[ Watashi ]

[ Tomodachi ]

[ Saint Seiya ]

[ Clamp ]

[ Fanfiction ]

It seemed the days in the Sanctuary flowed by in accordance with a set of regular patterns, where the Council of Faith and those in attendance of it were concerned: rise up with the dawn, get a quick breakfast down a hungry stomach, climb up the Great Stairs, start the meeting, argue endlessly without getting anything done--repeat ad libitum, ad nauseum as the Romans loved to say. The days passed by in continual cycles of eat, talk, eat some more, talk some more, eat, talk and finally go to sleep. The sessions were filled with petty bickering and disagreement. Our host usually showed up for the first five minutes of each, and then he vanished as soon as the first dispute started, off to do whatever it was a high lord of the Sanctuary was supposed to do.

It had taken me a little less than half a day to grow bored to death and wish I were back in Cenabum. The squabbles over who stole the followers from whom and whose god or goddess’ domain overlapped that of another’s were fast leading the proud Council members nowhere. There might have been a time when those conversations had been held between people who wielded true power, and who could send armies warring against each other with a snap of their fingers, but it was no longer so. Watching them was like watching famished dogs fighting over a single, half-rotten bone. Still, during that first afternoon I dutifully listened and wrote down notes of what was being said. Then I noticed that other helpers who had accompanied some delegates did little more than pretend to take notes, before quietly slipping to the back of hall and spend their time reading or playing dice.

During the first evening, I had told Macha I didn’t get the reason for our coming to this place and participating in the farce that this Council of Faiths was. The only interesting moment had been the opening lunch, with the duel sparred between the high lord and both our mother and her. That had sparked a flame of laughter in Macha’s eyes, as well as the unhelpful comment that there was more going on in this place than met the eye.

On the following morning, I realized that my dear sister was also prone to leaving the discussion table on some errand of her own, imitated by a few others. When she came back later, barely in time for lunch, an air of smug satisfaction about her, I asked her what this whole thing was about, but she merely shrugged, busy chewing on a strange, very sweet spherical fruit. Glowering at her didn’t help getting me anything other than muffled laughter.

So, once the afternoon session was launched, I sat down, reached for ink, pen and paper, and began to draw silly shapes, waiting for the arguments to start. It didn’t take long. As soon as all around the table were wholly focused on how much they despised and resented one another, I slipped back into the shadows, half-expecting the Lady Muireann’s voice to crack in the hall and command me to get back to my work. Eventually I relaxed, realizing it wouldn’t happen. She was engaged in a discussion with a mean-looking Hun to decide who had the best claim over Gaul and its people’s faiths. In slow steps, I retreated until my back hit the hall’s high outer wall, and wondered what I was going to do next.

A movement, swift and noiseless. From the corner of an eye, I glimpsed a servant step to a spot on the wall halfway between my current position and the great double doors. All of a sudden, a thin ray of light knifed through the relative obscurity of the place and then vanished--as did the servant. Unbidden, a smile crept up my lips, and I strode over to where the man had disappeared, to find a side door dissimulated by the semi-obscurity that embraced the portion of the hall close to its walls. The high windows had been devised for the center of the great room to bask in gentle light, with little care for the area along its edges. Understandable for a ceremonial hall, and quite convenient for me. Carefully I experimented how the handle operated, and the door slid open at once, without making a single noise. I mouthed a silent thanks at Teutates for this small gift of luck, and went out.

The sun was shining brightly outside, but today it was being challenged for the mastery of the sky: big white clouds were gliding toward it, pushed by a strong Northern wind. I shivered when a cold gust of air enveloped me, and I wondered whether it might rain later in the day. For a moment, I just stood there, arching my back and stretching the stiff muscles along my spine. Far below, beyond the Sanctuary’s valleys, the dark blue sea was glittering like some absurdly immense jewel. Straining my ears, I managed to catch the sound of a low rumble, like thunder, rising up to me through a mazelike path between high cliffs and along narrow gorges. It would be nice to get down to it, to feel its waves embracing the shores, but the people here didn’t seem to be too eager to go close to it. With a little sigh, I drew my gaze away from the sparkling waters.

Immediately below me, the Great Stairs were leading down to the lower levels of the Sanctuary, to the valleys where all the people lived, except for a few whom I guessed to be the high lord’s servants and personal guards. With a snort, I pushed the memory of the scornful, arrogant man aside. Along the endless flight of stairs, the twelve little temples seemed to be drowsing, taking a nap under the afternoon sun. On impulse, I started walking toward the first step.

“Hold!” I froze, and my heart sank when I spun on my heels to see two guards standing before the high double doors of the great temple. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I stared at them, my mind racing. Macha had been able to leave the hall, and I was almost certain she hadn’t simply spent her time taking a stroll around the building. Perhaps it was simple to be allowed to get back down the stairs, perhaps it could be viewed as normal for a servant to do so, so he could satisfy his selfish master’s whims. “I need to get a set of archives from our bags back in the guest house,” I told both men in as steady a voice as I could muster. “The Lady Muireann wants them for her current discussions with the Lord Adlas.” I forced a sigh out of my lips. “And she wants them now.”

Something like sympathy flashed in the guards’ eyes, and it was all I could do not to whoop joyfully. “All right then, go. Be careful not to tarry when you cross through one of the Twelve Houses. You must never slow down, or stop when under their roof. Got it?”

I nodded my understanding , then started down the Stairs at a reasonable jog. I wasn’t set on what to do with my sudden bit of freedom. It would last until sundown, which meant I barely had time to hurry down the mountain before having to climb back up again.

A lake of swirling red petals filled my vision when I came near the twelfth temple people in the Sanctuary called a House. For a moment, I paused to admire the incredible field of roses. Their perfume was rising in the air, subtle and yet strangely heady. Remembering the reaction of the priest of Baal, I smirked. Yes, there was something frightening to the flowers, something dangerous, perhaps even lethal, but there was much more to them as well. Weird though it was, I couldn’t help being drawn to them. “You’re beautiful,” I told them softly,” and way gentler than your arrogant master. Except for being gorgeous, you have nothing in common with him. Nothing at all.”

A shiver coursed through the crimson field, both on my right and on my left, a silent wave which rustled a myriad petals in spite of the complete absence of wind in this instant. Unmoving, I stared at the flowers. The abrupt lurch in my heartbeats and the cold spreading in my stomach meant that something inside me had just sensed a threat. “I guess you disagree with me.” I blinked, and then let my shoulders sag in a slight shrug. “It’s not as if I couldn’t be wrong,” I added, feeling a little bit silly for talking to roses, no matter how special they were. Perhaps my judgment was too hasty, perhaps I was too quick to forget that somber flame I had spied lurking beneath the layers of pride in the high lord Afraeil’s amber gaze. I looked back above my shoulders, and heaved out a sigh when I didn’t manage to get a glimpse of the parvis leading to the great temple of Athena, or of the guards set before the double doors. At least they hadn’t been privy to my little bit of foolishness.

It would be nice to sit down on the steps of stone, or maybe to get down to the parvis of the twelfth House so I could find shelter under its protective roof, take a seat there and nap for a bit--just a little bit. I caught myself doing just that, and froze in mid-motion. The atmosphere surrounding me was peaceful, quiet, an invitation to relax and close my eyes. With difficulty, I stifled a yawn. I needed to do that. I needed rest as much as I needed to breathe air inside my lungs. The urge was undeniable, its pull upon my heart and my soul so strong that my vision wavered, and I stumbled. Drained.

The image of finely engraved doors dissimulated by a veil of shadows sprang to the fore of my mind. I took a step forward, catching my balance. There. Yes, I nodded to myself. There, I’d find a perfect place to drift away for a short while. Around me, the perfume of the roses withdrew in small waves, as if the flowers were sad, reluctant to see me go away. “I’ll be back soon,” I smiled at them. “I promise.” From nowhere, a slight breeze rose, rustling the countless petals, while I strode under the porch of the temple that marked the last stop along the Great Stairs’ ascent.

