Chapter Six
Sunset washed the city below them in gold as the carriage stopped in front of the temple. Poyut, as always, helped them down, and Ethyr held onto her hand longer than he should have. He thought she squeezed his fingers encouragingly before pulling away, but he couldn’t be sure.
The temple was not as tall as the palace, but it was enormous.
His entire hamlet could fit in it. He liked the living vines, climbing the columns and snaking along the roof, much better than the carved ones on the palace.
Above the arched entryway were eight statues, whom Ethyr could only assume were the gods, staring out over the rooftops of the city.
Straight lines of people were waiting for them.
Some wore robes similar to Yorith’s, but other priests wore flashy garments not unlike Ethyr’s.
He was surprised to see young kids there too, wearing normal tunics and belts.
He had forgotten Yorith said priests were raised in the temple. Did they not have families?
Yorith walked solemnly between the rows, arms tucked into his sleeves, and the priests parted for him. Ethyr followed, trying to look proper and confident, but his knees were weak and his heart was moments away from beating out of his chest. As he passed each person, they dipped their torsos low.
The row of priests dressed in fancier clothes glared like they were trying to drill holes into Ethyr’s head with their eyes. When they made it past them, Ethyr leaned over to Poyut walking close behind his right shoulder.
“Why are they looking at me like that?” he whispered.
“They are the priests everyone thought the gods would choose from, Your Divinity,” she murmured back.
Ethyr curled his lip. “It’s not like I wanted to be chosen over them.”
“I know. Do not pay them any mind.”
Yorith cleared his throat from ahead of them and Ethyr straightened, but glanced back at the bowed forms of the priests. He couldn’t help but think that not one of them looked especially attractive. It was no wonder the gods did not want to choose any of them.
When Yorith and Ethyr reached the stone steps of the temple, the priests turned and followed.
The front entrance led to a large room, which in turn had several archways along each wall leading to corridors.
Yorith continued straight, into the heart of the temple, and Ethyr forced himself to keep a steady pace behind him.
The sound of dozens of shoes on the hard floor, shuffling after, stood his hair on end.
The corridor was painted with a long, trailing mural of the gods and humans celebrating the end of the Gods’ War.
The tableau was familiar to Ethyr even as far north as he grew up; the scene of revelry and feasting was set before the backdrop of farmland and villages, occasionally interspersed with stages in the background depicting various scenes from the war, recreated by human actors.
As they moved deeper, their way was lit with lanterns hanging from the walls, turning the mural into a flickering scene that looked almost alive.
The corridor and murals ended at a wooden door, painted vividly red and decorated with black metalwork. Yorith opened the door and led the way inside.
It was a huge, circular room, its ceiling higher than the rest of the temple.
Ethyr craned his head back to look at it, speechless with awe at the detailed carving of it, a tangle of roots much like the painted walls of the palace.
Lattice windows circling near the top let in some light, but the main light source came from the already-lit wax candles around the room.
Some were on tall, thin candlestands placed along the curved walls and some were placed directly on the surfaces of marble tables or even the floor, their melted wax forming pools around their clustered groups.
Unlike the tallow candles or reed lights Ethyr’s village used, these didn’t assault the senses with a sour musk smell, but rather gave off a surprisingly pleasant fragrance, sweet and floral.
In the center of the room sat another marble table, draped with a purple cloth beautifully embroidered with gold thread. Despite the extravagance of beeswax candles, marble features, and a lavish table cloth, as a whole the room was much simpler than Ethyr would have thought it to be.
He followed Yorith’s beckon to a seat also made of marble that fitted perfectly to the wall, its bench covered in a long silk cushion.
He sat on it, forced to face the crowd of priests who had filled the room.
Several candles surrounded the seat on various heights of stands, framing it—and him—in a glow of soft light.
Yorith made a gesture, and one-by-one the priests stepped forward, resting dishes full of food onto the table until the surface was hidden in the sea of them.
Klara came forward then, holding a small bowl filled with white petals.
