Fallen City by Adrienne Young - 3

The air was full of rose and spice.

I wove through the market with quick steps, sending a glance to the sundial’s shadow cast on the outer wall of the Illyrium. The morning’s tribunal had gone long, and while Priestess Ophelius didn’t like it when I was late, she also wouldn’t let me through the doors of the temple on a feast day without an offering.

Carts filled with silk, bread, and herbs littered the walkway where the citizens of the Citadel District were haggling over wares in their own preparations for the festivities. There would be parties, rituals, and ceremonial gatherings for the next three days to observe the First Feast, honoring the goddess Eris, keeper of life itself. Once the sun set, a new year would begin.

When I spotted the cart I was looking for, I tugged the length of my chiton higher, turning to the side to wedge myself through the crowd. A hunchbacked woman was perched on a stool over a collection of jars that glowed like liquid gold in the sunlight. Large slices of honeycomb were suspended inside, the bright amber color signifying them as a delicacy from the most remote coastland meadows. The honey was tinged with the scent of orange blossoms, the very fruit that the goddess Eris used to divine the future.

I already had my drachmas in hand, studying the jars carefully before I chose one. Eris would receive countless offerings in the next few days, and if I wanted to garner her favor for the year ahead, I needed a gift that would stand out among the others.

As soon as I plucked one from the cart, the coins were clattering on the table and I pushed back toward the bridge with the honey clutched to my chest. The market edged along the outer wall of the baths, and from the look of it, they were full. The steam lifted into the air behind the carved stone walls, where the Citadel District’s residents were preparing for the events that would go well into the night. My mother would spend her afternoon in our family’s private chamber there, being bathed by our servant Iola before her skin was scrubbed with herb-scented salts. By sundown she’d be covered in the glow of rare oils, her hair intricately braided and dotted with jewels. Our family had been given the honor of hosting this year’s First Feast for the Magistrates, and my mother had had Iola polish her obsidian mirror weeks ago. There was no room for anything but perfection tonight. Not when the whole of the Forum would be in attendance.

Scores of people were streaming in from the Lower City, on their way to work in the villas and shop fronts of the Citadel District. By nightfall, every window would be illuminated with firelight, the celebrations drowned in wine. The Lower City would have to wait until the residents of the Citadel District were sleeping off their drunken stupor to hold their own parties.

Two men with large wooden dowels propped on their shoulders barreled up the bridge, nearly knocking me into the street lantern as they passed. A gutted pig carcass was strung up between them, its hooves bound, ready for roasting. The smell of the raw flesh made my stomach turn.

When I finally made it across the river, I walked faster, sweat beading between my shoulder blades. The courtyard of the Illyrium was bursting with people who’d come to collect the blessed water in the fountain. It was the only temple in the city dedicated to all twelve gods, and on feast days, people lined up for half a mile along the river, ceramic vessels cradled in their arms or dangling from ropes. Tonight, they would be placed at the doorways of every home so that guests could cleanse themselves before paying homage to Eris.

I took the stairs up to the Illyrium’s entrance, where a marble carving of the three faces of the god Phaedo painted a shadow on the steps. The huge marble walls of the temple blocked out the noise of the city, and the thick smell of incense curled softly in the air. The great hall was lined with enormous statues of the gods that watched with empty eyes as I crossed the polished floor with quiet steps. In the three years I’d been a novice to Ophelius, the Illyrium had become a second home. A place where I found myself moving by memory.

I passed the chamber that housed the temple smith, where he worked over the smoldering forge. The sound of water on hot gold hissed as he cooled a newly made medallion, sending a metallic scent into the hall. I slipped off my sandals and went to the nearest stone washing bowl, where cold, perfumed water from the fountain outside was replaced every hour. The customs of entering the temple had been ingrained in me since I could walk, even if my mother had never had much reverence for the gods. I scrubbed my hands and arms methodically before I washed my face. My feet were next, dipped into the hammered bronze troughs along the wall, and then I pulled back my hair from my face, tying it at the nape of my neck. The perfume of quince and rosemary replaced the dusty smell of the city that clung to my skin, washing away the last bit of the outside world before I entered the inner chamber of the temple.

I held the jar of honey in both hands as I stepped inside, where Ophelius was already standing at the altar. Her long silver hair trailed down the center of her back, her shoulders square beneath a robe embroidered with a shimmering gold thread that had been spun with godsblood. It was the one she wore only on feast days.

She didn’t turn to greet me when she heard me coming, but she didn’t turn to greet me. She never did. I came up the aisle with steps slow enough to be considered respectful and dropped to the ground to press my forehead to the stone. But when I rose and saw what Ophelius was doing, I all but ran to the altar.

She had the ceremonial knife clutched in one hand, suspended in the air as she watched her wrist drain into the porcelain bowl before her.

“You started without me,” I rasped, setting the jar of honey down haphazardly and pulling up the sleeves of my robe.

“You are late,” she said, letting me take the knife. It was carved from the bone of a whale with a design of gentle waves that commemorated the sea. The shining blade was smeared with godsblood.