I made it my duty to strictly respect the guards’ advice, and never slowed on my way down, until I stepped inside the sixth temple. There were no twin statues keeping watch over its rear entry, but at the center of the alley leading from threshold to end, a strange sculpture blocked the way, forcing the passer-by to walk around it. When we had traversed the building as a group in the morning, I hadn’t noticed it, intent as I had been on following the others, on ignoring the insubstantial thread binding me to whatever lay inside this place. The sculpture seemed to be one with the marble floor, as if it had simply risen from it. The shape of it was a flower of sorts, its wide petals spread outward, as if to embrace its surroundings. It reminded me of a water lily, but there was something foreign about it. On impulse I reached out, and snatched my hand away at once with a muffled curse. A snort escaped me when I noticed a shallow cut in my left thumb, and I turned away from this weird piece of decoration, sucking on the ridiculous wound.

From beyond their curtain of columns and shadows, the double doors beckoned. I stared at them for the time of a heartbeat, immobile. It was stupid, it was madness and worse. In ignoring the laws the Sanctuary imposed on outsiders, I risked bringing harm on my mother and my sister. I risked jeopardizing their place in the Council of Faiths. Even though the whole thing felt like a waste of time to me, I had no right to discard clearly stated rules to satisfy a senseless whim.

“Shit!” The hiss had come from me, and the sound of it echoed strangely in the hall. I was standing right in front of the double doors, and I could find no memory of my walking toward them in my mind. They were much higher than I, almost of a height with those barring the temple of Athena’s main entry. The delicate carvings on them were leaves and vines intertwined, drawing intricate patterns. Looking up, I noted that they went all the way from floor to ceiling. Now that I was here, I could feel the solidity of them. Those doors wouldn’t break, wouldn’t yield to any kind of lock-picking. Coming here was ludicrous, had been ludicrous from the start. I had tarried here too long already. Heaving out a sigh, I reached out to touch them with my fingertips, then pushed myself away. A cold gust of wind enveloped me.

Without a sound, the double doors had opened before me.

Warmth filled my body, gentle and soothing, and a chuckle escaped from my lips. The secret the double doors guarded was just a garden. A meadow strewn with green and white flowers which were the stunning, diminutive copies of the sculpture lying at the center of the temple. Breathing in the sweet, spicy scent riding the wind, I looked around, unable to refrain from smiling. The garden appeared to spread until infinity, too vast to ever be contained on a small plateau that was little more than an irregularity in the mountain’s slope. The immensity of it must be a trick of the mind, the clever design of a skilled architect. Tentatively I took a step inside it, and then another. Nothing happened. No alarm bell started ringing. No trap opened beneath my feet.

There was nothing threatening here, I decided at last, just an all-encompassing sensation of serenity. There was no roof to keep the sunlight from splashing over the garden, but it seemed to be gentler here: warm, neither hot, nor burning. The blue of the sky had a pure, crisp quality that made it feel like a fresh painting hanging far above. The breeze enfolding me and lazily flapping the long sleeves of my white shirt was pleasant. With a short nod, I strode off from the door, and as I entered deeper into the garden, I got a glimpse of two high shapes in the distance, like gigantic spears or pillars planted in the ground on top of a small hill.

Intrigued, I altered the course of my steps so they’d bring me close to that unexpected sight. It didn’t take me long to reach an unevenness in the otherwise perfectly flat ground. In fact, it took me surprisingly little time to reach it, when considering the hazy image I had first spotted. Shrugging off that latest mystery, I climbed up the slight slope, and blinked when I realized I was stepping under what could only be the shade of a tree. Glancing up, I found two high, deceptively thin-looking trees towering over me. Their canopy of leaves and branches was drawing a delicate, lace-like pattern of light and shade on the field of white flowers at their roots. Quickly I walked the rest of the way separating me from them, and then I reached out, leaning the palm of my right hand flat against the trunk of the closest one.

Cool. I heaved out a faint sigh. Cool and smooth, and oddly agreeable to the touch. At the level of my shoulder, branches started protruding from the tree, forming a network of opening arms that seemed to want to hug the sky. The higher they were, the more the maze they were drawing in the air grew complex. They had long, delicate leaves whose back was a light hue of silver. At some point, the two trees’ canopies joined and became one, their branches intertwined like lovers’ limbs. Again, I let out my breath in a sigh, and I stepped even closer, so I could spin on my heels and lean my back against the trunk. It was peaceful here, so peaceful that I could find no reason to prevent the wine I had drunk during lunch from filling me with warmth and dulling my senses. The wave of exhaustion I had experienced earlier was rising within once more, but the tide of it was gentler this time. The sun was still high in the sky. I could tell in spite of the high trees’ protective shade. There was time enough.

Slowly I allowed my knees to buckle and my back to slide down against the smooth bark, until I found myself sitting in the middle of a tapestry of white flowers with golden scarves around their hearts. Peering at the roots on my left, I tried to resist the urge to lie down. I tried, and failed. What did it matter, anyway? The garden was empty, and it wasn’t as if I’d disturb it, much less harm it. Leaning my arm upon the welcoming soil, I lied down on the left side and curled my body between the roots, and rested my head against my forearm. If I stayed too long, I’d end up with cramps all over my shoulder blades, but I’d only stop here for a moment.

A very short moment.

*****

It’s peaceful. So peaceful I wish I could stay here forever. Out of the world. Out of the constant feeling of the Romans unraveling the mantle of our ways thread by thread. There’s no stopping that, no holding back the rising tide of Christianity. Blurred images hover at the edge of my vision, but I refuse to acknowledge them. The sweet, spicy scent of the garden makes it easy to banish the Seeing. The serenity seeping from it gloves my soul. It feels so good that I have to gather all my will to remember that I’ll have to leave it at some point.

The afternoon light is gentler now. The radiance of it has lessened, and a faint hue of red colors it, painting the field of white flowers a beautiful shade of pale pink. Looking up, I narrow my eyes as a stray ray of sunlight blinds me. It’s coming from an unprotected space between the two lowest branches of the tree I’m using as a bed and pillow. That must mean that the sun is low now, and--a shadow in the distance. Drawing in a breath, I strain my eyes, but I can’t see anything. It’s gone, or more likely it’s never been there. I snort, mocking myself for being spooked as easily as a kid out on his first expedition to pilfer the governor’s orchards, then I look down at the flowers next to my right hand.

A shadow.

I do not move. This time, it’s real. It’s black, and close enough to touch me. My heart hammers in my chest, it’s so heavy the weight of it drags me down. The thunder of it drowns all the other sounds. In spite of myself I look up slowly. Slowly. The ghost is towering over me, somber and dreadful. It stares down at me out of aquamarine beads. The glint in them is terrible, and colder than Winter. The dark wraith is Death, and it has come for me. On instinct, I try to stand up, to flee.

It strikes.

*****

“Ah!” The shrill exclamation rose into the canopy of leaves and branches above my head, even as I jumped up, my back pressed against the hard trunk. I was trembling. Giddy with terror. At last, I managed to drag some air inside my lungs, and released it in a shuddering sigh. When the thick fog enshrouding my mind started retreating in sullen waves, I realized what had just happened. Instead of falling into slumber, I had slipped into a Seeing trance, albeit a light one. Taking in my surroundings, I felt a smile twist my lips. Well, it stood to reason: I had lied down on top of a hill, however small, and I had lowered my defenses.

Blowing air through my nostrils, I gritted my teeth and gave a wild shake of the head, and froze when a ray of sunlight blinded me. It was coming from an opening between the tree’s two lowest branches, and the angle with which it was reaching my face-- I took a long look toward the edge of the garden, I stared at the spot from which I had entered it, and spat out a stifled curse.

There was a shadow close to the opening in the far wall, sure enough.

It was rare for Seeings to show the immediate future, and even rarer for them to reveal events concerning the Seer himself. The chain of events leading up to what I had unwittingly glimpsed was in place. My jaws set, I glanced left and right, but there was no shelter in sight, no hiding place I could reach in time. Setting my gaze on the flowers between my feet, I chewed at my lower lip, and started.

The tree.

I hissed air out of my lungs. The tree itself might be my only chance. There was no doubting what the Seeing had shown me. Besides, the guards’ warnings not to stop or even pause in any of the small temples had been clear. Nobody could, or would find fault with the Sanctuary for doing away with someone who had deliberately chosen to ignore their rules, someone they might even reasonably consider as a spy, or an agent of the Christian hierarchs. There was no time to ponder my options anymore. With a muted prayer to Teutates, I reached for the tree’s lowest branch, and started climbing.

