37. Return to the Temple
D espite Dorian’s promises of terrible behaviour, he actually spends the meal being quite charming. Selene isn’t sure if it’s because he can’t help but be so, or if he’s simply trying to make the meal as smooth as it can be. She knows he doesn’t desire their good opinion.
Still, for a moment, it is nice to pretend—nice to imagine that they’re a normal, ordinary family.
At the end of the meal, after Dorian nips outside to speak to Soren, Selene’s mother catches her arm.
“Lord Nightbloom can be very charming when the occasion calls, can’t he?” she says.
Selene isn’t entirely sure what to say to that. Dorian is charming in a way few people aren’t. He’s genuine, there’s no false praise or flattery. He does not like to deceive. “Dorian is the most charming man I’ ve ever known.”
Lady Duskbriar doesn’t reply to this. “How is he?” she asks, with an earnesty that Selene finds jarring. “I heard that the Duke poisoned—”
“He’s fine,” Selene insists, taking back her arm. She doesn’t want to think about how he nearly wasn’t. She doesn’t want to invite the possibility that she’s not sure he is.
“And you?” Lady Duskbriar asks. “I can’t imagine… watching that—”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
Selene would be surprised if she ever has to face anything harder. She doesn’t want to imagine what that would be. It had gone on for so long, he was in such pain…
“Shall we take tea together later?” her mother asks. “Just the two of us. We don’t have to talk about that. We can talk about—about anything you want.”
Selene shakes her head, retreating towards the door. “There isn’t anything I want to talk to you about.”
She catches up with the others, slipping her arm into Dorian’s. He looks down, noticing the look in her eyes and frowning.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“My mother seems to be on a mission to be kind.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Selene swallows. “It shouldn’t be,” she says. “I just… I think it might be too late. I don’t know what to do with it.”
Dorian squeezes her fingers. “If you want to forge a relationship with her, I understand,” he says. “But if you decide you can’t, I understand that too.”
“She… she doesn’t know,” Selene carries on.
“She doesn’t know what I went through with the Duke.
What she pressured me into.” Selene can’t remember when she’d first started to feel something for the Duke, but of course her mother had fanned the flames of her fancy.
She wasn’t alone in that, of course, but sometimes Selene wonders if her feelings were her own.
What would she have felt if others hadn’t told her what she should?
“Sorry,” she says, looking up at Dorian. “I imagine you’d do anything to reconnect with your parents. ”
“My parents aren’t yours,” he tells her. “It isn’t the same. Besides, I have more than enough family.”
Selene smiles at him. “I do, too.” One day, she hoped, she’d have even more.
Ariella, Rookwood and Soren have all gathered in the foyer. They look at the couple expectantly.
“What’s the plan for today?” Selene asks.
“We thought we’d go to the temple,” Dorian announces.
Selene’s stomach caves. She knew that they would probably have to go back at some point, but hearing it—imagining it—is something else entirely.
“Only if you’re up for it,” Dorian adds.
She won’t know until she’s there, but she also knows that she doesn’t want to be afraid. She wants the safety answers will bring. She’s willing to be a little scared for a little while to gain it.
“All right,” she says.
The journey to the temple is a quiet one.
Selene keeps her gaze fixed on the passing trees, trying not to think about what lies ahead.
Ariella and Rookwood are speaking in hushed tones, their conversation laced with curiosity rather than apprehension.
Unlike her, they have never been to this temple before.
They do not fully understand what happened there.
They do not know what it is like to feel one’s life slipping away between ancient stones.
Dorian rides ahead with Soren, speaking in low murmurs. She wonders if they are speaking of her. She knows Dorian is watching her carefully, measuring each moment for hesitation, for regret. She gives him none .
The path quickly grows too thin for the carriage, or even for horses. They abandon the carriage and horses and continue on foot.
When they arrive, the concealed entrance looms before them. The trees seem to press closer here, as if trying to obscure the structure from the world. Selene’s pulse quickens. She remembers how it had felt last time—how the cold had seeped into her bones, how the darkness had swallowed her whole.
She remembers her blood dripping onto her feet. The way it smeared the stones.
