by E. S. Bell
“At once.” Ilior loped down the path, his lone wing furled tight to his scarred back.
To the abbot, Selena said, “Would you please have your man send a peliteryx to the Temple? Let them know I only just received their letter and will arrive on Lillomet tomorrow morning—tides, winds, and luck permitting.”
“Of course.”
“Hear and be Heard, abbot.”
He took her hand, shocking her with his willingness to touch her. His hand felt damp and calloused and wonderful. She fought the urge to grab it and hold on. He’s the same age my father would have been…
“And to you, Paladin. Hear and be Heard.” He smiled sadly. “I pray that you will be.”
Selena met Ilior on the deck of the Silver Wind, the hundred-span schooner the Temple reserved for Paladins on their healing missions. There had once been a small fleet of ships for such a purpose. Now there was one. With the bustle of the crew scurrying to obey Captain Wymer’s orders behind them, Selena drew Ilior to the portside of the main deck.
“It’s an Alliance meeting,” Selena said in a low voice. “One of the Justarchs and the Admiral are to attend.”
“Trouble?”
“I don’t know. But I’m afraid.”
She watched the sun sink behind the Calling Sea. It seemed as if burning embers floated atop the deep blue expanse. In the west, Isle Lillomet was a distant shape looming in the fading light, while the dozens of smaller islands scattered before it were bathed in ochre hues. The air smelled thick and salty, and though she could not feel it, she knew the summer heat had not yet left the Western Watch. It was there, on the faces of the crew that were flush and sweaty, and in Ilior beside her, who needed the heat to keep his cool reptilian blood warm. But winter would come, taking the heat with it. Soon. She laid a hand over the cold draft in her chest.
Ilior saw the gesture. “You submitted another petition to drink from the God’s Tears, did you not? Perhaps this time it has been granted.”
“If that were true, there’d be no reason to include the Admiral or a Justarch.”
“What then?”
“War, I fear. The rumors have been growing louder.” Selena’s heart thudded against her chest. “And if it is another war, the only reason to include me in any council is because they want me to Summon again. But I will not. I will not.”
Ilior’s heavy arm went around her shoulders and she sagged against him.
“I’m tired, Ilior. When I think of enduring another winter with the wound…”
“We’ll sail to one of the meridian island as we did last year. That helped, yes?”
“It did,” she said, not adding that tropical heat was like a candle standing against a bitter, chill wind.
Ilior looked down at her, his brown eyes—the most human part of him—narrowed slightly. “That is what you call a half-truth, is it not? It helped, but not enough.” He shook his horned head and spat over the side. “And one sip from the God’s Tears might close your wound…”
“Or it might not,” Selena said. “The God’s Tears is ultimate healing from the god. My wound is the god’s punishment. The Temple likely still feels it’s not their place to undo one with the other.”
Ilior snorted his disgust.
Selena smiled reassuringly up at him. “The Two-Faced God has not forsaken me,” she said. “I have hope. If I lose that, it will not matter where I spend my winters.”
At dawn, the Silver Wind was only a few leagues out from Isle Lillomet. The isle where she’d spent the last week was one of many that spilled out of the archipelago of the four big islands that dominated the Western Watch, and not far from Lillomet. She had intended to sail among more of these small outer islands for a fortnight at least, to tend those who needed the god’s healing magic, and to keep away from the Moon Temple for as long as possible. Both pleased the High Reverent Celestine, Selena thought with a pang.
I am not welcome in my own Temple.
It made her official summons even more confusing.
The sun was high in a clear sky when Isle Lillomet drew near. The city hugged the coast, white marble gleaming on the eastern end, multi-colored homes and shops of clapboard on the west. Old King’s Harbor churned with skiffs and trawlers but Captain Wymer navigated the busy port swiftly, to a section of the docks reserved for the Temple. The berths were empty but for the High Reverent’s ceremonial barge, rusted and in want of barnacle scraping. The schooner dropped anchor and the captain provided a skiff and a man to row it to take Selena and Ilior to the docks. There, a young man swathed in the blue and silver of an Aluren adherent was waiting.
