The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (15 page)

Beds stacked three high lined one wall of the massive room, ladders leaning against the sides to allow access to the higher bunks. Near the other wall sat a line of long tables, plain wooden chairs tucked under them on both sides. Women in robes—some of them young girls in masks and drab green like Evalal, others bare-faced women clothed in a variety of subdued colors—went about their tasks.

Some sewed garments while others repaired chairs, painted masks, peeled potatoes, or partook of a multitude of other chores. At a glance, Danya counted at least sixty people in the room—the first they’d seen since leaving the Mother of Death.

“Is this where we’re going?” the princess asked, finally stepping into the room.

“No. Come.”

Evalal set out toward the far side of the room, Danya following close behind but watching the other women. Each one of them raised their heads as they passed, made brief eye contact with Danya, then lowered their gazes. Every masked girl and woman in the room repeated the strange ritual.

It took more than a hundred steps to cross the room and, when they reached the far door, Danya stopped and peered back, seeing the room itself for the first time.

Skylights overhead let in columns of pale sunshine. A few handspans below the level of the ceiling, intricate figures and scenes were carved into the stone wall, but they were too high for Danya to make them out. Now that the eyes of the women weren’t upon her, she sensed a familiarity about the room, but couldn’t place why. Before she had the opportunity to consider it further, Evalal tugged on her sleeve.

Beyond the door a set of stairs led upward, and the masked girl mounted them without waiting for Danya. The princess glanced back once more to see the girls and women return to their work, sewing and painting and chatting as though no one had interrupted them.

So many strange things here.

She hurriedly ascended the stairs to catch up to the girl, though the narrowness of the steps forced her to walk behind when she did. At the top, they stopped before another door different from all the others. It was fashioned of burnished bronze with the clear image of a woman’s face set upon it. Evalal paused before opening it, taking a moment to bow her head and run her fingertips lightly over the forehead and cheeks of the image. Danya wondered if she’d be expected to do the same.

The answer came when Evalal leaned against the door with her shoulder, using her weight to push it wide. The hinges moved smoothly and silently, as though well-kept, and they entered a room filled with the light of the sun.

It streamed in through a wide opening in the far wall that led out onto a balcony. Danya wondered what lay beyond and suppressed the urge to rush over and see in favor of surveying her new surroundings.

The room was outfitted simply but well—a comfortable-looking bed with a mattress, a dresser, and a thin carpet covering most of the floor. Carvings similar to those in the large hall ringed the room below the ceiling and the princess determined to take a closer look at them later. Evalal started toward the balcony and Danya followed eagerly.

Despite the time she thought had passed as they traversed the complicated labyrinth of the temple, the midday sun perched directly overhead. Danya raised a hand to shield her eyes as they stepped out onto the balcony. She leaned against the stone rail and peered over.

The height of five tall men below lay a courtyard enclosed by walls, but not like the flower-gardened courtyards the princess was accustomed to strolling through in Draekfarren. Instead of trees and paths, flowers and shrubs, a mound of dark, moist earth sat in the center of this yard, surrounded by jagged rocks. Danya squinted, wondering why anyone would create such a bleak place.

“What is this?” she asked, facing the masked girl.

Evalal said nothing for a moment, but stared at the patch of dirt where one might expect a garden to grow. Her painted mask smiled, as it always did.

“This is why the Goddess brought you.” She raised a hand and extended a finger. “Beneath that earth lies the seed of life.”

XIV Ailyssa - First Visitor

A baby’s mewling drifted down from the third floor where the Sisters kept their rooms. Ailyssa tilted her head, the strained cry squeezing her heart. The temple at Olvana was one single, sprawling level, with the nursing quarters away from the Sisters’ chambers, the coupling rooms separated from both. Rarely did one hear the sounds of another.

At Jubha Kyna, the first floor housed the reception area and lounge, the dining room and kitchens. The second level’s rooms were dedicated to coupling, the third to the Sisters’ chambers, and the fourth to the Goddess. In one of the chambers on the second floor, Ailyssa perched on the edge of an over-stuffed mattress, the palms of her hands damp with perspiration as she waited.

