Talon was already gone by the time we awoke. His phoenix left with him. Nania did not.

Instead, she remained behind, and I awoke to find her preparing food to break our fast. She left open the cupboards of Hallow Zaya’s kitchen, revealing herbs and berries I was unfamiliar with, frowning and chewing her lip as she appeared to search for something. Behind her, a leafy branch poked at her shoulder, causing her to gasp and whirl about. The ‘rootkin’ as Zaya called it pressed a basket of assorted eggs into her arms. Some were of different sizes and colors, but I recognized all of them as from local birds—most I’d even eaten before.

“Oh,” she told the living tree, lamely. “Thank you?”

The branch seemed to nod, retreating back out the window. It was impossible to say whether that was Hwyll or Noch, or if there was even any way to tell them apart. Nania slowly turned back to the Hallow’s stove, only to stop, having noticed me. She visibly bit her lip again, before fully turning away.

“He’s gone already,” she said.

“I know,” I replied. He wasn’t the type to stay once he had made up his mind. This was for the best. Inevitable, really. I made my way to the stove beside her.

The Goddess’ stove was one of the few structures in her home composed of stone rather than wood, for obvious reasons. Most Greshan stoves were made of clay bricks, and required a fire to be built inside the stove before the stone top heated up enough to cook on. Zaya’s seemed a little different, and could light itself with a strange see-through material, set in the wall and usually covered with heavy cloth. A rather clever tube ran up the wall, funneling the smoke away from inside the house. Nania had apparently already lit it before I awoke, so I took the opportunity to boil more water for tea.

When I was very small, I’d had the pleasure of trying tea at a festival once. It wasn’t something I’d been fortunate enough to taste since then. But between my maybe-friendship with a Goddess and my kingship, perhaps I’d be able to drink it more often.

As I waited for the water to boil, Nania scrambled eggs. Not the typical Greshan breakfast, which tended to be porridge, but it wasn’t so strange to either of us.

“I’m going back with you,” she finally said, as she handed me a plate of eggs. I accepted it, wondering what spices Hallow Zaya said. As a Goddess of Flowers, she must have a lot. Should I ask her?

“I gathered.”

“Talon and I will keep in contact. But he is going to travel, and I am going to stay.” She took her dish to the table, snatching a cup of tea as she did so. Carefully she sniffed it, trying both it and the eggs. Then she frowned. “These could both be spicier.”

I shrugged, rather liking the bitterness of the herbs in the tea. “You realize you won’t see him for quite a while.”

“I know. But it’s my choice to make, and he’s always respected my choices. That’s why I love him.” She gave me a pointed look.

Otherwise, we ate our eggs in silence. Then we returned to Gresha City in silence, bringing Hallow Zaya’s gifts of ‘beans’ and ‘fun-gai’ back to the city with us.

Later that evening as the suns set and dyed the skies the color of fiendsblood I approached Nania as she sat on the temple’s roof in her favorite spot, holding something out to her. It was a small pastry, the doughy outer shell surrounding a too-sweet paste filling. “Festival cake?”

She glared at me, green eyes and fiery hair flashing in the dying light. “You know neither of us like them.”

“I know,” I said, “but sometimes we have to swallow things we’d rather not.” I hesitated, feeling my throat too-dry and my stomach churning. “You…know that I’m still appointing Lordrin my aide.”

“I know. And I still think you shouldn’t. Not just because I hate him—to be frank, I don’t trust him,” she said. “I’m sure he hasn’t given up planning something.”

“Neither the law nor the Crown supports him anymore,” I reminded her. “He hasn’t any dry ground left.”

“He’ll think of something.”

“And he’s been different since everything that happened,” I continued. “Just…different. More sullen. I’ve spoken with him, he didn’t try lecturing me about my proper place or how I was ruining his city even once.”

Nania carefully and deliberately crossed her arms. Her face was a well-composed mask of neutrality, but I could see in the posture of her shoulders how she had relaxed slightly at my words. “Well, I suppose he’s realized what a hypocrite it would make him. No longer being Crown-son and all.” Her dark green eyes fixed me again. “I still say you got lucky, Ellie. You chose to keep him around, not knowing that he wasn’t actually a proper Crown-son. It could have gone very badly for you. You were almost assassinated—you still might be, as long as the heir situation is...”

