Page 30

CHAPTER THIRTY

We make it less than a mile off the road before the rain reaches us—or we reach it. I hunch in my saddle, my heavy traveling cloak pulled close around me, and glower at the world for at least an hour.

The world doesn’t seem to notice. Or if it does, it doesn’t care.

Stupid world.

Finally, I sigh and twist halfway to see what the others are doing. They went suspiciously silent—and by “they,” I mean Arimen—while I was sulking.

Through the miserable rain, I note that Jaimin appears to be deep in thought, Coryn is alertly scanning the open—and deserted—fields around us, and Arimen… Well, Arimen is also looking around, but his expression is one of innocent delight and pleasure.

“What are you so happy about?” I bark, then wince. I swear, I didn’t mean it to come out so harshly. Though, in my defense, I’m cold and wet, my sister’s dead, I’m somehow bonded to a dragon, the continent is on the brink of war with zombies and civil war, and tonight I’m going to have to camp in the mud. From my perspective, there’s nothing to smile about.

Arimen’s face falls, and his lower lip trembles, but he sets his jaw and says, “I like the rain. After rain, things grow.”

Oh, blergh. I resist the urge to point out how much damage rain can cause—floods, landslides, idiots falling facedown into puddles and drowning—and instead grunt. “Come up and ride with me. I have questions for you.”

His eyes get big, and he casts a glance at Coryn, who nods encouragingly with a big smile. Hesitantly, he nudges his horse forward. I was relieved to see that he’s a competent rider—probably better than I was when we first set out. Or maybe his horse is just nicer to him.

As if she can hear my thoughts, Sweetie tosses her head and snorts loudly.

“Behave, or else,” I threaten her, and Arimen sucks in a sharp breath. I glance sideways at him. “Don’t worry, Sweetie and I talk to each other that way all the time.”

For some reason, that doesn’t look like it sets his mind at ease. Oh, well.

“I have some questions for you,” I repeat. “Tell me how you came to join the priesthood.”

He blinks those big green eyes at me in confusion. Whatever he was expecting me to ask, it obviously wasn’t that.

“I… I have a calling,” he begins hesitantly, and I gesture for him to elaborate. “Temple is the one place that always felt like peace for me,” he continues. “Even when I was small, I would go as often as I could. Our village is small, but we have a Temple of Wasianth there, and the priest is so kind. He never minded that I’d visit at odd times. He let me sit quietly, or he’d tell me the histories of the gods.” He pauses, and I nod. It sounds like he really does have a calling to the priesthood and not that he was bullied into it. That’s something, at least.

With a little more confidence, he adds, “The other children would get bored during temple or when we had religious teachings, but I never did. When I turned fourteen, my parents started talking about an apprenticeship for me, but I knew I wanted to join the temple. Wasianth’s specifically. The other gods are fascinating, but he’s… It feels like he’s my family.” Bright color suffuses his pale skin. “I’m sorry, that’s presumptuous. Of course a god isn’t?—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupt. “I understand. You felt a stronger connection to him than the other gods.” I suppose it can be compared to my connection with telepathy. Other forms of magic interest me, but telepathy is home.

He nods eagerly, encouraged by my comment. “I spoke to my priest about it, and he was overjoyed. He’s getting older, and he thought I’d be the perfect person to take over the village temple when my training was complete and he retired. Everybody knows me in the village—my father’s the baker—and my family has lived there forever. It seemed ideal.”

“It does.” Ideally boring, but just because I couldn’t wait to get away from home—and all my family except for Tia—doesn’t mean everyone’s the same. Some people like their parents.

I wonder what that feels like.

“He wrote to his superiors about me, hoping to gain permission to begin training me early—or at least to secure a place at a temple in Rebithia to train at once I came of age. We were all very surprised when the bishop came to the village to meet me.”

