Page 2 of House of Gilded Nightmares

A few feet away from us, Lilette laughs. “It’s almost as if you’re a good teacher, Dain.”

“Oh, certainly, it’s all Dain,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Never mind my countless hours of practice…”

“Oh, hush,” Lilette says with a grin. “My turn now.”

I offer Dain a somewhat sarcastic bow and retreat to my spot beneath the astherium tree. The clang of their blades rings through the small valley as I lie back in the grass. Shoots of verdant green scattered with white blossoms surround me, and a soft breeze moves the branches overhead, shaking loose more tiny white flowers. Sunlight and shade play over my skin.

Up here in our hiding place, it’s as if the three of us are the only people alive in all the world. In truth, we’re anything but free. And I can’t fight the growing tightness that crushes my ribcage as I think about how things might change after tonight’s announcement.

“Ow!” Dain yells, laughing as Lilette kicks his shin. “Is that any way for a priestess-in-training to act?”

“You always taught us to be unpredictable in a fight,” she giggles.

He tackles her into the grass and I close my eyes and pretend I don’t notice. Lilette and Dain have loved each other since we were children. An innocent, reckless love. A love that, tragically, is quite forbidden.

Just like what we’re doing now.

Leaving the palace grounds. Learning to use weapons. Not to mention Dain’s hands on Lilette’s body. If we were caught…I don’t even want to think about what would happen.

It seems I’m not the only one thinking about the risk we’re taking.

“Come on, we need to get back,” Dain says, his voice full of longing and regret. He stands more to lose than us, being a palace guard. He’d lose his head for certain.

Love is so foolish…

I shake my head as the thought skitters through it. I’m glad I don’t have to suffer such an affliction. I lead these excursions for a different reason. It’s usually only once a month we find an hour or two to escape the palace. Whereas Lilette risks everything for her heart, I risk everything for my soul. My sanity. Because I think if I stayed within the palace grounds as is my duty, I would slowly lose my mind.

We get up and begin the trek back. The valley we visit is just a narrow slice in the side of the mountain, as if a giant sky cat raked a claw through the peak. When we reach the entrance, a small tunnel that is the only way in or out, I cast one last look back at the sky. I am never closer to it than when I’m at the tip-top of the mountain like this. So close to the wispy silver-blue clouds I can almost taste them. Up here, the blue is so intense I feel it inside, as if I’m inhaling it with each breath. And when we leave, all that freedom will seep back out of me until I am earthbound once again.

The air turns musty and metallic as we move through the short tunnel. It opens into a forest of white blossoms, dozens upon dozens of astherium trees leading down the hill to the palace. The forest stretches to the northernmost wall of the palace grounds, and there we slip through a gap where the stones collapsed just the tiniest bit, hidden behind hedges at the back of the palace gardens.

Dain walks behind us as we stroll through the gardens, our steps slow, not wanting our freedom to end. Each one of those steps seems heavy and weighted by the fate that lies before us. It feels as if I’m dragging the whole mountain behind me. Though it’s not myself I’m worried for. I know I won’t be Chosen. I am too different from the others, the only one without proper lineage, plus an appearance in such stark contrast to the others.

It’s Lilette I fear for.

I shake my head. It’s a terrible thought, a traitorous thought. To be Chosen as High Priestess of the Amethyst Palace, consort to the High Priest, is the highest of honors. It’s what we were all trained for, all twenty-one years leading up to this day. I shouldn’t think of it as a prison sentence. Sometimes, I don’t know why I think the things I do—dark, rebellious seeds that I can’t seem to keep from growing.

I’m so deep in thought I don’t notice the perfectly manicured flower beds laid out in intricate patterns amongst the white stone paths, or the marble statues, or the faint spray from the multitudes of cascading fountains we pass. I don’t notice the golden fish in the ponds or the sweet-smelling vines with tiny purple flowers, or the ornately trimmed bushes.

Until someone steps around the corner of one.

“What are you doing out here?”

The Vor Kyran, head priestess, crosses her arms over her chest and glares at us. Her eyes dart back and forth between me and Lilette. Lilette blanches, her mouth opening and closing again almost instantly.

“Meditating to the goddess to prepare for tonight’s ceremony,” I say, inclining my head in a soft bow, “of course.”

“You are late. You need to begin preparations right away,” the priestess snaps. “Report to the inner sanctum immediately.”

“That’s exactly where I was taking them,” Dain says, face and tone serious.

“Very good.” The priestess casts us one more wary look and continues on her way.

I shoot a smirk at Lilette, but Dain’s face remains deadly serious as he escorts us toward the palace ahead. It is a monstrously huge structure that both emulates the sun and tries to capture it. A dome of white stone and glass that stretches for the sky, the apex tipped in gold. Smaller towers surround it, and in the courtyard beyond is the cathedral, nearly as large as the palace but slightly less round and opulent. White stone only, no glass and no gold, only a sphere of amethyst at the peak.

It’s the palace we enter, a startling transition from bright sunlight to the dim, quiet halls filled with hushed voices and the earthy scent of incense smoke. Dain escorts us to the eastern quadrant of the palace, where he leaves us with our fellow tolorah, priestesses-in-training. I don’t miss the look of desperate longing that passes between him and Lilette when he departs. It’s a goodbye in a single glance, a thousand words unspoken, a thousand embraces unfulfilled. Even that one look could damn them both.

The next few hours pass torturously. We’re surrounded by servants, bathed and perfumed and powdered and dressed and critiqued by the coriata. It would be one thing if I had any chance whatsoever of being Chosen, but I do not. It’s an entirely futile waste of time, and I don’t want to be consort to the High Priest. I just hope, for Lilette’s sake, that it’s not her, either. I wish that even more than I wish for myself to be spared.

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