House of Eclipses by Casey L. Bond

21

The priest was the only one who likely had the answers to the questions churning through my mind.

“Of course,” Caelum said.

“I’d like to change first. Then would you see me to his room?”

Caelum nodded. “I’ll wait outside.”

He stepped outside and I trudged to my trunks to find a less conspicuous dress, settling on a deep teal gown that tied at the back of my neck and back and had deep pockets. The book safely ensconced within, I tested the ties to make sure they were tight. The pleated fabric fell to my ankles. Shedding my sandals, I walked barefoot from the room.

Caelum’s gaze traveled over me and my phoenix smiled. He handed me a key. “So you don’t get any other uninvited guests.”

“You mean, so my sister can’t slip in and kill me as I sleep.”

“I will ask Beron to keep a close eye on her.”

Beron.I still had so many questions, but they’d have to wait for another time.

Caelum and I walked the flights to the bottom floor where we walked down a long hallway, passing a room large enough to hold three of the great halls of the House of Dusk, a library with more books than I could read in a lifetime, small dining rooms, sitting rooms, and finally, a few bedrooms at the end near the kitchens.

“Each of these rooms have fireplaces. I hated to ask him to walk so far,” Caelum explained, “but I thought he would be more comfortable here.”

“Thank you.”

I knew which room I would find him in when a harsh cough sounded from within. Easing the door open, I peeked inside. Warmth from a popping fire filled the air and cast a soft orange light over the room.

There were two twin beds, one empty and undisturbed. Saric lay in the other.

Kiran sat in a comfortable-looking chair by Saric’s side. He straightened when he noticed me, then Caelum. Saric looked incredibly weak. Tired. The type of tired that couldn’t be cured with rest or herbs, but only by the solace that the hereafter provided the aged. His body was deteriorating rapidly.

Several blankets were tucked around his frail frame. A bout of coughing overwhelmed him even as he tried to wave me in, barely able to lift the hand he’d stuck out of the pile of blankets.

“I’ll see that you aren’t disturbed,” Caelum said quietly.

“Thank you,” I whispered, then eased the door closed behind me.

Kiran rose. “Atena. Please, take my seat.”

I shook my head, then padded to the bed and eased onto the edge, careful not to disturb the elder priest. “I want to sit closer,” I told him.

Saric extended his hand from the blanket’s edge and I took it in mine. “I waited for you,” he said. “To say goodbye.” His skin was so brittle and cold. Tears sprang into my eyes. “Do not cry, Noor,” he rasped.

I couldn’t help it, much less stop them from flowing. “Did you know what was in the book I stole from him?” I asked.

Saric nodded. “Not the words, but the content. Yes.”

I looked to Kiran. Had he known?

“I just told him,” Saric said, squeezing my hand. “You’re so warm. Like her.”

More tears fell. They splashed onto my dress and his blanket, spotting the fabric.

“I knew Sol well. When she walked the earth, she often came to the temple and spent time with her priests. Seeing her wearing flesh was something I never expected when I pledged my life to her, but it was a gift I’ll never forget. Her presence was indescribable. Overwhelming. Awe-inspiring. And she loved you. She loved you so much, Noor. She did not want to leave you behind, but taking you with her meant that you would die. She couldn’t bring herself to snuff out the life she wanted you to have. She wanted this destiny for you, even if it meant leaving you with him and subject to his undeniable anger. She knew you were strong enough to withstand his fury.”

“Does he know what I’ll become when I turn seventeen?”

“He sent you to the dusk lands, and to Lumina, with the hope that if Sol can’t reach you, she cannot transform you… Or so I led him to believe.”

My mouth fell open. “You lied to him?”

“I lied for you,” he wheezed. “Your mother made me promise to watch over you. To do what I could to fend him off and divert his attention elsewhere. For years, I managed it, but his anger grew despite my best efforts. The morning of Joba’s departure… I thought he might kill you before your birthday. There was murder in his eyes.”

I remembered how he’d interrupted Father while we were in the riverfarer’s cabin.