I straighten in my saddle. “The bishop? The same one I… met … the other day? He came all the way to the Halyn Isles to meet you?” That can’t be regular procedure. I know there are some priests whose job it is to travel to smaller villages, especially those that don’t have temples of their own, searching out any potential candidates for the priesthood. But none of them are bishops. And I very much doubt they’d bother to go all the way from Camblin to the Isles just to meet a fourteen-year-old who’s already expressed interest in becoming a priest.

“Yes. It was an h-honor.” His voice falters slightly. “He spoke with my priest for some time and then interviewed me. Afterward, he said there was a new training program the temples were beginning, and he thought I’d be a good candidate for it.”

I make a mental note to come back to that and ask, “What did you speak of when he interviewed you?”

Arimen shrugs restlessly. “My life. He wanted to know about my family and what life was like in the Isles, if I felt isolated by the lack of visitors and outsiders. He asked if I liked to ride or box or shoot. Things like that.”

The picture that’s forming in my mind is one I really don’t like. “Did he ask about your connection to Wasianth and your religious studies?”

He shakes his head. “No, but… I suppose my priest would have told him all that already.”

Probably, but still, given he was supposed to be interviewing Arimen for a career in the priesthood, it seems like the kind of thing they should have discussed. For the first time ever, I wish I understood more about the recruitment process for the temples.

“Then what happened? After he mentioned the new training program.”

“My priest was surprised. He’d never heard of a program that took candidates so young. It’s not unusual for someone like me to begin training early, but only within our own temple, so we can continue to live with our families until we’re of age.” He looks down at his saddle. “He thought it might be wiser for me to wait and join the program when I was older.”

It sounds to me as though his priest is genuinely looking out for his parishioners.

“But the bishop was insistent. He said he’d personally ensure I was placed at a temple where there was another acolyte my age, so I’d have a friend. I think my parents would still have refused, but when he pointed out that if I was doing an apprenticeship, I’d be leaving home at fourteen anyway…” He shrugged. “They gave their permission.”

“Did you?”

He jerks, his head snapping in my direction. “What?”

“You said your parents gave permission. Did you?”

His mouth opens and closes, and he looks lost. “I-It’s not… I was a child. I didn’t have permission to give.”

I hold in a sigh. I hate that I feel sympathy for him right now. “Did you want to leave your home right then? Did you agree to do so?”

There’s a small silence as he stares at me with his mouth agape. Finally, he whispers, “No.” Then a wave of color suffuses his face. “I mean—I wanted to serve Wasianth! I do. B-But?—”

“I know what you meant. You weren’t ready to leave the village and your family. Because, as you said, you were a child.” He still is, both technically and in so many other ways. “The bishop said he’d place you at a temple. How did you end up at the sanctuary?”

Arimen turns his attention back to the miserable, muddy fields ahead of us. “After we’d left the village, on the ship, he told me that he’d concealed the truth of the program. That there was more to it, but it was classified to certain ranks within the temple and the acolytes involved. He apologized for the need for secrecy.”

I resist the urge to turn Sweetie around and ride back to where the bishop is likely cowering in his beloved Sanctuary. If I’d known all this during our encounter, it would have gone very differently.

“It wouldn’t take me long to fly out to the coast and set the place alight,” Leicht muses. “It’s more satisfying in the rain… things burn slower and more painfully.”

The temptation is real.

“Not until we know more.” But definitely, one day, I’ll be sure that happens.

“What happened once you got to the Sanctuary?” I ask, moving away from the subject of him being pressured to leave home while he was still too young to advocate for himself… and trying not to make any mental comparisons to the way I just forced him to leave his home. This is different. I never would have brought him if the stone hadn’t said it was compulsory.

In response, the stone gives a comforting kind of pulse, reassuring me that I’ve done the right thing.

I’m not sure I believe it.

“Well… I was assigned to my mentor, and I started classes. There are other acolytes my age there, just like the bishop said,” he assures me. I’m sure he intended to set my mind at ease, but it does the opposite. I’ll have a lot to report to Master later. “Our class has its own dorm—there are twelve of us.”