She took pinches of them and scattered them over the plates on the table, then came forward before Ethyr and bent to one knee, holding the bowl with the rest of the petals out to him.
“Eat,” Yorith instructed.
Ethyr eyed them. “Why?” After drinking that pitcher water, he had a pretty good idea what they’d taste like and he didn’t want to experience that again.
“It allows you to step into the realm of the gods,” he said. “Eat.”
Ethyr pressed his lips together, but obediently scooped the petals from the bowl.
He could feel the eyes of the priests watching him, but he refused to look up and meet them.
Steeling himself, he stuffed the petals into his mouth, chewing as quickly as he could.
They weren’t floral at all, but extremely bitter, and he wasn’t sure which was worse.
When he was done, he didn’t know what he expected. For the gods to pop into view right then and there? It was still just a room of priests. When Klara stood and left, they followed her out.
“I will return in the morning,” Yorith said. “Poyut will remain outside the door.”
Ethyr couldn’t take a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if his dizziness was lack of air or his furiously beating heart or the pure, cold terror dripping down his spine.
He thought there would be some fanfare, or celebration, or recognition at all of the occasion.
Instead, Yorith led Poyut out and closed the door, and he was left alone in the flickering low light of the room.
He tried to catch his breath and not let his thoughts race as fast as his heart.
He wanted to move, needed to move; he wanted to pace the floor and release some of the panic and fear welling up in his chest. But he did not dare even bounce his leg, lest it anger the gods. He knew it wasn’t ‘proper’.
He sat there so long that the little light coming through the top of the room faded to darkness. His nerves abated. Maybe the gods simply weren’t coming; maybe they had changed their minds and didn’t want him.
His calmed nerves became exhaustion—no, not exhaustion, exactly, but a desperate need to close his eyes. He did so, leaning his head back against the cold wall and sucking in a deep breath.
“Look at him!”
The gasp snapped his head upright and his eyes open. He jumped out of his skin to see people sitting right beside him.
The cold, dim room had become luxurious, its walls draped in colorful veils of delicate gauze, the stone floor covered in an eclectic array of cushions and pillows.
The candles had been replaced with lanterns hanging along the walls, filling the room with an ethereal sort of light, bright enough to illuminate everything, but still soft and forgiving.
Pots and jars filled the outer edges of the room, some empty, some filled with various materials like jewels and gold, or dried herbs and oil, which is where the delicate floral scent infusing the air must have been coming from.
More seats were scattered through the room, not marble or attached to the wall like his, but beautifully carved wood that curled up at one end. Based on the three gods laying on them, they were made that way to accommodate lounging rather than sitting.
Another three gods were sitting on cushions at the table of food, and the last two were those to either side of him, leaning uncomfortably close.
They looked nothing like the statues. Stone could not do the beauty of their faces justice.
Most of them wore long draping fabric, its white color just opaque enough not to be see-through, and tied shut at the waist with colorful belts of various designs.
The style left a long triangle of bare flesh down the center of their chests almost to their belly buttons, and the gathered fabric below the belt covered the front and back of their legs while leaving long slits up the sides.
The one to his right, who had made the exclamation, had a brilliant smile on his face as he looked Ethyr over.
Ethyr had a strong suspicion that this one was Gallus, god of theater and festivity, with his chestnut-colored curls and golden skin near identical in color to Ethyr’s.
But all of them were staring like he was putting on a fascinating performance, despite the fact that all he was doing was sitting there.
“He’s gorgeous!” Gallus sighed, stroking Ethyr’s chin. “Ithna, did you know he looked like this?”
Ithna, god of the harvest, provider of the common people. She was the deity his village worshipped above all others, though Gnaeus was more revered within individual households.
One of the gods seated on a floor cushion, her loosely-braided hair the color of ripe wheat, leaned her elbow onto the table with a smile. “He is quite something in person, isn’t he?”
“Oh, I can’t wait to play with him.” Gallus brushed his fingers like the softest touch of a breeze across Ethyr’s cheek. He sat stark still, back straight, not daring to move or say a word.