She knew as much, but she could not go on as if nothing had happened, not today, not with a bloody corpse on the floor of her temple, and not after what she had discovered that morning in the depths of the Ata’Sol.
“The Mother will stand on the wall at the appointed time,” Sarra announced. She had a contingency, a way to address her duties without actually being present. “You there,” she said, pointing to one of the servant boys, “bring parchment and ink.”
When the boy returned with what she had requested, Sarra scribbled on the parchment and handed it back to him. “Fetch Garia Asni. Give her this note. The girl has reddish hair, like mine. Look for her in the scribes’ chambers.”
The boy vanished down a dark stair, descending into the labyrinth of corridors beneath the temple.
“You’re sending Garia to stand on the wall?” Ott asked, guessing at her intentions.
Sarra nodded. “The pilgrims will not notice the difference. The girl knows the words and the customs as well as I do—I trained her myself. The wall is high, and the crowds are distant. Only we will know that a surrogate stands in my place.”
“Let us hope,” said Ott. “For three millennia the Mother has stood on the wall and observed the Devouring. It would be a shame if you were the first to break that tradition.”
“It would be a more terrible shame if something were to happen to me.” The wall was not a safe place for the Mother Priestess today, and for a moment she thought about Garia, whom she was sending there.
Ott tapped his fingers as he paced. “Everyone in Solus is in peril, especially us.” He exchanged a meaningful glance with Sarra.
“Yes, that is clear. And we will still need a way to exit the temple unnoticed. Perhaps Garia should slip out the postern?”
“The stable entrance—why?” Ott asked.
“Because that’s what Saad would expect. A dead priest left on our temple steps. The Mother is worried for her safety, so she left through the postern door.”
“And where will the real Mother go?”
“Out the front.”
Ott raised an eyebrow, but Sarra paid him no notice. She was not yet ready to share the plan she had only just conceived.
“You there,” she called to her priestly servants, “hand over your robes.” The servants exchanged glances, confused at first, but when she glared at them, they doffed their sand-gray caftans. She stripped off her collar and the golden stalls her servants had just fitted to her fingers and toes. She took the gray robe and drew it over her white one. She motioned for Ott to do the same, watching as he wiped the blood from his hands. Her priests wrapped the dead man in linen.
“If we conceal ourselves,” Sarra said, “we can walk out the front door like a couple of servants fetching date wine for their masters.”
Ott was tapping his fingers again, screwing his face into odd contortions, his withered arm looking ghostly beneath his robe. Throughout the empire, boys such as Ott were often cast out into the streets, or left to die in the desert, but the priesthood gave shelter to the weak, the unwanted, and the abandoned. Sarra had, many years ago, benefited from the priesthood’s charity. Ott had done the same, as had many others.
“If concealment is the goal,” said Ott, “perhaps we should add a third to our party.” It was well known that Sarra always traveled with Ott at her side. The two were inseparable.
Sarra nodded her agreement. “You there,” she said, motioning to one of her acolytes, the boys who operated the golden doors of the temple. “What’s your name?”
“Khai Femin.”
“He has only recently arrived from the Wyrre,” said Ott.
“He’ll do.”
“For what, may I ask, Mother?” said Khai as he drew closer to her, his eyes wide, his skin pale in the lamplight.
“For what I tell you to do. Take a gray robe and come with us,” she said.
“Where, Mother?” he asked, but Sarra gave no answer. She was thinking about her next move, how to counter Saad’s aggression and use the discovery she’d made in the depths of the Ata’Sol earlier that day, trying to decide which was the greater threat.
Sarra raised a hand, indicating the doors. “Open one, slowly now,” she said, the roar of the crowd filtering in through the narrow opening. “Just wide enough for us to exit.” This was how the servants of the house came and went from the temple. Sarra bowed her head and drew her cowl down across her face. She slipped between the doors, her priests following close behind.
“So many people,” Khai said as he stepped out into the streets teeming with pilgrims. Sarra walked around the boy, Ott at her side, scissoring through the crowds of Solus as she made her way past the temple steps, motioning for Khai to follow behind. Sarra had forgotten that Khai was a peasant from the Wyrre, and in the southern islands ten men made a crowd.
In the streets below, ten thousand thronged the plaza. In the whole of Solus, ten times ten thousand crowded the backstreets and courtyards of the capital, sleeping in dry fountains, on smoldering rooftops, and in winding alleys. Tattered cloaks and barefoot children packed every temple and yard from the Cenotaph to the Statuary Garden of Amen Hen and the Golden Hall. The pilgrims were everywhere, all of them gathered for the Devouring, to watch as the sun dimmed to acknowledge Mithra’s continued support of the empire and its emperor.
Sarra caught sight of bronze helms glinting in the distance. Soldiers hidden in the shadows kept watch on her temple. No doubt these were the men who left the body at her door. Murderers, she thought.
The Protector is nothing more than a common thug. Amen Saad had ascended to the position of Protector and commander of the armies after his father, Raden, was found dead of poison only two weeks prior. Sarra was almost certain the son had murdered his father to attain the position. Raden had murdered his predecessor and half the army’s generals when he had taken the Protector’s sword. It seemed only appropriate that his son would do the same.
But Saad is not content with the Protector’s sword. He wants my mantle as well.
Seeing the soldiers, she pinched her cloak beneath her chin, cinching the fabric and hiding her red locks.
“Khai, hurry,” Sarra said to the hesitant boy, hoping their exit from the temple was unobserved by Saad’s men. “The streets will only grow more crowded as the Devouring approaches.” Ott offered the boy his good hand.
“Mother,” Khai asked, “where are we going?”
“I … I … was wondering the same thing,” Ott stuttered as he waded through the ever-thickening crowds. The boy was acting coy.
“Ott, you know where we’re going,” she said.
Indeed, Ott looked to the great circus and beyond, his eyes fixing upon the tip of a black and spindly tower. “There,” he said, shaking loose Khai’s grip so he could point.
“That’s the Protector’s Tower,” said Khai.
Sarra gritted her teeth. “I think I know a way to end this conflict before it truly begins.”
“Are you talking about our little revelation?” Ott asked. He was referring to the discovery they’d made earlier that morning. She would need to stand with Saad for the Devouring if she wanted to use what they had learned against him.