“Where -” Azhure began, but the First cut her off.
“They lead to the Sepulchre of the Moon, Azhure.”
StarDrifter lifted his head. “I thought the Sepulchre of the Moon had been bricked up, First Priestess. Forgotten. Disused.”
The First stared at him momentarily, wondering at his beauty here in the sunlight as the wind ruffled his hair and the feathers of his wings. How glad she was that she had survived
to see this. “It is still open, Enchanter, but it chooses its visitors carefully. Make sure you do not choose to visit.”
Her voice was harsh with warning, and StarDrifter took a step back from the cliff. EvenSong stepped back too, but Azhure paused, thinking she heard voices amid the crashing waves.
Is this her?
How can we know it is her?
Does she wear the Circle?
Azhure? Azhure? Azhure?
“Azhure?” StarDrifter’s voice cut sharply across her mind and she jumped. “Do you want to see the Temple of the Stars?”
She smiled and followed her companions up the grassy slopes towards the Temple on the highest point of the plateau. But the cries of the waves stayed in her mind for a long time.
The Temple was not what Azhure had expected. Her face fell in disappointment as she crested the slight rise and saw the Temple in all its…glory?
“I thought Ysgryff said the Temple was well maintained,” she whispered. “Intact.”
“And so it is, Azhure, so it is,” StarDrifter said softly, riveted by the sight the Icarii had been so long denied.
Azhure could not believe him. All she could see was a large flat circle of marble covering the entire top of the rise, perhaps fifty or sixty paces from side to side. The marble wasn’t even well polished, merely well swept, and that likely by the wind rather than by human hand. There was not a column, not an altar, not an icon or a single piece of carving in sight.
“Is this it?” she asked. “Is this all there is?”
StarDrifter turned and stared at her, his face alive with power. “A temple can be built of many things, Azhure. Sometimes of stone or wood. Sometimes of brick and mortar. Sometimes of blood and the hopes and fears of those who would worship within it. Sometimes of ideas. And sometimes . . . sometimes a temple can be built of light and music.”
Niah That evening, after she had rested and eaten, Azhure sat with the First in her bare apartment. A single lamp burned on the desk between them, the shadows flickering over both women’s faces, momentarily lending one the beauty of her youth and the other the serenity she normally lacked.
“Will you tell me of my mother?” Azhure finally asked.
The First paused, then inclined her head. “Yes. I have no choice.”
“What do you mean, no choice?”
The First smiled, but there was little humour in it. “Your mother told me that one day you would sit here in this room and ask me questions.” She laughed, the sound harsh. “I did not believe her. But I should have. I should have.”
Azhure leaned forward, her hands on the desk. “Tell me!”
The Priestess’ hands stole to her sash and fiddled with it. “Your mother came to the Temple as a child for her schooling, as did so many Nors children. But she loved it here, and asked to stay once her schooling was completed. I was five years her junior, in mid-school as she entered the novitiate of the Order, but I remember those days well…as I remember everything about your mother.”
“She was very beautiful, and kind, and she loved me.”
“Yes to all those. More beautiful than you are now, but perhaps you have yet to grow into your true beauty. Kind,
certainly, and she knew how to love. But I see these qualities in you too, and, in these shadows, I think that perhaps it is her sitting before me, not her daughter.”
“Her name is…was Niah.”
“I knew of her name,” the First said, “but, child, you must know that all priestesses give up their names once they enter the novitiate. She never had a name to me…but she was everything to me.”
She paused, and when she resumed her voice was heavy with sadness. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Azhure bowed her head. “Yes. She died when I was five. She…she …”
“I do not want to hear it!”
Azhure’s head jerked up, her eyes suddenly hard and angry. “Niah’s death has been too long lost in pain and denial, priestess who claims to have been her friend! If you respected her, if you loved her, then witness her death! Do that at least for her!”
The Priestess’ eyes widened and her hands stilled as she looked over Azhure’s shoulder. In the dim recesses of the room she could see movement, hear voices, and then she saw…she saw …
She saw the man bent over the woman’s struggling form, saw him hold his hands to her throat, saw him shake her and curse her. She saw him thrust the woman’s head into the flames, and then saw the flames flicker and burst over the woman’s entire body. She heard the woman scream and grunt with pain, and she heard her cry out to the little girl huddled terrified in the corner.
“Azhure! You are a child of the gods. Seek the answer on Temple Mount! Aaah!”
And again the woman screamed.
“Azhure!” Her voice crackled horrifyingly from the ball of flame that engulfed her entire head. “Live! Live! Your father…Ah! Azhure…Ah! Your father!”
“Oh gods!” the First screamed, and covered her face with her hands. “Oh gods!”
“Thus died Niah,” Azhure whispered, her eyes now still and calm. “Thus died my mother. And thus here I am, seeking the answers to why she died. Tell me!”
Eventually the First lowered her hands and raised her grief-stained face to the woman who sat opposite her. “She said that she had to leave. But I did not know where she went. I did not know why she …” Her voice broke, and she spent some time composing herself. “She never sent word, and I often wondered about her. How she was, what kind of child she had birthed, whether she was happy.”
“But you knew she was pregnant when she left.”
“Yes.” The First’s hands fluttered at a drawer in the desk and her face was grey in the lamp light. “Azhure …” She took a deep breath and abruptly opened the drawer, withdrawing a sealed parchment. “Your mother left this for you. Read it. I will wait outside. Call me when you are ready.”
For a long time Azhure sat and looked at the square of parchment lying on the desk. When she eventually reached for it, her hands trembled so badly that she had to clench them into tight fists to regain some control over their muscles.
She had not expected this. Not this.
She turned the square over. It had a single word scratched boldly across it in dark ink. Azhure.
Still trembling, Azhure picked it up, broke the seal, and began to read.
My dearest daughter Azhure, may long life and joy be yours forever, and may the Stars that dance in their heavens dance only for your delight.
I write this caught fast in the shade of the waning moon and, as it fades, so I feel my life falling ever deeper under its shadows. Now I feel the prospect of my death keenly. Five
nights ago you were conceived and tonight, after I put down my pen and seal this letter, I will leave this blessed isle. I will not return — but one day I hope you will come back.
five nights ago your father came to me.
It was the fullness of the moon, and it was my privilege, as First Priestess, to sit and let its light and life wash over me in the Dome of the Stars. I heard his voice before I saw him.
“Niah,” a voice resonant with power whispered through the Dome, and I started, because it was many years since I had heard my birth name.
“Niah,” the voice whispered again, and trembled in fear. Were the gods displeased with me? Had I not honoured them correctly during my years on this sacred isle and in this sacred Temple?
“Niah,” the voice whispered yet again, and my trembling increased, for despite my lifetime of chastity I recognised the timbre of barely controlled desire . . . and I was afraid.
I stood, and only my years of training and discipline kept me from running from the Dome. My eyes frantically searched the roof and for long moments I could see nothing, then a faint movement caught my eye.
A shadow was spiralling down from the roof of the Dome and, despite my fear, my mind had a moment of wonder that the god could somehow have squeezed through the delicate lacework of the Dome – but he was a god, and I should not have been surprised.
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