Winter Queen by Amber Argyle
Father gave a helpless shrug.
“I’m going to find her,” Panar said.
As he stood up to leave, Father called out to him, “Kiss your sister goodbye.”
Panar turned back to Nelay, his expression hard. She tried to move away as he leaned forward. But he didn’t touch her, just whispered in her ear, “I’m glad you’re going. Glad I’ll never have to see you again.”
He spun around and left without looking back.
Nelay didn’t want to admit it, but his words stung. She wanted her brother to love her, even if she wished she didn’t.
They finished eating, but the food tasted like ash in Nelay’s mouth. Then they settled down to rest for the duration of the ovat. The high priestess took Nelay’s father’s bed, even though he was injured and she was not. He and Nelay shared her bed, but Nelay didn’t sleep. Too many emotions swirled inside her.
When the ovat ended, the high priestess glided outside. She stepped back onto the camel and waited.
Nelay’s hand felt very small inside her father’s. “Will . . . will you be all right?” she asked, her voice small. But what she really meant was, can you forgive me for what I’ve done? For what I am doing?
Father knelt in front of her. He swallowed once, twice. “I’m sorry, Daughter, that it has come to this.”
She gave a small shrug. “I’m the only thing of value you have left.”
He gripped her to him. “Would that it were not so.”
He so rarely held her that the contact brought tears to her eyes. “Mother—is she not going to say goodbye?”
Her father held her back to eye level. “I—”
“I’m right here,” Mother said as she came around from the other side of the house.
Nelay flew into her arms and felt the flesh and bones of her body, soft and fragile where Nelay’s was wiry and hard. Her mother held her, and they both sobbed.
“Make us proud, Daughter,” her mother finally whispered.
“I will.”
Her mother kissed both cheeks, holding her face between her hands as if to memorize each detail, each curve and hollow.
Her father took hold of Nelay’s middle and passed her into Suka’s waiting arms.
As the camel pitched clumsily to its feet, Nelay watched her mother bury her face in her father’s chest. Watched Panar glare at her from behind their parents, his eyes full of hate. Watched as all that she had ever known disappeared.
And then she turned toward what lay ahead—a future very different from what she had ever imagined. But somewhere beyond the sadness, excitement stirred. If she was to be a priestess, by the goddess, she would be the best priestess ever born.
If you loved Of Fire and Ash and would like to continue with Nelay's journey,
stay tuned for Summer Queen.
To Ellen Smith,
for always believing
Holding her breath, Nelay sucked in her ribs as tight as she could. Still the hooks on the back of her bodice refused to meet.
“Arms up,” Jezzel commanded. “Maybe that will help.”
Nelay stretched her arms above her head as Jezzel strained behind her. “Got it!” she said. With the first hook down, the others fell into place.
Nelay wanted to sag in relief, but the blasted bodice was too tight. She would have been far more at ease in her simpler, modest acolyte robes, but meeting with the high priestess required full ceremonial attire. And afterward, Nelay had a king to seduce. She sighed. “It wasn’t this snug at the fire dance.”
Jezzel collapsed on her bed in their tiny acolytes’ room, fanning her face with her hands. “Yes, well, tell your bosoms that,” she teased.
Nelay sat down to pull on her adorable little boots with tips that curled up like a new vine.
“I wouldn’t do that. One of those things is likely to pop out.” Jezzel snorted at her own joke.
Nelay looked down at her full breasts, which threatened a rebellion against the plunging neckline. She shot Jezzel a withering look, and the other girl’s snort turned into a burst of laughter. Nelay couldn’t help but chuckle in return. Perhaps she should be more nervous. But then, the priestesses had trained her to win the game of fire since she’d arrived at the temple seven years ago. All she had to do was align the players perfectly. And if anyone excelled at winning games, it was Nelay Arel Mandana ShaBejan.
