House of Secrets and Vows (Crown of Deceit #1)

7. A Twist of Fate

7

A TWIST OF FATE

I don't go home with Quin tonight.

As pleasurable—and distracting—as our nights together are, my mind is racing too fast to enjoy the warmth of his hands on me.

Everything I’ve learned about the House of Blood inspires nightmares, but I can’t shake my need for vengeance.

Avenging Aella won’t come without a cost. I’ve already lost my best friend. What else will I lose if I follow the path of revenge?

Though my eyelids are too heavy to keep open, thoughts of what Aella’s last moments were like won't stop haunting me. The few hours of sleep I manage are spent tossing and turning, the sheets tangling around me like suffocating vines until the Temple bells chime.

Usually, I wait until I am about to enter the confessional to pull down the veil covering my face, but without any sleep, I look so awful I lower it before I leave my room.

I pass two new priestesses, who quiet when they see me.

When I take my seat in the confessional, I rest my elbow on the arm of the chair and lean my head onto my propped hand.

My first confessor enters as a long yawn escapes me.

The woman is elderly, with long, raggedy gray hair in desperate need of brushing and the inevitable deep wrinkles that come with old age—a blessing not all in the kingdom are granted.

As the woman stares ahead blankly, she tugs at the torso of her drab taupe-colored dress and sits.

“Welcome.” I adjust the freshly-cleaned cloth hanging over my face, inhaling the pleasant scent of lavender that lingers the first wearing after a wash.

The woman clenches and unclenches her hands as her gaze fixates on the wall to her right.

“I didn't,” she starts, then pauses.

Clench.

Unclench.

She tries again, “I couldn't…”

Clench.

Unclench.

Clench.

Tears drip down her wrinkled cheeks.

I sit upright and focus on the emotions the woman exudes. I sense agony and sorrow, both strong and fresh. “It's all right. Your words are just between us ladies.”

The woman unfolds her fingers and holds them unnaturally stretched as she looks straight at me, despite the enchanted curtain blocking her view between us.

“They wouldn’t stop. Her screams were so loud.” She covers her ears and rocks her head back and forth. “She cried and cried until...”

Her eyes snap shut.

“Whose screams?” I coax in a lulling voice.

Either the woman is plagued with madness, or whatever she is trying to say is so horrific it has turned her so.

She only squeezes her eyes tighter and shakes her head.

What happened to this poor woman?

I glance to make sure the door is shut before I slip past the curtain and kneel so we are at eye level. “It’s all right. You can tell me.”

Should anyone find out I've crossed the fabric barrier, I'll be either temporarily stripped of my duties until I can prove I've learned my lesson, or I'll lose my title completely. But a tickle inside me urges me to comfort the woman.

I place my hand on the woman's shoulder and whisper a few shushes as if I'm soothing a baby. The woman smells like piss and onion, and this close, I can see the oil shining across her face and scalp.

So many in the slums look like her, dirty and haunted. Aella was a natural at comforting others, a gift I don’t possess. My friend always knew what to say and how to respond to suffering.

I close my eyes and picture Aella in one of the many times I watched her ease someone’s pain, her presence always able to calm even the most restless souls.

“Shhh, shhhh.” I rub the woman gently.

The woman stops shaking her head, her breath hitching before it steadies.

Then, with a long exhale, her body relaxes, and she opens her eyes. “You sound so much like her,”

“Was she hurt?” I ask, my tone gentle.

The woman nods, tears welling up in her cloudy eyes. “They…”

I take the woman’s hand in mine and will her to relax. “You’re safe here.”

“My daughter. They butchered her,” she whispers, the words heavy with sorrow.

Gently, I brush my thumb over the top of the woman's withered fingers. Cataracts cloud her eyes, and I wonder how much vision she has left. “Who?”

“The House of Blood.”

The woman’s confession torments me for days.

After our unsuccessful stalling of the guards, Felix gives Quin and me the rest of the week off of resistance duties, despite the fact that the resistance had managed to complete whatever it was we had been stalling for.

Felix, of course, didn't give me any details. But the guards showed up and complicated it, and he used the inconvenience as a chance to punish me.

I spend the first night with Quin, who uses our unexpected free time to devour me with his mouth, licking and kissing in places I never knew were so tender. Usually, I reciprocate the attention, but as if sensing my distraction, he insists on focusing solely on pleasing me.

After three climaxes, I sink into his bed, eager for rest.

