The alley angled past the back of a house. She went to the door and knelt. Or she tried to kneel. The wrap kept her from bending her legs, so she had to bend over from the waist with the wrap pulled tight over her back and hips. When she ran her palms over the wall by the ground, a brick tilted under her push. She found an ornate key in the niche behind it, then replaced the brick and stood up.
Darz was leaning against the wall, watching her exertions with undisguised pleasure. His grin flashed. “Are you breaking into this house, sweet priestess?”
She raised her eyebrows at his cocky smile. “Well, my brother says I don’t visit enough.”
“He lives here?”
Ginger nodded as she unlocked the house. “It’s where we grew up.” She pushed open the door. The interior was cool and dark, but across the room, sunlight slanted through an archway that opened onto a garden within the house. A fountain in the garden spilled water out of a raised bowl into a basin.
“This is nice,” Darz said.
Nice. Such a simple word for a place that held so many complicated and loving memories. “You can stay while my brother is gone. I’ll ask the healer to look in on you.”
He spoke quietly. “You’re very generous.”
She reddened, and motioned him toward the sunny archway. They walked out into the garden. Flowers grew in profusion: snap-lions, rosy box blossoms, and fire-lilies. Pillars that supported balconies bordered the yard, painted red near the bottom, shading into rose, gold and then sky blue. Above them, the real sky arched, like an extension of the yard. The redstone path was smoothed by years of children running and adults walking.
“You look content,” Darz said.
“I remember so much,” she murmured. “Laughter and light.”
His face gentled. “It’s who’s lived in a place that draws the memories, eh?”
“Aye.”
His walk slowed as they crossed the garden. Finally he said, “Perhaps…I might lie down somewhere.”
She could tell the admission cost him a great deal. Such a proud man, this commander in the Queen’s Army. “You can use my brother’s room.”
“He won’t mind?”
“Heath? No, never. He’s a sweetheart.”
Darz spoke dryly. “I have noticed, over the course of my life, that when a lovely young woman refers to a man as a ‘sweetheart’ or some such similar term, he usually turns out to be a hulking monster.”
She laughed amiably. “Heath may be large, but he is never a monster. You’d like him.”
Darz just grunted.
She took him under an archway and into a foyer with a high ceiling. The hall beyond ended at a room with dark red drapes and a four-poster bed. The ends of the posts were carved in figures of the Dragon-Sun with his neck arched and wings spread.
Darz barely looked around; he just went to the bed and lay on its burgundy spread, sprawled on his stomach, but favoring his wounds. With a sigh, he closed his eyes. Watching him, Ginger felt even worse about dragging him out here. She knew she should check his bandages, but she no longer dared touch him.
“I’ll go for the healer,” she said.
He lifted his head. “You will come back, won’t you?”
She knew she should say no. But what came out was, “Yes, I will.” Then she left quickly, to find a safer place than a bedroom that contained him.
As Ginger walked down the hall, a gong rang, its mellow tone echoing. Puzzled, she went to the front of the house and opened the gold door there. Tajman Limestone, the Elder Sentinel, stood outside on her doorstep with Kindle, the Flame Sentinel. Both men had unreadable expressions. The last time Ginger had seen Kindle, at the town meeting, he had seemed solicitous, even wanting to help her up the stairs, but now he was guarded. It discouraged her to think she may have lost yet another person’s goodwill.
Tajman nodded formally. “Light of the morning, Priestess.”
“And to you, Goodsirs.” Someone must have run to tell him she was in town. Although it was natural for him to visit, he had showed up unusually fast, and it didn’t bode well. Usually he would have given her time to rest and clean up after her walk from the temple.
She stepped aside, inviting them into the house. “Will you join me for tea?”
“Thank you.” Tajman walked inside, his posture as stiff as his voice. Kindle followed him with a brief nod to Ginger. As he walked past her, something bothered her, but she wasn’t sure what. The way he moved…?
She ushered them into the parlor, simply furnished with wicker chairs and wine-red cushions. “I’ll go for the tea.”