“I know,” I said, sitting down beside her.

“Not to mention, your choice of ‘Crown’. The Sun Fiend, Ellie!? You lied to me, to us both, about—about something like that! Knowing what she might do, it’s half the reason I’m still staying around here at all!”

She could claim such things, but I doubted she was staying around out of concern for what the Sun Fiend might do. Instead, I suspected she was secretly hoping the Fiend would burn this city—or at least the temple—to cinders.

“How could I tell you? It’s clear how anyone would react,” I lied instead. “The way you’re still supporting me, not leaving like Talon or telling others…you’re actually taking this suspiciously well.”

She turned to me, raising a brow in question. I stayed back at her flatly, and she sighed.

“The night before I tried to break Talon out of the temple, I had a dream. I was Head Priestess—Lordrin’s Head Priestess—and he was demanding that I sacrifice you and Talon to the Sun Fiend.” Here she hesitated, chewing on her lip. Her eyes darted from one side to the other, checking that we were alone. Cautiously she added, “A thought came to me. That I could have sacrificed him in the fire instead. I…wondered if the thought came from the Fiend herself.”

I listened with rapt attention as she continued. “That dream, it was what pushed me to try and rescue Talon. And when I did so, I managed to use that strange power I can harness again. Even in all the chaos I wondered where it might be coming from. It occurred to me, perhaps it wasn’t Crown Naruune’s power at all. I thought of this then, but now that the Sun Fiend calls herself a Crown, too…did it work so differently from normal channeling because it came from ‘Crown Ruuthelaine’ instead? Is that why I couldn’t replicate it, because I was too focused on the wrong Crown?”

Her eyes fell to her lap. “Even when I was running, I had a thought. That I’d accept power from anyone, even the Sun Fiend, if it could just get us both out alive. And now Talon’s out, and we’re both alive. Getting mad at you, for hiding a connection with the Sun Fiend, when I might’ve begged her for power and received it…it feels hypocritical.”

Her bare feet kicked in the open air, as the blood-red sky above began to fade into night-black. The earliest stars of the evening twinkled and woke and the daylight vanished. Another long day, over.

Her words should have comforted me. She thought we understood each other, that our crimes were somehow equal. Perhaps she even believed Talon deserved to be angry at her as well as me. But there was no way our crimes could be equal.

She had called upon an unknown power in a moment of desperation. She did not even know for certain whether that power was the Sun Fiend’s. I knew exactly what I did. And then I did it again, and again, and again.

“Would you still like to be my Head Priestess?”

Repeatedly, I had manipulated her and pushed her away, lied to her and tricked her. Now I kept her close to a strange and destructive power, one that had watched me and haunted me. One which, if her guesses were right, took an equal interest in her. A power that had hurt her when she last tried to use it.

She looked to me again, then snatched the sweetcake from my hand and ate it in one bite.

----------------------------------------

That night, I dreamed of a strange woman, someone I had never before seen.

Skin as dark as the deepest ocean adorned her, cloaked by even darker hair, as black as night, thick and tightly-curled ringlets woven with tiny golden beads, reminding me of stars at night. Darkness blended with the fuzzy edges of her form. The clearest parts of her were the gauzy-white dress she wore, and the pale marks upon her skin. Arranged on her face was a pattern almost like an inverted skull—eye-catching patches around her lips, her nose, and her shifting-hued eyes.

She should have been frightening, wearing a mask of death as she did. And yet I did not feel afraid in her presence. The aura she gave off was like the Sun Fiend’s in that it was inescapable but nowhere near so intense—a comforting warmth instead of an overbearing heat. Her large and dexterous hands were constantly in motion, knitting some fabric. A tapestry? Some distant, dreaming part of me wondered if I shouldn’t feel more afraid, but the rest of my head was stuff with heavy sodden wool.

