Touching Midnight

by Fiona Hood-Stewart

  “But you’ll do it. I can offer you all the gold you can haul, and help to carry it.”

  “Forget it.” He stared out over the village, which flowed down the hill and sprawled across the other side of the river, at the armed encampment that grew daily, massing near the mouth of the valley and cutting off escape. “I’ve got no love for Chumac or any of his men—and no liking for this situation. That’s payment enough.”

  “Nevertheless, you shall have your gold.”

  “If I get out of this with my skin, I’ll be happy enough.”

  “There’s just one thing.” She eyed the hilt of his sword. “I can’t allow you to take weapons into the temple itself.”

  Achaeus’s teeth gleamed white in the darkness, and his chest shook as if she’d just recounted a particularly funny joke. “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t go anywhere without my sword.”

  Achaeus’s narrowed gaze swept the private courtyard that separated her rooms from the rest of the sleeping apartments, as if, even in the center of a structure that housed only women, he was suspicious. “Chumac’s as mad as a snake and ambitious with it, and you’ve been a thorn in his side ever since he’s governed this province. If he doesn’t get what he wants before Chataluk dies, he’ll bring this whole place down on your heads, and be damned about temporal power and sacred treasures.”

  “Why do you think I took the risk I did in finding you?”

  His gaze clashed with hers as they walked in the soft light of the corridors, his eyes a rich shade of dark brown, rather than black, as she’d first thought.

  “That’s the kind of risk you won’t take again. Do you know how much Chumac is offering for your head?”

  Achaeus mentioned a sum that made her head reel. That, and the fact that Chumac had gone far enough in his machinations to actually offer a bounty for her death, was startling enough that she ignored the command he’d just issued. For months now, precautions had been taken: her food was tasted; she didn’t enter the outer part of the temple without an armed escort; and all public appearances had been cancelled.

  Sweeping a heavy curtain aside, Achaeus stared at the novitiates’ sleeping hall—at the small bodies curled beneath thick blankets. “I’ll be satisfied if I can get these little ones out.”

  “Do you have any men you can trust?”

  His mouth curled. “A few. Six, maybe seven, if I can haul Tule away from the woman he’s just found, but with the situation as it stands, we won’t be fighting, we’ll be running.” He let the heavy curtain drop back into place. “And if you’re having second thoughts about hiring me, you’ve got to know that in this business there are only two types of warriors—dead ones, and live ones. I’m twenty and eight—relatively old for a mercenary, which should tell you something. I’ve done a lot of running.”

  “Hotec fears you, that’s credential enough for me.” Cuin blinked as she led the way through the maze. Maybe it was a trick of the light—the late hour—but the entrance to the map room seemed to be getting further away, rather than closer, and as they strolled through pooling darkness intermittently broken by the flare of torchlight, the shadows pressed in more heavily. She frowned as the corridor shifted and tilted beneath her feet. Her hand shot out, searching for the support of the wall even as she recognized the illusion for what it was—another of the dizzy spells that lately had been becoming more and more frequent.

  Warm fingers closed around her arm, holding her up when she would have fallen, and a curse she’d never before been privileged to hear scorched her ears.

  “You’re as thin as a child. When did you last eat?”

  Cuin flinched at the flat tone of his voice, which indicated he was well used to command—and, she would wager, used to being obeyed without question. With an effort of will, she straightened and released herself from his grip. She needed to distance herself from him, to assert some semblance of authority, but she felt oddly light-headed, as if she were ready to float away. “At the sun feast.”

  “Two days ago.” He muttered another curse, this one even more inventive, and Cuin was abruptly overwhelmed by the dark eyes surveying her, the fingers testing the thin muscle of her arm beneath her robe and finding it lacking, as if she were a roasting bird too scrawny for the table.

  “We all ate at the feast,” she said stiffly. “It’s tradition.”

  “But other than that, you’ve been starving your-selves—probably on a roster system, so the children don’t go hungry.”

