The way back to the inn was long. They’d had to walk a good distance to find an appropriate natural area for Mantis to summon Ombira.

  Dawn was just breaking in the horizon and the first birds of the day were starting to wake up and chirp their good mornings. A coating of dew had settled over the blades of grass under their feet and a pleasant breeze moved past them with a welcome chilly bite.

  The sharp and bitter taste of inedible leaves still lingered in Mantis’s throat from when she’d earlier picked up a handful of weeds from the ground and stuffed them in her mouth. That had been humiliating, but less so than the act which had led Mantis to do it in the first place.

  She would have preferred to avoid that demonstration of her duties in front of Yilenn.

  But now the increasing tension inside of Mantis had ceased, at least. There was that to be said for the awful night they’d left behind. One horrible and unavoidable task had served the purpose of two.

  Mantis glanced at Yilenn from the corner of her eye.

  The siren had remained quiet in the face of the unknown Goddess. She’d not opened her mouth in her presence at all, preferring to remain deferentially invisible a few paces away while the transfer occurred. She’d not even asked about it afterward.

  And Ombira had not said a thing either, as was not uncommon for her to do. She’d collected her offering and gone back—wherever it was that she went. Away. Not to be seen again for a good few days.

  “How do you feel?” Mantis asked, watching the woman who walked gracefully beside her for any sort of a response.

  She shrugged and put on an odd little smile, a practiced face of pretend pleasantry. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not. How do you feel?”

  The expression quickly faded and her deep blue eyes lifted to find Mantis’s gaze. “I don’t know. I think I’m fine. I feel…too many different emotions. And I’m worried. It’s only getting worse, not better.”

  Mantis studied her critically. It was true. “Yes.”

  They continued walking in silence. After a while, the siren asked, “Have you ever been with a man?”

  Mantis made a face. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Keeping her eyes on the path ahead, Mantis said, “I don’t care to talk about this,” and they uncomfortably left it at that.

  They eventually reached the inn where, thankfully, everything remained quiet. The events of the night had concluded with none the wiser, and Mantis felt safe to return to bed for a bit of needed sleep before they had to awaken again.

  Teela and Leroh were breathing rhythmically, undisturbed and unaware of any of what had transpired, facing away from each other on the bed. The space was small enough that, had not their God-given talents allowed Mantis and Yilenn to move stealthily, they might have had to make explanations for their absence. Teela certainly would have poked her nose in it all, so it was good that they still slept.

  Beside Mantis, Yilenn found her cot and reclined her body upon the taut canvas of its surface with an elegance to her every motion that would give away her status as a Sea enchantress to the least observant person in the world. Her movements, her colors and smells and sounds were all harmonically beguiling, so perfect as to defy the validity of her humanity.

  And yet there was nothing excessive about her, nothing that aroused unease or suspicion. To any vulnerable to that sort of beauty, she was a flawless weapon camouflaged as a dream, a welcome death if it meant a taste of her exquisite lips or even just a touch of her feather-soft skin.

  It was an odd thing to know someone like her so intimately, to watch her perform the mundane tasks of daily life and tedious work of maintaining one’s body. She was too far removed from Mantis’s idea of a regular person. It almost felt to Mantis like she was looking into a privacy not meant for her eyes, an aspect of Yilenn not intended to be perceived.

  Mantis hadn’t met one of her kind before, only seen them from afar—as they tended not to approach women with their charms, only the far more susceptible male gender. She had, however, heard and learned a lot about them, the famous ladies of the Sea. Who in Yriaa didn’t enjoy chattering leisurely of mythological creatures come alive, lurking in the waters, looking to steal one’s last kiss? It was a common topic of conversation among any and all gatherings of men really. It was intriguing. Tempting and mysterious and forbidden.

  The siren was facing away from Mantis now, giving her a view of her ripples of crimson hair in the pale light of Sunrise. Mantis watched them almost in a trance, thinking of nothing, enjoying a rare moment of peace of mind.

