Lifting her onto the wall is nothing. Her shirt slips down, baring one shoulder. A single tug and she’s nude to her elbows, breasts bare. The heart stitched into her chest sits stark and beautiful. I lean forward, kiss it, and she shivers as she fists my hair. Etain’s body resist the evening’s bite, nipples soft and pink until the first brush of my thumb. Deft fingers circle my cock, pulsing, tugging me closer. Small wisps of flame dance in her eyes and Etain falls back on her palms, braced on the wall.
I work a hand between her thighs, banded by half-down pants, and cup her pussy. She’s wet against my palm. One finger slips inside; she grinds her clit against the heel of my hand and lets out a small moan. I can’t wait; I want to, want to make this last. Voices and laughter echo up from the garden. Everyone is waiting, tomorrow is waiting. I have a feeling this sort of pressure will only grow from here.
Etain slips her long arms around my neck, eyes half closed. Cupping the soft mounds of her buttocks, I work my cock between the clench of her thighs. She’s warm, wet. I sink deep inside and her tongue fills my mouth.
We wrestle against clothes barely removed, the shallow wall, and a need that flares without warning. She grips my ass, fingernails ruthless, a silent invitation to take her harder. We fuck each other, a soft smack of flesh and rasping breath filling the valley’s silence. My cock thickens; her clit swells in answer, licking the base of my shaft until I swear into the sweet perfume of her neck and come. Etain cries out, limbs tangled with mine and writhes her climax while I pump hot into her cunt and down her thighs.
Etain’s gasps heat my neck. For a minute, we cling to each other with sweat cooling in our clothes, kissing in slow passes. Time doesn’t pass; I can sense it hanging in air growing stagnant, leaving my body and my fate becalmed. This doesn’t change what Etain and I just shared, but it robs it of the intensity and urgency we felt. In my gut I know this won’t change until we’ve left the temple. Defeated, it’s also dead, and now decay has set in.
Etain rights her clothes and brushes a kiss to my head, impervious to the sudden gloom. “I’ll see you in the garden.”
I take the long way through the former temple, now expanded outward, and upward, incorporating grand balconies, sleeping quarters, and a bath fed by steaming water from a waterfall that spills from the sky. The temple may be dead, but this place, or rather the idea of it, is very real. I wonder where Crispin’s real home sits, the place and what the land is like. I imagine it hot but green, dotted with evergreen spires that sway on a breeze of citrus fruits and ocean brine. Will I ever see it? Will he? I’ve begun to realize that what I’ve won doesn’t mean having what I want. Maybe that holds true for each of us.
Laughter curls around me in the torchlight as I pass along the pond. I know the voice of each woman by now, but I can’t place who it is until I pass the glade and reach sight of the terrace. Beneath the white silk canopies, tables are laden with the bounty that passed me earlier. Music ripples out from a quartet of thick, potato-headed men in the corner, deft with lute and pipe despite their age. On the lawn a few servants dance arm-in-arm to a lively tune, and in the center is Esmanth, skirts held to her knees, laughing. Her partner is stout boy nearly a head taller, his skin the color of good bread and hair like pitch. He’s built like a woodcutter, and despite my sister’s best efforts at dancing, his efforts to go more slowly, and they stumble in an awkward circle, laughing like fools.
Behind her the women, Andraste, and Crispin sit in animated conversation, plucking at the feast.
My melancholy passes at the site, replaced by annoyance. I should be more grateful, stop complaining. What happened to the importance of saving Esmanth? And now that she’s here, what lies ahead isn’t an obligation. It’s for her, for all these women. I was made a god to help them, and in my head at least, I sound like a jackass.
“Lir!” Esmanth stumbles into my arms, breathless. “Where were you? We’re having the best time.” She frees me and glances back at her dancing partner.
“Seeing to some matters.” Esmanth is barely eighteen; I won’t begrudge her some fun.
Gravity steals her smile. “There’s plenty to do, plenty to sort out. But we all need a moment to catch our breath. Then we decide how to go forward.”