“You don’t have to do this,” Dorian says softly, coming to stand beside her.
“I know.” Selene exhales and takes the first step down.
They descend together, the path illuminated by tiny snatches of sunlight from the gaps in the rocky ceiling above. Ariella and Rookwood glance at each other, both taking in the intricate carvings along the stone. The air feels different here. Selene cannot explain it, but it’s like it can whisper.
“This place is ancient,” Rookwood mutters, running a hand along the wall. “You really all died down here?”
“Yes,” say Selene, Dorian and Soren.
Ariella’s eyes flicker. She shivers, hugging her arms. Rookwood goes to take her hand, and she doesn’t pull away.
They continue forward, the stone corridors tightening around them. Dorian leads them up the nave towards the altar, where it had all ended before.
“Gods above,” Rookwood sighs. “It’s magnificent.”
It is magnificent, and yet the moment Selene steps inside, the memory slams into her. The pain, the fear, the warmth of her own blood seeping between her fingers. The two bodies, barely visible, decaying by the altar.
She grips the edge of the doorway, steadying herself.
Dorian is there in an instant. He doesn’t touch her, but his presence is all she needs. How did she live her life before without it ?
“So, what are we looking for, exactly?” Rookwood asks, his voice cautious, as if he’s afraid of what he might wake.
“Answers,” Dorian says.
“Surely you’ve already investigated this place before—” Ariella starts.
“I have,” he says. “You haven’t.”
“Me?”
“You. Rookwood. Selene. Maybe we just need a new set of eyes.”
Selene doubts that she’s capable of finding anything Dorian hasn’t in the past several lifetimes, but she forces herself to move.
She will not be captive to her fears. She kneels by the stone floor, running her fingers over the carvings.
Something had happened here—something beyond their deaths.
Something to make history forget a goddess.
Dorian takes out a sketchpad and starts to draw things—engravings, symbols, anything of use.
The others all spread out to look through the rubble, Ariella wincing at the tombs.
Selene finds herself standing before the altar, staring up at the empty face of the goddess.
There’s a symbol on her chest—a crescent moon inside a sun.
Dorian comes up to her side. He hands her a scrap of paper—a rose twinned with an iris.
Selene smiles. “I’d forgotten you could draw.”
“Not well, ” he tells her. “Or at least, not as well as I’d like. I’ve never been great at drawing people. But flowers—those I can draw. This, I think, would look very nice replacing the old Nightbloom family crest, don’t you?”
Selene’s smile widens. “If we ever have a daughter, we should name her Iris-Rose.”
The corner of Dorian’s mouth quirks, but it isn’t a full smile. “Before, you thought we’d have a boy,” he says. “You had a name in mind, but you wouldn’t share it.”
“Would you… would you like to know what I think it would have been?”
Dorian pauses for a moment. “Yes,” he says. “I think I would.”
“Florian,” Selene confesses. “Because it matches yours, and also has a floral theme. That’s the name that’s been in my head. I imagine it was in hers, too.”
“Florian,” Dorian repeats. “I do like that.”
Wind whispers through the temple, blowing up dust. It reminds Selene of the fragility of their future, and the weight of the past.
“Are you all right, being back here?” Dorian asks her.
“Are you?”
“It got easier after the first few times.”
“Of course.”
They spend another hour making records, taking etchings, and marking locations of interest. Finally, with their sketches and notes carefully stored away, they pack up their findings and head out.
The air outside is crisper than before, as if the temple’s presence has lingered on their skin.
As they make their way back through the trees, Soren pauses, his eyes catching on something in the dirt.
Selene can’t see what it is from the carriage, but the two young men converse for a moment in hushed voices.
“What is it?” she calls out.
Dorian gets off his horse and turns back to the group. “Stay here,” he instructs, before striding off into the trees.
Selene doesn’t hesitate. Ignoring the glances from the others, she slips out of the carriage and follows Soren and Dorian into the woodlands, her breath coming faster as she keeps pace with them.
The trees thicken around them, their canopy casting deep shadows over the uneven terrain.
The ground slopes downward, and soon they emerge at the edge of a rocky outcrop, overlooking the mines.
