“Adecreeis coming, and I cannot act until it does.” “When?”
He hung his helm, inhaling deeply before blowing out a large breath. “I need the truth,” he said, more softly this time. “The whole truth. Who is he to you?Whatis he to you?”
I blinked a few times, eyes rummaging the upper part of his veil. A part of me urged to leap over his desk, rip it from his helm, to gaze into his eyes, so I might better decipherhistruth.
I leaned back on my heels, eyes shutting as I ventured into the recesses of memories. Memories thathurt.“I’ve told you, we were childhood friends. Born on the same day, same turn; our mothers seamstresses in the same guild.” He hummed his approval, the sound seeming to vibrate through the rug. “We grew up together, the closest of friends, until we reached that strange first winter where touches somehow morph from playful to curious, though neither of you are sure why. When laurel girls and laurel boys, outside of their kin, are kept separate. The cycle where our mothers no longer permitted us to meet.”
“Wise, considering the penance. Did your druid not preach of the penalties for the unchaperoned meetings of laurels?”
“We know of the penance,” I spat, eyes shooting open.A bloodied whip, torn flesh, cold fingers.We knew better than most. “As I told you before. Might I continue?”
He extended his hand; an invitation.
“They forbid us from seeing one another, and for a while, we did not. Until, one drizzly afternoon, he approached me on my walk home from the guild. We stole to a smithy’s yard—”
“Of all the pl—”
“It was abandoned,” I cut in, eyes flashing. “And it became our secret. We’d meet on the Seventh Day, mostly, after chappellum, for stolen moments between the tail end of work and the beginnings of supper. Then, we were caught.” I swallowed,despite the apple sized lump stuck in my throat. “We were penanced. I didn’t see him again after that…not until the Last Rite.” I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t say goodbye.
His hand rubbed the nape of his neck, palm disappearing under his helm. “If he loved you, he would have taken no such risk. He would not have deigned to—”
“He didn’t force me!” I made to stand, thumping my palms on his desk. “It was my choice to return, day in and day out. I knew the cost.” How many times had I repeated these words not to another, but to myself? Would he taste the lie in them—the cost had been an abstract thing, something without arms and legs. It was hard to imagine the sting of a whip until feeling its bite. But by the time I’d realised the extent of the toll, the debt was already collected.
“Oh yes, I’m sure the cost was worth it to him. What are a few lashes compared to the thrill of feeling what’s under your skirts?”
I swiped the book from the rug and launched it at his head, where it bounced off with a clang. Gods, I hope he smelt my amusement, or rather, choked on it.
“Hewas the one who insisted we did nothing to put me at risk!Hewas the one who reminded me of the acolytes’ hands…” I trailed off, unnerved by the slide of phantom fingers crawling up my thighs. The ghost of pressure, intrusion, the hot flush of shame. “And a good thing he did”—my voice shook, but I couldn’t bring myself to care—“because when the acolyte did check…his insistence saved my life, and what a boon that proved. To spend it trapped in a templum while he is caged below, with a druid who demands all my truths, yet rations his own.”
Vetrius went still, the whole of him rigid as the armour he wore. Only the rise and fall of his chest hinted that he was still man and not stone. “Which acolyte?”
“What?” I concentrated on breathing, cajoling my heart to slow.
“Which. Acolyte?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know…they all look the same.” Empty, wrong,cruel.
Silence. One too many breaths worth.
“I must take you back now. There is much I have to do today. Come.” He strode to the door and then froze, a grunt echoing from under his helm. With tense fists, he turned on his heel, returning to his chair. Producing a long, thin key from the weighty ring at his waist, he unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk, unspeaking. The creak of metal preceded the extraction of a box, welded from iron, which he placed over the carving of Thromarra, Dendra lost under its bulk. It was locked, too. One smaller key later and it squeaked open, its hinges rusted and groaning. He presented me with its contents: an old, heavy book, free of dust but fraying at the edges, the leather peeling and faded.
“Here. You have a long evening ahead of you. Take this and read.”
I accepted his gift, holding it lightly so as not to further damage its cover, still reeling from confessions he’d managed to coax from me.
“The High Druid has seen fit to ban that text,” he added. “Do not show it to anyone or let another catch you reading it. Hide it beneath your skirts if you must, and when you’re back in your room, stash it under your cot, or thearmoire,just in case.”
With curdling suspicion, I scanned over its title.
The Word of the Other
Chapter thirty-five
Ashara
The Face of Insubordination
And the Blood God beheld it, and anger filled His heart; and such was His anger that the seas turned red, and the tideswere made blood by the torrent thereof. -3:8 - The Book of Dendralis
