Braid of Sand

by Alicia Gaile

  “I’m sure this is more than enough,” he mumbled without looking at her. The sun had sunk below the horizon and only the palest traces of sunlight lingered in the sky. Above them, the stars drew close, twinkling. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. Raziela watched him with a small half-smile.

  “My mother had a recipe for fish stew she used to make when I was a boy. I couldn’t recreate it, but this will be the closest I’ve come to tasting it again in nearly...” His smile faded. Raziela cleared her throat. They had an unspoken agreement that they could be easy with each other so long as they didn’t speak of the Goddess. Raziela chose not to pry into his past, and by contrast he wanted to know everything she would tell him about hers.

  “We’ll eat better than the King tonight,” he said with a grin as they made their way back to the tower.

  “Watch out!” Before Raziela could push him out of the way, a phoenix feather drifted down to land on his shoulder. The ends of the black feather burned a bright orange-gold.

  “What was that?” He dropped his basket and swatted at his arm. The burning end of the feather singed the edge of his jerkin. Raziela bared her teeth in an apologetic smile.

  “Phoenix feathers. One of the eggs just hatched and the little guy must be a bit restless up there.”

  “Did you say phoenixes?”

  She pointed to the large stone basins above them. There was a soft rustling noise and then another feather kicked up into the air, this one entirely engulfed in flames. First, it sailed up in a graceful swoop before gliding back and forth to the ground like a skier sailing down a hill. It smoldered on the white gravel between their feet.

  “Can I see it?” The question made him sound younger. For a moment, Raziela could almost imagine the boy he must have been with his large, dark eyes and small crooked grin.

  “If you want. He’s alone up there. Once phoenixes turn back into eggs they smolder for a few days to incubate themselves. Then when they hatch, the older birds fly back with food once or twice a day until the hatchlings can fly on their own. They’re large birds, so you’d know if the others were up there or not.” Raziela hugged her basket tighter as he swung away to climb the statue in the middle of the pool. It didn’t seem wise to tell him that all of the phoenixes were too young to pose much of a threat to him just then.

  The glow of the young phoenix lit his face as he leaned over to see into the basin. Raziela shuddered at the sight of the dancing flames tracing their light across his skin. She turned her back until she heard him jump down to the ground again.

  “I know several people who’d empty their family vaults for a renewable resource like those.”

  “Yes, well, as pretty as they are, their feathers can be a bit of a nuisance on a windy day.” It took him half a second to picture it, and then he gave a reluctant laugh.

  “I see your point.” Raziela shifted her weight, uncomfortable with him leaning so close to the fiery hatchling.

  “Did you want to see? I could lift you up.”

  “No, thank you. I’m not a big fan of fire.”

  “Really? Why—?” Understanding came into his eyes. “The raid?” She nodded.

  “I was trapped under one of the iron candlestick holders. Looking back, it couldn’t have been that heavy, but I was eight and it was taller than I was. One of the raiders had just found me when the Temple fell. I remember him standing over me and thinking that I was about to die like my sisters when the Great Mother brought Soul-Eater slashing down.”

  “I...,” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “That must have been awful.” There was a hollow sound to his voice, as if he knew they were just words with no power to make anything about what happened better.

  “It wasn’t so bad in the end. At least I got to come here.” She looked around at the darkened gardens. The smell of citrus and flowers perfumed the air and she breathed it in like medicine for the wounds brought back by the memories.

  “Yes,” he said in that same flat voice. “You got to come here.”

  “What about you?” She didn’t look at him. Frankly, she didn’t expect him to give her a straight answer about his past, but the longer she avoided asking about it, the more obvious it became that she already knew who he was.

  As expected, his expression became guarded.

  “What about me?”

  “You carry so much resentment for the Great Mother. You know what I went through. What happened to you that made you so bitter toward the gods?”

  “She left us,” he said softly. “People begged and pleaded for mercy, for a sign that things would get better, but she took every last good thing in our world and poisoned it against us.”

  Tentatively, Raziela reached out to touch his arm in reassurance. Her fingers splayed across his peculiar scar.

  “There is still good in the world, Castien. You just have to open your eyes to see it.” He shook his head.

  “Not in my world there’s not.” But the way he looked at her told her he hadn’t completely lost hope in its existence.

  “You know what would go well with this stew of yours?” She shifted her basket on her hip, changing the subject. “Wine. The last time the satyrs brought milk from their herds they brought a few barrels of blackberry wine for the altar. I’m sure the Great Mother wouldn’t mind if we had some—provided we make at least a small toast in her honor.” She watched him.

  “May your light shine forever,” he murmured. She bit the inside of her cheek. The blessing he meant was, ‘May her light shine upon you forever,’ but she was touched that he tried anyway.

  “You’d better prepare yourself. Satyr wine is heady stuff.”

  AS WITH BREAKFAST, they worked side by side preparing the vegetable stew. Raziela, unused to giving directions, simply reached for what she wanted and Castien, adept at reading every signal around him, supplied what she needed without either of them having to say a word.

  While he stood stirring the stew, Raziela disappeared down to the Temple and returned with a small barrel tucked under her arm. Her eyes danced as though she had a secret she was bursting to tell. Despite himself, Castien’s interest was piqued.

