So, the three of them headed back up the road, mostly satisfied with what they had purchased. In a moment, as they rounded a curve in the road, the temple came back into view.
“Xae, how can there still be temples? Why hasn’t Rothgar shut them down? I mean, he’s destroyed everything that they stand for.” She kept her voice down and made sure that no one was close enough to hear.
“My mother said he chose not to. He maintains the myth … My mother says …” His voice caught. “My mother said that he affirms that the Ceo San are chosen, and in this time, he proclaims that they have been chosen to serve him. He proclaimed that the Althamir support his right to conquer and lead all of the lands of Whitelea in their honor. That the enslavement of the Ceo San is his divine right. That w—That they are less than human, only tools of the gods, not really human, and thus his to control.” His voice was a bare whisper by the time he finished.
“But how—”
Xae shook his head and nodded toward the temple, where they could talk with fewer ears to listen.
CHAPTER 23
THE TEMPLE & THE DRAGON
The massive structure of the temple once again loomed before the travelers. From her new angle, Mariah saw that in addition to the statues in the alcoves, there were figures on the roof as well. To one side, she saw a great horned owl, and to the other, an eagle. In the center, directly above the wide doorway into the building, stood a majestic carved statue of a hawk. Mariah stopped in her tracks, her head angled upward. Unlike the other birds, who were sitting primly, the hawk’s wings were spread wide, and its gaze was directed skyward. She suddenly remembered Wakely’s little carving. Had he modeled it after this statue or one like it? The resemblance was striking.
A feeling like she had never experienced before swept through her. She wanted to laugh, but at the same time, she wanted to cry, to rage at the injustice of the man she had just seen, chained to another, subservient, subhuman.
“Mariah!” There was reprimand in Xae’s voice, and she felt as if their roles had been reversed. His bony fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he pulled her forward onto the temple grounds.
She was still trying to look upward at the likeness of the hawk when, ten feet from the temple entrance, Ruby stopped, tugging her hand out of Mariah’s.
“Come on,” Mariah said. “We won’t be long.”
“No, thank you,” Ruby said. They were the first words Mariah had heard from her. She realized that she had begun to believe that she was mute. The young woman’s voice, however, was fine, if soft and subdued. “May I leave? I can wait outside the north gate. I prefer … if it’s all right … to stay outside.” Her eyes strayed to the temple, and Mariah saw a trace of fear in them.
Mariah looked to Xae, but he only shrugged, and she could tell his mind was elsewhere, probably still back at the market or maybe on the day his family was seized, the day his father had been murdered. “Of course it’s all right. We should be no more than two hours,” she said. She had no idea how long it would take Shira to finish her business with the seamstress and the man at the tavern, but they needed to get back on the road, as everyone kept reminding her.
Ruby bowed shallowly to Mariah and stepped back.
“Wait!”
The young woman froze in place and turned back to Mariah.
“What about your friend, Faylan? Without you, how will I know if I see him?”
“He is not my friend,” she said. “Just kin. He has skin like mine and dark eyes. He has many years, as many as you and your friends together.”
“Are you from Lishorani?” The question came into her mind and was on her lips before she could stop it.
“I am from the place where we met,” the girl said. “But I have heard that my kin were born in such a place. May I go now?”
“Of course.” Why did she keep asking Mariah permission for everything?
Ruby spun around and disappeared quickly down the road.
The light dimmed as Xae pulled her into the temple a few moments later. They passed through a wide entryway before they entered the temple proper. Like the outside, the inner sanctuary was circular. Wooden benches curved around the center area, where a massive sculpture adorned a marble fountain in the middle of the room. She recognized the sculpture from similar illustrations in her books. It was a statue of the Althamir. Back to back, carved as if they were all a part of one massive being, were some of the gods in their human forms—two women and two men. Between each pair of human forms was a god in animal form. She recognized the Orca, the Lion, the Bear, and the Fox. Each of the gods and their animal forms faced outward. There was nowhere to walk in the temple proper without feeling at least one of their imaginary gazes.
Mariah continued to let Xae lead her until they reached a spot on the benches that would afford them some bit of privacy. There were a few people milling around, including another white-robed woman, like the one she had seen tending the gardens earlier.
As Mariah sat, she realized that her hands were shaking. She used her good hand to cover the one in the sling and inhaled as deeply as she could. Turning, she really looked at Xae. The town’s newness and the temple’s grandeur had distracted her, and she realized that she hadn’t really checked to see how all of this was affecting him, especially seeing the Trappers. His jaw was hard, and his hands were folded before him so tightly that his knuckles were bone white.
“Tell me,” Mariah whispered. She had a feeling that he needed to talk as much as she wanted information. Nothing seemed to fit about the situation in Varidian.
Xae’s lips twitched, and his hands grabbed the back of the bench in front of him, but it was a few moments before he actually spoke, his voice pitched low.
“I thought I’d do better … you know, at acting normal when I saw them. How will I attempt a rescue if my heart seethes with rage just seeing a guard or a Trapper.”
“It’s okay,” Mariah said, her left hand on his knee. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about them? It might help us both.”
