He disappears in a whirl of snow and frost, spinning a cold draft through the room.
I drop back on my pillow, dread filling my tired bones. Because tomorrow, it appears I’m raising a god from the dead.
65
RAINA
The next morning, I wake to a maidservant cleaning our room.
I drag the covers over my chest and look at Alexus, on his stomach, face pressed into a soft pillow, still sleeping soundly. He’s stretched out like a golden god on the bed, a sheet barely covering his backside.
The maidservant sneaks a look at him, and I can’t help but laugh inwardly. If I were her, I’d sneak a look too.
When she sees me watching her, she startles and straightens from picking up Alexus’s trousers from the floor. “Forgive me, miss,” she says, her emotive brows drawn upward in the middle with great concern. “There was a disturbance last night?”
I look over the room, remembering, and my face heats. Books have toppled from the bookshelves to the floor, a chair is overturned, the sheers covering the windows are blown up in a tangle above the cornice, every painting that had been neatly hung on the walls sits oddly crooked, the desk was rattled askew by several feet, and I can’t even look at we did to this bed.
I can’t answer her, but Alexus wakes at the sound of her voice. I wait for him to reply, but then he turns over, groggy, and as if matters couldn’t get worse, his morning erection tents the sheet.
The maid’s eyes go round, and she swallows. “I’ll just… I’ll just go. Should you need me, dear, ring the bell outside the door.” She turns and rushes toward the hall, but then turns back around, her wide eyes fixed on me as Alexus stretches, still oblivious to being an utter spectacle. “Oh, forgive me,” the maid says, “but the queen requested to see you and your sister today. For a visit to the Hall of Holies.”
At that, Alexus finally, truly stirs. He turns toward me and wraps his arm around my waist, dragging his naked leg up my thigh. “You’ll enjoy that,” he says, his voice deep and sleepy.
I nod at the maid, and she turns and rushes out the door.
I shove at Alexus’s shoulder, laughing and so embarrassed. I feel him smile against my arm. “I like sensing you again. Such mortification is a delight.”
My mouth drops open. “You were not embarrassed at all!”
He chuckles and pulls the sheet back, revealing a still very eager erection. “Should I be?” he asks.
“Not at all.” I sign.
He pulls me on top of him, pushes into me, and once more, we take one another with unbridled hunger, though we avoid rattling the city this time. Afterward, I leave him to sleep while I go find Nephele.
“What do you think this is about?” Nephele asks me as we head down to the main entry of the palace where we were told our horses await. My sister’s nerves are still as visible as they were last night.
“Mother, I suppose?” I sign, and though that should’ve been the first thought on Nephele’s mind, it clearly wasn’t.
Fia and two guards are waiting with the horses in the street near the main entrance. She’s holding the reins and rubbing the horse’s mane, which seems somewhat at odds with how I would’ve imagined about a queen. She’s dressed less formally today. More like us, in leggings, dust-covered boots, and a tunic. Her hair is braided back, and she still wears the torques at her neck and wrists.
She smiles as we descend the palace’s stone steps, the sun already beating down. “Good morning.” She bows her head to each of us. “I thought you might like to see some of your mother’s past.”
We smile gratefully and nod, then we mount our horses and follow Fia and two guards into the city.
The Hall of Holies is a long, rectangular sandstone building to the southeast of the city. When we enter, I have a dozen images in my mind as to what it might be like, but it’s far simpler than I expected. To a degree, it reminds me of the School of Night and Dawn from Alexus’s dreams. The Queziran school is very similar to Min-Thuret, though smaller.
The Hall of Holies is comparable in that it houses a school, dormitories, a grand library, an observatory, a massive dining hall for students, scholars, and magi, and an archival hall.
Fia shows us the very room where our mother lived during her time here. We step inside the tiny space now filled with someone else’s life, but it feels good to be here. To be close to her. To know some of her truth that she felt she couldn’t share.
We leave there, and Fia takes us to the library next, where our mother would’ve spent most of her time. I walk past books and scrolls and maps and documents thinking about how much fun it would’ve been to have visited this place with her, or to ask her questions about this part of the world and fall into a deep conversation filled with her knowledge. It would’ve been so good.
Fia motions for us to follow her to a small table where we sit. No one here bothers her, and again, I’m moved by the respect her people show her. They revere her, obviously, but there’s a feeling of oneness that assures me that Fia Drumera is a people’s queen.
She threads her fingers atop the table and looks at me. “Raina, I wanted to chat with you about something Alexus shared with me.”
I nod and gesture for her to continue, of course.
