54. In Worship
In Worship
Two weeks after the Rite of Judgment, and still the city buzzed with rumor and exaggerated tales of the Sokar’s incredible feat.
Some said she wielded a bow made entirely of light.
Others said she floated rather than walked.
Crafters insisted that the black armor she wore was a gift from the Destroyer himself while Weavers tried to claim credit for the garment in the Lustrate.
Kailorien took a hard stance against her walking through the city. With the Godblind missing, Solutus prisoners being moved without the authorization of the holy blood, and with too many eyes glaring daggers at Lu’ma’s back, he didn’t trust his Sokar being left unguarded.
It was with some difficulty that Auryn convinced him to allow her to visit several temples in the Commons.
Disguised, of course, with Lu’ma at her side.
Still, he did not make departure easy, and it took all her wiles and soothing to calm his overprotective nature enough to sneak out of the Lattice for a day.
When Auryn emerged from one such temple in the Commons after hours of work, she wiped sweat from her brow and scowled at the sunlight blazing through the Mirror Shafts above.
Better sweat than illness, she thought darkly. The Pale Madness is worsening. More and more are succumbing to it, and we still have no understanding of the source.
Inside, the temple had been thick with fever-breath, old sweat, boiled herbs, and the low murmur of prayers. She’d spent the better part of the morning bent over cots and woven pallets, touching clammy brows, coaxing children to drink broth, and chanting the Litany to those that begged her for it.
Despite Lu’ma’s fierce protests, she’d Woven some of the children.
But even her Weaving couldn’t touch this illness.
Even her most powerful magic could only buy them a few hours without pain.
She left the temple frustrated. Exhausted.
Her shoulders ached, the pulse of overused magic like a maddening thrum within her veins.
Yet the hush that greeted her outside unsettled her more than the suffering within ever had.
The crowd at the temple steps, usually clogged with petitioners, Attendants, Priests, and restless apprentices, had parted like a great curtain at her approach.
People lined either side of the broad stair, their eyes wide, hands moving in formal greeting.
Crafters with baskets resting on their hips.
Laborers still dusted with plaster and ash from the rebuilding in the Han.
Children from the Breeding programs peering from behind the flowing skirts of their Minders.
Elderly men with trembling hands braced on canes.
Even the temple’s High Priests, who once watched her with the careful unease reserved for a dangerous curiosity, now bowed their head in reverence.
Their arms and hands moved in graceful waves, dark silken sleeves flowing with each motion.
‘Sokar. Child of the Void. Sovereign Star. We see. We honor. We serve.’
Auryn slowed, her hand settling on Veilpiercer by instinct.
At her side, Lu’ma stilled.
‘Your Radiance,’ her hands signed against the folds of her violet robes, eyes scanning the crowd for threat. ‘They are waiting for you.’
Auryn stood, unable to move. Disbelieving. Uncomfortable.
A Crafter woman held a little girl by the hand—her apprentice. The child was too thin, but clean. Recovering. At the sight of Auryn, both the woman and her apprentice dropped to their knees.
The gesture hit Auryn like a blow.
So many had bowed over the decades, but all in false worship. Auryn knew the taste of deceit. Had learned of it through scars and shame. But this—this was true. Honest. Sincere.
And she hated it.
“No,” she said, descending the stairs until she stood before the pair. “Please. Do not—”
The woman’s mouth trembled. ‘Sokar,’ she signed, eyes shining, her choker dim. ‘Your Radiance touched my apprentice just this morning. He woke. He knew my name.’
Auryn’s chest tightened.
“He is still very ill,” she said, taking care with each word, reaching down to stroke the child’s hair. “We have done nothing of note. Please. Rise.”
The child stared up at Auryn with naked awe, lips parted. ‘
You walked through the fire,’ he signed, his little hands still clumsy in the telling.
Around them, the silence deepened. More people knelt. More signed her formal titled.
Panic rose like bile in Auryn’s throat. Her disguise was useless, then.
Somehow, they’d all recognized her despite her hidden hair, plain dress, and lack of Reskala escort.
Perhaps it was Veilpiercer on her back. She'd covered it in a thick cloak to keep it hidden, but perhaps, after the Rite, too many knew it by sight. The Priests recognized her, but…
Understanding dawned, sharp and brittle. Her eyes snapped to the nearest High Priest, and she caught the tail end of a wicked grin beneath his hood.
Auryn straightened too fast, heat rising into her face.
She had stood before crowds before. Had suffered their scrutiny, their weighing eyes, their whispers.
But this—this surrender, this reverence, this trembling devotion—sat like bitter tincture in her mouth.
She had wanted the People to see her. To know she was more than an ornament stitched onto a banner.
That she would bleed for this city to help those broken in its Doctrine.
But not this.
Never this.
“We are not a god to kneel to,” she said, louder now, her chin rising.
But her warning was not heeded. Instead, it turned to confirmation of the crowd’s awe in the blazing heat of morning.
Her words did not break the thrall of the Sokar from their glazed eyes and trembling hands.
They only strengthened it. A man near the front of the crowd bowed his head lower then dropped to his knees entirely.
