14

  Everyone’s Someone

  The dull tread of his bare feet on cool flagstones was the only sound in Owen’s ears as he followed the cold-blooded woman along the outside of the dorms. In his arms, the young priestess was crumpled up, unconscious, her face the sort of miserable that was unbearable to see, whatever her crimes or personality might be. She looked like someone tormented by horrors that were both real and imagined, and the way her wet hair stuck to her face only enhanced the effect.

  The woman who had done this to the priestess walked slowly in front of Owen. She had commanded him to follow her, and so he had. He was convinced that his body would simply obey the order regardless of his wishes anyway, and at least this might buy them some time for someone to see what was happening and raise the alarm.

  This is ridiculous, am I seriously hoping the people who captured me will rescue me? Wait … she was the one who led the attack when I was taken … I’m sure of it. So what is going on then? Another induction ritual for the priestess? Why do I have to not only see this woman again, but be forced to obey her?!

  “Speak your mind, human,” the woman said without looking back. “I know you must have questions. Accusations. Pain.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Owen said, his voice rough with the hurt of her cold, uncaring, tone.

  “Nevertheless,” the woman continued, “you must, for this opportunity is unlikely to present itself to you again. Here I am before you, offering to answer your questions.”

  Another initiate rounded the building up ahead of them, but walked straight past the little procession without so much as a look. Owen felt a chill in his shoulders. It was as if they did not even exist.

  “Did you do this?” Owen asked finally. “Can no one … see us?”

  “They see what I wish them to see,” the woman said, as if that made all the sense in the world.

  “That is insane,” Owen muttered to himself.

  “It is a gift that allows me to walk among my enemies unseen. It has no affect on those with the favour of Jia … of God.”

  They turned the same corner the initiate had rounded before passing them, and the woman stopped in front of a door, pushing it gently open. As Owen slowly manoeuvred the priestess through the door without knocking her feet or head, he looked about the small living quarters as the woman coaxed a flame from a smouldering brazier with … well … magic. Owen stared, still not used to the idea things could be willed into being in this place.

  “Put her on the bed,” the woman murmured.

  Owen did as he was told and then stood awkwardly to the side. He glanced at the woman.

  “You expect me to believe God gave you the power to murder my wife?” he asked, his voice low and dead.

  The woman looked at him and there was sadness in her eyes that Owen felt went far deeper than even he could comprehend. “I am very sorry for how that unfolded, and I do not ask your trust. I told you part of the truth on that night, and allowed you to draw some unhelpful conclusions for yourself.” She looked Owen in the eyes. “It was indeed I who – as I told you – severed your wife’s spirit from her body. And I did do that to keep her from suffering. But … she had already been marked for murder by the Cult, just as you had already been marked for service. And they would not have severed her spirit before doing … what you saw.”

  Owen sat down heavily on the small, hardwood, table next to the priestess’ bed. He didn’t really understand the point the woman was trying to make. Was he supposed to feel better? Her friends were butchers and traffickers.

  The woman looked down at him and her cold expression softened slightly.

  “You and your wife were the only ones that evening who saw me,” the woman said seriously, her penetrating stare searching for understanding in Owen’s face.

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  “As in … are you trying to tell me that the other people from here … they didn’t know you were there?”

  “When they looked at me, they saw one of their own superiors. But I am no friend of theirs. They would descend into a blood frenzy if they knew I was nearby. All of their kind are instructed to cut me down on sight.”

  “Maybe I would’ve been better off not knowing any of this,” Owen said, defeated. He didn’t know how he felt about all of this, let alone how he should feel. Life had always seemed far too complicated for someone like him. What am I supposed to do with this? God … what do you want me to do in a situation like this? He looked at the woman. “What have you done to the priestess?”

  “Why do you care?” asked the woman softly, looking sadly down on the priestess.

  Owen looked down at the girl lying asleep on the bed, and it struck him suddenly how alone and miserable she looked. She had put on a good act of being self-assured and happy with her chosen path, but her sleeping expression refused to back up her fiction. Owen looked back at the woman, something clicking into place.

  “Who is she to you?”

