“Uh huh.” Amma led him to the threshold in the long, stone wall that made up the temple’s front. There were no windows, the blocks old, but newly painted and brilliantly white, and along the base of the wall sprouted lavender bushes, still hearty even in the cold. She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, you can do this. You probably won’t even catch on fire when you set foot on the hallowed ground.”
Damien grunted at her gentle laughter, but it was the push he needed, and together they stepped through. He expected to be taken by nausea or a piercing pain in his brain like in Durendreg, but he only felt an intense trepidation as they entered a small but formal space filled with candles along every wall.
The room was wide, two exits along its back but no windows, the candles’ glow flickering over the white stone. A statue, presumably of Isldrah, presided over the temple’s foyer, climbing up to the ceiling just in the room’s center. It was a massive and intricate thing, depicting a woman twice as tall as any human. She stood beneath a tree, the branches coiling out over the entirety of the room’s ceiling and filled with doves.
But stepping closer to the goddess’s carving showed him that they were not doves but all manner of birds sculpted out of the light-colored stone. Yes, there was a dove that sat daintily on Isldrah’s hand, but also there sat a sparrow on her shoulder, an owl in the tree’s hollow, fat chickens gathering at her feet, one of those round-bodied, flippered servants that King Wil of the fae had conjured hidden amongst them. He continued to search, eyes pinging from bird to bird, until he found a raven. Perched on a branch and peering down at him, there was no confusingits breed even carved from white stone—he had conjured Corben enough times to know—and it was still counted as one of Isldrah’s flock.
“People come here to pray for ill loved ones,” Amma whispered to him, pointing to a basin filled with slips of parchment. Beside it sat another basin with seeds and small fruits.
“And she answers?” He gestured to the statue with his chin.
“I imagine so, if you have the right medicine.” Amma tugged his arm as a priest entered from deeper inside the temple. He nodded to them with a wide smile, then continued outside without questioning their presence.
Together they went through the opening he had used, and it led down a corridor that was much brighter, sunlight streaming in through open archways on either side of it, walled courtyards beyond. Despite the chill of coming winter, there was greenery here, and the open spaces were filled with birdbaths, ornamental trees, fruiting bushes, and priestesses tending to the plants.
Slowly, they began down the open hall, another room at the long corridor’s far end. “Perhaps she is not here,” said Damien, the words thick in his throat. “I don’t know why I thought she absolutely would be. Maybe it would be best to come back later or to request someone else to deliver her a message—”
“Uh, Damien?” Amma’s grip on his arm went tight, and she brought him to a stop. “I don’t think we’ll have to do that.” Her finger was pointing subtly to a decorative archway that led to a courtyard central to the temple. A woman stood there, adding water to a lifted basin—a woman with hair as black as night coiled around the back of her head. When she felt their gazes on her and glanced up, her eyes were the same color Damien had always seen in the mirror.
The last of the priestess’s water was poured, but she remained unmoving with her jug even as a sparrow came to landon the edge of the basin for a drink. Damien stared unblinking at Diana—because that’s who this was, he knew it as surely as anything else on this and every other plane—and only when Amma gave him a little shove did he remember to breathe.
“Go on,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ll give you privacy. If you need me, just call.”
Damien took a staggered step forward, boot falling off the stone walkway and onto the softness of the earth. Her mouth moved, and though no sound came out, he had seen his name on Amma’s lips enough to know it was what Diana was whispering to herself. Another step, more soft earth, a wobble in his stomach, but if he stopped he might turn and flee, so he continued on until he was standing just before her.
The jug fell to the ground, and the woman threw arms around him. Damien didn’t move—he wasn’t exactly sure what he was meant to do when his mother hugged him because it had been so long—but then every muscle in his body relaxed. His mother was embracing him. Hismother.
“You were dead,” a voice said into his ear. A voice that he suddenly could hear in his memory singing him to sleep. “Because of my betrayal,” she was saying, still holding him. “I didn’t want to believe them, my heart had given you up, but, oh, my sweet boy.” Sweet? Damien? Well, she’d not known him for the last twenty-three years.
His breath was shallow, afraid too much movement would make her disappear, but he glanced down to the top of her head. Black hair, as Lycoris had said, just like his own, but there was a thick streak of silver running from her temple and through the braids woven around her crown.
She pulled back, but her hands gripped his upper arms firmly. “When I was told you may be alive, I couldn’t allow myself that hope.” Her fingers were long and her hands corded, arms muscled, but then he had always rememberedher being strong, lifting him so easily from the floor, carrying him everywhere, spinning him about and laughing. She was a warrior, he now knew, if his father had been honest about her original intent in Aszath Koth, and though she wore the simple robes of a priestess, they were fitted for easy movement, cowl down and hood pushed back, sleeves short and the skirt split, leggings and boots worn beneath. “But he told me, he said to be prepared for your coming, and it’s true.”
Damien raised his eyes to her face. Violet irises bore into him, glazed and reflecting his own fear. Nowthatwas not how he ever remembered her. Though he never could truly recall her face, as it stared back the sharp angles and fine features seemed like they should have been held serenely. But they were hollow now and bent with a kind of fear.
“Who?” Damien’s voice cracked on the single word, but his mind sharpened at hearing it, reminding him he was there and not in a dream even as another bird landed beside them in a bush flowering with berries. “Who said I was coming?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she shook her head, corner of her mouth ticking up. “You’re here, and you’re alive, and you’re…you’re so old.”
Damien glanced down at his hands, trembling slightly. Well, that wasn’t very becoming. He squeezed them into tight fists. “I’m only twenty-seven.”
“Twenty…” Diana’s eyes looked past him, staring into the middle distance, and then she bent and retrieved the jug from the ground. Seeing that it was empty, she gestured for Damien to follow, and crossed the courtyard to a fountain, massive and elegant and spouting water so crystalline that it reflected every color in its flow over tiered edges.
“Did you say I was dead?” Damien asked, tearing his gaze from the beauty of the rainbows in the water.
Diana held her jug beneath a stream, drawing a symbol overher chest with a free hand, one that must have been for her goddess. “So small, so innocent,” she whispered. “The both of you.” Diana took a drink from the jug, and then her eyes flashed back to him, glassy with tears but a grin on her face. “But you’re not—you’re here. Tell me, how did you escape being locked away in that awful place?”
He swallowed—she must have meant Aszath Koth.
“Is that when this happened to you?” Her hand went to his face but did not touch him, fingers moving slightly like they would have run down his scar.
Damien shook his head—that would be a discussion for another time, if ever—and he glanced around at the courtyard. It was like spring there, the colors and sun brighter, and he began to feel a pressure building in his temples. He cleared his throat. “So, uh, you’re a priestess?”
She nodded, offering him the jug. “Yes. I serve Isldrah, and she has blessed me with great power. Though, while I am in mourning, my duties are being carried out by the others and the Osurehm priests who have come to help in this trying time.”
Damien declined the water though his throat was dry. “You’re in mourning?”
“For you,” she said, and her body seemed to shrink as she gripped the jug tighter. “But my son is not dead. It was my penance for betraying the gods that you were, but through my service and devotion, you are alive again. Yet you’ve lost so much time.”