“Ginger-Sun.” The Elder put up his hand. “Perhaps you shouldn’t.” The lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes seemed deeper.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We should ask you,” he said. “Who hit you?”
She put her palm over the bruise on her cheek. “I don’t know. It happened last night when I was walking in the dunes.” Better to get it all out, so they didn’t think she was hiding anything. “Someone came after me. He said he had been watching me, that I had acted improperly. When I protested, he hit me.”
Kindle spoke sharply. “That’s absurd.”
The moment he spoke, she recognized his voice. “It was you!”
Tajman spoke sternly. “Ginger, you won’t help yourself by fabricating stories against the people sent to guard you.”
“I’m not,” she said. “You know me better than that.”
“Darz Goldstone was all over her,” Kindle said.
Tajman narrowed his gaze at Ginger. “Is that true?”
A rough voice spoke behind her. “If you were spying, Flame Sentinel, you also know she repeatedly told me to leave her alone. Or have you conveniently forgotten that?”
Ginger spun around. Darz was standing in the archway of the room, his hand braced against its side for support.
“You.” Kindle started toward him. “You defiled her!”
“Kindle, stop,” the Elder said. “Are you going to hit a man who can barely stand on his own feet?”
“No one defiled me,” Ginger said, annoyed. “I’m perfectly capable of telling someone to stop. And if you did see, Kindle, then you know he respected my wishes when I said no.”
Kindle fixed her with a hard stare. “It took you too long to push him away.”
Tajman was watching Kindle closely. “You didn’t tell me she told him to stop. You just said they kissed.”
Kindle crossed his arms. “The essence of their trespass is the same.”
“Your trespass is far worse,” Darz said, “to strike the priestess.”
“Did you hit her?” the Elder asked Kindle.
Kindle gestured toward Darz. “It was him.”
“That’s not true!” Ginger said.
Darz spoke in a quiet voice, and in that moment Ginger knew, without doubt, that he was far more dangerous when he was quiet than when he was loud.
“I’ve dueled with men for impugning my name,” Darz said. “To the death.”
“You speak with disrespect,” Kindle told him.
“You called me a whore,” Ginger said angrily.
“Enough, all of you!” Tajman held up his hand.
She took a deep breath. “My apology, Elder Limestone.”
Kindle spoke through gritted teeth. “And mine.”
Ginger glanced at Darz. He met her gaze and said nothing.
The Elder spoke to Kindle. “I understand why you felt that you rather than Tanner should guard her in the desert last night. You’re a sentinel.” He glanced at Darz. “Maybe where you come from, men treat priestesses without respect. But not here.” He considered both of them. “I see no excuse for either of you to strike a servant of the Dragon-Sun, especially since everyone seems agreed she told this man to stop touching her.” Dryly he said, “And I assume neither of you plans to claim the dragon miraculously appeared and ordered you to abuse his priestess.”
“I don’t need any claim,” Darz
said. “I don’t hit women.”
“It’s easy to lie,” Kindle said, “when the only witness to the truth is a woman you dishonored.”
“For saint’s sake,” Ginger said. “If he had dishonored me, why would I defend him?”
Kindle narrowed his gaze at her. “That’s a good question.”
“This arguing achieves nothing.” Elder Tajman walked over to Darz. “Do you admit your trespass against the priestess?”
Even leaning against the door frame, exhausted and bandaged, Darz’s presence out weighed the Elder. “I attempted,” he said. “I didn’t succeed.”
“But you admit you tried.”
Darz regarded him warily. “Yes. I do.”
The Elder glanced at Kindle. “If he’s lying about striking her, why wouldn’t he lie about touching her?”
“I’ve no idea.” Kindle’s gaze shifted away from the Elder.
Tajman turned to face them all. “We have a difficult situation. This man admits to a trespass we cannot ignore.”
“He doesn’t know our ways,” Ginger said.
“Our ways?” Kindle demanded. “The last I knew, the proscription applied everywhere, not just in Sky Flames.”
“It’s a stupid proscription,” Darz said.
