‘Gods, they weren’t lying.’ Izill smiled sadly at her. ‘You’re quite a mystery, indeed.’
She wasn’t used to being spoken about, used to being looked at or considered by anyone at all. Something about it made her skin crawl to know she’d been the topic of conversation inside the Citadel. While she’d been utterly gone to this world … forthree damned days,unable to tell her side of the story.
‘Whatever the case, you’ve Sacred blood,’ Izill said. ‘No one, and I meanno one,can enter the Citadel without it. You don’t see anynomageswalking the halls, now, do you?’
‘No?’ Ezer said.
She hadn’t had the chance to consider that.
But now that she thought about it …
It was only the Sacred. The Scribes, the Knights, the Eagleminders. Even the Null servants, for though they were the only ones not to have magic …
They still had Sacred blood.
Another little mystery unfolded before her, and it was one she’d never discovered in the pages of her books.
Ezer supposed she should have been shocked.
But she wasn’t. She knew the stories of those who’d defected, not to join the Acolyte, but to leave the ways of the Sacred entirely. It was either for love or fear or a need to live out one’s life without the pressing weight of the Sacred laws.
She couldn’t imagine the sheer weight of living soperfectlyall the time, beyond the one damned day of Absolution to blow off a month’s worth of steam. Perhaps it was why she’d seen such fear in Arawn’s eyes, when faced with the reality of failing.
That wasn’t living. It wasmarching,always to the beat of someone else’s orders.
‘Can you tell me where I am?’ Ezer asked, changing the subject, because it was too heavy to bear in the moment. Too much to process, in such little time.
‘Tower of Dhysis,’ Izill said matter-of-factly. ‘Shared dormitories line every floor of this tower. If you want yourownquarters, you’d have to be of advanced Sacred status. Most of them are in their thirties by now. The Masters grant them more privacy than us. Makes the rapid decline … less intrusive, I suppose.’
A terrible thing, the toll magic took on a Sacred after time.
‘And how, exactly, did I get here?’
‘You’re a guest of the princes,’ said a voice from just behind them.
They both whirled to find Zey, the Eagleminder.
‘Andyou,’she said pointedly to Izill, ‘are not supposed to be here, Izill.’
‘My orders are to clean your dorm. It says nothing specifically about how long it takes me, nor what I’m permittedto do in the in-between. But if you must know, I’ve been reassigned.’
‘To what?’ Zey growled.
Izill shrugged. ‘To her.’
‘What?’ Ezer spun to face her again when she realized Izill was speaking abouther.
A servant. For a Ravenminder?
‘The prince wants you to have an attendant,’ Izill explained with a smile. ‘Someone to help escort you throughout the Citadel, and help you learn the ways.’
Zey barked out a laugh. ‘That’s preposterous. She doesn’t belong here.’
‘She belongs as well as you,’ Izill said, as Zey practically snarled like a hungry lion.
Ezer had no clue how long the Eagleminder had been standing there, but she had her arms crossed over her full chest, a pale brow raised in disapproval. Lovely, buttery yellow waves tumbled over her shoulders now that her braid had been let loose, and despite the chill, she wore a sleeveless tunic to reveal the fine muscles on her toned arms.
Ezer swallowed.
