The Temple of Stones used to be the most important building in Capamere, in prior centuries. Back then, people were very serious about the gods and the Elders had more say in people’s lives than the king. It was comprised of two shining towers rising out of a large hall. The hall was the public part of the building. I’d heard there was a magnificent room inside, bedecked with stones and crystals like some fantastic underground cave, but I’d never seen it. People just didn’t go there much anymore. And I really had no idea what went on in the towers, except that the Elders lived there and kept libraries. According to some accounts, they had crazy secrets, orgies, animal sacrifices, rituals…whatever weird rumor you could think of. A lot of the weirdest stuff was said to happen at the top of the highest tower, in a spot called the Sky Bowl. You could see the curved underside of the Sky Bowl from the ground.

Today, though, we didn’t get that close to the Temple at all. We took the carriage down an alley so narrow that at one point, the side of the carriage scraped against the bricks.

“Stop,” Niko said. He waved us down. It didn’t seem like anyone had followed us here, unless they were really good at disguising themselves as a poor person. The alley was quiet, although I heard some drunken, off-key singing in the distance.

One of the buildings had a basement door that was propped ajar with a brick. Niko opened it and waved us down the stairs. He nudged open a rusty iron gate and a ladder led down into the darkness. A lantern shone in the shadows. A lanky, grinning man was waiting for us.

“Hey, guys,” he said, in a serious smoker’s rasp. “Nice night, huh?”

“It’s mid-afternoon,” Niko said. “But, I imagine we’ll get there.”

“Aw, sorry, I guess I’ve been down here too long.”

“It smells down here,” Rin said. “I thought you said this was the old sewer.”

“Believe me, it would smell a lot worse if it was a working sewer,” Niko said. “This is just the aroma of rats, decay and perhaps…” He sniffed like he was actually considering it. “A mere hint of hobo. Lead on, Sully.”

We followed a narrow passageway made up of crumbling stones to walk past a dank river of sluggishly flowing water with trash in it. It smelled like something old and forgotten, the kind of stink that was almost interesting. I’d certainly encountered worse. I guess Rin, being a prince and all, had never put his royal ass on the seat of an outhouse in summer.

The air had a weird sound when we spoke, echoing down the tunnel and getting a wavy quality bouncing off the water. Even when we spoke softly, it seemed too loud. So we didn’t talk much. I was too busy looking at my feet, anyway. The stones were crumbling away in places, and my shoes were expensive. I didn’t want to put a single toe into that water.

Inside that tunnel, time seemed to stretch infinitely. I had no thoughts. I was afraid to have thoughts. I could feel this sense of impending potential death, but I wouldn’t look at it. I have to stay in this moment, I told myself. I have to stay here forever.

Of course, I couldn’t. At some point, the tunnel ended. We encountered another ladder, and Sully said, “This is the one. Y’go up there, and you’re in a room in the Temple basement.”

“One of the Elders is supposed to meet us there,” Niko said. “Thank you for your service, my friend.” He tossed a coin at Sully, who caught it like they did this regularly. Niko led the way, thank goodness.

“All clear currently,” he said, when he reached the top.

We followed him into a room that looked like it was carved out of stone. All it contained were some barrels but it had a number of doors. The guys were all looked around cautiously like they were trying to decide which one to choose, but then one of them creaked open. An older man in robes shuffled in.

“You’re here,” he said. “All five of you?”

“Rin isn’t a guardian,” Sir Forrest said. “It’s the three of us and Phoebe.”

“Then we’ll do the ritual quickly, down here in the basement, and you can leave the way you came.”

“I’m sorry about Elder Dion,” Sir Forrest said.

“We all are…but we know the risks. We are prepared to accept them.” He paused and looked at me. “Welcome, Phoebe. It’s been so long since I laid eyes on a priestess.”

“Thank you.” I was feeling better now. They were prepared. And I always was a sucker for special attention being paid to me.

“Why don’t you come with me?” he said.

I looked at the guardians, reluctant to be parted from them.

Forrest nodded.

The old man motioned me forward down a dark passage. “Honored priestess…”

I stumbled on the uneven ground. “Sorry, I’m—a little nervous…”

“I understand,” he said. “You have a great responsibility. There is no sense mincing words. We have hoped for a priestess to succeed for these many years. You know the dangers you face.”

“Uh…yeah…I definitely do. Can we not talk about that right now?”

He faced me, his eyes blue and kind, if rather watery and old. “You have a real chance,” he said. “The gods have chosen you, Phoebe. You must not think of those who have failed. All that matters is the present and the future. Few have made it this far, with three guardians, including one of the shadows…” His voice lowered.

“Yeah, what’s the deal with that? What are the shadow guardians?”

