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We shuffle forward, herded by the silence that hangs thick in the air. There’s a charge to it, electric and waiting, as if the whole courtyard’s a live wire. The gathered cult, a mix of rough faces and wary glances, doesn’t make eye contact. They’re focused on some point ahead, something I can’t see yet.
“Place gives me the creeps,” Isaiah murmurs.
“Really?” I shudder slightly, rolling my shoulders. “I don’t know…I’m kinda energized by it all.”
He lets out a short, nervous laugh. “Anyone ever told you you’re a bit of a freak?”
I grin. “Quite a few times actually.”
A few figures move among us, wraith-like in their green robes that stick out against the stark white. One breaks away from the others, stepping toward us. She’s got this air about her, commanding even before she speaks. Her eyes are dark, the rest of her face covered…but somehow she looks familiar. Not sure why.
“Welcome,” she intones, her voice clear and sharp. It slices through the murmurs like a blade. “To the threshold of enlightenment.”
“Enlightenment, huh?” Isaiah mutters, but I elbow him into silence.
“Tonight, you will partake in the sacred rite,” the High Priestess continues, and damn if her words don’t send a ripple through the crowd. “Prepare yourselves.”
They file us into a circle, and I take my place with reverence, feeling the weight of dozens of eyes on me. The new alphas—the initiates—are a sea of restless energy, muscle and sinew barely contained by thin fabric.
“Feels like they’re about to slit our throats. Human sacrifice much?” Isaiah mutters, eyeing the crowd that swarms the marble space.
“Or maybe it’s just another Tuesday.” I scan the faces, finding nothing but blind devotion staring back.
“You act like you’ve been through this before.”
I shrug. “Maybe I have.”
Isaiah shoots me a look, but I don’t bite.
Some stories are better left untold…or saved for safer days.
The courtyard is an open wound in the earth, stars above us like watchful eyes. A statue catches my gaze, its form too familiar—full-bodied, draped in stone cloth, a face etched with serenity and strength.
It’s her. Aisling.
But…not.
“That’s her?” I nod toward the statue as if it’s just some piece of art and not the spitting image of a woman whose scent has been stuck in my nostrils since the first time I laid eyes on her.
“The May Queen, yeah,” Isaiah says. “Their goddess. Or…ours, I guess.”
“Is she a real person?”
He shakes his head. “I doubt it. I mean…I guess I don’t know.”
Could it really be her? I thought she would be a prisoner, but maybe she’s here in plain sight.
Maybe she came here of her own volition.
What if she wants to stay?
A hush falls over the crowd and whispers slither through the air, anticipation thick enough to choke on. The High Priestess steps out from the shadows, and hands materialize from behind us, forcing us to our knees. Her dress is a cascade of emerald silk, hood and mask concealing all but her eyes—sharp, piercing, knowing. She moves with purpose, circling us like a hunter surveys its prey.
Not Aisling.
Familiar, but not Aisling.
“Welcome, initiates,” her voice slices through the silence, each word a command. “Tonight, you commune with the divine.”
