Page 45 of The Idol

Yes. I believed that. Truly.

But the more Father talked, the more my thoughts drifted—slipping between the words, floating somewhere else entirely.

Somewhere warm.

Somewhere with dark eyes and a mouth quirked in a smile.

I shifted in my seat, pulse quickening.

Jace shouldn’t have been in my head. Not during prayers. Not during Father’s teaching. Not ever, really. But every time I blinked, I saw the way he’d looked at me that morning and the way he’d knelt before me last week in this very spot.

I felt heat prickle along my neck. I dropped my gaze to my hands in my lap and forced myself to breathe evenly. I needed to focus. Father hated it when I looked unfocused.

“And when we aredistracted…” Father’s voice sharpened suddenly, cleaving through my thoughts like a blade. “The entire flock suffers.”

My head snapped up.

His eyes were on me.

The intensity in them made my stomach drop.

I sat straighter, trying to look composed, attentive. But I’d been caught. I knew it. The congregation didn’t seem to notice—everyone was too busy staring forward, too afraid to even glance around during a sermon. But Father… Father always noticed.

He held my gaze for a beat too long.

Then he resumed preaching, but his tone stayed tight, colder than before.

The rest of the service felt endless.

When the dismissal prayer finally ended, and the congregation filed out quietly, I stayed frozen in my seat.

“Elior.”

My name, spoken like a warning.

“Yes, Father?” I asked nervously.

Father approached the Seat of Light, his frame casting a long shadow across the floor. He kicked my footstool out from behind the Seat, but kept it far enough away that my feet had no chance of reaching.

His expression was unreadable—calm in a way that made my heartbeat worse, not better.

“You were somewhere else tonight,” he said quietly.

I swallowed hard. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” he murmured, circling me slowly. “Youaresorry. But sorry is not enough when your duty is to guide their souls. If your mind wanders, theirs will follow. And during my sermon on the sin of distraction, no less. I’m disappointed in you, son.”

Guilt flared hot in my chest.

“It won’t happen again,” I whispered, trying desperately to keep my voice from breaking and the tears building up in my eyes from falling.

“What were you thinking about?” he asked.

My breath caught.

I couldn’t tell him.

I couldn’t evenimaginewhat he would do if he knew. If he knew Jace had touched me. If he knew I’d allowed it. If he knew Jace made me feel—