Braid of Sand Page 8

  He absorbed that with a bemused quirk of his mouth.

  “The Great Mother’s Garden? Funny, I never pegged Naiara as having a sense of humor. Alright. I can play along. If this is the Realm of the Gods, who does that make you?”

  That he thought he could demand answers from her in her own chamber sent her pride blazing and made her chest swell. Questions, insults, and accusations formed a bottleneck at the back of her mouth that meant her lips moved but nothing came out.

  “Nymph?” he guessed. The accompanying smirk loosened her tongue.

  “I am the High Priestess, Guardian of the Great Mother’s Temple.”

  He stared, letting his gaze do another careful sweep. Up and down. Amusement trickled into his face and he dipped his chin in a faint, mocking bow.

  “Of course you are.”

  Raziela bristled. What was that supposed to mean?

  “Are you alone?” He scanned the corners of her room as if he expected to find an army waiting in ambush.

  “Are you?”

  His eyes sliced to hers in a gentle reproof that just ratcheted her chin up one notch higher.

  “How did you get here? Why did you come?” Once she started talking, Raziela had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep back the flood of questions that threatened to spill out all at once. He folded his arms.

  “You expect a lot of answers for someone who won’t tell me her name.”

  That he wasn’t even pretending to be intimidated by the sword in her hand stuck a thorn in her nerves. No doubt he thought she was a young girl hiding behind the first weapon she could get her hands on. Let him think she was meek and defenseless. Let him think he had the advantage because of his size.

  A long silence stretched between them, and she realized he was waiting for her to tell him her name. Well, he could keep waiting.

  “What are you doing here?”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw as if he thought answering her was beneath him. He exhaled slowly.

  “What do you think I’m doing here?” It was maddening the way he turned every question back at her. Even more galling was having to bite her tongue to keep from telling him exactly what he wanted to know. His eyes gleamed as they caught her near slip.

  Raziela wanted to stamp her foot. Why was she more intimidated by the intelligence flashing in his eyes than he was by the sword she held to his throat?

  Refusing to be cowed, she took a step toward him and shrugged.

  “I have been removed from the world of mortals for a long time. I have no idea what your motives might be.” She might not be a coward, but she was a terrible liar. Lines crinkled around his eyes as he noted it.

  She wanted to smack herself in the forehead. When Caprea didn’t want to answer a question, she invoked a tone of superiority. Raziela had never found an opportunity to try the technique for herself, but now that she’d had it, she vowed never to do it again.

  “The World of Mortals?” Tension gathered across his shoulders. The light caught on a curious scar that ran along the outside of his left arm. The branching, purple lines coiled like a pressed fern leaf from his shoulder to his wrist. At first she thought it was a tattoo, but closer inspection revealed it was a burn. What would make such a mark?

  Following the direction of her gaze, he clenched his fists. The muscles rippled up his arm, making the scar dance like a leaf on the breeze before he twisted to hide it from her line of sight.

  “Mortals? You were one of us once, weren’t you, Priestess?”

  “Once—before my own people tried to kill me while they ransacked our temple’s garden.”

  “Then you are no longer?”

  The color drained from her face as she realized she’d walked right into his trap. Her mind ran in place trying to think how to cover the slip-up.

  “The Great Mother heard my prayers and brought me here where I have lived alone and in peace until now.” She brought her hands together and pressed them to her forehead in a show of devotion toward the Goddess.

  He spat on the floor.

  “Your ‘Great Mother’ is the worst plague to ever infect the world.”

  He didn’t shout, but her ears rang with the sacrilegious words. Shock formed a vacuum in her chest, sucking the breath from her lungs and the color from her face. She raised her sword again, ready to cleave him in two.

  “How dare you! She is the very light that sustains us!”

  A dry noise rattled in the back of his throat.

  “You’re rather protective of a deity who tried to wipe the human race off the face of the earth.”

