Chapter Thirty-One Kian
On the way back to Insborough, Adela and I sit in the wagon, side by side.
She closes her eyes, pretending to nap but holds herself too stiffly for it to be genuine.
My butt falls asleep on the unpadded wagon base.
I shift, brushing against her leg. She moves ever so slightly so that we don’t touch.
She’s avoided me since we left the valley, not even telling me if she was able to hear Etana. I can’t tell if she’s angry or simply distracted by everything else. I hope the latter, but I’m afraid that it’s my deception.
And she knows only the surface. How much worse it would be if I told her all of it—that I’m actively working to bring down the order, that I am the one who destroyed the matching hut and the skulls within. Yet there is a part of me that dreams of telling her. Of her seeing me. Accepting me.
Maybe even choosing to come alongside me, work with me to support my efforts.
And ultimately, to love me.
The hope stings.
Showing someone my full, unfiltered self is not something I’ve allowed since I was a small child. Not even for Ulric, my best friend and once lover. He wanted to be let in so badly, but I couldn’t push past my fear to let him. I still can’t.
When we get back to the temple courtyard, Adela practically launches herself off the wagon.
“Your skull!” Aunt Ujvala calls, holding it out.
Adela takes the phoenix skull and hurriedly threads her belt through the creature’s eye socket, re-buckling it snuggly. After some warm but hasty goodbyes, she nearly runs across the cobblestone square. Bursting through the main temple doors, she stops suddenly, tilting her head as if listening.
“I think we should go change,” I say, pointing toward our rooms. If anyone sees us, they’ll wonder why we’re not in our novitiate robes.
Apparently disagreeing, she walks briskly down a hall in the opposite direction.
I follow, asking her where we’re going, if she’s alright, if she would like a snack or a bath.
I offer everything and anything I can think of, trying to get her to engage with me.
She says nothing, just follows some strange path through the temple.
Every so often she pauses and holds up a hand to be quiet.
“Where are we going?” I ask. I reach out to her and take her hand. I want to apologize. Maybe if we are touching, she will be able to feel my sincerity, to know that I am sorry for not telling her sooner about my family. “Adela, please.”
“Stop!” She doesn’t yell, but her voice is firm, and the force behind it lands like a weight on my chest. She pulls away, her hand slipping from mine, and for a moment, I feel like I am the phoenix, falling through the air. “Just be quiet. Stop trying.”
The words are a force of cold wind blowing away the fragile hope I’d been holding so tightly. She doesn’t want me. She doesn’t even want me to try to repair things between us.
“We can talk later,” she says.
My hope is like the phoenix in the visions, soaring over the verdant valley. Thrilled and dangerous. “Do you promise?”
She sighs at me, and I feel the weariness of it down in my very marrow. “I’m making no promises. Right now, I need to you be silent. You can come along if you’d like, or you can go away. But I need to figure out where the voices are coming from.”
“Voices?”
“I’ve heard them since I arrived, but I didn’t know what they were.
They sounded different than in the valley.
And then when I communed with Etana—” Her own voice softens, though the gentleness is not for me.
“There are skulls here in the temple. Somewhere. But I can’t tell where their voices are coming from. ”
Of course there are plenty of creature skulls in the temple.
Every priestess, priest, and matched novitiate wears ones.
But she has never said anything about hearing those.
She doesn’t hear my phoenix, or feel his wants, except through her own.
And there can’t be unmatched skulls in the temple. What use would those be for the order?
And besides, where would they even hide them? I’ve never seen an unmatched skull in the place, and I’ve been through every corner and down every aisle, up every tower and down every staircase.
Down every staircase.
Besides people’s sleeping quarters, there is exactly one locked door in this entire temple. One door I have never been through. Now it’s my turn to swiftly turn and walk away. Over my shoulder, I say, “I know where they are.”
She follows immediately. Without sharing a word, we both begin the descent into utter darkness until we come to the door carved with symbols of the Huntress and inlaid with gold.
“How many times have you tried to pick it?” she asks.
“A dozen,” I admit. “But I can try again. Maybe the thirteenth time’s the charm?”