“They carry the blood of the underworld. The blood of monsters from past the gate. It’s their blood that helps the gate to seal. Ideally, you have two guardians born under the sky of our own world, and two guardians with the blood of shadows. In our golden age, we would have prepared you for all of this from a young age. We would have helped you find all the guardians, and made sure they could never hurt you…the ones with darker tendencies.”

“Okay…”

“I shouldn’t even tell you this,” he said. “It only makes the girls nervous. When we conduct the ceremony, we will seal the Blood of Kassu. We have these sacred stones, that we have used for a thousand years, to connect the Priestess and her guardians to the Temple of Stones. Some of them look quite heavy, but you will barely feel their weight.”

“Um…okay. What do they do?”

“The stones are conduits for our magic. You used a small stone to awaken your sigils, and that of your guardians, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You are ready now for these stones. They will open your sigils to the Temple and the wisdom of ages. Then you will be ready to go to the gate. We will dress you in the sacred ornaments, which you will wear when you perform your final ritual.”

The old man clutched my hands. “It can be hard to take on a life like this,” he said. “If you reach your destination and become our priestess for this age, you will bring peace and happiness to the land. You will usher in a new golden era. But…it will feel like a burden for you at times, especially at first. Pray to the gods, and they will always ease the rocks that weigh upon you.”

I was starting to feel really in over my head now. I felt like I could either start screaming, or just stare at him with my mouth slightly open like a hick. So I did that for a minute. The staring. Not the screaming.

He smiled gently. “It’s all right, young one.” We reached a room where several other Elders were waiting for me.

“The Priestess of the Gate,” the Elder said.

They bowed to me. “You have come, honored one.”

One of the other elders held a box lined in silk with four pieces of gold jewelry, with four pendants marked with my sigils.

It’s like the one Sir Forrest found!

One of the pieces was, in fact, an exact copy of the piece of jewelry Forrest’s great-grandmother gave to him. Maybe in the old era, women wore replicas of the priestess’s jewelry, and his great-uncle came across one. That would make sense. Forrest would be disappointed, though.

“Thank you,” I said, trying to sound dignified.

They lifted up rocks of various sizes—some very heavy looking, and carried them out. We returned to the other room with my guardians.

“Honored priestess,” the elder said. “We will need you to remove your garments—” I mean, of course, I should have known this was going to involve getting naked in front of like, ten old religious guys… “and situate yourself upon the holy stone.”

“And…then what?” Forrestt asked. “We won’t perform the quintet—or quartet, in this case—until we get to the gate, right?”

“Correct. The guardians will not even touch the priestess now. We’re simply activating all of Lady Phoebe’s sigils simultaneously here in the temple. Once this ritual has been completed, you will all be tied to the power of the temple and can tap into it all the way from the gate. This power will allow you to truly hold back the monsters. Gentlemen, if you could all remove any garments covering your sigils?”

“I am far too respectable to mention that this is a pleasant development,” Rin said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.

“Far too respectable,” Gilbert agreed, winking at him. “The only one with their sigil hidden by their clothes is Sir Forrest.”

“Gods damn it.” Forrest yanked on a fastener of his doublet.

I slipped off my dress and shoes. I wasn’t thrilled about putting my naked body down on a cold slab of rock, but we were in a hurry, so I forced myself to get on with it. I got down to my panties and the Elder said, “You can actually leave those on.”

“You should have mentioned that earlier.” I stepped onto the rock and actually, it wasn’t cold at all. It was as warm as a person. I spread myself out on it and it sort of shifted to conform to the shape of my body and support it. Surprisingly relaxing, but at the same time, disconcerting. If the rock could move, it probably swallow me up if it wanted. The sigil on my tailbone grew warm at the touch.

“Stand around her—you, there…” The Elders directed Niko to stand at my head and Gilbert and Forrest at either side of me. “Yes. Just like that. Stand still and the ritual can begin.”

“In better days, we would have time for a rehearsal,” one of the other elders said, with a soft laugh.

“Close your eyes.”

The elders didn’t seem to need any rehearsal, even though no priestess had made it this far in so long. They must practice, waiting. They lit the candles one by one as they started chanting a low melody, some of them taking a counterpart. Although they told me to close my eyes, I couldn’t help opening them here and there as the room filled with flickering light. Golden flashes illuminated the stone ceiling, which was shaped irregularly like this place had started as a cave.

I smelled some herbs burning—aleroot and smokeflower and trueward. They had a rich, festive scent. Smoke curled by my nose as a little golden incense burner was passed over my body, between elders.

They lifted a heavy rock and carried it toward me in two sets of hands. My eyes flew open as they started lowering it toward my pelvis.

“You sure you won’t crush me?” I cried.

“No, priestess. Never. The weight will be distributed and you are quite strong.”

The rock sat in the curve within my hip bones, settling very heavily onto me. My body seemed to sink a little deeper into the rocks. I was pinned down by its weight, and that made me panic, but I realized it didn’t really hurt. It bared down on the sigil on my pelvis, stirring a deep feeling within me. It wasn’t the same as desire, but I was almost too sensitive, my nerves prickling around the stone.

