Page 70 of In the Ravenous Dark
You, whom darkness has kissed the most, I can’t help but remember the shadow priest saying.
“I gave a lot back to you when I… you know,” he adds, shifting awkwardly. Awkwardly for him, at least, which still looks like a dance somehow, even amid all the skulls. Wreathed in flowers, wreathed in bones, Ivrilos stands apart from it all. “More than I should have. There are pathways open between us now that shouldn’t be. That’s why I didn’t have much to give you during your sparring match.” The apology in his tone is a small knife, stabbing me. “I think I’mstillgiving, without realizing it.”
And he’s not taking, like he normally would.
“It’s okay,” I force myself to say. Force myself to ignore thathemight not be okay. Force myself to twist the knife. “If it’s too much for you we can try to figure something out later, but I’m fine.” I hope I am. “I need to go. Keep resting. We’ll just be a moment.”
I turn away from him quickly, because I can’t stand to see his expression anymore. It’s a little tired, a little pained, a little lost. It’s like he’s trying to reach out to me, and I’m smacking his hand away.
Lydea and Japha have twin “you’d better explain” looks on their faces, but they continue down the hall without another word. They obviously don’t want to speak in front of Ivrilos, and they don’t know if he’s gone. I don’t know, either, because I refuse to look back as I follow them.
I refocus on our purpose here. Finding Delphia, learning fromher, and eventually getting her—and the rest of us—out of this city. None of that has anything to do with Ivrilos.
We walk the rest of the way in heavy silence, the jawless skulls around us somehow adding to the weight of it.
“It should be just in here,” Lydea murmurs, reaching the black door at the end of the hall.
Delphia should be just in here.
And she is, as we open the door onto a strange, dim room. The glasslike walls are all dressed in black. The only furnishing, if you can call it that, marring the equally smooth, dark floor is a raised stone slab. Luckily there’s not a body on it. Only a lone sconce burns on one wall, casting barely enough light to see by. This room is much like the one I found myself in—or at least my spirit in—when I was first bound to Ivrilos. Delphia’s cloud of white hair is like a torch in the darkness, even half-tucked in the cowl of her death shroud. Her silver eyes are wide.
Because she isn’t alone. Two girls stand with her—one at either shoulder, as if she’s pinned between them—on the other side of the stone slab. It’s as if they want a barrier between us and them. I recognize the first girl immediately. Even in her death shroud she looks more like a warrior, shoulders squared, face set. Crisea. The second takes me far longer to place, because of the dark circles under her eyes, her pallid skin no longer sun-kissed, her lank hair like wheat that’s dying instead of thriving, and the iron collar crawling in spirals up her throat as if already reaching to cover her face.
Bethea.
And she doesn’t look happy to see me.
23
Lydea, Japha, and I freeze in the doorway to the strange, dark room. We’ve been expecting—hoping—that Delphia would be here, while planning to ease Crisea into talking to us if she would tolerate it. But we never expected to find both of them. And definitely not Bethea.
Japha and Lydea don’t even know her, I realize. Of course. How could they? My two lives are colliding in this windowless room with no escape.
“What’s going on here?” Lydea snaps, closing the door quickly behind us.
Delphia tries to move around the stone slab toward us, but Crisea places a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Shouldn’t we be asking you that?” Bethea demands. She keeps the stone slab firmly between us. “This is our temple.”
“And alovelyone it is,” Japha says, tossing a hand at the glassy black walls. They pause. “Who the hell are you?”
Bethea shakes her head. Her neck is chafed under the iron collar, and her throat sounds scratchy. “Again, I’m not the one who owes the answers. You trespass here under a false purpose. You’re leading our acolyte astray. Who do you think you are?”
“I’m your princess, you wretch,” Lydea declares, sounding every bit as royal as she is, “and that’s my sister you have there. My cousin, too,” she adds, “if she still recognizes me.”
Crisea’s set expression deepens into a scowl, but she doesn’t say anything. And she still doesn’t let Delphia approach us.
Bethea shrugs. Even her shoulders look bonier than I remember. “In death, we’re all made of the crone’s breath.”
Lydea bares teeth that look sharp between her red lips. “Are you telling me you want to die?”
“Are you threatening me, an acolyte studying death magic in the grandest temple of death?” Bethea scoffs. “You’re lucky I haven’t turned you in already.”
“Now, now,” Japha says hastily. They slide to stand in front of the stone slab as if it’s a negotiation table. “There’s no need to threaten anyone. We’re only here to speak with the shades of our illustrious family, and we invited Delphia aspartof that family. We didn’t mean to break any rules. Right, Delphia, dearest?”
Delphia looks between us desperately. “I—” Her voice breaks. “She caught me with one of your notes.”
“I only said we wanted to meet you here,” Lydea supplies quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
