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It’s as good a meeting place as any. No one will notice two more people in the crowd.
I scan every corner of the courtyard for his familiar form. No sign of Pa. I tamp down the nerves that skitter across my skin. It’s fine. I’m early, he still has time.
And besides, I need a little time to come up with a way to tell him that I’m not coming. Maybe I’ve just got to spit it out. Be firm.
But I can almost see his eyes deadening and his lips becoming one thin line, the way he is when he’s too furious for words. The memory alone shrivels up my confidence.
Someone pushes at me, trying to get me to hurry into line, and I’m jostled into the crowd of food seekers. I shove and sidestep my way out—things aren’t so bad that I have to take charity. Someone else needs that stew more, I’m sure.
The only way out is into the shrine itself. The stone steps dip in the middle, worn smooth by thousands of feet over hundreds of years. In the shrine, the sounds of the outside world fall away. The walls are deeply carved in interlocking patterns, almost like simple ikons.
A woman enters and unwraps a small piece of fragrant wood. She throws it into the undying fire at the heart of the shrine. The air issweet and dark with the smoke of burnt offerings, smoke that curls up through the oculus, reaching for the sky.
She finishes her prayers and hurries out, leaving me alone. No one really hangs around inside the shrines. Even folks with nowhere else to go wouldn’t dare linger. The Great King isn’t a particularly kind god. He demands respect. He is older than the Storm, after all. The Regia is his instrument, the vessel for his undying soul. One day that’ll be the prince, and his cruel, angular face will be nothing more than a mask for the Great King.
I go to the fire and pull a sliver of rosewood from my pocket. I’ve been saving it, but now I can’t remember for what. We’ve never needed help more than now. I throw it into the fire and ask the Great King to watch over those I love. To protect them, and to guide me.
The smoke from my offering curls toward the circular opening in the domed ceiling. The disc of sky is pure darkness, and for a moment I have a wild fear that my prayer will be heard not by the Great King, but by the Storm.
My feet find a groove in the stone floor, smoothed by the feet of those who came before me, and I trace their steps around the fire. The shrine is old, maybe as old as the city herself. The carvings on the walls frame a depiction of the Great King, a calm face in mosaic, made up of hundreds of small symbols like ikons. The carving is faint, rubbed away by the touch of thousands of hands.
Directly across from the carving is another that’s almost completely gone, lost to time. I stare at the place it once was and a dark shroud falls over my vision, the shadows of the temple growing long. I shiver, blinking. There’s no darkness, no long shadows—just my imagination running wild.
All that’s left of the carving is eyes aglow with fire and lips twistedin a snarl. Around his shoulders are whorls and curls, like smoke—or like the dark clouds of the Storm. Pa pointed it out to me, long ago. “We should remember that the Great King has two faces. We’ve forgotten the old one, the wrathful one.”
Few others talk about the wrathful face of the Great King. In most newer shrines, there’s only the usual depiction. It’s not hard to imagine why folks have let this face fade into obscurity; if the Great King we know is his kinder side, I’m pretty sure we’re all collectively hoping we never have to meet the other one.
Others enter the shrine, and I leave to give them privacy.
I bite the inside of my cheek as I walk the perimeter of the courtyard, scanning the faces of those still waiting for food.
The time to meet Pa comes and goes; the minutes tick on.
He’s just late. It’s no reason to worry. But my palms grow clammy.
The hungry march forward, their number dwindling as each of them gets their food and finds a safe corner to devour it. The line shrinks, then halves, then thickens into a mob as the last few fight for whatever is left.
“Come back tomorrow!” a priestess shouts, as two others carry the iron pot back inside. “There’s no more today!”
The priestesses disappear. The courtyard begins to empty, and Pa still hasn’t shown.
A loud shout behind me. Grunts and hollers come from the leaving crowd as a couple of folks push through. From the other entrances more people pour in.
More poor souls looking for food? “You’re too late!” someone shouts, no doubt thinking the same thing.
They pay no attention, scrambling across the courtyard as if something’s chasing them. I back away until I hit a chilled stone wall.
A rustle of feathers from above. My stomach sinks as I clap eyes on the source: red leather under a black feather cloak. A Wardana descends, cape flung out like wings. A wild halo of dark hair. Cold blue Regia’s eyes. Prince Dalca.
I pull my hood higher, sidling away, my heart pounding with mingled fury and fear. All around me, people surge to their feet.
More red, more Wardana. They enter the courtyard from all sides. My heart thuds, panic sealing my throat shut.
Prince Dalca raises a gloved hand in signal, his eyes fixed on a figure in the crowd. The Wardana surround them, not fifteen feet from me.
A hooded figure in a shabby cloak. A familiar mottled moss-green cloak. One of them yanks the hood down—and my stomach drops.Papa.
I push against the sea of people trying to get out of the Wardana’s way, jabbing my elbow into someone’s bony side and shoving my way to Pa an inch at a time, shouting, “Move!”