  The woman cocked her head then. “Why do you care?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know,” Owen replied, his tone carefully cold. “But I know she is extremely sad. Why, I couldn’t tell you. But … I guess I don’t like seeing people that way.”

  “That is very generous of you,” the woman murmured, her gaze drifting back to the priestess. “Will you tell her what she wishes to hear, like everyone else that she has surrounded herself with?”

  “Considering the conversation you walked in on, I think you know the answer to that already,” Owen said flatly. “Please don’t play games with me. These temple folks do it enough already.”

  The woman laughed warmly, and a little smile reached her eyes. “I like you, Owen McKlellan,” she laughed. “You are correct in what you assume I overheard. Everything from her deciding what she would call you. It is a fine name, for multiple reasons. It is the building stone of choice for our people. Sturdy. Unyielding. It will be my ongoing prayer that you live up to this name.”

  “Why do you care?” asked Owen suspiciously.

  “Because,” smiled the woman sadly, “this is my precious daughter, whom I love very much. She is lost and blind. In answer to your earlier question, I have restored her sight. She may choose the wrong path again, but she will no be presented with the jarring, alien, nature of just how far removed the Temple’s ways are from ours. You might say … I reset her desensitised nature. I have given her sight back. I pray you will prevent her from blinding herself, or being blinded by others … and finally, that you will lead her home.”

  “No pressure,” Owen grimaced. Is that what I’m here for, God? Really? They see us as subhuman at best … why would this girl of all people listen to me? I could understand if I was here to encourage Abner, or even Isaac and Jael … but I’ve been split from them.

  “I place no obligation on you,” the woman corrected gently. “Only a heartfelt plea that you will not abandon her.”

  “Why don’t you take her away from here?” Owen demanded. “I mean … yeah … I’ll do my best. That’s just who I am. But surely it would be better if you just carried her away into the mountains using your insane abilities?”

  “No, she has only bitterness for me,” the woman murmured. “There is no trust between us, only her entire lifetime of my absence … which she does not understand was for her sake. Already she trusts you far more than she can bring herself to trust me. Everyone around her has filled her ears with my monstrous nature and it would take a true change in her surroundings for her to even be able to look upon me without the immediate urge to make an attempt on my life. The time where I carry her away may yet come … but it will be when I deem her ready for that next step. So please … Owen McKlellan. Remain by her side for as long as she will keep you there.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Owen shrugged helplessly.

  “Of course,” the woman assured him. “We always have a choice. You could have eaten the meat, but you chose not to. You do not mean to tell me you thought nothing would come of that?”

  “Well …” Owen fell ruefully silent.

  “There is more to being at someone’s side than merely standing next to them,” the woman smiled.

  Owen sighed, defeated. “You expect a lot of my patience,” he pointed out.

  “I do,” the woman admitted. “But I believe you to be an extraordinarily patient man.”

  “I do have the faults to balance that out,” Owen admitted, despite knowing that he had already chosen his path.

  “As do I,” murmured the woman. “I am even now reaping the rewards of climbing to the pinnacle of success in Raashim’s House before understanding what I had done and forsaking it all. They will always view me with contempt and hatred.”

  She stepped closer to Owen then, closed her eyes, and placed a hand that felt oddly fragile – given the context of her great power – on Owen’s head. She had seemed larger than life to Owen up until now, but here, with her standing directly in front of him, he was confronted by how unassuming she truly was. She was a similar build to her daughter, slender but not waifish, and certainly a full head shorter. It made Owen feel as if he should be kneeling or sitting … it didn’t feel polite to make her reach up for some reason.

  Her lips moved silently, her picturesque eyebrows furrowing slightly in her concentration, and only then did Owen begin to wonder what it was that she was doing. And then the strength left his legs, his knees buckled, and he was on his rear, sitting down heavily on the floor next to the priestess’ bed. He looked up, confused, wondering if this woman had been an enemy after all, the dimly-lit room swimming before his eyes. The woman smiled down at him, turned on her heel, and abruptly vanished into thin air.

  Was any of this real? Owen wondered weakly, as his vision faded to black.