“Why does she have to wait for my seventeenth birthday? It’s an arbitrary day.” And so close now. What did it matter?

He shook his head. “Your transformation began when you drew your first breath, Noor. Her blood runs through your veins, but when you come of age, she will replace it with her fire. At birth, you were lit. Now, you are kindling. Soon, you will know what it is to burn. Your body must be ready to contain it.”

“Will I survive the blaze?”

Saric gave a weak smile. “Of course you will.”

He stared at me as if remembering the day he walked with me into the sand, carrying her ash and bones. Surely if I could survive that, nothing would break me. Every time Father tried to beat me down, he built me into something stronger and more indestructible. A vessel worthy enough to carry not only my mother’s blood, but her incendiary power.

I clutched my chest as a feeling of dread drenched the phoenix inside. She shrieked from the dousing, steam wafting from her wings. “He knows you lied, Saric. I burned him. At the House of Dusk, the night of the ball, Father grabbed my wrist. I thought he would snap my bones. The fire bubbled up and I used it against him. He knows I have a fraction of her power, even away from her.”

My stomach turned. Even before the night I burned him, he saw the fire in my eyes and the melted chair arms. He knew. He’d always known.

Saric nodded his head weakly. “He did know. That’s why he came to me for guidance. That’s when I told him that the greater distance you were from Sol, the more it would stifle what you are to inherit. I told him you wouldn’t be as great a threat if you came of age in Lumina.” Saric squeezed my hand. “It doesn’t matter that he knows of my lie. I won’t live long enough to see him again, and Sol will make it clear that his attempt to stifle you was in vain. I only wish I could live to see the moment she strips him of all his powers. She couldn’t do it before because he had you. He used you to manipulate Sol, because he knew how much she loved you. Sol wouldn’t have survived if he had hurt or killed you. She would have exploded, and the entire earth would have died from her fire.”

“I’m worried for Vada and Lumos’s priests,” I admitted. “If she strips his power while they’re there…”

Kiran glanced at me. “He won’t kill them. He’ll use them against you, first. Then he will try to use them to sway Caelum from your side.”

Not if the riverfarer smuggles them out of Helios and we send a ship to the dusk lands to carry them back to their home…

I looked at my friend, holding his rusty eyes. “If I write a letter, can you take it to Caelum? I trust only you, Kiran.”

He nodded. “Of course, Atena.”

The Luminans had outfitted their desk the same as they had the one in my room. I took a piece of parchment and gripped the quill in my hand. I thrust the nib into a dark pot of ink and let my warning flow in whorls and swoops. Saric fell asleep as the ink dried.

I could tell Kiran did not want to leave him, but I also knew I had to be here when he passed. “I’ll stay with him,” I whispered.

“I’ll hurry,” he promised, taking the folded parchment. He eased the door closed behind us and Saric’s eyes fluttered back open.

“Will you guide me to Sol, Noor?”

“How?”

The hand Kiran had held rose and he pointed at his chest. “Let it guide you. Always. You are connected to your mother by far more than blood and fire.”

Kiran returned, worried eyes scanning his brother. Saric gave him a tired smile, his breaths too shallow as he told him, “I have to go now, Kiran. Noor will see me home.”

A storm of sorrow built over the younger priest’s features, but he nodded, unable to speak.

I clasped Saric’s hand tightly as his breathing became labored and the length between his breaths stretched, until a soft gasp escaped his chest and it went still.

Kiran’s tear-filled eyes met mine. “Go with him, Noor.”

I closed my eyes, listened to my heart, and envisioned the sand.

A rush of heat fell over me as Saric and I walked into the dunes. He was as young as the day he’d helped carry my greatest burden, but I was no longer a child. He held my hand, walking in companionable silence up and over the hardened crests. Until we came to the sacred hill that I’d chosen that day…

I guided him to his place in the sand and he laid down, staring at Sol above us. I knelt beside him. “I’m ready, Noor,” he said with a voice so strong, it tore my heart in two. “Bring her near.”

When Joba was burned, she was dead. But this was different because in my mind, Saric was still alive.

