Temple of Fyre (Island of Fyre) (3 page)

When he left the inn, he strode down the cobbled lane to the market square. He noticed his mentor’s aged and crippled partner beside one of the food stalls. Though Ari wanted to question the man, he knew he couldn’t until after the crystals had been sold.

What would Bil tell him? The man had been Jorg’s partner when they’d stumbled across the small boy near the edge of the grove. The scarlet fyrestone and the copper necklace had been the only clue to Ari’s identity, a clue he didn’t think the men had pursued.

Ari’s hands clenched. Who had left him there? Who had given him the stone? He’d never heard of a man being able to use any of the fyrestones, except the white. Though several times, he’d dreamed Jorg had used one, Ari couldn’t remember finding one when the old man died.

The savory aroma of meat pies made his stomach growl. He purchased one and a mug of ale. The nutty flavor of the beverage soothed the fiery spices of the pies. Around him, conversations flowed. He ate quickly. Once the stones were sold, he would order a feast and a woman from one of the pleasure houses to share the food and attend to his needs. He’d been without a woman’s company since the week before the winter solstice. As he sauntered toward the temple, snippets of words reached him.

“Flame near touched the sun.”

“Saw that. Could have ended the world.”

“Heard the priestesses took sick. They’re not hearing petitions.”

“After the solstice when the rites are changed.”

Ari reached the edge of the square and followed the fyrethorn hedge to the arched entrance to the temple lane. The hedge lined both sides of the wide cobble-paved path. The brilliant scarlet blooms on the bushes hid deadly red thorns. Ari frowned. The odd thing was nowhere but here near the temple had he ever seen fyrethorn growing. He often wondered why.

Chapter Two

Ria huddled beside the bushes near the wall of the Temple of Fyre. How long had she lain here? Hours? Days? She had no notion of how much time had passed since the duel with Malera. Ria’s memories were filled with the confrontation, the stoning, and the strident case of the carrion crows. She’d expected the birds to attack. Instead, they had used their beaks to drive her through the hedge where the thorns had torn her caftan and the flesh of her arms. Once beyond the hedge, agonizing pain had driven her into darkness.

Her body ached from the blows of the rocks and the slashes of Malera’s flail. Tears welled in her eyes. She could no longer be one of the priestesses who called fire from the opaline crystals.

Hunger gnawed in her gut. Fever from the poison of the thorns flowed through her body. She wrapped her arms around her middle. What would she do? She had succeeded and called fire. She had blended the flames raised by the other women. Malera’s choice of a task had been wrong. So was the punishment the chief priestess had meted.

Ria had been unable to destroy Gydon for its failure to pay the tithe. Malera was evil. How could women, children, and the elderly, plow the fields and bring in the harvest? Ria shuddered. To sell children to the slavers was wrong. Though she’d been treated with care by those grim, swarthy men, she’d seen how the others had fared.

The scuff of boots on the stones of the path drew her toward the place where she’d broken through the hedge. A man strode toward the temple. His clothing was dusty and rumpled. A hunger different from her need for food arose. He carried fyrestones in the pouch dangling from his belt. The first of the seekers had arrived, but what he carried could never be hers. Malera would buy all for the temple.

As he drew closer, her breath caught in her throat. Though unkempt, he was handsome. Tall and lean, with muscles honed by labor and sun darkened by the sun. Like hers, his hair was rich with the colors of the fyrestones.

Her body tingled with awareness. For him, or for what he carried? He paused beside her hiding place and stooped to examine the stone. She tensed. Would he discover her and drag her to the temple where Malera waited?

* * *

As Ari neared the temple, he noticed a place where the hedge had been broken. What had happened? He crouched to examine the cobbles. Dark stains spotted the pale surface of the lane. He rose. Whatever the event had been, why should he care? He had a single purpose for being here. To sell the fyrestones for as many coins as possible.

He paused in the entrance to the rotunda. Though he’d heard the things the gate guard had said and had listened to the rumors in the market square, the absence of petitioners surprised him. He’d never come to sell stones when there had been less than a handful of people waiting to speak to one of the priestesses.

His boots clicked on the colored tiles. He glanced toward the beaded curtain that shielded the inner chamber and saw no lights. The rumors must be true. He walked to one of the tables flanking the doorway and lifted a hand bell.

The mellow tone summoned a girl dressed in a white caftan. She emerged from one of the halls at the side of the rotunda. “No petitioners will be heard until after the solstice.”

“I’m a stone seeker with crystals to sell.”

Her eyes widened. “I’ll bring someone.” She scurried away.

Ari slumped on one of the benches. He closed his eyes and drifted in a half-sleep until he heard the slap of sandals on the tiles. He looked up. A woman dressed in a red caftan glided toward him and paused in front of the bench. He noticed the passion mark on her neck just above the necklace of white fyrestones dangling from gold, silver, and copper, wires. She wore bracelets and anklets of the same stones. Who was this woman? Though he’d been the seller since Jorg’s death, he had always dealt with an old woman.

The priestess’ dark eyes swept over him in swift appraisal. “Come and show me what you have.” Her gaze slid from his face, across his chest and settled on his groin.

The husky timbre of her voice made him wonder if she meant the fyrestones or his body. Her eyes examined him the way he judged the quality of crystals he found. His rod stiffened. The stones in his belt pouch pulsed in rhythm with his heart. Ari clenched his hands. He would trade crystals for coins, not for pleasure. For less than the value of a single scarlet, he could have the services of five women for a ten-day. “Who are you? I usually deal with an older priestess.”

“I am Malera, the chief priestess. The acolyte said you had stones to sell.”

“I do.”

She placed her hand on his arm. “Bring them to the table. I want to see what you have.”

