My eyes followed as she explained where the rest of the Saints’ temples were, but again, she spoke of them as gods. There had always been those among us who posited that the Authority had turned our gods into Saints to drain them of their power. But here, in this place of magic, it was obvious to me that we had been right. It was not a tall tale, but the truth.
One temple was no longer intact. It appeared to have been burned. “What about that one?”
Rhiannon followed my gaze. “That is Chiore’s temple.” She paused, waiting to see if I knew my lore. I did, of course. InThe Saints Tales, Chiore had stood against Amarante, Tanith, and the others, and spoken up for the humans. I nodded, to show I recognized the name. “Long ago, when the island closed, Chiore’s temple was destroyed.”
“Why?” I asked.
The question was casual, but Rhiannon nearly flinched to hear it. For a moment, her ultra-calm mask fell, and I saw fear behind her eyes. The moment passed quickly, the mercurial immortal’s face going smooth as glass.
“I don’t know, to be honest,” she said. Rhiannon lied, but I understood why. Some secrets were simply too dangerous to tell, and whatever the true story behind Chiore’s betrayal of the rest of the gods was, it might very well be dangerous. Perhaps it was better I didn’t know. “By that time, I’d already been sent to the wider world. I was being reborn as a human.”
My heart raced. So the Maere were reincarnated somehow. They’d lived other lives before the ones we knew. Bells rang in the distance, and people flooded out of the temples. They looked tiny from here, wearing a style of dress that had been ancient when I was a child.
“Has time stood still here?” I asked, in awe.
Rhiannon smiled, watching her people. “In some ways, yes.”
“Who are you, Rhiannon?” I gestured to the temples, the people in the distance. “In all this, who are you?”
Her smile faded. “If I had stayed, I would be their queen someday.”
“And Ember?” I asked, shifting my position on the rock.
“Eventually, their General, or Admiral. The Maere are a bit of a mix between warriors, mages, and scholars. She wasn’t meant for academic life. Ember has always been a fighter.” That much I could believe. “Though, of course, there’s been nothing much to fight here since my mother drew the mists down and hid Otrera from the world.”
I nodded, but I was still full of questions. She said this was all our origin, but what did that mean? “What are we?”
Again, she smiled. “That is a good question.” She took a long breath. “We, the Maere I mean, are demigods. We are the direct descendants of the Saints and what were once the magical people of this world.”
I nodded. That explained their rather sturdier bodies, and the things Maere could do when in possession of their swords. “And parapsychs?”
Rhiannon looked at me. “Distant children of the gods’ couplings with early humanity. We are your protectors, but really, we’re not so different from you. Just more… eternal.”
I laughed, though I wasn’t sure why. The whole thing both made all the sense in the world, and felt completely unreal. “Why did you bring me here?”
Her long arm extended, pointing to the scene before us. In the distance, I made out people bustling between temples in each of the various complexes. “Because Ember never would have brought you here. She is too respectful of our rules. And you need to know who she is, and the burden she carries.”
I frowned, and started to open my mouth, but Rhiannon shook her head, interrupting me before I could say another word. “I see the way you look at her. The way she looks at you.She needs you, Ares. But she needs the version of you who knows this place exists.”
Again, I frowned. I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant. Of course, I understood the part about me and Ember… Apparently, we were not as covert as we thought ourselves to be. “What do you mean by that?”
Rhiannon sighed. “Ember thinks that she shouldn’t have been made leader. Since the swords were stolen, she’s blamed herself for all that’s gone wrong. And when we all left her, she deteriorated significantly. Surely you’ve noticed.”
Now that she mentioned it, I had. There was a time, years ago, that Ember had been different. More vibrant somehow. But the past twenty years had changed her. She was a shadow of who she had been. So much sadness weighed her down now. And so much loneliness. I nodded.
“She needs you to know that she is the child of gods. That she is magic and stardust, and the most legendary warrior this island ever knew, though she’d likely call herself a soldier if you asked her.”
The surprise I felt must have shown on my face. Rhiannon laughed. “You thought it was Lara? Or maybe the Palladiere Maere?”
If I was honest, I’d never given it much thought, but now that she asked, yes, those would have been my assumptions. I shrugged. For most of my life, the Orphium Maere had been without their swords. It was hard to imagine them any other way.
“She was grace embodied as a child,” Rhiannon breathed. “Pure kinetic energy. No one was faster, no one better in a fight than her. She was Amarante and Tanith combined. She even looks like Tanith. Did you know that?”
I swallowed. I hadn’t even imagined that the Saints had real bodies or faces. I shook my head.
Rhiannon grinned. “I wish we had time to go to the temples, and I could show you. They are too far, though, andwe should get you back. Being here for too long would be bad for you.”
I looked behind me, back to the path. The enormous reptile from before had returned and munched on the treetops. It turned opalescent eyes my way.Hello, little necromancer, a voice said in my head.