They placed the second rock on my breast. I was ready for the weight this time, breathing deeply around the edges of panic. It was harder to breathe once the rock sank down onto my chest.

“Let your breath slow down naturally,” one of the elders said, as the others continued their chant. “Match the pace of the rock.”

“Rocks don’t breathe, though?”

“Exactly.”

I tried. I let my breath come slower and slower. I focused on the chanting and tried to see just how long I could hold my breath as the rocks pressed down on me. Pretty soon I realized I wasn’t breathing at all. My whole body seemed to be turning to stone. I tried to flex my hands and I couldn’t do it at first. It was like trying to shoot out of bed with a hangover—I wasn’t actually paralyzed, but it just wasn’t happening.

“Good,” the elder said, as another rock was placed on my forehead. It was large enough that it blocked most of my vision as well. I could only see out under the edge, straight past my nose. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I can’t move…

As I started to get nervous again, the stone itself seemed to take hold of me and urge me to slow down. I just need to let go…just surrender to this feeling…

The chanting song of the elders continued, the smokey smell and the music rolling over me, and I started to feel as if I were tipping into a trance. I knew magic existed and I felt it when it poured out of me and into my guardians, but I had never been so close to tasting it for myself. There was magic that could be mine, I thought, magic in the rocks and stones.

This is what I’ve always wanted…

I heard a commotion somewhere.

I tried to move and all the rocks pinned me down. A door burst open. The chanting stopped. An old man went, “Ungh!”

“Shit!” Forrest barked.

“What’s going on? Get these rocks off me…” My speech was a little sluggish as I stirred from my hazy state. I could still lift my arms and legs but even they still moved in slow motion. Out of my slit of vision, I saw soldiers in black armor storming into the room, stabbing one of the old men.

“Oh, no…,” I gasped, the rock feeling heavier on my chest than before. I put my hands on the rock that covered my face but I couldn’t seem to move it.

“Protect Phoebe,” I heard Forrest say, as blades slid together. He was farther away from me now. He must have rushed forward to engage the soldiers.

“Don’t worry, darling, they’re not putting a finger on you,” I heard Niko say, followed by an unpleasant sort of puncture and gurgling sound. I heard Rin’s grunt and the sound of Gilbert’s bow touching the strings.

“A bard. Don’t let him play,” someone said. “Bards are the worst.”

“Cover the commander!” someone else said.

“The priestess. Three guardians.” A voice penetrated the noise. It was almost gentle, almost tired—but not quite either of those things, because I could hear something else beneath it that sent cold fear down my spine. “If you fight now, none of you will be spared. You’d have to get through me and the rest of my men. The empire will kill every last Elder in this temple for being complicit. Give us the girl, and I will forget this even happened.”

“Never,” Forrest growled, his voice so vicious I could imagine spittle flying out of his mouth. “My only goal in this life is to protect that girl.”

“Mine as well,” Gilbert said. He was softer, but no less sincere.

Someone must have looked at Niko, because after a moment, he just said, “Commander Abelard du Lac. Your reputation both precedes you…and supersedes you.”

“Do I know you?”

“I am known, mostly, as the Lucky Dragon.”

“I’m not familiar,” Abel said, dismissive. “I don’t really care about any of you. Guardians are not useful without the priestess.”

“Guardians are linked to the priestess,” Sir Forrest said. “If you plan to kill her, you might as well cut us all down where we stand—or try. That would be our fate in any case.”

“I don’t really want to kill her,” Abel said. “She’s an innocent. When one priestess dies, another rises to take her place. I can’t help it if they keep sacrificing themselves while in captivity…”

“That isn’t what I heard!” It sounded like Forrest tried to lunge at Abel and someone held him back.

“Weren’t you one of mine, once? I feel as if we’ve met.”

“I was in your goddamned army. I was in Pero when we slaughtered the Hawk Mountain clan.”

“Then, control yourself. You know what I can do.” I heard boots creak toward me. My arms flailed. The anticipation was too much. I saw a leg pass by the altar and a moment later, the rock was lifted off my head.

Commander Abel was looking right down at me, and despite Niko’s wise-ass comment, I’m not sure his reputation did “supersede” him. Sure, he was of average height, maybe even an inch or two on the short side. But that was about the only point for our team. His black and silver armor was exquisite, fitted and expensive but also very dangerous looking, and his eyes were even more strange than Niko’s. They were a very pale blue-gray, like ice frozen on a winter lake. They were cold and penetrating, like something that had been human, now brought back to life, and no longer quite the same. Maybe it wouldn’t have been quite as strange if he had fair hair, but no, his hair was a thick dark brown. It didn’t match his eyes at all.

