Page 55

T hey retrieved me at dawn and brought me to a simple bathing chamber. I washed myself in frigid water while two anchorites stood quietly nearby. They had no other option, as both of their mouths were locked shut with those same piercings and chains. I could feel their exhaustion and hunger.

I felt the same. Empty, depleted. Defeat riddled my body, making each movement an effort.

Every muscle ached. My hips and shoulders were stiff and painful.

As I scrubbed in that cold water I barely recognized myself, barely knew my own body.

What once had been strong, muscled thighs were atrophied with inactivity.

My arms were thinner from my confinement, from lack of use.

My waist was smaller, my skin pale as ice.

I caught my reflection in the mirror as the anchorites helped me dress.

My black eyes were hollow; heavy purple bags hung under them.

I just wanted to sleep. Just wanted to rest. I would give anything for a full night of sleep.

Deep, dreamless, restful sleep. I would give myself up to this new god if I must. Take the oath to Enos, if he would just let me sleep.

I dropped my gaze from my own reflection. I could not look at that stranger’s dead eyes.

The anchorites helped me into a gown of deep maroon with gold detailing.

The ample skirt was layered with gold lace over the maroon fabric, trailing behind me in a long train.

The fitted bodice rose tight over my breasts and then continued to rise in two tapered spikes, pointing up from my chest at each side.

The back of the stiff bodice rose in more of the same points so that my face was framed in spikes of maroon material, matching the design of the corners of the Temple walls I had seen on my first visit here.

My hair was braided into a single long plait.

Pointed Archfae ears poked through, easily visible.

Intentional, no doubt, so anyone witnessing my oath would clearly see a fae woman giving herself to Enos, devoting herself to the god of human civilization.

Pledging herself to the mastermind of the destruction of her own people.

I reached up and touched them gently. It had been weeks, months since I had seen my reflection.

And these ears had been a recent change when I was taken.

I didn’t remember them being so long. So sharp.

They lined my eyes in glittering gold and dark maroon powder, then black charcoal.

Heavy gold earrings with dangling blazing suns were slid through my pierced lobes.

Finally, a circlet matching that of the anchorites was placed on my head.

I could barely recognize the gaudy, withered woman in the mirror.

A far cry from the northern spirit I once was.

Far from the sea spray, the harsh gull cry, the forest rain.

I stared at myself long and hard in the mirror, and felt what was left of my weak heart break.

Felt the woman I was die. Felt her lie down at last in her sleeplessness, her mania.

Today I would trade my soul for survival.

I would offer my very heart in exchange for the continuation of its beating.

The dramatic train of my dress swished behind me as we walked the dark stone hall. We climbed stairs and wound down another hallway as we turned through the maze of the Temple.

Suddenly, there was sunlight. It lanced through open windows and, farther down the hall, through an open set of double doors.

I could smell it. Dry leaves on the breeze, dying grass and damp earth.

I could feel it, warm on my cold skin, in flashes as we passed the windows.

I quickened my pace. Despite my disciplined escort, I moved faster, my high heels––matching the preferred footwear of the High Priestess––clacking down the hall.

Faster I trotted. The anchorites in their slippers moved quickly, pacing me, but could say nothing through their chained lips.

The outside world pulled me, beckoning to what was left of my human heart, no, my fae heart.

My wild, living, beating heart. Still there, in my chest cavity, still longing for some semblance of what I once was.

I needed to see the sun. Needed to stand in it, bathe in that glow.

I heard the fountain as I neared the doors, and realized that beyond them was the front courtyard.

The sacred spring bubbled there from that stone fountain.

I felt it tug on my awareness. I slowed only to pull off the shoes I wore.

I was running then, bare heels kicking that ridiculous dress train up behind me, thudding on stone. I ran for those doors, for that glowing light, that burbling fountain. The anchorites raced behind me; I heard them exclaim helplessly through closed mouths.

I reached the open doorway and burst through it into the courtyard, taking two stumbling steps forward before I halted.

The sun met my skin, warm and living, glowing and golden.

And blinding, after so many weeks in that dark cell.

I would have sunk to my knees and cried into the earth right then, but what I faced in the courtyard stopped me.

