“Ah,” he said, as we took a turn down our corridor, a shade of mortification in his manner, “someone has informed you of my lineage, Edie.”
I shook my head. “Is my face so easy to read? I apologize.”
“I think you have, simply, a face that is easy to look at and therefore easier to know.”
I was grateful for the slight dimness of the hall. We were between sconces and I felt my cheeks warm. What had become of me? I never used to blush this much around men in Eccleston. “So, despite your lineage,” I said, taking some of the focus off of myself, “you purchased and prepared your own food?”
He continued, kindly nodding at those we passed. “I did. My father was the much younger brother of Hinnom’s father. Both have passed on. And both were men of austerity. And my father, in particular. I am grateful for the retrenched way I was raised. It taught me much. I do not need luxury, but I did not care for feeding myself.”
I found myself enjoying his company and with his confession, I offered up one of my own. “I have no idea what magic I might have. I am mystified by your claim.”
His voice became more intimate so that those around us could not hear. “I will elaborate in my office, but, do you know, was there Tintarian blood in your family?”
“I had wondered at this after your words in the throne room. My mother can trace her family far back in Perpatane history. My father was given to an orphanage as a babe.”
“Then perhaps that explains it. Only Tintarians on the continent have magic. Perhaps all people once did in a more ancient time, but historical record only shows it in Tintarians.”
“So, my father was of some Tintarian descent?”
“Likely. He had no idea of his parentage?”
“None.”
We had reached the antechamber type area that preceded the temple, all of the desks full of earth temple staff in discussions with citizens, some banal in nature and some already heated. The narrow windows shed light on the inhabitants and I had another thought of hope that our clothes would soon be ready. This black dress would need to be replaced with one of the thinner cloths we had been shown at the tailor’s for spring and summer.
Nods of deference were made to Cian as we passed, from both cleric and citizen.
“Might I ask, if you are so closely related to the royal family, are you owed a title or—”
“Edie,” he interrupted and cut me off with a wave. “It is a relief to have none of that. I promise you.” He gave a push on the double doors that led to the temple and we entered.
Inside, many were sitting in the numerous stone pews, heads bowed before the ornamental, wooden edifice of Mother Earth’s face.
“The devout,” he said to me, hushed and solemn. “There are nearly always a few praying in here, so I try to be quiet when I go to and from my inner chamber. Unless there is a ceremony, I allow for people to come and pray to the goddess. Your new husband is often among them. It is all our temple.”
We walked down the aisle and stepped up to the altar with its silver bowl.
Cian turned to me. “I would ask that you cast your eyes to a window or behind you.”
I looked to the nearest window, the one the sun had shone through onto Alric’s shield during our wedding, making his face backlit and unreadable.
I had the intrusive thought that he had looked fine in his polished Tintarian black. I balked at this thought, actually jerking my head a little and caught, from the corner of my gaze, Cian’s hand wrapping around one of the wooden roots on the foliage side of the Mother Earth carving. From where I stood to the side, I could see it, but the praying in the pews would have only seen the back of Cian’s robes.
The round carving split in two, somehow triggered by Cian’s touch, the human side and the wild side of the face swinging apart to reveal a doorless doorway.
“You can turn around, Edie,” he directed over his shoulder, stepping through it.
I hurried to the opening as the two sides of the old woman’s face creaked close. Inside, was a large office with a desk in a red wood. Behind it was a high-backed chair and a wall of books. One wall had another of the narrow windows, the sunlight and noises of Pikestully filtering in and the other sported a tapestry of the same old woman’s face, half human, half overrun with trees, roots, flowers, grasses, ferns, mushrooms, coneys, bears, wildcats, lizards, foxes, wolves and more.
“Books,” I sighed like a man who had gone without water for days.
“You struck me as a reading woman,” he said taking the high-backed chair and gesturing to a smaller one that had been pulled in under the desk across from him.
I sat in it. It was smaller but upholstered and not uncomfortable.
The desk held several sheets of parchment, a long package wrapped in leather and a ledger cracked open and full of cramped writing. A stone slate sat next to the ledger with etchings in it. I blinked and looked at it twice to see not only were there etchings, but there were etchings being etched before my eyes as if from an invisible hand. My face must have shown my awe.
Cian turned the slate over. “An exciting way to share unexciting news. Pay it no mind.”
