Zofiya swallowed, closed her eyes and thought back to her first visit to the Temple in Delmaire. When she concentrated hard, she could recall that moment of utter acceptance, complete love and being part of something —when in her parents’ eyes she was merely a spare. Clutching onto that memory, she was able to go forward into the shadows.
The Temple was very sparse, the focus being an unadorned bowl of silver buried in the floor. It was ten feet wide, and worshippers had floated fragrant flowers on its still surface. The scent was exhilarating and somehow steadied her.
She reached the stairs and climbed up to the altar—but in the proper way—on her knees. Finally she began to smile as the warmth of her faith began to wrap itself around her. With hesitation dissolving, Zofiya stretched out her hand and dipped it into the water. It was icy cold. She pressed her wet fingertips to her own mouth and let the water enter her.
Climbing to her feet, Zofiya did what all worshippers of Hatipai would have considered blasphemy—she stepped into the font itself. Now her body was given over to the goddess. Now she could do what was required of her.
For the longest moment it felt like nothing was going to happen, and then a loud groan filled the room, mechanical and deep, from somewhere below her. Water began to drain out of the font as a crack appeared around the rim. It was pouring into a hidden space, while the altar itself began to come apart. Dust and stale air billowed up from below, making Zofiya cough and splutter—very unflattering in the house of her goddess.
When it finally cleared, she could see a spiral staircase that was thick with dirt and could have been a thousand years old. For all she knew, it was. Dripping with holy water, Zofiya steppd out of the font and onto the stairs. They creaked under her weight, but the light, supple metal, apart from being dirty, felt strong. As she walked down deeper, she saw that the stairs were in fact hanging from silvery chains, yet she could see no sign of a mechanism.
None of this looked like the work of a goddess, and the faint carvings on the interior of the staircase walls were unfamiliar. Zofiya didn’t quite understand what her goddess was asking of her, why she could not send someone else down here.
Finally the Grand Duchess reached the bottom. Lights flickered and then sprang to life, illuminating the room with a blue gleam that unnerved her a little. She had danced beneath the red glow of chandeliers in the palace of Vermillion and lived her life by the amber flicker of candles and lanterns—what she had never done was see any sort of blue light in her life.
The room smelled of linseed oil, and the air was sharp in her nostrils. The only experience she could compare it to was the time she had spent in Tinkers’ Lane, watching the construction of the engines for her brother’s newest airship. The heavily guarded mysteries of the Guild of Tinkers had fascinated her. Yet, merely by looking around, Zofiya knew that this place was far older than anything she had seen in Vermillion—except for the prison from which she’d helped the angel escape.
Then, warmth and her goddess’ voice had carried her on, insulating her from the strangeness of that place. However, now she was alone, shivering in a room that was bone-achingly cold and strange. The wall was carved with numerals and figures and, under her fingertips, felt metallic. The light was coming from the eyes of the people depicted, each of them a piece of blue glass. Yet the pictures were similar to the ones in the palace. People crying out in terror as the Revelation of the Otherside began, the Season of Supplication—but this time there were no other gods represented—just Hatipai.
The people crying out this time were obviously citizens of Chioma, with their high headdresses and sumptuously draped clothes. The artisan who had made this was incredibly skilled at capturing the anguish in the people’s faces and postures. Except for one.
Zofiya stood frowning for a moment. A central figure stood in the middle of the almost prostrate crowd—but where they were bent and knotted in fear, he was erect, proud, looking directly up at the representation of Hatipai.
Unconsciously, one of the Grand Duchess’ hands stole to her throat, because two things disturbed her greatly. That man, carved with such drama and precision, was unfamiliar, but he wore something she had read of. The mysterious headdress of the Prince of Chioma had been widely reported. She had learned of this ruler who rarely traveled beyond his own borders and whose face was never seen.
In the frieze the artist had depicted the headdress in great detail and embellished it with the different colored clear glass so it fairly blazed in contrast to the other parts of the image.
The second detail that caused a deep frown in the forehead of the Grand Duchess was the depiction of her goddess. This was nothing like the images in the Temple above. This Hatipai was a nightmare, her hair flying wide like a nest of angry vipers, and long, predatory teeth visible in a mouth that was spread wide—yet she knew it was her goddess because of the symbol hanging about her.
Words were written beneath, obviously words, but not any that Zofiya—even with a royal education—could understand. A lost language; it had to be. It was terribly frustrating, and she made a de. Thehat when she got aboveground, there would be scholars questioned rather vigorously.
As in Vermillion, she followed the frieze around to the end of the chamber. Here the image was stranger still. The Prince of Chioma was shown wrestling with the nightmare vision of Hatipai, and it looked as if he was pulling something off her. Zofiya leaned forward, until her breath was fogging the cold metal.
It looked as if the Prince was struggling to rip a cowl or perhaps the skin from her goddess. The people of Chioma were shown screaming, clapping their hands to their ears, their mouths in a terrible rictus of pain.
“What is that?” she muttered to herself as her fingertips hovered inches from the metal.
A loud clank echoed through the chamber, and Zofiya leapt back. It was a display of fear that she was glad none of her Imperial Guard had to witness.
The light in the chamber grew brighter, the eyes of the people beaming out at her, and things were shifting. Just beyond the light, the sound of metallic rattling made her wonder if some metal giant was stirring.
The whispering began: soft, insistent and growing louder by the moment. Zofiya took another step and looked around her but was unable to see where the sound was coming from. It could not be that there were people in the chamber with her, but perhaps it was the whispering of shades trapped in this awful place.
She was no Deacon, had no weaponry that would possibly harm a geist—but she had the faith of her goddess burning inside her, and her goddess had told her to come here. So Zofiya stood still in the middle of the chamber and waited for whatever was to come, to come.
Gradually the sound of the whispers began to resolve into languages that Zofiya knew. As well as Imperial she could make out at least ten familiar native tongues. Her heart was chilled by what they were saying.
Her spine straightened as the cold of the room began to change to an ominous warmth, and her hand clenched around her sword hilt. However, there was nothing to strike, no threat that she could identify—just a feeling of doom sweeping toward her out of the untapped darkness.
Throwing back her shoulders, she spoke as loudly and as firmly as she remembered her father speaking from his throne in distant Delmaire. “I am Grand Duchess Zofiya Nobylchuin. My father is King of Delmaire, my brother the crowned Emperor of Arkaym, and I am second in line to the throne of the Empire.”
It was true. All of it. Yet she had never really considered that last part, until she had yelled it into the black. Zofiya stood there panting, for that moment forgetting her fear of this chamber and instead remembering her brother’s strange looks, the murmured conversations in the Court when she passed by, and finally particular attention several of the Dukes had been paying her.
She and her brother were all that there was of a very shaky new dynasty on the throne. Both of them had to marry and produce heirs—immediately. For that same moment Hatipai, the strange room, and her mission evaporated. Her brother had been concealing something behind that ever-present smile. Had she been so busy protecting him that she had noticed nothing else? It was a terrible wounding thought that froze her in place.
