Fourteen #2
I circle the temple again, and I spot a tree with a long hanging branch.
The jump is significant, and there’s a chance I’ll miss my mark, but it’s my only option.
They designed this fortress to be impenetrable, ripping every tree and bush from its proximity, but it seems this single branch escaped their notice.
I thank Varas for his provision and slip through the darkness.
The thick bark offers generous handholds, but my arms shake from the beast’s puncture wounds, and my legs struggle from the still-tender gash.
When I used to climb after Kaid, the impressive heights were easy for my muscles, but now, a simple tree threatens to be my undoing.
It takes far longer than it should, but eventually, I’m perched on the outstretched limb.
I close my eyes for a second and visualize my husband before me.
My mind watches his agile form balance on the branch and leap onto the roof with ease.
I map his movements, memorizing where each of his footfalls would’ve landed, and then, with a deep breath, I race forward and fling myself at the temple.
The instant my feet leave the tree, I know my angle is wrong.
I don’t have Kaid’s height or his power.
I don’t even have my own strength anymore, and I bite my lip to keep from screaming.
If I fall, this height will break my legs, and I hurl a desperate prayer to anyone listening as my ribs hit the edge.
I fight my scream as the sharp stone slams into my abdomen, my knees cracking against the side of the building.
My armpits scrape over the jagged ledge, leaving layers of skin behind as I slide, and my fingers claw for purchase.
I can’t breathe through the sharpness in my chest. I worry I broke a rib.
“Did you hear that?” a soldier below asks.
“Sounded like something hit the wall,” a second voice answers him.
Kaid, help me. Don’t let me fall.
My toes suddenly find traction against the smooth side of the temple, and I push myself up. I imagine my husband’s powerful fingers gripping my shirt, hauling me to safety, and I scramble over the edge, collapsing just as the guards walk below where I’d been hanging.
“Probably the wind rattling the tree,” the first man says, and I twist to see the branch shaking dangerously.
Varas, please, don’t abandon me now.
I lay on my back as I catch my breath, the pain in my ribs lessening to a dull ache, and when the footsteps fade around the corner, I crawl to the edge.
I locate the second-story window and wait, counting the intervals between the circular patrols.
There’s no pattern to their timing, which shows their dedication and foresight, and after long minutes go by, I come to terms with the fact that I’ll just have to jump and hope Varas shields my shadows.
I take a fortifying breath, and like Kaid taught me, I swing down and through the opening.
I land with a graceful thump, praying I didn’t drop into a room filled with guards, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realize my prayers are only half answered.
The room is teaming with soldiers, men and women of immense size and power, but they’re all asleep.
I must have dropped into their barracks, and I freeze in my crouch, hoping my fall didn’t wake any of them.
The man on the cot beside me grunts and rolls to his side, his face coming to rest inches from mine.
I stop breathing, fear pumping my heart faster.
His eyes flutter, and my muscles coil so tight they hurt.
For an agonizing second, I wait to be discovered, but then the soldier snorts in sleep and burrows deeper under his blanket.
I’m paralyzed for endless seconds as I listen to his snoring increase, and it takes almost a full minute for me to gather the courage to move.
I wonder if this was how Kaid felt when he hid in my room.
He didn’t know if my sleeping form would be friend or foe, but I was merely a girl, the Pure One’s naive and pampered vessel.
These soldiers are trained killers, forged by Valka himself.
I don’t dare stand, so I crawl hands over knees to the door, pausing with my finger on its latch.
I’ve never been inside this temple, but if it’s anything like Hreinasta’s, the Holy of Holies will sit at its center, the most guarded place within these walls.
That’s undoubtedly where Kaid’s head waits for me, and if I was Valka, I wouldn’t leave it out in the open.
I would lock it away in an impenetrable vault underground.
Varas, help me. I don’t see how I’ll survive this.
“Calm, my child,” The Stranger says into my mind.
“Stay with me.” My whisper is barely audible, but I know he hears me.
“I always have. I always will.”
I lift the latch, begging the hinges not to squeak, and I push the door open.
Torchlight floods my eyes, but to my relief, no soldiers patrol this upper corridor.
I silently click the door shut behind me and pause in the dimness.
I wait for the call, for his bones to pull at my soul, and a gentle tug shifts the air to my right.
Based on the layout of this sprawling temple, venturing to the left will lead me to the main staircase, but the calling is urging me to venture deeper into Valka’s place of worship.
I obey, keeping to the shadows, but I meet no living soul. Only flickering flames.
As I approach the rear of the temple, the hallway makes a sharp left turn.
Rooms pepper my journey, but none of them call to me, so I ignore them and make for the bend in the corridor.