She stood, and the silk slid like water across her hips. Her fingers traced the cinnamon-colored tattoos that fanned across her temples before winding along the shaved scalp just above her ears and ending at the nape of her neck. They displayed her rank as the most powerful acolyte in the temple. “How do I look, Jez?”
Jezzel’s gaze traveled critically over Nelay’s bodice, her bare midriff, the voluminous trousers, tight only around her waist and ankles, so they flared like bells. “Good enough to distract a king,” Jezzel finally said.
Nelay wiggled her eyebrows. “That’s the goal.”
She left their room and stepped into the priestesses’ private courtyard, squinting against the bright sun. To her right were the sand-filled training grounds. To her left, the stables. Directly before her was the temple. And beyond that, the Summer Palace.
As she walked, the desert wind blasted her, leaving her mouth tasting of baked earth. Just after midday, the wind always turned, bringing with it the hot, dry air off the desert—the ovat—during which everyone retreated into the cool stone structures to nap. At night, the winds reversed, bringing cool air down from the mountains—the tavo, opposite of the ovat in every way.
The flagstones radiated heat through the soles of Nelay’s boots. Many trees decorated the courtyard, but their shade pooled in useless little circles directly beneath them. Even the twin bathing fountains looked wilted under the heat.
She cast a regretful glance at the assortment of weapons stored under an overhang along one wall. In the sand courtyard during the pre-dawn cool, the acolytes learned the fine arts of killing. Nelay’s fingers itched to take one of the shamshirs down. To feel the perfection of the motions, the elegance of the forms. But she now headed for a different kind of battle—one waged with wits instead of weapons.
This time of day, the massive temple doors remained closed against the merciless heat. With the doors’ size and weight, it took four well-muscled guards to push them open. Nelay usually slowed to admire those muscles. But this time she was too relieved to step into the cool shadows of the bethel, the worship room for the hundreds of priestesses residing at the temple.
An echoing thud sounded as the guards shut the doors behind her, plunging her into near darkness. She drew in a breath of the smoky, sweet myrrh incense—this was, after all, a temple dedicated to the Goddess of Fire.
As Nelay’s eyes began to adjust, she could make out row upon row of gold-plated, twisted columns holding the high, arched ceiling of mosaic gold tiles in the patterns of the stars and the sun. A ring of oil with five burning wicks surrounded each column. Besides showing off the priestesses’ vast wealth, the gold reflected the candlelight and illuminated the entire room, shining across the surface of the circular pool of water before the altar. The flickering light made the reds of Nelay’s bodice and pants richer, darker, and the gold trim almost crimson.
She crossed the vast room, sidestepping the kneeling cushions, and made her way to one of the cleansing rooms at the perimeter of the temple’s center section. The servants already waited for her. The perfectly square room featured an altar along the far wall, with a pool of water in front of it. Clay bowls filled with incense floated in the still water.
A cube of crumbling incense also burned inside the hollow glass statue of the dancing Goddess of Fire, the smoke filling the glass in mesmerizing, curling tendrils before escaping from slits in the Goddess’s fanning wings. Tonight, the younger acolytes would take the idol apart and polish the pieces until they shone, then put everything back together.
Nelay’s entrance stirred the smoke, which made her throat itch with the need to c
One applied rich-smelling soap to her scalp, while another sharpened a razor on a strip of leather. A third servant wrapped a towel around her neck and pulled back her thick mane of hair to expose the shaved portion of her scalp. The servant with the razor positioned it carefully on Nelay’s temple and pulled it back in sure, even strokes, cutting the thin bristling of hair just above her ears, lest it obscure the tattoos. Another servant lined Nelay’s dark eyes with even darker kohl. Two more applied a stain to her skin, using cool brushes to draw intricate designs on her hands and arms.
By the time they anointed her hair with holy myrrh oil, Nelay’s knees felt numb and she had a cramp in her foot. The servants draped a delicate gold headdress across her head; the blood-red ruby felt cool against her brow. They added more of her ceremonial jewels—a skirt of tinkling gold coins connected by delicate chains, a heavy gold necklace that dangled into the cleft between her breasts, and a ring attached by a more delicate chain to a bangle at her wrist. Last, they inserted her nose ring, which was connected by a third chain to her heavy ear cuffs. Having finished bedecking her in finery, the servants bowed from the room and shut the door behind them.
