Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Demetri
The Great Hall
“Are all breasts this uncomfortable?” I whispered, readjusting where the right apple had dug into a rib.
The clipping of Adelaide’s soles quietened, and I crashed into her back.
She spun, shooting a finger to her lips, face creased in a scowl.
Following the sweep of her restless gaze, I eyed the paxiam armour lining the Ovidian walls, hollow helms glaring down at us.
We were alone. No one else in the cloister save the empty, red-steeled chests glinting in the moonlight. I allowed myself a shudder.
“Is she close?” I asked, the words no more than a breath.
This place was built for the dark, small crevices and alcoves carved into every turn.
I’d attempted to catalogue the route, but after the sixth or seventh turnpike, it all congealed into one dark smear of passages and stone.
It was as I suspected: a fucking rat’s nest.
Adelaide motioned to keep my eyes down and follow, squeezing her lips between forefinger and thumb. I nodded, following her down with every inch of demureness I could muster, which most likely wasn’t enough. It would have to be.
Two doors melded by iron, rusting at their edges and stapled with interlocking squares, blocked the end of the walkway. Adelaide paused, turning on her heel and cupped my face, her eyes lidded with concern.
“Silent,” she mouthed, tugging my headdress a little further over my face and adjusting the bodice. I pulled at the sleeves until only the tips of my fingers peeked from under the cloth. I heaved a breath, preparing for what I would say when I saw her.
I found you. I found you. I found you.
With one last warning pinch to her lips, she faced the door and tapped on one of the blocks, rapping a series of beats in a distinct rhythm. A secret code? Clever girl.
A slot scraped open, and I held my breath, awaiting the silhouette of wild, slate hair and large, moss-green eyes.
Instead, the boxed headdress of a sister haloed its gap. I kept the air in my lungs, not daring a breath, and shot my eyes to the floor. The deep chatter of men poured through the opening.
Was Ashara among them? Was she being used? I winced, hands fisting my skirts. Is that why they laughed?
My whole body quaked. I thought myself a good man, but not a perfect one, and if I saw her like that…
Fuck, would I risk it all? Could I keep my composure?
The doors parted, and I followed Adelaide, resigned to the answer.
Tracking the floor, I threaded my hands over my waist, a mirror of the sisters. I resisted the urge to lift my head, though it pulled as if on some invisible thread. Just a glimpse. Just to check.
With greater restraint than I ever thought myself capable, I examined the floor.
Softened with hides, my feet were swallowed by the thick, black fur of a Thromarrian bear.
I scooted round its head, jaw prised open in a snarl.
My own ached with the force of a clench, so I swung it, attempting to loosen the muscle.
We shrank to the shadows, close to the walls, where the other sisters had stationed themselves in front of a tapestry.
Woven in threads of varying reds, they entwined to recreate the scene of a battle: big men charging with big swords on even bigger horses.
We stood with our backs to it, a frontline of women.
Well…most of us. A quick glance down the row, and all still wore their habits, every neck wrapped in a scarf, but some were stripped to their waists, their breasts exposed, puckering in the evening chill.
My stomach dipped with the force of my inhale as the whole fucking room glowed crimson, not just the tapestry.
I lingered on Adelaide, her shoulders shaking slightly, and that was all the confirmation I needed.
Fuck it.
I lifted my head, braving a glance.
Blazing with hundreds of candles and tens upon tens of sconces, the large chamber glowed like the core of a flame, tapestries adorning every wall. A large hearthfire roared to its south, where a thick company had gathered, toasty and warm. All men.
Not men. Druids.
I drank in the sight of them, lifting my jaw from the floor.
De-helmed druids, free of their armour and robes.
Lounging on long wooden benches, draped in furs and cushions, they drank and laughed and ate. Most only wore linen shirts, laced at the chest, the sleeves rolled up to elbows—as if they were in fact men, not the Blood God’s holy prophets.
Platters of meat and fruit lay half-demolished next to near-empty bottles of mead and red wine. Placed between the plates and goblets were the true centrepieces, ones forged of iron. Their discarded helms lined the tables like decapitated heads, empty and hollow, picked to the bones.
