14
Lyra darted down the stairs and into the chamber, where she snatched the orange off the desk. Keeping it for herself would be selfish, especially in light of how helpful everyone had been. Kel’s family was sharing their food with her, after all. The least she could do was share a few sections of a fruit that, from the sound of it, was far rarer and more expensive here than it was in her world.
Leaving the candle burning — it was so weird not to see it going down, even though it had been burning for over a day by now — she went back upstairs, only to find Towr talking to Nira. Even if she hadn’t known Kel didn’t want his niece anywhere near the god, her spine still would have prickled with discomfort, given her own recent experiences with Towr.
Nira broke off mid-sentence when she saw her and backed away from the grey woman guiltily. Towr turned, angling her body slightly toward Lyra.
“Good evening, priestess. Have you enjoyed the books?”
“I did,” she said, keeping her tone polite despite her tension. “Thank you for giving me permission to read them. I was meaning to ask; is it all right if I take some more of the clothing from the armoire in the bedchamber?”
“You may. Your predecessor no longer has need of it.”
Lora. Now that she knew for sure the woman was dead, and that she was Kel’s sister, taking her things felt more ghoulish than it had before, but she didn’t have much of a choice.
After a brief hesitation, she decided to just ask her other question. There was a slight risk she might anger the god, but if she agreed, it had the potential to help Lyra a lot on her journey.
“The coins in the crypt… could I take them too?”
“The offerings are for temple use, priestess. Are more cleaning supplies needed? My temple seems dirtier than I am accustomed to.”
Towr’s words were mild, but Lyra glanced guiltily at the now dry chunks of mud she had tracked across the clean floor the day before. It was a shame the coins weren’t there for her to just take, but she hadn’t really expected them to be. At least she was certain, now.
“I’m sorry. I’ll sweep the temple out tomorrow.”
She had spotted a broom near the shelf of cleaning supplies downstairs. Her feelings about Towr might be… complicated right now, but cleaning up her own mess was still the right thing to do.
Towr inclined her head, and Nira shifted impatiently, clearly ready to go.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Lyra said to Nira after giving the god an awkward wave goodbye. “Let’s go eat dinner. I’m bringing this for dessert.”
She held up the orange and Nira’s eyes went wide. “Really? You’re gonna share it?”
“It won’t last too much longer anyway, and I thought it would be a good way to say thank you to your family for being so nice to me,” she said as they walked out of the temple together. “Did you enjoy the one you ate?”
“I loved it! It was the best thing I ever had. It was so juicy and sweet and sour. I can’t believe Uncle Kel ate them before and didn’t bring any home to me.” She paused, her expression falling. “I’m sorry I stole your other one. I didn’t mean to.”
Lyra’s lips twitched. She remembered watching Nira swipe the orange off the ground and back away with it, shielding it from her parents’ notice. She had obviously meant to take it, but she decided not to call her out.
Instead, she said, “It’s all right. I’m glad you enjoyed it. If you want to know a secret, they’re my favorite fruit too.”
It wasn’t far to Nira’s family’s house, but the girl slowed down, dragging her feet through the red dust of the road. It was a pleasantly cool evening, but Lyra was worried what that meant for their trip. If it got much cooler at night, it was going to be hard to stay warm enough while they were roughing it as they traveled to the city.
“Lyra? Will you keep a secret for me?”
Lyra looked down at the little girl, her eyebrows rising. She had known her for all of a day, and that was generous. Was this sort of thing normal for kids, or was Nira just weirdly trusting?
“Sure,” she said after a moment, mentally crossing her fingers. If Nira told her something that was potentially dangerous, she would have to tell Cora, but she didn’t want to betray her trust if she didn’t have to.
“Don’t tell Uncle Kel I was talking to Towr, okay?”
She frowned. “You weren’t supposed to talk to her, were you?”
Nira shook her head. “Uncle Kel doesn’t even let me go close to the temple, but Mama says I can with permission. Uncle Kel is silly. He always says I’m making it up when I say I can see Towr, but he still gets mad when I talk to her.”
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“Well, if your Mama knows you came to the temple, then I don’t see why I would tell Kel,” Lyra said. “Just to make sure I understand correctly — remember, I didn’t know I was a priestess until yesterday — only priestesses and, I guess, priests can see the gods, right?”
She thought Kel had said something along those lines, but at the time, there had been a lot on her mind. There was still a lot on her mind, but it was becoming clear to her that her status as a priestess was very important in this world, and she needed to understand exactly what it meant.
Nira nodded, her face taking on a serious, almost pinched expression, as if she was reciting a lesson. “Right. They're the only ones who can see and talk to the gods. Everyone else has to pray, worship, make offerings, or sacrifices. It’s very special to be a priestess. That’s why Uncle Kel is so silly, because Mama says it’s a good thing! When I grow up, I can be just like Aunt Lora and work in the temple or go on a big adventure. But you have to be careful because not all of the gods are nice, and sometimes they hurt people. Towr is nice, though. The only mean thing she does is make people blind if they don’t bring her books back on time, but books are really expensive, so I think that’s fair. And she always lets them see again when they bring the books back.”