Nelay slipped her hand into her pocket and took hold of her small glass idol, the side of her thumb fitting perfectly between the woman’s folded wings. She didn’t have to see it to know a lifetime of touch had rubbed off the shine, leaving a matte finish.
“Goddess of Fire, I pray you forgive me.” Suddenly, Nelay’s bodice wasn’t the only thing that was too tight. She closed her eyes and forced herself to take a breath of air that seemed thick and heavy, nearly impossible to draw into her lungs.
“I have given you my best. I have studied and trained harder than any acolyte. I have kept the rules—I’ve even left the guards alone, though I’ve been sorely tempted by more than a few.” Her mouth twitched in an almost smile that quickly faded.
“And still, I would not go, but I must save my family.” Nelay imagined the Clansmen attacking her family’s home, killing her parents and brother. She shook her head to dispel the images. “I have no right to ask anything of you, but I will, for them.”
She took a pen and a fibrous square of paper that had been soaked in myrrh oil. After dipping her pen in the ink, she wrote, “Grant me all my cunning and all my arts that I might succeed.” Choosing the shape of a duck, as they were considered lucky, she meticulously folded the prayer. Her fingers flew—she’d done this hundreds of times in her early years as an acolyte.
She touched the tip of the duck’s head into a burning brazier of embers. Then she blew until the paper caught, glowing in a stripe of orange immediately followed by black, like a tiger’s stripes. Balancing the duck on her fingertips, Nelay dipped her wrist into the water. The paper started to float, sending out gentle ripples.
She took a deep breath. “Grant me this and when I return, I will serve you all the days of my life.” Without waiting to watch the flame go out, for the ashes to drift lazily through the water, she bowed and rose, smooth as smoke in a windless room.
With her jewels tinkling and water dripping from her fingertips, Nelay crossed the echoing halls at the temple’s center, where all the priestesses’ chambers were located. She had not been to the high priestess’s apartments since she arrived here at the age of nine, but she knew where to go. As she approached the woman’s central chambers, two guards snapped to attention and pushed open the doors.
Nelay swept into the room and knelt on the silk cushion before the raised dais, which was surrounded by a star-shaped pool of water. Floating on the surface were clay lanterns with wicks made of twisted prayers—the kind of prayers only the richest Idarans could afford.
For the most powerful woman in Idara, High Priestess Suka looked perfectly ordinary—middle-aged and a little on the plump side. Nevertheless, her gaze was as sharp as the razor that had shaved Nelay’s head. Suka also had a love for incense that sent even pipe smokers coughing. Keeping her watering eyes properly averted, Nelay bowed.
Suka shifted, the chain that connected her rings tinkling gently. “Acolyte Nelay, do you know why I have called you here?”
Now that she had been addressed, Nelay could speak with impunity. “No, High Priestess.”
Suka raised her hand, palm out. “I’m sure you have heard that the Hansi Province is under attack.”
Nelay’s palms began to sweat. This is a game, she told herself. I will position the players perfectly. And I will win. “Yes, High Priestess.”
“Need I remind you that we are your family now? I am your mother, and your fellow priestesses and acolytes are your sisters.”
“Yes, High Priestess. You are my family.” It goaded Nelay to say it, but there was nothing to gain and much to lose by defying Suka.
“The Goddess is a jealous one, daughter. Be careful that you put nothing and no one before her.”
Nelay bowed her head in a show of deference, but also to hide the anger simmering just below the surface.
Suka leaned back in her throne. “You were always my favorite—I’m sure you know this?”
It was the reason Nelay and Jezzel had gotten away with so much as children, a fact both of them had taken advantage of many times. “As you say, High Priestess.”