“What kind of classes?” I press. My understanding of the usual process of joining the temples was that there is some studying, sure, but mostly shadowing the senior priest or priests and running errands. Doing things that would teach acolytes how to interact with worshipers on a daily basis and provide them guidance and aid. Those are the tenets of our gods—the reason I still have faith in the gods. Watching the temples stray farther and farther from that path, becoming more power-hungry and self-involved, is the reason I no longer have faith in the temples.

But this… this goes beyond that. How can acolytes be taught to tend to the people if they’re locked away, far from those very people?

“The histories of the gods,” he replies, “analysis and study of their deeds and time here. Study of religious texts written later, and how they correlate and conflict with what the gods represented while they were incarnate.”

Okay, that sounds reasonable, like the kind of thing a priest should probably know. Though for him to have done it for three years if he’s not planning to be a lifelong scholar seems a bit excess?—

“Medicinal herbs and healing tinctures,” he continues, and my train of thought screeches to a halt.

“There’s a healer at the Sanctuary?” It’s not uncommon for priests to know something about medicines. After all, there are more priests than healers in the world, and when the goal is to keep people alive, knowledge is shared freely. The Academy of Healers has a program that allows priests to visit for a unit of study on basic medicines and their uses, free of charge, all room and board covered. The only thing they ask in return is that any priest with an interest in learning about medicines come to the academy for training, rather than receiving secondhand instruction from someone who may not fully understand the finer nuances of body chemistry and biology.

“No,” Arimen replies uncertainly. “The class is taught by one of the senior priests.”

“Forgive me,” Jaimin interrupts, pulling his gray up on Arimen’s other side. His voice is as gentle as ever, but I know him well enough to hear the steely undertone. He’s not happy. “I’ve been eavesdropping, which is a terrible failing of mine, but I’m not certain I heard that clearly. Did you say a priest is teaching classes in medicines?”

Arimen nods. “Yes. It’s very interesting. I didn’t know that grinhelt leaves could be used to ease fevers and speed the healing of minor cuts.”

“Hmm,” Jaimin says. “They can indeed. What else were you taught about grinhelt leaves?”

Screwing up his face as though trying to remember, the boy says, “Well, for the most effectiveness, you need to harvest them after rain—when they’re still damp but not wet. But if you can only get dry ones, they’ll still work. You need to steep one leaf per hundred pounds of the patient’s body weight. And the tea must never be drunk chilled, or the body will flush it before it can take effect. Room temperature is best.” He smiles proudly.

“Yes, that’s excellent.” Jaimin returns his smile. “Anything else?”

Arimen’s confidence falters. “I-I don’t think so?”

“Well, it’s good for you to have this understanding of herbal medicines,” Jaimin tells him. “We can keep up your studies while we’re traveling. For instance, something very important to know about grinhelt leaves is that they should never be administered to anyone who weighs less than one hundred pounds.”

“Oh.” Arimen blinks a few times. “What about children, then?”

“ Never give them to children. Even when the leaves were broken into smaller portions, more or less proportionate to body weight, the result in any person who weighs less than a hundred pounds is death.”

Whoa. I didn’t know that.

“An expert in medicines, are you?”

I ignore Leicht’s snide comment—it’s not rude of me, since he’s the eavesdropper—and watch as Arimen’s face goes ashen.

“Wh-Wh-What? Death? ”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Jaimin’s tone stays calm and factual, but I can tell he’s angry. If he were closer, I’d pat his arm. “A great deal of research has been devoted to why, but the best anyone can determine is that the properties of the leaf that work so well to speed the healing of minor cuts are activated and multiplied when the leaf is broken. So half a leaf, which we might consider appropriate for a child weighing fifty pounds, actually causes an overdose. The same thing happens when the tea is more than an hour old—it becomes more potent over time.”

“The priest never said any of this,” Arimen gasps. “Someone needs to warn them!”

