“Um, okay?” she called after his retreating footsteps. “What was that about?” She padded into the bathroom.
Getting ready for whatever the day might have in store, she stared at the clothing with which she’d been provided. It was barely functional, being far too formal for comfort. Every piece had been adorned with bright beading, sequins made of burnished metals, or tiny shells. It was clothing made for a goddess. Relenting, she allowed herself to be intrigued by a dress sewn of alternating triangular panels in shades of blue fabric. The wide hem sparkled with pale-blue beads of sea glass.
Passing by the library of ancient texts, she saw Drem. He was asleep on a curved couch with a book on his chest. She went in search of the others. Guto, Iago, and Hopcyn were seated on cushions around the table where two of the priestesses demurely placed bowls of food. Here the breads and jams were plentiful. The priestesses smiled but made no attempts at striking up a conversation. Hopcyn grinned at their retreating backsides.
“What was Eurig going on about this morning? Should I be worried?”
Guto peeled a boiled egg and put it on her plate. “He didn’t say, but it was clear he had his mind resolved to something. Whatever it is, he needs to sort it out on his own.”
“Where is Gethim?” She didn’t see him or his hounds anywhere.
“They were restless. He took them for a walk. Sausage tried to eat a cushion.” Iago held up the floor cushion in question.
She slathered jam on a hunk of bread. Wistfully, she said, “I wish we could go for a walk along the beach.”
“Why can’t we?” Hopcyn asked.
“They’ll let us?” She imagined being surrounded by Solis guards and forced back inside of her golden cage.
Being too busy stuffing their faces, her question went unanswered. Then, before they could explore the topic further, Arden, Imani, Saura, and Tivona, high priestesses of the Goddess of the Temporal Locum, arrived and invited her to prayers with them at the temple. Bym felt obligated to go.
The shell road crunched under their shoes as they walked from the palace and along the city’s streets. Four priestesses walked in front of her while four walked behind her. People knelt as their small procession passed. Then, they fell into step behind them. Bym tried to push thoughts of it all being eerie from her mind. They climbed the temple steps. Stone pillars formed a circle and held up a roof with no center. The people who had followed them waited outside. Nervously, she kept her eyes down and concentrated on the stunning tilework of the beautiful floors. Bym was led to a mosaic of the sun at the temple’s center where she was offered a seat upon a golden cushion. The priestesses each sat at points of the sun’s rays. Closing their eyes, they began to chant softly. Bym didn’t know the words or what they were doing. It didn’t feel the same to her in Aurora’s temple, not the way it had in the Umbra fortress. There, she had felt at ease. Bym lifted her face to examine the open roof just as the sun rose to its place and broke through the clouds. She closed her eyes and shielded them with her hand.
The light pulled at her, entering her being and lifting her as if it meant to evaporate her blood. The snakes within her chest began a mad dance. Bym clawed at her chest, screaming with the agony of it. She felt hands on her ankles, legs, and arms. Then, there was blissful darkness.
She woke to the sound of her own whimpers. She felt blistered and burned.
“It’s alright. Everything will be okay.”
She was on the temple floor. Priestesses blocked the sun. Others touched her, healing her with their hands as Iago had. A young blonde priestess with fear in her eyes dribbled cool water over Bym’s parched lips. Then, Guto was there. He lifted her into his arms, and with the priestesses surrounding them, they returned to the palace.
They carried her into the bathing pool where they carefully removed the clothing from her body. She lifted her hand and looked at it, expecting to see bubbling flesh, red and burned. “How is my skin still white? It hurts.”
Saura said, “The fire you felt was in your soul. It was the reawakening of powerful magic, and you were its surrogate.” Her voice sounded agitated.
“We never imagined it would happen so quickly and with such force.” She lifted her hand to her own nose and wiped away the blood dripping from it. “It was only meant to be a quiet introduction to her people, but the sun reached for her as if it meant to take her.”
Drem said, “The stars took her as well.” He recounted what had happened when her priestesses had surrounded her in her atrium.