An old woman wept openly into the edge of her linen shawl.
One of the Priests came down the steps behind Auryn, stopping a respectful distance away.
He had tended this Commons temple for years—the last few at her side during the worst of the outbreaks.
Like most in Krystopolis beneath the holy blood and the Companions, he bore no name.
Only a Batcher that sealed his role and rank within the Polis.
Before the Rite of Judgment, he’d always spoken to her with measured wariness, as though expecting her compassion to be nothing more than grand illusion.
Now he bowed in truth, passing a missive into her hands.
Not deeply.
But enough to stir discomfort in her spine.
‘Your Radiance,’ he signed. ‘A message from the Lattice.’
She tucked it into her sleeve.
‘The People only wish to offer thanks,’ he signed.
Auryn turned to him, dismayed. “Then ask them not to kneel.”
A shadow of discomfort blurred into the lines of age upon his weathered face. ‘After the Rite, many believe the Destroyer has shown His will.’
His will.
Auryn nearly laughed at the cruelty of that lie. The spectacle of it.
As if her survival was prophecy. As if her pain transmuted neatly into purpose. As if this very city had not spent decades demanding for her to disappear, only to turn now and dub her chosen.
Lu’ma stepped closer, body positioned in a subtle angle between Auryn and the crowd. Her expression remained composed, but one hand had shifted beneath her shawl toward the hidden blade at her arm.
‘It is time to depart, Your Radiance,’ her fingers signed low.
Auryn nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
She stepped down the rest of the temple stairs and turned to face the crowd properly.
“If you wish to thank Us,” she said, smoothing her face into the visage of the Sokar, “then stand.”
They obeyed. Hesitant at first, then certain. One after another until more than fifty faces looked up at her from the square.
Auryn took a breath.
“We walked through fire on the whim of Doctrine,” she said.
“But We enacted the Writ of the Ninth Lattice because this city has asked too much of some and not enough of others.” She pointed to the temple.
“The sick inside those walls need broth, clean water, and hands willing to carry chamber pots without complaint. They need Menders to treat what can be cured, Crafters to bring any supplies that can be spared. And patience. Compassion.”
She paused.
“Kneeling will not help those who burn in the Doctrine’s neglect. Firing an arrow into the arms of an effigy will not spur a miracle. It is you—every one of you—that must look to yourselves to find salvation.”
No one spoke.
Auryn softened her tone. “If you would honor the Sokar, then help one another. We will do what we can. That is all We can promise. Not prophecy. Not godhood. Only this.”
At that, something shifted in the crowd. The woman from earlier stood straighter and wiped her eyes. ‘I will send apprentices from my House to bring fresh linens,’ she signed.
Another man moved behind her, weaving to the front of the crowd. ‘My House will bring broth.’
More signing, hands flying in a thousand chaotic motions, offering aid, collaborating.
The spell broke.
Not entirely. The crowd’s eyes lingered on her back, full of a new and dangerous awe. But the People were moving now, discussing solutions for the temple, gathering themselves into labor instead of adoration of an empty title.
That, at least, her conscience could bear.
Beside her, Lu’ma relaxed by a fraction. ‘Better to give them a task than let them build an altar,’ she signed.
They crossed the square together, the crowd parting for them.
Only once they reached the lane beyond the temple, Auryn let her shoulders drop.
She slipped a hand into the fold of her sleeve and touched the folded note hidden there.
The parchment seemed unnaturally heavy as she unfolded it and read the contents.
Draevan Sol’s hand was unmistakable—precise, spare, and urgent. A summons to Iliri. His private laboratory. The matter required her direct attention.
Lu’ma noticed at once.
‘Does Your Radiance trust him?’
Auryn considered that as they turned into a busier alley, where displaced Artisans from the Han now held trade in improvised market stalls.
“I trust that Draevan prefers data to performance,” she said. “He has given me his support of late. Perhaps he wishes to discuss the Mandate.”
‘He is not harmless,’ Lu’ma warned.
“No.” Auryn looked toward the distant rise of the Jade Lattice, where the Iliri towers gleamed pale and sharp against the lowering light. “No one is in the Lattice.”
The victory in Axis Hall still glowed warm within her. Another year without Estar. Another year bought back from the machine that fed on Kailorien’s soul piece by broken piece. It should have been enough to ease her fear. To let her sleep, at least.
Yet the same dreams still plagued her. The same violet eyes. Vargrún’s voice growing louder with each passing day.
Behind them, temple bells rang the hour.
Auryn folded Draevan’s note once more and tucked it back into her sleeve. She adjusted Veilpiercer on her back.
“Come,” she said quietly. “We will risk a meeting.” Her fingers brushed the bracelet on her wrist.
A key sigil with five portal charges. A connection to Kailorien.
Lu’ma fell into step beside her.
The Commons roared around them with shifting robes, hammer blows, and the stubborn pulse of a city limping along after disaster.
In the distance, the Iliri district towers caught the dying light like knives of glass.
Auryn could not shake the feeling that somewhere far above, in the glass heart of Iliri, a different kind of trial awaited.