“I know quite a bit, actually. Mother wanted us to know the history, in case … so we could fight back if we needed to. The old king, Rothgar’s father, never acknowledged the Althamir as the gods of Whitelea as the kings before him had, but that was all. The people protested that he had forsaken the gods of the land, but when he remained silent and did not deny the gods, they forgot. He let the people keep their books and temples. But when he died and Rothgar took the throne, things changed.”
Mariah nodded, urging him to go on. She had heard much of this from her own father, but talking about it seemed to be helping Xae. There was still a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, but his grip on the bench before him had relaxed somewhat.
“At first, when Rothgar immediately ordered the burning of the Althamir and Ceo San histories, people believed that he was banning our religion, that he believed that the gods no longer existed or that they never had.” He finally released the bench and sat back, and Mariah folder her hand around his. “But a couple years later, the number of Ceo San births began to be rise, and Rothgar issued an edict encouraging the Ceo San to be brought to the capital. At first, the people thought that he had a change of heart, that the upswing in Ceo San births had shown him that the Althamir were alive and well.”
Was that number still rising? As she listened, Mariah noticed that there were now others in the pews around them, but no one was looking at them or seemed close enough to hear Xae, so she turned her attention back to him.
“Those who went to him then were recruited into his army, and rumors spread that the king did indeed believe. Why else would he ask for the Althamir’s chosen be brought to him? However, by the time he made it law that all of the Ceo San be delivered to him, he had made it known that he had been chosen by the gods of Whitelea, not as a Ceo San, but as their leader, that they were to fated to serve him and his army as he saw fit.”
“That man … in the market.”
Xae nodded, squeezing her hand. His voice was considerably softer when he spoke again, almost inaudible. “He’s Ceo San. I have seen his kind since I was young, when my parents told me that I must hide, lest I become like them, a slave on a chain, with no will of my own save the king’s. They obviously did not agree with the king when it came to the chosen.”
Mariah sat back and relaxed against the bench behind her. She was suddenly acutely aware of the absence of her wings, which just weeks ago would have prevented her from taking such a position.
A vision formed in her thoughts of herself in hawk form, sitting on the shoulder of a tall Trapper with a cruel face, a chain fastened around her leg. A feeling of desperation and complete and utter loneliness filled her, and tears ran down her cheek. When she had left Varidian so many years ago, she had fled, the idea of becoming a slave abhorrent. She had feared it because of her father’s rants on how Rothgar was stealing children. But before she had even gotten away from Eaglespire, she had considered going back to make sure that her family got the reward so that her father could get proper treatment. Only his wishes had kept her from turning around. Now, she knew that there had never been a reward, at least not for her family.
During her childhood, she had never seen an actual Ceo San slave. Spending almost all of her time in the house or the smithy, she had barely seen a Varidian soldier, let alone one who was chained and bound to another. She wouldn’t have known them as one of her own unless someone had explained it to her.
One of her own. The thought still awed her. Just a short time ago, she had considered herself an outcast, neither human nor Ceo San, only unique and alone. Even Gwyn, as much as her mentor supported and guided her, was different, but now she realized their lives had been driven by similar forces. It was only her defect, her inability to change for so long, that had separated her from the other Ceo San.
She let go of Xae’s hand and wiped the wetness from her face. “We need to find your sisters quickly,” she said in a fierce whisper. “And Faylan.” She hadn’t forgotten Ruby’s kin.
What if she had been born to serve some greater purpose? An image filled her mind, and she gasped as it took over her consciousness. She stood in front of a vast army of ragtag soldiers. Humans. Hybrids. Half-beast Ceo San. They murmured loudly, and the smell of sweat and dirt and human frailty was overwhelming. They all looked to her, hope in their eyes.
Mariah shook the image away, terrified, her heart hammering in her chest and her hands shaking once again. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to go back to Firebend, alone, where it was safe. But she had made a promise to Gwyn and to this boy and now, unwillingly, to the wolves of Laikos. She would fulfill her promises, and if she survived, she would go home and escape this madness.
Mariah rose and nodded to Xae. He needed time, and she needed a bit of space. “I’ll meet you at the door when you’re ready.”
He sat on the bench, staring at his lap and his open hands. His nod was slight, but she accepted it and decided to explore the room a little bit more.
She wound through the benches toward the center of the room and the fountain there. The sound of water running over the feet of the gods and into the pool below was soothing. It gurgled and bubbled in little eddies as she watched.
The woman in the white robes approached her. Her hair had once been brown but had turned almost halfway silver, and her features were sharply angled. Her eyes were small and green, and her skin was darkly tanned and wrinkled as if she had spent many days in the sun.
“Greetings, young one.” Her voice was soft but still strong. “I’m Daire Denholm. I am a Keeper of this temple.”
“Greetings,” Mariah replied. She didn’t offer her name. “Your temple is beautiful.”
“Thank you. Have you never been in a temple of the Althamir before?”
She shook her head, her cheeks warming. Was she that obvious? “We don’t have one in my village.” It was the truth, she told herself. There was no need to tell the woman that the village she now considered her own was across the sea in Cillian.
“That is a shame. It’s unfortunate that sometimes the old ways need to be forgotten before they can be remembered.”
