“Hello Holey, may we come in? I must speak with Kahina.” Axon requested.
“Uh, yes, of course, come in.” Holey, who I assumed was the priestess’s acolyte, let us into the large but cozy house.
The log cabin was filled with worn furniture covered in soft blankets as if it were meant to be a gathering place for the people of the dekes.
“Come sit by the fire and I’ll get Kahina.” The young woman suggested.
Axon chose a small bench for us to sit on and placed me snugly against him. I squeezed his knee in reassurance. Everything would be fine.
“Axon? What brings you here?” The older voice I’d expected to hear when we entered, greeted us.
Axon and I looked at each other for a long moment before he pulled his attention back to the sirret in the black and white robes who wore the only piece of metal this entire community owned.
“I have a question, about our past, the history of the dekes,” my mate began.
“Oh,” she seemed surprised by that, and honestly, in her position, I probably would be too. Who risks being caught just to ask a simple question?
Kahina drew closer to us. Her eyes focused onour joined hands and she smiled.
“Have you two luminesed?”
Axon furrowed his brows and looked away. “No, but we are mated. We’ve chosen each other all the same.”
“Perhaps luminescence will follow,” the elder woman encouraged.
“I’ll put on some tea,” Holey chimed in as she put a water skin over the fire.
“What question brought you all the way out here to see me?”
Axon’s gaze shifted to the pendant around Kahina’s neck. “I was wondering where the pendant came from.”
The priestess covered the petal piece with her hand as if to shield it from Axon’s gaze and, in turn, shield herself from any more questions.
“Don’t tell me you came all this way to ask about this little trinket.” There was a smile on her face, but it didn’t meet her eyes. She even shifted her weight on the chair to point away from us as if she wanted to bolt from this entire conversation.
“It’s important,” Axon said softly, as if sensing her desire to leave as well. “I know it has been passed down through the generations, but where did it come from originally? Who was the first priestess to have it and how did they get it?”
Holey had stopped preparing the tea by this point. She knew. She knew the priestess wasn’t goingto let us stay for tea if we kept this up.
“If you must know. It came from the old world before the goddess’ miracle that brought us here.”
“And it was the goddess who brought us here. We didn’t come here on a ship like the hu-mans?”
Kahina furrowed her brows at Axon’s comment and thinned her lips in a grimace.
“Why would you say something so disrespectful?” she bit out. “You know as well as I how we came to be here. Did you really come here for these questions and nothing else? Because if you have other things to speak on, I suggest you start-”
“I saw the ship,” Axon cut in. “The ship that lies among the ruins of an old village of ours. It has that symbol on it.” He pointed to the necklace that Kahina was still hiding under her palm.
“You don’t know what you saw!” She stood up from her chair. “That village could belong to anyone.”
“Symbols of the goddess were everywhere, our goddess. Who else would put our goddess in their village?” Axon questioned.
“Get out!” the priestess pointed her finger to the door. “I will not tolerate these lies in my own home!”
“But!” Axon began, but Kahina cut him off.
“Out!”
