I was not so na?ve to think He loved me more than the law, however. I didn’t think He was able to.
Guards had gathered around the cathedral, trying to calm the crowds as people shouted questions about the gods and star mothers and blessings and curses. My attention pushed past them, to the towering monstrosity of worship looming over me. I thought of the priest in Tarnos, and his book of the gods’ language. Could this cathedral, being so large, so old, and so prestigious, have something like that? A book of celestial law, perhaps? Something that could help me sort out this problem and save Ristriel from his fate? I had not noticed one before, but then again, I had not been looking.
The least I could do was try.
I slipped through the crowd, finding gaps in it where others had grown tired and gone home. I was nearly to the steps when a guard put his hand out in front of me. “None may enter.”
Without stopping, I unleashed my starlight, burning like a new wick before him. He quickly cowed away, eyes round. “Let me pass,” I demanded, and he did. My light died before I reached the front door, but it had started a commotion behind me. Good; let the onlookers keep the guards busy. I had work to do.
The breathtaking stained glass and oil paintings, sculptures and busts, mosaics and columns, were practically invisible to me at that moment. I sought something pragmatic, not ornate. I did stop once at Agradaise’s bust, studying her face in copper, remembering it bathed in brilliant light. Wondering when I would get the chance to ask Saiyon her story, if He even remembered it.
But she was dead and could not help me now, so I bowed my head in a plea for forgiveness and continued my search, checking alcoves, shelves, and tablets along the walls. I walked through the ambulatory and looked in each chevet, then came around the cathedral again, checking drawers and slinking behind roped-off sections. I found books, but most of them were familiar hymnals or scriptures—the same pages I could have read back home.
Footsteps alerted me to another’s presence, and I saw a priest approaching me. I straightened, keeping my chin held high. If the guards could not keep me out, he certainly wasn’t going to, either.
“I’m looking for records,” I explained.
He readily ignored my question. “You are she.”
He must have spoken to the stewardess, but I couldn’t be sure. “I beg your pardon?”
He came within three paces of me, clasped his hands together, and bowed his head. “Star Mother, it is an honor.”
“My name is Ceris.”
“I know who you are.” He lifted his gaze to take me in, and something about it made me feel as cold and metallic as Agradaise’s bust around the corner. “I have communed with the Sun. You must return to Him.”
I blinked at him. Had Saiyon really spoken to this man, or did he fancy himself a revelator? It did not take an extensive education to interpret the relationship between star mother and Sun.
I took a breath to steady myself and fuel my patience. “I am looking for records of celestial law. The workings of the universe. What may have been passed down and shared between the walls of this church.”
Tilting his head to the side, the priest gave me a patronizing smile. “The only laws that need concern you are that we are to worship the gods and read their scripture. Within their words is all you need to know.”
I did not hide the scowl infecting my face. I set the hymnal down and stepped from the alcove, brushing by him. “You know nothing.”
I turned and started for the front doors, but the priest followed me, talking over my footsteps, his voice growing a hair louder with every syllable passing his lips. “Are you mad? You of all women have lived, and the Sun touches this very cathedral, and you walk away from it?”
When I did not turn, he sped up and slipped in front of me, blocking my path. “The sire of your star may be a god,” he panted, “but you are still a virtueless woman. Why not return to He who has claimed you?”
The blood drained out of my face even as my hot pulse pushed it back into my cheeks. I glowed, not because I meant to, but because my temper flared dangerously close to the line of my control. “How dare you.”
To my amazement, the priest looked over my skin, dazzled by my starlight, seemingly unaware that he had just insulted my worthiness as a woman. “Sun be praised.”
I almost spat at him that the Sun hadn’t given me this light, Surril had, but I thought better of it at the last moment. I wouldn’t waste any more of it here. Reining in as much of my anger as I could, I feigned astonishment. “He is here. He awaits us in the street.”