Dorian turns, irritation flashing in his expression. “Selene—”
She folds her arms, daring him to finish the sentence. But his eyes flick past her, his body going still.
Below, there is movement outside the mines.
Soren shifts beside them, his face darkening. It’s too soon. The Duke doesn’t start burrowing under the mountain until after Sylvana Ashwyn’s death. He has no legal right to be here. No one does.
Selene follows their gaze, her stomach twisting. Figures move between the wooden scaffolding and mine entrance, carrying tools and crates. But something is wrong. The way they move—slow, heavy, dragging their feet—sends ice through her veins.
Then she sees the chains.
Her breath catches. The miners are shackled.
“Prisoners,” Dorian murmurs. His voice is tight with anger.
Selene remembers the disappearances in the papers. If the mine legally belonged to the Duke, he could employ anyone he liked, and it didn’t matter who they told and where they went. But if he didn’t own it, if he had to keep it secret…
Then he had to do something else to ensure they couldn’t talk.
And this was the result.
“Dorian,” Soren hisses. “Look. ”
He points to someone sitting outside the mine entrance, reclining on a chair. Someone dark-haired, tall, impossibly broad.
The Duke.
Selene grips the rough bark of a nearby tree to steady herself. She had thought, perhaps naively, that he would still be working within the law, trying to worm his way into ownership through legal channels. But this? This was worse.
Soren shifts his weight. “What do we do?”
Dorian doesn’t answer right away. His eyes track the movement below, scanning for weaknesses, exits, possibilities. Selene watches as he calculates.
Selene already knows what he’s going to say. They can’t walk away from this. They won’t.
“You’re going to go back and free the slaves, aren’t you?” Selene asks Dorian later. All five of them are spread out in the library, poring over books, looking for any sign of the goddess in history. Selene wishes she could focus on the task.
Dorian sighs. “Wouldn’t you, if you had the power to free them?”
Selene hesitates. She likes to think she could be that brave, and that good, and perhaps she could be. But risking herself is different from risking Dorian.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she tells him.
Dorian takes her hand. “I will do my very best to make it back to you.”
Selene wants to say more, to argue, to force him to let her go with him—but she’s aware of the limits of her own power. She will be a hindrance, not a help.
She hates how powerless she is.
“I hate this,” she whispers, tears prickling at her eyes. “I hate it—”
“I know,” says Dorian, clenching her hand. “But it won’t last forever. One day soon, we won’t be living like this. It’ll be you and me and Ebonrose, and Soren and Rookwood and Ariella—”
“And Florian and Iris-Rose?”
He smiles, kissing her fingers. “And Florian and Iris-Rose.”
Selene wills herself to believe it, to imagine those two pretty children. Would they have his hair, or hers, or somewhere between the two—rust, strawberry-gold?
I hope they have his eyes.
If she holds on fast enough, it will happen. It will.
Night comes too soon. After dinner, Dorian retires early from the party, claiming a headache.
Selene does her best to remain with her parents and grandmother, making small talk.
It isn’t easy. She wanders up to the library after a while instead.
Ariella is there, pretending to read. Selene isn’t fooled.
She’s sitting in the window seat that affords the best view of the road.
It’s not just Dorian and Soren she’s worried about—it’s Rookwood. He’s gone with them in the carriage.
Today, Selene doesn’t tease her about her feelings. She sits next to her and pretends to read, too.
The night stretches long and silent. The fire in the hearth flickers, casting shifting shadows across the library walls. Selene’s book lies open in her lap, the words blurring together, unread. She risks a glance at Ariella, who hasn’t turned a page in nearly half an hour.
Ariella’s fingers drum against the windowsill. Her nails dig into the polished wood, a sharp contrast to the calm expression she’s trying to maintain.
“They’ll be back,” Selene murmurs, more for herself than for Ariella.
Ariella exhales slowly, but she doesn’t look away from the dark road. “You don’t know that.”
Selene doesn’t. She wishes she did.
A gust of wind rattles the windowpane. The world outside is still, but to Selene, it feels as though it’s waiting—like the house itself is holding its breath.
She shivers.
They wait.