Instead, I spend the night tossing and turning, reliving the elderly woman’s terror as she tells me of what happened to her daughter when she was sacrificed in the middle of a dark alleyway.

The woman didn’t mention the prince, though her attention would have been focused on the awful things done to her daughter, and not many commoners would recognize him.

Rage flickers in my chest, and I push it deeper. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want revenge on the monsters who murdered my friend, starting with the soon-to-be heir of Valazica.

Alabek gave me some insight into the House of Blood, but I’ve searched and searched for months for any clues about where to find them, and I am out of places to look.

Aella would have wanted me to move on. If she could, she’d tell me not to waste the life I have. She’d do all she could to ease the guilt eating me away.

But she's gone, and I don’t know how to let it all go.

Quin’s body is curled around me like a cocoon as I sense him stir. The skin of his chest presses against my back as he reaches across me. His hand instinctively covers my breast like a blanket.

“You didn’t sleep at all, did you?” His finger grazes my nipple.

Warmth tingles at his touch. “I might have slept one ounce.”

He shuffles, and his hard cock pushes against my backside. “I slept like a baby.”

“It seems your hard work wore you out.” I roll over so that our noses are nearly touching.

“Last night was anything but work.” He glances down at his hardness. “Looks like I’m quite eager for more.”

My fingers extend and wrap around his impressive length as I eye his cock. “I think he’s always eager for more.”

“Can you blame him?” Quin closes his mouth around mine.

His lips move slowly and deliberately as he grips my ass and tugs me closer. I allow their passion to stifle my rage, if only temporarily.

This time, we both climax.

Soon, I am up and dressed as Quin lingers in bed, the thin sheet tucked at his hips as he sits up. “I’m always here if you need to talk.”

“I know.” I slip on my boots and walk around the bed to give him a quick kiss.

I’ve never told him my favorite part of our relationship is that we don’t talk, not really. We flirt, yes. And discuss our missions and the rebellion. Last night, we both complained about the temporary hiatus Felix put us on. But outside of those things, I don’t know anything about him, nor him me.

I slip into my priestess clothes, which I always hide a block from the Temple, before entering through the front door. It’s my only day off of the week, the one day I don't have to sneak back in before the morning bell and pretend like I spent the entire night asleep in my bed like all the other priestesses.

Even so, I don't often sleep at Quin’s.

Instead of heading straight to my room, I amble through the Temple. I pass two young priestesses who move together as one with locked arms. The sight stabs my heart. One is light-haired, the other dark, and they are around the age I was when Aella brought me into the priestesshood.

I find myself pulled toward the heart of the Temple, into the sanctuary. A high stained-glass ceiling of mosaic flowers spreads out above, the morning sunlight pushing through the colorful tiles. The next morning, this place will be full of an assortment of Valazicans, joined in prayer to the Goddess and her power to forgive them of their transgressions.

But right now, it's only me.

A large statue of the Goddess stands in the middle of the spacious room. Flowers and other offerings are scattered all around her, left throughout the week by the people who come to give confessions. Later today, everything will be cleaned up in time for the next day’s weekly worship of Mina.

I’m required to come and pray to the Goddess along with everyone else on one worship day a month, but outside of that, I rarely come to this room.

With her power flowing through me, I believe the Goddess exists. But unlike the majority of the kingdom, who put their faith in the gods' wills to provide and protect them, I rely only on myself.

“Why?” I ask aloud, though there is no one there to answer me.

Why Aella?

Why hadn't I let her go speak to Alabek? It was always I who felt the need to take the lead, the one craving tougher and tougher missions, while Aella preferred the simpler ones like handing out food to those in need as she had to a fourteen-year-old me.

Aella was so pure. So good .

If the Goddess cared for any human, it would have been Aella.

I've already exhausted the libraries for information about the House of Blood.

Alabek’s warning echoes in my head. If I start asking questions, I'm likely to end up dead. But I can't let the bastards get away with what they did to my friend—what they are still doing to innocents like the elderly woman’s daughter.

Tears build as I sit down, suddenly too light-headed to stand.

The previous year, on Aella’s birthday, we'd taken the night off from the resistance and our priestess duties and spent the night in my room, drinking wine I stole from the Temple kitchens.

I close my eyes, wishing more than anything I could relive the moment and soak it in.

“Be careful, Zariah,” Aella warned. “You’re about to spill your wine all over your bed.”

