Marco caught the door before she could close it in his face. “We’ve been given direct orders not to leave Mila’s side.” Holstering his weapon, he moved to enter the tight room.
One elegant, silver-blonde brow raised, the Head Priestess glanced around. “And where, might I ask, do you intend to sit as you guard her safety from inside a windowless room, in the heart of General Tilcot’s estate?”
“I, uhh—” Marco blushed, pushing a fist through the mussy hair at the back of his head.
“You know that’s not what he meant, Sasha,” Gabe said, calm yet firm, maintaining eye contact as he hovered on the threshold.
A flicker of something made of steel gleamed in icy blue eyes. “The training of a young priestess—let alone an empath—is a sacred thing requiring a peaceful environment free of distractions. I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible for any of you to be here for this.”
Marco shifted with an uneasy look. “We’ve got our orders, Sasha.”
“And I’ve got mine from General Harper Tilcot, whom I believe outranks a mere captain. But you’re more than welcome to interrupt his day to find out. Or go stand guard outside the door,” she said, “where you can easily do both. I can assure you, Mila will be perfectly safe behind this unlocked door.”
Casting a final, uneasy glance at each other, the soldiers shuffled back. And the last thing I saw before the Head Priestess closed a flimsy barrier between us and them, was the brilliant green of Alicia’s eyes. Intense, as if trying to convey some hidden message I had no intention of heeding.
For a moment, there was the blessed ring of silence. Uncomfortable, but edged with a soft hum I thought to be peace.
“Please,” she said, and spread her hands toward a plush, if worn white chair. “Take a seat.”
“How do I get these fucking manacles off?” I snarled, shivering despite the lack of airflow in the tiny, warm space.
With a sigh, she settled into the only other piece of furniture in the room—a hard-backed wooden chair. “You can’t. Believe me,” she whispered, and folded her hands, “I’ve tried.”
A tremor started deep inside my chest. “Cantheytake them off, then?”
She didn’t bother to reply. Simply watched me pace from behind her desk.
And then, “You look… thin, Mila. Ragged.”
I curtsied, and the action was more brittle than the snappy, “Thank you,” that spattered over my lips. Shoulders bunched, I did another lap, the ache of tension making my jaw throb, for with every step, I could feel the pulse of tacky brine still oozing from where I’d been filled. Violated and ruined. My every jagged thought tracking back tohimas I fingered the crescent bruises beginning to purple on my shoulder. “If I can’t be free of the chains, then tell me how to kill him.”
The Head Priestess folded her hands. Lips thin and white before she said, “You can’t.”
“Then give me another solution, Head Priestess, because I can’t live with being his slave, and I won’t be a weapon for the empire. Iwon’t.” A tremor raced through my blood. Hot and ravenous, it twisted in my chest before I stilled, focused on her face with an unblinking stare. Lip curled. “Frankly, I don’t know how you’ve done it for so long.”
“Sasha,” she murmured, matching all that toxic fury with a placid stare that was serene. Utterly absent so much as a whisper of fear, she refused to rise to the challenge.
I blinked. “What?”
“Call me Sasha.” Her lips twitched around a fragile smirk. “I haven’t been the Head Priestess in five years. Sasha will suffice.”
Rolling my neck, I flexed my shoulder blades. “Fine, Sasha, how do I kill him?”
“You’re an empath,” she replied. “Bound to an elite.”
I resumed my pacing, hardly able to wait for her to finish evading the question.
“You’re tied to everything around you,” she went on, elaborating. Measuring her words at an agonizing pace. “To the captain now, too.Deeply.”
“Then it’ll be that much more satisfying to watch the life fade from his eyes,” I snarled, salivating at the thought of watching those inky, bottomless depths go flat and blank. Everything he was, extinguished.
She ignored me. “Every living thing has energy. A life force. Something only a priestess can touch,” she murmured, and stood. Taking a slow step, she mirrored my posture with one that was soothing. Muscles at ease. A leisurely stroll that opposed my erratic pacing. “It is our divine gift to touch the life around us and know what it is beneath. To redirect sickness and rot and give it new purpose.”
“I’m no healer,” I snapped. “By your account, I’m not even a priestess.”
She inclined her head, granting a point where it was due. “There was a reason for the temple, child. A good one. Priestesses feed on energy,” she said, and took a step around the edge of her desk. Breaking the pendulum pattern we’d fallen into. “It sustains us. Gives us great reserves with which we are tasked to offer aid. Comfort to the dying. Healing for those who might be saved. But we never,” she murmured, “take without restraint. Never too much from any one thing. There are rules that guide us. Protections set in place thousands of years before I was born—”
“To keep you from becoming me,” I guessed, breath coming hard as she moved to sit at the edge of her desk. Closer, but making no effort to touch.