It was difficult to find a stable position on the tree’s thin, fragile limbs. They kept bending dangerously under my weight, even though I hadn’t tried to reach higher than a dozen feet. I had to balance my body between a set of branches, and hope that they would neither break, nor creak in protest. The low, almost inaudible sound of approaching steps cut short to my futile attempts at securing my frail shelter of silver wood. Leaning back against the trunk, I willed myself to be one with it, and I held my breath. A few seconds later, the steps stopped, but I didn’t look down. In the deep, abrupt silence that had come over the garden, the frantic drums of my heartbeats had filled my mind, deafening.

Time trickled past, drop of eternity by drop of eternity, while the branch under my shoulder blades started bending once more, and the strain on my wrists and ankles flared into full-blown pain. Surely the ghost must be gone by now. It must have grown bored, and gone back whence it had come. I tensed when my back began to slip over the smooth bark of the tree, groping for a hold and finding none within reach. That motion further unbalanced my already unstable position, and the slipping sensation accelerated. If I fought it harder, the branch beneath my knees would snap, and the one supporting my shoulders would yield even quicker. There was just nothing I could do. Nothing, except wait.

And fall.

The shock of my back slamming against the ground robbed me of breath, and obscured my vision. For the time of a heartbeat, I wondered how many pieces of me were now littering the garden, then I managed to gulp air inside my lungs, an effort which had the interesting effect of sending a blade of pain knifing through my ribs and my back. The pitiful croaking sound that ensued was mine.

“I thought I had sensed a mouse tiptoeing inside my garden,” a musical voice said above me, mirth and scorn spilling from its every word. “And instead, all I find is a small Gallic blackbird.” There was something in the way the man talked, in the melody of sounds he shaped into Greek, something out of place, foreign but oddly pleasant. The charcoal veil impairing my vision was lifting, but that didn’t change much to what my eyes could see.

There was a shadow looming over me, and it was staring down at me through aquamarine beads that seemed to glow with mocking laughter. I blinked, chasing the ghost of my Seeing out of my mind with a desperate effort of will, and stared back at the man. The tall, slim bastard whose skin was darker than twilight was standing right next to me, and the light smoldering in his night blue gaze was indeed laughter. To see me sprawled on the ground like a puppet whose strings had been abruptly cut amused him to no end. I knew just how he viewed me and my kin. I hadn’t forgotten, and I had little doubt as to what he’d do with me if I couldn’t find a way out of this mess. All of a sudden, he sat down on his heels. “What are you doing here, silly little blackbird?” he mused, his eyes set on mine.

I gawked back at him, speechless. What did it matter to him? The sharp pain in my back and my ribs had receded into a dull, insisting ache. Experimentally, I worked my shoulders, which revived the pain but told me that most likely nothing was broken there. Drawing in a breath, I gathered myself from the ground and sat up, refusing the grimace that wanted to distort the lines of my face. Before me, the somber, conceited god-like figure was still watching me, obviously waiting for an answer. It was absurd. “Falling from a tree,” I muttered at last.

Laughter spilled from him, cold and with more than a hint of contempt in it. “I saw that. What are you doing here?” he repeated the question, as if it mattered to him.

With careful, ginger motions, I crept back against the tree, and used it as a support to get up. He didn’t try to stop me. Silent, he considered me from his squatting position for a while, before standing up as well. He would soon grow bored with this game of cat and mouse, and I didn’t feel like dragging it on either. Sustaining his steady gaze, I gave a slight shrug, unable to prevent the smallest of twitches to disturb my expression. “I wanted to rest my mind from the constant arguments and disputes that resound in the temple of Athena’s main hall,” I told him, fighting to keep the icy shard spearing my insides from invading the tone of my voice. “At first, I thought I’d stop by the field of roses that grow on the back of the twelfth House, but I came here instead.”

Something glinted in the man’s eyes, like embers. “You breathed the scent of Afraeil’s red roses, and then came here.” He pursed his lips. Scorn hadn’t left his voice, but incredulity was now warring with it. Again, I shrugged. I had no better answer to offer him. “How did you know to find my garden?” he asked softly.

Death was gloves covering his hands, and the mantle of earth-brown skin he wore. It was riding his quiet inquiry. It regarded me out of his eyes, eager to strike. “I didn’t.” I wanted to look away and bolt, to race out of this place until my heart burst. I mustn’t. The two words I had whispered weren’t what he wanted to hear, but they were the truth. “I didn’t,” I repeated in a breath. Elaborating would be no help. I could no more explain what had happened than I could claim ignorance of the guards’ clear warning. The cold inside me was spreading, and it was growing harder to keep my body from shivering helplessly. The peace and serenity of the garden was gone, smothered in dread, and somehow that hurt more than the anvil pressing against my back and my chest.

He shot me a piercing look, allowing the silence to stretch on for an ugly, long moment, then he smiled. A cold, cold smile that failed to even touch his gaze. “You are aware of the laws applying to outsiders inside the Sanctuary.” That wasn’t a question, so I didn’t reply anything. Power was bristling in the air around him, horribly strong. There was no way out, none that would allow me to prevail over the awful strength exuding from his every gesture. In slow, lazy steps, he circled around me, never once taking his eyes from mine. For a moment, I saw an opening, but I refused to go for it, to fall for the lure so conveniently dangled before me. His smile widened to reveal his teeth. “The Sanctuary’s justice isn’t a very subtle one. In matters of trespassing, the punishment is invariably death.” He paused, but I held my peace, seeing little use in protesting my innocence or pleading for my life with the likes of him. “Won’t you try to bargain with me,” he asked, curiosity seeping into his voice, “and argue that I owe my life to your intervention during the night of the last Winter Solstice?”

A low hiss won past my lips. So it had happened. I had really stumbled upon a black phantom in the dead of night, a somber apparition who had calmly stepped out of a Roman cart in a clearing full of famished wolves. And he had seen me. He hadn’t forgotten. I drew in a shaking breath. This was a much more dangerous game than I had thought. There was more than my life hanging in the balance here, more than the Lady Muireann’s place in a worthless Council of bickering men and women who refused to see that they had become obsolete. This was no test, no trial that might lead to a painful bit of scolding if I failed. Through the pounding of my heart and the churning of my stomach, I looked straight at the man my mind kept insisting was one of Death’s many shadows.

Around us, the daylight was fading, but stars hadn’t started to twinkle into existence in the sky yet. Perhaps I could reach out to Lugh’s Chain and be answered in time to parry the lethal blow the dark wraith before me would rush to deal. Perhaps. But even if I managed that.... The Sanctuary was a stronghold, the people living in it trained for war, and gifted with a power and abilities I couldn’t even imagine. Whether I took Lugh’s Chain from the heavens, or drew the Sword of Nuada out its sheath of evening breeze, I’d lose. I might kill the predator waiting before me, but there would be others. Eventually, I’d lose.

“No,” I heard myself say at last, and I hated the slight trembling in my voice. “I didn’t save your life that night,” I willed a smile to my lips. “But I may have saved that of the cart’s driver and of those two poor teaming horses.” I was far from certain he’d have helped them. “The one sure thing is that I did frighten away a pack of very hungry wolves.” I lifted up my chin, my eyes still set on his.

A flame swirled in the murky, aquamarine gaze, and laughter again spilled from him, but it was warm this time, and full of mirth. “You have guts,” he snorted, then he shook his head. “And here I was thinking that Kieran’s tale was nothing more than his latest attempt at boring the life out of me.” A sudden scowl knit his brow, then he heaved out a sigh and pivoted toward the right. “You can stop snooping now, Rowan. I’m not going to kill that silly bird. It would be too much of a hassle to explain his kin what is as clear and obvious as that nose in the middle of your face.”

I pushed away from the tree and dragged in a breath, willing calm to enfold me. “What about the lack of subtlety of the Sanctuary’s laws?” I asked him.

“It has workarounds,” a deep, female voice replied, even as a woman appeared out of nowhere, right next to us.

The brown-skinned owner of the garden blinked, and a thin, humorless smile curled up the corners of his mouth. “I said you could stop spying on me, not pop into the heart of my domain, Aries,” he murmured in a deceptively gentle voice.

