Samira’s smile is fleeting. “He’s had a difficult couple of years. He got unhorsed on a hunting trip a few summers ago, and I think his hip was injured worse than he lets on. Last year, he caught the fever, and it just... doesn’t seem like he’s been the same since. He’s moving even slower, and he has a cough that’s never left him.”
I don’t need to be a corpimancer to see that he’s not well. “Is he getting help from the healers?”
Samira gives a helpless sort of shrug. “He is, but he does it discreetly. You know how he is about showing weakness in front of the others. I didn’t know any details until Ama told me.”
Unease wraps around my chest and pulls tight. “What has she said?”
“Not much,” Samira admits. “It’s like she’s afraid to tempt fate by talking about it. But she doesn’t have to say much for me to know she’s worried.”
A silence descends between us as we listen to Jahanna and Lavleen bicker behind us. After a moment, Samira says, “Ama’s been asking when you will visit her.”
I can’t help but wince. “It’s not for a lack of want. She’s just...”
“Always with him, I know,” Samira finishes for me. “Just think about it? She’s missed you, too. They both have.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, nodding wordlessly. Ahead, the private tunnel emerges into a receiving room inside of the temple. We’re surrounded by expertly carved red sandstone with arched windows to let in the morning sun. Yet they’re all intentionally placed so it isn’t until we emerge into the amphitheater that we see the true grandness of Pinnacle.
A familiar sort of awe slows my steps as I look out across Pinnacle, so grand in scale that the entire population of Marikadar appears like ants below. Yet even the mass of people can’t draw my eye for long.
Instead, they’re pulled towards the natural sandstone formations at the center that reach towards the sky. The red stone has been worn away by eons and eons of wind and sand to create curving pillars that seem to defy the very pull of the earth with their fantastic shapes. There are dozens of them, reaching up to form an elaborate crown, as if they were designed to rest on the head of God itself. And if the priests are to be believed, they are.
“I should stay here,” I say. There’s a private box where the Shykhdar and their families sit, but I don’t dare join. Not when it would bring me within speaking distance of my father.
“Are you sure?” Samira asks.
I nod and motion to the less grand accommodations that are reserved for the Shykhdar’s guests. Right now, with only foreign dignitaries in attendance at court, they’re blessedly empty. “I’ll stay here. I’ll try to come by later tonight, alright?”
Samira squeezes my hand briefly as Jahanna says, “Bye, Olbric.”
I watch as they take the path up to the Shykhdar’s private box. It’s bad form to miss Pinnacle, and currently, all but Shykh Farras andhis family are in attendance. My mother sits with my father under a shaded canopy on cushioned chairs, and my sisters take their seats beside them.
Even though I hoped he wouldn’t notice me, I feel my father’s gaze land on me. I avoid his eye, looking resolutely at the gathered population of the city in the bowl-shaped amphitheater below.
Only a moment later, Farras and his family arrive. Feisal follows behind his parents as they emerge from the same hall my sisters and I took. As he passes my seat, Feisal’s eyes flick to me before a smirk spreads across his face. He murmurs something to his father that makes him laugh before they both take their seats under the shade.
I ignore them all as the call to worship rings out. The gong of bells, louder even than the ones in the Crux, echo off the stone in a chorus of sound. The crowd below goes quiet, and I do the same as I close my eyes, falling into the familiar stillness of prayer.
When I was younger, I used to hate this seemingly endless hour. I’d fidget and complain at the long, boring stretch, but now, after so many years of being away from it, it feels... nice to be back.
One of the strangest culture shocks I’ve had while living in Straetham came from how they view their gods. They don’t have Pinnacle or any other weekly holy day. Instead, they have festivals or celebrations dedicated to various gods throughout the year, though they range from raucous to solemn depending on which god is being honored.
For some time, the thought of recognizing no singular God was hard to wrap my mind around. It wasn’t until nearly a year at the Crux that I realized they view the Lightbringer and Quietus, Tecton and Hadallis, as holding a greater power above the rest.
Dom once told me that the greater godsdon’t careabout us mere mortals. Such grand things as life and death, the earth itself, and thedepths of the ocean don’t even recognize our existence. Or if they do, they recognize it as something small and inconsequential. An ant to a giant.
People respect and fear the greater gods, but they save their prayers for the smaller ones that might actually listen.
It’s so different from how I was raised. My entire life, I had been told that God was watching and listening and judging. Yet I had never felt seen or heard, and the only judgment I received was from the priests and the people who listen to them. Never God.
Even now, sitting on its crown, as close as I could be to the God the priests speak about, I feel... nothing.
No, that’s not quite true.
I feel... awe that the earth has crafted a place so beautiful, that a belief has brought so many people together. But none of that relates to the God the priests claim to speak for. The one who watches and listens and judges, who would send a scorching drought or swarms of locusts because too many people had sex outside of marriage, or because a man would sometimes rather be a woman.
The thought used to scare me so much. That my urge to explore my magic, tobe who I am, was some great sin in the eyes of God.
“Good morning, and may God bless your presence at Pinnacle.”