The heat raised by her touch threatened to burn away his intentions. “Here?”

“Yes.” She slid her hand along his forearm and made a crooning sound. “There is strength in you.” When she stroked his upper arm, her tongue played along her lower lip.

Ari sucked in a breath. She smelled of desire. If he surrendered to her lures, he would be lost and his quest for his identity would end. He pressed a hand against the crystal beneath his tunic. His thoughts cleared. After evading her grasping hands, he rose and strode to one of the tables. There, he spilled the contents of the first sack on the red cloth. “Fifty whites for ordinary tasks or ornamentation.”

She lifted one. “One copper for each.”

He saw the light of greed flash in her eyes. She wanted these stones. “Ten for each.”

“Three,” she said.

“Seven,” he countered.

“I’ll give you five.”

“Agreed.” He kept a smile from forming. The guard had been right. Stones were needed here. The coins for the whites would more than pay for the necessary supplies.

Malera straightened. “Have you more?”

“First the coins.”

She clapped her hands. The acolyte who had greeted him soon arrived with a chest. The young woman placed the box on the table. Malera counted twenty-five silver coins. Ari stashed them in his belt pouch. He drew five yellows from a second sack.

She studied them. “Enough games. Show me all you have. Ten silver for each yellow.”

Ari nodded his acceptance and produced four orange and two scarlet. “Ten gold for each.”

She shook her head. “Ten silver for each orange, and two gold for each scarlet.” She lifted one and stroked the surface.

Ari watched the swirls of red in the center of the stone. His own scarlet pulsed against his chest. “Two gold for each orange, and four for each scarlet.”

“We have a deal.” After she counted the coins, the acolyte carried the chest from the room.

Ari smiled. He had enough coins to discharge the debt to one of the men who had found him. Perhaps Bil would finally tell all he knew about the child Ari had been.

Malera glided to his side. “My handsome stone seeker, come with me to the harras where a life of ease and pleasure awaits.” Ari’s pendant sent jolts of heated warning through his blood. He shook his head. “I have no desire for ease. If I enter the harras, who will bring the stones you need? There are but a dozen stone seekers. Some seasons, no crystals are found. Only twice did my partner and I fail in the past twenty years. Ask the priestess who usually buys the fyrestones about a seeker named Jorg. He trained me.” Ari stepped back. Thoughts of being intimate with this woman made his skin feel as though insects crawled over the surface.

She reached for his hand. “Why do you hesitate to accept what men so eagerly seek?”

Ari drew a deep breath and searched for an answer that wouldn’t stir her simmering anger. “Seeking stones is in my blood. I’ve been one since I was a child. The harras would become a prison and I would be a sullen failure as a lover.”

She clasped his forearm. “Good stone seekers are hard to find. A sullen stud foments trouble and must be destroyed. Still, I want to share pleasure with you. Your scent, your body, and your voice, call to me. Return to the temple after the solstice ceremony. On that day, the priestesses and the men they choose to honor may freely delight in the appetites of desire.”

Ari hesitated. How could he refuse, yet how could he accept? He had no desire to share anything with her except the stones he sold.

Without a word of dismissal, she gathered the cloth and carried the stones to the inner chamber. The movement of the beaded curtain produced a cacophony of sound

Her departure brought Ari a welcome relief from the tension and discomfort that flooded his body. He sank on a bench and closed his eyes to purge the desires she had stirred.

Once he felt in control again, he strode to the rotunda door and stepped outside. The sun moved toward the horizon. In the morning, he would purchase supplies and speak to Bil. Then he would leave and be far from Rosti on Solstice Day. He had no intention of being near the hamlet or the chief priestess during the celebration of the year’s longest day.

* * *

Malera caressed the scarlet fyrestone the seeker had brought. The swirling colors raised a need to call the flames, but this pair was too precious to waste their power on a whim. Until the other seekers arrived, there would be no stones to use for the pleasure of basking in the heat and light of a crystal.

She drew a deep breath. Even if she had a dozen scarlets, today wasn’t one when she could safely draw the blazes contained in the opaline stones. If she waited, the flames she called would burn higher and wilder the longer she denied the pulsing rhythms flowing through her body. Just as the fires in her belly brought juices to her nether lips, so would the heat of the fyrestones flood her spirit. Her laughter flowed deep and full.

The stone seeker had ignited embers only his fluids could quench. In eight days, he would be hers for a day and night, and she would bathe in his essence. Her breasts felt heavy. Her nipples tightened into aching buds. Malera tore her thoughts from the man.

She poured the white fyrestones into a golden dish and added a handful from a box on the curved table across from the circle. Of all the temple crystals, only the whites and the stones held by the oldest priestesses, had survived Ria’s rebellion. Malera claimed the whites as her own to be used as items to be traded to the slavers when there was a need for new males for the harras or girls as priestesses. Not these stones. These whites were hers. She would call a gem setter to fashion a girdle for her hips to match the broad collar necklace. On Solstice Day when the stone seeker arrived ripe with desire for her and tore the caftan from her body, the necklace and girdle would be revealed. She shivered with anticipation for the fulfillment to come.

Gathering her rampaging thoughts and emotions into a coil, she placed the yellow and orange crystals in the depressions. The extras were placed on the table to be claimed by the other priestesses. ‘Twas not enough for a full circle, but these were enough to light the solstice fire. Other seekers were due to arrive before the day of the ritual. If the fates were kind, those men would have fyrestones to sell.

Malera left the inner chamber and entered the hall leading to her suite. Her body pulsed with the desire to call the flames. She had to subdue that urge. She dare not lose control before the solstice. On that day, her full powers were essential for the change she intended to make in the ceremony. She parted the beaded curtain and stepped into the receiving room.