The woman merely snorted in answer. She was as tall as he, but not as slim, although she could in no way be called plum. She wasn’t pretty. As he had implied, the nose on her face was too big. Her features were hard ones, and her short-cropped chestnut hair finished the job of giving her the looks of a man. There was one thing striking about her however, beyond the quiet sensation of power and assurance radiating from her: her eyes. They were grey and clear. True.

“Azzure!” A loud bang resounded in the air almost in the same time as that exclamation reached us. “Damn you, open those doors!” In spite of the irritation filling it, the voice was perfectly pitched, and easily recognizable.

“Well, well,” said Azzure mused, flicking his tile blue eyes my way. “Afraeil. Your mother must be one of the few true powers left in that stupid Council.” The loud pounding on the doors wasn’t stopping.

“Stop that, Virgo,” the woman named Rowan sighed. “He’s very much capable of bringing those doors down, and then we’d be in a real mess. Come,” she told me, her right hand darting out to clasp mine, while Azzure watched her with no small amount of glee sparkling in his eyes. I turned to look at her, and

found myself elsewhere. I jerked to the side, freeing myself and belatedly, I realized that we were standing on the other side of the double doors. Afraeil, high lord of the Sanctuary, was staring at me with a mixture of anger and worry swirling in his amber gaze. “Well,” he blew air out of his nostrils, “you’re alive. That’s something, I guess.”

Behind us, the double doors opened to let the reddish light of sunset fill the temple’s main hall. “Welcome, Afraeil,” tall, dark and beautiful Azzure strode out of his garden to stand before the one who seemed to be a white reflection of him. They were two sides of the same coin, those two. “Even though I don’t remember inviting you so we could watch the sun set together.” He gave the head of the Sanctuary a mocking bow.

A somber light flashed in the amber eyes, and then was gone. “What will you do about him?” the high lord Afraeil demanded to know, flicking a thumb my way.

Azzure didn’t even glance at me. “I should have him flayed alive and then I should claim his hide so I can use it as a doormat,” he replied in a pleasant voice. On my left, Rowan Aries glowered at him, but he ignored her. “He had nothing to say in his defense!” he scoffed. “He has nothing to bargain, and he couldn’t even fabricate a plausible tale to explain his incredibly stupid behavior. All he has are blurted out bits of truth he doesn’t even understand, so,” he heaved out a faint sigh, “I guess you can have him, and good riddance.” He made to turn away and then paused, adding in an afterthought, “And, please, don’t tell his kin. I don’t want to have to listen to that woman apologizing for something she should have foreseen, and moved to prevent.”

“All right, then.” Was there relief in Afraeil’s tone? “Come,” he nodded at me. “They’ll be ending the afternoon session soon. If you’re not back before then, your absence will be noticed.”

I started to follow him, then I stopped on impulse, and spun on my heels. It was stupid and insane, and the three people around me would laugh at my foolishness, the high flames of their presences dancing in rhythm with their amusement. Nevertheless, I stared at Azzure’s already retreating back, and asked quietly, “Can I come back?”

He stopped, and peered at me from above his left shoulder. There was a smile on his lips. “No, if you can keep yourself from seeking my garden again. Yes, if you dare.” I saw the light in his aquamarine gaze and shivered, holding my ground nonetheless.

“Enough with games!” Afraeil called from behind me, and Azzure bobbed his head, either at him or at me, or both. Then he turned his back on us, and disappeared in the small temple’s shadows.

From the corner of an eye, I spied fingertips reaching for a loaf of the bread I was busy slicing, and I dug the tip of the knife I was using into the table’s hard wood. “Don’t even try,” I growled. The fingers had stopped within an inch of the not-so-sharp blade. I glared at them, but they didn’t retreat. Usually the would-be thieves backed off in quick, nervous motions, and I was content to let them go without so much as glancing at them. It mattered little to me whether the culprit was one of the boys waiting on the skinny priests garbed in orange or yellow, or the unhappy-looking serving girl who followed the priestess of Isis around. I heaved out a loud sigh, but still those fingers refused to go away. In a slow motion, I lifted up my head to meet a pair of green eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter.

“Is this what the line of the Carnutes high druids has fallen to?” she wondered in a dramatic tone. “Has its status been reduced to that of scullery boys?”

Unbidden, a smile crept up my lips. I had taken up helping at the kitchen set in the back of the temple of Athena so I could avoid being close to the religious delegates, even when their so-called work sessions were over. Helping out servants with the routine tasks of slicing off loaves of bread and cheese, filling flasks of wine and cleaning eating knives had nothing exciting about it, but those tasks were mindless ones, soothing in their simplicity. “Has the line of the Carnutes fallen so low it must resort to petty thievery?” I retorted.

Macha gave a derisive snort, then she snatched a loaf of bread from the table with a lightning-quick gesture of the right hand. “Gotcha.” She grinned at me.

I rolled my eyes ceilingward. “Whatever.” Then, refocusing on her, I noticed that her skin had lost its Winter-pale color. It had acquired a nice tan; even the sunburns on her nose and cheeks had healed into a light brown shade. She set her prize back on the table, and reached for the towel she had hooked around her neck, wiping sweat from her brow. “What brings you to the kitchens?” I asked her. Taking a quick look out the windows, I added, “The sun hasn’t yet reached its zenith. Don’t tell me they’ve gone for an early lunch,” I groaned.

“No!” she chuckled. “I just wanted to drop by for a cool drink after running around all morning.” Her eyes met mine. “And I wanted to see how you were doing. The first two days of the Council truly seem to have been bad for you.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “They were boring is all.”

She gave me a look. “Meaning that you no longer find the Sanctuary so boring.” Something hovered on her lips that wasn’t a smile, and she sat on the corner of the table next to me. “There’s a rumor spreading like wildfire among the lower ranks of the Sanctuary’s sacred warriors,” she said, even as she held out the right hand to grab a small spherical fruit whose green skin had to be removed to reveal a claret-colored heart. With the nail of her left thumb, my sister made a small incision at the base of its stem, then she started to peel it in precise, swift gestures.

“What rumor?” I asked her, since it was what she expected.

Macha brought the now cleaned fruit to her mouth and took a bite from it. She took her time chewing on it and then swallowing it. “Mmmh,” she sighed with ease. “That tasted wonderful.” Her gaze darted back to meet mine. “That one of the Council members’ servants is allowed to roam the great Stairs freely, and that he’s been made welcome in one of the Twelve Houses.” While her words faded into silence, she held her gaze with mine, and I stared back at her, schooling my face into a bland expression. There was no telling how that bit of gossip had started, or how Macha had heard of it. And there was little point in worrying or trying to stifle it. “Gale,” she shook her head. “ I covered for you that evening. A servant told me you’d be late, and I didn’t find anything alarming in that. But I saw the high lord Afraeil himself walk up the Stairs with you, as well as the Lady Rowan, one of the Twelve that compose the Sanctuary’s highest rank. You’ve been avoiding Council sessions ever since, and that’s not because you enjoy cooking or washing dishes for hours on end. Where do you spend your days, Gale?”

The Lady Rowan, one of the Twelve. I blinked. Twelve, and there were twelve small temples along the great stairs. No coincidence there. Azzure had claimed the garden of the sixth House as his, which was sure to mean that he was one of them. And the names both the Lady Rowan and he had used for each other--Aries and Virgo. Besides their being the names of Roman constellations, they sounded like titles of sorts. Holding on to my blank mask, I looked at the clouds darkening my sister’s gaze, and countered, “Where do you spend yours?”

Contrary to what Macha had heard, I hadn’t been made welcome in the sixth House, and I wasn’t free to roam about the endless flight of stairs flanking the mountain. My presence was tolerated, no more, and only so long as I respected the constraints set by the strange, prideful and often nasty owner of the garden. The high lord Afraeil had arranged to chance upon me one morning. While pinning me against the wall as easily as if I were a kitten, he had proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms that it’d be better for all concerned if I stuck to the temple of Athena and never tried to steal into one of the Houses again. He hadn’t wanted me to get back to the garden, or to walk the great Stairs outside of the times when the council members returned to their lodging or left it at the start of the day. He had also explained that if word transpired of what I had seen or felt, the Council would be disbanded, and all its members rid of the knowledge and memories that it or the Sanctuary had ever existed. And now rumors were circulating among the Sanctuary’s inhabitants. “Those who told you that ridiculous tale are fools,” I added at last. “Either that, or they’re maneuvering to endanger our position within this Council,” I finished in an even voice.