“I’m Lanik Thrakill, Paladin,” he said as Ilior helped Selena step off. “Her Reverence sent me to escort you to the Moon Temple.” He offered Ilior a smooth smile, seeming unperturbed by the Vai’Ensai’s imposing stature.
Selena had never seen the adherent before and her heart lightened for it. A new adherent. So rare, so few. He was a young, handsome fellow with dark hair and striking blue eyes, like chips of sky-colored glass. His tunic was plain and bore none of the elaborate stitching of a higher-ranking adherent.
“I haven’t been gone from Lillomet so very long that I’ve forgotten the way to the Moon Temple,” Selena told him with a smile. “You are new?”
“I am. Just arrived two nights past, though I’d Heard the god ages ago.” Lanik smiled though it didn’t touch his eyes. “It’s taken me quite awhile to find my way here, and now that I have, I am pleased Her Reverence has already entrusted me with such important tasks. She insisted that I escort you. A formality, I’m sure, but it gives me pleasure to extend the courtesy.”
“Your courtesy is appreciated,” Selena said. “And rare.”
“Unlike some of our brethren, Paladin Koren, I harbor no such reservations about being in your presence.” Lanik inclined his head in a bow, but his eyes went to the place on her chest where her wound hid.
Ilior snorted behind them and Selena cleared her throat as a flush colored her neck and ears. She felt it, not as heat, but as an uncomfortable, stinging tingle.
“I meant,” she said tightly, “with our ranks so low as of late, there are few adherents left to extend courtesy to the Paladins. Few Paladins left, for that matter.
“A grievous situation.” Lanik smiled brightly. “Shall we?”
Narrow, winding streets, flanked on either side by stone-and-brick homes led them to the Temple. Flowers colored window ledges in bursts of color, adding their scents to the air that was laced with odors of oil and fish and the remnants of the morning’s baking. Folk out on the street ceased their chatter to watch our small procession—Ilior in particular—wend their way up the hill to the Temple. Lanik led the way and Selena had to quicken her pace to match his long strides.
The cobblestone street snaked up the hill, and when it reached the top, the homes and shops that crowded the way were exchanged for wide expanses of green grasses. Fountains of white marble burbled amid stands of flowers. The cobbles became a smooth, paved walk that led to the immense silver temple that glowed molten in the sunlight. Men in fine suits and women with light dresses and wide-brimmed hats strolled among the walks. As they drew nearer to the Moon Temple, the grass-lined paths should have been busy with adherents, from acolytes to Paladins, but there were none. The Temple stood apart from the hustle and bustle of the city, as if it were waiting for a return to the former glory that its majestic appearance warranted.
The three stepped out of the noonday heat and into the cool of the Temple’s atrium. Insects flitted among the wide-leafed plants, and the fountains burbled but the foliage was browned and sparse. The atrium was open to the sky but tall trees offered shade and shelter from the sun. Selena’s skin lost the faint tingle that signified heat was present. Though it couldn’t have been more than a few degrees cooler within, her skin broke out in gooseflesh and she shivered.
“We’ve been gone a fortnight and yet it looks so much worse,” Selena murmured to Ilior.
He n
odded. “They are dying.”
We, the Aluren, are dying, she thought.
“Here I must take my leave,” Lanik said with a short bow. “I will meet you here on the morrow, after first light, to escort you to the Vestibule.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Selena said. “I’ve lived here since I was eight years old. I can find my way.”
“I have no doubts, Paladin,” Lanik replied, “but the High Reverent insists upon it. Formalities.” He smiled again. “Tomorrow then?”
Selena nodded. Celestine was making a show of normalcy and strength when there was neither. “Very well. Tomorrow.”
When he was gone, she felt the weight of Ilior’s glance on her. “You don’t need an escort,” he said bitterly. “You’re no stranger. This is your home.”
Selena sighed. “The Temple feels less and less like my home every time I return.”
Skye’s Decree
The following morning, Selena woke in her bare adherent’s cell—cot, table, lamp, small chest for belongings—to a Temple that bustled with noise like it hadn’t in ten years, since before the war. Armor clanked, booted footsteps stomped, and leather creaked. Men called out or coughed or laughed, their voices bounding down the halls, filling the empty space with glorious sound.