I don’t give her enough credit; that much is apparent. Esmanth’s not out here dancing and playing because she’s ignorant of the danger ahead. Just the opposite.
“I’m going for a walk in the glade with Obern.”
Obern, still waiting at a distance, looks really happy about the prospect.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Esmanth’s disappointment is instant. “Why not?”
Because I know his mind, his intentions, or at least what he’s hoping for. And my killing him seems very unfair considering our difference in size and strength. “He can join us at the table,” I offer, preening at my diplomacy.
“Garden,” Esmanth returns.
“Are we doing this right now?” More than ever I wish our mother was here.
Esmanth slide me a coy smile. “You have eight women to pay you undivided attention. A walk; you can’t say a word about it.”
“Who told you that?” I’ve struggled all afternoon with how to explain the arrangement to my sister.
“All of them.”
Finna and Kumiko are beckoning me over with an impatient wave, and I’m more than ready to be saved from this near-paternal conversation. “Fine. A walk.”
Esmanth runs two steps, turns back to kiss my cheek, and dashes away again.
I put my hand on Obern’s chest as he passes. I don’t have to say a word; he nods and doesn’t look scared of me, which makes me like him a bit. I’ve lost all patience with toadying and subservience.
Maybe I didn’t fully appreciate the temple’s isolation until it was gone.
Everyone has begun to drift from the table, spreading over a sloping lawn above the pond with goblets in hand.
Theriss offers me an open seat at the foot of the table, opposite Crispin. He and Andraste murmur to each other, looking glad to be forgotten in all the attention paid to Tindra. Her dragon aspect is unseen but felt. The women crowd around her on the grass, eager to hear her stories, or just be close to such a creature. Finna and Kumiko join in, having forgotten calling me over. Only Etain, refusing to be impressed by anything, notices me slide into my chair, and pulls a trencher close. We exchange smiles over our private moment, and I hope she feels my gratitude.
“How are you adjusting?” Theriss asks between mouthfuls of wine.
“Slowly. Overwhelmed now and then, but not lost. It’ll all come in time.” Was that my father speaking?
She clinks crystal against crystal in a salute. “You already have a warrior’s spirit. From here? Victory. We face only victory.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Shouts rise up from the women. “Tindra is going to tell a story of the old kingdoms!” Finna calls, patting the grass.
Theriss slithers from her chair, head shaking. “Finna is probably the only one of us who lived through them.”
“Hah. Makes you admire her–” Freya catches my eye. “Enthusiasm. I’ll be back.”
Theriss shrugs and coils into an open space beside Finna and Meridiana.
Freya sits behind the others, hugging her knees and staring up at the stars. She doesn’t look at me when I sit, but points to the heavens and traces a shape between the points of light. “Falcon-horse.”
Theriss was wrong. There’s another being here, older than Finna, and more affected by the old kingdom tales.
“If you don’t want to be out here, Freya, don’t. Do whatever makes you happy.”
“I am happy. There’s so much to celebrate. You’ve become a god, we’ve become a whole company. And our curses are broken.”
I slip an arm around her. “But not yours, not really…”
“My curse is broken. What I did to myself? That was my choice. I bargained away my immortal form to live.
”
“You made a choice that wasn’t really a choice.” I know what she’s doing; I did it for a whole year in that dim, dank monastery. Blaming myself made what happened feel like my choice, within my control. Being angry with myself, hating myself, was so much easier than admitting I’d been as much a pawn as anyone else. It was all that kept me from hopelessness.
She sighs. “I’m so glad for Etain’s being here; to have someone who understands completely.”
“That’s how I feel about each of you. Each time I start to falter, one of you steps forward with strength, wisdom...I can’t believe how lucky I am.”
Freya falls with her head in my lap. Callista and Kumiko scoot back to sit on either side of us while Tindra waits patiently, all the time in the world perched atop her low boulder seat.
Esmanth slips from the clearing with Obern, fair cheeks blushing. They laugh, talk over each other. My sister looks so happy. Everyone looks happy, joyous as Tindra begins.
