Diomere's Exile

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Nadia stood in the shade cast by one of the Earth Temple’s four towers. A breeze swirled under her skirts, filling the air with the heady scent of the wisteria vines that climbed the towers. Her gaze swept across the crowded square, noting each of the three exits and the position of each guard. Mentally mapping out escape routes, she wished for the thousandth time that she’d worn her usual breeches and boots. But she knew Geeta had been right to talk her into the restricting skirts. No one would recognize her dressed in the Thunoan style, her face covered in a half mask of common cloth.

A knot formed in her stomach. Not being able to take her other form was almost worse than being exiled. She slammed the door on that thought. Things could always be worse.

A group of laughing women, eager to celebrate the Festival of the Sun, bustled past, their arms laden with flowers to set at the goddess’ feet. The goddess’ statue stood in the center of the square decorated in boughs of greenery and colorful flowers while water poured from her hands. Masks, worn in an array of styles for anonymity, covered the faces of those present. Musicians strummed their instruments while merchants, their booths set up between large-canopied trees, sold meat pies, sweet breads, and festival masks. The novice priests kept the wine flowing, free to all in honor of the goddess’ glory. Nadia smiled. The free wine is indeed a blessing.

Pell materialized beside a large-bellied noble. Though the man hid his face behind a grotesque beak mask, his physique and booming voice revealed him as the nobleman her second sought.

Pell appeared to watch the jugglers in front of him before glancing her way. Bright blue irises blinked back at her from behind his own disguise. Biting back a smile, Nadia rolled her eyes. His mask, painted with a frown on the white half and a smile on the black half, fit him perfectly. She didn’t see Pell move, but suddenly he melted back into the crowd and the noble he’d been standing beside no longer wore the gold chain she’d seen around his neck. Damn, he’s good.

Her people didn’t normally steal from wealthy lords like common thieves, but business was business, and the noble had stolen the ring hanging from the gold chain. Its true owner, a widowed merchant woman who’d refused the noble her bed, wanted it back. When Thuno’s god-king had ignored the woman’s petition, she’d approached Vromia Guild.

Nadia, satisfied the job was complete, turned her attention to the second reason she’d agreed to join in the festivities. Her royal contact should have arrived by now.

She palmed a tiny, rolled parchment from the pocket of her dress and scanned the revelers, paying attention to the masks each wore. A mouthless mask of solid white with a single slash of red appeared from behind a group of laughing women in matching feathered masks. She straightened the cheap, half mask on her own face and pushed away from the wall. She looked back over her shoulder as if someone chased her, then laughed and ran across the square. After a dozen steps, she collided with a wide, muscled chest and looked up into a full mask of glossy Gazon porcelain.

She inhaled and smiled. The familiar mix of honey, wood, and lemon of Geeta’s frankincense soap meshed with his own unique male scent. Geeta would be thrilled to know that a noble wore one of the new soaps she’d sold to a local high end apothecary.

Playing her part, she bit her bottom lip and looked up at him through her lashes. “Pardon, m’lord. I didn’t mean to mistake you for a running path.”

His low, husky voice caressed her ears, its softness belying strength and control rather than weakness. “If all runners were as beautiful as you, I’d be willing to be the path more often.”

She barely kept from rolling her eyes. Expose a little cleavage or the hint of a curvy figure and men were all the same, the sight of a woman’s face being totally unnecessary to judge beauty. Even had she not been wearing the mask, she knew there was nothing beautiful about her. Too tall and mouthy, she preferred dressing like a Diomerean nobleman rather than the noblewoman she was. Never mind the scar that bisected the left side of her face.

“Thank you, m’lord,” she said, tone dry. She smiled and batted her lashes up at him.

His low chuckle sent a shiver down her spine as he leaned toward her until his breath tickled her ear. “Acting the coy miss isn’t one of your gifts,” he said, his lips grazing her ear, causing an arrow of desire to arc through her body.

She leaned up on her toes, their cheeks only a breath apart, and whispered back. “Insincere flattery is obviously one of yours.”

