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"But, wait. How do we know who gets assigned to each other? If Protection marks are on the back and body ones are on the hips..."
"They match," she explained, lifting her shirt so I could see. "This swirl below my belly button here? It's in the middle of Jamik's back. When you emerge after your Choosing, a Priest of the Word will document every line on your body. They'll go and compare those to everyone else's. The ones who match are paired."
"So it can't be argued, huh?"
"Not at all," she agreed. "And Priests of the Body are always paired with a guardian from the same Choosing. If one partner of a pair is lost for any reason - "
"Like what?" I interrupted.
"Death, the marks being removed, or someone taking a lower assignment by choice. If any of those happen, then the partner will offer up their body again with the next class. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen."
"And when you want to change your Path to Word?"
She smiled. "I will offer myself, and if Zeal takes me, I will gain the collar. It happens about half the time. Our experience in the temples makes us more prepared to understand his directions, so more priests are moved into Word later in life than those who are placed there at their first Choosing. Why do you ask?"
I carefully set both stuffed toys up by my pillow. "Because I kinda don't want Wraythe to take the ring. I mean, we all know he will. We all know that's where he'll be placed. He doesn'tfitanywhere else, but it just doesn't seem fair."
"There is always a price to pay," she told me. "Each Path has one, but it's not always easy to see. The Path of the Word requires long hours of study, usually alone. It's the Path that makes decisions for all the others and interacts officially with the rest of our society. People who aren't priests, I mean. The Path of the Body has extremes of both pleasure and pain, but our time is often too short before our bodies no longer appeal to the patrons. Protection has the ring, Action is overlooked, and Obligation is both tedious and glamorless. There's always a price, and usually the more tempting it sounds, the more you'll have to pay."
"I think that's what Ciella was supposed to figure out. It's what I - well Zeal - was trying to tell her."
"That there's a price?" Amerlee asked.
"Yeah. She'd given in to the temptation to torment us, and Zeal was making her pay for it. That's what that sayingmeans.There's always a cost, and he is willing to extract it."
"Gods are not always kind," she agreed. "They also don't forgive easily. Just make sure you stay in his good graces, little sister, and he'll take very good care of you."
Chapter 18
Nariana
Eight students lost their hair that night. At first, I couldn't figure out why their hair had become the focus, but then Anver told me how hard they'd worked to get the wax out of Eladehl's. He'd been more upset about the idea of shaving his head than the burns on his body. It seemed Zeal had noticed.
Thankfully, none of the burns were bad. It was just candle wax, after all. He'd lost some hair on his body when he pulled it off, but Eladehl was ok with that. Granted, he didn't have much to begin with. Only the line from his navel to his dick, and that he kept short. Within a week, my friend was completely healed on the outside. Within a month, he was mostly back to normal.
Except that he had a new interest in being tied up - or tying others. When I finally decided to ask, Shalsa assured me it was a healthy fascination, nothing more. She honestly believed it was the exposure to the sensations, not a desperate grasp to deal with a trauma, that made him so curious. And yes, she was teaching him how to deal with it safely.
At her encouragement, we began to let him play around when we were alone. Sometimes, he'd hold down Wraythe for me to kiss on him. Others, he'd playfully bind my wrists behind my back and cover my eyes, while the guys kissed me. Just like when Wraythe had held me against him, I found I liked the experience. It made every touch more sensual. Then again, I also liked it when the boys pushed me against a wall, pinned me between them, and other things.
It was normal, Amerlee said. There was a power in being the receiver, and being bound removed any obligation to initiate. The roles became clearly defined, which often heightened them. Although Jamik made a point to remind me of the time that Amerlee had been beaten so badly. That, he said, was the risk. Putting your safety in someone else's hands should only be done when you were with someone you trusted. It was the very reason that the Path of the Body was tied so closely to the Path of Protection.
Then, near the end of our eighth year, Ciella decided to wear a wig. None of us knew where she got it - we didn't earn tithes the way the chosen priests did - yet she found one. Convinced she'd solved all of her problems, that fool walked into class with her new, long blonde hair, only to have Saval take it away. When Ciella had a tantrum about it, Saval quietly told her that she was still paying her price.
It was the most subtle lesson we'd learned yet, but also the one that hit the class the hardest. Our god had stepped in to correct her, and his priests would enforce it. Then there was the part about the price.
It seemed that everything had a cost, and we were all finally old enough to understand it. Gods demanded tithes. The normal people outside the temple paid taxes. Doing something risky could result in pain. Wanting to achieve something required sacrifice. Every single thing in our lives came with a price, and while Zeal offered things people secretly desired, he didn't give them away for free.
Not even friendships.
As Eladehl's obsession with restraint grew, Anver's comfort with us decreased. He enjoyed watching the boys kiss me, loved seeing them caressing my body, and didn't mind when one of them held me down. Yet when Eladehl bound my wrists, he would leave. At first, he said it was for something else. He had a lesson or needed the bathroom. Eventually, he admitted he just wasn't into it. Being the odd man out, he wasn't about to ask us to change.
Instead, he started spending time with a new friend. Her name was Tishlie, and she was the shortest girl in class, the one Saval had offered a stool to dip her arms in Zeal's tears. Painfully shy and wonderfully beautiful, she'd become Ciella's newest target. Anver couldn't help but be there for her. And when she wrapped her arms around him and wept into his shoulder? That was when my childhood friend found his real calling.
It seemed that night with Eladehl had taught Anver something too. Being able to comfort someone was what he wanted. The feel of wrapping his arms around another and protecting them called to that spark deep inside him that had always stayed just out of reach. It all would've been perfect, except that Tishlie was terrified of Wraythe, and she could never quite get along with Eladehl.
Granted, he was a bit abrasive and rather full of himself. Where Tishlie was meek, Eladehl was bold. Combined, they were like oil and water. The poor girl flinched and trembled every time Eladehl made a scene, but he couldn't help himself. He was flamboyant by nature. Often, he acted first, only later realizing how he'd pushed her too far.
But the less time Tishlie spent around us, the less we saw Anver. It all happened so slowly that I didn't realize how far his attachment had shifted until the start of our ninth year. The first day, we all assembled in the large classroom. The one we'd used that very first day, filled with long tables and chairs on only one side. I claimed a spot between Wraythe and Eladehl. Anver sat on Wraythe's other side, and Tishlie was down from him.
