The Dawn King (The Moon People, Book Five)

by Claudia King

  Thakayn tried to control the look of indignity that came over his face, but he was too angry. Jarek grinned, as if the whole thing was a great joke to him. Taking a deep breath, Thakayn composed himself. He'd been quick to anger in recent days, and it was not like him to betray his emotions so openly. Jarek had snapped out of his stupor, it seemed, and he was determined to become a thorny annoyance once again.

  Leaning forward, Thakayn whispered to him, “You'd take that blasphemous tone with me when you have a witch of the Moon People practising her magic on our flock? Yours is the head the punishment will fall upon if they find out what she is.”

  Uncowed, Jarek whispered back, “The seeress is wiser than either of us. I'd trust her to keep her own secret better than anyone in this temple.”

  “You will put a stop to this right now.”

  Frowning at him, Jarek cupped a hand to his ear and made a show of listening intently. After a few moments of his absurd play act he adopted a shocked look and said, “Oh, forgive me. For a moment I thought I heard you speaking as if you held the authority of the Dawn King.”

  Thakayn ground his teeth. “I'll have that power soon enough, Jarek, then I'll see you punished for your insolence.”

  “We shall see.” Jarek glanced over at Eral, who was helping Adel with another hot stone. “I think the priest of the Daughter is warming to the idea of Hasham as his Dawn King.”

  Unable to bear any more of his mockery, Thakayn pushed past Jarek and marched to the far end of the hall, giving Adel a venomous glance as he went. How had she wrapped Jarek around her finger? The whore was probably in his domicile every night, twisting him with her magic.

  In a moment of consternation he wondered whether he might have underestimated the seeress. He of all people believed in the great power she held, but he'd never expected her to begin plotting her own schemes against the priesthood. He stormed into the long room at the end of the feasting hall that was used to prepare food after it came in from the cooking pits. A few craftsmen were there building more stone ovens they would use in winter, along with a scattering of servants making early preparations for the evening meal. They shied away from him as he walked past, his eyes roving over the group in search of some mistake he might admonish them for. He felt humiliated again, and exerting his power would remind him that he was in control.

  In the far corner of the chamber a girl was gorging herself on scraps left over from earlier in the day. The servant who had given them to her paled and backed off when she saw Thakayn approaching, but the girl did not notice him until it was too late. Seizing her by the arm, he wrenched her around to face him. Just as he had suspected, it was Rat.

  “Still digging through the refuse.” He sneered. “You'd have done better to scurry away this time. Come with me.” Yanking her after him, he dragged the girl out through the heavy drapes and into the sun. They went past the cooking pits on the temple's northern side and around the back of the feasting hall. Children sometimes played here while their families waited for audiences, but the spot was empty today. Satisfied that they were alone, Thakayn slammed Rat against the wall and gripped her shoulders tight.

  “You didn't kill Liliac, and look at what he did to my face. The Dawn King is dead now because of you. I could squeeze the life from your throat and the spirits would thank me for it.”

  “He was nowhere to be found.” Rat sounded nervous, but she didn't seem to be afraid of him. He drew his hand back as if to strike her, and her flinch satisfied him enough to still his rising fury.

  “I don't know if you can ever atone for what you've done, Rat. I thought you might be worthy of the Sister's love, but you failed me.”

  Her eyes fell disconsolately, yet when she looked back up at him they held a glimmer of anger. “They said there were Moon People with Liliac when he slew the Dawn King.”

  Thakayn blinked. Of course. He'd almost forgotten the reason Rat came to him in the first place. “That is true. I faced one of them myself.”

  “I'll find them for you. I'll kill them with my own knife.”

  A smile began to spread across Thakayn's face. He'd never truly intended to give Rat the one thing she craved most, but she was still hungry for the Moon People's blood. She might yet prove her continued worth to him.

  “You won't find the ones who got away,” he said, “but their curse still lingers within this temple. Do you know of the seeress?”

  She nodded. “The one everyone is talking about.”

  “The evil may have taken her too, and she has the ear of another high priest. Without the Dawn King's authority there is nothing I can do to stop them.”

  “Must I test her with the tonic too?”

  “No,” Thakayn said firmly, squeezing her shoulders tight. “You will do no such thing. Not until I am certain.”

  “But if she is pure, what harm is—”

  “Don't question me, Rat! Don't your misdeeds trouble you enough without earning any more of my ire?” When he was sure she was not about to interrupt again he continued. “I worry for our people, my girl. They think the seeress is a healer. An exotic spirit-talker from lands afar, yet they know nothing of this woman. Go to the crowd outside the temple and tell them this. Tell them that Genut might have kept his arm had one of our temple priests tended him instead. Tell them that she has seduced a high priest, and that he alone is the reason she remains here. Do not speak of the Moon People. Do not suggest that Liliac's curse might have befallen her. Only make them see that she is a woman as plain and flawed as any of them.”

  Then later, Thakayn thought, once she has given me what I want, then you can try your hand at slaying one of the Moon People, little Rat.

