That’s hardly good advice.
I’m about to tell him exactly that when the Shulák scales the staircase, rising free of the vapor that wafts off him. He leads a naked woman by the hand until she’s standing beside me—blue eyes glazed, nipples peaked, cheeks as flushed as her lips that are smudged in sparkly stuff. Her hair is a tumble of creamy curls that fall well below her pert bum.
She reminds me of … someone. But I think thatsomeonehad different colored eyes. A friend, I think? Her name’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t quite pin it down.
It keeps wriggling further away.
“This is where your escorts leave you,” one of the Shulák announces, taking my hand and easing me forward. “You—a Paragon of Purity advocated by the Gods—will now cross the Path of Athandon, walking above the Impurists who have failed to gain passage into Mala this eve.”
Failed to gain—
Huh?
I look over my shoulder, catching a final glimpse of Kolden’s furrowed brow before the doors snip shut with a thud of finality that feels significant.
I think.
Maybe it’s not significant at all?
I nuzzle into that heat still nesting in my lungs and decide on the latter.
Our hosts gesture us forward with sweeps of their robed arms, and I realize they mean for us to jump from one stone to the next until we reach the doors on the other side. Unsure how the woman next to me is going to managethatin her current state, I hitch the hem of my decorative sheath, take her by the hand, and lead her across the treacherous terrain.
We kick up swirls of smoke with every leap, something heavy thumping against my ankle with each frolicking bound, the girl’s giggles a tinkling echo that patters upon my skin—like this is a merry game of hopscotch.
Perhaps it is?
“Wait!”
The girl pulls her hand from mine, and I peek over my shoulder to see her crouching, eyes sparkling with mischief. Her hair hangs forward, revealing long marks on her back that are raised and red and look like they hurt.
This big, shiny thing deep inside me rattles.
Strange.
She scoops up some of the smoke and blows it toward me like she’s trying to spur a fog-fight. It wafts against my face like a pleasant splash of frothy water.
I smile, her infectious joy warming my blood into a bubbling rush.
We leap from stone to stone, pausing here and there to splash each other with smoke. I realize I’m laughing, too.
This is fun. I like this place.
Why did I not want to come here?
And what is this floaty white stuff? It smells like sexy things. Makes me want to feel the way this woman looks.
Captivating and free.
She wafts more smoke at me, and it slips down my throat like a cool, crisp drink, then settles in my lungs with a comforting heaviness that pops and crackles.
I giggle again, certain I’m floating on winged feet.
We leap onto a podium, and two robed people pull some stone doors open. A warm breeze nips at my skin as we jog up a flight of stairs that seems to cut through the sky before wrapping around the outside of a stone tower.
We sing to the stars and the wind and the sound of heaving waves below as we frolic up the stairs that curl round and round.
I like these stairs. I think they will lead me somewhere safe and sunny, but I’m not sure why.