When I met his eyes, my sigils burned. All of them at once. And I mean, burned. I cringed with something that was almost—but not quite—pain.

“Don’t touch her,” Forrest warned.

“Stay back.” Abel’s voice slid through my ears like a knife against my throat. Forrest stopped where he stood, his breathing labored.

Abel lifted the other rocks off me, and then he pulled me to my feet. I still felt all sluggish but it didn’t matter. He scooped me up into his arms. I had a good look at the room for the first time as my weight sank heavily into the enemy’s arms, the cold metal ornamentation of his armor pressing into my skin, my bare feet dangling.

Forrest and Rin both moved to block his exit. The other soldiers in the room edged closer to them. Some of them were gripping the Elders’ robes in their fists, their weapons held threateningly.

Between my sluggish body, my burning sigils, and a general cloudiness in my head, I really wanted to faint. But I had never fainted before, and now was not the time to start. One word from Abel, and this could be a massacre of the elders.

“Forrest, Rin…stand down,” I said. “It’s—it’s too late. You need to protect the elders… They’ve been here for centuries. Priestesses come and go.”

That sounded really brave, didn’t it? Damn, I was brave.

I was also this close to fighting Abel off, bursting into tears, and letting the entire situation go down the drain. Some dark part of me thought maybe if I was going to die, everyone should die, but I fended that off. Himika was a princess and she had defied Emperor Leonidas so bravely. I should be able to manage half of that, at least.

“We don’t even have a reason to trust he’ll let the Elders live,” Forrest said.

“Actually, you do. We’ve let them live this long,” Abel said. “Enough people still believe them that it would not be good policy to kill them. Another generation, perhaps…but not today. I’m sorry. We’ve been tracking you since the Ridgefell safe house. You never stood a chance. You can safely attend your grandmother’s funeral, sir.” He looked at Forrest.

“You bastard.” Rin and Gilbert had to hold Forrest back. He spat at Abel’s feet.

Behind him, I noticed the look in Niko’s eyes. He didn’t look like he had any intention of fighting, and I had a twinge of irritation—some guardian you are, Niko—until I noticed the venom in his strange eyes. Amber met ice.

“Abelard du Lac,” he said again. “I suppose you were born in the du Lac estate. Showered with everything a child could want.”

Abel’s brow furrowed.

“Must be nice,” Niko said. “To know you’re wanted. To know where you came from.” He reached out, gripping one of my hands. I felt two hard squares pressed into my hand. His dice.

Abel’s eyes pointed toward my guardians, and the soldiers pushed them back with spears. He carried me toward the door. My eyes passed over them all, clinging to Forrest until I was torn away. Maybe forever. I bit my lip hard to stop it from trembling.

I was carried up stairs, down some hallway, barely registering the beautiful arched passage carved from crystal. An armored imperial carriage was waiting in a courtyard outside. Abel put me down, feet on sun-baked pave stones, and tied my hands behind my back. Then he whipped off his own cloak and swept it around me, fastening it with a silver pin. He opened the carriage door and lifted me onto the seat. Then he climbed in beside me from the other door.

“Home,” he told the driver, leaning forward.

“Didn’t the emperor want to see her?”

“He can come to me.”Abel’s fingers gripped the seat hard before he sat back. “The others died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. I am keeping her close.”

“The others? Other priestesses? How many have you known?”

“The cycle for a new priestess to awaken takes about five years from the time one priestess is killed. It is to my benefit to keep you alive. Much less work to keep you than to find another.”

I writhed as my sigils throbbed against my skin, burning my skin.

“Are you hurt?” Abel asked, not like he cared, but like he wanted to protect his prize. “Your forehead is glowing.”

“My sigils…they hurt.”

He drew off one of his gloves and tapped my forehead with his finger.

“Ahh!” I sucked in air that tasted of warm leather, like the bench seat of the carriage, fighting off tears of pain.

Abel yanked his hand back and quickly sucked on his finger before putting his glove back on. “We have balm at the house.”

‘The house’ was the largest dwelling I had ever seen. I knew it belonged to his family alone because it had its own gate with a crest on top framed by scrolling letters that said “du Lac”. It was, of course, still in the city, because there was no such thing as being out of the city. But this must be the neighborhood where the richest people lived, because they had actual yards with groomed flowers and hedges instead of fruits, vegetables, and chickens to maximize space, and the building was more wide than tall, with four stories that spread into wings around a central structure with a round tower.

We were met by several guards and a few servants—a middle-aged woman with two younger maids. Abel lifted me down from the carriage and told the woman, “See to it that she is properly dressed to meet the emperor and give her some balm—and maybe some healing tea with a bit of brandy. But keep the guards close. Leonidas will surely want to see her right away.”

“Yes, m’lord. This way, miss. Step lively, now. You don’t want to keep his imperial majesty waiting.”