Callista passes the jug; I lose count of how many times.
“Should we keep at this!” Theriss yells, not looking remorseful.
Meridiana envelopes us in a vulgar laugh. “Tomorrow is tomorrow.” She kisses me with a mouthful of wine.
Music flits through my haze; there’s one immunity being a god hasn’t given me. I feel Finna’s gift, resist the alcohol, but I suppress it. Could I do that before? I don’t know.
More dancing. Finna’s soft damp hands, Kumiko’s laughter.
When I collapse to the grass in my drunken stupor, everyone is happy.
I’m happy.
-A Temple Breached-
Light burns, sudden and searing, behind my eyes. But this isn’t what’s woken me; a gray silverlight hue of dawn holds the sky, the first pale pink tendrils reaching up from the horizon.
It was a sound, the sound of a ram applied to the gates, and the thick chalk odor of pulverized marble laced with an acrid stench of superheated magic.
My thoughts wing like frightened birds, head pounding, and ears deaf at the noise, thick with too much drink and too much of whatever’s left me naked on an upper balcony. I wish I was in my right mind.
“Whoa.” I release my hold on Finna’s gift, and drunkenness and exhaustion evaporate like the morning dew, finding me on my feet before the word has left my lips. Gods aren’t immune to intoxication and debauchery because we, or at least I, am immune to the consequences.
I throw on nearby clothes, then run for the garden courtyard, already ringing with worried shouts. Servants from the previous night flee into the copse and ostensibly out of the garden. Obern. I spy him among the others, a rock in their river of panic, looking for Esmanth.
Where is she? The women are already running from their chambers, voices stolen by the next brain-jarring impact. Obern catches my eye. I raise my hand, a promise his goodbye will be delivered. He runs to help the others flee while I turn to find Esmanth.
Crispin plows into me, darting from a side staircase near the terrace.
“Oryllix,” he shouts, answering my silent question.
“With an army.” I already know. They’ve brought more than Mynogin’s forces. How? Marching thousands of men to the temple’s doors without any of us hearing? “How?”
His face is grim. “We’re not the only ones with the power to manipulate time and space.”
Damn. “Can we go out through the copse?”
He casts a glance toward the feeling servants. “Only mortals. We have a different path. Grab your armor and bring the others. I’ll get Andraste, and we’ll go from there.”
A crack licks up the wall to punctuate his words.
Tindra falls in with my pace, running with me towards the sleeping quarters. “The Oryllix must believe they have something beyond a hundred thousand mortal men, to be so bold.”
“They have been, before. Only, I was mortal then.”
Tindra straps and buckles me in while I throw the last few things into my bottomless bag.
Finished, she stands and zips her wrist with a fingernail. “Blood for blood.” She presses the wound to my breastplate. Energy heats my skin and crackles over steel. Her smile cocks one side of her mouth. “Just feed it with Svartr blood in the future.”
We find the others gathered at the foot of the exit steps. The pummeling has stopped, and silence radiates from beyond. Esmanth leaves Andraste and runs to me, squeezing my hand.
Kumiko perches on a cornice overhead, crouched and watching. “They’re dragging someone forward between the ranks,” she whispers.
“Doesn’t bode well.” Crispin looks to Andraste. “Jötunheim?”
“No. We can’t trust any path outside Utgard. Anything in Jötunheim, beyond the stronghold, could be compromised by the Oryllix.” She glances at Esmanth. “With Esmanth I can open the Twilight Hold and–”
“No.” Crispin turns toward the door. “We’ll think of something.”
“What?” Esmanth and I hold a look between us.
“What,” I ask again, when they don’t answer.
“The hold is…” Crispin watches the gates, back teeth grinding. “Lawless isn’t the word. Fickle. Unpredictable. Open to many influences.”
“But safer than the giant’s path,” Andraste insists, hand on his shoulder.
A keening wail beyond the gates hurries my words. “I thought we couldn’t leave through the grove.”
He shakes his head. “This is no place a mortal can flee. None would wish to.”