Ginger almost groaned. He wasn’t helping matters.
The Elder’s voice hardened. “And why is that, Goldstone?”
It startled Ginger to hear Darz called by his second name. She had grown used to thinking of him by his personal name, an intimacy that reminded her why he had to leave the temple.
“Please don’t argue,” she said. “Elder Limestone, I brought Darz here so he won’t be in the temple. When he’s well enough to travel, we can give him supplies and send him on his way.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Kindle said. “We reward his offense by giving him a fine house to live in and valuable supplies?”
“He has a point,” Tajman said. “In ages past, the sentence for defiling a priestess was execution.”
Darz’s voice went quiet. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”
“No one has been executed in over a century,” Ginger said. “An attempt to steal a kiss is hardly grounds for such a threat.”
“Perhaps,” Tajman said. “It is grounds for prison.”
She blanched. “We don’t have a prison.”
“We could use the cellar under the Tender’s Hall,” Kindle said helpfully. His spirits were obviously picking up.
“You can’t lock me in a cellar!” Darz said loudly.
Kindle rounded on him. “You admitted your trespass.”
“Better that than lie.” Darz’s voice was rising.
“You should be locked away!” Kindle said.
“You hit her.” Darz’s face flushed with anger. “That’s a hell of a lot worse than my kissing her!”
“She deserved it!” Kindle shouted.
Everyone went silent, staring at Kindle.
After a moment, the Elder spoke. “Then you did strike her.”
Kindle paled as he realized what he had said. Watching Darz, Ginger suspected he had far more control over his temper than it had just appeared. He had deliberately provoked Kindle into his admission.
Kindle motioned at Darz. “He tricks us with sly words.”
The Elder raised an eyebrow. “They sounded a lot hotter than sly to me.” When Kindle started to respond, Tajman held up his hand. “I’m not going to lock either my Flame Sentinel or an injured soldier in a cellar. But penance must be done.” He spoke sternly to Ginger. “You should have been more modest.”
She didn’t see what she had done that was immodest, but she couldn’t deny she should have been more careful. She had never expected the constraints on her life to hurt so much. Even so. She had always known what her service to the dragon required.
The Elder looked around at them. “We will let the Dragon-Sun decide.”
She wondered how he planned to do that, given how little attention the dragon seemed to be paying them. “Do you wish me to go to the RayLight Chamber and petition him?”
“No.” He frowned as he sometimes did, as if everything about her dissatisfied him. Then he turned to Kindle. “For the next ten days, you will tend the temple.”
Kindle squinted at him. “I know nothing of attending the Dragon-Sun.”
“I didn’t say the dragon. The building. Sweep the floors, repair breaks, clean the fountain, whatever else is needed.”
Kindle’s face turned red. “Those are a woman’s chores!”
Tajman answered firmly. “They are revered tasks done in service to the sun.”
Ginger almost smiled. This punishment she could live with. It would give her time to read. It also meant she would have to be around Kindle for ten days, but she didn’t have to stay in the temple. She would go on many visits to town.
The Elder was watching her. “You will remain in seclusion during those ten days. You won’t leave the temple for any reason. Kindle will be your guard.” His gaze brushed over her wrap. “Spend your time in meditation and penance to the Dragon-Sun, and perhaps he will forgive your indiscretion.”
She barely managed to bite back her protest. Ten days with Kindle underfoot sounded awful. Nor did she like that Tajman considered him an appropriate guard even after Kindle admitted to striking her. She had to remind herself Tajman could have done a lot worse, such as publicly humiliating her or ordering a physical punishment. She also recognized his impassive expression. He wasn’t going to change his mind.
“And you.” The Elder’s voice chilled as he turned to Darz. The soldier met his gaze steadily.
“You will do the Trial of the Dragon-Sun,” Tajman said. “If at the end, you are still alive, you may go on your way.”
“What? No!” Ginger wanted to shake the Elder. “He’s hurt. He can hardly walk. He’ll freeze up there!”