  Then Yilenn turned, and her eyes were open. Mantis felt caught, embarrassed. She’d not been doing anything shameful—but the shame came nonetheless, manifesting itself in a hot flush that spread up her neck and face for a moment.

  The siren settled into a comfortable position with her arms raised and her hands loosely nestled by her rose-colored mouth. Her gaze was bright, a glimmer of curiosity in her indigo eyes, but she said nothing.

  Mantis didn’t look away. The idea did not even cross her thoughts. It would have been entirely impossible, in that moment, to break that stare. Her heart was beating quickly and her breath was shallow from the strange pressing discomfort that overcame her, but Mantis did not look away for an instant, didn’t so much as minutely shift in her frozen state of embarrassed immobility, until Yilenn’s eyes started blinking slower and slower, and then finally fell closed, surrendering to sleep.

  On that sixth day of travel, the tallest spires of the Sun castle and temple became visible from far away. All in white with sky-blue points, the towers reached up like parasitic growths in the earth trying to steal for themselves all the light of day.

  The Sun had had his temple torn down, Mantis knew, to further promote the idea that his faith and that of the kingdom were one and the same. Having a separate ground for veneration for his loyal subjects would have sent the wrong message, enforcing the idea that the crown and religion were separate entities. But, in the Sun’s case, they weren’t. So he’d destroyed his own temple, a holy structure that had withstood the passing of centuries, and instead had the castle enlarged to serve as both his main place of worship and his seat of power over all Yriaans.

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  And there he sat now, in the distant monstrosity that was his home. Somewhere in the endless labyrinth of chambers and corridors of white marble and ornate alabaster bas-reliefs existed a gargantuan room made especially for his glowing red arse to remain perpetually perched upon his throne.

  Mantis shook that image from her mind, and tried to continue driving the coach mindlessly, focusing only on the surrounding terrain to look for game. But, on that day, there was a significant distraction to her usual observant riding.

  Teela had straight-forwardly requested to sit on the front beside her, and Yilenn—the only other person who could have disputed her for that spot—had only smiled agreeably at the girl and smirked secretly at Mantis when they’d first found their positions in the vehicle back at the Sun town.

  Now, a time later, Teela was keeping quiet. But Mantis didn’t question her and continued to drive in silence, bracing herself internally for the conversation sure to come.

  Then, abruptly, “I don’t know anything.”

  Mantis glanced sideways at her. “You don’t?”

  “No. I am ‘a child’, so I know nothing. I don’t think that’s fair. What do you think?”

  Her big brown eyes were serious, her black eyebrows knit with determination and her lips firmly set. She was looking ahead, waiting for an answer.

  “I think it’s a privilege to be unaware of the bad things that happen, to be protected and allowed to live in ignorance.”

  “But how can I make intelligent decisions if I tread blindly? I need to understand the kind of world I live in, at least, to be a part of it. Don’t you think that’s only fair?”

  She’d rehearsed this.

  “What is it you want to know, Teela?” Mantis said, resigned to weather what had been coming for days. “I will give you one question. One—and then we can continue to travel in peace. Alright? That is fair, I think.”

  “Who are the Gods?”

  Yes. She’d prepared that.

  “Well,” Mantis started with a sigh. “There’s the main ones: Sun, Moon, Sea, Wind, and Rain,” she enumerated them unhurriedly, and felt the girl’s eager gaze on her. It was as if she intended to absorb the information visually as well as audibly. “But there’s rumors of others. You know Ombira is a secret, and she certainly exists. So we can’t really know how many there are, or who they are, if they choose not to reveal themselves. I’ve heard there was a God of Fire once, but the Sun took care of him and his. They undermined him, maybe. I don’t know. They are no longer.” Teela’s eyes were big and her focus was almost piercing as she listened. “I’ve also heard of some women finding a Goddess of Fertility to save them from undesired childlessness, but I don’t know if Fertility is her real name or just her power. Hm…Earth exists somewhere, also, with a minor following, and…and I think that’s all I know. I haven’t seen or heard of any others. That isn’t to say they don’t exist, though. In fact, I believe they do exist, but maybe they aren’t here, in Yriaa. Or perhaps they like to keep to themselves.”