  “It’s not drugged is it?”

  “Drugged?” Raziela set the barrel on the kitchen table with a frown.

  “From the look on your face, I’ll take one sip of that stuff and end the night doing a jig dressed in one of your nightgowns.”

  Her eyes nearly crossed at the mental image.

  “I will try to stop you before you get that far.”

  Castien ladled the soup into the two wooden bowls she indicated on the second shelf in the cupboard while Raziela found cups to pour them each a glass of wine.

  “Does the Goddess join you for dinner?” Castien looked at the two cups as he brought their food to the table.

  “No, but it never hurts to be prepared. Besides, I’ve learned to keep a spare. Caprea can be very destructive when she gets into one of her moods.” She smiled, but he was already tipping his bowl into his mouth and slurping softly.

  “It’s a good thing you made enough to feed an army,” she said as she swirled her spoon through the soup. Watching him eat always caused something in her belly to clench. Was it guilt? He ate like each drop was precious and deserved every ounce of his focus. She reached for her glass and pretended not to look.

  “What happens to all of the food you don’t eat?”

  Some of her wine went down the wrong tube and she sputtered.

  “I’m not sure. I take what I need, and the nymphs and dryads take the rest.”

  “This meal we’re eating now would be worth a King’s ransom in Phalyra. You have no idea what even one basketful would mean to those people.”

  Raziela bit the rim of her cup to hide her nerves, anticipating his next words.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve tried sending some back?”

  She squeezed her wooden cup so he wouldn’t see her hand shake.

  “It’s forbidden to take food from the Sacred Grov
e. That’s why she set the phoenixes to stand watch, to prevent anyone from trying to steal from her again.” She walked a dangerous line. He paused to stir the contents of his soup.

  “So you’ve never sent food back to our world?”

  Her lashes fluttered, and she kept her head bent. Through the window, the last rays of the sun still outlined the clouds.

  “If I tried to steal food, even for the best of reasons, I would be no better than my thief of a father.”

  “I see.” With that, he tipped up his bowl to pour the warm broth down his throat. Raziela relaxed, seeing that he was wholly absorbed in their meal once more.

  The smell of blackberry wine hit her senses as she raised her cup to her mouth. It was tart and sweet, like sun-ripened berries. She closed her eyes with a small hum.

  A gentle warmth pooled in her belly. When she opened her eyes again, Castien was scraping a boiled carrot from the bottom of his bowl.

  “Do you have a family back in Phalyra?” The question came out before she could give it proper consideration. So far she’d been doing fine leaving his identity alone, but he was so different from the man she’d expected that she was eager to learn more.

  “None that would miss me if I never returned,” he said without looking up. Raziela’s heart stuttered a little at that. Was he thinking of staying?

  “No wives or children?”

  His head swung slowly toward her and his mouth formed that familiar curve.

  “Wives? How many do you expect me to have?”

  “I don’t know, but you seem to resent me being alone here. I thought perhaps you had a family you thought I was missing out on.”

  While it was tempting to take another drink, Raziela opted for the food instead. It really was delicious.

  Castien sighed and walked over to the pot to fill his bowl a second time.

  “You never had a chance for a life of your own. How old were you when your father sacrificed you to this place? Four? Five?”

  “It wasn’t a sacrifice. It was what the Goddess decreed.”

  “A life for a life sounds like a sacrifice to me.”

  Her lips pinched into a thin line.

  “I see now why you think the idea of any woman agreeing to marry you is ridiculous. Who’d want to deal with that headache for the rest of their life?” He stopped so suddenly that soup sloshed over his hand. The laugh that came out of his mouth sounded strained.

  “No woman with any sense wants anything to do with me.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to argue with him, but she worried he might mistake her meaning and took another sip of wine instead. He tracked the glass’s journey to her lips.

  “What would you do if you didn’t have to serve the Goddess? Have you ever thought about it?”

  “I don’t have to serve her. It’s my choice—it’s always been my choice. But of course I’ve thought about life beyond the Garden.”

  “And?”

  “I suppose I’d marry and become a fisherman’s wife, blessing him with babies and taking care of his house. That’s all there is for women beyond the Temple, right?”

  Unexpectedly, he let out a snort.

  “What unhappy woman told you that?”

  Raziela blushed and hunched her shoulders.

  “Fine then, what do you think my life would be like?”

  “You’d go to the Academy—if you fought like you did today you could take command within a week. You’d be a soldier in the King’s guard—not that that’s anything to be proud of these days.”

  “I notice you haven’t given me a family in your vision of my future. What, do you think no one would want me either?”

  He shook his head and finally raised his cup in a half-hearted toast.

  “I wouldn’t presume to tie up your future with another vow to love, honor, and serve. You’ve had more than your fair share of that already. However, if marriage and babies is what you want for yourself you’ll have to be a little more discerning than taking the first man that wants you.” He swirled his wine in the wooden cup and watched it slosh as though he could read the future in its dark purple depths.

  “Otherwise there’s no telling what kind of riffraff you’d end up with.”

  16.