  The girl nodded uncertainly. Thakayn could not command the guards to turn away the laypeople, but he could persuade the crowd to leave of their own accord. He did not want the seeress to become a figure of reverence. If he could cultivate a mild resentment toward her within the village, then they might stop coming to see her. If they lost interest, fewer questions would be asked when she finally disappeared.

  He followed Rat back around the cooking pits, standing in the shadow of the temple and watching from afar as she approached the crowd outside the gates. To his dismay, the first woman she approached yelled at the girl and pushed her back as if she had just been insulted. The fervour Adel had inspired was worse than he'd thought. Perhaps it would take more than gossip to quell it. Yet as he looked on, the scene Rat had caused began to work in her favour. Several other families gathered around to watch the altercation, and when the insulted woman spat at Rat's feet and turned away some of the others remained. They gathered around to listen as the girl spoke. After a while, two of the families turned and walked back to the village.

  Thakayn allowed his satisfied smile to return. Not every family would believe Rat, but some of them would. Those few would spread rumours of their own, and by tomorrow the idea of seeking an audience with the seeress would no longer seem quite so appealing. It was unfortunate that the people already inside the temple would have their own tales to tell, but a little doubt was better than none at all. Doubt had a way of festering.

  Taking what pleasure he could in his small victory, Thakayn entered back into the temple in higher spirits. Making Adel less of a curiosity was good, but he realised that the idea of sullying her status pleased him even more. He wanted her to feel humiliated when the laypeople came in with dirty looks tomorrow, the same way he'd felt humiliated when Jarek stood up to him. It was just the first step in what he had planned. He'd have to strip away every layer of the woman's self-importance by the time he was done with her. The thought sent a tingle of pleasure through Thakayn's body. He'd not stand to be scorned by her and Jarek again.

  —38—

  Desperate Desires

  To Adel's disappointment only half as many families came to see her the next day. The day after that there were fewer still, and then the priests stopped clearing the side of the feasting hall and made her sit at a small table like t
he rest of them. She could not understand it. The Sun People had been ecstatic to see her before, promising to tell all of their friends and family members of her great beauty and blessed touch. In the past she might have relished the attention, for Adel's status had meant everything to her for many years of her life, but ever since coming to the temple that part of her had felt hollower than ever. Being in a strange place surrounded by strange people, worrying over her pack, her people's future, and the crucial part she had to play in it, had worn her down like a weather-scarred rock. Normally she could have endured those troubles. Perhaps even Atalyn's death might have come and gone like a passing sickness, yet weighing atop all of that was Jarek. Keeping him at a distance and muffling her feelings for him took more strength than she had to give, for as deep as the well of Adel's resolve ran, it was not bottomless. She no longer knew how she was going to cope with spending a full winter in the temple.

  Yet the audiences had given her a temporary respite from all of that. It wasn't the praise or the reverence she enjoyed, but the shared companionship and the focus of simple healing work. Most of the laypeople wanted her to tend sickly or injured members of their families, but a few came to her with spiritual questions, and those were always the most interesting to her. Knowing that she was ignorant to the ways of the Sun People's spirits, she asked questions of her own and engaged everyone who had come to see her in a conversation on the subject. In doing so she learned how these people regarded the Son, Daughter, Sister, Brother, Mother, and Father, and more often than not the collective wisdom of the group managed to reassure the person who had asked the initial question with barely any contribution from Adel herself. She was learning as much from them as they were from her.

  Even though the spiritual questions were her favourites, tending ailments brought some welcome relief from her worries as well, and it also served the helpful purpose of endearing her to Eral, who had taken to providing his assistance. Despite her poor first impression of the priest of the Daughter, Atalyn's death had temporarily shattered his pompous, pleasure-seeking attitude, revealing a studious young man whose confidence had clearly been born of his great natural talent for the Sun People's shamanistic ways. He reminded her a little of herself, and together they learned much about their differing approaches to healing. The Sun People did not rely on herbs and poisons nearly as much as the Moon People, likely because their bodies were so much weaker to the dangerous side effects. Instead they made copious use of fire for its healing properties. Warm stones, Adel had learned, soothed aching muscles well. Hot metal could be used to seal wounds, scour infection, and even burn away the pain of a bad tooth or a blackened nail. Everything hot was healthy, so the priests said, so much so that there existed an old proverb about the prosperity of villages who boiled all their water and stewed all their food, while tribes who ate everything cold were rife with sickness and died young. It was all endlessly fascinating to Adel, and whenever she was in the feasting hall taking audiences she could almost forget about Jarek for a time.

  The question of Atalyn's succession hung over her like a storm cloud as well, and she hoped that her time with Eral was winning him over to her way of thinking. She mentioned several times how she thought Hasham would make a fine leader, but Eral was always quiet and evasive when pressed. Jarek and Netya had been doing their best to convince Radeen-Na, but they appeared to be making little progress. Kiren was sleeping with him, and despite not being able to speak much of his tongue she seemed to doing better than the others. She had a warrior's spirit, which the priest of the Brother respected. Netya and Jarek were students of compassion and camaraderie, which were slow ways to reach the heart of a man as hard as Radeen-Na.

