Page 74 of The Castle & the Cloister

“You’recertainthis was a dream?” he pressed. “That both of you are unharmed?”

“I’m sure.”

Soria Aurelia’s room contained the luxury of a raised bed, and the Priest sat down on its side, burying his face in his hands. “Gods, Fia. I’ve woken to assassination attempts that rattled me less.”

“I’m sorry,” Fia said, sitting next to him. “But there was nowhere else for me to go.”

The Priest glanced up and frowned. “Why? I can’t help with your faith. Whatever you dream is between you and the Beloved Three, and if you need counsel on it, you’d best ask Dolenza. The intentions of the goddesses have nothing to do with me.”

“I don’t intend to honor the foresight I’ve been given, or the blood that came with it,” Fia said, unable to hide the belligerence coursing through her as she thought of the dream. She’d lie dead herself before she allowed the Invers’ queen and their Priest to be slaughtered. “I reject what I saw. I refuse to accept it, and to make an offering of the blood is a gesture of submission. It means I resign myself to the will of the Beloved Three, and I don’t. Not in this.”

“And there’s no reason for a daughter of Raea to hold back her blood unless she’s choosing disobedience,” the Priest filled in.

“Yes,” Fia said. “I don’t want to explain myself. I don’t want anyone to know. I’m afraid even telling what I saw will lend it power—it’s likethat with our dreams. When you offer the blood, you speak them into fuller being and align yourself with their truth.”

“Which means there’s no point in my asking exactly what it is that’s shaken you.”

“No.” Conviction rang in the single word.

Beside Fia, the Priest drew his hidden dagger. Warmth spread through her as she watched him do so, his movements practiced and assured. Without hesitation, he pressed the blade to his left palm, and blood seeped freely from the wound.

“It was stupid of me to be so careless,” he said. “I was pitting olives and lost my grip on the knife. Of course, as Inver Priest I won’t have my blood given to the old goddesses—Tyrus in particular would take grave offense if I did.”

“Thank you,” Fia breathed. She unwrapped the blanket from around Justus and placed him, still sleeping, on the bed. “Here, I’ve brought linens already soiled.”

The Priest offered his hand, and Fia held the cloth to the new wound there, his blood and her own mingling together.

“My shift is spoiled, too,” Fia said, stating the fact without emotion.

“Leave it,” the Priest told her. “You know they’re all talking about us anyway. You can take something of mine to wear, and we’ll just say you were here to witness my unfortunate clumsiness, if anyone asks.”

He nodded in the direction of a satchel beside the door, and Fia went to the washbasin first, where she cleaned her hands thoroughly. Then she skinned out of her bloodstained shift and padded across the room, naked in the moonlight. She rummaged through the Priest’s things, coming up with the loose trousers and shirt that were as much a signifier of his role as the sorias’ habits were of theirs. As she pulled them on, she stole a look at the Priest—he sat with the air of preternatural calm he wore sometimes, but his grip on the soiled linen blanket was a great deal tighter than necessary.

“Never,” the Priest said drily, “have I given so much cause for gossip that has so little truth in it.”

If not for the dream haunting her, Fia would have been tempted to take his words as an invitation. It was impossible to deny that she wanted him. If she’d stayed on the mountain longer, Fia suspected it was inevitable, thatshe would have had the Inver Priest. But Dolenza had called her away, and now, fear paralyzed her. Death hung over Ariana and the Priest both, and what action or inaction of Fia’s might serve as the catalyst that ushered it in or prevented it, she couldn’t say. All she could do was keep watch.

Fia moved back to him, her bare feet soundless on the stone floor. She sat down beside him again, and with his unbloodied hand, the Priest touched the fabric of the shirt she wore.

“I’m not sure I like the idea of you dressed as an apostate,” he said, an odd note in his voice that Fia had never heard there before. Before she could stop herself, she took his hand in both of hers and clung to it. The Priest turned his face toward her, startled by the gesture.

“Was it so bad?” he asked. “The thing you dreamed of?”

Fia did not trust herself to speak. She nodded wordlessly, knowing that her silence would convey the movement he could not see.

“I’m sorry,” the Priest said. “It may not be of help, but for my part, I don’t believe in prophesies or fates. Even if the gods attempt to move us, I believe we make our own destiny. It’s the only way I’ve survived this long when I ought to have died a dozen times over. And you of all people are strong enough to make your own way.”

There was a ring of defiance in his voice when he spoke of fate and the gods, as if he meant to convince himself as much as Fia. When Fia replied, it cost her. She dredged up the question from the very bottom of her soul, because she did not want to know the answer.

“Will you do what Gileta asked? Will you try for Orden?”

Beside her, the Priest was quiet for a moment. He drew in a measured breath, and then spoke. “Do you want me to?”

“Yes,” Fia murmured, her voice catching on the word. “And no. I hate myself for not being certain, or knowing which choice is right. But mostly I’m tired. I wish I’d never even heard of you Invers and your troubles. I wish I was just a soria, standing in the light of the sun. That’s all I really want. I keep grasping for it, only to find that peace has been placed just beyond my reach.”

With great caution, the Priest put his arm around her, mindful of the blood still drying on his hand. Fia let herself be gathered in. She pressed her face to his shoulder—comfort was the rarest of luxuries to her still, and one she could not resist when it was offered. This time, though, itfelt fatally tainted in light of the dream she’d been given. A few hot tears escaped her, dampening the Priest’s shirt, and he brushed a kiss to the crown of her head.

“I’m afraid I have no peace to give you,” the Priest said, his voice low. “As for certainty and rightness, I lost all mine long ago. I’ve only myself to offer, for what I’m worth—you can stay with me for what’s left of the night, if you’d rather not be alone.”