Page 136 of Between Soul and Vessel
“Not tonight it isn’t,” Mercia replied. “Besides, haven’t you always wanted to see what the tower is like? I’ve lived here for two thousand years and I’ve never seen it. It could be the experience of a lifetime.”
Or the end of one if the empress smells a runaway in her midst, I thought to myself.
“Are you sure the empress wants all priestesses there?”
“Yes, she demands it.” Mercia’s brows pressed together. “I’m surprised by you, Avriel. Everyone is flocking to the tower to help her, and yet you aren’t even interested.” She raised a brow. “Do you have something better to do tonight?” Her eyes flicked past the door. “You wouldn’t be hiding a dirty secret in your room, would you? Perhaps,” she whispered with a playful smile, “one of the empress’s courtesans?”
“Don’t ever say that again,” I scolded her, my voice firm. “I would never do that to the empress. And I’ve takenan oath of celibacy, as all priestesses must do.”
“Sheesh, you bunch are so uptight. I’m only joking,” she said, a hand landing on her hip, which she popped to the side.
“Yes, well, it’s not funny. Jokes like that could get my soul crushed,” I hissed at her.
“I’m sorry, Avriel,” Mercia apologized. It felt genuine.
“It’s alright.” I sighed softly, realizing I didn’t really have a choice. If word got out that Mercia had asked me to come and I had decided not to go, even though the empress had requested it, that could arouse suspicions.
So, begrudgingly, I agreed to go.
Avriel
Mercia and I walked down a heavily guarded hallway, tucked in a part of the palace closed off to everyone but the empress and a handful of her most-trusted high priestesses. Oh, and Victor. Of course.
Doors groaned as they opened, and we stepped inside the tower. It possessed the same layout as the Creator’s Tower and was similarly sized, but in place of whirring tools and nightmarish screams, the space was as quiet as a library. There were shelves upon shelves full of small wood boxes—millionsof them.
“Thank you for coming,” Priestess Anna spoke in a hushed tone as she walked up to us, handing Mercia and me a piece of paper. On it was a painting of two souls. “This is what we are looking for.”
One of the orbs was purely gold with unique markings on it. I peered closer. It was a sun with a crown floatingabove it. The soul beside it was also gold, but it was full of maniacal claw marks, no rhyme or reason to them. In the claw marks were hints of red, reminding me of blood pooling into a wound.
Priestess Anna continued, her voice barely audible, “Both souls were placed in a golden box. The gold one with the sun on it was a recent addition to the Archive of Souls, added only two weeks ago. The other one has been here for a few hundred years. High Priestess Calandra took the box out so she could add the new soul to it, as the two are kin. She said she put it back in its designated spot, but the box is no longer there.”
“Who do the souls belong to?” Mercia quietly asked, tipping her head in curiosity.
“The empress hasn’t told us; however, she says it is imperative they are found. Every box must be gone through,” Priestess Anna replied.
“Has anyone found the gold box they were originally in?” I whispered, glancing up at the sky-scraping tower. Despite how many people were here, it would take us weeks to go through all the boxes, and I didn’t have weeks—I had until tomorrow, which meant the missing souls needed to be found tonight.
“No, the box hasn’t been found either,” Priestess Anna answered.
“So then why go througheverybox? Why not focus on looking for the missing gold one?”
“That’s a good question. Maybeyoushould go and ask the empress,” Priestess Anna stated somewhat sarcastically,a pointed look to her expression.
Internally, I sighed, her message loud and clear.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she whispered, bowing her head before she walked off to another group who had just arrived, handing them each a paper.
“I’m going to go start looking,” Mercia spoke softly before she, too, headed off.
So I did as well.
I picked a random row markedunsearchedand got to work.
Hours later, my back was stiff from bending over and my fingers felt like they had collected a permanent layer of dust—enough to make a second layer of skin, honestly. All the souls inside the boxes were beginning to look the same.
At this rate, we were going to be here for weeks doing this pointless task.
This palace was full of goddesses and priestesses, and this was what we were down to? Manually opening and closing boxes? Surely, there had to be a quicker way to go through them, but the empress had decided this was the best option—not that I could fathom why. She was sadistic—maybe this was her way of making us suffer.
