The Meeting #2
“It’s an old dress.” I shook my head. “It no longer fits.” He couldn’t see the details of my frame with my outer robe wrapped tight, but my childhood beauty had morphed into the garden of womanhood.
With every passing season, the current vessel watched me with more and more hunger.
I knew it was Hreinasta anxiously awaiting my twenty-first birthday when she could finally inhabit my body.
I grew tall and lean. My hips curved enticingly.
The priestesses had designed new garments to protect my modesty after my breasts spilled out of the old ones.
My pink lips were full, my blue eyes like priceless jewels, contrasting my midnight black hair.
My food was carefully monitored, and my bathing rituals endless.
For a goddess who devoted her life to purity and lived eternally as a virgin, Hreinasta certainly craved elegance and sensuality.
Her vessels were only the most exquisite women the realm had to offer, and as I grew more and more beautiful with each cycle, it became painfully obvious I was her next host. She was merely biding her time until I was ripe for the taking.
She’d set the law herself, declaring she would possess no woman before the age of twenty-one, and I was twenty.
One more cycle until I was no longer myself but divinity bound in human flesh.
“Thank you.” The thief stood, breaking my reverie, and I gasped, flinching involuntarily. “It’s all right.” He instantly recoiled. “I simply meant to accept your gift.” He pointed at the gown I set too far for him to reach sitting down.
“I…” My cheeks flushed crimson, and I thanked Hreinasta for the darkness. “I know. It’s just… it’s nothing.” Embarrassment flooded my veins. I hoped it would drown me.
“Go on. Say it.” He pushed as he stepped forward to grab the garment. “Don’t be shy on my account.” His words only made my blush deepen.
“You’re the tallest person I’ve ever seen,” I said, his kind presence inspiring my bravery.
He threw his head back and laughed, and I wanted to live inside that sound. I hoped it followed me all the days of my life.
“Yes, I’m tall,” he said. “Varas’ priests almost turned me away when I first arrived. They claimed a boy my height could never work as a thief. I’ve spent the last fifteen cycles proving them wrong.”
“So, you’re good?”
“The best.” The pride in his smile bloomed so strongly that I felt proud of him. “Well, I will be once I lay this offering upon the altar.”
“I’m glad to have helped.” I longed to step closer and get a better look at his face.
“Thank you, dear priestess.” He bowed with an exaggerated flourish before turning to leave, and I was suddenly desperate to make him stay. It was foolish. It was a sin, but that mysterious man with the gravel deep voice had captivated me. As long as I didn’t touch him, my vow was safe.
“How did you get in here?” I blurted before he reached the window, and he turned to meet my gaze.
In the moon’s light, I finally saw him in clear definition, and the sight ruined me.
His face obliterated my heart. His eyes destroyed my spirit, and in an instant, the thief re-wrote my future.
He stole my life and twisted it to his will.
He was tall and broad, and his black hair was shaved close on the sides but left longer on the top.
Flecks of gold swam in his brown eyes, and a long scar ran through the left side of his lips, top to bottom, as if someone tried to sever the corner of his mouth.
It was unsettling to look at, and most people probably found it off-putting, but I had the sudden urge to feel the uneven skin beneath my fingers.
None of the vessels had scars. We were locked away in velvet cages to keep our bodies flawless.
I’d never seen someone with such a pronounced deformity, and it called my name like forbidden fruit.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he winked, and it took me a moment to remember I’d asked a question. I frowned at him, and he leaned against the wall, staring at me with a curious smirk.
“So, you’re one of the vessels?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he’d decided to linger for my sake or his.
Either way, a giddy surge of electricity ignited my nervous system.
I’d been locked away from my siblings as a child, sequestered inside this temple throughout my adolescence.
I’d never glimpsed the outside world, and now that it had come to me, I hated letting it disappear.
“Yes.” I didn’t tell him I was the vessel. The chosen one.
“What’s it like? Living trapped behind these walls, never touching anyone?”
“It’s an honor.” I shrugged, but he glared at me as if he saw through my answer.
Until that day, my belief never wavered, and I swallowed uncomfortably.
I was holy and pure, selected by the primordial being herself.
This honor was only gifted to the worthy, and she’d found me perfect.
I devoted every waking moment to Hreinasta’s service, as I had since my birth, and I believed with my entire spirit in the divinity of my path.
But now? Standing in front of this enticing man who appeared a few cycles older than me, it suddenly sounded like a hollow lie.
The world was at his fingertips. Every pleasure was available to him, and by this time next cycle, I would cease to exist for decades until Hreinasta abandoned my body.
“It’s lonely sometimes,” I added, and he nodded as if he recognized the truth. “But to serve the Pure One is a privilege.” I couldn’t abandon my faith completely, not even for a face more handsome than the wed gods. “One I accept gladly.”
“I’m glad you’re happy in your service, even if you’re lonely.” His words were genuine, but sadness bled through them. “Tell me your name.” He demanded, and then his features pinched as if his outburst surprised him. “I’m Kaid.”
“Kaid.” I tasted his name, and it was more delicious than the ripest fruit on a summer’s day. “Will you promise me something, Kaid?”
“Anything you want.” His eyes spoke the truth. He meant every word.
“Tell no one you saw me. Tell no one I gave you my name.”
“Then you’ll tell me?”
“You must promise.”
“I swear on Varas’ altar.” He knelt before me, and a thrill ran up my spine. “I won’t tell a soul of this. Meeting you… I shall treasure it for myself.”
“Sellah.” I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my lips, and he looked stunned for a moment as he stared at my mouth.
“Well, Sellah.” He shook his head, recovering from whatever trance had possessed him. “Now that we’re acquainted and no longer strangers, you don’t have to be lonely.”
I desperately wanted him to be right.
“I should go.” His expression sharply contradicted his words. “I can’t get caught with you.”
I nodded in agreement. Being caught in the temple was a punishable offense.
“Thank you, Sellah.” He gestured to the dress before throwing open the window. A blast of frigid air assaulted my face, and I drew my robe tighter around my chest. Kaid seemed wholly unaffected by the icy wind, and he smiled that grin I was already addicted to.
“Who knows?” He climbed out into the snowy night, his gaze meeting mine one last time.
My breath left my lungs, and he inhaled as if to capture the same air that had occupied my body.
“Perhaps I’ll see you again… so you don’t have to be lonely.
” He shrugged mischievously. “I’m very good at getting into places I shouldn’t. ”
And then he was gone, the open window the only proof he’d ever been there.