Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Silas chose his seat in the pews of St. Emaine’s cathedral carefully. Sitting in the front row would afford him the delicious benefit of seeing his High Priestess try to ignore him up close, but sitting in the back was better for observing her when she felt at ease, in control. That was when he liked her best.

Well, maybe second best. There’d been something altogether new and intoxicating in seeing her off-kilter in the bar, too.

In the end, he split the difference by choosing neither the front nor the back. He picked a seat in the middle, on the left side of the cavernous cathedral, mostly because he enjoyed the way everyone in the pews around him squirmed.

They had no choice but to sit near him, though. There weren’t exactly a bevy of options.

Silas lounged against the hard, polished wood of the pew, his arms stretched out along the back and his legs spread. He didn’t need the space, but he thought it was funny how no one dared to give him a pointed look or a discreet cough in protest to his unabashed use of the cramped seating arrangements.

Dawn service hadn’t even begun, but the cathedral was packed.

The scent of incense and metallic candle smoke hung in the air, mixing with the natural musk and perfumes of countless bodies. Despite the fact that every seat was full, people still shuffled in through the towering double doors at the far end of the cathedral. They stood in the back or squeezed in around the behemoth columns that supported the arched ceiling, jockeying to get a good view of the altar.

Still, the spaces on either side of him were empty.

Silas drummed his claws on the wood, his lips quirked in a smile. All were welcome in Glory’s Temple, but some were clearly more welcome than others.

It wasn’t a great surprise. Although the world advanced in leaps and bounds, some superstitions were hard to shake — and some people, like him, quite enjoyed indulging in them.

Silas eyed the dark stained-glass window, easily two stories tall, that loomed over the altar. A statue of the goddess Glory, a little greater than life-sized, stood between the altar and the window, her arms outstretched and her eye sockets empty.

Candles burned all around her, casting the altar space in a flickering glow. Silas tilted his head to one side and watched as the shadows moved in response. They were a little more lively than they ought to be.

There you are.

It was funny, he thought, as the choir began to lift their collective voices in a dawn hymn, that Glory’s worshippers reviled the very darkness she created — and that which would eternally be drawn to her light.

Silas’s attention was drawn away from the shadows to the red and topaz-robed acolytes who filed out, one by one, from a discreet door nearly hidden by a carved and gilded wooden screen. Their lips moved with the hymn, and each one carried a hammered bronze dish in both hands. One after the other, they set the dishes on the altar and then took their places on either side of the statue, hands folded and gazes cast out into the crowd.

The sky behind the stained glass window was just beginning to lighten when he caught the first glimpse of blonde hair.

He wasn’t sure why he tensed, the muscles of his abdomen contracting as if preparing for a blow, nor why he felt compelled to sit up straight, his arms rising to grip the back of the pew in front of him.

There you are, he thought again.

This wasn’t the first time he’d attended her services. Even so, he was always surprised by how little fanfare came with her entrance. He expected a little more pageantry, but his prey breezed out from behind the screen with a half-smile fixed in place. A ripple went through the crowd, a sudden upwelling of noise, then a thunderclap of silence descended over the cathedral as she took her place behind the altar.

She didn’t even need to raise her soft hands. All Petra needed to do to command the room was lift her eyes.

Silas’s grip on the pew tightened. He couldn’t exactly claim to be shocked when his cock stirred. Seeing her in control of so many people was delicious.

Petra, dressed in a blood-red velvet robe and white dress with a neckline so deep, it nearly touched her navel, raised her hands in a welcoming gesture. Silas swore he could hear the people around him holding their breath.

“It is a blessed dawn,” she announced, “as all new days are, when we live to greet them.”

A hushed murmur filled the air, mumbles of agreement and recognition. Silas narrowed his eyes. He generally considered the gods only good enough to go fuck themselves, so he wasn’t exactly a regular worshipper, but he got the impression that her greeting wasn’t the standard opening sentiment. It never was. Every service he’d attended was a little different, a little more… weighty. Something in how she spoke seemed constantly layered, as if she were having several different conversations with the crowd at once and all of them were of the gravest importance.