Bym said, “At least, there wasn’t a ceiling for me to shatter.”
Drem said, “On the contrary, the quartz ceiling was what protected you from being burned by the starshine.”
She realized the priestesses were all in the pool with them and appeared shaken. “Did it burn you?” she asked.
Arden whispered, “We felt it.”
Bym spent the day in bed with the room dark. From beyond, she listened to the roll of waves upon the shore. Iago and Guto hovered and fussed over her to such an extent as to make her beg them to leave her so she could rest. After a lengthy nap, she opened her eyes. A Solis soldier stood with his back to her, facing the closed window. His red cloak obscured all but his boots and sword. She struggled against her blankets.
“What are you doing in here?” Before she could cry out for help, he turned. “Eurig?” Her heart thundered in her chest. The uniform he wore filled her with a sense of betrayal. She’d been intimate with him, and now he wore the garb of a Solis soldier? “This? While I burned, you were doing this?”
“I have not betrayed you.”
“No? I thought you’d left them. Danior granted you an honorable discharge! I thought you were going to stay with me with us!” Her chest heaved.
Sitting beside her on the bed, he took her shoulders. “Listen to me, Bym.” His voice was hard. “I’ll never leave you. Never. I turned my back on the Solis for you. I gave up everything I thought I’d ever wanted for you, and I’d do it again.” His fierce stare softened. He trailed his hands down her bare arms to hold her hands. “I tried to be an Umbra to please you, but their ways are not my own. Your fears of the Solis were justified in part. The commander under whom I first served was inept, and he encouraged brutality among his ranks. Commander Eskil has restructured his commanders along the Umbra borders. You will have no reason to doubt them from henceforth.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “If I am to be deserving of your love, I must be proud of my actions as a man. As an Umbra, I’m worthless, but I will be formidable as a Solis. Danior has sworn to train me to protect you.”
She pulled her hands free. “I need some time to think.”
“Bym.”
She hurried from her bed and into the closet where she threw on the first thing she could grab. Then, she ran from her room, through the house, and out into the antechamber. Eight priestesses slowly rose to their feet. She ran from them. With a leap, she landed outside. Her boots crunched against the shell road. Turning right, she ran along a narrow space between buildings, hoping she was running in the direction of the beach. Thankfully, the day had gone and brought the return of night. She prayed it hid her from prying eyes. Holding up her skirts, she ran down one flight of steps after another. The sound of waves was her guide. Eventually, a wall and tall grasses blocked her view of the sea, and she stepped out onto the sand. Grasses as tall as trees grew in clusters along the wall at the far edges of the beach nearest the city. At intervals, the wall opened for stone steps which led down to the sand. Staying close to the grasses which she hoped hid her from view, she ran as fast as she could. She didn’t want anyone to see her. She wanted to be alone. She might suck at relationships. She might be the worst goddess ever to exist in this world, but she could run.
Bym ran with all of her might until it felt like a sword stabbed her in her side. She slowed to a jog and then to a walk. Not a boat or a person was in sight. Turning left, she walked across soft, clean sand and sat a few feet from wh
ere gentle waves kissed cool wet sand. Grabbing a shell, she threw it as hard as she could and watched its tiny splash.
“I’m a tiny shell.”
She picked up a larger one, wanting a more satisfying splash, but claws poked out of the spiral and retreated. It was a hermit crab.
“I’m the shell. The Temporal Locum is the crab. Am I the biggest sacrifice of all? My life ended. I’m here only so they can go on? Is this my new meaning of life?”
Would she have to hide in a shell near the shore to survive the goblins? A movement caught her eye. A few hermit crabs were crawling from the water across the sand. She’d plopped herself down in the middle of their exodus. She put the hermit crab back where she’d found him. Down the beach, something else caught her notice. Two low, dark shapes were racing right at her.