  Teela was silent and rigid with excitement for less than a handful of heartbeats before she blurted out, “Ombira is your Goddess’s name, then. But what is her power?”

  Mantis couldn’t help the little smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth then. How annoying the child was!

  She turned to look at the girl and shook her head slowly. “You got your question. Now, let us enjoy in peace the last day of travel outside of the excrement pit that is the Sun’s home, shall we?”

  Of course, it took a few more words than that to finally quiet her down, but Teela eventually caught the hint that nothing else would be revealed to her and requested to switch places with Yilenn—a welcome rearrangement for them all.

  What harm could it do, anyway?, Mantis thought to herself when a prickle of guilt touched her conscience for giving an unsworn child such information. Teela had already known of the most dangerous Gods out there—Ombira not the least of them. No. In truth, Ombira was the worst one she could have learned of, and they’d escaped that trap unscathed. Nothing worse could come from giving the girl that which she’d asked for, that incomplete and useless knowledge of Mantis’s. If it was enough to placate her, then she could have it, she thought.

  They rode on and stopped and appeased their basic human needs and rode on and stopped and camped—the routine as familiar to Mantis as the turning of the seasons. She’d lived a nomadic life for three decades, and gotten very comfortable with it. Her charges, however, had different life experiences, and Mantis knew that so much traveling was grating on the children and the siren. It was strangely positive news, in a way, to have arrived.

  Less than a full morning’s travel away, the city that should have continued to be Ajon-Khall awaited, alighted in its enormity by the fires peeking from windows all throughout its expanse. From where they’d settled for the night, Mantis had a good view of the city, as she’d purposely chosen to set up camp atop a cresting hill. They’d forego a fire to avoid calling attention to themselves, and rest safely in the easily-defensible spot.

  The wide-spanning, thin ring of slums that skirted the Sun capital was brown and gray from a distance, differentiating itself so clearly in its lack of resources, and brightness. Those poor souls who lived in misery and fear, in poverty and dread and abuse, held a place of immense respect in Mantis’s heart. Seeing them now intensified her sense of shame over what she’d done, over her not belonging to their kind any longer.

  But whenever that guilt came, Mantis would remind herself that she was protecting half of that population, that her service was an honorable one. She reminded herself of all those red flowers and handkerchiefs and pieces of loose fabric dyed red with anything they could find—usually blood. She’d done what was right. For thirty years, she’d served them well.

  All was dark and silent around them, Yilenn sleeping comfortably in the coach not too far away and the children ensconced in the little tent, when Mantis heard the rustling of canvas behind her. It was Teela.

  She came out to sit on Mantis’s cloak, intruding shamelessly on her personal space and saying nothing for a long and awkward moment.

  Mantis spoke first. “What is it?”

  The girl whispered her response, rather loudly. She wasn’t aware that Mantis could hear her as clearly as if she were shouting, and that she could keep her voice much lower than that and still be understood. “I wanted to thank you.”

  “Shh. Thank me for what?”

  “For bringing us here, for helping us with this. Our chances of success without your protection and help would be much lower. I know that. So I wanted to say thank you for your kindness.”

  “You’re welcome. Go to sleep.”

  “I think…I think you were a good person before. Maybe you are good. You should not let your Goddess make you so cruel.”

  Mantis flinched, taken aback by her words. It took her a moment to say, “I am not cruel.”

  “If you aren’t, then you should try harder to fight her influence, or whatever it is that’s making you do bad things. If it isn’t you, then resist it, like Yilenn resists her God. Don’t let Ombira make you a bad person.”

  “Go to sleep, Teela.”

  “Alright. I will. Good night.” And with that she simply turned around and left, returning with noisy human stealth to her place beside her brother.