on my bedside table, glittering at me. My reward for terrifying innocent children.
No longer able to continue sulking in bed, I get up.
The only thing that’s felt good in the last few days has been my time with Kian and exploring.
Since Kian is off doing his own thing, I wander through the labyrinth of the temple, which is both fascinating and infuriating.
The amount of wealth just sitting in corners—golden candlesticks shaped like jackalope antlers; silken tapestries of creatures I do not recognize but Cecelia would surely know the names of; gem-encrusted frames with paintings of high priestesses through the centuries can be found in various nooks and crannies of the winding black-marble halls.
All forgotten and collecting dust when they could be sold off and the proceeds used to help people.
High Priestess Sarai is generous with her time, gifts, and attention, so different from how stingy the orders are with the valley.
I had always assumed it was a result of the dwindling magic and thus dwindling means.
But if their resources have shrunk at all, their circumstances are still nowhere near dire.
The rooms I cross in my wanderings are just as compelling and strange as the art and accessories.
Since I’m in common areas and not sleeping quarters, I open every door I come across—as long as I don’t hear voices on the other side.
There is one room that simply holds fibers in every shade of gray, black, and white and a large, gleaming loom in the center.
In another, I find a large round table and six chairs, all carved of aspen.
The table reminds me of home, as if it ought to be in the great hall, not here in the Huntress’s temple.
I take a shaky breath, and on my exhale, I hear a strange and familiar sound.
I pause and listen. It’s so similar to the skulls before the matching ceremony.
Murmuring, more like a vibration than an actual sound.
But it’s so faint I must be imagining it.
My aching, homesick heart manifesting familiarity.
I return to our rooms and my bed and finally face the feelings I’ve been running from.
I miss home. I miss Dad and the valley’s vibrant sunrises and crisp, clear air that smells of nothing and carries only sweet silence across the meadows. The city is so loud, so abrasive with its overwhelming scents and sounds and people.
I turn away from the judging rubies and let myself descend into the sadness.
An hour or so later, there is a shuffling at the door. I sigh, imaging Kian, holding too many things in his hands and unable to use the key properly. I pad over, eyes puffy from sleep and crying, and open it to help.
Only it’s not Kian struggling. It’s Ulric in a low crouch on the other side. He looks up at me and blanches, as if I am the last person he wants to see.
“I, uh, was going to slip these under your door.” He holds out a small packet of papers and a letter.
I open my mouth to ask why he wouldn’t just knock, when I see the handwriting on the packet. It’s Cecelia’s.
“Have you been to the valley?” I do not give him time to answer. “Have you seen them? How are they? Why didn’t you tell me you were going? I could’ve sent letters of my own, or at least a hug for Dad and Cecelia.”
His eyes dart around the hallway, and he half turns, checking over his shoulder.
He’s acting so strangely. Probably he’s exhausted, or maybe hungry, or cold.
He’s still wearing a traveling cloak, for love of the goddess.
I’ve been rude, peppering him with questions instead of offering him a place to sit to warm up.
I tamp down my excited energy and step back, holding the door open wide. “Would you come in?”
He grimaces and shakes his head. He hands me the packet and the letter.
I can’t help myself. I hold them up to my nose and inhale. They smell like normal paper, but I imagine the valley with its cliffs and meadows, simple village houses, and crotchety old creatures. I clutch them to my chest.
“Please,” I say with my eyes closed. “Please come in and tell me about them. How they are.”
“I’m sorry.” Ulric looks like he’s in physical pain and glances around the hallway furtively. I realize with a start that maybe he wasn’t supposed to bring me anything back. Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell me he was going. Though I can’t imagine who would have wanted to keep that from me.
Before I can ask any of the million questions swirling through me, Ulric turns and starts down the hall. “They’re well, I promise. They’re well. Please don’t tell anyone that I brought you these.”
I agree and turn to find a lantern to read by.
Sitting down at a small table, I pull out the thin stack of papers tied together with a yellow ribbon. Beneath the bow is a simple note from Cecelia.
Hope these will help you find your way. Come home when you can. —C.
I rifle through the handwritten pages, which she has neatly torn out of a very old journal based on the faded ink and color of the paper.
I recognize the cramped and loopy cursive of the matcher who wrote about communing with the skulls through touch.
The one whose writing convinced me that putting my cheek against a silent skull was a good idea.
But these are not her matcher’s journals.
They’re more like field notes for experiments or some sort of research.
I skim through them quickly. They speak on the importance of rest for renewal, and the bond of two.
None of it makes a whole lot of sense. I wish Cecelia were here to help me understand the significance.
I move on quickly, carefully unfolding a piece of canvas, no longer stretched on its frame.
I can’t believe Cecelia’s torn out journal pages and dismantled a piece of art.
Especially given their ages. The art in particular is brittle.
I might damage it just by touching it. But the canvas doesn’t tear, and none of the paint flakes away.
If it’s going to suddenly dissolve into nothing, it won’t be today at least.
Still, I move carefully.
When I finally get it fully unfolded, I gasp.
Where did Cecelia find this? I’ve never seen it before.
In it, a large group of keepers in an old-fashioned version of our colorful wools are portrayed alongside a much smaller group of novitiates in the same white robes they always wear.
Half of the novitiates are already wearing creature skulls and the other half still stand in plain white aspen masks.
Keepers and novitiates stand around a small building that is not exactly our matching hut, but similar enough in style that I can tell its function.
It even has little mounds of jackalope warrens surrounding it.
None of that is remarkable.
What is astonishing are the two figures right in the center of it all.
The figures’ roles are clear. It is the valley’s matcher in purple and gold and a high priestess of the Pupil in their customary navy. Their faces are covered, but the matcher does not wear the aspen mask. Instead she wears a phoenix skull. Just like the high priestess beside her.
I set the painting aside with shaking hands, a feeling I don’t want to look at too closely bubbling up inside me.
There is another small painting in the packet, and I unfold this one quickly.
The style indicates it’s from another painter from a different time period, but it, too, shows a pair of people wearing phoenix skulls.
One is wearing the robes of a Spinner high priestess.
The other wearing a set of wool trousers and tunic in a brilliant saffron—a keeper.
I drop the canvas beside the first.
This is impossible and glorious. It changes everything I’ve ever understood about the history of the orders and the keepers, between the valley and the outside world.
Relief floods me as the sense of my inherent wrongness, of impiety, washes away. I am not alone in this. I am not the first keeper to match with a skull. I look at the paintings, spread out before me, or specifically, to match with a phoenix.
I scoop it all up and hug it to my chest, then snag the lantern on my way out. I need to talk to High Priestess Sarai.