  This time she couldn’t stop her mouth from falling open. He angled his head, darkly amused.

  “You don’t think so? Who would you blame for the winds that blow our trading ships out to sea and smash them against the rocks? Who do you think sends the heat that wilts our crops and sours the orchards until there’s nothing to eat but dust? Our livestock are gone. There’s not a drop of rain. And you want me to get on my knees for a goddess who could wave all that suffering away with a flick of her hand but doesn’t?”

  “If you turned your back on her then you cannot expect her not to do the same to you.”

  “Yes,” he indicated her chamber with a sweep of his hand, “I can see that you’ve fared well enough. Tell me, does the Goddess weave and dye those silks you’re wearing herself, or did she supply you with handmaidens too? I suppose someone must help you tend all that ridiculous hair.”

  She clenched her fingers to keep from reaching up to touch her hair.

  He took a step toward her. Hissing, she planted her feet and flicked the sword back under his chin. He drew up short but continued to sneer.

  “While you lounged about up here as the pampered pet of that evil viper, your own people have been pushed to the point of extinction—you had no idea, did you?”

  Raziela’s vision took on a crimson tinge. How dare he slander the name of the Goddess when he had killed, stolen, and maimed more people than she cared to count?

  Poor seasons and natural disasters were part of the order of things. Sometimes, the Great Mother allowed those things to happen so she could test the faith of her children and maintain balance in the universe. Besides, one person’s misfortune could be someone else’s windfall. Just because he’d fallen on hard times didn’t mean everyone else had as well.

  She did not doubt that he had known suffering. That scar on his arm could not have been pleasant to come by. Naiara had been furious when the Temple was sacked. When she wasn’t trying to coax Raziela into exploring the new world she’d been brought to or wiping away her tears, she’d bitterly cursed the ones who’d pushed her to her limits. No doubt her wrath in the Realm of Mortals had been severe. This young man did not appear much older than Raziela looked—decades too young to have been alive during those days after the Temple fell.

  Righteous anger fizzled inside her. Before she could open her mouth to unleash her fury, it occurred to her that as Naiara’s sole surviving priestess, it was her duty to show him the truth of the Great Mother’s ways. If Phalyra was turning from the Goddess, perhaps he’d never had the opportunity to learn the true faith.

  She took a deep breath to force down her wrath and dredge up her hard-won patience.

  “We should start over. This must be as jarring for you as it is for me.” She lifted her nose the way the nymphs did when their feelings were hurt and they wished to change the subject. “Come. I’m not used to guests, but I can offer a good meal, a warm bath, and a place for you to rest.”

  He blinked at her abrupt shift in tone. She hid a smirk.

  She turned her back as though she had no fear that he would attack her. She didn’t have to strain her senses to alert her to his every move. After being alone for so long, the presence of another person was impossible for her to ignore. More than that, he seemed to occupy twice the space of a normal human. It reminded her being in the presence of the Great Mother. Like Naiara, he was just more.

  Every breat
h he took seemed to gust through the room. The smell of sweat and sea and fish clung to him, contaminating her clean air.

  Taking a calculated risk, she laid her sword across the lid of the trunk at the end of her bed. She was less concerned about leaving herself without a weapon and more worried he would seize the opportunity to gain one, but he remained where he was by the window watching her with that small smile that told her he knew exactly what she was doing.

  “You must be hungry after all that climbing.” She couldn’t resist tossing that last stab at him. His mouth worked from side to side as if he was debating whether to cringe or smile. He settled on a crooked half-smile that was equal parts salute to her sally, and annoyance at being chastised.

  “It was an honest mistake. What I can’t figure out is why you let it get so long.”

  He eyed the long coil where it lay across the floor. There was something like fascinated disgust in his eyes. Stung, Raziela stuck out her chin.