Macha bowed her head at that, and her shoulders shook with silent laughter. When she peered up at me again, a joyless smile was twisting the lines of her mouth. “There’s no conspiracy against us,” she replied. “What I know, I hold from Roshan, who overheard Kieran arguing with the Lady Rowan on the parvis of the first House. Roshan told me because we’re friends, and he worries about what could happen. Rightly so. He won’t tell anyone else.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “So there’s no rumor spreading in the Sanctuary.”

“There isn’t.” My sister shrugged off her admission, and drew in a deep breath. “I spend my time hunting for information. When the sessions start, I leave the hall and go from office to office, here in the temple of Athena. Then I go down to the valley in search for more.” She looked beyond me, out the window and into the bright light of day.

“The Sanctuary’s true nature is a secret as ancient as the world, one even the Council members do not share in full. All we have are appetizing or frightful tidbits we’re thrown to keep us in line. But they’re known to the outside world as a powerful guild of merchants and traders. All around the Mare Internum, people tread lightly around them. Beyond the Hellespont, even far North, on the other side of Gaul, in Britannia, their name is one that opens many doors.” Macha paused to get another bite of her fruit, licking at her fingers that were now sticky with juice as she did so, and abruptly she focused on what was left of it, the light in her eyes a distant one. “They’re one of the great, quiet forces that move our world, but few feel their subtle hand on the way things unfold. Even the Roman emperor and his Christian church are wary of them. With power comes knowledge, warnings of the intrigues that fester in the Emperor’s inner circle, warnings concerning the shaping of new laws aimed at improving the efficiency of the Empire’s administration, or aimed at cutting down on the Empire’s spending money on Pagan celebrations. Laws,” she whispered, “designed to merge the dictates of the Christian faith with the secular order of the world, bit by bit, and which are destroying the balance of neutrality the former emperors always upheld.”

Facing me again, my sister went on in a quiet voice, “The Sanctuary isn’t only fearsome warriors sworn to the goddess Athena, it’s also skilled diplomats, negotiators and record keepers. So I spend my days trying to learn all I can, in the hopes that it can help us back home.” Blowing air through her nostrils, she glanced at me, and bit her lower lip when she saw that I would neither reply, nor answer the question still hanging in the air between us. “The Sanctuary people aren’t helpful, and they show no inclination to sharing their precious knowledge. However, inquiries and quests for information aren’t forbidden. They’re even expected in fact, when coming from those among us who still care enough to spend hours wandering through the labyrinth they shape around it. I break no law when I do so, I’m in no danger. But you....” She went silent, her emerald eyes looking straight at me, alight with worry.

For a moment, I considered getting up and leaving, but Macha wouldn’t let the matter drop. “What I do, I do respecting the constraints set upon me,” I told her at last. “If there’s any danger, it’s only to myself.”

The shadow that claimed my sister’s gaze was unreadable. Her lips drawn in a taut smile, she said, “I was sure it was so. Gale,” she bowed her head in a brusque motion, as if she no longer wanted to face me, “you must know that these people are different. They blaze as do the brightest stars in the heavens, but they’re even more remote than those. They’re as gorgeous as they’re cold. A cold so deep and harsh it scorches any who come close. Beware, my little brother, for they’d burn you far more than,” her voice faltered, then: “Flavius did.” She had almost snarled his name.

During a long moment, I considered her. So this was what she had feared. Almost I burst out laughing, but I held my peace with an effort of will. I couldn’t claim that her concern was groundless, and what she had been told would have led her to that conclusion. “I know,” I told her quietly. “Even I wouldn’t be so stupid as to entertain fancy notions regarding those scorching fires, no matter how I long for companionship.” I let a tiny fraction of the heaviness weighing my heart seep into my voice while I said this, and Macha lifted up her head, the same somber light still obscuring her eyes. “Don’t worry. Whatever foolishness I’m currently indulging into has nothing to do with getting burnt again.”

Her gaze searched mine for a long while, then abruptly she slid down from the table, stepped to my side and bent over me. Her lips brushed against my right cheek in a feather-light kiss, and I tensed, struggling against the almost overwhelming urge to recoil. “All right,” she breathed, touching her brow to mine. “Then I won’t pry into your business any further.” With that, she pushed away from me and made for the kitchen door. As she was about to reach it, she stopped and pivoted to look at me. “I heard from Kieran that the talks are likely to last all through the rest of the day, and possibly the whole night. It seems that they’ve decided to breach the subject of Christianity in a serious fashion this time.”

I willed a groan through my lips, and she left the room with a wink. Once she was gone, I slumped back against my chair, head bowed. The tension that had twisted the muscles in my back was receding, and the crushing sensation on my ribcage was waning. I was a fool for feeling this. As Macha had told me countless time before, that one Beltane night had been neither her fault, nor mine. She had come to terms with it, so well that she could behave around me the way she did without qualms. She could kiss me and touch me in the way siblings did to show closeness and deep affection, and it was a very good thing. Staring at the half-sliced bread before me, I remembered I’d better hurry and finish that job. Afterward, I’d get back to Azzure’s garden.

The afternoon had strolled into twilight at its won, leisurely pace. The darkening sky was being reflected in the soft blue shade the last lights of day had splashed the field of white flowers with. Studying it from my vantage point next to the twin trees on top of the small hill overlooking the garden, I folded my lips. Before me lay a tapestry of sapphire and emerald and turquoise. All these colors were blending into each other to draw a stunning, magical tableau. Soon, stars would start illuminating the celestial vault. There was a purity to the colors painting the sky, so intense that that one might easily have been deceived into thinking that the heavens were a great lake one could dip one’s hands into. Craning up my neck, I stared at that wonderful palette, and wished the peace of it would reach down to embrace my tiny little piece of the world. Beside me the breeze snorted, rising stray petals in a lazy spiral before my eyes and then allowing them to drift to the ground on my left.

I watched them flutter slowly, then land on the thick blanket of flowers that hugged the trees’ base, and heaved out a sigh. I had been here for hours, but nothing could seem to shake the dull, heavy ache in my ribs, or unclench the twists in my gut. I had tried lying down and closing my eyes, but sleep had eluded me. Worse, the hard pillow of the tree’s roots had made my right shoulder so stiff that moving it sent me wrinkling my nose and grimacing. I was wasting my time here for nothing. I should go back up the Stairs. Perhaps a bit of listening to futile arguments would bore me into sleep.

“Still dallying here, I see,” a musical said, the sigh in it barely audible. There was no preventing the lurch in my heartbeats as I looked up with a brisk motion of the head. The dull ache smoldering between my shoulder blades flared up and I gritted my teeth, refusing to wince. Tall, dark-skinned Azzure had appeared to my right out of nowhere, and the light in his tile blue eyes as he stared down at me wasn’t a happy one. “You’ve been here since noon, drawing a heavy shadow over the garden. It has done nothing but grow thicker as hours passed. I didn’t allow your presence here so you could poison this place with whatever is eating at you.”

I blinked, then looked away from him. Gazing out at the field of flowers, I drew on a smile. “I’m sorry.” I shrugged the gloomy tone from my voice. “I had no idea. I heard that the council has started discussing Christianity, and that has brought thoughts of home to the fore of my mind, I guess.” I let my shoulders sad slowly and exhaled a breath. “And,” I murmured to myself, “it has also served as a reminder that we must go back at some point--that I must leave this garden behind, sooner rather than later.” In the moment I uttered those words, a knot tightened around my throat and pain spread down my chest, as if I was swallowing a ball of sharp needles. Blinking again, I willed my mind to concentrate on the flowers and on the reflections of the twilight they were painting. Fortunately it wasn’t as if the prideful figure standing beside me would care, or even listen to my ramblings. By the time I mastered the absurd mix of refusal, sorrow and longing wreaking havoc in my moronic heart, he’d have grown bored and he’d have left without a word or a sound, as was his habit.

“Christians.” There was a slight rustle of fabric when he squatted down beside me. “Ah, yes. The followers of that one god,” he mused. “The ones who can’t seem to decide whether their god is one, or three.” There was more than a bit of disdain in the chuckle that had accompanied that last sentence.

