Page 74 of The Sundered Realms

Vhannor’s expression darkened, but he didn’t say anything. He just started walking again at a pace that suggested violence.

Liris and Shry exchanged a glance and followed.

Passing under the leaning buildings was unnerving, so Liris fixed her gaze in front of her. The streets weren’t paved—if they had been before the Sundering, it must have been easier to remove entirely rather than maintain upkeep. She didn’t smell sewage though, so someone must have taken responsibility for that. Lyedar residents were famously self-interested—who could that be?

The streets grew louder and more crowded as they passed through, and Liris focused on keeping an eye on Vhannor as he wended his way unerringly through the crowd, people moving out of his way where they jostled Liris if she wasn’t fast enough.

Liris ground her teeth. How long would she be chasing after him?

The streets sloped steeply, and Vhannor led the way up a flight of steps to an octagonal building with a pointed dome on top. Unlike most of the city, this one had a heavy door on it.

Her eyebrows rose when Vhannor banged it open, still without saying a word. She wasn’t sure how much of his ire was directed at her so decided not to risk prodding his mood and having it out with him until they’d done whatever he’d come for. Even Shry, who’d known him for years, was just going along, and Liris was happy to leave that conversation as long as possible.

Inside, thin burlap cushions were stacked near the door. The floor was tiled white with a brown star pattern, faded and chipped. Archways around four back walls led to different dark corridors—rather than opening the space with light, it was like they sucked all the light into them. Liris guessed this was a formerly wealthy person’s entryway that had been abandoned—and taken over.

Straight ahead of them at the back was a raised altar, an intricate black stone rendering of a scaled, fanged god she recognized as having nothing to do with its surroundings: stolen, then, and not for the purpose of worshipping it in any traditional way.

It was framed by black curtains on either side, about the only things besides the rendering in here that weren’t shabby. And in front of them was a large wooden block, atop which a man with a trailing black robe sat.

At the sound of Vhannor and Liris’ boots crossing the tile, he glanced over a shoulder and smiled lazily. “Well, well. My dear, I believe we’ll have to pick this up another time.”

He was decidedly not shabby: dark curly hair, square jaw with a well-trimmed beard, and an expression that reeked of sensuality. Liris had only once seen anything like the sheer pheromone punch that packed, from a specialized Serenthuar agent who’d visited during her training. She quickly affixed a faintly amused expression on her face: this man would likely be attuned to physical reactions and would pick at any that seemed entertaining.

By comparison, the willowy brunette who stood up from behind the wooden block was merely gorgeous. Her smile promised future favors as she bowed and made her way out through one of the back corridors without question or protest.

The robed man spun around on the table, displaying his robe more dramatically: it looped loosely around his neck and then split over the shoulders to leave his muscled arms and lightly haired, gleaming chest bare. He wore black pants so wide they looked almost like a skirt, and his feet were bare.

He ignored Vhannor and Liris to fix his smirk on Shry. “You disapprove, I take it?”

Oh dear. Either Shry didn’t know how to manage a man like this, or she didn’t care to.

Still, Liris was taken aback by the disdain in Shry’s voice as she responded, “Of you, priest? On principle. Of her taste? I would, but I imagine she only deals with you for the same reason we’re here.”

Reaching Shry’s side and seeing her expression for the first time, Liris’ kept her face even with a will. Shry looked instants away from murder. Vhannor stood stiffly on Liris’ other side, his own expression fixed and not reacting.

The priest leaned back invitingly as he smirked. “Think that’s it, do you?”

Enough. Shry might not know how to do anything but encourage their opponent and Vhannor might be inexplicably refusing to help any of them, but Liris was here too.

“Do forgive me,” she said, ignoring how Vhannor’s angry gaze flew to her, “I’m new and appear to have missed some history.”

The priest raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Don’t know what my job entails, huh?”

Coolly Liris said, “My first priority has abruptly shifted to discovering whether there’s a reason my companion shouldn’t stab you and thus I should step in.”

His lips quirked. “Admirable. Your priorities are in order, I see.”

Shry snapped, “Her priorities of actually wanting to help and defend people? Yes, they are.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic,” the priest said mildly.

Vhannor spoke for the first time, his voice cracking like a whip in the empty temple. “Yes, old friend. Let’s talk about defending people, Neroth’kar.”

Liris officially had no idea what was going on.

“So inhospitable to your own—partner, is it? Wonders never cease.” The priest hopped off the table and whirled, his robe lifting around him.

Liris glimpsed the knife tattoo on his back and understood at least something, finally: he was a priest of the Forgotten, an order that cropped up only in the shadiest places to ostensibly offer solace to people who had none.

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