The Shadow's heir

“Laela!”

She started. “What?”

“I nearly forgot-ye’re supposed to go to the Moon Temple after lunch.”

“What? Why?”

“So ye can start learnin’ about the Night God,” said Yorath. “There should be a priestess waitin’ for ye up in yer room-hurry up there, they don’t like to be kept waitin’.”

Laela cursed and darted off.

Sure enough, when she entered her room, she found a woman sitting by the fireside with a slightly bored expression.

The woman rose when Laela came in, saying, “There ye are. I was about to come looking for ye.”

Laela smoothed down her skirts. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get told yeh were here until just now.”

The woman shrugged. “There’s no great hurry. I’m Aderyn. And ye would be Laela, the half-breed?”

Laela growled. “Yeah. Do I go to the Temple with yeh?”

“Yes.” Aderyn was already moving toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Her new companion, who was stoutly built and looked about thirty, took Laela down the endless ramps and stairs to the ground floor of the Eyrie, where an impressively large door took them out of the building. Laela hadn’t come this way before and looked around with interest as they crossed the open courtyard to the outer wall. The gates set into it had a pair of alert and well-armed guards stationed on either side of it, but they stood aside immediately when they saw the priestess coming, and she and Laela passed out and into the city.

It looked different in the light of day, and Laela thought it looked friendlier, too, now that she was more or less one of its citizens.

Aderyn walked briskly toward a building that Laela saw almost instantly, mostly because it was the largest one in the city that wasn’t the Eyrie. It had a domed roof and looked much like one of the Sun Temples in the South. Laela had never been inside any sort of Temple before, and she felt deeply excited to be going into one now. The fact that the Night God was said to be a cruel and savage deity only added an extra thrill.

The doors had been carved with a massive triple spiral that had been inlaid with silver, and the handles were also spirals-double spirals, in this case, made from what looked like bronze. Aderyn grasped one and pulled one of the doors open.

She gestured at Laela. “Go in.”

Laela hesitated ever so briefly on the threshold. Gryphus is your god, her memory whispered. To flirt with any other god-even to enter a heathen temple-is to risk the corruption of your soul by evil.

She took a deep breath and went in.

Inside, the Temple was dark-but not gloomy. There was light in there, but it was dim and cool, and she quickly spotted the blue glass lamps that produced it.

She had an impression of the enormous space around her, and she saw the strange pillars made to look like trees. The floor was covered in a mosaic of leaves of all kinds, picked out here and there with silver and chunks of crystal. It was like standing in a forest, but an otherwordly forest. Perhaps a forest in the afterlife.

A memory came to her without any warning-a memory of her dream of Gryphus, in the field of flowers and sunlight, and she had the strange but absolute certainty that while Gryphus had his sunlit meadow, this moonlit forest belonged to Scathach.

In its way, it was just as beautiful.

Aderyn came up behind her. “What do ye think of it, Laela?”

“It’s incredible,” said Laela, and she meant it.

The woman smiled for the first time since they’d met. “It took our people nearly ten years to make. This was a heathen temple once. Built by sun worshippers. When we took this city, we took the temple, too, and remade it to serve the Night God. There has never been a Temple like this for her.”

“Really?” said Laela, genuinely surprised.

“Yes.” Aderyn nodded. “In the past, we worshipped the Night God in the open air, under the stars. Our temples were stone circles, built by our ancestors long ago. When the sun worshippers came, they knocked down our stones and commanded our people never to worship the Night God again. Those of us who defied them were burned alive.”

Laela shuddered. “Why? What’d they done that was so wrong?”

“The Day God hates our people, and our beautiful god,” Aderyn said solemnly. “To follow her is to be his enemy. He commanded his followers to destroy us. They were our oppressors for centuries, until the Night God sent her greatest follower to us. Her warrior.” She smiled. “The Master of Death, blessed by the Night God and given her power. He destroyed the Southerners in her name, and set Tara free.”

“Tara?”

“The North’s true name,” said Aderyn, sounding slightly annoyed at the interruption. “We were given this land by the Night God, and now we have it again, and the Shadow That Walks rules over us, as she commanded.”

The King, Laela thought.

“Now,” Aderyn went on. “Come with me, and I will show ye the altar.”

They went to the middle of the floor, where a circle of upright stones had been arranged in a ring. Laela, looking at them, instantly realised what was going on-the Temple’s interior had been decorated to look like a forest, and here was the stone circle that would have been erected at its centre. They had built a new Temple to recreate the old.

In the middle of the stone circle was the altar, which was covered in spiral patterns and had a silver bowl set into its top.

“This altar is where the High Priestess, Saeddryn, comes every night to offer our prayers to the Night God,” Aderyn explained. “And on very special occasions, the King himself comes here. He came here only a few days ago, on the night of the Blood Moon, to make the offering of blood.”

“He told me the Night God needs blood to survive,” Laela volunteered.

Aderyn nodded. “True. Now, the King has commanded for ye to learn the ways of the Night God, but first I must ask ye some questions.”

“All right.”

The priestess gave her a slightly irritated look. “Ye are a half-breed,” she said bluntly.

“Yeah,” said Laela, trying to sound polite.

“How were ye conceived?” said Aderyn. “Who was yer mother, and who was yer father?”

Laela reddened. She almost snapped at the woman. “My father raped my mother,” she said stiffly. “My mother was a Southerner livin’ in the North, an’ my father was a darkman criminal.”

“What was his name?” said Aderyn, unmoved. “Do ye know?”

“No,” said Laela. “All I know is he got out of prison an’ died tryin’ to escape.” An’ good riddance to him.

“What clan was he from?”

Laela looked blank. “What?”

“What clan was he from?” Aderyn repeated patiently. “Do ye know?”

“No,” said Laela. “What do yeh mean, clan?”

“There are four clans,” said Aderyn. “Once, there were others, but they were lost, and only four are left. Bear, Wolf, Crow, and Deer.”

“Oh, all right,” said Laela. “What does that have to do with anythin’?”

“The fact that yer father was a Northerner means that ye, too, are a Northerner,” said Aderyn. “Since ye were born out of wedlock, ye should be glad, half-breed. If it had been yer mother who was a Northerner, ye could not be initiated. Now, if ye knew what clan yer father was from, ye would become part of that clan when ye were initiated. But since ye don’t know. .”

Laela wanted to hit her. “What does that mean?”

“It means ye’ll have to find out which clan ye should be part of. Tell me, do ye know what phase of the moon it was when ye were born?”

“No.”