She sat on the floor, one leg folded over the other as she leaned against the wall underneath the window.

I leveled out my hand before the liquid dropped all over the white sheets. “Seems the wine is getting to me already.”

I was nearly finished with my second glass, while Aella had barely sipped half of her first.

“Priestess Lana won’t take too kindly to you staining your linens with stolen wine.”

She was right. The Temple rules were clear: no liquor outside of the sip allowed on each Solstice.

“Don’t ruin the night with mention of any of the high priestesses.” I set my glass on the nightstand and opened the top drawer. After rummaging around in the sea of random items I’d collected, I pulled out a coin. “Let’s play a game!”

“What kind of game?”

“I’ll flip the coin. If it lands on the tree side, you get to ask me a question I swear to answer in truth. If it lands on the sun side, then I get to ask you one.”

I put my glass of wine on the desk next to me and pushed myself onto my knees.

Aella dropped down and sat across from me before flipping the coin high in the air. It spun and spun until landing quietly on the ground, tree side up.

“Hmmm.” Aella wiggled her nose side-to-side, as she always did when she was in deep thought. “Least favorite priestess in the Temple.”

“Byannca. Easy.” I flipped the coin and it settled on the tree side again.

Aella quirked an eyebrow. “Have you ever fantasized about Felix?”

I shifted my lips to one side of my mouth. “Fantasized? No. But I can’t deny he’s nice to look at.”

Deep hazel eyes, heavy on the green. Luscious brown hair, falling in waves to his chin. And an intensity in his stare I’d never seen matched.

Who wouldn’t want to look at him?

But that was as far as any of my fantasies went.

This time, when I tossed the coin, it landed on the side with the sun.

“Finally.” I had another question planned, but a new one popped into my mind. “Have you ever been in love?”

“I had a childhood crush like most little girls do.” Aella tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But no, I’ve never loved another person like that.”

I was not surprised at the answer. Aella was more dedicated than anyone I know to helping others. Someone so selfless didn't have time for something as frivolous as love.

This time, Aella tossed the coin.

“Tree again?” I groaned.

“What about you? Have you been in love, Zariah?”

“No,” I answered quickly.

I loved my mother with all of my heart, and although it was the purest form of love, losing her taught me the danger in that kind of dedication of the heart. I vowed the moment I let go of her lifeless hand never to care like that again.

Priestess Lana’s voice carries through the room, pulling me from the memory. “I figured you’d be out enjoying your day off.”

The high priestess approaches me from the back of the room, her hands folded and her back straight.

“Not today.”

The priestess pauses a few feet from me.

“This room feels so large when it’s empty. I come here at night alone to pray sometimes. I find the silence peaceful.” She eyes the statue of the Goddess at the front of the room. “Spring is almost at its end, and I’ve received word Prince Maddox will arrive tomorrow to bring back a priestess for the Solstice celebrations. They will last for two weeks, ending on the first day of Summer.”

Aella had been the last priestess taken to the palace for a fortnight to celebrate the beginning of winter. She’d only been back at the Temple for two weeks before she’d been murdered by the House of Blood.

“Oh.” I swallow, reminding myself to focus on the priestess.

“I’d like you to go this time.”

“Me?”

“Why so surprised?” Priestess Lana asks. “Do you not feel worthy?”

“That’s not it.” I bring my hands to prayer. “It would be an honor.”

“Prince Maddox will come and take you to the palace for two weeks. I expect you to be a prime example of the priestesshood as Aella was for the Winter Solstice.”

I bite my cheek at the sound of her name. “Of course.”

I dip my chin in gratitude at her decision.

Unlike me, Aella took pride in both her job as priestess and her role in the resistance. She believed in the power of forgiveness from the Goddess, but she also wanted to help the common people in other ways. She didn’t see being chosen as Winter Solstice Priestess as anything more than a chance to fulfill her priestess duties. It was truly an honor to her.

For me, though—I am still surprised at the selection. I’ve been a priestess for ten years, but there are others who’ve been here longer. Truth be told, the last few months have been nothing more than a blur with my lack of sleep and boiling rage.

But I won't argue. Not when I can use this opportunity to find the answers I seek from Prince Nevan, the only lead I have. His tie to the House of Blood is exactly what I need to use against him and the House.

If I play my hand right, I can avenge my friend.

And if I don’t, I am sure to be hanged.

But first, I need to get close to the prince.