Mariah stared at her in confusion.
The old woman laid a hand on her shoulder, her palm resting on the cloth of her sling. Mariah flinched before she realized that there was no longer any tenderness in the spot where her bone had cracked. Green eyes met hers in a direct stare. The Keeper’s voice was so soft that she barely heard it. “We all face hard times, especially those who stand for others. We must remember when things are darkest that we’re never alone. The gods that created us will never leave us. They are ever a part of us.”
Mariah’s eyes widened even farther. Was this woman Ceo San as well? The keeper gave her a pat and smiled as if she had just told her that she was pretty and not uttered something that sounded like a cryptic prophecy instead.
“Enjoy your visit, young one,” Daire said before turning and walking away, disappearing down one of the short hallways at the edge of the sanctuary.
When Xae rose and met her near the doorway a few moments later, she was still puzzling over what the woman had said.
* * *
On their way from the temple, Mariah kept an eye out for Ruby, but she must have really gone out the north gate as she had promised. Mariah wondered just how long it had been since the girl had stepped foot “inside.” Had she always lived in the forest?
Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the half-darkness once she and Xae stepped inside the tavern, but once they did, she was sure she could have fit the whole Herring Hideaway in the corner kitchen of the Dragon. The Cruel Dragon was a world away from the Hideaway, both in distance and in size. A large stone fireplace sat across the back wall, but its hearth was cold, gray ash smeared along the sides of the firebox. Two brown settles and a few stools were gathered around it, but they were empty, too. Several people, farmers or peasants from the look of them, sat at the four large trestle tables. The bar was on the wall to Mariah’s right, and stairs ran up the opposite corner in the back. The kitchen, which Mariah could see through the open doors that faced the bar, stood in the other.
Shira sat at the bar, clearly engaged in a game of dice with a red-haired man who seemed to be of a similar age. Mariah was careful not to look at Shira and her companion for more than a moment.
“Go ahead and get off your feet,” a woman yelled in her direction from behind the bar. “I’ll be with ya in a minute.”
“Come on,” Mariah said to Xae, who was reminding her more and more of the reserved boy she had first met in Wellspring. The sooner they got out of Kannuk, the better. Maybe the countryside would improve Xae’s mood, although she wished there was time to visit the temple once more, maybe get Keeper Denholm to explain what she had said. She shook off the thought, led the boy over to the table closest to the bar, and sat down with her back to Shira and her companion. Before she sat, she noticed that Shira had two packs at her feet, one that Mariah did not recognize, and she assumed that the innkeepers’ daughter had acquired it for Ruby.
The barmaid, true to her word, was standing beside her before she and Xae were even all the way settled. “Hey, there. Haven’t seen you two in here before. What’d ya do to your arm, miss?”
“I fell off a dock.” Mariah smiled. The woman before her was short and sinewy and had at least twenty years on her. Her dark curly hair was peppered with gray. “And hit a boat.”
“A dock? If you fell off any of the docks around here, all you’d get was wet.” It was a good thing she couldn’t see the other bandage on her arm, Mariah thought.
“It happened in Quell, where my brother and I are traveling from. Lots more boats there, even some big, dangerous ones.” She let the outright falsehood and its implications lie. The truth was not an option if she was going to keep her little company safe.
“Where are ya headed to?”
“The c
apital. Our parents are gone, and I’m hoping there’s work to be found there once my arm’s healed up.”
The barmaid raised an eyebrow and looked Mariah over from head to toe. “Pretty one like you … if you stay a few nights here in Kannuk, I’m sure you’ll make enough to tide you over, hurt or not, especially with all the guards passing through. There’s some prefer the tall ones like you.”
Mariah tilted her head slightly and furrowed her brow. When the woman’s meaning hit her, her cheeks flamed, and her eyes grew huge before she looked away. Xae, fortunately, was staring straight down at the table top, although she caught the pale shade of pink on his cheeks. She was sure she heard Shira and her friend chuckling behind them.
The barmaid cleared her throat. “Well, that kinda work’s not for everyone. Just forget I said anything. I’m Addie by the way. What can I get ya?”
Looking at the woman’s chin instead of meeting her eyes, Mariah said, “Uh … a man at the market said you have the best pasties.”
“Ah, that we do. One for each of ya?” The woman seemed anxious to get their order and end the awkward encounter. Mariah was inclined to agree.
“Yes, please, plus a couple for the road. We have a long day ahead.” She wanted to make sure that Ruby got something to eat as well.
“Anything to drink?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’ll bring some ale.”
Mariah looked across the table at Xae as the woman walked off. She was almost to the kitchen when Mariah turned over her shoulder, voice raised. “Actually, can you add two more of the meat pies? My brother will be hungry again five minutes down the road.” She smiled at Addie, and the woman laughed.
“Sure enough,” she said before she disappeared into the kitchen.
While they waited, Xae pulled the map that they had gotten from Zachariah out of his pack and spread it over the table. They went through the motions of whispering to each other and acting like they were going over plans for their journey. But beyond getting to the city, they really had no idea where they were going to end up.
Raven Thrall Page 21