“Come inside, Koryn.”
His mouth barely opened, yet it felt like he’d whispered the words directly into my ear. They were not sarcastic nor linedwith dry humor. They were warmer and softer than I deserved. I felt them deep in my stomach, then in the center of my chest where the dead organ of my heart had once beat so painfully.
My feet started moving again. Garrick did not enter this time, instead holding open the door for me as he’d done for Kyrelle all those days ago. Before I could account for it, I’d stomped past him and into the temple.
CHAPTER 32
There wasno sleep quite like that of physical exhaustion. It was still fully dark when I awoke. Or maybe it wasn’t. Even with my heightened sight, it took me several blinks to clear the sleep from my eyes enough to make sense of my surroundings.
The dormitory was smaller than the first two we’d slept in. The beds no longer had bunks above them. That was ominous, considering the temples dated from the original date of the curse, four hundred years ago. Even then, there had been no need for as many beds by the third of the Seven Gates.
The long room was mostly silent. None of Nash’s loud snoring. I scanned the rest of the beds, finding two occupied. The one right beside mine—Garrick. And on the far opposite side of the room, Alize. None of the others had arrived while I slept the day away.
My body creaked as I sat up. I just managed to clamp my hand over my mouth before the groan of pain left my lips. The last thing I needed was Garrick awake and irritated that I’d woken him. His eyes had lingered a little too long as I’d walked past him into the temple hours before. Like he suspected the thoughts that had run rampant through my head in those moments of frozen indecision.
My thick leather tunic lay over the foot of my bed. So did the wool overdress. I’d managed to peel down to just my linen gown and stockinged feet before falling into bed. But with everyone else asleep, I did not bother reaching for the other layers. I had my power to protect me...
I took two quiet steps toward the door before turning back and cinching on the belt that I’d tucked beneath my pillow. Something about the weight of the two blades on my waist felt better, even if I was useless at wielding them.
Garrick rolled over in his sleep as I snuck past but did not rouse. There was every possibility he was feigning sleep, as I had that night on the mountain. It would account for the sense of awareness that prickled through my shoulders. Also, for the heat that spread through my stomach and up into my chest… and lower.
I swayed my hips a little, just in case he was watching.
And then cursed myself. Lusting after a dangerous human was imprudent. Lusting after one who was in love with a fae? That edged toward desperate.
Awake or not, he did not stop me from slipping out of the dormitory.
The door swung free with blessed silence, allowing me to make my way into the heart of the temple without notice. I passed the bathing rooms where I’d only stopped long enough to relieve myself. In the morning I would take the time to bathe properly and wash my hair. The temples had hot water—a luxury I had not enjoyed since being cast out from my coven.
All of the candles in the temple were extinguished except for the offerings of frankincense and palmarosa that burned at each of the seven altars. The blood fountain gurgled in the darkness.
I had no destination in mind. Food, maybe. But there were no acolytes in sight, and my feet carried me toward the center of the temple, to that coppery tang.
In the muted light, the blood appeared almost black. I watched as it bubbled out of the top of the fountain, a feat of power bestowed by the gods. It fell in a circular sheet down to the first pool. Then a few seconds later, over the edge to the next, larger pool. Was my blood already here? All of the supplicants had made our offerings before the Mercy Gate. Was our blood still there, or had it been magically transported, mingled here? Or maybe this fountain ran with the blood of all those who had died at the Sacrifice Gate over the last four centuries.
The minutes ran together as I watched. The scent of blood filled my nostrils, my mouth, and then my lungs. I ought to hate it. But some part of me savored the idea of the blood of thousands of supplicants mingling with my own. I was a creation of the Dark God, and those were his gifts that allowed me to sense the warmth that wafted from the blood in the fountain, as if it still belonged to the living. I lifted a hand to my mouth expecting to see my fingertips coated in that thick red blood?—
But they were bare. Pale, rounded nails touched my lips.
“You made it.”
I startled out of my reverie.
It felt like waking all over again, blinking my way back to consciousness as I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I stood in the temple before the blood fountain. My hand… seconds before it had been coated with blood. No, that was a vision. An imagining. Maybe I had dreamed while waking. I’d never been physically exhausted like this before.
Steps echoed across the stone floor, the sound amplified by the emptiness of the temple. About the time his face came into view, framed by an emerald green hood, my mind placed the voice.
“Tomin,” I said, dropping my hand to my side. “Yes, we—I made it.”
His eyes crinkled at the edges, but that was all the question he let show. “We do not know until you arrive at the next temple. At least, the acolytes do not. Varian has not told me otherwise.”
I turned, sweeping the temple for what I might have missed in my earlier stupor. I was not afraid of the priestess. But her dark eyes were too watchful for me to feel fully comfortable. I still had no reason I could place for the help she’d offered me. That alone was enough to keep my senses on guard around her.
“She is not here. Not in this part of the temple,” Tomin amended. “She is seeing to the other acolytes, the ones stationed here.”
Because the acolytes remained in the temples, and the priest or priestess traveled from gate to gate. That was what Tomin had said earlier. Another thought occurred to me. “How do you get from one gate to the next?”
“The same way as you,” he said. I knew he could have hidden his frown, but he let the distaste show on his face. He leaned down and pulled up the hem of his emerald robe, revealing a leather boot with a hole in the sole. “One painful step at a time.”