Lying on her back, Selena closed her eyes and imagined it was Paladins who tromped the echoing paths of the Temple. Aluren Paladins in plate armor that gleamed as brightly as the silver stitching on their blue overtunics. She could see sapphires sparkling on dozens of pommels, but the treasure was not the gems, but the sheer number of men and women who wore the Paladin’s sword.
But after she dressed and stepped into the halls, there were no Paladins but herself, and she could not wear gleaming plate. It trapped the icy breath of her wound, encasing her in cold. She had to wear dull chainmail that would never gleam no matter how she polished it, and her overtunic was always thick blue wool.
The tromping boots and low voices belonged to Alliance guardsmen in blue and red, there to protect the Admiral, and to Justarch Osten’s retinue of soldiers in green and gold. A sliver of dread slipped into Selena’s heart as she walked—slowly—to the Vestibule. Four Justarchs presided over the four big islands of the Alliance. Yuri Osten was Justarch over Isle Parish, the island that was home to the Guild, and housed the Order of Shipwrights and Order of Armaments. All three vital to the defense of the Western Watch, and, of course, vital to ensuring the armada was prepared for war.
Ilior wasn’t in sight at the door to the Great Hall that would lead to the interior of the Temple. Lanik Thrakill, with his too-wide smile, stood waiting.
“Where’s Ilior?” Selena asked.
“He had intended to meet you here, though I regretfully sent him away. They wish for you to come alone. The High Reverent insists upon it. Master Ilior told me he’d be waiting for you in the atrium when the meeting was adjourned.”
“Fine, then,” Selena said, though she felt anything but fine. She felt as if she were about to go into battle without the strong wall of a fortress at her back.
“He is a loyal bodyguard.” Lanik opened the great oaken doors for her.
“He is not my bodyguard,” she snapped, more harshly than she’d intended, and stepped inside the Great Hall. Lanik followed after, closing the door behind him.
White marble walls rose high on all sides, threaded with silver, and carved in undulating waves. At the very top, fifty spans high, was set a skylight in pure crystal. A perfect circle of thinly cut quartz let in the day’s sun, muting its light into a soft radiance that lit the entire chamber. At night, it harnessed light from the moon and stars and lit the Great Hall in the glowing white hues of sea foam at midnight. Day or night, the circular shape of the crystal cast a full moon on the polished marble floor.
The beauty was marred by neglect. Dust motes danced in the air, and oily smudges climbed the walls where lamps were ensconced. Justarch and Armada officials and guards milled about, some stopping to watch her approach.
She turned to Lanik. “Again, I’ve lived within these walls since I was a child. I can find my own way to the Vestibule.”
“Of course, Paladin,” Lanik said, “but the High Reverent insists.”
Selena bit back her irritation and allowed Lanik to lead her down the broad passages of the Temple as if she hadn’t walked these paths a thousand times since her youth. Here, it was quiet; she and Lanik had left the officials behind, and their footsteps echoed around them hollowly. Stained glass windows lined the walls and cast rainbow hues against the marble. The syrupy colors were too bright, too cloying, like decorations for a festival no one attended.
They arrived at another heavy oak door, set with a silver disc the size of a dinner plate. In its blurred reflection, Selena thought her blue eyes looked tired and her skin pale—always pale, never flushed with heat or colored by warmth. Her pallor was the product of fear as well. On the other side of the door, she would learn the purpose of the summons. Another war? Or to deny her petition to drink from the God’s Tears. Or perhaps worse. She had sometimes wondered if the Reverents who made up the governing body of the Aluren would vote to exile her. The thought made her shiver nearly as strongly as her wound did. The Temple was all she knew. But for Ilior, it was all she had.
Two of the Admiral’s guards and two of the Justarch’s stood before the huge doors. They crowded the entrance to the Vestibule with their muskets and cutlasses, but discipline kept any one from appearing awkward or uncomfortable. Lanik cleared his throat delicately.
