Chapter Thirteen
Thirteen
The Art of Life
The priestess’s words were ice water to Aoife’s body, leeching the lust from her and dousing her in fear.
“Already?” Aoife said, voice shaking. “How did they find us already?”
“I don’t know.” The priestess wrenched Aoife’s clothes off the floor and tossed them to her. “Now move.”
Aoife dressed in a flurry, forgetting her shoes and underwear.
There was no time. Shadach was still fastening his trousers as the priestess led them through a secret passageway embedded in one of the wall panels.
It led down, down, down below the temple.
Aoife’s chest tightened, feeling she was descending into a tomb.
“Why is this here?” she whispered, feeling her way into the growing darkness as the light from above dimmed, dwindled, disappeared.
“It’s from the Invasion,” the priestess said in a hurry.
Aoife’s feet hit flat ground, the darkness clinging to her like a straightjacket.
“Take these,” came the priestess’s voice, followed by a faint glow.
No, three faint glows. One of them hovered near Aoife’s face, and Aoife could make out the priestess’s hand holding a small orb.
Aoife took the orb carefully, a coolness like stone hitting her palm.
To her right, another orb glowed red where hers shone blue.
Aoife could make out the faint silhouette of Shadach holding the red one, the man she’d been ready to be taken by any way he wanted, just moments before.
Her pussy pulsed, reminding her she still wanted that. Aoife pushed the feeling down.
Not now. She shouldn’t do that ever again, in fact, but particularly not now.
“Do not leave here until I come for you.” The priestess’s voice seemed to emanate from the third orb, glowing purple. “If they find their way down here … hide.”
With that, the priestess and the purple orb disappeared into the world above.
Aoife’s strength failed as she sank to her knees, the sounds of armour, heavy footsteps, and furious voices filling the air outside.
She cringed at every clang, every shout, her heart roaring in her ears, thinking that every noise meant they had been found. That she was about to die.
“We really need to stop being stuck in dark, confined spaces together.” Shadach’s voice was effortless, calm. As if he were making a quip about dinner.
“How can you joke? They’re going to find us. And kill us.”
“I didn’t let Aristen kill you before.” The red orb floated to Aoife’s level, Shadach kneeling beside her. “As long as I’m alive, he never will.”
“How can you be so calm?” Aoife tried to keep her voice from shaking. He was close. So close. She could smell him, feel him. The soft brush of his arm against hers and that spicy, cinnamon heat. It was almost enough to distract her.
Almost.
But Aoife didn’t need to be distracted. She needed to be brave.
She needed to look at this logically and think her way out of the danger.
Mum would be ashamed of her, sinking to the ground.
Cowering. Unable to process information.
But Mum wasn’t here and Aoife was scared.
When had she ever been so afraid? A woman could take almost dying only so many times before it destroyed her.
Her heart was bruising her rib cage from beating too fast, her pulse banging in her head so loudly she felt nauseous.
All she wanted was to lie down. To sleep.
To wake when this was over. Or perhaps she would never wake.
Which would be a different kind of over.
The sounds of the soldiers drifted away, away, away until they were only murmurs.
“Are they gone?” Aoife said. Hoping. Praying. Begging.
“Searching other parts of the temple, I assume,” Shadach said, his tone soft, casual. “They might circle back, we can’t rest yet.”
Of course not. Of course they couldn’t. Aoife set the orb on the ground, resting her head in her hands. “This is what I get, isn’t it?”
Had she said that out loud? She’d only meant to think it. Shadach said nothing. Maybe she had only thought it.
“What do you mean?” came Shadach’s voice. Aoife heard him shuffle, adjusting his position.
What did she mean? The only thing she could mean. This was what she got for giving in to her innermost desires: imminent death.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Your lies are very loud, you know.”
Aoife lifted her head. Shadach had sounded so factual.
As if lies truly could be loud. She looked to him but couldn’t make out his face.
His orb was in his hands, in his lap. She picked up her orb and held it to his face, illuminating him.
He looked back at her in the dim opal glow, his shadow and ice eyes perfectly serious, perfectly serene.
“I’m not lying,” Aoife said. And wondered if she’d created a Shadow. Was that how it worked? Was it instant or did it take a few minutes?