  “Chumac’s been systematically cutting off our lines of supply—”

  “—gradually tightening the noose.” Achaeus stared at the walls of the maze, his distaste clear. “This place isn’t a temple, it’s a prison.”

  Cuin didn’t argue, because that was exactly what the temple had become and the reason they had to leave. Wrenching as it was, in the end they would only be leaving a building—a physical location. Providing the ancient wisdom was preserved, and the healing precepts kept intact, the essence of the temple itself would survive.

  Achaeus jerked his head, indicating that they should continue on to the map room, his expression grim. “Don’t worry about Chumac, and don’t worry about the children—I’ll get them out. Just organize the provisioning: enough food, water and warm clothing for everyone, and not much more than that. We’ll be moving fast. We can’t afford to take anything we can’t carry on our backs.”

  As Cuin moved forward, she stumbled, her coordination abruptly gone, and with a soft oath, Achaeus swung her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a sack of feathers. Cuin’s cheeks flushed at the unconscionable intimacy of his hold, the thud of his heart so close to her ear, but she couldn’t argue. If he didn’t carry her, she would have to crawl. “There are scrolls and relics we have to remove. They can’t be left for—”

  “I told you not to worry about Chumac.”

  Arrested, she studied the taut line of his jaw. “What are you going to do?”

  His gaze flashed to hers, and a chill tightened her spine at the purpose there.

  “I’m going to kill him myself.”

  Setting her down by the door, he supported her with an arm around her waist while he studied the glyph. “Show me how to open this.”

  “Touch the glyph there, then push…here.”

  The door to the map chamber swung open. Achaeus’s gaze pierced the torch-lit expanse of the room. “Where are the maps?”

  She pointed to the intricate mosaic underfoot. “The floor.” She smiled faintly at the humor and sheer practicality of a race that had long since faded into obscurity. “The ancients put everything on the floor. That way it wouldn’t be lost, and even a child could read it.”

  Cuin gave the order for the thin stone tablets containing the ancient teachings of the order, the records of the temple since its inception, to be packed along with every sacred article but one. That one, according to temple law, could only be handled by her.

  Achaeus’s lieutenant, Kade, a thin, hawkish man with a body like whipcord and no discernible sense of humor, had organized the evacuation into groups—each to be led by one of Achaeus’s men. They would be traveling on foot, so as to leave as little trace of their passing as possible, and holing up during the day in a cave in the hills. From then on, they would continue to travel only at night, to avoid detection. Cuin and Achaeus would be the last to leave.

  Cuin paused at the large double doors of the inner chamber, placed her palms flat on the ornate gold sun and pushed. The heavy doors glided open. The maze had been designed to confuse and protect, but the inner chamber itself, which was of much earlier origin than the maze, didn’t have any locks; it had been created for all.

  Upon opening, other mechanisms activated, and sunlight flooded the room, pouring like liquid gold through a complex system of skylights and mirrors.

  The light and energy of the inner chamber shimmered and poured around and through Cuin as she stepped into the room, making her go both hot and cold at once, and dissolving the ten
sion that held her jaw clenched tight.

  Complicated as the engineering and construction of parts of the temple complex were, the design of the inner chamber was deceptively simple. The smooth, sloping walls of the pyramid joined at the apex, and a large dais sat squarely in the middle of the room. There were no furnishings or decoration other than the exquisite gold frescoes that emblazoned the walls and the mosaic that covered the floor. On occasion furniture was brought in for certain celebrations and rituals, but for the most part the room was complete in itself—a chamber of light, designed to both hold and to give out light.

  Achaeus strode through the doors, his gaze cool, as if, temple or not, he didn’t trust one smooth-fitting stone of this room any more than he did any of those in the outer courtyards.

  As alien as it was for a warrior to enter the inner chamber, as forbidden as it was to bring weapons into this room, Cuin didn’t feel any sense of wrongness at his presence—just as she no longer felt any unease with his presence by her side. In an odd way, his male vitality dovetailed perfectly with the chamber. She’d always thought of this as the province of females, but it was a plain fact that it had been designed and built by men, for men. Out of sheer practicality, the order had eventually become all female, because the brutally hard struggle for existence in these hills and valleys demanded that every physically able male put his hand to manual labor and, when necessary, take up arms for battle.