  “When we enter the Great Mother’s service we must make a pledge to show our devotion. I vowed that so long as I serve her I will never cut my hair.” She looked ruefully at it. “Believe me, if I could go back I would make a different vow. I should have chosen celibacy like most of the others. I’d have no trouble keeping that here.” She said it dryly, beginning the process of winding her hair around her body and out of the sand he’d tracked across her floor. He watched the long braid with that look of disturbed fascination, but as her words sank in he gave a strangled cough.

  “One would think you’d have learned your lesson about making promises you might regret, Priestess.” Straight white teeth flashed at her. An unexpected flutter rippled through her belly. Was he teasing her?

  Unsure how to respond, she pretended not to have heard and focused on tucking her braid into her belt.

  “How did you get it that long?”

  She tensed. That was a harder question to answer. If he knew about the magical properties of Vitales that could prolong his life and heal his wounds, she had no doubt he would tear the Temple apart with his bare hands to get to it.

  Immortality was a strange thing to covet. Death and loss gave meaning and purpose to living. For her, each day bled into the next until they were all the same. Being in the utopian Realm of the Gods only made the lure of ennui worse.

  There were days when she felt like the only living thing in the world. The nymphs, zephyrs, and sea people often vanished to their secret spaces for days or weeks at a time. They didn’t realize how anxiously aware she was of every second that they were gone. She tried to make them understand, but they never did. Instead they just assured her she’d get used to the solitude. Forever was a long time to grow accustomed to it.

  “The gardens here are nourishing.” It was the only answer safe enough to give. She would not lie. The Great Mother held nothing but contempt for liars. But even the Goddess had her secrets.

  He muttered something under his breath as he followed her down the stone stairs.

  The confined space of the stairwell only heightened her awareness of him—his heavy tread, the width of his shoulders, and the way he loomed over her.

  “Where does that door lead?” On their right, three steps above the landing and the archway opening onto the kitchen was the wooden door to her library. The Great Mother insisted Raziela be well-educated. Intelligence was a valuable weapon.

  She opened the door to show him the library. It was a small room with a wooden trestle table and large cushioned chairs. There were thick leather-bound volumes on every subject from horticulture and biology to politics and philosophy.

  “Nothing like a bit of light reading,” he said, staring at the book she’d left out on the table. “An Astronomer’s Guide to Navigating the Northern Hemisphere.” The tome was nearly four inches thick. It gave a detailed account of the various constellations and their movements across the sky throughout the year. While it was presented as a book on astrology, for Raziela it served as a history of the gods. The glyphs drawn in stars across the skies recorded the early days of making when Itzal and Naiara worked together to create the world.

  She’d been hoping to find a time when humanity turned its back on the Goddess, but if it had happened before, no one felt the need to document it. She sighed.

  “Have you never looked to the stars when you needed a place to escape?”

  His face grew shuttered.

  “You mentioned something about feeding me?” He backed away from the library door and didn’t look back in. Raziela waved her hand toward the landing below.

  He froze when he stepped into the kitchen. Dried herbs hung from the rafters, and a round loaf of bread cooled on the trestle table next to a wedge of cheese. Beside it was a bowl of fruit she’d gathered that morning from the orchard.

  It looked as though he had to pry his jaws apart to lick his lips. Raziela looked away. If she’d had any doubts as to whether he’d known hunger, she only had to look at his face to know that whatever diet he survived on was not as varied as hers.

  “Please, help yourself,” she murmured, moving away to give him space.

  To his credit, he didn’t fall on the food like a wild animal. With tight, jerky movements, he crossed to the table and pulled out the chair so slowly the legs scraped across the floor. He lowered himself into it as if he expected chains to leap up and bind him to the spot. It was a study in restraint.

  He tore off a hunk of bread and stared at it for a long moment before lifting it to his mouth. His eyes closed and his throat rumbled with a stifled groan.

  The next bite came more quickly.

  Trying to make herself invisible, Raziela set down a trencher of nuts and dates for him to sample. His eyes turned hot and accusing, but he reached across the table to snatch a handful of olives.