Reluctantly I sat back against the tree, and stole a glance toward him. He had squatted down right next to me, and he was looking at the garden spreading before him, his forearms resting upon his knees. There was a something like a smile on his lips. The event he was referring to was the one which had sealed the Roman emperor’s alliance with the Christians for good. Why such an aloof figure as he would bother to notice it should be important, but my mind had frozen on something else altogether. Even though it was what I expected, the carelessness in him rankled. It was infuriating--not his total lack of consideration for the Christian faith or for my personal state of mind, no. But his dismissal of the power that they were now holding, so blithely as that...it seemed so simple for him.

Unfair.

“Yes,” I heard myself reply in a pleasant voice, “those Christians. The ones who stand poised to eradicate our roots and all traces of what we are. The ones who’re busy devouring those we love whenever they come too close to their clutches.” Bitterness had filled my tone, and pain as well. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t give a damn. He wouldn’t even hear it.

“Well,” he shrugged one shoulder, meeting my eyes, “you have to admit that the package they offer their followers is rather unique: eternal life not in spirit, but in the flesh, reunited with your loved ones to boot, and basking in their god’s inexhaustible well of love. Unlike most belief systems, theirs centers on the worshippers themselves. On people. The core of everything isn’t the world or any aspect of the universe to them, it’s humanity itself.”

“Only half of it!” I retorted, unable to help myself. There was no sense in arguing philosophy with Azzure, lord of the sixth House along the great flight of Stairs. “And that’s only if that half will bow down and allow itself to be fettered by rules that dictate what every aspect of its everyday life should be--not to mention forsake anything it might have held dear and sacred before,” I added, black anger spilling from me like poison. Then I clamped my jaws shut and brought my knees against my chest, hooking my arms around them. Blinking a sudden searing sensation in my eyes away, I made myself watch the waves of flowers shape a vast pool of whiteness before me.

There was a slight noise, almost inaudible when he sat down. I saw him settle on the ground from the corner of an eye, and wondered why he wouldn’t go away. The silence stretched on between us, growing uncomfortable, but still he didn’t show any sign that he was getting bored. “People will choose which path to take,” he said at last. “Strong rivers will keep on flowing and others, weaker ones, will dry out and die.” The quiet pronouncement speared through the falling night.

I sucked in a breath, and looked up. Stars had started sparkling in a sky in which only the darkest shade of indigo now held dominion. Azzure’s words were twirling in a merry jig around me, refusing to fade into nothingness. It was all I could do not to plug my ears and snarl at their mocking echoes. “Go away!” The harsh whisper that had won past my clenched teeth didn’t help. In my mind’s eye, I could see the Christian priests roaming Cenabum’s market, and I could see women bowing their heads, relinquishing their ancient rights and accepting to diminish, and become little more than shadows. I could see people signing themselves, drawing a cross in the air as they stepped to the other side of the street so as not to come close to Jupiter’s temple in the center square. And I could see Flavius, his eyes a mirror that gave me back my own image, blind to the sight of Lugh’s Chain descending from the heavens and shining in my hands. Lost to the magic of the world forever. Lost.

“So that’s the darkness spilling from you,” Azzure scoffed beside me. “You cling to shadows, past and gone, and irremediably out of your reach.”

Under the assault of those scornful words, I tensed and let go of my knees, laying a hand flat on the ground to push myself up and leave. Then I froze. It was true enough, just as true as the sorry fact that I didn’t know how to make the constant weight on my heart go away for good. Leaving now, storming out of the garden would be yielding, taking the easy way out. It wouldn’t solve anything at all, or turn Azzure’s judgment into a lie. “I know that,” I said in a toneless voice. “I know,” I repeated, looking back at him.

He was striking, this dark, god-like figure, and the sensation of his presence so close to me was almost palpable. He was a flame high enough to touch the sky. Where Flavius was light, he was obscurity. And he was cold, indifferent at best. As Macha had told me, he was so cold that he burnt. There was little, if any humanity in him. What his eyes saw when he laid them on me was a blackbird, a silly, stupid animal. He had told me so himself. I smiled. I had told my sister the truth: even a fool like me wouldn’t fall into the trap. Instinct alone would make anyone shy away from alien presences such as Azzure’s.

“I was badly burnt once,” I murmured to no one in particular, perhaps to prove myself I could utter those words. “The scar that burn left stubbornly refuses to heal and fade.” It was an opportunity better than many I had had: Azzure would neither care, nor remember. To him, people were nothing but boring, uninteresting little ants, so I didn’t risk much by blurting out truths as pathetic as that tiny bit of my past.

A faint snort escaped him. “Whatever kind of training you receive from the famous Lady Muireann is badly lacking. The first thing she should have taught you is control, so this,” before I could react, his left hand darted toward me, the tip of his forefinger lightly tapping my brow, “and that,” his arm had fallen so his fingertip would touch my chest at the heart’s level, “wouldn’t be in conflict.”

I sat very still, and stared back at him. The mockery and contempt dripping from his voice were lashing at me like a nasty bout of hail. “What do you know?” I challenged him. “What would you know of the training I’m going through? Of what I’m learning to become?” I spat out a laugh. Sensitivity was essential in Seeing. It could in no way be blocked or tamed. Apprentices had to learn to deal with it, to seek a fragile balance between the mind and the heart. There was no stern discipline to harness one’s feelings and emotions. There was only groping for one’s way blindly, sometimes with the help of herbs mixed in a too sweet draught, until one could find some kind of center inside one’s soul, an ever-shifting core.

Before me, Azzure’s aquamarine eyes widened. A dark flame flashed in them, and then was gone. Inwardly bracing, I waited for a barbered retort, but there was none. Instead, he just went on watching me, his gaze steady and unreadable. It was all ludicrous. Hissing out a sigh, I looked away, and clasped my left arm with the other hand, my fingers squeezing hard enough to leave marks. This was nothing more than a repetition of the cat and mouse game he had pushed me into the first time I had intruded here. Somehow, I had deluded myself into thinking he wouldn’t listen to anything I said. And once more, I had let him herd me where he would, and goad me into a ridiculous outburst, even more shameful because I had been unable to keep my mouth shut. Nothing about him made sense: why he hadn’t killed me at the time, why he had decided to tolerate me, and why he was still here, sitting next to me. I bit my lower lip, searching for a way out of this absurd situation, anything that might satisfy him or bore him, and make him leave.

At last, memories of my first ascent of the Stairs floated before my mind’s eye, and I snatched at them. “Why are people afraid of this garden and of the doors opening on it?” There, that question was outrageous enough.

There was a moment of silence, then the calm, musical sound of his voice resounded in the rapidly cooling air of the falling night. “Because this place is held sacred by those who know its reason for being.” He paused, then went on, “You see, when those whose name I bear reach the time for them to die, they come here, and sit between the twin Salas behind us. And then they fade from the world.” The smile in his tone was unmistakable.

I sucked in a breath, extremely conscious of the smooth bark of the trunk supporting my back all of a sudden. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, and I bowed my head. When it became obvious he wouldn’t say anything, I gave a shake of the head and folded my lips, drawing my mouth into a thin line. “I disturbed the resting place of your ancestors in coming here, and every time I come back, I make it worse.”

A chuckle rose in the darkness, coming from him. Unable to help myself, I stiffened and turned to face him in a brisk movement. The flames of mirth dancing in his eyes had no scornful or contemptuous glint to them. “You don’t understand, but your mistake is an honest one,” he nodded. “Our bodies aren’t buried under the trees. When our time comes, we wane and disappear from the face of the earth. If we managed to grow wise enough during our lives, we’re freed from the fetters chaining us to the world. If not, we fall into the next cycle of the Wheel. No more, and no less. There are no ghosts haunting my garden,” he finished with the same spark of mirth in his gaze.

I took a long look at him, but there was no way for me to be certain he had told me the truth. The only thing I was sure of was that he hadn’t taken offense, and that my presence here wasn’t one either. My shoulders sagged against the trunk, and I sighed out a breath. He had allowed me to steer the conversation away from talks of Christianity and the flaws and wounds festering in my soul. That was good, so very good that I’d have offered a whole flask of mead to Teutates, had there been one handy. The thought of mead called that of food and kitchen, and brought my mind back to the discussion I had had with Macha. I remembered only too well the high lord Afraeil’s warning, and I really had no idea what to do with what my sister had told me. I couldn’t simply tell Azzure: he had so little consideration for other people that he might just decide to kill Macha’s friend with a snap of his fingers. Eventually I chose an oblique course of action. “What if people in the Sanctuary learnt of my coming here?” I asked him, willing the right amount of curiosity and worry to my voice.

