22
Twilight approachedas the black stone walls of Lavaperch Temple came into view. Two wide towers with slate roofs rose from either side of the walled keep, the windows gazing out over the sea from atop the cliff. Its windows also overlooked the road that Syla, Fel, and Tibby had found, making the going easier as they’d taken turns dragging the unconscious Vorik in the travois.
Someone must have been on watch, because the gate opened as Syla and her bedraggled allies approached. The smell of hops wafted out, mingling with the briny sea air.
After not sleeping the night before, such deep exhaustion had set in that Syla couldn’t speak. She dropped onto a bench near the gate as three people walked out wearing the blue robes of a healer. For a moment, she wished to be a child again, with her father still alive and willing to carry her to bed. He’d done that often when she’d fallen asleep staying up too late, tagging along after her older siblings.
Aunt Tibby sank down beside her, slumping against the backrest. Only Fel had the stamina to remain standing andaddress the three healers, two middled-aged men and an elder female who looked familiar. Syla believed the woman had visited Moon Watch Temple for lectures and training several years earlier, but she was too tired to dredge up the name. As Fel and the elder spoke, Syla caught her eyelids drooping shut. The last thing she was aware of as she nodded off was Tibby snoring beside her.
How many hours passed before she woke again, she wasn’t sure, but she found herself in a small stone-walled room in a narrow bed, so someone must have carried her after all. Fel? The healers? She didn’t know, but when she turned toward the window, she could make out a gray sky through shutters that were parted enough to allow the sea breeze in. And was that rain pattering outside?
It was daylight, but Syla was confused since the sky had been clear the last she’d seen it. She must have slept through the entire night. Or…multiplenights?
She sat up with a start, hoping she hadn’t lost days. She had too much to do.
Her sudden movement made her body protest, and pain announced itself from at least a dozen spots, everywhere from a knee to a hip to her shoulder to blisters on her feet from walking in soggy shoes. A groan escaped her lips. She might not have received the grievous injuries that Vorik had, but that swim and helping drag his travois for miles had left her battered and sore.
“Vorik,” she whispered with alarm, looking around, as if she might find him in the room with her.
She did not. Worry made her forget her wounds. What if the healers, not realizing he was an ally, had done something to him? With all the injuries he’d received, he might have died if they’d only donenothingto him. But, surely, the tenets healers swore to abide by before joining a temple would have prompted them to treat him.
A knock sounded at the door. Had someone heard her groan?
“Yes,” she rasped, her voice stiff from disuse, and her throat dry.
Noticing a cup and ceramic jug of water by the bed, Syla poured herself some as the door opened. The elder she’d recognized the night before—Jemla, that was her name—stepped in, her gray hair pulled back in a braid and her blue eyes concerned as they raked over Syla.
“How are you, Your Highness?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Syla gulped water, relieved the elder recognized her so she wouldn’t have to produce coins for the offering urn and she would hopefully be granted help when she explained what she could of her quest. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“It’s afternoon, so about sixteen hours.”
“That explains why I need to pee.” Syla managed a quick smile and spotted a screen in a corner, presumably with a chamber pot behind it. The castle back home had indoor plumbing, but that was rare in the temples, which had all been built in past eras and rarely renovated.
“I imagine so.” Jemla managed a brief smile, but it didn’t last. The concern remained. “As soon as you’re able, we need to speak with you. I’ll wait outside.”
She must have heard about the fall of the capital. At least, as of the day before anyway, the shield here on Harvest Island remained in place.
Syla grimaced as she headed to the chamber pot, realizing her entire mission was to take the shielder from this island, which would leave the inhabitants vulnerable. When she’d come up with the plan, it had made logical sense to shift the protection to the island with the much greater population, but leaving these people unprotected would be difficult. She realized she had better keep that plan to herself. Even if she was the current heir to the throne,she couldn’t presume that people would do as she wished—or go along with plans that would endanger them.
“This is going to be hard.” Reminded that she needed to worry about Vorik too, Syla hurried to dress in a temple robe and soft shoes that someone had left. Her own clothes must have been taken to be washed. Fortunately, someone had brought her seaweed-draped pack and left it by the window to dry out.
Outside, rather than Jemla, a gray-haired temple guard waited for her. Dressed in a blue uniform, with a sword at his hip, he bowed deeply and extended an arm toward a hallway with doors on one side and windows overlooking the sea on the other.
“This way, Your Highness. I’m Flaron. We’re relieved to learn that you’re alive. The scattered reports we’ve received here… Well, we’re almost twenty miles from town, so things don’t get reported that promptly, but… we could see the fires from here the night before last.” Flaron nodded toward the windows as he led her down the hallway. “At one point, it looked like all of Castle Island was burning.”
“It seemed like it, but the fighting focused around the capital, I think.” Reminded of her lost family, Syla murmured, “Around the castle.”
“That’s… what we’ve heard. We were led to believe thatnoneof the royal family were left alive, and then, when the assassins came for Lyvenia…” Flaron shook his head gravely, leading her up stairs that turned twice, taking them to another hallway a level up.
“Lyvenia Moonmark? My cousin?”
The older cousin who’d visited the castle a few times when Syla had been growing up? Who’d healed squirrels and stray cats and dogs as well as people? Who’d made Syla want to investigate healing as a career?
“Yes. An assassin got her, I’m afraid to report. There have only been a handful of deaths that we’ve heard about on our island, butthey’re going after…” Flaron waved toward the mark on the back of her hand.
“All of us?” Syla whispered, though in her heart, she’d known.
