I wish that I could bypass this part altogether. I wish I could skip the disappointment and the anger of my high priest and go retrieve the scroll I found in the archives. I want so badly to bring it to North—to see if it triggers the manifestation of the Lightbringer in his heart—that my whole body aches. I could be moments away from understanding my destiny, if only I didn’t have to answer to Daoman.
Quickening my steps, with the bindle cat matching them at a double-time trot, I stride toward the grand atrium. The stones are smooth and familiar, polished by centuries of feet traveling this way. Some say that this temple is so ancient it dates to a time before the Exodus, when the gods still lived among us, though there are no records that go so far back.
Still, every day that I’ve lived here, I’ve felt the weight of those centuries, the momentum of generations—I find it easy to believe those stories could be true.
I’m expecting the atrium to be empty, but when Pecho and one of Daoman’s servants scramble to open the door ahead of me, I find it’s full of people, their heads turning to stare at me as if connected to one long string.
Daoman is in his throne-like chair near the center of the dais, resplendent as always, speaking to a middle-aged woman in fine robes. His gaze flies up to land on me, and he rises to his feet and spreads his arms in a gesture of thanks and greeting. “Divine One!” he calls in ringing tones. “Thank the prophecies, you have returned to us. We feared the worst.”
The woman he’s speaking to turns, and I have only a moment to notice the strips of gray silk tied like armbands just below her shoulders. Her eyes meet mine briefly before she’s turning away, melting back into the crowd.
In front of so many onlookers, I can’t demand an explanation. I can’t reveal any insecurity or fear, or alert the spectators if there’s any chance they didn’t notice what I did: that my high priest was speaking to a Graycloak.
The heads follow me as I stride up the corridor lined with flowers and braziers thickening the air with incense. The chamber is filled with saffron-robed priests, with visiting dignitaries and their retinues bearing the colors and heraldry of their regions, with the members of the Congress of Elders glittering with gold and jewels.
Daoman leans over in an elaborate bow as I approach. His eyes leave my face only for the barest second, however, before he’s watching me again.
In the past, as a child, I was more than content for the high priest to run this temple and see to the needs of my people. I never knew a father, except for this man before me, and the older and lonelier I became, the more he would remind me that if I could not play with the other children, could not laugh and talk with my handservants as if they were my friends, it was because I was special.
Special. Chosen.Divine, he would say, a light in his dark blue eyes that sparked some light in me, brought it out from beneath the layers of sadness and isolation.
But with each year that passes, with each step I try to take beyond the walls of this temple and each word I voice in opposition to his decrees, I see a little more. I see that there is a tension between us—that there always has been. That as long as I never manifest my aspect, never rise to my full divinity and command the absolute loyalty of my priests and my people,heis the one who has the power.
Now, as I give him no flicker of reaction to read, I sense it all the more. For a man like Daoman, power is absolute, or it is nothing. This chamber, his greeting, the audience packed into its walls like fish in a salting barrel—it’s all staged.
I give him a gracious nod as he straightens from his bow. “Of course I have returned to you,” I reply, echoing his words. “Did you doubt that I would?”
Daoman’s brow furrows, and the glint in his eye softens. “Then … you do not know?” My face must give something away, some glimmer of the sudden fear that seizes me—has something happened here too?—because the high priest is uncharacteristically quick to add, “One of your guards arrived just this morning, Divine One, and brought word of what happened. Elkisa believed she was the only survivor.”
Now my face gives everything away. I have to grip my spearstaff, its end planted firmly on the stone, to keep my knees from buckling, earning me an inquisitive chirp from the cat beside me. “Elkisa—she’s alive?” The words are a whisper, relief building behind some dam of disbelief, of fearing to hope.
“She is,” Daoman replies. His voice is quieter now, and dimly I hear the soft lapping of hushed conversation as those at the back of the chamber try to find out what’s being said. “She was looking for you at the time of the attack—she said you had gone for a walk. She searched for you, but could not find you… .”
To wipe away the tears in my eyes would be to betray their presence to those behind me—so Daoman, and only he, can see them glimmering there in my lashes, turning every lamp and brazier into haloed stars. At my side, the bindle cat leans heavily against my leg, rumbling a slow, insistent purr.
The high priest takes a step down from the dais, although of course he does not approach me. “We must have you examined by a healer, Divine One.”
I shake my head. “I am well. I had assistance on my travels.”
Daoman’s eyebrows rise. “Oh? There was another survivor among your guards? I knew you would not have been so foolish as to wander alone.” His smile is thin, his eyes cool.
He knows about North already.
He knows it was no guard who escorted me back, that I did indeed leave the safety of camp alone. And he wants to force me to admit that in front of all my people, many of whom were involved in the decision not to grant me permission to leave the temple in the first place. Many of whom know I did so against the high priest’s orders.
I smile back at Daoman. “Surely you do not think only my guards would be concerned for my safety?” The murmuring behind me is growing louder, as it always does in a crowd this size—one person speaking makes another feel safe to do so, and another, and on and on until soon I won’t be able to hear my own thoughts.
“Come,” I say, cutting off whatever the high priest would have said, and stepping past him toward the inner sanctum beyond the audience chamber. Here, in front of all these witnesses, I can get away with such peremptory behavior. In private … in private, the dance is far more delicate. “I will tell you what you wish to know.”
Daoman has no choice but to bow low as I pass, and then, with a few muttered words to those priests nearest him, he follows me through the filmy curtains, and then the thick, gilded door.
No sooner do the doors close behind us than the high priest strides past me. “Divine One,” he says, voice pitched now for the quieter conversation between two people rather than a performed one in front of a crowd. “Please sit, rest. Allow me to prepare you a drink while you tell me about your … adventure.”
I ignore the loaded pause before that final word and make my way to one of the low divans that surround the bright, mosaic-tiled table around which I’ve spent so many years learning from—and arguing with—Daoman. The moment I sink down onto the deep blue cushion, the cat jumps up beside me and drapes himself over my thigh, kneading at my other leg with vigor.
I ought to refuse Daoman’s tonic, ought to maintain my aura of strength and calm—I ought to keep playing the game. But I’m tired, and grief and joy are tangled in my heart because Elkisa is alive—and the others are still dead. And so I let my shoulders sag, and I lean my spearstaff against the arm of the divan, and I heave a sigh as I curl my fingers through the bindle cat’s long, silky fur.
“Who were you speaking to, Daoman?” My voice is low, but the words are anything but soft. When I lift my head, his hands have stopped moving, long fingers resting on the stopper of a decanter.
