“Ashara?” That voice again. The sound of it as familiar to me as the creak of a loom or the crackle of hearth fire.
I twisted, and so did the world, turned upside down in an instant.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, darling girl.”
Chapter seven
Ashara
The Reunion
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, if the Blood God hath no place within it. -17:9 - The Book of Dendralis
The scars on my back pulsed with prickling heat, something they hadn’t done in cycles.
I stared into his face, that familiar, devastating face, and theyburned. I wondered if his had roared to life, too. If, like me, his teeth were clenched and muscles taut, punished with the memory of the scaffold.
“Demetri?” My disbelief was a lie. I’d known he’d be here. I’d always known.
He bowed at the waist, one arm curling across his stomach, eyes glinting between two wayward curls. “In the flesh.”
His sidelong grin felt like home, one left abandoned to rot.
Knees wobbling, vision blurring, I placed a steadying hand on a pillar to my right. The blue sky and the dark Ovidian rock of the atrium warped into the grey clouds and cobbles of Dendra. Under my hand, the gritty texture of stone seemed to transform into the grooved curves of a wooden post, the sounds of chatting laurels growing fainter and fainter under the crack of a whip. One that struck again, and again, and again.
“Ashara?”
I opened my eyes.
“Where did you go?” His hand lifted, as if to touch me, before returning to his side. Gaze sharpening, it morphed into something suspiciously close to discernment. He must’ve noticed the pinch to my lips, or the narrowing of my eyes, because his own softened, peering down at me with a careful warmth that was enough to flip my stomach.
“I don’t know how to… I have so much I…fuck.” His hand swiped down his face. “I—”
“Who dares quarrel in the Grand Templum of the Dendralis?” A paxiam appeared, hovering over Iagor’s crumpled body, still lamenting the affront to his ‘fruits’ upon the mosaic.
“Attacked,” Iagor croaked, his reddened face scowling at us between strands of greasy hair. “Struck down in front of the blessed eyes of the First.”
The paxiam’s eyes rolled to the clouds, his armour rattling with the shift of his arms. He levelled the spear in the empty space between Demetri’s chest and my neck. “Ye lives may be forfeit on the morn, but there be no rules I can’t poke ye with little holes in the meantime.” He directed the spearpoint to Demetri’s lower stomach, the tip hovering an inch from his belt. “Takes an awful long time to die if I stab here…” He dragged it across, angling it towards my lower ribs, brushing the ridge of my bodice. “Or here.” I sucked in a breath, pressure ghosting my skin. “They’d still have plenty to take come the offering.”
Demetri’s fingers banded my arm, my wretched pulse jumping under his touch as he yanked me back by the elbow, pressing himself between me and the guard. “Unnecessary, paxiam. ‘Twas but a misunderstanding. The laurellian female wasn’t involved,” Demetri explained, hands waving over Iagor dismissively, a practiced smile etched onto his face.
I pulled on my wrist, prompting him to release me, gaze fixed on the paxiam. Would we face penance for it? Despite the allowances of the templum, did fingers on elbows carry the same sin as hands within laps?
Paying Demetri’s touch no heed, the paxiam withdrew his spear until it faced skyward. “No. Brawling.” He jabbed his finger between Demetri and Iagor, the latter now managing to stand.
Demetri nodded, chestnut curls bouncing. “But of course. We would never dream of insulting our beloved Father. For Blood Demands Blood.” He cupped his hands, and I resisted the urge to cuff his head, sarcasm dripping thick from his tone.
Not that the paxiam noticed. “Blood Demands Blood,” he repeated, ambling off, red-stained armour clanking with eachstep. His backplate vanished into the sea of white-clad laurels as he returned to the foot of the dais, where the queue for the First grew ever shorter.
Arms crossed, Demetri wiggled the little finger closest to me. “Those spears are definitely compensating for something.”
Godsdamn me to the pits, I smiled.
“By the Other, I’ve missed that.”
My brow creased.
“That smile, darling girl.” He motioned to my mouth, his arm hairier than I remembered, bulkier, too. “Although, I’ve always been more partial to your frowns.” It was a relief to hear the playful lilt in his voice, so different from the last time I’d heard it: cracked, raw, and broken.