“Up where?” Darz asked. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s a promontory,” she said. “A natural rock formation like a tower. It’s called the Dragon’s Claw because it looks like a claw open to the sky. The Trial of the Dragon-Sun means you stay there for ten days. Alone. With nothing more than what you can carry up with you.”
“It’s an excellent suggestion,” Kindle said. “Let the dragon decide his punishment.”
“He can hardly walk!” Ginger said. “He could barely even get up there, let alone carry food and gear.”
To her unmitigated surprise, Darz laughed, that familiar deep-throated rumble. “I appreciate your championing my cause, Ginger-Sun, but I could do with a little more confidence in my survival abilities.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “It isn’t—”
“Enough!” Tajman said. “You should look to your own piety, Ginger, instead of nay-saying my decisions.”
“The Elder Sentinel governs here for a reason,” Kindle told her in a sonorous voice. “His wisdom is well known.”
Amazing how fast his mood changed when Darz was the one who suffered. She had enough sense, though, to keep the protest to herself. Her outbursts wouldn’t help anyone.
Darz considered Tajman as if he were taking the measure of the older man. “I have a concern,” he said. “Someone tried to kill me. I don’t know why. It may be they intended to rob me and became enraged when they realized I had nothing to take. But I can’t say for certain, and I don’t want to be defenseless at the top of a mountain.”
“How would they know you were up there?” Tajman asked.
“How did they know I was crossing the desert?” Darz said. “I need weapons if I’m going to stay for ten days. A sword and two daggers.”
“You demand valuable items as part of your sentence?” Kindle asked. “I can’t believe this.”
“He has a point,” Tajman said. “But we have few swords here, and I doubt their owners would part with them for a man convicted of desecrating the temple.”
“He desecrated the priestess,” Kindle said.
&nbs
p; Tajman cocked an eyebrow at him. “You have a sword.”
From the look Kindle gave him, Ginger suspected it would take the entire village to get that sword away from him for Darz. Tajman apparently saw the same, for he said, “No matter.” He turned back to Darz. “I can provide you with a long dagger. It isn’t a sword, but it comes close.”
Darz nodded. “That will help.”
“Then it is decided.” Tajman’s manner became crisp. “Kindle, you walk Ginger-Sun back to the temple. I will take Goldstone to the Claw.”
“I need to gather my things first,” Kindle said, “if I’m to stay with her for ten days.”
“I need goods in town,” Ginger added, miserable. Darz didn’t seem to realize the demands of the trial. If he thought he could leave the promontory, he was mistaken. Tajman would post guards. “Goodman Goldstone needs salves and a change of bandages. My supplies are at the temple, but I can get more from the healer.” She paused as she remembered something else. “The healer had planned to remove Darz’s stitches in a few days. He can’t if Darz is on the Claw.”
“I’m sure Goldstone can manage it,” Kindle said sourly.
“Actually, I probably can,” Darz said.
Tajman glanced at Darz, and Ginger had the feeling he respected how Darz handled himself. In that, she warmed to the Elder. It was always that way with Tajman; one moment he could make her angry enough to clench her fists, and in another he could impress her with his judgment. He was a good leader for the village, and if she chafed under his attitudes, well, it could have been worse. She could have been dealing with Spark, the beefy Second Sentinel who had wanted to beat her for tending a wounded man.
“I’ll call on the healer,” Tajman decided. To Kindle he said, “Escort Ginger to the market, then collect your things and take her back to the temple.”
Unexpectedly, Kindle blushed. “It would be my honor to escort you to the market, Ginger-Sun.”
She blinked at the unexpected courtesy. “Thank you.” She hadn’t put much credence in Darz’s theory that Kindle liked her; she couldn’t think of a worse way to show it than spying on her, scaring her, and hitting her. Men often bewildered her, though. Living in the temple gave her an independence she valued, but it also isolated her until she no longer remembered how to be part of the village. Or so she told herself. It was either that or admit she didn’t fit in here anymore, in this place that was the only home she had ever known. She couldn’t bear such a thought, so she put it away, deep in her mind where it wouldn’t afflict her spirit.