  She wasn’t exaggerating—satyr wine was powerful stuff. And despite her confidence he’d end the night a babbling mess, she was the one who confessed after refilling her glass a third time that she finally understood what her sisters of faith meant when they said men could be pretty too.

  His sinuses burned from the wine he’d snorted up his nose trying not to laugh at that.

  Even though he’d only swallowed a few tentative sips, a warm haze clouded his thoughts. The moment he caught himself wondering if Naiara had trapped her in the Garden because she was afraid of being outshone by a mortal, he shuddered, set down his glass, and refused to take another sip. She, on the other hand, did not refrain, and by the time dinner was over Castien knew she’d need his help getting safely up the stairs.

  “You can comb my hair,” she suggested rosy-faced. “I like when you comb it. You get all the tangles out and it doesn’t hurt.”

  “I’m starting to get the feeling that’s all you’re keeping me around for,” he said, hauling her to her feet by her elbow.

  He called on his years of discipline to keep his face a mask as he half-led, half-supported her up the stairs. With her inhibitions lowered she wasn’t shy about her staring. In an ironic twist, his scar was a source of great fascination for her. While a part of him wanted to crow at the novelty of a beautiful woman enduring his company, another part—the Shadow Striker—couldn’t let go of trying to uncover whatever it was she was trying to hide.

  A breeze rustled her sheer curtains, carrying the scent of citrus. That orchard! There had been more fruit growing in that small garden than on the entire Phalyrian continent—and she had no idea! Or did she?

  If the rampion Thetis found came from the Sacred Grove, then Raziela must have taken it without the Goddess knowing. But why lie about it? No doubt Naiara had convinced her there was no worse fate than to wind up being a thief like her father. The reasons for stealing meant nothing to a goddess who refused to see things any way other than black and white.

  Instinct told him it was more than that, though. Raziela considered herself a guardian of the Temple and the phoenixes watched over the Sacred Grove. What were they guarding?

  It was hard to picture Raziela willingly playing a role in Phalyra’s suffering, but there was something she wasn’t telling him, and that ate away at his peace of mind. It was time he did a bit of reconnaissance. But first, he needed Raziela tucked away for the night.

  Though there were only the two of them, when they entered her bedroom Castien quietly pulled the door closed behind him.

  “May I?” He laid his hand against the clasp of her gorget, waiting for permission.

  “I shouldn’t,” she murmured. “It gives me headaches to hold my head up without it.”

  Castien’s teeth came together with a hard click. That confession was a weakness he’d never have offered up to a stranger himself. But she didn’t know the difference between friends and enemies—not in practice. No one had tried to harm her in over a century. She didn’t know how such simple words in the wrong hands could be used to destroy her.

  “I can imagine,” he said, his voice thick in his throat. “I had a thought about that, and if you’ll lay on your stomach, there’s something I think might help.”

  She tensed. That at least told him that she wasn’t as naive and trusting as she came across. He breathed a little easier.

  “What?”

  “I’ve always found it relaxing to have my muscles rubbed after a particularly grueling batt—bout of training. I doubt you’ve experienced it. Have you?”

  She was quiet for a moment—long enough that it made him wonder who else might have given her the experience. Not Gursel. He repressed a shudder at the thought of that monster putting his h
ands on her.

  Eventually, her legs shifted out from beneath her and she stretched out on her belly on the floor. With a quick click, the gorget released and came away. Before she had too much time to reconsider, he pressed his thumbs into the muscles at the base of her neck.

  A guttural moan issued from her throat. His chest swelled with satisfaction.

  “Was I right?”

  “That feels heavenly,” she agreed as he continued to knead the muscles across her shoulders. There was so much tension there. If he managed nothing else, this much he could do for her.

  She was unlike any woman he’d ever known. Even Thamar and Armelle, who were in a class of warrior all their own, had never slipped past his guard as many times as she had before. She had Armelle’s accuracy and impeccable technique, but Thamar’s grace and creative flair. Never had he come across a sparring partner who could take him to his back so easily. If he was honest with himself, she was a better fighter than he was.

  Slowly, her moans grew softer and her wriggles subsided. Sleep was taking her.

  Castien glared through the window at the sun sinking below the horizon, knowing it was the face of her goddess gloating over all she had done.

  When the last bit of tension left her, he continued brushing her long mane and then braided it for her like he’d promised. He took his time. Her acceptance of him was a gift he intended to savor.

  The curtains rustled. His head swung toward the movement, but it was just a trace of the breeze that had helped to banish the last of the clouds. Framed by the window, the moon was a pearl glowing on a dark velvet bed.

  He slid the gorget back around her neck so she’d have it on her when she awoke. It was time he did a little exploring and there was no telling how long that might take.

  On silent feet, he crept out of the room. Passing the kitchens, the fruit bowl on the table caught his eye. Unable to resist the speckled green skin, he grabbed two pears. His pockets were deep enough he managed to fit the second in a pouch that zipped closed along his calf.

  The Temple stood silent and eerie when he entered. The altar at the other end was a vague shape in the darkness. Castien entered slowly, half-expecting righteous flames to incinerate him for daring to set foot in Naiara’s sanctuary.