  Cuin knelt to one side of the dais and pressed the center of the sun motif carved into the smooth gold surface. A portion of the dais slid open, and she extracted the last of the stone tablets that Chuli would distribute amongst the priestesses to carry, wrapped in with their clothing bundles.

  When the tablets were stacked neatly to one side, she nodded, and Achaeus motioned two warriors forward, watching with an eagle eye as they carefully wrapped each tablet in soft, felted wool and left the room.

  Cuin’s gaze rested on the last, and most important, relic, where it lay nestled in a box carved from lapis lazuli and sumptuously padded with the finest linen.

  The gold gleamed pure and bright, the curve of the ring broad, the clasp softened with age so that it seemed to have melted against the crystalline purity of the diamond it held.

  The diamond itself was large and ancient, possibly more ancient than the gold it was presently set in. It was said to have once belonged to one of the sun men, the godlike beings who had walked the earth at the very beginning of time, before the golden age had crumbled into darkness.

  She would take the ring, but not yet. Until they were ready to leave, she wouldn’t risk carrying the Sun Stone on her person. If there was one holy treasure Chumac coveted, this was it. Sliding the compartment closed, she rose to her feet and left the room, Achaeus at her side, like a very large, very protective jaguar.

  Everything was set, the plan already in motion. Achaeus’s men had begun collapsing parts of the temple and the maze, creating a crude barricade of rubble, leaving only key areas they needed to traverse untouched. The children were packed and ready to be escorted away at sunrise, in approximately five hours—the timing of their departure planned to coincide with a diversion that Achaeus had planned.

  Five

  The diversion was a dawn raid on Chumac’s camp.

  Chumac was dead, his guard decimated. Only Hotec and Chumac’s clever priest, Nasek, had escaped, sliding away as the fighting had escalated. By the time Achaeus and his men reached the temple, still dripping from the river crossing, it was clear that Chumac’s army was in disarray.

  “The head of that particular serpent’s been removed,” Achaeus said, as he finished wedging the last intact door to the maze closed. He caught Cuin’s gaze on his sheathed sword. “They don’t like the edge on our iron.”

  “And they like us even less.” Tule tore a strip of cloth from the bottom of his tunic, strapped it around a slash on his sinewy forearm and used his teeth to tighten the knot. “The serpent’s head may be gone, but the body’s still writhing. Hotec’s busy gathering a force.”

  Achaeus’s gaze was grim. “Under Nasek’s command. Priest he may be, but he’s been running Chumac’s affairs ever since he became governor. He won’t accept defeat easily.”

  Assim, a lean dark warrior, almost as tall as Achaeus, tested the door. When it wouldn’t shift, he turned his coal-black gaze on Achaeus. “Leave,” he said shortly. “We can take care of this.”

  Tule grinned. “Then I’ve got business in town.”

  Achaeus’s fingers closed around Cuin’s arm in what had become a familiar hold. “The only business you have is making sure Hotec’s kept busy until we’re free and clear, then you save your own skins. I’ll see you both at sundown.”

  A shiver swept Cuin’s spine at the curt series of commands. Beneath the terse words lay a bedrock of brotherhood and care. Achaeus and his men were bound by years of battle and loss. If Tule and Assim didn’t show by sundown, he would go looking for them.

  Taking up a torch, Achaeus led the way into the maze, but before they had traversed more than a few twists and turns, he halted, placed the torch in one of the brackets that were placed at intervals and shrugged out of the satchel that was strung across his back. “Breakfast,” he said in explanation. “You’re going to eat.”

  “I’ve already eaten.” Her stomach still felt full from the feast Achaeus and his men had supplied the previous evening—the first fresh food they’d had for weeks—but even so, her mouth watered as he produced the perfect green globe of a melon, followed by a bright cluster of guavas.