When she met N’th Adnine Re’a, the Grand Matron had told her to take the day and night to rest and recuperate. The time passed with little of either. Exhaustion and worry weighed on Ailyssa’s limbs, crushing the elation she should have felt at the reinstatement of her titles. What good were titles when forced to lay with a man with no chance of conceiving a daughter in honor of the Goddess?

Ailyssa curled her toes in the deep pile of the carpet beneath her feet. Another time, she might have marveled at its softness and guessed it worth a fortune; perhaps she’d have stripped off her smock and relished its caress against her bare skin. Today, it held the texture of coarse sand grating against her soles. The thickness of the mattress disappeared in her roiling emotions, as did the pleasing aromas of the scented oils N’th Creidra had rubbed on her back to encourage relaxation.

The word struck her as black humor. Relaxation. When did she last have the luxury of relaxing?

The last time I bled.

Ailyssa breathed a heavy inhalation and blinked for the thousandth time trying to clear the white fog from her vision. Like all the times before, it didn’t disperse. The haze hung before her as it had since she opened her eyes, smearing her world into a colorless cloud without movement or shape. Perhaps it was better this way. If they meant her to couple for a more nefarious purpose than bringing forth a Daughter to honor the Goddess, it might be best she didn’t have to gaze upon him.

What will it be like coupling with a man because he wants to, not because it’s his duty?

A knife edge of nausea creased Ailyssa’s gut. Lust and desire were things beyond the reckoning of a true devotee of the Goddess, yet here a temple full of Daughters, Mothers, and Matrons succumbed to the basest longing of the flesh to carpet the floor with thick pile and stuff the mattresses with goose down. The unease rose into Ailyssa’s throat, and she swallowed it to keep down the food they’d brought to break her fast.

The babe’s crying stopped—likely someone put a nipple in her mouth. Ailyssa closed her eyes that could not see and remembered nursing Claris, the euphoric sense of peace that began at the top of her head and cascaded over her as the babe suckled.

So many seasons have turned.

Despite the passage of time, a remnant of that long ago rapture fell across Ailyssa, easing the tension from her brow and loosening the knot in her gut. She inhaled again, this time catching the fragrances hidden beneath the incense, oils, and perfumes—the smells no man would recognize: breast milk, the scent of a baby’s hair, the essence emitted only by a new Mother.

The door handle rattled and Ailyssa’s limbs tensed. She sat straight, her back rigid as a spear, her unseeing eyes staring ahead and away from the door. Hinges squeaked gently and feet scuffed in the deep carpet.

“N’th Ailyssa Ra? It is I, N’th Creidra.”

She imagined the girl peeking out from behind the half-open door, a tentative smile on her lips. In Ailyssa’s mind, her face belonged to Claris.

“Hello, N’th Creidra,” she responded in clipped tones. Ailyssa admonished herself silently—Creidra shouldn’t be blamed for any of this. She’d brought her here to rescue her, to give her back her life. The woman knew no other way of living besides that of the temple at Jubha Kyna; she couldn’t have understood how it felt a death sentence to Ailyssa.

“You have a visitor.”

“A visitor?”

Ailyssa’s heart jumped with hope. Had N’th Adesi Re changed her mind and come for her? Maybe Claris learned of her presence and came to rescue her.

“Come in,” Creidra said to someone other than Ailyssa.

The door creaked open wider and heavy footsteps carried another body into the room. From their sound, Ailyssa judged this person to be considerably larger than Creidra. An instant later, the musky odor of hard work wafted across the room and Ailyssa’s hope sifted out of her like sand through a screen, leaving behind nuggets of fear.

“Allo.” A man’s voice rumbling deep in his chest.

Ailyssa nodded in response, though she doubted she’d done so anywhere close to the direction the man stood from her. Silence fell, the air filled with the cloying mixture of the man’s sweat, the ginger oil on her back, and the scent of sandalwood incense. The concoction threatened to turn Ailyssa’s stomach.

“Is she really blind?” the man whispered.

Ailyssa imagined him as taller than Creidra, hunching over toward her in a vain attempt to keep his question between them.

“Yes,” Creidra confirmed.

“She can’t see nothing?”

“I cannot see anything,” Ailyssa said. “But I hear fine.”