Carefully, Suka picked up a cup of tea and sipped. “Since you came to us, you have received only the highest marks.” Of course she had. As the top-ranking acolyte of her class, Nelay would have the freedom to choose her future—no rotting away for years in some small village or being sent on a long expedition. “And the Goddess’s fairies are most pleased with you,” Suka went on.
Nelay had heard this ever since she arrived at the temple, yet she still wasn’t sure what it meant. As a child, she’d been one of a handful of priestesses blessed with the Sight—the ability to see fairies, with their delicate wings and inhuman faces.
But her Sight had slowly faded in her. One day the fairies were blurred, the next they were hazy, then gone altogether. Nelay couldn’t say she was sorry—she hated the fairies even more than she hated snakes, and snake fairies more than both combined.
“I no longer have the Sight, High Priestess.” Nelay loathed to admit as much, but a show of humility would make Suka feel superior—another nudge in the right direction.
Suka waved her hands, her rings flashing. “It is of little consequence. What is important now is that all of Idara is in danger. You do realize this?”
Nelay was surprised the high priestess was willing to admit as much. “I do.” Fire was many things. It brought warmth and comfort and light. But it could also be greedy.
The rise of Idara had begun with old king Kutik and continued after his death with his son, Zatal. Over the span of nearly a century, Idara had devoured kingdom after kingdom, whose kings became vassals to King Zatal.
If fire is stretched too thin, it risks going out altogether. Almost twenty years ago, King Zatal had committed the majority of his armies to subjugate the stubborn Clanlands. But a freak blizzard wiped out nearly their entire army. The loss left Idara reeling and weak, setting off a series of rebellions among the vassal kings. Over the space of two decades, Idara’s armies had been routed from one kingdom to another. Just a few months ago the conquered kingdoms, led by the Clanlands, had banded together to snuff out Idara altogether.
“After our duty to the Goddess, our loyalty lies with Idara,” the high priestess declared, her gaze brooding. “We must do all things to protect those who watch over us and our way of life, for the Clansmen worship the Goddess of Winter.”
Through all Suka’s sermons, one thing had always been abundantly clear—her hatred of the Winter Goddess. She cleared her throat and took another drink of tea—apparently the ridiculous amounts of incense bothered her too. “Dark times come, dark times which only the Goddess of Fire can illumina
Nelay tried to calm her racing heart. So far, everything was going exactly as planned. Suka clearly felt in control and relaxed. “What do you wish of me, High Priestess?”
Suka rose to her feet, motioning for Nelay to follow her. A servant who’d been kneeling in a dark corner shot forward and rapped on the doors. The guards pulled them open, their muscles heaving beneath their oiled skin.
As they moved through the doorways and halls toward the public bethel, the high priestess said quietly, “Sacrifices—all of us will have to make many if we are to survive. You most of all.”
It was so blatantly clear what the High Priestess was getting at. Did she really think she was being secretive? “And what sacrifice would you ask me to make?”
“I know you wish to be high priestess. That you’ve been working towards it.”
Nelay’s breath caught in her throat.
Suka’s brows came up. “You think I didn’t notice? Don’t forget, I won my own game of fire once. But I’m afraid you have a different destiny, daughter. One of far greater importance. You take the first step toward that destiny today.”
“Why me?” Nelay said as they approached the bethel and the guards moved to open the doors.
“Because there is no one else.” Before Nelay could ask what she meant, Suka took a deep breath and stepped into the bethel.
Nelay walked into the public worship room, which was always hotter than the rest of the temple, since the pivot doors between the columns were always open to the public. But the room held no commoners. Instead, soldiers in loose trousers and leather breastplates stood before every entrance, their shamshirs crossed in front of their chests. Nelay recognized them immediately. The Immortals were the king’s personal army, so named because when one soldier died, he or she was immediately replaced. In that way, the Immortals always numbered ten thousand—no more, no less. They were the most elite soldiers in the world. And if the Immortals were here, so was the king.