  The lethargic progress with the high priests combined with the dwindling audiences left Adel feeling somewhat despondent after a few days. She wished they would hurry up and decide on a successor, then she would be able to commit herself to a more proactive course of action.

  As she sat at her table in the feasting hall she noticed some of the families giving her strange looks as they passed by. That was nothing new, of course, but instead of curiosity their faces betrayed uncertainty, judgement, and sometimes even scorn. She wondered if she'd spoken ignorantly in front of some of them, but she could not recall any incidence of that happening. The people she spoke to always seemed appreciative and thankful when they left.

  No one came to speak with her for half the morning, by which point she began to feel irritable and useless. Sitting idle was not something that came easily to Adel. Even when she'd spent whole winters alone in her cave she had always had complex crafting projects to occupy her hands, or deep meditations on the future that sometimes dominated her thoughts for several days at a time. Now her mind was wandering to Jarek again, and as family after family passed by her table she grew increasingly moody. Eventually she'd had enough, and she abandoned the feasting hall to turn her attention to something more productive.

  Eral had not appeared that day. Mountain Sky was the high priest in attendance, so there was no official need for him, but Eral had been joining her regularly regardless. Perhaps he'd grown dissatisfied with the dwindling number of audiences too.

  A pair of guards followed her at a distance, watching to make sure that she did not attempt to leave or enter any forbidden parts of the temple. It annoyed Adel to know that Thakayn's eyes were always upon her these days. Thankfully the warriors waited near the steps when she turned into the hall that held the high priests' domiciles. Making her way to Eral's chamber, she stood before the embroidered blue drapes and cleared her throat loudly. Through the decorative yellow threads that hung from the bottom of the blue she saw a shadow moving, then Eral pulled one of the drapes aside and peered out. He looked a little embarrassed to see her.

  “Seeress. I am making my sacrifices to the Daughter today.”

  “Should you not be doing that at one of the shrines?” She'd picked up on more details of the Sun People's rituals than he'd thought.

  With a frown Eral said, “I can't join you in the feasting hall.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Must you always be so impertinent with your questions, Seeress? You are as bad as Jarek sometimes.” The comparison caught Adel off guard, and her sudden unease handed the momentum of the conversation to Eral. “I am sorry, truly, but I have been spending far too much time in your company these past few days. The laypeople spread such awful rumours, and Thakayn did say that... Well, it is best that we leave the healing to the other priests.”

  “What did he say?” Adel asked, tightening her composure again.

  Eral shrank back a little as her icy blue eyes pierced him. “I know you want me to support Hasham,” he said under his breath, “but I cannot do that. Please, just forget this and leave.”

  “Where is your spine, boy?” She stepped forward, towering over him. “The night Netya arrived I took you for a child, but you proved yourself a man when Thakayn tried to take her. You didn't fear him then, so why are you afraid now?”

  “Things are different! We had a Dawn King then. I knew he would have disapproved of what Thakayn was doing, but Atalyn is gone now.” He had tried to say it in a way that suggested he'd only been acting in accordance with Atalyn's will, but Adel saw the deeper truth. Back then he'd been confident that the Dawn King would protect him if he crossed Thakayn. Now his protector was gone.

  Her tone softening, Adel asked, “What did Thakayn threaten you with?”

  Eral pressed his lips together to stop them from quivering. “He told me Mountain Sky wishes to trade warriors and weapons to his home village, to better protect us from enemies in the south. If Hasham becomes Dawn King, he might agree with him. It's a good trade to make.”

  “And what does this mean for you?”

  “Mountain Sky's family hates the people of my village. They would use the temple's strength against all of their enemies, not just Moon People and wild men. If I give my support to Thakayn, he promises he will stop that from happening.�
��

  “Surely the temple would never allow one village to attack another. That is your purpose, is it not?”

  Eral shook his head bitterly. “We forbid raiding and burning, but we cannot watch every village every day. Sooner or later Mountain Sky's family would do as they wished and suffer the punishment later. Please, tell no one I spoke of this. It would upset the conclave at a time when order is needed.”

  “Are those your words, or Thakayn's?” Adel asked.

  Eral's hesitance was all the answer she needed. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I must do what I think is right for our people.”

  Adel ground her fist into the wall as the drapes swung closed in front of her. Somehow she suspected that Thakayn was behind the furtive attitude the laypeople had developed toward her as well. The more she learned of the man the more she disliked him. He was quick, devious, and cunning in a way few alphas of the Moon People were. She was used to dealing with men of immense honour and pride, not serpents whose scheming mimicked her own. If Eral could not be convinced to change his mind then the conclave would remain divided, and Radeen-Na would be tempted to side with Thakayn to avoid a futile stalemate. She would just have to speak with Hasham and persuade him to assuage Eral's fears.

  Adel found herself disgusted by the sinister, self-serving game the high priests were playing with one other. In their attempts to claim power they were using the very people they were supposed to protect like arrows on a bowstring. It would keep on going like this, back and forth, until one side pressured the other into giving way.

  She went to Hasham's domicile and called through the drapes, but the priest of the Father was not present. A servant emerged and told her that he was overseeing the village's food distribution in preparation for the wet season that day, and that he was not to be disturbed during such an important duty.