Athan’s brow knit together and his mouth opened to speak, but Elder Rellius called quietly to them from a doorway. “This way.”
“Yes, Elder,” Athan replied respectfully. “Sorry for tarrying.”
“Never apologize for lingering within the presence of the gods, dear boy,” Rellius said with a patient smile. “Though, I would advise to not linger so closely to that one. Many have become lost within His shadow, tempted by the secrets He holds. But see, there, how He offers those secrets with an open hand whilst holding a dagger in the other? When wandering close to Demroth, one must always remember that His offerings always come at a price, and it is a price most men cannot bear to pay.”
Athan nodded at the elder’s words then headed for the open doorway. He stopped there, waiting for Dnara as the priest moved on. She stood, staring at the offered, empty hand, wondering what secrets it held and what price Demroth expected in return. This craven, broken man covered in ragged robes was so far from the Shadow King she’d read about. Then, she noticed the chained shackles clamped around his bony ankles, above bare feet walking on harshly carved, jagged stone. The circle of flesh beneath the scarf around her neck stung.
“Dnara?” Athan called softly to her. “We should keep up. It’s a maze of halls and rooms back here, and Elder Rellius is fast for his age.”
Tearing her eyes away from the shackles, she looked to Athan’s easy smile and waiting, open hand. Leaving the faceless god behind, she took Athan’s hand and accepted his guidance down a long hallway lit on one side by leaded windows. Their quickened footsteps were tempered by slate floors, and they reached Elder Rellius as he turned down another long corridor, this one’s stone walls broken by countless wooden doors. One door had been left ajar, and Dnara caught a passing glimpse of a man wearing a brown robe, kneeling in silent reflection before an open book. For a moment, it reminded her of the hours she would spend in her room in the tower, engrossed in the pages of a book she’d snuck back from her keeper’s library, alone and in silence but for the stories and secrets each page revealed. The main difference, she supposed, between her and the faithful monk was that she had been unable to leave the tower, and he was free to go, wasn’t he?
“This way,” Elder Rellius directed. “Just up these steps.”
The stone staircase spiraled upwards along a narrow passage, the climb made easier by handholds cut into the outer wall which had been worn smooth by countless hands. One small window of bubbly frosted glass illuminated the path with a somber hue and glossed over heavy script carved into each riser. Dnara, going last, trailed behind a bit to read each word as Athan’s foot stepped on the matched tread.
Kindness. Charity. Humility. Courage. Piety.
All but the last seemed to fit his character. He’d questioned the existence of the gods, calling them regular people who had held great power and had become legends who had become gods through nothing but the passage of time and the retellings of man. No, she most certainly wouldn’t call Athan a pious man, at least not in the sense that the carver probably intended.
“What’s so funny?” he asked as he reached the landing and found her several steps behind with a smirk on her lips.
“Nothing.” She swallowed the grin and hopped up the remaining steps. “Just a passing thought.”
“A good one, I hope?”
“Yes,” she answered, having decided that Athan’s questioning of the gods was akin to her learning to question all she’d read from books. “I believe so.”
“Almost there,” Rellius said and motioned down the hallway that greeted them at the top of the stairs. “Third door on the left.”
Like all the others, the door was closed. Rellius knocked softly before opening, warning whoever waited within of the impending intrusion. As Rellius and Athan stepped inside without hesitation, Dnara stopped at the threshold before a beam of light cutting across the floor from a tightly shut window. The air beyond that beam of light felt oppressive, stale and scented with a sickly sweet aroma Dnara couldn’t quite give a name to. From the room came movement, shifting bedsheets and a wordless keening that preceded a moist cough.
“Please, come in and shut the door,” Rellius requested with a gentle motion of his hand. “The cool air from the hallway aggravates the cough.”
“Sorry,” Dnara apologized and quickly did as asked, but upon shutting the door her heart became unsettled in the stagnant, enclosed cage the room had become.
“This... this is her?” a balding man of thin stature and prominent nose asked Rellius with distress heavy in his words. The man’s darkly ringed eyes were red from sleeplessness and stared at Dnara in disappointment. “B-but... she is but a child, no older than my Elizabeth.”
“Tis true,” Rellius said, setting a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder. “But remember the words of the Blessed Mother. With our children, lies our hope.”
“Blessed be the words of Faedra,” the man recited, as if having said it habitually a hundred thousand times. He closed his tired eyes, drew in a long breath then reopened them. “Forgive my doubt, Elder, but I fear my hope lays there, in this bed, slowly dying.”
“I know.” Rellius squeezed the man’s shoulder. “In the absence of hope, we must have faith, Darrius. Faith that the gods have sent to us a way to renew our hope.”
When the man gave a small nod and Rellius moved aside, Athan stepped forward. “Mayor Whitehall, sir, I’m Athan. Athan Ateiros.”
“The forester, yes,” Darrius held out his hand and