“Oh…ah…my apologies…hmm…miss. Just wanted to know what I was getting into.”

The man giggled at his unintentional pun, his laugh higher-pitched than Ailyssa might have expected from a man with a rumble for a voice.

“The bell is on the side table if you are in need, N’th Ailyssa Ra,” Creidra said. “I will return when time is done.”

Feet rustled in lush carpet, hinges murmured. A thought occurred to Ailyssa and she opened her mouth to ask a question, but the door clicking gently shut cut her off.

Where is the side table?

She pressed her lips together and sat with her hands clasped in her lap, the man’s breath competing to be heard over the beat of her heart. Time crawled past and he didn’t move. Ailyssa wriggled on the edge of the bed, the thick mattress uncomfortable as though she sat on a heap of pointed rock.

“This be my first time,” the man said, finally breaking the silence. His boots scuffed in the carpet as he inched closer to the bed.

Ailyssa faced him and raised one brow, but said nothing.

“Not my
first
first time.” He chuckled and Ailyssa imagined him bashful; glancing at his feet and shaking his head. “The first time here.”

“It is also my first time.” Ailyssa paused, swallowed. “Here.”

Footsteps. The mattress shifted with his weight as he sat on the opposite side of the bed from her. The scent of his sweat intensified, other odors of life on a farm lingering beneath. Ailyssa suspected manure might be clogging the soles of his boots, maybe stray straws of hay poking out of his clothes and hair. He inhaled noisily and let the breath out the same way.

“I told them I didn’t want no young girl,” he said. “I wanted someone more mature.”

Ailyssa bit her bottom lip, unsure how to respond.

“Didn’t know they’d get me someone beautiful as you.”

A lump crawled into Ailyssa’s throat. She attempted to swallow it, but it proved stubborn. Did fear of what he might do to her cause it? Or was it because no man had ever called her beautiful?

He’s a man. The Goddess says he is worthless.

His fingers brushed her back and she jumped, cowered away. The mattress jounced as he jerked back.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“No, I…” Her nerves jittered beneath her skin; blood rushed in her ears. “You startled me.”

“Apologies. Can I come sit beside you?”

Ailyssa didn’t think she had any choice but to agree. The man’s weight lifted off the bed and she gripped the edge of the mattress, the muscles in her arms tightening into knots. His feet shuffled, carrying him around the end of the bed. A moment later, he sat to her left, his bulk pressing on the mattress and making her tilt slightly toward him.

“I’m going to touch you again.”

Ailyssa swallowed and nodded.

His finger caressed her shoulder, trailed along the top of her arm to her elbow. It disappeared for a heartbeat, then reappeared on her ear, brushing it as though a butterfly flew too close to her lobe.

“So beautiful,” he said again, leaning toward her.

His lips touched her neck, the coarse hairs of a week’s worth of mustache and beard sandpapering her skin. She’d never been kissed by a man before, and it made her shudder, but her reaction didn’t deter him. He drew his tongue along her exposed skin, up to the corner of her jaw. His breath smelled of mint leaves. Ailyssa clenched her jaw as he moved the neckline of her smock and nipped at the muscle leading to her shoulder. She endured without noise or comment.

The man’s breath became short and hard. Teeth and lips and tongue made their way back and forth between her shoulder and her ear, a moan sounding in the back of his throat. His weight pushed more firmly on the bed, shifting her closer to him. Ailyssa held tight to the edge of the mattress. After a moment, his lips parted from her flesh with a wet smack and he leaned away.

“What’s your name?” he asked, voice filled with breathy lust.

“Ailyssa.”

“Well, Ay-lissa, it’s your turn to put your hands on me. I didn’t give up a perfectly good goat to see how your neck tastes.”

Like any Mother, Ailyssa was no stranger to couplings. In fact, given her circumstances, she assumed she’d been subjected to the coupling ceremony more than most. Never had she touched a man to offer him pleasure in any way—the Goddess forbade it because men were not worthy of such treatment.

This is not Olvana.

She relinquished her grip on the edge of the bed and reached out with a tremorous hand, struggling to keep her fingers from shaking. The man held his breath, waiting as her hand hung in the air between them. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips. He must have been watching her face because he moaned at the sight.