Every so often a fish would dart in, swimming off with a chunk of her face.

“Would you reject her offer if I gave you one of my own?” she asked conversationally, some undercurrent of tone palpable beneath her words.

“Huh?” I asked.

A larger fish, sharp-toothed, grey, and smooth swam past, snagging one its smaller fellows. A shark? I’d only heard of them from the fishermen before, never once seen one.

“Ruuthelaine offered you something. While I disagree with her on many things, I do understand what it is she sees in you,” the skull-faced woman said. “I’m not opposed to the end of her scheme, merely her means. So if I offered you a similar deal, would you consider it? I promise I will be kinder than she.”

“I…I don’t know,” I said.

The woman paused, setting aside her work. “Why not? This path you’re on. It will hurt. I can prepare you better” She pressed something into my paler hands. I opened them again to find an amber gemstone shining in the abyssal deeps. “Think about it, please. I’ll be back soon,” she insisted.

----------------------------------------

Archaic Era, Year 1284 (Six months later)

Nania POV

“My dearest Talon, since receiving your last letter, we have been…” I shook my head, swiftly discarding the attempt.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Normally I’d never be so formal with Talon. Clearly the last few months I’d spent as Head Priestess had been getting to my head. In the past, Talon and I had always spoken our minds to each other. Trapped in a place were courtesy and honorifics were king, it was refreshing. But I’d had to learn to play that game in earnest the past few months. Talon seemed to remain as blunt and honest as ever, but despite my best efforts I found myself changing. Still, a teasing smile touched my lips as I realized the perfect greeting.

“My dearest Fifi,” I pressed into the tablet, suppressing a giggle within myself. “Are you asking the Sun Falcon to deliver your letters? Because they brighten my day.” Beside me, Crim seemed to join me with a cackle, despite not understanding of the human tongue.

Earlier this morning, sounds of a loud and strenuous battle led to me bursting into Elian’s room wielding the nearest makeshift weapon I could find—this time, it was a stack of this morning’s reports. After entering, I saw that Crim had flown in through his window and apparently mistaken Elian’s wavy brown hair, which had finally grown out to his shoulders, for a nest. The two were stuck together, Crim’s feet tangled in Elian’s mess of hair. The crimson phoenix frantically beat its wings, making it all the harder for Elian to reach up and free it.

Rather than helping right away, I’d needed to take a moment to laugh. There hadn’t been many opportunities to do something like that as Head Priestess. Especially when my relationship with both Elian and Talon was still so strained. Talon was so far away that it took Crim up to a month to deliver a message from him, and while Elian and I were physically much closer, with our duties it felt like we had even less time to talk.

Almost impossibly, things had settled into something like normalcy these past few months. Forya hadn’t been seen again. Other people and factions may have tried manipulating the new King, but Lordrin was not among them, and had instead taught Elian much about reading, writing, and the law. The Sun Fiend hadn’t appeared at all since the duel, and progress with the Angrans was going slowly, but well. As expected, not all the villages were receptive to our overtures of atonement and peace, but Shrike’s village seemed to be giving us a chance.

The crops we received from Hallow Zaya were coming along nicely. Between his gifts from Hallow Zaya and the appearance of the ‘new’ Crown, Elian had secured some fame for being especially beloved of the gods, and few questioned his legitimacy anymore. This status was kept secure by the talks he’d go to have with Hallow Zaya every few months, occasionally returning with new spices, crops, or medicine, some of which would be used to trade with the neighboring major powers of Heishan to the north and Merides to the south.

With Sarya’s help, and my fearsome reputation from how I’d interacted with Lordrin and Forya, serving as the new Head Priestess wasn’t as stressful as I’d feared. I couldn’t always get the proper rituals down, but Sarya helped me strike a delicate balance where I stopped those ambitious Priestesses from scheming to win the King’s favor or overthrow me, instead setting them against each other.

Still, between official duties and social responsibilities, it was all a migraine.