“I’ll announce you, Paladin,” he said.
“No, I go in alone.” Selena held up a hand when he started to protest. “I know what the High Reverent has ordered, but on this I insist. I will not be announced.”
“But…if I may ask,” Lanik said, “why would you not wish for an entrance befitting your station?”
Because when you announce my name, ‘Selena Koren’, will ring out in our empty halls and the ‘Tainted One’, will echo after, she thought. Aloud, she said, “My station is serving the god. You may go.” She smiled to help take the stiffness out of her command. Lanik acquiesced, and with a final bow slipped back down the hallway.
“Gentlemen.” She nodded to the guards. They moved aside and she stepped inside the Vestibule.
In the twenty years since she’d called the Temple her home, she’d only had cause to visit the Vestibule a handful of times. Her initiation into the faith had been one. The occasion of her Paladinship ten years ago was another. That had been a hurried affair, barely holding to tradition. The Zak’reth war had been a roaring inferno and Aluren Paladins were tossed into the fire as fast as their vows could be uttered.
The Vestibule was plainer than the Great Hall but better maintained. The walls were free of oil smudges and the marble was polished to a high sheen.
Celestine does her best, Selena thought, for one so heavily burdened at such a young age. The High Reverent sat in a plain chair on a long, raised dais at the end of the hall. She was flanked by her two Reverent Paladins—Gerus and Taliah. The Admiral of the Alliance Armada sat beside Gerus, and to his left was the Justarch of Isle Parish. They spoke in hushed tones and fell to silence as Selena approached.
Every time she sailed the outer islands to heal those in need, Selena returned to see the Moon Temple and its inhabitants with new eyes. Just as the foliage in the atrium seemed worse for wear in just a few short weeks, so too, did the High Reverent. Celestine’s beautiful face was stiff with her usual seriousness— a cold visage framed by rich brown hair—but showing signs of fatigue, like little cracks in the surface of white porcelain. Her robes were immaculate, and the silver pendant of a full moon rested in the exact center of her chest. The pendant looked as though it weighed a thousand pounds. She noted too that Celestine’s hands were folded on the table, but clenched too tightly.
Selena stood before the assemblage and bowed low.
Celestine began to speak but Reverent Taliah broke in first.
<
br /> “Time grows short,” the Juskarii woman growled by way of greeting, as if they’d been sitting in the Vestibule waiting for days. “Our purpose is urgent and we’ve much to discuss.” Her red skin seemed to glow like hot embers in the light of the oil lamps burning in delicate sconces on the walls at paced intervals. Selena wondered, with a twinge of envy, if the Juskarii woman felt as warm as her coloring made her seem.
Reverent Gerus snorted. He was not quite seventy, but his ebon skin glowed with health. Or anger, judging by his next words. “Urgent,” he said, drawing Taliah’s indignant stare. “Urgent my eye. This is nothing more than a disgrace. A charade—”
“Silence,” Celestine cut in. “This is an Alliance meeting and will be afforded the proper decorum. Your objections of earlier are duly noted, Reverent Gerus, and now we must proceed.” She looked to Selena, a small, tight smile on her face. “Paladin Koren, greetings. I believe you’ve met Admiral Archer Crane?”
“I have,” Selena said. “Good afternoon, Admiral.”
“And to you, Paladin,” the Admiral replied with a wan smile.
He was older than her twenty-eight years—in his early forties—and handsome with dark hair and eyes. Selena recalled him as a happy, somewhat insouciant fellow, always with a smile and a jest on his lips. She had not known him well; they’d only spoken in passing, but he’d always been kind to her. Selena remembered his kindness well.
Archer Crane’s keen leadership skills and mastery of nautical tactics had earned him his rank though Selena thought the authority fit him like an undersized coat. “Bureaucracies belong on shore,” he was known to say, “but I belong at sea.” Even as she watched, he tugged on the collar of his red dress uniform and leaned back in his chair as if to affect a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He twisted a hammered gold doubloon worn on his little finger around and around.
His wedding ring.
He’s a good man, she thought. I hope Skye knows what she’s doing to hurt him so.