I take a deep breath. I don’t like it, but I don’t make his choices any more than he makes mine. “Fine. Together, then.”
Zan’s eyes flash, visibly darkening for a moment, before he nods.
I take one last bite of ice cream—itwon’tbe my last, but it’s a reminder going into this of what I have to fight for.
Not just my and Zan’s freedom, but ourjoy.
We leave it behind and go outside, closing the door behind us.
The priests are just coming up from the path, but my eyes are all for the two people whose uniforms don’t match the rest.
One is clearly still a priest, but a high-ranked one, judging by the red accents lining his robes. He’s older and grizzled and severe.
A danger. But his type, I know well.
He’s the kind of person who raised me—trapped me.
So I am already predisposed against him, but whether that makes me more able to deal with him or more susceptible to him remains an open question.
Still, it’s the other that draws my attention.
She wears a pristine white outer robe that is tailored to fit her lithe form. Rather than keeping her hair contained for battle, it flows loose and wavy—as though she is allowed to express herself.
Or, as though no true duress is expected to befall her; as though she is not trusted to be responsible for anything that matters.
As though the image of her matters more than the substance.
And as they approach, she rushes forward.
“Sister!” she cries in apparent delight. “The tales were true!”
The priest in charge rapidly signals to the cohort behind her back.
Being on my guard hadnotprepared me for someone who apparently planned a full frontal assault in hug form, but the movements of the priests behind her give me cover.
Instinct takes over, and I shift into a defensive form before the sage can arrive.
Revealing that I know katas, yes, but that ship already sailed when I defended Zan before.
The sage stops abruptly, her face flashing with hurt—like can’t I see she was just trying to be welcoming, and this is how I repay her?
Yikes, Zan was right. Thisisnew for me.
Maybe it’s feigned, but even so, it puts me in the position of looking likeI’mthe one who’s unreasonable and belligerent.
Damn it. I wanted to play it safe and not commit, letting them reveal themselves. But now I have to say something or else cede control of the narrative, which is infinitely more dangerous to me than their actual combat abilities.
“I don’t know you,” I say to the sage, “and you’ll forgive me, but the last priests who visited Celestial Sanctuary were hostile toward me. Would you introduce yourselves, please?”
“Oh, but that was a misunderstanding!” she assures me. “They would never have hurt asage.”
Her bright yellow eyes—sageeyes—are wide and apparently guileless.
She’s older than Teren and I, I think, but not quite Nomi’s age, somewhere in between. An adult, but not as young as she makes herself seem.
But she’s not looking at Zan, and I’m sure we both know full well they’d have hurthim.
“We have so much to catch up on, sister,” the sage continues before I can decide how to respond to such a wildly misleading argument. “May we come in? I’d love to talk without all the—” she waves her hand “—formalities, you know?”
