At this, Amma glanced up. Above the mantle was a tapestry, well-made and intricate, depicting the symbol of the goddess of beauty and the harvest, Shevyabu, a set of barrels overflowing with grain in an autumnal landscape. It would not have been an inexpensive piece, some of the threads gilded to give a golden glow to the leaves falling in its background.
“The being you people around here worship,” Damien mumbled, his eyes finding the tapestry as well.
“But not her, just how I imagine her.” Morel’s hand came up to rub a pendant he wore around his neck with a simpler depiction of the same symbol.
“You’re very pious, aren’t you?” Damien sighed. “You’ve been to that shrine in the market?”
Morel nodded with fervor. “Yes, and our whole family worships at the temple…or, they did. We owe our good fortune to Shevyabu.”
“And their bad fortune too, I imagine?” Damien said ruefully.
Amma tipped her head. She had always expected that neither good nor bad fortune had much to do with the gods. “You thought something was wrong with that shrine, didn’t you?”
Damien turned to her. “How do you know a thing like that?”
“I saw you making this face.” She gripped her own chin and grimaced with her best grouchy-son-of-a-demon impression.
“No, I wasn’t. And how do you even know? You were off getting abducted.”
She shrugged. “Not the whole time.”
“Something’s wrong with the shrine?” Morel cut in, somber voice going even colder. “But it’s a holy place. I’ve only ever felt goodness and light coming from it.”
Damien was still staring at Amma. He cocked a brow. “Anything can be corrupted.”
She tore her gaze away from the look he was giving her to check on Kaz, still perched on the settee, head cocking and one big ear flopping over. Why her face was suddenly going warm, she didn’t know, and she tried to rub the feeling out of her cheeks.
“Has there been anything new in the market recently?” the blood mage was asking, stepping closer to Morel. “A change to the shrine, or more likely someone you’ve never seen before offering goods?”
“No, I—” Morel’s face stiffened. “Yes, actually. I purchased an idol at the shrine a moon or so ago. I’d never seen the seller before, but his wares—”
“Show it to me,” said Damien.
Morel straightened. “I have to…” He gestured to the door where beyond a guard was laxly leaning against it.
“Now,” Damien snapped.
The boy hesitated, then led the way to the glass doors. He rapped on them, and, startled, one of the guards pulled the door open, eyes roving over the lot of them. “What?”
“We need to go upstairs,” he offered meekly.
“Why?”
Damien went up behind Morel and placed a hand on the door, pushing it open and knocking the guard off kilter. The man went for his sword reflexively, stopping to stare up at Damien, a few inches taller than him. Amma held her breath, watching.
“You know how to use that?” Damien’s eyes flicked down to the weapon.
The guard sputtered back a confused answer, something between a question and a confirmation.
Damien grunted, unsatisfied, and leaned out. “You better come along too,” he called to the other guard who had been thumbing through a book. Then he looked down at Morel, caught between the two of them. “Well?”
Morel slipped out into the hall, and the guard pulled back, allowing Damien to pass and waiting for Amma. She scooped up Kaz who had padded over, putting on a sweet smile to play the role of Valeria again. Kaz snapped at her fingers, and she inhaled sharply, just missing his gnarled tooth, then hurried up a wide set of stairs behind the other two, both guards bringing up the rear.
The Stormwing manor was large, with wide halls and ornate doors even in the private set of chambers Morel was leading them to. Amma had been in many fine places, and no expense was spared here, but the emptiness of it, without servants, of which they had clearly had at one time, or even family milling about, was stark. Drapes were pulled closed at the end of the hall, only a thin sliver of light trailing in on them. The heavy footsteps of Damien and the guards echoed in the high-ceilinged hall, and Amma found herself hugging Kaz a bit closer. He didn’t attempt to nip at her this time.
Morel stopped before a closed door, steeling himself to go inside, though there was nothing odd about the room save for the shadows it was shrouded in, and that seemed to be the manor’s standard. More heavy draperies were pulled to over the line of windows at the far side of the room, the only light coming in through a set of glass doors that led to a balcony.
In the room’s center stood a lavish bed with a dark-colored duvet and a tapestry spread out over the back wall, too shadowed to see. A desk was beside the entrance, the wood dark in color, its straight grain and shaded streaks suggestive of walnut if Amma’s eyes were seeing it right in the dim light. She stepped off to the side to allow the guards entrance behind her.
