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“I’m quite full,” I say tentatively. “But it might be nice to have them to come back to, after everything.”
I set the plate on the small table by the arm of the sofa. Stavros’s gaze follows its descent with an odd air of sadness.
Well, he’s not shouting accusations at me, so I guess I’ll call that a win.
It was horrible, what he did today,Julita says.He shouldn’t have gone that far—he shouldn’t have felt he needed to. I wouldn’t forgive him just yet, but I don’t think he really wanted to hurt you, Ivy.
Does it matter what he wanted? He was willing to hurt me anyway to get whatever proof he needed, since apparently he judged that I wasn’t offering enough evidence of my loyalties on my own.
Who knows what else he might feel he needs to do?
Stavros’s head ticks as he studies my face. “Is there anything else that might help you prepare for your meeting with the scourge sorcerers tonight?”
I splay my hands. “Hard to say when I don’t know what that meeting will entail.”
His presence in the room and the weight of what he put me through this afternoon is becoming increasingly suffocating. I turn away and reach for my cloak. “I was thinking I’d stop by the temple and see if Kosmel has anything else to say for himself.”
“Ah. That seems worth trying.” Stavros pauses. “Will you come back here before you’re expected in the woods?”
I shrug as I fasten the cloak around my neck. Stavros tracks the movement of my hands, maybe thinking as I am of the rope that wrapped across the same spot just hours ago.
“I suppose that depends on how talkative the godlen is and whether I can find anything else to pass the time,” I say. “But you shouldn’t be waiting up anyway.”
“Of course.”
There’s another pause, the silence so awkward I practically flee for the door.
Once I’m walking down the hall, the pressure lightens, if only a tad. I still have my impending foray into the woods to worry about, and that’s no small thing.
I really don’t have any idea what to expect from the scourge sorcerers either.
One of the guards by the college gate stops me briefly to check where I’m headed at this late hour, but when I tell him, he waves me on. I hurry along the cobblestone road and slip through the temple’s grand doorway.
In the thick of the night, the only illumination in the massive worship room flickers from sconces set above each of the godlen statues. The glow catches on swaths of red silk that’ve been fixed to several of the columns and two immense gold swords now crossing each other over the entrance to the central tower.
I’ve been so distracted it takes me a moment to remember the reason for the adjusted décor. Sabrellia, the festival for the warrior godlen, is coming in a couple of days.
Each of the godlen get one day a year when everyone celebrates their contributions to our world. I can’t say I’m looking forward to honoring the violent divinity Stavros dedicated himself to, though.
I doubt I’ll be in a festive mood.
A couple of devouts pass through the worship room with subtle dips of their head toward me. The temple is open at all hours—they must be used to worshippers arriving at random.
I approach Kosmel’s alcove with a sense of trepidation. The godlen of luck and trickery insisted I stay alive. He must have some purpose for me.
It’d be nice to get a clearer idea of what that is.
But the thought of hearing his divinely overwhelming voice in my head again makes every part of my body tense up.
The one thing both of the clerics whose journals I read agreed on is that you can’t dictate when or how you’ll receive messages from the gods. You have to extend your question into the universe and watch for some indication it’s been heard.
Kosmel probably loves keeping us mortals on our toes.
I kneel before his statue, ignoring the dice this time. A simpleyesornodoesn’t feel like enough to satisfy all the uncertainty inside me.
I’m doing the best I can, I think at him.Is there anything I’m missing? Do you have any advice at all? I want to take down the scourge sorcerers soon—I don’t know what else they’re going to ask of me.
I close my eyes, thinking maybe images will float up from my mind the way the cleric of the Temple of Fruitful Abundance sometimes described. When all I get is an ache forming in my knees from the hard floor, I glance upward at the statue.