  “I watched you eat—it wasn’t enough.” With expert movements, he sliced the melon and split the guavas open. “Don’t worry,” he murmured as he spitted a slice of melon and passed it to her. “This knife doesn’t get used in battle.”

  Cuin bit into the melon, savoring the fresh, sweet flavor. “Where did the fruit come from?” And, more to the point, how had he had time to find food at all? At dawn everything was locked down tight, the only movement that of farmers making their way to the fields and the sleepy change of sentries.

  He passed her a guava. “Chumac’s food store.” His expression was hard. “He no longer needs it.”

  Cuin eyed the juicy flesh of the guava, then doggedly began forcing it down. Just one summer ago, her conscience wouldn’t have allowed her to eat food taken from a dead man, but lately, she’d had a course in practicality. Chumac had stolen from the people—men, women and children—growing progressively richer and more powerful while many had starved. As much as her mind and stomach wanted to reject the fruit, Achaeus was right; it was a fact that her body needed the fuel.

  When the last of the fruit was gone, Achaeus shouldered his satchel and reached into a leather pouch that was fastened to his weapons belt. “And this is for you.”

  Lean brown fingers uncurled and poured cloth so fine it flowed like liquid—a red flame in the darkness, bright as the feathers of one of the more exotic parakeets. Wonderingly, she caught at the long length of ribbon as it threatened to run through her fingers like water. The cloth warmed instantly to her touch, yet was so light she could hardly feel it. Her throat closed as she stared at the brilliant, floating fabric. She had received many tributes and gifts over the years, but they had always been for the temple, never for her.

  The fabric was rare and bound to be costly, but if it came from Chumac, she couldn’t accept this gift, no matter how well meant. Reluctantly, she shook her head.

  His gaze gleamed with amusement, and, with a start she realized he knew exactly what she was thinking. “It didn’t come from Chumac. It’s silk from Cathay. I bought it from a Syrian trader who used to operate out of Ilium. Turn around.”

  The soft demand was as subtly shocking as the ribbon filling her hands like a fiery, weightless flower. Achaeus didn’t threaten her on any physical level, but he made her helpless in a completely different way, turning her body into a strange mechanism that no longer obeyed the commands of her mind—making her feel emotio
ns she’d only been aware of in others, never herself. Any form of carnality was forbidden for her—forbidden for all the priestesses—that was the reality of the temple. Occasionally a member of the order suffered, her vows strained to the breaking point by her desire for marriage and children, but that turmoil had never touched Cuin. Until now.

  She’d poked and probed at the reasons why she should feel this way for this man, now, and ended up with more questions than answers. Perhaps the bald reality that Hotec wanted nothing so much as to spit her on his sword had affected her judgement? Whatever the reason, for the first time in her life she longed to anchor herself in a man’s touch and taste for herself what it was that had made almost every woman in the village a mother, and the longing was edged with a hunger she was having difficulty suppressing. It was a stark fact that while she was the Cadis, she was used to having whatever she desired—and now she wanted the only thing that was truly forbidden to her: a man.

  The breath frozen in her lungs, Cuin turned, giving Achaeus access to the thick dark plait that fell to her hips. His fingers, normally so dexterous with weapons and tools, were unusually clumsy as he wove the ribbon into her hair and, as long seconds passed, she became increasingly aware of Achaeus and the suffocating intimacy of what she was allowing.

  Years had passed since Ilium had fallen, and yet, with all that he had lost and discarded, Achaeus had chosen to carry the ribbon with him. She may have been cloistered in a temple for most of her life, but she understood the way it was between a man and a woman. The silk was delicate and fine and utterly feminine—meant for a woman’s hair. And not just any woman; it was a courting gift.

  As she turned to face Achaeus, his palms framed her face, holding her captive. “Look at me. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Most men wouldn’t dare touch me.” But the words carried no sting. Achaeus had touched her within seconds of their first meeting, and he had continued to touch her.