Ancestors, he answered, you are all that matters to me.
Corinn lay without moving a muscle, staring at Hanish’s open eyes, listening to it all, chilled to the center, breathing shallowly. She took in the back-and-forth between them, the accusations and denials. At first it just seemed a bizarre thing, an incredible curiosity. She was so perplexed by what was happening that it took her a while to realize that they were circling around and around one particular issue-herself. When they brought it up directly, she felt her breath catch in her throat. They asked Hanish if he would kill her. If it came to it and was necessary, would he drain the Akaran bitch’s blood?
Hanish did not hesitate in answering. She is nothing to me, he said. I hold her close only to make sure she’s safely here for you.
They did not believe him. They asked again. This time he answered directly, so clearly Corinn had no difficulty understanding him. Clearly enough that she would hear the words over and over again in her mind ever after.
I would kill her without remorse, ancestors, Hanish said, at the very moment you wish her dead…
CHAPTER
The note lay on the pallet beside him. The corner of it was warm from where his forearm had rested on top of it. It was impossible for Melio to believe that anyone could have placed it there. He was a light sleeper, likely to wake at no more than the sound of another person’s breathing. As part of his Marah training, he had learned how to be watchful of the world even while he walked through dreams. Yet there it was. A square of paper that could have been placed there only by someone’s stealthy hand. He would have grabbed the missive up quickly, except that he dreaded its mysterious placement was a harbinger of news he could not face. When he noticed Mena’s Marah sword leaning against the wall he was even more worried.
He lay propped on his elbow for a time, staring at the letter, at the weapon, hearing the sounds of the waking world outside the open windows and through the thin walls, the drip, drip caused by the night’s heavy rains. Since Mena had disappeared a week earlier, he had been staying inside the priestess’s compound. The servants, fearful and superstitious, had accepted his presence. They even took comfort from it. They had grown more dependent on him than any of them would have predicted. They had been taking orders from Mena for so long, they were at a loss for how to act without direction. They needed the focus he provided as he organized a search effort. Even as he lay there, Melio knew they were but a word away. He almost called to ask how the letter might have gotten there beside him and to have their company as he read it.
Eventually though, he unfolded the paper and read it in solitude. As soon as he had digested the words, he bolted from the pallet. He sprinted from building to building, room to room, calling Mena’s name. His voice alternated between rising and choked, desperate and sternly controlled. The servants followed him. They fanned out to every corner of the priestess’s compound.
Within a few minutes it was clear Mena was nowhere on the premises. None of the servants had seen or heard anything of her, and they were most distressed that Melio had a piece of physical evidence that she had been among them. He did not divulge the contents of the letter. He crumpled it tight in his fist and sat down on the wet dirt of the courtyard. To the horror of the servants, he cried into his clenched hands. He knew it was unfair not to tell them what drew the tears. He knew that they could only misinterpret his emotion in the ways most frightening to them. But he could not help himself.
His breakdown was short-lived. The man who regularly made the first morning trip to the markets returned, shaken by something he had seen outside the temple. On looking at the man’s face, which was a pale, ashen shade of his natural reddish brown, Melio found a way to act again.
By the time he and the servants arrived at the main entrance to Maeben’s temple, a small crowd had gathered and was growing moment by moment. The gates were closed, but it was not entry to the sacred grounds that the people wished for. They all stared-silent and slope shouldered, some with hands to their mouths, a few on their knees, one with an arm raised and pointing, as if he doubted that the others could possibly see what he did-the corpse of a large sea eagle.
The rope attached to the corpse had been flung over one of the carved figures of Maeben’s head. The dead eagle half hung beneath this, leaning awkwardly against the wooden pillar, its head crooked at an angle only the deceased could manage. It was sodden from the night’s rains and bloody and mud stained. Its open eyes were crusted with filth, immobile, staring. As a once-live predator it had been massive, impressive, and frightening, but Melio knew that was not what drew the slack-jawed wonder out of these people.
“Look at your goddess,” Melio whispered.
The woman just next to him turned. She had heard him. Her greenish, gold-flecked eyes half hid behind a crosshatch of black hair, but they were intense, probing. He could not help but answer them.
“That’s what you fear, isn’t it? That this bird is the one you call Maeben. I think she is. You are right.” He turned back to the corpse, feeling pieces of the cryptic missive falling into place. “Your Maeben is dead, and I know who killed her.”
The villagers had begun to back from him as if a dangerous animal had materialized in their midst. Their eyes shifted between him and the corpse, unsure which was a greater threat.
Melio tried to gentle his voice. He wanted them to understand, not to fear. He needed them to trust him, although he was not sure why yet. “Mena-the priestess you called Maeben on earth. She did this-”
“Silence!” a voice bellowed. The first priest, Vaminee, arrived, shrouded in the trappings of his office. The peasants parted for the priest, bowing and deferential. Tanin stood just behind his shoulder. Melio had never seen either of them, but he knew them without introduction. In vulnerable moments Mena had described them with words that suited the figures before him exactly. Temple guards flanked them. Instead of metal blades their swords were wooden, with edges only as sharp as the material would bear. They were skilled, Melio knew, at their own style of swordsmanship, a technique something like stick fighting.
“But it’s true,” Melio said, forcing his voice to steady. “This is her doing. This is a message to-”
Tanin answered. “You are not a prophet of Maeben! You’ve no right to speak for the priestess. Nor for the goddess. First Priest, I charge that this man is defiling Maeben through some trickery. He has killed…one of Maeben’s warriors.”
The expression on Vaminee’s face never wavered. His features were rigid, anger trapped in stone. He said, “Find the priestess. Bring her to me. The rest of you, crawl from here on your knees. Pray forgiveness for having witnessed this vileness.” The peasants began to drop into the mud as instructed. Vaminee turned and locked eyes with one of the temple guards.
Melio understood enough what message passed between them. He would be seized and bound in a few moments, perhaps beaten or ceremonially killed. He knew that it would look criminal to the villagers around him, but he could not let himself be captured. These priests would twist everything. Even Mena would not be able to stop them.