In silence, he stared back at me. Perhaps the question was meaningless, or unimportant to him. The bland look in his eyes might be incomprehension, surprise at this abrupt change of subject, or the beginnings of boredom. At last, the ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Bronze and Silver would know better than to question the choices of a Gold Saint. As to apprentices,” he shrugged one shoulder and added, “well I suppose that Rowan would catch any brave or foolish enough to try their luck up the Stairs to check out for themselves. Then Afraeil would likely kill them, or Kieran might--that is if they survived being caught by Rowan and taught a lesson or two by her. She can be nasty when she sets her mind to it.” His smile had grown into a definite grin.

It was safe, then. I closed my eyes and let out a breath. Roshan was no apprentice. He’d be bound by his order’s laws, and he’d keep what he had heard to himself. The fact that he had spoken to Macha was incredible enough, and probably was proof of how deep their friendship ran, if it wasn’t something else entirely. Ah well, good for her. “Tell me,” Azzure said all of a sudden, “what would you do if you were offered the possibility to stay?” The soft, gentle question echoed in the now fully fallen night.

A thin moon crescent had started rising in the sky. The faint starlight and it were casting a strange halo on the field of white flowers, frightening and beautiful at once. Dissonant laughter broke the spell, coming from me. The sound of it was ugly, but at least it had covered the answer that had rushed to my lips. Insane though it was, the question was more than simple bait. The proposition behind it was perhaps even genuine. And to remain here, close to this garden and away from the sight of brown robes swirling in places where they didn’t belong, of crosses dangling on chests and catching stray reflections of the sunlight--away from the governor’s third son.... This time I refused to close my eyes tightly shut. Through the sick sensation churning my stomach and the anvil crushing my ribcage, I clawed at the will and strength I had, I pulled at them, and faced Azzure.

“I’d thank you for a gift so precious I can only grasp the tiniest fraction of its significance.” I summoned a smile to my lips. “And I’d refuse it. I’d leave, go back to the place of my birth and confront what fate has in store for me. I couldn’t flee the darkness that is likely to come.” I lifted up my chin in defiance, forbidding myself to look away. “I’d go back and fight it with all I have.” Sustaining his calm, unconcerned gaze was too hard. I knew what his question was: payback for my challenging him earlier. I knew, and yet I could no longer keep at bay the nameless pain tearing at me.

Once the echo of my words had faded into the night, I made to turn away. In that moment, he bent over me and laid the palm of his left hand against my eyes, blinding me in a motion so swift I didn’t see it coming. “And that is the right decision,” he told me. The gentleness in his voice knifed through my heart, and I gulped in a breath. On instinct, I blinked back an abrupt sensation of burn in my eyes. “Hush,” he murmured in my ear, and I heaved out a shuddering sigh. My body didn’t tense. I didn’t recoil. “Stay here for the night, and sleep beneath the Twin Salas. They’ll watch over you.” As the breeze carried away the sound of his voice, he lifted his hand from my eyes and slid it up my brow, ending the movement in what might have been a caress when his thumb brushed against the fragile skin of my temple. Then he stood up in a willowy motion, and strode down the small hill without looking back.

He was gone in the night before I could thank him for his strange offer of hospitality. My mind empty, I refused to dwell on what had just happened, and curled between the trees’ roots, shifting until I could find a comfortable position.

Then I closed my eyes.

*****

The sun is shining in a sky almost free of clouds. Cenabum’s streets are dry, and the people hurrying past sometimes wipe at their brows to remove drops of perspiration. Beyond the city, everything is green, a green so dark and yet so vivid that it feels like an impossibly vast jewel. Infinitely precious. Past the walls, the forest spreads to the horizon. The calendar set into the façade of the governor’s palace indicates the coming of Summer.

In the streets, people keep hurrying. The shuffle of their feet over dry earth raises a faint, constant haze of dirt. A carriage overtakes some and showers them with brown dust, but no curse rises in the air, no insult spat out by voices muffled, and yet loud enough to be overheard. People’s gazes are murky and their eyes are directed toward the ground at their feet. All of them. There is no exception, not even the usually proud guards of the Carnutes tribe chief seem willing to stare at anything other than the shape of their toes in their sandals. The clamor of many voices, of angry disputes and of peddlers fighting to gain potential customers’ attention is missing. The blazing heat is heavy, so heavy it crushes houses and people under its implacable strength.

Everything is too quiet. The preparations for Beltane should be well underway, but there are no signs of them. Where the streets open up on the central place of the city, people accelerate the rhythm of their walk even more, as if they were afraid of something right there in the angle.

The temple of Jupiter is gone.

In its place, rubble and the beginnings of what looks like new foundations. It’s that empty space people are almost running past. The haunting look in the eyes they’re very careful to keep on the ground before them is fear, dread even. The same emotion is reeking from every single man, woman and child who come into the big central square, be they Gauls, Romans, or even strangers simply passing through on their way to trade their goods.

In the place’s Northern corner, a wider avenue leads toward the Carnutes ceremonial house. The edifice is smaller than it should be. In spite of the distance, it’s obvious that at least half of it is missing--the judgment hall and the temple of Lugh by the looks of it. The line of buildings bordering the avenue is crooked. The balance of the shadows it casts upon the wide street is broken. There are holes in it, where several temples should be: Isis, Mars, Juno, Epona. They’re gone.

All of them, gone.

People are flocking to the center of the great square, streaming in from the four avenues leading to it. It’s as if the whole population of Cenabum was converging here. They’re all practicing staring down, even those who’ve never respected anyone or anything. Hart the butcher is among them, and Lir the second son of the farmer who supplied the ceremonial house’s stables with hay during the Winter. There are many, many others. All the servants of the ceremonial house have come, deserting their duty. Eventually, the tide of arriving people wanes.

A line of red-cloaked men cuts through the crowd, which recoils to allow them passage, the brisk waves of its abrupt motions echoing all the way to the outer ranks. Three men in long purple robes are walking in the middle of the soldiers, accompanied by another, whose fair-haired mane is like a beacon. Flavius’ eyes scan the crowd, his gaze sliding over people without seeing them. Whatever he’s looking for mustn’t be there, for his mouth twists into a sneer. When the group reaches the center of the square, they climb upon a small dais and the soldiers take position all around it.

The three men in purple robes fan out to form a triangle so they can watch the whole square between them. Crosses of gold, engraved with jewels that glint whenever they catch a ray of sunlight, hang from chains around their necks. Their faces are studied masks of benevolence, but what lurks in their eyes is dislike, contempt even, and beyond that a black, black satisfaction. Flavius’ sky blue gaze is clear, clear of emotion, clear of anything it might have held once--empty and cold.

Lifeless.

In soft voices that carry surprisingly far, the three robed men thank the people for coming. They thank them for their understanding and their precious help in tearing down all the pagan altars and idols that poisoned the city, a city which is now cleansed of the filth that smothered it for so long, and is now ready to receive the one god’s blessing. In preparation for this momentous event, they’re going to be called upon to help once more. A great church must be built here; its foundations are already almost completely done. It’ll be hard, it’ll be long and it will demand a great sacrifice of everyone, but they’ll be rewarded in Heaven, where the one god will be waiting for them all, a special place reserved for each at his side.

In the crowd, Hart the butcher bows his head, his lips folded. He’s shaking.

Lir wipes at his eyes, and his mother brings him close. The strong-willed, ill-tempered woman never looks up at the Christian priests.

None of them do.

And Flavius’ gaze sets on something beyond the crowd, something far away beyond the city’s borders, where an ocean of dark green sparkles under the bright Summer sun. The forest, whose heart he has seen once, and where he knows the roots of the Carnutes’ high druids truly are. A smile curls up the fair Roman’s lips.

Horrible.

*****

The echoes of a ragged breathing were tainting the otherwise peaceful silence of the night. Before my eyes, the image of Flavius’ dead gaze lingered, freezing the blood in my veins. The beating of my heart were slow and uneven, each pounding of it sending a burning river of pain streaming through my body. The air I was gasping for was fire scorching my throat and my lungs. There was no thought inside my mind, nothing but a blank. On instinct, I gathered myself from the ground and leaned heavily against something hard and smooth behind my back so I could clamber up to an upright position.

