Page 52 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

“Thank you,” I whisper. “You know… for saving my life and all.”

His gaze pins me in the dim cavern. “Please don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispers back, looping his arm around me, drawing me close, and pressing a soft kiss to my forehead.

Every fiber of my body tingles as his arm falls away, the echo of his soft lips pulsing above my eyebrow.

Eisha towers overhead, presiding benevolently over her secret realm inside the mountain. Her graceful hands with their tapered fingers loom above us. The moonlight filtering through the ceiling opening bathes her in ethereal radiance.

His voice is reverent when next he speaks: “From this angle, she truly looks how I imagine her.”

“She’s breathtaking. How did she get here?”

He tells me about the generations of high priestesses before him, before Maida and her predecessors, stealing away in secret. How they chipped away at the sandstone bit by bit until the cavern and the stairs and the goddess came into being.

He points upward, to where the wind is howling past the opening in the rock. “This place was just a small natural chamber at first. The weather had wormed its way inside and worn away at the rock. But the rest of it was formed by hand. Dug out gradually over hundreds of years.”

The sheer scale of such an undertaking leaves me astounded. “Does the prioress know about this place?”

“Absolutely not,” he scoffs. “We call it the Sanctum of the True Goddess. Its existence has been passed between high priestesses alone all these years.”

“This is a sacred place,” I breathe. My heart clenches at the enormity of what he’s sharing—the trust he’s placing at my feet.

He gazes at the stone goddess in her majesty, and I gaze at him, my pulse beating in my cheeks.

“Mother of Destruction and Regeneration,” I finally murmur, shifting my gaze to Eisha and reciting the part of her motto I remember. “Patron goddess of builders and craftsmen. In particular blacksmiths.”

“There’s more to it.” He glances sidelong at me.

“I know there’s more, but I can’t—” I shake my head, dull pain springing to life behind my eyes. “It’s gone now.”

“Killer of Máiréad,” he provides. “Maker of Changelings. Giver of Magic.”

The gears in my mind align and click. “That’s it! But why take it away to begin with?”

“Because that’s precisely what the ritual is designed to do.”

A chill runs down my spine. “Do what?”

“Target all knowledge of changelings, erasing everything you used to know. About demuns especially. Any other knowledge linked in your mind with the existence of changelings, including awareness of your own attraction to women, was also eliminated.”

Because changelings are always wasted women. But the reverse isn’t necessarily true.

“Thanks to the ritual, you no longer remember Máiréad, the Dead God. Do you feel like getting a little further ahead of your classmates today?”

“Sure,” I smile, feeling very doted upon all of a sudden.

“Máiréad was the First Divinity. The Old One,” El starts, folding his arms over his knees.

“She existed in the Time Before Time Itself. She was the creator of the universe and every element in it. Maker of light and bringer of darkness. She fashioned this and the other planets and gave them their moons. Divided the sky from the oceans. Made the Netherworld and the Great Hereafter on parallel planes. Finally, tired of being alone in the vastness of time and space, she brought the New Gods into being.”

I’m riveted by the smooth cadence of his voice, the concentration creasing between his eyebrows.

“Among them, only Eisha feared Máiréad’s infinite power and the fact that she could unmake everything. Including the New Gods themselves, if she so wished. So. Eisha destroyed her.”

“Mother of Destruction.” I say it again as everything takes on a strange new clarity.

“And regeneration,” he adds. “After Máiréad was killed, her essence collapsed into a vortex of seething chaos. Eisha absorbed that raw power. Untrusting of herself and the New Gods to wield it without corruption, she fragmented it.

“From this unfiltered chaos she distilled matter and magic. She created two beings: demuns from pure magic mixed with the chaos that remained. Mages from matter imbued with magic, giving us the ability to manipulate life-force. Both of these beings were created as women, in Eisha’s image.”

I can’t help squawking at the blatant hypocrisy. “But why wouldn’t the prioress want us to retain that information?”

“The prioress doesn’t acknowledge the Dead God, Tiss.

Neither do the patriarchs. For that matter, I’d say the vast majority of people don’t anymore.

” El shakes his head. “Aodh is given all the credit for creating natural humans out of the matter that remained when Eisha had finished her work. There exists a growing faction of folks who consider him creator of the universe, not Máiréad.”

Indignation on the Dead God’s behalf courses through me. Even though it’s just a story, a myth, I prickle at the injustice.

“To most people, changelings are nothing more than mistakes of nature. Aberrations. We keep to ourselves as best we can. Try not to step out of line. We’re ignored until we become a nuisance. Create problems.”

“By breaking Inviolable Laws.” A shiver wracks me, and I huddle deeper into my cloak. “Then we’re sent here.”