Shadach sighed, a small smile on his face and in his voice. “All right then. But I do want to know what you mean—”
“What’s the Invasion?” Aoife said quickly. “The priestess mentioned an Invasion.” Good. This was good. Getting back to something factual. Something logical. She couldn’t think her way out of this situation at this exact moment, but she could learn something useful, couldn’t she?
Shadach glanced at her as if to say he knew she was avoiding his question, but he was going to be polite and play along anyway.
“The Invasion,” he said, “is what the Xana call the Halcin coming to their lands centuries ago. That was long before the Selats arrived. We didn’t know then that our God, the God of Shadows, and theirs, the God of Lust, were the same God in different forms. So, destruction of temples and the slaughter of priestesses was …
not uncommon. They built these passages as havens. ”
“Is that why so many of them look at you like …” Aoife hesitated. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. It had taken her a minute to realise the frosty stares from many a priestess were meant for Shadach, not her.
“Like the God made a mistake choosing me?” There should have been malice in what he said, but there wasn’t.
“Maybe, but it probably has more to do with the Halcin importing drugs that decimate Xana families.” Shadach tried to say it flatly, as a matter-of-fact, but there was an ache in his voice.
“Someone who comes from a people proud to be criminals shouldn’t be Emperor, or so the thinking goes. ”
“The Halcin aren’t very popular, are they?” Aoife tried to make her voice light.
It worked. Shadach gave a soft laugh. “No. We’re really not. The worst part is we used to be so much more. We used to be lawyers and judges even. We’ve just forgotten.”
“Lawyers?” Aoife tried and failed to not sound too surprised. “How did you go from lawyers to smuggling drugs?”
Shadach’s laugh was humourless. “Ironic, isn’t it?
When the Selats took over, we found our place in their new world as judges and lawyers.
Needless to say, we weren’t particularly well liked.
So when the Shadow Sickness came, and took countless lives of every people-group except ours, it was only too easy to blame us for the deaths.
They … cast us out.” The pain in those three words was suffocating.
“One thing led to another and over time, we found our feet again. But not exactly as judges.”
“As criminals,” Aoife said before she could stop herself.
“Exactly.”
“You don’t scream ‘criminal’ though,” Aoife said, the words feeling a bit awkward. She wasn’t sure if that sounded like the compliment she’d meant.
“I’m not. Anymore.” The softness in his words said he’d taken it the way she’d intended. “In truth, I’m worse than a criminal. I’m a reformed criminal. Which means everyone hates me, illicit and polite society alike.”
Shadach rolled the red light orb a small distance in front of him, illuminating the soft earth they sat on. With one hand, he began tracing into the dirt, cutting grooves with the blade of his hand.
“What are you doing?” Aoife’s stomach turned, knowing the answer but wishing she didn’t.
“My people were once considered pre-eminent artists. Our buildings, our texts, everything was art.” Shadach dug deep into the pliable earth, forming … something.
Aoife looked away before she could see what it was. “I thought you said you were judges.”
“We were that, too. The law is its own art form. But first we were artists of the earth. We believed it was from darkness that inspiration came. From dreams, from silence in the night when there was space to think and imagine. The God of Shadows was as much a god of imagination as secrets.”
Aoife glanced at the dirt. He was making—
She looked away. Aoife shifted uncomfortably.
When Eimear would talk about her latest art finding, or interpretative art class, Aoife could make a sarcastic quip, or openly say how uninterested she was.
Eimear would tell Aoife she was so predictable and boring and then they would move on to another topic.
This, however, was Shadach’s people. His culture and history.
She’d already made the mistake once of insulting it. She couldn’t do it again.
But how she wished he’d stop his art. At least stop doing it right next to her. Stop doing it to her. She felt like a child being pulled to a hot fire. Mesmerised, desperate to touch what he was making, to be a part of it, even though she knew it would ruin her.
“Is now really the time for that?” Aoife said. Praying he’d get the hint and stop.
“Now is the best time.” There was an amusement in Shadach’s voice that irked her.
“We could die,” she said.
“Exactly. If I might die, I’d rather like to make something beautiful first.” Shadach continued shaping the dirt, a mural beginning to take shape. Was that the sun? “Care to join me?” he said.
Aoife flinched as if slapped. “What?”
“Care to make something lovely with me?”
Aoife’s mouth went dry. Make art? With Shadach? Heat flared in her body. Erotic. Passionate. Inspired.
Stop that.