An audience. A crowd of onlookers. Men and women dressed in fine clothes. Dukes, duchesses, royal council perhaps. And Temple folk, Heralds and anchorites in their ceremonial robes. Everyone turned and stared. The crowd hushed. I blinked in the blazing sunlight.

A moment later, the two anchorites swung through the door beside me and grabbed my arms. I glanced at one and she flashed me a hateful, warning look.

The leaves of the ash trees were tinged with yellow. It was nearly fall. I had lost an entire season of my life.

Deacon Tessivia appeared from somewhere beside me.

“Foolish girl,” she hissed in my ear. “Daris, bring her shoes, now!” she barked at one of my escorting anchorites, who vanished back into the doorway behind us.

But my eyes were on the fountain, on that sacred water. I needed to feel it, needed to put my hands in it, just one last time. One last time before I gave myself up. Before I relinquished what it would mean to me.

I began to walk toward it.

“What are you doing?” Tessivia hissed in a whisper, stomping after me. “Stop right there! You’re not to walk across the courtyard until they are prepared for you inside the throne hall. And put your shoes on.”

Daris had returned with my shoes, and helped shove them on to my now dirty feet.

Across the courtyard in the throne hall doorway, High Priestess Zisorah appeared, her face wrapped in another featureless mask: This one a smooth maroon with intricate gold filigree and a two-tiered arching gold headdress rising up in hoops behind it.

From the hoops dangled gold pendants and charms that flashed in the sun.

I could see nothing of her face, but I felt her gaze hit me.

I stopped in my tracks, rooted to the spot.

But the fountain still called to me. I took another cautious step forward and I felt the High Priestess’s power hit me like a slap in the face, even from that distance.

It sparked blue-black and hot against my skin. Just a warning.

Yet the power I felt shimmering in the sacred fountain beckoned me still. It sang into my bones with the same primordial power I remembered from the Arcaena River. Wherever that river was sourced from, this spring was the same.

I took a deep breath, savoring the clear, bright air. I forgot all the eyes on me, forgot the courtyard packed with royalty, disregarded the onlookers. There was only me, High Priestess Zisorah, and that spring.

I took one step forward, then another. More boldly now that there was no reaction from Zisorah.

Just the daggers of the cold stare I knew she lanced at me from beneath her mask.

But she couldn’t do it here. She couldn’t hurt me, torture me, make me writhe in the dirt in agony in front of these people.

No, she needed them to see I was willing.

Needed them to see that the power of Enos could turn even a wretched fae like me into something worthy.

I walked forward more boldly still, straight for that spring.

The Dark One’s voice rolled through my skull like thunder, facetious and spiteful.

“Careful, child. She is to be your salvation. Yet you risk her temper like this? When you are so close to being free of me?”

I stumbled as my knees locked with instinctual terror. But I answered him, inside my head, where he seemed to dwell without respite now.

“One last chat before I’m rid of you forever? Kind of you to say goodbye.”

“You don’t want to be rid of me, girl. You know this. You defy her because you want me. You risk your escape because, secretly, you do not want to go. Secretly you have come to adore me.” His deep voice echoed in disturbing sensual decadence that made my stomach lurch.

I remembered the images he had sent to me in dreams. His heavily muscled body. His long, sharp teeth dragging along my neck. The feel of him in my mouth. My gut twisted and my face flushed with shame, with fear.

“You are mine, Halja,” he growled. “Mine by flesh and burned virtue, mine by body and blood. You will come to me!”

I cried out in horror and frustration, torn in too many directions.

I could not be rid of him. I could not forget what he felt like.

I dreamed only of cleansing myself, purifying myself from his touch.

I needed Zisorah’s help, needed her to save me.

But I longed to touch that sacred water, just once. I must.

From her place on top of the stairs outside the grand Temple doors, the High Priestess raised her arms in welcome to the crowd.

“My lords, my ladies, the good and blessed people of Avanis. Today, we welcome another servant of Enos into our esteemed halls. Today, we witness the miracle of His healing. Today, we cleanse this poor, lost fae soul of her darkness, her shadow nature. It is my–”