Ione scoffed, looping an arm through Lina’s and steering her away.“He’s demanding names now!Gods, Saros’s dogs are all tedious.Except for River.Ah!Speaking of.”She called over her shoulder: “Dog, what time is it?”
Kai actually checked.“Half-one.”
“Lunch will be ready,” Ione said, pleased.She patted Lina’s arm and stooped to pluck the laundry basket off the ground as they passed.“This is yours?Oh, I’ll carry it; really, I don’t mind.Come – I want River to hear in your own words how I’m not bothering you.”Ione smiled sweetly, all effervescence and charm.“Afterwards, I’d like to practice hydromancy someplace where I won’t be disturbed by common rabble swinging their new title around like a club.You said you can’t use hydromancy?”
Lina could barely remember her own name.She sensed Kai Mahina staring after them, his eyes like a knife in her back.
Castor had never mentioned Kai.And in Kai’s expression, there was no recognition, no flicker of suspicion.
She was safe.She was nobody.An insect beneath a cup, entranced by the woman who tapped on the glass.
“No,” she whispered, dazed, as Ione lugged her up the hill to the altarhouse.“I can’t use magic.”
“I’m surprised!”Ione said, and Lina’s pulse jumped.“I can’t explain it – genuinely, I can’t – but when I met you, I…” She went pink and lowered her face until the soft wave of her hair obscured her features.“At the very least,” she hurried on, “being around a new friend has put me into a fantastic mood.”Again Ione beamed up at her.“You’ll have lunch with me,” she announced, non-negotiable.“And then I’d like to see what other interesting things I can do with you around.”
The matter was settled there.Lina followed Ione into the palatial altarhouse, comprehending with equal parts fear and thrill that as long as Ione’s favour glared like a sunbeam upon her, she wasn’t nobody, after all.
Chapter Four
River
Serving was beneath him, but so was much of what Ione tasked him with.Actually, even if Kai hadn’t, quote, viciously annoyed her in the garden, River already planned on monitoring their new warden.River was nothing if not protective (read: territorial), and between Kai staring at Ione like she was a prize, and Saros staring at Kai like he was his new son, River’s new hobby was pest control.
As a good seleneschal should, he stood guard at the edge of Saros’s meeting room, waiting to be called to refill cups of tea or kill something.As usual Saros headed one end of the table; Ione, the other, both ruminating while the other high priests discussed in low, anxious tones this shrine that was attacked or that ward that had failed.
Kai, who until now had looked half-asleep, perked up atward failed.“That wee shrine over in Eastwick?”he asked, barely bothering to conceal his accent anymore.“I’ve been there.Wasn’t impressed.”He waved a hand.“Three mist wards!Should’ve sprung for something tougher.”
Typical that people with lives and families and dreams had just been killed, and his reaction wasFuck them.
A high priest across from Kai stirred.“You’re finished amending our wardstone now, aren’t you?How many ice wards did you weave?”
Kai rubbed his dark-rimmed eyes, nodding as he suppressed a yawn.After three weeks of near-constant work, Oseidos was now fully protected – but if the ceaseless nighttime pacing River was forced to listen to from the bedroom beside his was any indication, Kai still wasn’t getting any sleep.“Thirty-seven.”He pronounced ittirty-sebbin.Nails on a chalkboard.“En’t nothing getting past that, like.”
The other priests murmured approvingly.Even Saros nodded, lips pursed.It wasn’t much to an outsider, but River saw the admiration in his eyes.Coveted it.He’d spent eleven years of his life trying to earn that for himself.
From the moment River stepped onto Oseidos as a wide-eyed child of ten, Saros had been good to him.Anyone else would’ve shipped him back to Sterlingdale after learning how severely River’s parents had misrepresented his magical ability – Oseidos needed to raise spellcasters, scholars, warriors!, not some mundane guard captain’s brat from an inconsequential mainland shrine.But Saros saw something in him, kept him, funded his training and education.
River owed everything to the Archpriest.And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let some slimy spellcaster manipulate him.
“The people from Eastwick’s shrine,” someone else asked, “will we be housing them as well?”
“We’ve hardly enough space for theCaelosi,” Ione’s mother Penina said, sniffing, like she could smell them from here.“If we open our arms to every needy stray, we’ll be living atop one another like sardines.”
Ione lifted her chin.“They are our people,” she said coolly.
Kai pointed, his fingertip smudged with dried blood.“Shouldn’t’ve cheaped out on wards,” he said blithely.
Ione didn’t react.She had confided to River and Cynthia that she planned to practice temperance by pretending Kai didn’t exist.
There was more talk of weapons and coin, spellcasters and safe havens.River poured Ione a cup of tea, which she contemplated with a frown before he leaned in and whispered, “I prepared it.”
It was a premade blend of cherry and cinnamon, but that was enough to goad her into drinking.After a prank played on her years ago that she didn’t like talking about, but which River surmised had to do with laxatives, Ione refused to eat or drink anything Saros had touched.
Mollified, Ione smiled and thanked him, and across the table, one of the other priests raised his empty cup.River restrained a sigh.Despite being the Goddess Incarnate’s seleneschal, during meetings like this River was a waiter at best and wallpaper at worst; aside from Ione, the other priests – even Saros, which stung – did not deign to acknowledge him as he served them.
Except for Kai, startlingly, who moved aside to let River refill his tea.“Thanks, love,” Kai murmured, and then twitched, like he hadn’t meant to say that.He pinched the bridge of his nose, mumblingFucking tired.
“Yes, Warden,” River said as dully as possible.He gathered that Kai liked attention and made a sport of not giving it to him.
