Temple witches, like royal witches, served the goddess and used earth magic. Traditionally, the royal witches were said to have more power and more obvious influence, but there were always rumors that the temple witches kept a few tricks up their sleeves.
So no. No thinking about the sex she shouldn’t have had and the man she shouldn’t have had it with. She was going to sit here like a good royal virgin and try to remember all those things that Captain Turner and the temple devout who’d taught her had said.
“Nervous, milady?” the Domina said. Her voice was deep for a woman, and rich. It seemed overloud in the small carriage, maybe because the Domina was used to speaking in the vast space of the Grand Temple.
Sophie jumped and then tried to pretend she hadn’t just reacted like a guilty child. “A little,” she admitted. “The last few days have been so . . . so unusual, I confess that I hadn’t time to think about the rites.”
“When did you know you’d manifested?”
“As soon as I woke up,” Sophie said. “I went outside and then I saw the ley line—so bright—and Cam—the lieutenant—told me what it was.”
The Domina cocked her head, and a glint of light through the window caught her hair turning the color to a deep bloodred. “And how did the ley line look to you?”
“Like a river of light,” Sophie said in a rush. “So beautiful—” She stopped as the Domina’s brows drew together slightly. “Is that wrong?”
“No.” A head shake produced more glints of red. “Each sees the power of the goddess in her own way.”
Sophie took a breath and tamped down her enthusiasm. Reminded herself that the city was in turmoil right now and that she had no idea whom she could trust. An hour ago she would have said Cameron, but he had abandoned her without a backward glance. And now the Domina was commanding Red Guards and taking Sophie out of the palace again. She snuck a glance out the window. They were on the right road to the temple. In fact, she could see the faded blue-green of the massive bronze dome that topped its roof from where she sat.
Stop being paranoid.
“Anyway, that’s what I saw. And Lieutenant Mackenzie brought me back here as soon as he could, once we knew.”
“Let us hope it was soon enough,” the Domina said.
What did that mean? Sophie’s stomach turned a little, a greasy roll and slide that made her wish she wasn’t in the swaying carriage. Fortunately, the Domina didn’t ask her any more questions in the short time it took them to reach the temple.
The Red Guard escorted them to the temple door but stopped there. The Ais-Seann rites of a royal witch were not for men, even though other rites of the goddess and the weekly worship were.
Sophie blinked as the door clicked shut behind her. The temple was dim after the bright sunshine outside, and she couldn’t see immediately. But as she breathed in the familiar scent of sage and salt grass and spices in the temple incense and the unique smell of the temple fires, she felt herself relax. This was familiar. This was routine and ritual and safety.
Less familiar was the humming beneath her feet, the sudden rush of the same enticing sensation she’d felt in the ley line. She couldn’t see the ley lines there—they ran beneath the temple—but she could feel them, rivers of possibility running through the earth below. The temple sat where the three major ley lines that passed through Kingswell converged. But no one had ever explained to her exactly what a convergence of ley lines felt like.
She wondered how any royal witch ever sat still through a temple service. The power made her skin itch and tingle, and she suddenly wanted to run or dance. Simply move for the satisfaction of muscle and bone moving and blood pumping and air flowing through her lungs.
And she felt a sudden piercing throb of longing for Cameron.
She clamped down on all of it. She could only imagine the Domina’s face if she suddenly ran down the aisle toward the altar. And she trembled to imagine what the same face would look like if she had any inkling of what Sophie felt toward Cameron Mackenzie. Or what she’d done with him.
Her eyes began to clear, and she followed the Domina down the central aisle to the altar, where the earth fire burned eternal—the flames from the saltwater-soaked logs flickering orange and green and blue.
This much was familiar, and she pricked her finger on the blade that the Domina offered and squeezed a drop of blood onto one of the small bundles of salt grass piled in the offering basket. Sophie tossed the offering into the fire as she recited the prayer for protection she’d been saying since she was old enough to speak. The flame flared brighter, and the grass disintegrated into flaring ash. She bowed to the fire and dipped her finger in the salt water in the silver dish at the base of the altar, for once not minding the tiny sting of salt in the knife prick.
When she straightened, the Domina’s expression was almost approving, and the sick feeling in Sophie’s stomach eased. Sometimes the salt grass didn’t catch immediately or was sucked up out of the flames and out of the temple via the vent in the roof immediately above the altar. The latter was counted as an omen of ill luck and the former only slightly less so. So it seemed, at least for now, the goddess hadn’t turned her back on Sophie.
They left the main temple, the Domina’s fast walk looking like a glide, her brown skirts skimming along the marble floor. She led Sophie out past the second altar with the statue of the goddess and through a carved wooden door that Sophie hadn’t even been aware existed.
She put a hand up to her hair, nervous. Wondering if it looked any redder yet. It was too early, of course, but she couldn’t help the thought.
“This way,” the Domina said, and led her through another door and a cool, sunlit hall ending in another door. The Domina produced a key, and the door creaked open. A cloud of steam wafted through the opening, the scent of it salty and green, like standing by the ocean in a field of herbs.
“The salt baths,” the Domina said, ushering Sophie in. “Undress. I’ll find a devout to attend you.”