She caressed his chest, unable to resist the swell of muscle under her palms as she pulled away, chin lifted. Striking amber irises circled in a black outer ring and thick black lashes peeked from the eyes of the mask. Her mind went blank as desire rolled through her, taking her breath. A ripple rolled through the power inside her, like this man had reached in and touched a finger to the still surface of her a’mi. Her smile slipped. You’re acting like Father. Her stomach flipped, threatening to eject her morning meal. She jerked her hands from his chest as if she’d been burned.

He trapped her gaze in his. “Is it not said that flattery makes friends and truth makes enemies?”

Nadia scowled and shoved her a’mi deep.

“Then I’d rather be enemies.” She stepped back and held her hand out in the traditional greeting of her people, rather than the shoulder clasping Thunoans used. His smoldering gaze held a challenge as he slid his palm against hers. His thumb caressed the back of her hand, making her shiver, before he finally pulled his hand back toward his chest, the parchment she’d slipped him tucked between his fingers. The greeting ended with their palms over their hearts. Nadia ignored the heat pooling in her stomach. “The gods keep you, m’lord.”

“Asha’s blessing on you, lady,” he said.

She told herself she clenched her fist because the greeting demanded it, not to hold on to the feel of his skin against hers. Tearing her gaze away, she strode to a nearby vendor’s stall. She smiled at the merchant as she perused his selection of meat pies. Pointing to a small, stuffed pastry, she handed him her coin and glanced over her shoulder. Heated eyes studied her. Her thighs clenched. She frowned and struggled to wrestle back control of her traitorous body. The man tilted his head in a shallow nod, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Nadia returned to her place near the tower as the great bell began to toll. Though her unease over the encounter made her stomach queasy, she made herself nibble on the pie as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She hoped taking lead on this mission hadn’t been a mistake. Pell usually passed off the information they were paid to gather, but she’d wanted to watch the Choosing Ceremony. As she struggled to shake off the unsettling reaction to the masked man, she mentally berated herself, remembering the hard lessons she’d learned when it came to members of the opposite sex. Her frown deepened.

Pell appeared beside her, his voice muffled behind his mask. “That isn’t our usual royal contact.”

“How do you know?”

He turned his head toward her, shoulders back betraying his military background. “The usual contact is my height. The one you just passed the info to was much taller, in case you didn’t notice.”

Nadia scanned the crowd. “Find out who he is.”

The grating of the temple’s gates interrupted Pell’s response. The music faded. Six priests, straining under the weight of a golden chalice four feet high and nearly as wide, moved through the opening gate.

The priests lowered the chalice to its pedestal. A small tree, its leaf covered branches symmetrically pruned and reaching toward the sky, grew in holy soil within the chalice. A line of ten young men and women, born in the city during the Festival of the Sun thirteen years before, fidgeted to one side. Rather than choosing an apprenticeship or announcing a betrothal as most did upon coming of age, these new adults approached the Priests, who anointed them with a smear of sacred white ash on their forehead. Those watching whispered among each other, bored with a ceremony they considered rooted in fairytale, though none dared miss it for fear of earning their goddess’ displeasure.

Born on this longest day of the year, these new adults had a choice between magic, a’mi, or non-magic, sa’i. Should they choose a’mi, the Guardian would appear and take them through the gate to Mondami, the world of the A’mi. Before the war, which saw the gates between the worlds closed, families would proudly prepare for months before their chosen’s coming of age ceremony.

Nadia had read stories of the great accomplishments achieved when innovative Sa’i and A’mi minds worked together. The lightboxes still used in her home country were one of those inventions, though the knowledge of how they were made had been lost when the gates closed. Far superior to oil powered lanterns, they were powered by a’mi without draining the one activating them.

Nadia remembered the many Sa’i children she’d seen choose a’mi in her home country. The wonder of watching them come into their power, before the Guardian appeared to take them through the gate, left many of those watching with smiles of envy tinged with sadness. Looking around at this crowd, Nadia knew it would be much different. No child from Volos, the capitol city of Thuno, had chosen a’mi in a hundred years. Their parents and Asha’s A’mi-hating priests taught them that to choose a’mi was to choose to become a slave of Druj, the god of death and chaos.