Pushing her hands against the sand, she vaulted herself up, got her shoes caught in her dress, and went down. Rolling to her side, she kicked at her skirt. It was too late. She could hear them. Weaponless, she closed her eyes and huddled in on herself, waiting for the sharp teeth to pierce her flesh.
Instead, sloppy wet tongues started bathing her scalp and the back of her neck. Uncovering her arms from around her head, she dropped her back onto the sand and stared up at Sausage. He dropped his front legs, lifted his butt in the air, and wagged his tail. Potatoes shook seawater all over her.
“What are you doing out here alone? Everyone must be worried sick.” Gethim stared down at her.
She hadn’t even seen him. His black robes blended with the night sky and dark sea. “I thought they were goblins.”
He sat beside her. “I took my mask off earlier because I almost scared a fisherman to death. It’s beautiful here but strange.”
“It is beautiful here, but I feel like I’m intruding on someone else’s home. It’s like I’m trying to pretend like her friends are mine, but nothing here is. I don’t belong here, Gethim. I want to go home. I can’t though. If I go home, the goblins will attack.”
Lifting her under her arms, he got her to sit and helped her untangle her feet. “That’s not what really drove you all of the way out here, though. Is it?”
“Do you know what he did? After spending the night in my bed, after being with me, he came back to me as one of them.” Picking up another shell, she hurled it at a wave. “How could he do it? Do I matter to him at all?”
He scratched behind Potatoes’ ear and threw a stick into the water for Sausage. “So, you made a man out of him, and he decided to be one?”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Is he asking you to go against your nature?” He played tug with Sausage to get the stick back and threw it again.
“No, I think he likes me being a woman.”
“I’d imagine so.” He stood and held his hand down to her. “It’s time to go back.”
“You go on ahead. I don’t want to go.” The idea of seeing Eurig twisted her stomach into knots.
“You can’t sleep out here.”
Potatoes sat and stared at her.
“Why not? People sleep on beaches all the time.”
“Because you’re not a coward. Do you love him?”
She threw another shell and watched it plop. “Yeah, I love him.”
He snapped his fingers at her.
Bym glared up at him with death in her eyes. “Did you just snap your fingers at me?”
He had the good sense to run. The hounds thought it was a game of chase.
From the shadows cast by the dune grasses, Danior watched and listened before melting into the shadows. Fane made the call of a hawk from a rooftop, letting him know he had her in his sight from above.
Luckily for Gethim, he could run faster than Bym. He created a breeze in the antechamber as he ran through. Bym stopped in the doorframe, heaving for air and grasping her side. “Which way did he go?”
Saura pointed. “Goddess, shall I call your guards?”
Befuddled, Bym said, “He is one of my guards.” Then, she ran, found him, and whipped his butt with her hand while he laughed.
“What did you do?” Hopcyn asked. “I’ve never seen her so angry!”
Sausage growled at Eurig, who looked ready to fight Gethim. Gethim lifted his hands in surrender and said, “I’m on your side.”
“Is that why you’re mad?” Eurig asked her. A vein was beginning to bulge in his neck.
Gethim used the distraction to slip out of his cloak and make a run for it. Jabbing a finger in the direction of his retreating back, she yelled, “He snapped his fingers at me!”
The tension splattered out of Eurig like a bucket of water dumped on the floor. He looked down, shook his head, and was smiling when he looked back up at her. “Pa snapped his fingers at Ma once.”
“Once?” Iago asked.
Eurig laughed. “I can still hear the sound her skillet made bouncing off his head.” Bym couldn’t help her chuckle. Eurig had his arms around her waist in a step. “If it helps, I’ll try to hold still if you want to go find a skillet. Bym, to love you right, I need my honor. I have to answer my calling. You need warriors protecting you, not a farm boy pretending to be one. I need to be capable of more than caring for the horses.”
She could see it all in his eyes. He needed to be proud of himself, and a soldier who he’d admired from afar all of his life had offered to train him. He could read her acceptance in her eyes and in the way her body relaxed beneath his hands. Eurig lowered his lips to hers and kissed her until there was no doubt left in his mind of her forgiveness.
