“Gemma,” Tollan said, bending down to help her up. Her eyes were glassy and her pupils were very large. A stream of blood ran down her forehead. “We’ve got to get out of here. The tunnel’s coming down.”
He held his hand out to her, but she waved him off and in an instant she was on her feet. “I’m all right,” she said, though she wavered a little. She thrust her chin toward Wince. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He can’t see,” Tollan said, taking Wince’s arm. “I don’t know what happened.”
“I do,” she said, running fingers along her scalp. She grimaced as they came away crimson. “Ugh. Head injuries bleed like a virgin.” She wiped her fingers on her breeches. “Wince, close your eyes, press the heels of your palms against your lids and count to ten. It’ll help.”
Wince followed her instructions.
“And for goddess’ sake,” she said, reaching for her satchel, “take a deep breath. We’re going to be all right.” She groaned as she bent to pick up her pack but waved Tollan off when he tried to help her.
She took Tollan by the shoulders, turned him around and looked at his back. “Huh. Worked better than I thought it would. Nice work, Wince. You can put your shirt back on, Your Grace.” She patted Tollan’s shoulder and said, “We’ve got to get out of these tunnels before they come down around our ears.” By the time Wince removed his hands from his eyes, she was grinning.
“What’s going on, Gemma?” Tollan asked, though he followed her advice and picked up the shirt that lay discarded on the tunnel floor.
“How’s that?” She asked, taking Wince by the hand.
Irritation flared within Tollan at the way that Gemma ignored his question.
“Maybe a little better,” Wince said. “I can see some shapes, now.”
Another tremor shook the tunnel, and small bits of rubble peppered the floor around them.
“Good—it was just a flashbang. Things will be fuzzy for a while, but no permanent damage. We don’t have time to waste, though. Follow me.”
Gemma took the candle from Tollan, and he followed the bobbing, flickering flame. Wince held tightly to Tollan’s elbow. The tunnel was dusty, and occasionally, a plant root twisted and writhed through the tunnel ceiling or wall, lending a greater sense of urgency to their already fast pace. Tollan trembled as he walked, sure that the earth was going to crumble in on them and his final moments would be choked with stone and blood.
“Where are we …” Tollan croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Where are we going, Gemma? And what are those plants?”
She stopped and stared at him in exasperation. “We’re going to Canticle Center,” she said. Somehow, her breath was not uneven despite the rapid pace they’d set. “And I have no idea what those plants are or where they’re coming from, but this whole tunnel reeks of magic. Do you have any other questions that are more important than getting out of here before there’s a cave-in?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
CANTICLE CENTER
Before long, Tollan found himself being led into a hallway that ended abruptly. Gemma stopped and ran her fingertips along the wall then turned and said, “We’re here,” gesturing to the blank wall behind her. “Try to keep your heads down. The first part is a bit of a gauntlet. When we find Brother Elam, it’ll get better. We’ll talk inside,” she said, and she pressed her hand against Tollan’s arm for an instant. She blew out the candle.
He tried to watch what she did in the dim light, but her hands slid rapidly into hidden cracks and crevices, and before he knew it, a wide section of the wall was sliding aside. She waved them in after her, and they stepped into a small, poorly lit storage room.
Gemma pressed her body against Tollan’s and his back pushed to Wince’s front as she flipped the invisible switch that slid the stone panel closed behind them. “Hello there,” she whispered breathily.
He wished in that moment he could say something witty—something smart and funny and a little crude. Something that Wince would say. Instead, he stared at her, tongue-tied, trying to ignore his unease. A lifetime as royalty apparently gave one very little to go on in the jesting-when-bodies-are-pressed-together department. Instead, he averted his gaze and blushed.
He tried to make sense of what had happened in the Under, but the last thing he remembered before waking up in the tunnel was Gemma very inelegantly spitting on his …
“Prick me,” he mumbled.
“Come on.” She laughed as she flung open the pantry door and strode up a set of stairs into Canticle Center as if she owned the place.
They wove in and out of corridors, passing statues of Aegos in all her forms. The goddess never slept, but it seemed that her temple did. Tollan had never been in this section of the church, but given the serene décor and the silent nature of the rooms they passed, he assumed they were in an area of the temple known as the Head.
Just like Yigris, the goddess Aegos had an Above and an Under. Aegos wore two faces—the mindful, peaceful mother, cerebral and beneficent; and the vital, sanguine lover and warrior, carnal and fierce. The Head was where the prayer keepers meditated, prayed and sought the goddess’s wisdom and light. The main, public, temple was called the Heart—where the people of Yigris came to seek the enlightenment of Aegos, as well as the blessings of the prayer keepers. There was also a hospit within the Heart, and a school for the children of the craftsmen and shopkeepers of Merchant Row and Brighthold.
Soon, Tollan began to recognize areas of the Heart. Though the royal family had a private temple within the palace, some public ceremonies required their attendance at Canticle Center. His memory conjured images of the singing, dancing and stories that had inspired faith in him as a lad, the air heavy with incense, and his father’s boredom. He was struck by a memory of his mother swaying to the sensual music—her face alight with a joy he rarely saw. A powerful sense of familiarity surged within him. This was the place where he belonged, he controlled. This was the place where things were as they should be, a part of his history, not a part of his city that he’d never even entered before.
They passed through the large ceremonial hall, silent and empty of inhabitants, and moved down a corridor that branched off into private worship rooms. Gemma led them down the hallway through empty schoolrooms and past the stretch of pallets and cots filled with sleeping patrons of the hospit, where the sick and injured of Yigris came for healing. They passed below an archway painted bright red, then took a long set of stairs down into a distinctly separate section of the temple that consisted of dozens of small offices.
People bustled around as if it were broad daylight. Men and women sat at long nondescript tables laden with coins of all denominations, counting and tallying.
“Gentlemen,” Gemma said, grinning over her shoulder, “welcome to the Slit.”
Gemma watched with glee as Tollan’s eyes grew round in his face. She knew she shouldn’t enjoy tormenting the young monarch quite so much, but the extent of his innocence was something that she had never in her eighteen years encountered. She thought he was probably only a year younger than she, but she’d bet a week’s honeycakes that he was still a virgin. And so it was with no small amount of pleasure that she led Tollan and Wince into the depths of the church, where the prayer keepers not only maintained the largest bank in all of Yigris and trained an elite military unit—the Ain—but they also maintained an exclusive society of the most exotic sex worker priests in the Four Winds, the Dalinn.
Wince drew in a breath beside her. “Praise Aegos.”
Tollan squared his shoulders and held his neck straight. He sighed. “Lead the way, Gemma.”