“Pentave!” Kumiko looks down at all of us, but the word only means something to me and Tindra. “They have Pentave and–”
She raises up, then crouches tight. “Smoke. Ugh. Pentave is... smoking.”
“He’s casting fire?” Tindra clarifies.
“No, the Oryllix are...burning him, leeching him, with some kind of–”
Screams. They’re softened by the thick gates into a sound like winter wind. Kumiko peers out again. Her pale face blanches.
“A dragon?” Tindra raises a brow at me. “What could those two possibly accomplish with a–”
A grating sound deafens us, the plates of the world being dragged together. It feels as though the entire temple and the place it occupies in the universe have been pulled someplace else.
Crispin sheaths his sword. “To the grove. We’ll take our chances with the grey. Run!”
We’re nearly at the bridge when I realize Esmanth isn’t beside me and turn back. She and Andraste stand where we left them. More pounding at the gates, but they don’t seem to hear it. They don’t hear me call to them. They stand arms slack, eyes cast to the sky.
“Esmanth?” I skid to a stop beside her, grab her arm and tug. She holds fast. Her breath clouds out in a silken mist.
I don’t see what either of them are looking at. “Andraste, Esmanth, we have to go.”
It lands on the tip of my sister’s nose, small and inconsequential, melting almost before it settles: a snowflake.
“It was summer,” I mutter, glancing up again. The clear sunrise is lost now, amidst a churn of gray clouds and charcoal smoke.
“Fimblewinter,” breathes Andraste, grabbing Esmanth’s hand. “Somehow the Oryllix have brought Fimblewinter.”
One gate tears free, sucked away like a leaf into the frozen black vortex beyond. We run for the copse where Crispin has emerged looking for us.
“We’ll need time!” shouts Andraste, crossing the bridge. “Not long, but we need time.”
I don’t look back, not when the second gate tears free. Not when the black maw beyond sucks us back on a frigid deep breath. But on an impulse I don’t understand, conjured by the Gardener’s words from so long ago, Tindra’s from moments before, and I pause to plunge my sword into soil outside the copse.
Its trees shrivel, leaves gray and crisp before the next gust swallows them up. I channel my gifts through soil, through roots, deep into the world, entangling bones left long ago. Freya’s healing, Meridiana’s compulsion, Tindra’s command of time and s
pace. Bark sloughs away, revealing trunks of femurs, branches of ulna and finger bones. Stones revealed by receding dirt stare up at me with the empty eyes of death, skulls of thousands who perished to the temple.
Skeleton trees crack, topple, adding to the storm roar stinging my cheeks. An aura like red fireflies dances among the bones, knitting pieces into hollow men.
They look to me with the slack jaw of an eternal smile, expectant. I stare back, momentarily horrified by what the garden concealed and by what I’ve created.
Only for a moment. I raise my blade and level it at the gaping entrance nearly concealed by sleet, where cries from the Oryllix’ army compete with the raging storm.
“Fight!” I command.
A moan of obedience sends ripples down my neck. They clack like dry timber, shambling without care through the water or over the bridge. Bones stab from the withering lawn like spears, hovering mid-air until other pieces join in a devil’s dance. My army moves and swells, a tidal wave, fearless and hungry.
My last view of them before I run for the copse is their crest, bone soldiers flowing up and over the invaders, moaning down the enemy’s shrieks of agony.
Esmanth and Andraste stand with palms pressed to a standing stone, in the center of a copse I’ve never seen before. A runed slab sits as an altar deep in the knave of a bone cathedral. The women and Crispin circle them, weapons ready for any intruders.
“What is this?” I demand, meaning more than whatever Andraste and my sister are doing.
“The curse of this place,” Tindra answers. “And the consequences for those of us who live beyond time, or outside it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Tindra glances back at Esmanth, pale but focused on the ritual. “A mortal lifespan is a blessing,” Tindra whispers over the gale. “It spares you the knowledge of corruption, conscription. There’s peace in believing the dead are dead, no matter your grief.”
Temple of Cocidius Page 53