Get through the gates, or Kyrelle would make one reckless, self-sacrificing decision after another until both she and her father were dead. I’d known, even when I gave her the gold and entered the temple in her stead, that she would never leave her father. I’d seen the love between them, year after year, even as their already meager circumstances deteriorated.
I had never loved another nor been loved like that.
And after the pain I’d seen in Kyrelle’s eyes? I never wanted to.
I rolled over in the lumpy bed and fell asleep. By some blessing of the gods, my night was dreamless.
CHAPTER 14
The acolytes camefor us at first light. I was already awake. Judging by the surrounding sounds, most of the other supplicants were as well. The man I’d mistaken for Garrick the Red might have been the only one who’d slept well. I’d listened to him snore loudly most of the night from four beds down.
They lined us up in the dark. I was placed fourth, between Nimra and Rilk. Garrick was at the back, his looming presence impossible to ignore, though I did my best. He created a solid wall that separated me from the fae female who came last. At least if he was close, he’d have no chance to whisper my secret without my realizing it. I trusted his vow to keep it about as much as I did the cowering man behind me not to shove a dagger into my back. The cowardly could be just as dangerous as the cruel.
I scanned the acolytes as they led us out of the dormitory and into the temple proper. But they all had their hoods up and heads bent. I was only looking for Tomin because I wanted any last-minute information he might impart about the gate. I certainly was not looking for a friendly face I did not need.
We circled the perimeter of the temple, passing each altar as the acolytes began to chant. I sighed. My headache from the night before had only just faded.
“I was wrong,” Nimra whispered over her shoulder. “The red-haired one is named Nash.”
My gaze snapped to the front of the line, where a head of wine-red hair was easily visible over the hoods.
“I tried to stay away from him, but,” Nimra paused, looking away. “But he was insistent.”
So far that morning, my emotions had been limited to grim exhaustion and mild dread. But as suddenly as a lightning strike, rage unfurled in my stomach, sending icy spears of power shooting through my veins.
“What did he do?”
Nimra’s head whipped back over her shoulder. Her eyes widened enough that panic surged up alongside the rage. If my coven mark was glowing, even the priestess’ thick paste might not be enough.
But her attention focused on my eyes—and the dagger that was suddenly in my hand. I did not even recall pulling it from the sheath at my belt.
The procession slowed to a shuffle as the violet-clad priestess paused to perform some religious nonsense at each altar. Nimra’s eyes jumped between me, the acolytes on either side of us, and then ahead.
Human senses were too weak to smell fear. But I was not human. When she looked to the front of our line, it peeled off of her in waves. The warmth of the temple, the chanting of the acolytes, the scent of her fear… they pressed in on me, taking over my too-sensitive senses, making it hard to think, but too easy to feel.
I grabbed her arm. “What did he do?”
Nimra bit her bottom lip, but she did not flinch away. She might be scared, but she was far from a coward. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure she would not trample on the person in front of her before looking me directly in the eyes as she said, “He told me that if I came to his bed last night, he’d make sure I made it through the Mercy Gate.”
Every flame in the temple went out. The temperature dropped quickly, too fast to attribute to a passing draft. Power was thick in the air.
The acolytes went silent, the emptiness made even more stark by the sudden lack of chanting. Behind us, a low chuckle slid over my senses. I did not turn to look at Garrick the fucking Red.
I crunched my hands into balls, fighting for control.
A voice boomed in the dull light of dawn leaking through the stained-glass windows.
“The gods have made their presence known,” the priestess decreed, drawing every set of eyes to her even in the dim light. I could see her clearly, standing directly before the altar of Seraxa, the Goddess of Mercy.
“Darkness consumes Velora,” she continued. “Yet Seraxa compels us to remember that even a single act of mercy can be a light in the darkness.” As the last word left her lips, she relit Seraxa’s altar.
Whispers of awe rippled through the acolytes. Slowly, so slowly, I uncurled my fists. The air around us warmed, but neither the priestess nor the acolytes moved to relight the remaining altars.
“If I hadn’t believed before…” Nimra whispered.
I watched the clever priestess, reassessing my estimation of her. She’d given me that paste and suggested I cover my coven mark. She had not so much as glanced in my direction, but I would have gambled a spell or two that she knew the realsource of the power still fading from the air around us. But she’d attributed it to Seraxa before anyone could even wonder otherwise.
Why? To elevate the gods? To bolster her own prestige? Or to helpme? Why?
