Page 91 of Sanctifier

“It’s not your fault,” Taryel said over and over.

“Itis,” Ru insisted. “I could have stopped her.” There was no consoling her.

The night passed slowly, and Ru remained curled against Taryel, catlike, engulfed in his warmth. Morning crept along the eastern horizon. The fire was only embers, and rising sunlight softened the edges of Taryel’s face. Ru’s eyes stung, and there was an ache in her chest that would not ease.

But Ru now knew what she had to do next.

“I’m not sure about this,” said Taryel after she had relayed her plans with breathless fervor.

“I am,” she said. “Tell me why we shouldn’t. It won’t take more than an hour. I need to understand it.” She sat up, moving back to see Taryel more clearly.

His eyes were shadowed, lids heavy, and his hair stood up in odd places where she’d dug in her fingers for dear life. He watched her, almost wary, as if she might burst into tears again or worse, dash headlong into harm’s way.

“You know this about me,” she continued. “I need to understand things. With understanding, with the right information, I can stop her. I just don’t have all the facts yet.”

His face softened, and he sighed. “Ru, if Hugon comes and finds you gone—”

“He won’t. An hour. We’ll go now, before the sun’s fully risen. No one will miss us.” She saw him waver in the face of her grief and desperation. “Please.”

He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “There are limitations to my power. I can only travel a few times without it burning out, depending on the distance.”

She sat up, brightening slightly. This was something she could do, a line of action she could take, a way to feel less helpless. “Is that a yes?”

“It’s afine, if it’s what you really want.” He stood stiffly and held out a hand. “Come here, I need you as close as possible. And… as a warning, it’s not a pleasant sensation.”

Ru let him help her to her feet and pull her into a tight embrace. Then he made a complex gesture with his fingers, one arm still wrapped tightly around her shoulders. A strange smell like ozone and metal and earth filled her nostrils, and then, all at once, the room around them was gone.

And then she was falling, weightless and simultaneously pulled violently in every direction, surrounded by darkness, lost and spinning. For a moment, she thought she might never stop falling, but there was a buzz or a crack, and she stumbled, clinging to Taryel, who still held her close.

The first thing she noticed was the air. It was thick and wet in her lungs, unseasonably warm. Birds sang an early morning chorus, and pale colors flooded the eastern sky. There were no lingering lights on the horizon in any direction, nothing to indicate civilization, only the sweep of hills dotted with trees. And somewhere, Ru thought, the distant roar of the sea.

They were in Mekya.

“Turn around,” said Taryel.

And there it was: a lone construction in that soft, quiet landscape: the temple of Festra. It jutted up like defiance, perhaps long forgotten but still beautiful in its decay. Not much bigger than a house in the city, it was narrow and tall, with columns at its entrance and ivy winding up every edge of its crumbling stone walls.

Ru found it strangely sad. Abandoned and lonely. As if those who followed this god were remnants of a time long past, clinging to some memory that had long since faded to darkness. But that was the archaeologist in her, the Ru who sought stories in every ruin, every crumbled facade.

There was no longer time for such fanciful thinking.

“One hour,” said Taryel. With his long black coat and tousled hair, he looked every bit the wandering historian he had once professed to be. It had been a persona, a way to keep Ru from learning his truth, but it suited him. He caught her watching him and smiled. “You’d better find something usefulnowbecause I’ll need at least two weeks before I can travel again after this.”

Ru nodded, only half-listening as she set off toward the temple. Her silk shoes were soaked with dew by the time they came to the temple’s entrance. There were no windows, and a seemingly depthless cavern of blackness stared back at Ru.

“Do you have a candle or something?” she asked.

“A candle?” Taryel replied at her side. “What am I, a pack horse?”

Ru shot him a look. “How should I know what gods carry around with them?”

He rolled his eyes affectionately. “I’ll check inside.” Moments later, he returned with a torch, and after muttering and rifling through his pockets, produced a tiny silver tinderbox.

Taking the lit torch, Ru pushed past Taryel and into the temple’s quiet darkness. She was impatient and eager, and she only had an hour. She would find something here; she had to. Scanning the walls, she quickly found more torches in aged sconces. Lighting them one by one until the temple was lit with a flickering orange glow, she paused in the center of the room.

The temple was not large. Nothing like the grand ruins of an ancient temple she had once stood in on the western coast of Navenie.

It consisted of one rectangular room; a line of columns ran along either wall, set a few feet out from the walls. Between the columns were altars, clumps of melted candles, and small offerings that might once have been flowers but were now lumps of brown or reduced to dust. At the far end of the room stood astatue, a man with palms upheld, as if catching the sunlight. The statue was bearded and stern, and Ru disliked it immediately.

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