Talon’s letters quickly became something of a reprieve for me, as we kept each other updated on the goings-on of our lives. We didn’t discuss Elian much—knowing Talon, whether he held a grudge or not could go either way. But I shared the most recent foolishness I’d had to deal with in the temple and court, and Talon told me about what rumors of monsters he’d come across recently. While I never did leave Gresha City in the end, hearing about Talon’s slow journey north along the Ter River was still an experience I was excited by.

After freeing Crim from his hairy situation, together we went through the morning reports with Elian. He had figured out most words by now, no longer making excuses about ‘words hating him and squirming around,’ but he was still rather slow. It was just faster to read it all aloud.

Elian’s progress with reading hadn’t felt like when I taught Talon to read. Not quite so much pride and excitement when he got something right—just mounting frustration.

“Remember, Nania—the Harvest Festival’s coming up again. The first one of our rule,” Elian reminded me as we finished the reports.

I stood, stretching out my arms and spine with a satisfying, sinuous motion. My wrist ached something fierce. “I recall, Crown-son.”

I wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel him pout. His words, however, remained polite. “We need to send out formal invitations to the dignitaries and ambassadors. And if we could invite Hallow Zaya, too—”

“That’d be a good idea, you’re right. It would go a long way to solidifying you even further, during an important event like that.”

“It’s not just a political thing. I figured it’d be a nice show of gratitude, too.”

“Are you sure it’ll be all that nice? It sounds like it’d be a Hellish experience instead, knowing her tastes.”

“Still, it’s polite to at least invite her. If she doesn’t want to go, then she can just decline it,” Elian huffed, stacking the reports as neatly as he could manage.

I hummed absentmindedly, picking up Crim from the floor.

“You’re going to ask him to help prepare, aren’t you?” I asked, thinking of Lordrin.

“I am.”

“Right. Well, I have other things to attend to.”

“Wait—there was one other thing.”

I paused halfway out the door, and looked over my shoulder. Elian’s expression was uncharacteristically vulnerable, and despite myself, my heart softened. Though I remained silent, Crim cooed inquisitively.

“The, er, the Harvest Festival,” Elian said, starting to scratch at the burn scars on his arm. “That is—the Head Priestess…usually, you know, they’d be expected to…well, it’s a festival about thanking Crown Naruune for her gifts the past year, but also…chanelling to pray for bounty in the upcoming year—”

“Elian, you are friends with Hallow Zaya. No one will notice or care if we don’t do the fertility rites,” I said. “The Rite of Sunset isn’t the only ritual we can do away with.” Despite my harsh tone, his face immediately broke out in relief.

“Right. Speaking of, I need to examine the fields and granaries,” he said. I quickly made myself scarce.

My letters to Talon remained light and upbeat, aside from the odd complaint about the workload. I didn’t immediately send the letter back out with Crim—the bird had only just gotten back. “You, my friend, still need to rest and get a snack,” I muttered, rubbing the delighted phoenix’s swan-like neck and back. A trip to the kitchens soon fixed that, though most of the kitchen staff were still anxious at the new Head Priestess’ presence, Crim’s popularity won them over. Preventing the little glutton from gobbling up tonight’s prepared dinner would be their responsibility, now.

Thoughts of dinner led my mind back to perhaps the most important dinner of the year. And my wandering feet took me not to my usual favored spot on the rooftops, but to just outside the door which Lordrin now dwelt behind.

This wasn’t the first time I had come here. It was a new habit I had picked up. Though as Head Priestess I had taken to ordering other Priestesses around like a swan to water, even stripped of the status that had been his birthright, I had a difficult time lecturing or commanding Lordrin. Still, there had been a few nights where I stood outside his door, trying to work up the courage to properly punish him the way Elian refused to, or demand to know why he’d tried to use me the way he did. Why he’d been so awful.

I knew the reason, of course. But perhaps a part of me wanted to make him understand. To hurt him in the same way he’d hurt us. Perhaps if he were the one on the pyre, it’d silence that hurt, hungry piece of me.

I couldn’t just forget his actions because he was useful. Not like Elian could. Not even if he had already been defanged.

But even so, I still wasn’t ready to confront him. With a sigh, I turned to leave—only to run right into Lordrin.