Ascending stairs greet me as I round the corner, and the pull at my chest grows stronger.
I take the stone steps two at a time until I reach a wooden door.
I can go nowhere but forward, so I lift the latch and slip inside.
The sight takes my breath away. Valka’s inner sanctum.
His Holy of Holies. I’ve only ever been inside Hreinasta’s temple, which was all pale marble and glittering gold.
Bright and soft and white. Pure and feminine, a gorgeous backdrop for her beautiful vessels.
I stood briefly in Lovec’s abandoned house of worship, its grey stone unadorned, but time and snow and beasts had tarnished any grandeur it once held.
But this? This is a room of power. The stairs lead to a small balcony that wraps around the circumference of the chamber, and my guess is that when Valka blesses his acolytes with his presence, they stand watch up here over him as if he’s a warrior in the arena below.
Rich, opulent tiles and golden artifacts decorate every inch of the floor and walls.
His sacred fire burns at the head of the room, the flames spouting from a massive, ornate shield.
Carved pillars hold up the balcony, and exquisite murals adorn the walls, each scene depicting the enormous god in the throes of battle.
Each portrayal is more violent than the last, but it’s the one behind the altar that steals my breath and chills my skin despite the flame’s warmth.
It’s of a nude man, stretched out before Valka as War severs his arm.
The limb is falling through the air, blood spurting from the wound.
Valka is painted in striking detail, his muscles bulging, his skin shining, his short hair almost lifelike.
His victim is less detailed, a nearly featureless dark-haired man, but in the pit of my stomach, I know. It’s Kaid. This is his execution.
Anger floods me, and my fear evaporates. This is why I felt the pull. I know where Kaid is. He’s behind that mural, and so help me Stranger, Varas, Lovec—whoever is listening—I will break that wall to pieces.
I search the balcony for a way down, but there are no steps.
I’m trapped up here, the fall to the floor high enough to break my legs.
It seems to enter the Holy of Holies, one must use the heavy, ornate, gold-plated doors below, but entering that way would surely get me killed.
The inner sanctum is oddly empty, and I suspect Varas has intervened on my behalf, the ashes shielding me.
Perhaps the Stranger was right. The Great Thief wants revenge for what was done behind his back, and what better way than to help me steal his acolyte’s remains from under War’s nose?
I swing over the balcony railing and aim for a pillar.
I drop with a painful thud against it but manage to use its circumference to slide down.
The descent is awkward and too fast, delivering me to the tiles with a sickening crack of my ankles, but after five minutes the pain recedes, and I’m alone in Valka’s inner sanctum.
After fleeing Hreinasta, I avoided all temples save Lovec’s frozen one, but his was in such disrepair, it almost didn’t count.
Curiosity begs me to gawk at this lavish chamber, but I don’t have time.
I’ve been blessed with solitude so far. I won’t push my luck.
I scan the room for anything that’ll help me destroy Kaid’s mural, and I grin in triumph when I see the garish display of ceremonial weapons.
They’re studded with jewels and fine metals, intended only for worship and not battle.
Against blades of steel, they would be useless, but against painted tiles?
I lift a golden axe off its mount. It’s beautiful, and it’s almost a shame that I plan to use it as a bludgeoning tool, but Kaid is more precious than any wealth.
I pull two more weapons from the wall as backups.
Once I begin, the sound will echo, and the soldiers will undoubtedly descend upon me.
I’ll have to work fast, and I won’t have time to find a new tool if this ceremonial axe breaks.
I most likely won’t have time for more than the first blow, but I ignore that reality as I move to the painting.
If I squint, the featureless man morphs into Kaid, and an overwhelming longing floods me.
I miss him so much. More than the sun misses the moon, the lover she shares a sky with but never at the same time.
More than the desert misses rain. All the physical pain I’ve endured on this journey is nothing compared to the ache in my heart from missing him, and standing before a mural that depicts the last time I saw him alive is torture.
The pull of his bones is so strong that I force myself to gaze at the painting, and the moment my eyes land on the painted victim’s head, it hits me.
Kaid’s final resting place is not a vault locked away below the earth.
Valka walled his head in behind the depiction’s skull.
I can’t stop the laugh that pushes past my lips at the obviousness.
A vault would have been more secure, but it seems War enjoys his humor.
It also seems he expected no one to make it this far without his soldiers’ knowledge.
Valka created a fortress, an unseizable temple, but he made a mistake.
He prepared for an army, for a battle won with brute force.
He should have been preparing for a thief’s wife.
With renewed hope, I climb atop the altar, careful to avoid the flames licking the air in their shield behind me, and I raise the axe. Kaid, I’m here. I’m coming for you.
And then I swing with all my strength.