  His jaw worked constantly. Though he managed to keep his movements slow, there was never a moment when there wasn’t at least one bite of food in his mouth. It was as though he was afraid if he allowed even a second to pass without some morsel on his tongue the food would disappear. It sent guilt washing through her.

  “You aren’t hungry.” It was an accusation, not a question, and she tried not to bristle. Now that they were attempting to be civil, she found herself at a sore disadvantage. Battle she knew—she trained for it every day. Her duties as a priestess had been ingrained in her for as long as she could remember, but the art of conversation? That skill had been sacrificed on the altar of time a long time ago.

  Did she speak first? Or did he? Should she talk about the weather? Were there social cues she was forgetting? Did she care what he thought? No. That answer at least she knew.

  “I was planning to catch some fish for supper if you’re still hungry.” There. That seemed pleasant enough.

  He closed his eyes as if the words caused him physical pain. Raziela bit the inside of her cheek. Her mind raced to try and understand what she had said wrong.

  He gave his head a little shake and picked up a thin slice of white cheese.

  “Where does the milk come from for you to have cheese?”

  “There is a herd of goats in the hills nearby, and I keep a small coop with chickens out back.” His eyes snapped up again, and she recalled too late that he had mentioned the livestock in his world perishing from the famine. She couldn’t tell if he was imagining the meat from eating hers, or if he was still angry that she hadn’t suffered the same consequences the rest of Phalyra had.

  “Are chickens the only animals you keep here?”

  She cut her eyes to the side. Telling him about the satyrs and phoenixes didn’t seem relevant to his question. She didn’t keep them. They kept themselves.

  “There is a cat who keeps me company and mice for her to chase. The Great Mother is a fan of songbirds and the orchards are her menagerie. I already mentioned the fish. And—”

  “Next you’ll tell me you ride a unicorn in your spare time.” He bit into a date and chewed grimly. Raziela frowned.

  “Of course not.
An animal that large would require too much care. It’s bad enough finding time to take care of the chickens—not to mention the gardens, and I—”

  “It was a joke, Priestess,” he said with the same patronizing amusement she was growing accustomed to from him. She pinched the tip of her tongue between her teeth. Of course she knew he hadn’t been serious, but he seemed to believe her life in the Temple was one of endless leisure. She had been assigned a task, and though it was far from unpleasant, she still had duties that she was required to see to.

  “Would you care for some wine? Perhaps while you eat you can tell me more about how you came to be here?”

  If he didn’t want to listen to her ramble on about the her life in the Temple, fine. She was done giving him opportunities to make her feel like a fool. He owed her a few explanations anyway.

  He shrugged and leaned back in his chair until it tipped back on its hind legs so he could rest his boots on the corner of the table. She wrinkled her nose as flecks of mud and who knows what else made a mess on her clean table. Refusing to chastise him for his rudeness—since that was clearly what he wanted her to do—she forced a smile. The effort to keep it in place made her cheeks ache.

  “You’ll have to forgive my curiosity. It’s just been so long since I had someone to talk to.” She tried to look wide-eyed and earnest, but when her voice wavered it revealed a little too much of the truth.

  The banked humor vanished like a candle being snuffed out. A thousand thoughts flashed behind his gaze at once.

  There was a window beside the table. He squinted at the thin line of light where the forest met the clouds. With a faint hum, he nodded.

  “I can understand why you’d want to know more about me. Unfortunately, Priestess, I don’t have much to share.”

  “You don’t know how you got here?”

  He lifted his shoulder in a gesture of indifference that was anything but. From the way his eyes scanned back and forth across the horizon he was trying to piece the truth together for himself but was coming up short,

  “One moment there was a sandstorm sweeping toward me, and the next I was kneeling in front of an altar. I went outside and when I looked up, this long rope tumbled toward me like someone was inviting me to climb up.”