“Most of the time, yes. Especially in the case of demuns. Too often it doesn’t even take breaking the law.

For us mages, it's sometimes nothing more criminal than being odd. Knowing things before they happen and the like. In far too many cases—for demuns and mages alike—it can merely be a matter of pissing off the wrong people.”

“What people?”

“Husbands. Fathers. A highborn married woman might be sent here if she’s caught having an affair with another woman. Or her lover might, for having the audacity to engage her.” He glances away, and I have to strain to hear his next words: “Set an example for others. That sort of thing.”

Nausea rises at the extent of it, at the insidious power this temple’s existence holds. “El, that’s horrible .”

“That’s reality. You knew all of this before. You and every other woman in the realm. And it gets worse.”

My head whips around. “How does it get worse?”

“You asked about dark magic.” He unbuttons his shirt sleeves, and I watch as he slowly rolls them up his forearms, his skin glowing burnished gold in the lamplight. “We haven’t discussed this in class yet, but there’s often a component of pain involved in using magic.”

My neck snaps back. “There is?”

“Mm-hmm. Take Mediation, for instance.”

Ritual tattooing.

“It’s painful,” he shrugs. “When done by a high priestess, it’s also a route to commune directly with the gods, to implore their blessings. Of course, Alchemy and Conjuration require the use of syphoned life-force.”

We both stare at the stone goddess, my stomach for some reason doing a somersault. “What is syphoning, El?” I finally ask, afraid to raise my voice above a murmur.

“Syphoning is a step beyond mere manipulation.” He gives a sigh. “While manipulation is a bit of a broad term, to syphon life-force means to cleave it from a person’s soul and extract it from their physical body. There’s inherent violence in it. It must be accomplished using pain.”

My mouth runs dry. Is that what I did to Sadrie? Did I syphon her? I can’t help but wonder. She did say that whatever I did was “excruciating.” Gods, and I bit her hard enough to leave that horrid bruise.

He looks at me, his tone grave: “In regard to light magic versus dark, the distinguishing factor is consent, Tiss. It’s crucial that the person getting tattooed or syphoned gives their consent.

If they don’t enter into it willingly—don’t remain willing throughout—we classify that as dark.

Sadly, dark magic is considerably more potent than the light kind.

Its temptation proves too alluring for some mages. ”

“Ah.” It’s the only thing I can think to say, sensing there’s more to come.

“As for the ritual, it’s a procedure that amounts to torture we’re better off not remembering. Mixed with poisoning.”

“Torture! Poisoning ?” I spit the words, appalled.

“The prioress is a proficient alchemist and an expert poison maker. The ritual is… complex. During it, Deirdre and her nuns syphon a great deal of life-force without consent while administering the targeted poison Deirdre concocts. The result is partial amnesia. Complete elimination of prior knowledge of changelings and anything remotely associated with them on an individual basis.”

“All right.” I feel sick. My palms are clammy.

“Every year, Deirdre uses some of the life-force she and her nuns syphon during the ritual to conjure the dome over the temple. Preventing anyone from leaving.”

“Because this is a prison.”

“Right. A prison for demuns and a sort of rehabilitation center for mages. She partners with the Five, seeking to instruct us in a very specific skillset so she can sell us off as seers to the high houses.”

“Divination.”

“That’s the one. And she does it all in Eisha’s name.

” He gives a scornful huff. “The Five, of course, eat it up. But it’s blasphemy of the highest degree.

I’ve studied the oldest of the codices—Eisha’s ancient texts.

At least the ones we keep down there, at the bottom.

Safe from Deirdre’s sacrilege. And Eisha, above all else, is balanced .

“There’s no balance in the twisted things that go on at this temple, Tiss.

” He regards the looming statue as tears seep onto the rims of his eyes.

“Eisha created mages with one hand and demuns with the other. There is no good or evil in that creation. As far as I’m concerned, both are living beings. Both beings simply are.”

He thumbs away his unshed tears, tipping back his head to admire the monolith goddess.

“This sanctum was hollowed out in her honor over the course of centuries. High priestesses come here in secret to remember the truth. To pass it on beneath the prioress’s nose.

” He sighs and looks at me, seeming to shake himself into a different mood.

“Suffice it to say,” he rises to his feet, “you won’t hear any of that from Deirdre or the sisters. Technically, I’m not supposed to know about it. Neither are you.” He extends both hands to help me up. “So. Do me a favor and keep it to yourself.”

Face-to-face with him now, I incline my head, flashing my most captivating smile. “Keep what to myself?”

“Mm.” His gaze flicks over me, brimming with approval and something else—something with a sharper, hungrier edge. “Good answer.”

My body flushes. After the dark things he just imparted, his praise is far more exciting than it has any right to be.

“Come on. It’s getting late. Let’s get you back.”