Rhee was struggling to breathe. What a climb. “You couldn’t have put a sign at the bottom that said so?”
The man made a noise—somewhere between a laugh and a snort—and with the slightest motion of his hands, six archers materialized around her. Rhee grabbed for her knife, but it was useless. They’d formed a semicircle around her, and she was outnumbered seven to one. Her instinct had been right all along—there were people watching her. From the roofs of the squat houses, in the bushes half-hidden, and on the steps below her. The monks of the Fontisian Order of the Light had been taking aim this whole time, and they were prepared to murder her if an order was given. She knew from her time with Dahlen that for members of the order, violence was an accepted part of life. They would not think twice before firing.
The man’s eyes flickered, but he only stood there, his expression seemingly bored. “Who are you to climb our mountain?” he prodded.
Pulling her scarf off, Rhee hoped she’d be recognized before the arrows were loosed. She did her best to stand tall as the rain fell on her face.
“Rhiannon Ta’an,” she said softly. Then forced herself to repeat it louder, and added: “Last princess of the Ta’an dynasty.”
The archers murmured among themselves as she bowed her head, and she felt their recognition as they saw past the crimson mark that took up half her face. Even if she was considered an enemy, the empress to a hostile planet, the last of her slain kin, she wished to appear dignified. There was relief in not hiding. Her time spent slouched in shadow, hidden off to the side, hated for the disfiguring mark on her cheek—it had all taken its toll.
Only the Elder didn’t react, although he motioned for the archers to lower their weapons.
“The boy isn’t with you,” he said.
With a start, Rhee realized the Elder meant Dahlen. “He’s been detained,” she lied smoothly, even as her mind desperately tried to untangle all the connections—had this man sent Dahlen to save her on the Eliedio? Did that mean he was on her side?
“You’re either very brave or very foolish, to show up like this.” It wasn’t exactly reassuring, but when he motioned her to follow him inside the monastery, she did.
Rhee walked through the threshold, glancing back briefly to see the archers follow her in a single-file line. The monastery was dimly lit with candles; there were rounded pillars bolstering a ceiling lost to darkness.
The old man introduced himself as Elder Escov as they made their way inside. He wore the robes of a monk, but moved like a soldier, each step carefully placed and each movement perfectly contained. It occurred to her that he was old enough to have fought in the Great War.
He stopped to bow in front of an altar to Vodhan, and Rhee did the same, keenly aware that the six archers who’d followed her in were now joined by six more inside. The dozen of them were evenly distributed against all four walls. The sound of the rain was loud, angry, and the tiles near the open doors and windows were beaded with water. It was slowly seeping in from the outside world, as if it were beating its fists in anger.
The Elder finished his prayer and motioned for them to continue on into a courtyard, where fifty or sixty boys as young as eight and as old as Dahlen were doing two-three punch combination drills in perfect sync. They were soaked.
The Elder stopped to watch the boys train, his eyes scanning the lines in the same critical way Veyron would watch her and Julian spar. She wanted that again. Not just the challenge but the breathless focus. She’d never danced with a boy, but she knew—punching and kicking, weaving in and out—that it was a kind of dance. And most of all she missed Julian’s touch. Even to bring up her knee and block one of his kicks. That jolt. The pressure.
Now, in the courtyard, there was a girl, her blonde hair worn in a tight braid, who executed a perfect flip throw—rolling backward onto the wet ground as she gripped her opponent. She catapulted him up and over, then stood and reset, wiping water from her eyes. Rhee raised herself onto the balls of her feet, feeling her calves flex, aching to spar now.
“I didn’t think you’d survive this long, given how young you are and how many people want you dead,” the Elder said. His feet were evenly planted and his hands were flexed open—all muscle memory, Rhee assumed, from when he himself was a soldier and had to be combat-ready at a split second’s notice.
“You and everyone else,” she said, already feeling defensive. Her youth was a deficit she’d have to make up for with cunning and strategy if she were to take back her throne.
The procession passed inside a vaulted chamber, this one elegantly tiled. The temple must be hewed directly into the center of the mountain. At last, the Elder gestured for her to sit. With the rustle of a snake in the grass, the archers fanned out around them. The hairs on the back of Rhee’s neck lifted, but she knew she had to ask the Elder about Seotra. She hadn’t come this far to be killed before she knew the truth about her family.