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She shuddered, and I glanced sidelong at Quye, curious to see her reaction. Her expression was carefully blank, and I suspected that Nysa’s words struck a little too close to home. After all, as the Oracle, she’d been sequestered in the air fae temple at Wynth for most of her life. I knew from what Leap told me that she’d snuck out of the temple often, posing as a lesser fae so she could get a taste of what it was like to live amongst them, but in the end, she always had to go back. Always had to choose duty over desire.
I wondered if she’d ever been in love. As I understood it, the Oracle wasn’t allowed to take a husband or bear children. I wasn’t sure why that was, but it seemed unfair to me that Quye was banned from partaking in the pleasures most of us seemed to take for granted. Perhaps that was why she had such an irreverent attitude and mischievous outlook on life. Because she was trying to cope with the ivory tower life her abilities had forced her into.
Looking at Quye and Nysa’s lives made me a little more grateful for my own situation. True, I was also forced into a destiny I hadn’t asked for, but once I unlocked my powers and vanquished Nox and the shadow creatures, I could move on. I would live a normal life, with Einar at my side, building a life filled with adventures and babies and anything else we saw fit to enjoy.
After we finished lunch, Nysa offered to take us on a tour of the temple grounds. She led us through the wide streets and bustling squares, pointing out the various temples and structures and explaining their functions.
“Wow,” Quye said, her eyes shining as Nysa led us toward a magnificent temple. The building was crafted of black marble with opaque white veins that mimicked threads of starlight, and adorned with silver accents representing various phases of the moon and other celestial bodies. “Who is this temple dedicated to?”
“Aahuti,” Nysa said proudly. She gestured to the twin foxes guarding the entrance, each with crescent moons on their furry chests. “Goddess of the Moon and patron of the desert fox. She is the twin sister of Montu-Ra, the god of sun and war, and the second most powerful deity in our pantheon.” A wistful look entered her eyes. “Sometimes, I wish they had given me to her temple instead of Setros,” she said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it.
We made to follow Nysa inside the temple, but the sounds of children squabbling drew my attention away from the foxes. Following the commotion, I rounded a corner to see three teenage boys playing catch with a rag doll. A girl no older than ten ran between them, trying to catch the doll, but the boys were too quick, snatching it out of the air before she could reach it.
The girl screamed something at the boy, tears streaming down her round face. She jumped up and down, trying to reach the toy, but the older boy held it just out of her reach. He sneered something back at her, gesturing toward her overlarge teeth, and the girl responded with a swift kick to his shin. The boy howled, clutching his leg, and the girl reached for the toy again, but one of the other boys stepped in and yanked her by the pigtails with such force, she went sprawling to the ground.
A red haze clouded my vision, and before I even realized what I was doing, I was across the clearing. The children shouted as I grabbed the offending boy by the back of his collar and lifted him in the air until he was eye-level with me.
“Adara!” Nysa and Quye yelled in unison. But I disregarded their warning cries as I glared at the boy clutching the doll, who glared right back from where he stood just a few feet away.
“Give the girl her doll back,” I said in an even tone. His eyes widened as he took in my foreign features and strange language, and he threw the toy in my direction, then ran away, the second boy hot on his heels. The third boy raced after them the moment I dropped him, shooting fearful glances over his shoulder at me as he went.
Good. Let them be afraid. Maybe it would teach them a lesson about bullying defenseless girls.
Crouching down, I picked up the doll, then turned to face the girl. She was still sitting in the dirt, frozen in place as she stared up at me with equal parts fear and awe. A wave of sympathy swept through me—the village children had teased me in a similar fashion, yanking on my braids and stealing my toys and alienating me in every possible way.
“Here,” I said, pressing the toy into her hand. She trembled a little, and I gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
Rushing footsteps drew my attention away from the child, and I turned to see a priest round the corner on the opposite end of the temple. He was a tall, olive-skinned male with sharp cheekbones and a thick mustache, his lean body clad in a white linen kilt and a long, flowing robe of pale blue silk. His scalp was bare save for a thin black strip of hair that ran down the center of his scalp, which was braided and tied at the nape of his neck with a thin blue ribbon. He carried a staff of polished ebony topped with a silver spear that leant him an air of authority, and the simple, woven reed sandals he wore slapped ominously against the ground as he strode toward us. The three boys were with him, and they pointed at me with shaky fingers as they babbled.
“I’m pretty sure you just landed us in hot water,” Quye said under her breath, coming up to stand behind me as I got to my feet.
“I’ll deal with it,” I muttered back.
The priest strode up to me, his heavy brows drawn into a thunderous scowl. He dragged the boy I’d grabbed behind him, who looked very much as though he was regretting the decision to tattle-tale now that he was being brought within spitting distance of me again.
“Nysa,” he snapped. “Who are these strangers, and what are they doing, attacking my acolytes? This is a sacred place—there is no violence of any kind allowed here!”
“My apologies, Brother Khufu.” Nysa bobbed her head, her face growing pale. “This is Adara and Quye, honored guests of High Priest Bakare. I was showing them around the temple grounds when we heard the children shouting and came to investigate.”
“These boys were bullying that poor girl,” I said in a hard voice, drawing the priest’s ire away from Nysa and back to me. “They stole her doll, and when she tried to get them to give it back, they yanked her by the hair and threw her to the ground.” I crossed my arms and leveled a glare at the priest. “I don’t know about you, but where I come from, we don’t allow our children to treat each other this way.”
The priest narrowed his eyes, then turned to face the children. He spoke rapidly, and all four of them began to shout at once, likely hurling accusations at each other. The priest listened for all of five seconds before he shouted them into silence, then shooed all four of them into the temple. The girl shot a glance at me over her shoulder before she disappeared around the corner, and I bit my lip at the worried look in her eyes. I hope I hadn’t ended up causing more trouble for her in the long run.
“Can you corroborate your friend’s story?” the priest asked Nysa.
Nysa nodded. “The boys were harassing her. I would have called for you myself, but Adara does not know our ways, and she stepped in before I could stop her.”
The priest frowned, but before he could say anything, a group of priests emerged from the gardens to our left. My mouth dropped open—I didn’t recognize any of them, but the one in the middle wearing long, golden robes embroidered with the image of a reptilian beast, was clearly a dragon. His orange-gold eyes widened in alarm as he caught sight of us, but I hardly noticed as I rushed toward him, the priest and the children forgotten.
“Finally, a dragon!” I crowed, stopping just short of him. “Please, where is the Princess Ylena? I must speak with her!”
“Princess Ylena?” The dragon bared his teeth, hatred gleaming in his eyes. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, rounding on the priest I’d been speaking with. “Why have you allowed our enemies access to sacred grounds?”
“The enemy?” the priest echoed, shocked.
“But aren’t they from your world?” Nysa protested, confusion stamped over her pretty features. “They speak your sacred language!”
“They may speak our language, but they are not my people.” The dragon jabbed a clawed fingernail at me and Quye, fangs glinting in the sunlight. “These two are enemies of Sobek-Ra, and must be put to death. Guards, kill them!”
