Page 79
I tightened my hold on his fingers for a moment, and his breath caught. Wisteria and pine surrounded us in the next second, thick enough I could almost taste it. Warmth spread in my stomach, creeping lower than it had in a long, long time. I adjusted in the saddle, trying to keep it from clawing any deeper. The lapis pendant Phoebe had given me definitely worked, though. None of the orange or vanilla of my own reaction swirled around us.
The miles slowly faded, and Callum didn’t let go of my hand. Not even when the first hint of the town’s silhouette appeared on the horizon and the rest of the group slowly came alive with a more subtle excitement than yesterday’s arrival. Instead, he slowly traced the red mark nestled between my thumb and finger like he was trying to memorize it.
Someone behind us gasped as the full breadth of the town came into view. Good grief, forget town. It was a true city, and it was a behemoth compared to Dawncross. The buildings spread at least three times as far as those in Dawncross and jutted into the sky several stories high, taller than the stone walls that surrounded the city as far as I could see. Straddling the road was a large gate, entirely open. I frowned. Why did this place have a wall when the other towns did not? It didn’t match what Reuben had told me of the culture here, either, the way they were welcoming to strangers.
“The wall?” I asked. Despite only voicing part of the actual question, Callum seemed to understand just fine, squeezing my hand once.
His voice was still only a whisper. “Starguard is an ancient city built when the gods still walked Avicourt, long before my kingdom was formed. It was a time much different from now, where we have lived in peace for the most part. Fighting was an unfortunate reality then with devastating results if the gods and their children were ever involved. As such, the cities that still stand from that period reflect the violent realities of history. We hardly ever close the gates, though.”
It didn’t take much to imagine what that kind of environment would look like. I’d studied enough about Rome’s conquests to have a pretty good understanding of the ruthlessness men could enact on one another, not to mention the twentieth century with all its modern horrors enacted in the name of God and country—and that was without adding in the magic everyone here seemed to have. Instead, it was something else that stuck out to me. I frowned.
“Gods?”
Callum frowned now, too, his eyebrows furrowed enough his scars pulled taut. He tilted his head as he took me in before he nodded.
“As in… multiple?” I clarified.
“Yes.”
I swallowed down a disbelieving sound that was probably going to come out a bit too desperate for my taste.
“Does…” Callum’s frown deepened, his pine scent growing stronger than the wisteria. Distantly, I wondered what that difference meant. His voice was even more quiet than before. “Your Arizona does not worship or teach about the gods? Of Persynthia or Freia or Hadeon?”
I shook my head and then winced as a bolt of pain shot up from the tattoo.
“Most people there believe there is only one, a god who says he is merciful and yet his people are judgmental with little grace for others and celebrate violence in his name. Many people don’t worship any god at all. Some… there are others who worship more than one, but they’re in other places of the world. And… and I’m not sure if that’s what they’re called.”
Freia was familiar. From the Norse, I was pretty sure. But the other two? Neither were even vaguely familiar. It wasn’t like I was a religion expert or anything, but I’d taken a couple classes during college for elective credits. Unless it was from one of the oldest civilizations where we didn’t have much record keeping, those names were unknown. Certainly they weren’t ones that existed in the modern polytheistic belief systems.
Callum pursed his lips for a long minute before relaxing.
“The Votarists are in service to Freia,” he breathed, his thumb still tracing my knuckles. “They are only able to dedicate their lives once they’ve reached majority. They mark the years served by the dots that cover their throat and circle their ear.”
A flash of a memory filled my mind, the robed figure on the stormy beach with so many small dots they were impossible to count.
The slow-burning curiosity burned hot enough it seared. “The robes?”
“Those who are in service to Freia relinquish all identifying aspects of themselves. Abundance is granted to anyone regardless of their gender or beauty or wealth. The Votarists that serve the Goddess exemplify that in the way they present to the world.”
We were close enough to the city now that I could make out silhouettes of people standing on the wall, slowly walking along its top edge. One moved into the morning sunlight, bringing their outfit into clarity. They wore a similar armor to the guardsmen who traveled with the convoy, a cream long-sleeved fitted shirt sitting under the half-plate covering their chest. A high-pitched birdsong trilled, hurting my ears. A similar call came a few moments later. It seemed to be a signal. Within a few minutes, there was a rushing movement along the wall and also within the gate.
“Here we go,” Callum murmured, though it didn’t seem like it was entirely for me.
Nerves roared through my veins, making it nearly impossible to sit still in the saddle.
People lined both sides of the road as we approached and then crossed through the gate that was large enough for at least six horses to ride side-by-side. They waved and smiled, offering words in the language that didn’t translate. Their gazes landed on where Callum’s fingers were twisted with mine, and their excitement doubled. A few paled when they looked at me, the same way some with us did, too, before we started traveling. Perhaps they were nervous about the Aloholím, like Shelby had said at Wolfrest when they thought I was asleep.
I tried to not let it bother me. It wouldn’t matter in a few more hours, anyway.
The road narrowed almost immediately inside the gate, the buildings pressing in only a dozen or so after that. The street was clean, small trees dotting the edge and growing taller than some of the two-story buildings. The branches were bare, but there were no leaves on the ground to be seen at all. From some, ribbons in shades of green and pink were hung, twisting across the street and connecting with small balconies overlooking the road.
More people filled the street as it slowly wound through the city. We passed homes that were made of wood and painted various shades of white and beige, reminding me of the homes that littered the German countryside, their beams a dark brown contrast and focal point of the facia. Some places had small decorations painted along the gables, stars and leaves and swirling lines that looked a lot like the embroidery decorating the tunics we all wore. Some had flowers twisting together running parallel to the structural beams on either side of the home. Another had a lotus situated in the center of two crossed, downturn arrows centered above the heavy front door, vines trailing along the door’s frame all the way to the ground in a deep indigo that shone against the light beige of the building.
I couldn’t help but soak in the entire essence of the city passing by. Warmth and excitement without any kind of underlying bitterness or wariness. It could just be that Callum was a prince that they clearly seemed to adore, but it felt like it went deeper than that. These people were safe and cared for. Beyond that, they were sure in that safety and happy to share it with visitors. That jumbled mess that had slowly faded roared up, a heavy lump in my throat. I tried to swallow it, tried to breathe around it.
The crowd split as the guard turned onto an intersecting pathway, melding back together as the group passed them by. All the while, they shouted and waved and smiled. A few threw flowers toward us, the petals falling across my thighs and catching in my hair. I carefully plucked one that tickled my cheek, turning the petal over in my careful grip. Recognition lit my veins.
“Snowdrops,” I whispered.