I took over the ritual with quick hands, setting down the knife and taking Ophelius’ arm to balance it over the bowl. The blood that dripped from her wrist was laced with the metallic sheen that signified the magic of the gods. The deep crimson glimmered as the light touched it, as if gold dust had been stirred into it.

The altar was stacked high with bundles of basil, baskets of pomegranates, and strings of garlic. A sea of gold and silver drachmas had also been littered throughout in an offering to Eris.

Ophelius’ eyes lifted to the tapestry strung up above the altar as her wrist dripped. A flock of doves was depicted in the scene there, little golden halos stitched in godsblood thread set atop each of their heads. The symbol identified them as those who were gifted by the gods, a distinction that could come in the form of a mark like this one or even an object that had been given to a mortal. Whatever the gifts, their meaning was the same. They were bestowed only upon those who’d been chosen to enact the will of the gods. But the days of the gifts had long been over.

“Recite the story,” Ophelius said, waiting.

I exhaled, wondering if the test was meant to punish me for being late. The Twelve Feasts took place on the first day of each month, with a different god or goddess honored as the seasons passed. It was a time for telling stories and recounting the history of Isara, and by now I knew most of them by heart.

I studied the tapestry, eyeing the details of the background. The only words were written in the first language, which Ophelius had refused to teach me. She insisted that there was no good that could come of speaking to the gods in their own tongue. But I could tell the scene was a banquet. A long table was set with a feast, and the doves hovered over the heads of the gods who were seated there. I recognized the imagery but couldn’t quite place them in a sequence of events.

“I do not know it, Priestess,” I said.

I didn’t have to see her face to know she was disappointed in me. In three years, the woman had never criticized or praised me. That wasn’t her job. It didn’t matter that I was the daughter of one of the most powerful women in the city. As a novice in this temple, my only function was to learn.

Ophelius’ eyes moved from one dove to another. “The goddess Aster was at war with a greater god, Remillion. But she lacked the strength to conquer him.”

Aster. The goddess of war, the very one to whom the city of Isara was consecrated. It wasn’t the typical kind of story that was revisited on the First Feast, especially since the feast was dedicated to Eris. Not Aster. She wasn’t honored until the Twelfth Feast.

“She’d been parted from her sister, Eris, throughout the fight. But when she heard that Eris was to marry the god Toranus, Aster took seven perfect white doves from the sky and sent them to Eris as a wedding gift.”

My gaze trailed over the golden halos that crested the delicate brows of the birds.

“Eris accepted the generous gift,” Ophelius continued, “instructing her servants to bake the doves into pies for the wedding feast. But upon taking the first bite, Eris fell dead, as did her entire wedding party.”

My head turned, and I looked at Ophelius. Her expressionless face was still cast upward, toward the tapestry.

“Why?” I asked.

“To incite the wrath of Eris’ new husband, Toranus.” Finally, her eyes drifted to mine and they caught the light with a silver glow. Her narrow face was lined in soft wrinkles, her irises the color of moonbeams. “Aster could not beat her enemy, so she found someone who could. She told her new brother that the doves had been cursed by Remillion, and Toranus sent his armies to join Aster’s. The battle was swift, and after only two days and nights of fighting, Remillion was vanquished.”

I wanted to ask the meaning of the story, but I’d learned a long time ago that I had to be sparing with my curiosity. There were only so many questions Ophelius would tolerate from me. So, I waited for her to impart some lesson that I was meant to take with me to the Forum in my days as a Magistrate. Or some deeper wisdom I could use as a novice. But Ophelius just looked at me, eyes moving over my face as if she were looking for something.

The Priestess was like water, filling space and receding in a flow that made her seem as if she weren’t as material as the rest of us. And she wasn’t. She was the third-generation daughter of Priestess Ursu, who’d stood at the side of the legion on the front lines of the Old War.

I could see the fierceness of her ancestor in her eyes. The one who had performed the blood rites to secure the greatest bounty Isara had ever won. When the legion conquered the great city of Valshad, it wasn’t gold and silver they were after. The legion laid waste to the city in search of only one thing—the gifted magic that had made Valshad prosper. Godsblood.

There were five Valshadi Priestesses in the temple when they stormed the gates, all souls within whom that magic dwelled. Two successfully took their own lives rather than give the godsblood to Isara, but the three who failed were subjected to the blood rites when they refused to gift their magic to three Isarians. Leah, Cadie, and Ursu—Ophelius’ great-grandmother.

The act of the blood rites was a shameful desecration. One that hadn’t been performed since and that Ophelius never spoke of. There were only two ways for the magic to pass from one mortal to another. It had to be given or it had to be taken. And the only way to take the godsblood was to drink it. Every single drop.

Over the last hundred years, the stolen magic of Valshad had bolstered the city of Isara with the favor of the gods, sparing us famine, disease, and even war. It was bound to the bodies of the three Priestesses who dwelled in the Illyrium until the day they chose to gift it to someone else. But Ophelius had no child, and it was no secret that the Magistrates were growing concerned over the fact that she hadn’t yet passed on her magic. She was a stubborn woman who wasn’t easily controlled, and the Citadel was eager for a young Priestess who could be tended. Coaxed to grow in one direction like a loyal grapevine.