It was night.

That was wrong. It was day, I knew, close to high noon. The stars above were masked in part by a canopy of slim branches and long, thin leaves whose backs glowed silver with the moonlight. Illusion. There was no tree in Cenabum’s central square, only emptiness filled with people who bowed their heads while poison was busy rotting their hearts away. I tried to push away from what must be a wall behind my back, but everything around me started spinning, and I staggered back. Pain was spearing through my limbs, turning them to jelly, but I had to move. I had to win through the crowd. I had to reach the small dais.

I had to stop Flavius.

I needed a weapon, strength to fill the void of my spirit. Anything. Clamping my jaws shut, I reached for the Sword of Nuada, but its cool, insubstantial hilt didn’t come to my hand. There was no wind, not even the slightest breeze at all. It was as if the world had stopped, held between one moment and the next. The pitiful croak that won past my lips would have been a curse if my lips had been able to shape the sounds of it. There was no fire close to me, and I didn’t have the tools to spark one. That left only the chain of Lugh, but the quiet darkness around me was a lie. Still, I had no choice. Ignoring the slow, labored beatings of my heart, I called out to the brightest stars in the heavens.

They wouldn’t answer me, they couldn’t, not while the sun was blazing over the land, but I called out to them anyway. I reached out with shaking hands, even when a searing sensation whipped my forearms, coiling up to them and tearing the skin there. Even when the reek of charred flesh assaulted my nostrils, and when a scream clawed at my throat, I kept reaching out.

“Stop that!” The sharp command cracked in the air. Unheeding, I pushed the echoes of it away and flung what was left of my will and my feeble strength along the desperate call for Lugh’s Chain. Hands pounced upon my shoulders, slamming me against the wall, and I jerked to the left. A soft pop in my right shoulder sent a white hot spike of pain through my arm and my chest. For the time of a heartbeat, I yielded. Then I pulled again, uncaring that the awfully strong grip upon my shoulder might rip it off my arm in the next moment.

A wall of light rose in the air, blinding and cold, so cold that it froze my breath, and severed my tenuous link with the heavens. I flung myself against it and crashed into it like a maddened sparrow into a polished mirror. A deep, tearing sensation invaded my chest as my heart lurched. “Stop it, silly blackbird!” The same, familiar voice ordered, annoyed. There was a presence all around me, enfolding me like a great Winter cloak. It was so strong that the feeling of it crushed my soul. Reflexively I lashed out at it, I closed my fingers around the Sword of Nuada, but it dissolved into nothingness when I didn’t manage to lift my arm, much less hold the impossibly sharp blade of wind with the last shreds of will I had. “Enough!” The wall of light closed around me, its pressure on the verge of snapping my spine. This time, the scream clawing at my throat won free, and I crumpled back against the wall, bereft of strength and insane with pain.

“Hush.” I was alive. I dragged air inside my lungs, and gritted my teeth, refusing the perception that someone had planted a hook between my ribs and was busy pulling them out. Around me, the wall of light was lifting, losing substance the way thin blankets of mist did when dawn came upon the plains beyond Cenabum’s sacred forest. The pain ebbed away, lazy and slow, and Time held its breath until it became bearable again.

A pair of aquamarine eyes was watching me closely, the dark, dark light in them an unreadable one. Azzure, I realized. And this wasn’t Gaul, it was the heart of his garden, and the moon crescent was past its zenith, indicating that sunrise was growing near. Helpless, I looked back at him, even as the claws that the Seeing had dug deep inside my soul reluctantly relaxed their hold. All of a sudden, the acrid smell of burnt flesh smothering the air around us registered in my brain, and I hissed out in disgust. Glancing down at my still shaking body, I froze.

Ugly marks were striping my forearms, deep, deep burns that had burrowed beyond the skin as if a whip of flames had wanted to flay me to the bone--the Chain of Lugh. I hissed in a breath. Of course. It had answered me, and answered me again when I had kept reaching for it. It would have consumed me if something hadn’t stopped me from calling out to it. Someone. Denying the raw sensation of pain that spread from my wrists to my elbows to engulf the shoulders and invade my whole body, I made myself look up. “Another heartbeat, and you’d have died,” Azzure told me in an even voice. “I wouldn’t have let you harm this garden.” He’d have killed me, was what he meant.

“I’m sorry,” I replied between clenched teeth. Regrets were futile, but still I had to utter those words. I bowed my head. “I Saw,” I bit my lower lip hard, refusing the image of Cenabum’s central place packed with people staring at the ground at their feet, their gazes drowned in darkness. “I Saw--” I shook my head. I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t. “We have to go,” I forced the words out of my mouth, “to leave this place and return. Now. Now, before--” I made to move, and slumped to the ground when my knees buckled under me.

Watching my body sprawled between the trees’ roots, Azzure smiled. “You’re an even stupider blackbird than I thought.” Then he set a knee on the ground beside me and reached for my left forearm. Even as he set his gaze on it, a soft glow enveloped the badly burnt limb, like a mantle of golden light. Once it had wrapped around my forearm completely, he focused on the other, and the same thing happened. Uncomprehending, I looked at the wounds and their ethereal bandages, and then I faced him. The pain was almost completely gone. “It will do until I can raise Rowan and tell her to see to that as well as to your torn shoulder,” he nodded. Then his eyes met mine. “As for you, you’re going nowhere. Not now. Not tomorrow. You won’t return to Gaul until I agree to bring you back there, unless you wish to waste long weeks of traveling back on your own.”

“You don’t understand!” I snarled, and then I willed calm to my voice with a desperate effort of will. “I See what will be, when the gods allow, and when the whim comes upon them. And what--”

“Think!” he laughed. “Either what you glimpsed will happen soon, and it’s too late to do anything about it, or it will take place later, and waiting until the council’s meetings end won’t harm.” I dragged in a breath. And another. And another. He was right. Of course. Not to mention that our interrupting the Council so abruptly to return to Cenabum would be certain to alert the other participants to the fact that something was very wrong with the Gallic druids. And if word of that was to get out somehow.... I heaved out a shaking sigh.

“One wonders how mere mortals presume to envision changing the flow of destiny.” The thoughtful murmur glided into the silence. Azzure’s tile blue eyes were still watching me. The distant light swirling in them could have been curiosity.

“That is for the Lady Muireann to decide and to judge,” I retorted, shrugging the one shoulder that wasn’t wounded. “It’s our fate. Our doom, not yours.”

He scoffed at that. “True.” Then he gave me a nod. “I’ll get Rowan right after dawn. Then I’ll have a word with Afraeil. There are many ways to make fools arguing in the great hall of Athena’s temple decide that this session of the Council has come to an end.”

I shot him a sharp glance, then bowed my head. “Thank you,” I told him, my voice thick with the sudden heaviness of my heart. “Thank you, lord Azzure.”

“Please!” He had wrinkled his nose in a grimace that looked comical and out of place on his perfect features. “That stupid title is useful only insofar as it’ll keep people at bay and prevent them from approaching me and bothering me. You,” he snorted, “won’t be deterred, obviously. So calling me Azzure will do.”

“All right.” I gave him a slow nod. “Thank you, Azzure.”

With a flick of the right hand, he waved my words aside, then abruptly detached the white cloak he was wearing from his shoulders. “Here,” he handed it to me. “Lie down and use it as a blanket. You’ll sleep until morning, a dreamless sleep.” Embers glowed in his eyes. “I’m not risking you glimpsing anything else and burning the House of Virgo to the ground in reaction.”

I opened my mouth to protest, and found that my body had already moved to obey him, sliding down against the smooth bark of the tree’s trunk. Keeping my eyes open was beyond me. With an awkward, drowsy motion of my one valid arm, I tried to spread Azzure’s cloak over my body. The last thing I felt as I fell into slumber was a slight weight resting on my injured shoulder. Gently. Carefully. Then I sank into the night, shielded by a soft golden light and guarded by the presence at my side. A presence who had laid a hand on my shoulder as if to lay a claim upon me, so that the mischievous spirits of graying skies wouldn’t be able to play tricks on me.

Safe.

End of Chapter 3.

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