Chapter Seventeen
He was gone the next morning before she woke. However, Guto was there, staring up at the ceiling with a massive erection like a mast beneath the sheets and trying his best not to wake her. Bym rewarded his self-control. “Thank you for letting me sleep,” she purred against his neck while straddling him. She impaled herself on his mast and sank all of the way down.
“Oh, Goddess, I was praying you’d do this.”
“To whom were you praying?”
Reaching between them, he rubbed her clit with his thumb. “This,” he whispered.
Bracing her hands against his chest, she rode him until her climax made her collapse. Rolling her to her back, he thrust in and out until he’d filled her with his seed.
From the doorway, a man cleared his throat. They turned their heads to look. Misconstruing their attention as an invitation, Drem walked inside. “I found mention of a journal in one of the texts which references the Stones of Luna Ignis. The journal is in a room in the Temple of the Temporal Locum which only you and your priestesses are allowed to enter.”
“Aren’t you my priest?” she asked, rather annoyed by the entire situation. Guto was still inside of her, but his semen was beginning to slide free. Obviously, Drem didn’t have the same skill at reading expressions as he did of reading ancient texts. “Tell them I gave you permission. Go.”
“I tried that already!”
Guto pulled himself from her and got out of bed, walking naked toward the bathing pool. When Bym didn’t immediately follow, he looked over his shoulder at her. “You will be more comfortable bathed and dressed. He’ll pace and skulk until his curiosity is satisfied.” Then, he snapped his fingers at her and quickened his pace.
Drem paced beside the bathing pool, so after swimming from one end to the other, they took the towels Iago gave them and went to dress. Then, without daring to do more than grab what they could from the dining table in passing, Bym, Guto, Iago, Hopcyn, and Gethim followed the Sorcerer to the temple. Priestesses knelt the moment they saw her. Shrugging at the Umbra, she gestured at the women whose eyes were closed and whose heads were bowed.
What was she supposed to say to get them to stop? Then, inspiration came to her. She wasn’t Aurora, and she wasn’t a sun worshipper, but she could say something sincere. “May the stars guide you, and the sun warm you. Please rise.” She was relieved when they actually stood. Then, she entered the temple even though she was afraid. Her cour
age failed her at the mosaic at its center. She stepped from one ray to the next, circling the center but avoiding it. She felt like two pieces of a puzzle that didn’t fit, and it grated on her.
Clearly, so all of them could hear, she said, “Drem is my high priest. He is searching for answers which I need. He requires access to ancient texts which we believe might be here. I want him to be allowed to see them.”
Tivona said, “Goddess, only females have ever served you in this sacred temple.”
So, was what they were asking taboo? Coming at the problem from a different direction, she asked, “Can we borrow a few books and bring them back when we’re done?”
“Goddess, we are your humble servants. Tell us what you need, and we will find the answers which you seek.” Tivona bowed.
Bym didn’t trust them to help her. They might hide every bit of information from her regarding the Stones of Luna Ignis so they could keep her entrapped within the Golden City’s walls. She’d be trapped for centuries trying to be their Aurora. Fury and frustration burned her raw. A violent wind tore through the city. Shutters and doors banged open and closed.
“Bym, it’s alright,” Iago said.
Fearful of what her rage might do, she turned and brushed past Tivona. The priestesses stared after her with stricken expressions. Her men hurried to catch up with her down the street. “They won’t let Drem see the ancient texts? They won’t even let me borrow them?” She was yelling and didn’t care who heard. She took a left turn away from shops and people and toward the stables. Homes and shops went by her peripheral vision in a blur. If she saddled her horse, would they keep her from leaving? She heard the clash of weapons. Behind the stables and paddocks, Bym could see barracks and a practice field. “I’ll spook my horse if I try to ride her in my current mood. Let’s blow off some steam.” When she finally stopped walking and looked at them, she realized they shared her anger.
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