“Fine,” I replied, shoulders slumping. “But I want updates every evening.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where is Olympia?”
“She said grandmother gave her another task this evening.”
I nodded. Knowing Olympia and my grandmother, that was as much of an explanation as I could expect.
“It didn’t take you all day to copy this letter,” I said, waving the piece of paper in the air as I headed back to my desk and settled in again. “So you read the journal.”
“Some of it,” Pax answered.
“And?”
“The early pages were all standard patriarch records. He talked about resource allocation, Upper Ring infighting, politicsand marriages. He was meticulous. Olympia and I skipped past a lot of detail. He was only a few years into his reign when he started hearing the voice. He thought it was one of the Geist communicating with him again like they were rumored to have communicated with our ancestors. He considered himself a chosen prophet, became pious, and started praying all the time. His family noticed the change but, as there didn’t seem to be an advantage for them in it, mostly ignored it. After a while, the voice started giving him commands. That’s the first time he questioned it.”
“What sort of commands?”
“Strange ones. Things that didn’t seem to matter all that much. Go here at this time, eat that, sit there, just little things that didn’t seem to alter anything at all. Then they started getting more detailed, more complex, and he started to really doubt that the voice in his head was anything divine. He started to believe he was going insane.”
I folded my hands and rested my chin atop them as I lost myself in contemplation. A man who believed he was hearing commands from the gods suddenly starts to doubt their intentions. It went against everything I’d ever learned about our ancestors who, for all intents and purposes, had seemed to always follow any orders perceived to have come from the gods without hesitation.
“That was all we had time to read before they kicked us out because it was getting too late,” Pax finished. “I informed Jude I’d be back first thing in the morning with an acolyte in tow. Olympia told me to go ahead because she had things to take care of for grandmother anyway, but I wanted to seek your permission as well.”
I was already nodding before he finished, still lost in thought regarding the idea of a man who’d been fully conscious of his mind slipping as he descended into madness. How utterlyterrifying it must have been, knowing you were going insane but being unable to stop it, hearing a voice in your mind which claimed to be a deity. I wasn’t unfamiliar with the sensation of hearing another’s voice in my mind. No one who completed the First Trial was. I wasn’t sure of Eximius’ record in the trials but almost every First Ringer passed the First which meant he was likely aware of the sensation as well. But this had been entirely different. How?
Paxon left while I pondered the matter. I hardly noticed he was gone until the door clicked shut behind him and my eyes darted up to the wood panelling.
Grandfather wants a symbolic wedding,Isla’s voice entered my mind again in a way that was becoming alarmingly unobtrusive.The morning of the Culling.
I blew out a breath and closed my eyes.
He agreed,I replied. It wasn’t a question. I knew he would.
I hope you’re a better husband than you are a Trials partner, Milo.
Chapter Fourteen
Olympia
Everyone, even Cosmo, had a soft spot for the acolyte.
He’d converted a seldom used garden shed into a private office for Bria and had even built out a hallway between it and the main house so she could come and go more easily. Luckily for me, he’d sacrificed security for the gesture.
It was nearly one in the morning by the time I pushed open the unlit old door and stepped in among dusty books and simple desks. The hour was late enough that there was no one around. Acolytes weren’t as studious as my cousin, apparently. I eyed an oil lamp as I passed, reaching out to brush the surface of the glass with my fingertips to find it not even warm. It had been a while since anyone had been here.
Staying within the shadows as best as I could, I made my way through the connecting hallway and paused in front of the door at the end. The room on the other side, likely one of the back sitting parlors, was so bright I could see the glow around every crack in the door. Voices were drifting out from beyond. I muttered a curse before pressing my ear to the wood. Maybe Iwouldn’t be gaining entry into the house itself tonight but that didn’t mean I couldn’t overhear a bit of gossip instead.
“-cannot believe Myrine said that to you,” a woman exclaimed on the other side. From my vantage point, I couldn’t see her, and I didn’t want to risk pushing the door open slightly to get a glimpse, but it sounded like the voice of one of Dante’s aunts I’d met on many occasions before, Milania. “She’s getting rather high and mighty these days, isn’t she? She was always insufferable before but now she’s practically unbearable.”
“You’d be the same way if your son beat all ten trials,” another woman challenged. I didn’t recognize her voice at all.
A third woman giggled at that.
“She’d be so much worse,” she added, still snickering.
“My son would never be paired with a Third Ringer,” Milania snapped. “Can you imagine the shame? I thought Cosmo was going to beat my poor nephew half to death when he came back from the First Trial. The acolytes really had their work cut out for them covering all those bruises.”