The gold-tinged blood dripped into the bowl, and once it was filled, I tilted her arm carefully. The wound slowly healed, knitting itself back together. I reached for the thin, flat mother-of-pearl stone set on the cloth before me and placed it against her forearm. Gently, I scraped it against the skin until the last of the godsblood was gathered onto the stone, and I set it into the grooves of the bowl so that it could drip.

From there, the precious liquid would be siphoned into vials and delivered to the Citadel. A single drop of godsblood lent the strength of the gods to mortals. The entire city had been built with its magic. It was sown into the fields, baked into the clay bricks of the Citadel, infused into medicines, and even forged into the weapons of the legion. But over the course of one hundred years, its use had been all but defiled. Now the godsblood was cast into jewels, spun into thread, painted onto trinkets—anything the highborn of Isara desired. There were even vials sold to the highest bidder, an idea that made my stomach turn.

Ophelius’ eyes fell to the jar of honey on the altar stone. “Very good, Casperia. But be careful. You don’t want to become a favorite of the gods.”

“I thought it’s an honor to chosen by the gods,” I said.

She glanced back up at the tapestry, to the halo-crowned doves that arced across the scene. “I’m not sure the doves would agree.”

I didn’t notice until then that she was a shade paler than usual, a darkness hovering beneath her eyes. Down the hall, the hiss of the temple smith working sounded again.

“You don’t look well, Priestess.” I touched her elbow gently, but she pulled away from me, taking a stick of incense from the silver bowl at her side.

“Are you ready for tonight?” She ignored my concern, changing the subject.

“I am.”

“I hear Matius will finally be introducing his heir to the Magistrates.”

I’d heard the same, but her mention of it surprised me. Ophelius didn’t usually take any interest in the frivolous, vain world of the Magistrates. In fact, there was nothing she despised more.

My mother had talked of almost nothing else since the rumors of Magistrate Matius’ illness started circulating. He was her rival in every sense of the word, the leader of the opposing political faction in the Forum. My mother had spent her entire time in the Citadel slowly chipping away at his majority hold, and she was close to balancing the scales of power. But now, he was dying.

It had been years since Matius had adopted his nephew in order to secure the inheritance of his seat in the Forum, but for the most part he’d kept his heir out of sight. Everyone in the Citadel District was talking about the succession of the seat that would open upon Magistrate Matius’ death. He had managed to ensure it would stay with his family name, but no one knew anything about the nephew who would wield the judgment stone.

He didn’t bring him to gatherings in the Citadel District or parade him on the balcony of the tribunals the way other Magistrates did with their children. He’d waited. For what, I didn’t know, but it was no coincidence that the night he chose to finally bring his new son into the light was the same night my mother was hosting the First Feast. It was a slight. A declaration of war, even.

Matius’ faction was determined to keep its majority in the Forum after his death, and the most reliable way to do that was to find a reputable Magistrate family to marry his nephew into. There were those among my mother’s faction who could be swayed by the prospect of joining with a family name as prestigious as Matius. The party tonight would be a perfect opportunity to make that kind of alliance.

“I want you to get a sense of him,” Ophelius said.

My eyes narrowed on her. “Matius’ heir?”

She nodded.

“I’m not sure my mother would—”

“If the favor of the gods is truly what you seek, it will take more than a clever gift to gain it, Casperia,” Ophelius said, cutting me off. “You can’t lead a city with a jar of honey.”

I swallowed, instinctively glancing again to the gift I’d left on the altar.

“You will hold your mother’s seat sooner than you think.” Her voice lowered, the words making me shiver.

Her pale silver eyes shone just a little brighter as she said it, her tone ringing with prophecy. It was one of the gifts the magic afforded her, but it was incredibly rare for Ophelius to share her insight into the future with me.

“You will meet Matius’ heir. You will learn what you can of him,” she said again.

She waited for me to answer with a nod before she reached into the sleeve of her robe and produced a small scroll that matched the many she’d had me pen for her in the past. She held it in both hands, fingers careful, as if considering its weight.

“A message?” I reached for it, but she moved it from my reach. Her eyes were searching mine again with that same penetrating look.

After a long moment, she finally let me take the scroll, but her eyes followed it as I tucked it into my chiton.

“Where would you like me to take it?” I asked.

“The Philosopher Vitrasian.” Ophelius turned back to the altar, dipping a stick of incense into the fire. Once it was lit, she waved it through the air, letting the smoke drift over her. “Now go. I must pray.”

The smoke began to billow, the sound of her voice already taking on the monotone timbre of chanting. I picked up the bowl before me, the godsblood gleaming in the light, and cradled it in my steady hands as I made my way down the aisle. When I reached the doors, I glanced back, tracing the hazy image of the Priestess enveloped by the smoke.

She always spoke in riddles and stories, forcing me to unearth the meaning of things. But her request had been simple and direct, and that could mean only one thing. Ophelius had taken an interest in Matius’ son.