Yet the hush that greeted her outside unsettled her more than the suffering within ever had.
The crowd at the temple steps, usually clogged with petitioners, Attendants, Priests, and restless apprentices, had parted like a great curtain at her approach.
People lined either side of the broad stair, their eyes wide, hands moving in formal greeting. Crafters with baskets resting on their hips. Laborers still dusted with plaster and ash from the rebuilding in the Han. Children from the Breeding programs peering from behind the flowing skirts of their Minders. Elderly men with trembling hands braced on canes. Even the temple’s High Priests, who once watched her with the careful unease reserved for a dangerous curiosity, now bowed their head in reverence.
Their arms and hands moved in graceful waves, dark silken sleeves flowing with each motion.
‘Sokâr. Child of the Void. Sovereign Star. We see. We honor. We serve.’
Auryn slowed, her hand settling on Veilpiercer by instinct.
At her side, Lu’ma stilled.
‘Your Radiance,’her hands signedagainst the folds of her violet robes, eyes scanning the crowd for threat.‘They are waiting for you.’
Auryn stood, unable to move. Disbelieving. Uncomfortable.
A Crafter woman held a little girl by the hand—her apprentice. The child was too thin, but clean. Recovering. At the sight of Auryn, both the woman and her apprentice dropped to their knees.
The gesture hit Auryn like a blow.
So many had bowed over the decades, but all in false worship. Auryn knew the taste of deceit. Had learned of it through scars and shame. But this—this was true. Honest. Sincere.
And she hated it.
“No,” she said, descending the stairs until she stood before the pair. “Please. Do not—”
The woman’s mouth trembled.‘Sokâr,’she signed, eyes shining, her choker dim.‘Your Radiance touched my apprentice just this morning. He woke. He knew my name.’
Auryn’s chest tightened.
“He is still very ill,” she said, taking care with each word, reaching down to stroke the child’s hair. “We have done nothing of note. Please. Rise.”
The child stared up at Auryn with naked awe, lips parted.‘
You walked through the fire,’he signed, his little hands still clumsy in the telling.
Around them, the silence deepened. More people knelt. More signed her formal titled.
Panic rose like bile in Auryn’s throat. Her disguise was useless, then. Somehow, they’d all recognized her despite her hidden hair, plain dress, and lack of Reskala escort. Perhaps it was Veilpiercer on her back. She'd covered itin a thick cloak to keep it hidden, but perhaps, after the Rite, too many knew it by sight. The Priests recognized her, but…
Understanding dawned, sharp and brittle. Her eyes snapped to the nearest High Priest, and she caught the tail end of a wicked grin beneath his hood.
Auryn straightened too fast, heat rising into her face. She had stood before crowds before. Had suffered their scrutiny, their weighing eyes, their whispers. But this—this surrender, this reverence, this trembling devotion—sat like bitter tincture in her mouth. She had wanted the People to see her. To know she was more than an ornament stitched onto a banner. That she would bleed for this city to help those broken in its Doctrine.
But not this.
Neverthis.
“We are not a god to kneel to,” she said, louder now, her chin rising.
But her warning was not heeded. Instead, it turned to confirmation of the crowd’s awe in the blazing heat of morning. Her words did not break the thrall of the Sokâr from their glazed eyes and trembling hands. They only strengthened it. A man near the front of the crowd bowed his head lower then dropped to his knees entirely. An old woman wept openly into the edge of her linen shawl.
One of the Priests came down the steps behind Auryn, stopping a respectful distance away. He had tended this Commons temple for years—the last few at her side during the worst of the outbreaks. Like most in Krystopolis beneath the holy blood and the Companions, he bore no name. Only a Batcher that sealed his role and rank within the Polis.
Before the Rite of Judgment, he’d always spoken to her with measured wariness, as though expecting her compassion to be nothing more than grand illusion.
Now he bowed in truth, passing a missive into her hands.