I see the small outline of a smile curve up her full lips.
But there is no joy in that smile. It is pure threat.
She holds out a hand over the door. I feel a pull, a building pressure, and the door is gone, just like Tani’s stall wall in the barn.
She is not even wearing the phoenix. It’s just looped through her belt. “No need.”
Her power is immense. For the first time, I am glad destruction is not mine. I would not wield it half as gracefully.
We go through the door and down more stairs. The air is frigid and stale, and Adela slows, grimacing, as if it’s physically difficult to move and she must force her body forward. “They’re so loud. So numerous.” She covers her ears, holding her head. “They’re in agony.”
Down a narrow, earthen hallway, there is flickering light, and we hurry toward it. We come out into a cavern, a crypt. There’s a single candle burning, with unlit candelabras beside it. We light the candles quickly, holding them up to our surroundings, illuminating horror.
Adela lets loose a wail.
On every surface—walls, insets, ceiling, even at the edges of the floor—hang creature skulls.
There are not dozens, not even hundreds.
But thousands. Jackalopes and gryphons. Kelpies and unicorns and pegasi.
Gytrash in their sets of three. Dragons and cath palugs.
Even some I don’t recognize at all—a large mothlike creature and something that looks a lot like a wolf.
Adela falls to her knees, dropping her candles, holding her head. Her voice is thick with anguish. “How is this possible?” she asks.
I pick up her candelabra, not bothering to relight the candles that extinguished.
The rest burn merrily, unbothered by the misery they’ve revealed.
I set them all aside and sink down beside her.
I wrap an arm around her, tugging her close.
She leans in to me, but she’s not there.
She is consumed by grief. Her desperation and heartbreak flow through me, whether from the magic of the phoenix or simply our own connection.
Somewhere above us, I hear the soft noises of others moving through the temple, most likely heading to dinner or prayers.
“This is the reason the valley was dying.” She looks around at the skulls. All hope is gone from her voice. It is utterly flat. “What have they been sending us instead of the skulls’ ashes when their priestesses or priests die?”
She is so pure, her faith in the goddesses and other people, always so certain. But so much of what she believed was a lie; the proof of the deceit surrounds us.
She has been betrayed. And not just by the order.
I cannot remain silent. I can’t keep hiding who I truly am from her for another moment.
I put a finger under her chin and turn her face toward mine. She is so beautiful, so precious to me, it physically hurts to look at her in pain. She has her eyes closed, blinding herself to the abomination of hoarded skulls surrounding us. “Help me destroy them. The order.”
Her eyes pop open.
“I don’t just pass along information to my family.
” I take a deep breath and tell her my truths.
“My whole life, I’ve been working to destabilize the Order of the Huntress.
They killed my parents. And my parents were smugglers, sure.
For many, they were bad guys who made their livelihood through stealing and lies.
But they were never malicious. They weren’t greedy. ”
I search her, looking for any expression of her thoughts or feelings, but it’s as if she wears a mask of her own face. Her expression of anguish is unchanging. She remains still. Listening.
I take her hands and she lets me, but does not clasp mine tightly.
“My parents were kind. They wanted to help those who didn’t have access to the goods they needed. To bring joy. They drove Aunt Ujvala crazy with how little profit they brought in. But they didn’t care. The rest of the family could make money. They wanted to do good in the world. Like you.”
My hands shake. She looks down at them, but does not move to pull away, or to pull me closer.
Every muscle in me cries out to be silent, to keep my secrets.
But I push through. I reach down to the phoenix skull at her waist and tilt it up, running my finger across the razor-sharp beak, careful not to scratch myself.
“I always thought it was the skulls, that access to the magic, and the power that it brings over the natural world, contributed to the corruption.” My voice wobbles when I admit, “But you’ve helped me see, it’s not the skulls or the magic.
You have a skull and magic. Likely the most powerful, destructive magic that exists.
” She flinches now. Her first reaction to anything I’ve said.
I hurry on. “But you do good with it. You rescued Tani. You eased Etana’s hopeless suffering.
When used by good people, the skulls provide the means to do tremendous good.