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We speculated on it for another hour or so, but eventually lapsed into a drowsy silence. I wasn’t sure when I dozed off, but when a temple attendant came in and woke us, the room was completely dark.
“Come,” she said in clumsy fae. “The High Priestess will see you now.”
Quye and I straightened our rumpled clothing and fixed our hair as best we could, then followed the attendant out of the room. We expected her to lead us down to the main temple floor, but instead, we followed her up a flight of stairs and into a dome at the very top of the temple. My eyes were immediately drawn to the oculus in the center of the dome, which gave us a perfect view of the moon hanging in the sky. Rays of moonlight poured in through the circle, illuminating the entire room.
“Greetings,” the high priestess said. She stood directly behind the shaft of moonlight that fell through the oculus, her silvery robes rippling in the gentle breeze. “Please, step into the light.”
We did as she asked, though my steps were hesitant as we crossed the smooth marble floor and stepped into the shaft of moonlight. The moment we did, power rippled over my skin, sending a frisson of energy down my spine. I was struck by the eerie sensation that I was being watched, but when I glanced above me, toward the source of the feeling, I saw nothing but the waxing moon shining above us.
“You are standing in the Eye of Aahuti,” the high priestess explained to us. I glanced down to realize I was standing on the glass disc I’d seen from the lower level earlier, directly above the massive statue of the goddess. From a distance it appeared to be a clear pane, but now that I was standing on it, I could see the hieroglyphs etched into its surface. “The goddess’s watchful gaze protects you from outside influence, but it also compels you to speak the truth. You must answer my questions truthfully while you stand in the eye. To do otherwise is a sign of disrespect to the goddess and will incur her wrath. Do you understand?”
I snapped my gaze back up to the priestess. “Yes,” Quye and I said in unison, the word compelled from me almost without thought. My stomach clenched—I’d been interrogated before, but never like this, and though I had no idea if this Aahuti was real, the power humming in the air around me definitely was.
“Good,” Anuket said. She studied us for a beat, then said, “I am High Priestess Anuket, devoted servant of Aahuti and guardian of this temple. Tell me your names, and what brings you to our realm.”
“I am Adara, daughter of dragons and fae,” I told her. “My companion is Quye, a fae and a powerful seer. She is very well respected in our realm for her ability to listen to the winds and see the future, and she has the power to commune with both the dream and the spirit realms as well.”
“I see.” The high priestess’s elegant brows rose as she studied the Oracle. “That is a very impressive talent. Do you also have the ability to walk between the physical realms?”
Quye shook her head. “Not normally. We were only able to cross over to your realm with the help of the spirits.”
“So you do commune with the gods, then,” she said, studying her closely. “Why have they sent you to us?”
“We are looking for Princess Ylena,” I told the priestess. At her nonplussed look, I added, “She is the leader of the dragons who came to this realm from ours twenty years ago.”
The priestess shook her head. “I have never heard of a Princess Ylena,” she told us. “Nor the term ‘dragons’.”
“The male wearing golden robes is from the same realm that we came from, and is of a race of fire-breathing reptilian creatures we call dragons," Quye explained. "Adara here is half-dragon, but the other half of her lineage is fae, which is what I am. We do not serve a god or goddess, as you and the others think, but rather our powers come from the land itself, and therefore are elemental in nature.”
“So these dragons are not sons and daughters of Sobek-Ra?” The priestess asked.
“Not that we’re aware of,” I said. I thought back to the notebook and the secret library Quye had found, wondering if any of those books had mentioned a Crocodile God. For all I knew, the dragonsweredescended from some sort of reptilian deity. “They certainly never worshipped him back when they were in our realm.”
Quye and I spent the next hour explaining the history between the dragons and fae, and the events that led to the dragons fleeing Ediria and coming to this new realm to find a haven. The priestess listened intently, nodding to herself at certain points, but content to let us tell the whole of it without interruption.
“You say you don’t serve the gods,” she said when we finished, “and yet it seems the both of you work to execute the will of these ‘spirits’, as you call them.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that,” I told her. “The spirits offer us guidance so that we may keep the elements and the balance of light and dark in harmony. They advise us, but they don’t make demands of us.”
The priestess shrugged. “Any demands that our goddess makes of us are for our own good,” she said. “Our offerings, prayers, and rituals give her the energy she needs to watch over and protect us. Is it so different from your relationship with the Radiants, as you call them?”
“Perhaps not,” Quye allowed before I could argue. “But you didn't bring us here to discuss the nature of our religions.”
“True,” the priestess agreed. “I brought you here to discover what your connection with Sobek-Ra was, and you have uncovered some very interesting information." She tapped her chin thoughtfully, studying our faces for a long minute before she spoke again. "High Priest Inatol has been lying to us.”
“About what?” I asked.
The priestess shook her head. “Twenty years ago, Inatol came to Kemet-Nefer with a man he claimed was the avatar of Sobek-Ra, the Crocodile God. The citizens and the king were skeptical, but when the avatar transformed into his reptilian form, they all tripped over themselves to acknowledge him as a deity. He took up residence in the temple, along with the hundred or so other foreigners he claimed were his sons and daughters, and they have grown shockingly fast since then. Many of the parishioners of the other gods and goddesses left those temples for Sobek-Ra's, since they are the only temple claiming to have a god in residence, and as a result, the Cult of Sobek has eclipsed all the others. They receive more gold and offerings than the rest of us, and as such, they have the most power.”
Quye raised her eyebrows. “That seems very unfair.”
“It will be of great interest to the other priests—and not to mention the God-King—to learn that this man is not, in fact, the avatar of Sobek-Ra, and that he and his 'children' are not even crocodiles, but a different beast entirely.” The priestess’s silver-painted lips curled into a satisfied smile. “I’ve long suspected that Inatol has not been truthful with us. This is our chance to expose him.”
“I’m pleased that we could help you bring this truth to light,” I said carefully, not wanting to take sides on this issue. On the one hand, it seemed wrong for the dragons to impersonate a deity. But on the other, I could see how the idea of being worshipped as gods after being hunted to near extinction for thousands of years, was a hard bargain to pass up. “But it is imperative that we find Princess Ylena. She is the only person who can help me unlock my abilities, abilities I need to drive away the dark entity that is trying to kill everyone in my world.”
“I do not know what has become of your Princess Ylena,” the priestess said ruefully. “The dragon impersonating Sobek-Ra has established himself as the leader, and there is no female ruling alongside him. The only ones who would know of her whereabouts are the dragons themselves, or High Priest Inatol. And since they want you dead, I’m not sure they will be forthcoming.”
I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Well, we’re going to have to convince them it’s in their best interest to help us.” I looked helplessly at Quye. “Do you have any ideas on how to do that?”