What—he wasn’t inside his—?

The ex-king of Gresha looked in sorry shape. While his clothes were still of high quality, he lacked the fineries reserved for the true king. His posture, too, was different, more subdued. Elian hadn’t lied about how much he had changed. Seeing him like this was an entirely different flavor of infuriating—how dare he act like he has suffered, when his punishment was so much lighter than it could have been? So much kinder than what he would have done to me, to Talon.

He made an expression like he had just tasted something foul, though he struggled to keep his words polite. “Head Priestess…Nania,” he said, slowly. “How…unexpected to see you here.”

I sniffed. “I was only leaving.” My eyes darted between the two guards flanking him. They were here to observe him, but they were just as much there for his safety, as well.

“Well then. If you’ll move aside,” Lordrin spoke, an electric current of irritation undercutting his words.

I did not move inside, continuing to glance between the two guards. This was my opportunity to leave, if I was wise I would leave.

“Boys,” I addressed the guards, “take a break.”

The guards exchanged a confused look, but neither seemed willing to go against the new Head Priestess. Without much hassle, they vanished around the corner. Lordrin gave me a confused look.

“What. Now that your savage is gone, you think I won’t fight back?” he asked.

My lip twisted into a scowl. “Do you really think so highly of yourself? I hate you. More than anyone else in this city.”

“I don’t think highly of myself. Whether I’m your king or your hostage, I’m still valuable. It’s not arrogance, it’s fact.” He smirked. “You’re just like the old Head Priestess. You just don’t see it yet. The truth of power and possession.”

“You’re not valuable, and I have no desire to ‘possess’ you. That’s you.”

“Then you’re just delusional, or naive.” He paused, looking past me. “The Harvest Festival is soon. You know, you and your new King are very lucky.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Better keep a tight leash on your Priestesses. You may not want to ‘possess’ him. But they won’t be so humble. Even if only the Head Priestess’ child can become Crown-son, the Fertility Rites are always an opportunity for increased prestige,” Lordrin said, his tone oddly flat.

“I thought you would’ve enjoyed such attention.”

“Idiot girl. Attention, fame, they’re not desirable. People think they want those things, really they just want power. Those other things are simply an unfortunate consequence. What dog doesn’t adore its master?” He raised his hand up to eye level, observing it as he flexed each finger. “No, I did not enjoy the attentions of the other Priestesses during the Fertility Rites. Especially not when some of them were obvious attempts at my own mother to possess and control me. If you are not the one owning, then you will quickly find yourself owned—or crushed as others fight over you. Best to crush the troublesome ones, like her, and you.”

The pieces of a puzzle finally aligned in my mind, creating a rather unpleasant picture. My expression briefly softened, then hardened. “What is this? Do you expect sympathy from me? Comfort and forgiveness? Why should I offer you sympathy when you tried to do the same to me?”

“I’m not looking for comfort. I’m doing you a favor. I’m explaining to you to way of the world. The position of King, of beloved of the gods, is a valuable one. And your friend has avoided being possessed so far, but his…softness does not mark him as a possessor.”

I made a face of disgust.

“Although,” Lordrin mused, “perhaps he already has been marked by an owner. If a Crown—or whatever she is—showed up for him…”

“Shut up,” I spat. “That may be the way you see the world. But I said, we’re removing the Fertility Rites. Your ‘advice’ is all useless!”

“You can swat away the flies and maggots, but it doesn’t stop the corpse from rotting. Removing a few Rites won’t change anything,” Lordrin snorted. Then he pushed past me and disappeared back into his room. I learned against the wall, and realized that my arms were shaking—with rage, doubtlessly.

How dare he.

How dare he think he had any right to speak.

I ate dinner seated beside Elian. When I was young, my appetite often deserted me abruptly. It had done so again tonight. All the overlapping conversations seemed so much louder, and though I tried to focus on them, I could hear nothing. After dinner, I retired early, but sleep eluded me.

Tomorrow, I decided I would release Crim to deliver my response to Talon. And then I would have a lot of work to do, preparing for the Harvest Festival and all it would bring.