Maybe that was a symptom of all the masks she wore over that striking face, an ability to say something different with every one. It was a remarkable talent that made every worshipper believe she was speaking directly to them.

Petra Zaskodna was a liar, but she was a deeply compelling one.

Silas watched her move through the motions of accepting the offerings on the table, all of them donated by worshippers seeking favors from the gods. All the while, she spoke in that calm, carrying voice about not taking Glory’s gift of life-giving light for granted, and how that light existed in every life, every relationship, every choice made throughout the day.

As usual, he only half-listened, since he found the sentiment rather trite, but he enjoyed the sound of her voice and her graceful, practiced movements as she blessed the offerings.

The sunrise crept into the panes of the stained glass window behind her and those that loomed over the pews, inch by inch. Each welded shard of glass, once dark, blazed with color — candy yellow, violet, navy, orange, and electric teal. Colors splashed down around her, crowning her golden head in a wreath of rainbow light, even as she began to glow.

It was almost unnoticeable at first, but he saw it. It was his favorite part of her services and the image that glowed on the backs of his eyelids when he tried to sleep.

Silas inched forward on the uncomfortable bench, his gaze fixed on her striking features, refusing to miss even a second of her glorious transformation. It still annoyed him that she’d hidden her face under an impressively complex glamour the night before.

It was cute, the way she thought he wouldn’t know exactly who he was dealing with, and the face she’d crafted wasn’t bad. But this face. This woman…

Silas bit the tip of his tongue as he watched her tanned skin begin to radiate its own light — gentle at first, then a blaze. The air over the crowd’s heads heated until a wave of summer heat crested over them, stirring hair and loosely clutched shawls. He wasn’t the only one at the edge of his seat when the white-hot shape of her bones radiated from beneath her skin.

She was magnificent.

She was terrifying.

His blood rushed so fast in his veins that he couldn’t hear the rest of her service. He watched her set the kindling at the base of Glory’s statue aflame with a single touch and wondered how much she’d restrained herself when she simply scorched his lapel.

His little goddess was pure, destructive magic.

Exactly what I need.

The dawn service was quick, designed to be enjoyed before the start of a busy day, and all too soon it was over. A long line of worshippers shuffled into the red carpet that delineated the center aisle, waiting for their turn to approach Petra as she stood in front of the altar, offering bowl in hand.

While she was occupied, Silas slipped out from his row and cut a swath through the crowd, which couldn’t decide between staying for a longer look at the High Priestess or leaving as quickly as possible.

It would have been a pain to get through if people didn’t hurry to get out of his way, usually at the cost of those around them.

He strode confidently toward the front of the cathedral, his gaze trained on the wooden screen and its hidden door. Realistically, he knew all he had to do was wait for Petra to notice him and he’d have her undivided attention. He didn’t have to sneak into the bowels of the cathedral, let alone at the busiest time of the day.

But where was the fun in that?

Worshippers swarmed the marble floor in front of the altar, either waiting for their turn or stopping to light one of the hundreds of candles in the bronze racks on either side of it.

Acolytes milled around, speaking quietly to people who sought them out and, perhaps unknowingly, guarded the way to the door.

Silas stopped by one of the racks. He glanced to his right and was a tiny bit put out that Petra hadn’t noticed him yet. She was engrossed in a hushed conversation with an old woman, their heads bent as they spoke about whatever it was people who believed in bullshit cared about.

He lingered there by the candles for a while, until a middle-aged dragon wandered up, wings folded against his back, to light a candle with his own breath and whisper a prayer into the blue flame.

Silas stepped around the dragon and, with a tiny nudge of a shadow, sent the entire rack tumbling into him. Tea candles in small violet glasses tumbled down the dragon’s front and onto the floor with a fiery clatter. Shouts of alarm went up at the same time the dragon’s clothes did.

Speaking in a mild voice, he said, “Someone should really weigh those racks down.”

One of the acolytes went running for a fire extinguisher while another tried to help the vexed dragon pat out the flames. While they worked, the red runner that led to the altar caught fire as well. The shouts got a little louder.

Silas slipped behind the screen.