Jaimin glances over the boy’s head at me, and I nod. “Talon will ask his master to pass the message along. We’ll ensure that no harm is done. Tell me, how many classes have already graduated from the Sanctuary and joined the wider priesthood?”

“Only two. The program is still new.” Arimen’s eyes are wide, and he seems to be processing something he finds troubling. “Are… Is…” He lapses into silence, and I leave him be for the moment as our horses trudge through the endless damn rain. Try as I might, I can’t see what he sees in this weather—to me, it’s just wet and gloomy. Especially wet. My cloak is supposed to be waterproof, but somehow I’m feeling unmistakably damp underneath it, and I don’t even have the luxury of a hot bath to look forward to tonight. No inn, no village… if we’re lucky, there’ll be a barn. It’ll stink like old animal shit, but even if the roof leaks, it’ll be better than a godsdamned tent I’ll need to set up myself.

“You’re such a whiny human.”

“I hate you.”

“Mage Silverbright?”

“Talon,” I remind him. I may not want to be his friend, but not even I can insist he be formal with me when the others aren’t.

“May I see the stone, please?”

Taken aback, I stare at him. “Sorry?”

His cheeks flush pink and he avoids my gaze. “May I see the stone?”

Jaimin and I exchange a bewildered glance, and I mentally prod the stone. What does it want me to do?

“It’s just… looking at it makes my mind so much clearer,” he continues earnestly, just as the stone reassures me.

“Give me a moment.” I switch the reins to one hand, praying Sweetie doesn’t choose this time to assert her dominance over me, and reach under my cloak. It’s not easy, with my waterlogged leather gloves on—not to mention unpleasant—but I get a hand into my coat and shirt and manage to open the pouch.

This better be worth it, I tell the stone. There’s now cold, probably dirty water seeping down my sternum.

It pulses comfortingly, but I’m not comforted. I won’t be until this whole mess is over and I’m back at the academy. Maybe I’ll be able to use my newfound status as quester for the champion to get out of having to teach ever again.

Extending my arm toward Arimen means letting my cloak fall open to yet more miserable rain, but the peace that fills Arimen’s face makes it almost worth it.

Or at least, that’s what I’d say if I was a better person.

I count to thirty before he sighs and says, “Thank you.” Then begins the delightful struggle to get the stone back into its pouch.

“I think,” Arimen begins while I’m still wrestling with the opening of my shirt, “that maybe the Sanctuary is a bad place.”

I’m so surprised by his insight that I drop the damn stone—inside my shirt. It scrapes along my chest and winds up resting against my belly, right above my belt. I consider what it would take to retrieve it, then decide it’s fine there until we stop for the night.

“A bad place?” Jaimin asks cautiously.

“Yes. When I think about all the things my priest taught me about Wasianth, and all the things I read before I went there, and then I think about the way the priests at the Sanctuary wanted me to interpret them… I don’t think they’re truly holy.” He slaps a hand over his mouth, eyes stricken. “Is that blasphemy? I didn’t mean to?—”

“It’s not blasphemy,” I say firmly. “It’s actually the most intelligent thing you’ve said so far.”

“Talon!” Jaimin scolds. Arimen looks even more stricken, and I relent.

“I think you’re a special young man, and not just because the stone wanted you to join us. You clearly have a true calling to serve your god. I respect that. But many of us have been aware for a while now that the temples aren’t always acting in the true ways of the gods. The Sanctuary is proof of that, and I’m glad you’ve recognized it.” While he’s processing that, I glance over my shoulder toward Coryn, riding about five yards behind us. “Why don’t you ride with Coryn for a while? He’s an excellent listener, and he has a perspective on this that Jaimin and I don’t, since we live at the academies.” It’s true, but Coryn’s also really good at cheering people up, and I think Arimen needs that right now.

I’ve got enough to deal with—I don’t need to add a mopey adolescent to the list.