“Send me to Sol. Send me to the hereafter, where I will fuel her fire for you, and for the many generations to come.”

I shook my head. “Not until you draw your last breath.”

It wasn’t long then. He accepted my terms. His breathing slowed, then stopped. I watched for his chest to move for many long moments and only when I was certain he was gone, I called for Sol.

Tears falling, I raised my hands to the sky, clutching at Mother’s face. I drew her closer, closer… until all of Saric burned away. None of him was deemed unacceptable to my mother.

Though I wasn’t actually touching her, it felt like it. In her brightness, my face shone back at me. Father had scarred her face the way he’d scarred me, but we not only survived, we would use that fire to incinerate him.

I felt her fire echo through me, and I knew in that moment, I would revel in my inheritance. This was my destiny. Saric was right.

That was why Father hated me and why, deep in his cinder heart, he feared me.

I released her and watched her rise.

Her bones, as well as the bones of the seven other women, shone white in the red-orange sand. That color stayed with me even as the vision faded. It was the same shade in Kiran’s worried eyes as he stood beside me. I was still curled on the edge of Saric’s bed, but he was gone. His blankets lay flat on the mattress.

“Noor?”

“I’m fine.”

He held me to his chest, clutched my head like it was a lifeline, and gently rocked side to side, crying.

I slid my hands around his lower back and held him while he mourned his friend, his mentor. His brother.

“Where did you take him?” he finally managed, slowly releasing his hold on me. He sank beside me, the mattress lifting me when his weight hit it.

“He is with Sol.”

“You took his body, Noor. Not only his spirit.”

I nodded. Somehow flesh and spirit had combined in the sand and I knew he was real, but spirit as well. A strange, beautiful mesh of the two. “I know.”

“I didn’t expect that,” he quietly said.

“I didn’t either.”

He scrubbed hands down his face.

“No part of him was found unacceptable, Kiran. Sol took him away from the sands. Through her, he burns for us now.”

“We can’t let him down,” he said. “Tell me what you need, and I will see that it’s done. I want to help you as you become what you were always meant to be.”

I took his hand and brushed my thumb over the back of it. “Thank you, friend.”

He swallowed thickly and inclined his head.

A soft knock came at the door. “Come in,” I said.

Caelum entered, his eyes darting to Kiran’s hand clasped in mine. “Is he gone?” he asked.

“How did you know?”

He cleared his throat. “Lumos felt Sol – as if she were here.”

“No, he didn’t,” Kiran croaked. “He felt Noor.”

Caelum looked over our shoulders, his brows pinching when he realized Saric was nowhere to be found.

“I took him home.”

His lips parted, but he didn’t press. The wound was too fresh, and Caelum kindly respected it. Something else I loved about him.

Kiran released my hand. “You should get some rest, Noor.”

I was incredibly tired. Exhausted, to be honest. “I don’t want to leave you alone like this,” I told my friend.

“But alone is what I need right now,” he gently told me.

My throat knotted again. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” he said, standing from Saric’s bed and waiting as I stood.

Caelum looked to Kiran. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“We’re supposed to rejoice,” Kiran answered, shaking his head. “But I can’t seem to muster the strength to be happy when my heart feels so heavy.”

“Then don’t be,” I chided. “You loved him. You have every right to mourn him.”

“You loved him, too,” he quietly replied.

I offered a small smile. “I did, and I do, and always will. Saric’s memory will live on through me, through the priesthood, and Sol, and through you, Kiran.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Thank you.”

Caelum and I left him alone. I hoped he meant it when he said he needed time and space and wasn’t just saying it for my benefit or Caelum’s, but I had no other choice but to trust him.

My feet felt like stone as they carried me to the tenth floor, Caelum resolute beside me. I stopped outside my door. “We need to talk, but tomorrow, please,” I said.

He nodded. “Rest well, sweet Noor.” He brushed a strand of my hair out of my face and placed a soft kiss on my lips.

It made my heart ache desperately, even though it felt like a balm to my fresh emotional wound.