“This is what you warned us against, isn’t it? That your daughters had to behave as proper Patron girls and never be spoken of in a way that would insult you.”
“I was strict because it was the only way I could protect you and your sisters. I don’t care about insults directed at me. It is what you and they might have to endure that concerns me.”
I wipe tears from my face with the back of a hand.
“You’re a brave girl, Jessamy. I’m proud of you even when I disapprove of some of your actions. You’re not unlike me when I was your age.” A pensive smile softens his face, and it calls an answering smile from me because his approval is my sun.
“Father, I don’t know what to do.”
“As with all battles, one must be careful not to strike too soon. The king must first win the support of the population. Once we drive the East Saroese out of Efea, the courtiers will fall in line. If Kalliarkos proves a strong and competent king, then he may take his pleasures where he wishes. Citizens who cheered on an adversary named Spider will make a story of the king and the Challenger, if they see it as a success, as a tale that ends well.”
“That’s not what I meant. None of this seems right to me. The palace. Kal becoming king. I was so sure it was right for Efea.”
“It has happened very quickly, hasn’t it? Perhaps you will be safer if I take you to your mother for now.”
Fear and hope crowd my thoughts until they skitter every which way. “Do you know where Mother is? Has she communicated with you?”
“Polodos keeps me informed.”
“Polodos! Does Maraya know?”
“I do not inquire.”
“What if Mother refuses to see you?”
His gaze rifles through memories I don’t share, through regrets I can’t begin to fathom.
In silence we proceed through the Square of the Moon and the Sun, and I finally realize we are going to the City of the Dead. I honestly can’t figure out what Kal intends to do and I’m starting to get nervous.
Eternity Temple, dedicated to Lord Judge Inkos, runs along one side of the square. All other Saroese temples, even the other Inkos temples, open into spacious sanctuaries where images of the gods are placed on pedestals and adorned with flowers and ribbons, but not this one. It is a high and windowless wall—a fortress, really—that separates the living city of Saryenia from the City of the Dead, where oracles are entombed alive.
All movement in and out is controlled by the temple wardens at a single entrance called Eternity Gate, a long, dim passage through the thick wall. The priest-wardens claim they safeguard the sanctity of the holy oracles and the hallowed dead but I know what else Eternity Gate guards: the ruins of an old Efean complex buried beneath Saroese dead.
I have walked the dark length of Eternity Gate to take offerings to oracles. I crossed under Eternity Gate while in the funeral procession for Lord Ottonor, the man Gargaron murdered to take control of my father’s military prowess. With the help of the great General Esladas, Gargaron launched a personal campaign to put his nephew and niece on the throne.
And now half of that plan is complete.
But this time our procession does not move all the way along the passage and into the City of the Dead. Instead it turns aside halfway, still within the wide temple wall. We cross through an interior gate that normally opens only for the holy priests who serve Lord Judge Inkos. Beyond the gate lies an elongated courtyard where they keep their offices and sleep apart from the world of the living.
“Jessamy,” Father murmurs. “According to law, no Commoner may enter this sanctuary. If the priests see you, you’ll be convicted of blasphemy and put to death. And I would be executed too, for allowing you in. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
The moment we come to a stop, Father steps down from the carriage, positioning his body to block the door. I peek carefully through the curtain.
The courtyard is no wider than the Royal Road, a garden running between high walls like a canyon. A center lane of greenery eases the eye: harsh red poppies, cheerful daisies, and cornflowers like scraps of sky brightening the dreary confines of earth.
At our unexpected entrance priests scurry out of rooms and the High Priest appears. He is an older man, pale from lack of sun, lips cocked down in haughty disapproval. Is this the man whom Gargaron bribed to allow my pregnant Efean mother and half-Efean sisters to be buried with an oracle in Ottonor’s tomb? To admit Efeans into an Inkos sanctuary is blasphemy, but to entomb a pregnant woman is an even worse crime against the gods because she might give birth to a boy, and boys are valuable.
The High Priest’s confidence falters as he approaches an unbending Kalliarkos. The two men stare each other down in a battle over precedence.
“Why are you here, my lord?” he asks, clearly not yet aware that Kal is king.
“You may address me as Your Gracious Majesty,” Kal snaps with uncharacteristic testiness.
When he gestures for the queen’s litter to be carried into the courtyard, the High Priest steps back with a look of distressed confusion and then genuine fear.
I’m confused too. What does Kal mean to do with Serenissima here? It’s long been the tradition in Efea for highborn Patron lords to donate an excess daughter’s life to Eternity Temple. Always it is described as a humane way to get rid of a girl they can’t afford to raise and then expensively marry off. Always it is explained as being more merciful than the custom in the old Saro kingdoms where unwanted girls are exposed as infants and left to die.
Girls chosen to become oracles and their attendants are spoken of as honored, even though it’s such a troubling fate to be bricked up alive in a tomb that people usually feel afraid of oracles. But the rest of the girls and women—perhaps one or two hundred at any given time—live quiet, orderly lives in an inner sanctuary untroubled by the clamor and distress of ordinary life. Their innocence is like incense to the gods, who therefore shower divine favor upon Efea.
But suddenly I wonder if the truth is a different story, just as Ro warned me.
The long courtyard terminates in a closed and barred gate. The queen’s litter is set down here.
Tied curtains flap apart, and the queen stumbles out, staring wildly around.
“This is not Hayiyin’s temple, where marriages are solemnized.”
“It is not Hayiyin’s temple,” Kalliarkos agrees.
She falls to her knees as a supplicant. “You’ve brought me to Eternity Temple. I pray you, Cousin. Do not condemn me to the inner sanctuary. If you mean to kill me, be merciful and cut my throat instead.”
“I won’t kill you because I refuse to be like you and Nikonos. I do not presume to act in judgment in the place of Lord Seon, the Sun of Justice. You will be safely held here until such time as a trial can be convened. Then I will present my case to the population, to inform them that you and Nikonos invited our enemies to invade Efea.”