Red splashed some water on her face from the ewer in the corner and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Part of her thought of following Eammon to the library, seeing if there was anything they could find that mentioned the Shadow Queen or the Golden-Veined. But the thought made her stomach curl in on itself, her body signaling the need for a momentary reprieve, so she decided just to wander the halls for a bit first, work out some of her nervous energy.
The door closed quietly behind Red as she slipped into the hallway. The cloister room she’d ended up in wasn’t far from the main foyer, the nexus of the entire Temple. When she came out of the mouth of the corridor, the door to the amphitheater was open to her right, revealing a sliver of dusty and little-used curving stone seats. It seemed the Ryltish Temple didn’t see many worshippers.
She turned away from the amphitheater. On the opposite side of the foyer, a short stone hallway ended in a plain wooden door.
“Where are you going?”
Red’s hands closed to fists as she whirled, a promise of what she’d told Eammon about punching a priestess. But it was just Kayu.
Her hair was mussed, the usual pin-straight strands tangled and frizzed behind her head. She wore the same clothes she’d worn earlier, but the way they hung seemed subtly different, as if they’d been removed and then replaced. She looked tired, and her eyes were glassy, like she’d either been crying or was about to start.
“Just wandering.” The clear vulnerability on Kayu’s face made Red want to reach out to the other woman, want to trust her. But there was still a small part of Red that regarded everyone warily, sharp and feral and unwilling to open her safe circle to new people.
Kayu shifted back and forth, eyes flickering down the hall before coming back to Red. “Can I come with you? I don’t want to be alone. And you probably shouldn’t be, either.”
That made her brows draw down, but after a moment, Red nodded. Clearly, Kayu was dealing with something—she understood the desire not to be alone. And she was right; it might be safer for all of them to stick together.
“I was just going to see what this was,” Red said, gesturing toward the tiny hallway with its small door. “You’re welcome to come with me.”
Kayu nodded, mouth still pressed into a thin line, eyes still shining.
Red wondered if she should ask what had happened, but decided against it—were she in Kayu’s position, she wouldn’t feel like sharing. Instead, she went down the hallway and grasped the door handle. At first she thought it might be locked, but then the handle turned, smooth and soundless, taken care of in a way that seemed odd compared with the rest of the Temple’s obvious neglect.
The door opened into a small room lit only by flickering candles, all of them dark gray and dripping wax. In the center, a stone pedestal with a thick white twig, casting barred shadow on the wall.
A Shrine.
An instinct to flee flared from the woman Red had been before, the same one who pelted through a hungry forest with a bloody cheek, who’d knelt among the branch shards in the Valleydan Shrine and been prayed over by priestesses filled with piety for monsters. Lost and angry and helpless against powers she didn’t understand.
“Are you all right?”
Kayu’s voice shattered the memories, grounded her back into who and what she was. Not that woman anymore. Maybe scared, maybe out of her depth, but not someone who didn’t know who she was, not someone who didn’t understand the place she’d made for herself.
“I’m fine,” Red said.
She stepped over the threshold.
This Shrine was tiny, barely large enough for her and Kayu to stand shoulder to shoulder without knocking into the table full of prayer candles in the corner. The walls were the same dark stone, but they seemed darker with the absence of any light but the flickering flames. The barely there hiss of wicks was the only sound.
Cautiously, Red approached the branch in the center of the room. Slight threads of darkness traced the bark, nowhere near as thick as true shadow-rot, but enough to make unease sink a hook in her middle.
The click of the latch behind her made her jump, her back to the branch and knees bent to a crouch, hands outstretched like claws. Next to the door, Kayu stood statue-still, her eyes wide and her jaw clenched.
The priestess who’d pushed open the door gasped, a pale hand with bandaged fingers pressed against an ample bosom. “King’s mercy,” she murmured, voice touched with a Ryltish accent that made everything sound musical. But something about the glint of her eyes seemed more eager than surprised. She turned and looked behind her, gave a tiny nod to someone just out of sight. Then the door closed.