From the sound of it, Kel was in denial about his niece’s abilities, but considering that it seemed Nira wanted to follow in the footsteps of his sister, who had met an early death after setting out on her own adventure, she couldn’t blame him. Especially since Nira was still so young. From her own limited experience, being able to talk to the gods could get someone into a lot of trouble if they weren't careful.
When they reached Nira’s house, she ran up the walkway ahead of Lyra and opened the door. The warm scent of whatever Cora was making for dinner enveloped her as she walked into the house. Kel and Gidal weren’t there yet, but Cora greeted her warmly and told her to take a seat at the table while she put the finishing touches on the meal.
The bread she had been working on earlier had been baked into a perfect, golden brown loaf, and the main course was simmering in a heavy iron pot over the oven. Lyra set the orange down on the table before taking a seat.
“Mama, look what Lyra brought to share,” Nira said excitedly. “We all get to try the orange. You’re going to love it!”
“That’s very nice of her,” Cora said without looking over her shoulder. “You didn’t guilt her into sharing it, did you?”
“It was her idea!” Nira said, sounding deeply offended.
The atmosphere was warm and comfortable. It was incomparable to her first, lonely and terrified night here, and she wasn’t looking forward to returning to the temple tonight. She was sure Cora’s invitation to sleep here still stood, but she wanted to intrude on them even less than she wanted to spend the night in that windowless chamber.
Before long, the two men joined them from the back of the house. Kel was carrying two backpacks made out of some sort of sturdy fabric, which he put against the wall in the kitchen before joining them at the table. The simmering pot hanging over the oven turned out to hold some sort of chicken stew, and the freshly baked bread paired with it perfectly to make one of the best meals Lyra had eaten in a long time.
During the meal, Nira carried most of the conversation, chatting about her friend Tal and how he was recovering from his earlier run-in with the bees. When everyone had eaten their fill, she was the one to remind Lyra about the orange.
“Can we eat it now?” she asked. “Please?”
“Be respectful,” Kel said. “She’s a priestess.”
“So? She doesn’t want us to call her ‘priestess.’ She said so earlier. And she said we can share the orange.”
“She’s right, we don’t really do titles like that where I come from,” Lyra explained. “I’m not used to it. And you’re welcome to peel the orange, Nira. Pull the sections apart so everyone can have some.”
“While she’s doing that,” Gidal said, watching in amusement as his daughter started to peel the fruit, “why don’t you look through the supplies we picked up for you today, priestess? It should be enough to get you to Ersgath, at least.”
He got up and brought one of the backpacks over to her as Cora began clearing the table. Lyra untied the straps and looked inside, feeling awkward and keenly aware that they had either asked for donations from the townsfolk or paid for the items out of their own pockets.
“Marid said she already gave you her old boots,” Kel remarked as she examined the items.
Tied to the outside of the backpack was a roll of very thin canvas, which Gidal explained was a hammock, along with ropes to hang it with and a scratchy, thin blanket, rolled up and buckled to the side of the bag like the hammock was. There was also a metal flask that she assumed was for water, though it was currently empty.
The first thing she took out of the backpack was a knife in a worn leather sheath. The blade was about as long as her hand from her wrist to the tip of her middle finger, and the handle was stained wood, worn smooth. She wasn’t a knife expert, but when she took it out of the sheath, the blade seemed sharp without any chips or nicks. It came with a leather strap to tie around her waist, and even though she didn’t know the first thing about wielding a knife in self-defense, she felt better knowing she had a weapon of her own.
The backpack also held a packet of matches that were smaller than the ones she had found in the temple’s bedchamber. They were packed away in an oiled leather case along with a strip of something like sandpaper. A wooden comb and some soft leather strips, along with hard soap wrapped in burlap, were the only concessions toward personal grooming. There was maybe a pound of dried meat cut into strips and wrapped in wax fabric, along with some hard cheese and biscuits that looked like hardtack or something similar.
All basic supplies, but a lot more than she’d had before. She repacked everything carefully. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it. “All of you. I don’t know what I would do without your help. I owe you for this, but I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
“You don’t owe us,” Cora said as she rejoined them at the table. “It’s Kel’s job to help the clergy, and it’s simply the right thing to do for the rest of us. I want Nira to grow up to be a good person, but she’s hardly going to do that if Gidal and I don’t show her the way. I hope you get the answers you’re looking for in Heliotheopoli. And I hope you make it before the rains. Kel is going to have a miserable time walking back once the season changes.”
“Who knows, maybe he’ll rediscover his taste for the road,” Gidal said, reaching across the table to clap his brother-in-law on the shoulder. “He might decide to stay in the city for a while after this. Kyokami has always been boring for him.”
Kel leaned back in his chair, his expression doubtful. “We’ll see. I’ll send a letter when I arrive, either way. Priestess… Lyra, we will leave mid-morning tomorrow, so make sure you are ready.”
“I will be,” she said, accepting the sections of orange Nira offered her. “I’m going to have a hard enough time slipping back into my life after being gone for so long as it is. The faster we reach the city and I figure out how to get back home, the better.”