The head priest stepped forward, holding a golden mallet on a silk cloth covered tray. One side of the hammer’s head remained naked gold while the other side was padded with leather. The priest offered the mallet to the first child, a boy with the mud-colored hair of most Thunoans. Taking the mallet, the boy knelt before the golden chalice. He skimmed his other hand quickly over the holy soil and then struck the chalice with the leather-covered side of the mallet’s head. The gathered crowd grew restless as the boy stood, handed the mallet to the next child and returned to his smiling parents. As the line of chosen grew shorter, the watching audience grew bored. Some even turned their backs and returned to their celebrating.

Nadia shook her head at the disrespect. She doubted any would choose a’mi, but couldn’t walk away at the chance to see the Guardian of the Gate. She’d seen this same ceremony thirteen times across the many lands of Saimond since she’d been banished. Though the people and patron gods were different, the ceremony was always exactly the same. Rarely did a child choose a’mi. She told herself to turn and walk away. No Thunoan child would dare make such a choice.

Feeling someone watching her, she turned her head to meet the intense scrutiny of her contact over the heads of the whispering revelers. She caught her breath.

Pell followed her gaze. “Should we leave?”

She shook her head, unwilling to miss the ceremony unless she had to. The man continued to watch her, his gaze dipping to caress the dress that accentuated her breasts. Her pulse raced. He moved toward her, each step slow as if he stalked her. Instinct screamed for her to run, even as her a’mi reached for him. That he already had her common sense and her a’mi at odds proved the danger he held for her. She lifted her chin and felt for the handle of the blade she usually carried on her hip. Loud cursing rang out over a suddenly focused crowd.

The spell broken, she jerked her attention back to the ceremony. A dirty man with matted hair lunged toward a tall girl with the same brown hair, though hers hung in wild curls to her back. The girl focused on the tree and ignored her obviously drunken father as he stumbled to his knees.

He pulled himself to his feet at the bottom step leading up to the chalice. “After everything I’ve done for you, you’d dare attempt to run off with some Druj cursed A’mi dog?” The man lost his balance and fell back. “Come down here, you ungrateful hussy.”

Guards moved closer to the inebriated man. Hesitating with her hand above the chalice’s soil, the girl darted a glance toward the man.

The head priest stepped forward. “Child, be absolutely certain. Once you do this, there is no going back.” The girl glanced at the priest, and he took another step closer. “Would you risk selling your soul to Druj, simply to escape a difficult life?”

“You ungrateful whore. Place your hand in that dirt and I’ll cut off your head and shit down your throat when the guardian fails to appear,” the drunken man yelled.

Nadia leaned closer as the girl squared her shoulders and thrust her left hand into the soil as her right hand swung the uncovered gold side of the mallet’s head toward the chalice. Nadia inhaled as the high-pitched gong of mallet on chalice moved through her. Several women in the crowd fainted, while others let out wails of fear.

The girl smiled as the soil moved up her arm. Soon her entire body was encased in swirling soil that absorbed into her skin. The crowd backed away from her. From the waist down, her legs darkened to the color of bark and split into a twisted collection of thick and thin tree roots. Her curls twisted into a mottled blend of thick brown branches, green vines, and sweeping limbs of leaves.

Nadia held her breath as the girl was transformed into a race she’d only heard of in stories as a child at her mother’s knee. A door of light opened up behind the chalice, and the gathered crowd pulled back farther. Cowering away from the portal, the priests held up their hands, fingers curled, to ward away evil. The fools fear one of their own goddess’ most beloved creations.

The Guardian stepped from the door draped in a long gold cloak, its deep hood hiding his face. He held out an aged hand covered in pale skin with a blue tinge. The girl glanced toward the priests. Her drunken father wretched his arms from the grasp of the soldiers who’d pulled him away when the girl had begun to shift.

“No. I’d rather see you dead than a child of the Druj worshiping A’mi.” The drunken man lunged toward the girl, his eating knife glinting in the sunlight.

The Guardian swept his hand out as if shooing a fly, and the drunken man flew back into the guards. The girl smiled. Without a backward glance, she stepped forward and placed her hand into the Guardian’s. The cowled figure swept his gaze over the shocked faces of Thuno’s people, moved past Nadia, stopped, and returned to rest on her. The memory of who she was and why she couldn’t go home surfaced. A muscle ticked in her clenched jaw.

The Guardian’s voice, speaking the language of the A’mi, rolled over her mind like a bolder crushing stone. “The boy must be found before the sands run out.”