But the door swung in before he could.
A priestess with a white, freckled face and golden-red hair stood on the other side, smiling. “The party from Valleyda,” she said brightly. “We’ve been expecting you.”
All of them cast sidelong glances, shifted from foot to foot. All of them but Kayu. She brushed past the priestess without looking at her. “Come on. I’ll take you to Kiri.”
The priestess at the door stepped aside with another smile. “Yes, do come in.”
Red gave Eammon one more quick, apprehensive glance. His fingers wrapped around hers as they crossed the threshold, and it felt like crossing into enemy territory.
The inside of the Ryltish Temple was just as simple as the outside, the stone walls unadorned with anything but a single tapestry of five crowns—four in quadrants, one in the center, a pattern Red recognized from the Temple in Valleyda. Three hallways branched from the circular foyer, stretching from side to side and directly in front of the door, with no sign to what might lay within them. Sconces adorned the walls, providing wavering light in the gloom.
All the candles were dark gray.
Eammon gave the candles a wary glance. “Say the word, and we’re gone,” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear. Leaves rustled in his voice. “I won’t even complain about the seasickness.”
“We have to see what she knows,” Red whispered back. The key burned in her pocket. “We have to see if she knows how to get to Neve again.”
His teeth ground in his jaw, but Eammon nodded.
Kayu headed toward the central hallway, not looking behind her to see if they followed. Lyra’s brow furrowed. “How does she know where to go?”
“Maybe she’s traveled here before?” But even Raffe didn’t sound convinced. A curse hissed through his teeth as he hurried after Kayu.
Fife slid his eyes to Red and Eammon. “Do you feel as nervous about this as I do?”
“Absolutely,” Eammon muttered.
Red sighed, releasing Eammon’s arm to start after Kayu and Raffe. “You two are worse than my old nursemaids.”
“They have been for centuries,” Lyra said.
The hallway was silent, the quiet broken only by the sound of their feet over the stone. A few more priestesses passed by, but not many, and none of them spoke, barely acknowledging them at all. The corridor was lined with doors, some of them open, revealing empty cloister rooms with naked beds and empty wardrobes.
“Not many priestesses here,” Fife said. “Did they turn out the ones who didn’t agree with them, or have them killed, do you think?”
Lyra scowled at him. “Do you have to make this more morbid than it is?”
Nerves were a ball in Red’s throat, difficult to swallow past. Eammon rubbed his thumb over her knuckles.
Up ahead, Kayu stopped at a closed door, one that didn’t look any different from the others lining the hall. “These are the High Priestess’s quarters.”
“How do you know that?” Red asked quietly.
The other woman’s expression didn’t waver, but her dark eyes widened, just momentarily, before she flicked them away. “I’ve been here before,” she said airily. “I studied here before I went to Valleyda.”
Red wasn’t sure she bought that. The tightening of Eammon’s fingers said he didn’t, either. But what was there to do about it now? They needed to talk to Kiri, and Kayu had brought them here to do it. The rest they could figure out later.
After Neve was home.
A moment, then Raffe stepped up beside Kayu, put his hand on the door handle. “Here we go,” he breathed, and pushed the door open.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Red
The first thing Red noticed was how small Kiri looked.
In her memories of the woman—all of them dark and bloodied—the High Priestess towered, crimson and white and vengeful, eyes ablaze with unholy, unsound light. But the figure on the bed before her was brittle, frail. Bruises marred the thin skin beneath her eyes, and the rise and fall of her chest seemed labored, like it was an effort to lift the sheets that covered her.
The room was small. The six of them crowded it, especially with Eammon and Raffe’s height. Nothing cut the blank white of the walls other than another tapestry like the one in the circular foyer, stitched with crowns.
Lyra broke the silence, though it was with a whisper. “What’s the matter with her?”
“The High Priestess is ill.” A new voice from behind them; another priestess, dark-haired and white-skinned, bustled around their group with a cloth thrown over her shoulder and a bowl of steaming water in her hands. She cast a glance at Kayu, but other than that focused only on Kiri. “She has been since she arrived. Knowing the Kings’ will is heavy business and isn’t easy on a body.”
The priestess dipped the cloth in the water and gently patted Kiri’s brow. The High Priestess’s eyes rolled back and forth beneath her lids, chapped lips forming the beginnings of words but never quite managing to free a sound.
“She wakes occasionally,” the priestess continued, as if they were family by a sickbed. “To impart what the Kings have told her to pass on. Good news.” She turned a smile on them, apparently not noticing how her words made every other spine in the room draw up in worry. “Perhaps she will wake for you soon. Are you faithful?”
“Hardly.” Eammon stepped forward, his voice graveled and near a growl. As he did, he pulled down his hood, revealing the green-haloed eyes, the small points that were left of his antlers, the ring of bark around his neck.
Red stepped up next to him, pulling off her own hood and shaking out her ivy and gold hair. Her crimson cloak was in her bag, but the signs of the Wilderwood within her branded her the Lady Wolf even without it.
Eammon held out his hand, eyes not leaving the priestess. Red grasped it, and bent her mouth in a sharp, feral grin.
The Wolves at the door.
But the priestess didn’t seem taken aback. Instead, her slight, pleasant smile widened. “Ah,” she said. “The Wardens.”
There wasn’t time for Red’s confusion to show itself on her face. Because as soon as their title left the priestess’s lips, Kiri’s eyes flew open.
Piercing blue, the High Priestess’s fevered gaze darted directly to Red, the rest of her staying preternaturally still. She gave the unsettling impression of a waking corpse.
“Redarys.” Her name a rasp, the s held too long. “You’ve finally come.”
Eammon’s grip on her hand was tight enough to hurt. Red squeezed back, leaving her anxiety there instead of in her expression.
“Have you been waiting?” she asked.
The smile started at one side of Kiri’s mouth, moved slowly to the other. “Oh, we have.”