Page 124 of Sun Warrior

Lily hugged Dove more tightly. “I already am, Mistress. It just took you until now to know it. And I know it’s blasphemous to say, but I do not want a Goddess to take over your body.”

“Neither do I, Lily, and after hearing what the God revealed to me today I am beginning to think the Goddess does not want it, either.” Dove lifted her head. Her hand found Lily’s soft face. Gently, Dove traced the lines of her cheek. “Will you help me, my friend?”

“Yes, Mistress. What is it you would like my help with?”

Suddenly Dove knew what she must do. “Have the other Attendants gathered sacrificial creatures as the God commanded?”

“Of course, Mistress. They try to only capture creatures that do not appear to be sick—just as your Dead Eye commanded before the God silenced him.”

“And there are creatures caught right now? Being held for the morning sacrifice?” Dove asked, feeling more and more hopeful.

“Yes, Mistress. They are caged on the floor below us.”

“Take me there—quickly and quietly. Draw no attention from the God or His Reapers.”

Without another word Lily took Dove’s hand. They tiptoed on bare feet from the Chamber of the God to the broken staircase. Lily helped her Mistress pick her way slowly down to the floor below them, which was empty except for several cages, one of them filled with animals waiting to be sacrificed.

“What have they captured?” Dove asked, running her hands over the wooden cages.

“Pigeons,” Lily said. “Six of them. They are all in one cage.”

Dove lifted her face, feeling for wind from one of the many broken windows. “Help me carry their cage to the opening, there, across from us.”

“Yes, Mistress.” At the window Lily paused with Dove beside her. “Now what?” she asked.

“Now we pray,” Dove said. She bowed her head and spoke the words hesitantly at first and then with growing confidence as she felt the rightness of it within her. “Great Goddess, I am Dove—the vessel your Consort, the God of Death, wishes you to inhabit after He forces you to awaken. But, Goddess, I believe you do not wish to be awakened, just as I do not wish to be possessed. If I am right, I beg your help, Great Goddess! Save me from Death, please. To show my respect and my fidelity to you, I release these creatures that were to be sacrificed to Death, and instead I give them to you, to Life, as I also give myself and my life to you!” Dove felt around until she found the latch that held the cage closed and then opened it. In a flurry of wings the pigeons flew from their jail, rushing through the window and into the night sky.

“Did She speak to you?” Lily asked in a small, tremulous voice.

“I can’t tell yet,” Dove said. “But I feel the rightness of this within me, and it is enough that I make this offering to the Goddess. Let us hope that She is content to sleep and does not wish to awaken.”

Lily’s small hand closed over her Mistress’s. “I follow you, Mistress, and if you worship this Great Goddess, so will I.”

“Then know this: I will never enter the City in the Trees, and I will never be made into a shell for a Goddess to claim, even if it’s against Her will.”

“But the God just said that we will take the city in four days.”

“Hewill. I will not.”

Dove felt Lily nod slowly. “I understand.”

“And still you will help me?”

“I will.”

“No one must know,” Dove said.

“What of the other Attendants?” Lily asked.

“Do you trust them completely?”

Lily hesitated, and into the silent pause the sounds of woman’s giggles drifted from the God’s balcony above, punctuated by deeper murmurs of male voices speaking intimately, coaxingly, teasingly.

“No,” Lily whispered sadly. “I do not trust them. They serve you, Mistress. They even like you. But all they can speak of is the City in the Trees and the new life awaiting us there.”

“And is that not what you want, too?”

“It was, untilHetook over our Champion.” Lily slid even closer to Dove and lowered her voice so that her Mistress had to strain to hear her. “I have watched him. He does not treat you with the respect His Oracle deserves, as Dead Eye treated you. And if He can treat you so roughly, what chance do any of the rest of us have?”