Page 48 of The Storm of the Empire

SIXTEEN

LUKA

It was easy enough to get into the temple, but that was not the part I was worried about. It was always harder to get away without being noticed in smaller spaces. The temple wasn’t large, so I wasn’t expecting many behind-the-scenes rooms like the one in Runerth. It had to have a simple layout.

How wrong I was.

The main temple was wide open, but behind the vestibules, I found a maze of hidden chambers and priest holes no wider than a male could walk through. I peeked into one and all was quiet, so I set forward to look around, prepared to excuse myself as being lost if I came upon a priest.

But nothing led to where Hazel had indicated. For every few paces forward, there was a double back or a dead end. It was frustrating and would have made any reasonable fae question themselves, but it was getting ridiculous, as if this place was deliberately confusing to keep fae out. Surely there was another way? Or maybe I was wrong, and there was nothing here but a small place of worship.

When I met another dead end, I pounded my fists into the cool stone. There had to be a better way. I worked myself back out of the tunnels, resetting in the main temple. To avoid drawing attention to myself, I took a seat in one of the lesser sanctuaries blocked from view by the massive columns. I put my head in my hands as I sunk to a seat on the bench.

Think, Luka!

Where would the eggs be?

There weren’t many places to hide crates of eggs like I’d seen in a temple this small.

And why out here? Because no one would look?

To bring them so far into the unsafe zone of the Storm Kingdom made little sense. They were harder to protect out here.

Few outsiders visited the kingdom other than traders and the priesthood.

There was a piece of all of this I was missing, but I couldn’t put it together.

I pushed off the bench and began the circle around the temple, acting like I was visiting all the sacrifices to the Goddess around the outside of the temple as was customary in the design. I stopped at each one, bowing to the Goddess.

“Ah the garden,” another priest said, when he came upon me. “It’s my favorite sacrifice of the Goddess—Her Garden.”

“One of mine, too.” I tipped my head at him, and he returned the gesture.

“If you’ll excuse me.” He passed by and pushed behind the mosaic, moving it like it was a rotating door.

“But of course,” I said, realizing if that mosaic moved, others might. I quickly moved through the rest of the sacrifices as to not draw attention to myself, finally coming upon the one right in the area where Hazel indicated she thought she felt the storm opal.

I pushed through the mosaic just as I had watched the priest do, and sure enough, it opened for me. I found myself in a tiny room barely the size of a storage closet. There were a few crates stacked against one wall covered in thick dust. Nothing in here had been untouched for some time. Surely eggs couldn’t be kept alive in here like this—but I had to look. Maybe the eggs the priests had were not alive anymore. There had been no way for me to know. But that didn’t make any sense either.

I pried open one of the crates, sick to my stomach as I fished around the hay. An intensely bad feeling overwhelmed me as I searched. What if there was Dragon’s Bane here? That was always possible, too. Then I would put Hazel at risk, going back out there having touched the poisonous herb. My hand landed on something, and I froze. It wasn’t bane, and there were no eggs, there but in the center of the crate there was something cool to the touch and smooth. Storm opals. Small ones. Nothing like the massive ones in the fields, but these still had to be valuable. Exceedingly so. And yet they were just thrown in a forgotten storage closet.

This was what Hazel had detected with her magic. Not the eggs coated in the stone, but the stones themselves. I ran my fingers through them. What would their power feel like if I had magic?

I slipped a small one out and into my pocket for no reason other than to have it. It was wrong, but they wouldn’t miss it. And it was something to show for the effort of coming here. I wasn’t sure what it proved, but I took it anyway.

I slipped back out of the cubby, wiping my hand on the inside folds of my robes to get rid of the dust. There were no eggs here. Maybe they had already left the kingdom if Hazel couldn’t sense them.

I moved to finish my prayer of the sacrifices, just to keep the ruse. Humming the words almost in song, like Zaria and I did as children. The memories of those days kicked me in the chest, and the pain radiated through my throat. I found my pendant, clutching it to me. It was the last connection I had to my past. My only reminder of who I was.

As I finished, I ended up in the back of the temple and wished my former life well. Maybe I hadn’t found my place in this new one yet, but I would find one if things didn’t work out with Nyx, or if Hazel didn’t want to speak to me again because we couldn’t save the next generation of storm dragons.

One thing I knew for certain: I could never be a priest. Too much time for reflection and introspection. I preferred to keep moving to find my answers in life

I stepped out onto the back stylobate of the temple that overlooked a large fountain surrounded by walled gardens to praise the Goddess.

A chill ran down my spine as I stopped dead.

Shackled and huddled in a group and being ushered on to an enclosed cart by a male who seemed familiar to me were?—

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