I whirled to find the same priest from before. The one who'd stared at me, wide-eyed and stunned, when I'd fallen through his ceiling. He was bowing to me now, the long billowing sleeves of his white robes scraping against the stone beneath him.
“I didn't know anyone was here,” he explained, backing toward the exit.
“Wait,” I said and he froze. “What did you call me?”
“Chosen,” he repeated. “Your success in the Trials indicates the gods have chosen you for a great fate. The word is used in some of our most ancient texts.”
Chosen. Fallen. Betrayed.There seemed to be quite a few titles for what I'd become. I glanced around me at the dark shrine, the candlelight flickering upon the coarse stone, the rusted and worn artifacts from days long gone.
“Great fate,” I scoffed. “The gods have thrown me in a hole to wither away for all eternity. This isn't my fate, priest. It's my grave.”
The priest flinched.
“You have been chosen to lead,” he tried, eyes flashing with confusion, as if he truly didn’t understand. “You have been sent for us—”
“Have you ever seen the sun?” I snapped and his lips fell closed. “Do you have a family, friends, people who love you?”
“The gods love me.”
“Is this love?”
I threw out my hands, gesturing not only at the pathetic little shrine set up to worship gods who had forgotten him long ago, but to all of the Underground as well.
“You're no more than slaves to yourgods,” I spat the last word with all the disdain I could muster. “You work all day every day for a society that lives in ignorance of your existence. You scuttle through dark tunnels like rats, wasting away without sunlight or fresh air. I read the manual Tiberius gave me. There’s a reason the life expectancy here hardly surpasses middle age, a reason the only old people here are the immortal ones. We weren't made to live in darkness, priest. You would think gods of light might understand that.”
With a final hiss, I stormed past him, out of the temple and back into the hall beyond. I wasn’t sure what I'd expected. It wasn’t as if that dark spiraling void was going to reveal a way back. That way was closed to me. There would be no rising back from the depths into which I'd fallen and no sending word to the people above. There had to be another way. I would just have to find it.
“There you are,” someone snapped, their tone curt and obviously displeased.
I sighed before I even looked up, already knowing who waited to scold me.
“I’m not in the mood today, Tiberius,” I groaned but stopped short when I realized he wasn’t alone.
The giant man stood with his arms crossed, expression set firmly in a glower. Behind him stood two more men, both of their hands straying toward the swords at their belts. The motion made me remember them. They'd been there the day I arrived. They'd come with Tiberius when the priest had run to fetch him. They wore the same gray of the supervisors but not a loose fitting jumpsuit. Theirs were molded leather armor over tighter fitting pants which allowed for freer movement. Their sleeves stopped at their triceps, revealing the ten solid bands on their arms beneath. My gaze rose to meet the one’s nearest me and his jaw clenched.
“You’re Fallen too,” I said dumbly, blinking at them.
“Did you think it was only the two of us?” Tiberius asked, raising a brow as if amused by my ignorance. “After two thousand years? Please, Adrian, you aren’t that special.”
I snarled but kept my attention on his men.
“Who are you?” I asked them.
“I'mMosi,” the one farther away spoke. His skin was dark and his head shaved. He had piercings from cartilage to helix on his left ear and one single stud in his right. His voice was like moltenhoney and his dark eyes flashed with danger when he spoke. “This isRoiben.”
Mosinodded his head to his companion, a tall man with nearly as many muscles as Tiberius but not nearly as large. He was much paler than his companions, his eyes a murky gray that narrowed in my direction as a strand of the dark hair he kept bound behind his neck fell forward.
“Does he speak?” I inquired, crossing my arms in an effort to appear unimpressed.
Roibensimply growled at me, a low tone that sent chills straight to my toes.
“He prefers not to,”Mosianswered with a smile.
“Enough introductions,” Tiberius snapped, impatient as always. “We have work to do.”
“Work?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Come.”
