He stuffed the shard back away, but her disgusted look did not dissolve. “Well, so am I. You must feel that too.”
She smoothed her hands over her robes as if wiping something off of them, and then her body went stiff. “He said if you came that this would also happen.”
Damien’s mounting confusion and the throb in his temple bled into anger. “Who is thisheyou keep speaking of?”
Diana only reached into a pocket in her robes. A chain hung from her hand, and when she flipped it over, a jagged and cloudy gem cast Damien’s reflection back at him.
“Where in the Abyss did you get that?” He took a step back, hands going up in defense but empty.
Her eyes finally met his again, hollow. “Son, I am sorry.”
“Why would you apologize?” Damien asked, a quiver in his voice. Her face had gone hard, the pendant in hand, and the pulse in the temple thrummed through him. Damien forgot in that moment that he had his own arcana, noxscura not even coming to his aid unbidden. He forgot everything, in fact, that he was good, that he was evil, that he was a man with magic and strength and power, and when he heard his own voice he forgoteven that he could speak. “Why are you sorry, mom?”
“Transgressions still must be paid.” Her hand tightened around the pendant, and there was a squeeze in Damien’s chest as if his heart were being smothered. “Evil must be cleansed.”
CHAPTER 28
CLERICAL ERRORS
Amma clasped her hands together, watching. She’d ducked behind the edge of the archway, toes fidgeting in her boots, saying silent prayers to whichever gods might be listening, dark ones included.Be kind to him, she thought, eyeing the woman,or I will raze this temple to the ground.
But the priestess who looked so like Damien was hugging him, and though he stood awkwardly beneath the embrace, his mother had accepted him. Amma pressed a hand over her mouth to hold in the cheer she wanted to squeal out. It was not perfect andcouldstill go bad, she reminded herself, but she would put all of her hope into things working out.
She watched for another long moment and then began to feel odd, like perhaps even at this distance where she couldn’t hear them, it was untoward to pry. Amma carefully walked the length of the corridor, glancing back to see them as they crossed the courtyard to a fountain in its center.
Amma hadn’t noticed it before, but the structure was gorgeous, the water so clear, and at its top hovered an arcane depiction of a bird. The relic was made to look as though it was constantly in flight above the water’s spout, giving off a gentle, blue glow. Beneath it, Damien and the priestess, Diana he had said his mother’s name was, were deep in conversation.
Amma tore her gaze away and peeked out into the other courtyard. A pair of bluebirds flitted around one another, coming to land side by side on the branch of a dogwood, curiously still in bloom with white petals. Beneath it sat a woman in robes, needle and fabric in hand as she sewedpeacefully in the sun, grinning down at her work. Amma had never been that happy when she was embroidering, but then she was similarly not interested in studying and serving the gods like these women presumably were.
A short stroll down the rest of the corridor brought her to another room of the temple, large with plenty of windows for light. A few tables were scattered in the space, and acolytes studied there together. Amma grinned, thinking of Perry and the Osurehm exams. They would be soon, and she wondered if he would be making his way to Eirengaard. A pang in her stomach told her she hoped he had somehow talked Laurel out of it, the potential danger in the capital making her uneasy, but they would stop it—whatever it was—she was sure.
No one gave Amma a second look, but the first that the acolytes did give her was quite enough. They each grinned and nodded, and she thought it was meant to be welcoming and kind, but it was a little weird. When they went back to their work, she took it as permission to wander through the bookcases there. Medical texts and herbal recipes lined the walls, and she ran fingers over spines, the smell of the thick, old tomes reminding her of the Grand Athenaeum and then of Damien’s arms around her as they hid inside it, her stomach fluttering.
She’d told him she loved him, and she’d never meant anything more. The vows that were made in the temple she stood in were but pithy nothings in comparison to her own oath. Amma ran a finger down the spine of some text, tingles shooting up her arm and into her chest. He’d confessed to loving her as well, a thing she hadn’t truly expected. What it meant, she didn’t know, but for now, it was simply a quiet truth that they could share, and that was enough.
She took another deep breath of the pungent books, and there was something else, a scent that tickled at a memory, but not a good one. It came into her mind with panic, but shecould only identify incense, a thing she had smelled many times, and perhaps a blacksmith? She found herself following it, fear being overridden by the more intense familiarity, to a narrow hall amongst the shelves. Where…where had she smelled that before?
“…delivered by the eclipse.”
Amma came to a stop. Another voice spoke from down the hall, too muffled to hear, but then the first responded much too familiarly.
“No need. She will prepare him.”
Gilead.
Amma turned and ran. How in the Abyss Gilead was there, she had no idea, but her boots would take her back to Damien, she would grab him and his mother, they would all flee as far from the temple, from Orrinshire, from the entire realm if need be, and then a squeezing in Amma’s chest brought her to her knees.
The talisman. She slapped a hand over her heart, feeling the twinge of the stone inside her. Something had happened to Damien, she just knew it, and she stumbled as she tried to regain her footing.
A hand took her by the arm, and another was at her other side, questions of concern in her ears and white robes converging on her. Amma pulled away to be free of them, but there were so many. Panic took her, and she swung an elbow into a woman’s face with a sickening crack. The sound brought the friendly frenzy at her sides to a halt, and even Amma stopped her wild flailing. These were priestesses of Isldrah, the goddess of health, and she had just collapsed in front of them—of course they only wanted to help.
“Gods, I’m sorry, but I must—”
The priestess turned back to her, blood dripping from her nose, but that was not what made Amma’s own blood go cold.It was the priestess’s face itself, the too-wide grin across it, the impassive, unobstructed elation still plastered on her face despite the assault.
The rest of the acolytes moved then, each offering her to sit, to breathe, to relax, every single one smiling too wide to be real. Multiple cups and jugs were being thrust at Amma, each filled with that water that was almost too beautiful to consume.
Don’t drink the wine unless you’d like to end up a mindless devotee like them.