But I was more interested in the men who had shed them like moult.
None appeared older than their thirty or thirty-fifth winter, with the exception of just one or two who had seen perhaps forty or so. All were Thomarrian, which wasn’t such a surprise, their brown hair and olive skin much like my own.
But it wasn’t their youth or colouring that had my eyes widening, heart stirring, balls sweating; it was their eyes. I glanced at Adelaide, trying to tempt her gaze to mine, but she stared obediently forward.
Their eyes glowed in the firelight, spitting embers from a bonfire. And all of them red.
“More wine.” A slender druid clicked two of his fingers, and the sisters flocked.
I schooled myself, my mouth clamping shut as I tried to mimic their actions.
Collecting carafes from a ledge at our side, we took turns approaching the druids from the side, leaning over their shoulders and refilling goblets as they continued to ignore us.
Another small mercy, the greatest of which was that Ashara did not appear to be here. Not yet, anyhow.
“Capriche!” the druid closest to me bellowed, but I kept my eyes on the wine, despite the excruciating urge to get a look at his face. The face of the man who tore Ashara’s flesh from her back, strip by strip, lash by lash.
The scrape of a bench and Capriche joined the one closest to me, knocking his empty chalice against the one I had filled.
Willing my hands not to shake, I poured.
He set himself down, extending an empty cup, and for a moment, his hand held a whip, not a chalice, dripping with our blood rather than the last dregs of wine.
Millions of worms wriggled under my skin, begging me to shed the pretense of a sister and become Demetri again.
I breathed in through my nose. If I snapped his neck now, all would be lost, and I’d never find her.
I refilled his chalice, curious as to why a band of raised, red skin, cratered like a healing scab, covered the expanse of his wrist.
“You son of a whore.” The other chuckled, slapping Capriche’s back. “And just where have you been of late?”
“Busy, brother.” Capriche took a sip from his wine, my eyes tracking the scaly scar up his arm.
“Pray, what little biddings has daddy tasked you with this time, errand boy?” The other druid drained his cup, nudging my arm to prompt another.
He turned stiffly, like he’d pulled a muscle, exposing his neck.
A neck marred with that same crusted scar that stained Capriche’s wrist, only this one fanned outwards, reaching to his face, the edges spiked like spear points.
The skin affected was raised, cracking, dry.
I stopped pouring, the goblet almost overspilling.
“Now that’s a cup of wine, sister. I thank ye.” It took every ounce of willpower not to smash the carafe and slit his throat with its edges. He’d spanked me, hard, on the arse.
I slowed my movements, taking my time with the other goblets, hoping they might divulge something about Ashara and where she was.
Perhaps Adelaide had been mistaken and thought she was here.
Perhaps she did not know her whereabouts at all.
Perhaps it was for another reason entirely—one I was yet to discover.
“If you’re referring to His Holiness, Druid Vetrius, then yes, he has indeed had me knee-deep in the pits.
” Capriche rolled his lips. I gripped the carafe hard enough to crack.
“But it’s essential work, Timothee, for the good of the templum, for the good of Thromarra.
Something you haven’t had to worry about in what, seven decades, now? ”
I was on the last cup. I scanned the rest of the table, searching for more abandoned goblets, but all had been filled. Seven decades? I edged a little closer, worried I’d heard wrong. Timothee’s forehead had yet to see its second line. He was no older than I.
“You and I have never seen eye to eye on what counts as essential work, Capriche.”
Capriche presented me with his drained cup, red eyes locked on Timothee. I tried not to stare.
“Bedding sisters whilst you preach chastity to the suburbs of Dendra is your divine purpose, is it?”
The other druid sputtered, wine dribbling down his chin, which was striped with more scarring. I stepped to the left, though still in ear’s reach, realising it may be infectious.
“Surely, it’s not because that’s the only part of the scripture your grace and wine-addled mind can remember, brother?” Capriche continued whilst Timothee coughed. “That would be rather poor form… His Eminence may have to consider refreshing your memory.”
Timothee excused himself, clearing his throat, leaving Capriche alone.
I made to retreat to the wall.