I pause, looking at her over my shoulder. “Apologies, Heira. I intended on coming across the river last night, but I had a meeting with a Regional Master that ran late.”
I don’t tell her the reason it ran late was because itstartedlate. Because I got distracted feasting on my pretty flower. I get the sense that it won’t go down well, given their frosty encounter yesterday.
“That’s why there’s been more Gray Guards on this side of the river?” I query.
“Correct.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Very.”
I frown.
Setting the bowl on the small table beside her, I notice the tightness around her eyes as I drape myself in my cathedra and gesture for her to continue.
She picks a strawberry off the pile and rips off the greenery. “An ungodlyratinfiltrated our ranks and set fire to a month’s supply of Candescence,” she seethes, and my eyes widen.
“How didthathappen?”
“I’m uncertain, but we’re hunting the culprit.” She bites into the strawberry with a brutal sort of savagery I can appreciate, swallowing her mouthful. “They also set fire to a room full of worshipers. Only one survived. She’s badly injured, suffering from burns and smoke inhalation, but I trust we will receive a full description of the vile, scuttling rat once she’s able to do so.”
No wonder Heira looks so fucking riled.
“I’m sorry. I know how much this will impact your duties to the Gods.” I reach for her hand. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Pray the Gods have a plan that will work in our favor,” she says, giving me a tight smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “This is a painful setback, not only for us but foreveryone.”She scans the crowd like she’s scouring each face. “I refuse to letanythingget in my way of finding Shadow’s Hand—least of all this strike of ungodly malice.”
I nod my agreement as she rips the green off another strawberry and bites into its flushed flesh.
The drums begin to pound—deep, thuddingboomsthat make the air feel like it’s beating against my skin. My heart flips, attention whipping to the doors at the top of the stairs, watching them creak open.
A silence blankets the crowd.
A string of robed worshipers file down the steps, hoods pulled low over their faces. They pour around The Bowl, forming a complete circle, hands clasped together so the draped scoops of their sleeves connect.
The drums take on a different, more frantic tempo that stirs the rate of my heart, and two Elders step onto the stairway in synchronized harmony, garbed in their ceremonial robes akin to the High Septum’s.
Orlaith emerges behind them dressed in a spill of plain gray fabric, stealing my breath. Her hood is draped around her shoulders, hair braided to look like a golden crown sitting upon her head. The crowd erupts with a deafening roar of elation that spurs all the way to my hardening cock.
Clearing my throat, I shift in my seat, watching her descend the stairs in that liquid way she moves—like her feet barely touch the ground. Reaching the bottom, she’s led between two of the tall, glass aquariums dotted around The Bowl, coming to a halt.
Her flat eyes are cast ahead as the Elders ease the cloak off her shoulders.
Fuck.
A gray bodysuit clings to every dip and curve of her lithe, ethereal body like a second skin, covering her arms, her legs, herneck—concealing the pretty flesh I love so much. Bringing my greedy nature a spike of satisfaction.
Her cupla is on bold display, so bright against the gray.
Mine.
All mine.
“She is a very beautiful woman, Cainon.”
I glance sidelong at Heira, who’s watching Orlaith with a baited sort of intrigue. “She is, yes.”
“For someone who spent most of her life too afraid to leave the grounds of Castle Noir, I did not expect to encounter such a fiery presence.” She peels her gaze away and looks at me from beneath her hood. “I thought the girl to be a mute, skittish thing.”
