Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [214]
She was to have been Kai Priestess. Raegar would have been Chief of Chiefs.
“I know a secret about Skylan,” Raegar had told Treia. “A secret that when I reveal it will cause the Vindrasi to clamor for his death.”
Treia had urged him to tell her this terrible secret. Raegar had refused.
“The time is not right. I will wait until the raid on the ogres, after Skylan has recovered the Vektan Torque.”
Raegar had been particular about the torque’s recovery.
“For all his faults,” Raegar had said, “Skylan is a valiant and courageous warrior. The men like and admire him. They will follow him through fire and blood. Let him lead us to victory, let him think he has won the gods’ favor, let him think he stands on top of the world. His fall from such heights will hurt all the more.”
Treia had agreed. She would have agreed to anything Raegar had suggested. Well, almost anything. She had not agreed to let him become her lover, though he had tried his best to convince her to lie with him.
She wanted to. At night, she dreamed of Raegar’s touch, his kisses. But in the bright, cold light of day, she remembered Horg and his hands groping her, pulling up her skirts, thrusting his fat fingers inside her, grunting and sweating like a hog. She remembered her shame when Draya had walked in on them and her ardor would turn to revulsion. She could not bear for any man, not even Raegar, to touch her like that.
And now, no man would. Her eyes blurred with tears, she tripped and fell. She did not get up, but lay on the ground outside the Hall, sobbing uncontrollably, more in rage than with grief. Rage against the gods for having given her hope with one hand and snatched it back with the other. Finally, too exhausted to cry anymore, she dragged herself on toward the Hall of Vektia.
She did not know why she was going there, for she did not believe Vindrash could help her. Treia did not, at times, believe in Vindrash.
The flagstone path came to an end. Treia stared down at it and then lifted her eyes. The Hall swam before her. She stared dully at the stairs leading up to the main entrance and, not knowing what else to do, she began to climb them.
She had been to the Hall once before this. When Draya had made her yearly pilgrimage, she had brought several Bone Priestesses and acolytes with her. One year Treia had been chosen. She had been sixteen, and, for a change, she had been excited and pleased at the idea of the adventure.
Unfortunately, the voyage had proved boring and tedious. She had been cooped up in the cabin, forced to attend to Draya, who had been seasick at the start of the voyage and, when she was well, spent the rest of the voyage praying with the Bone Priestesses. When the women were not praying, they spent their time talking about what they were going to pray for.
Treia had been looking forward to the Hall, for she had heard stories of its grandeur. When she saw it, she was impressed, taken with the beauty and intricacies of the wood carvings of dragons that decorated the outside and awed by the immense statue of Vindrash and the dragons who served her. But after spending hours on her knees, she came to loathe the Hall, the statue, even the dragons. She had been glad when she was finally able to leave, even though that meant tending again to a seasick Draya.
Treia remembered that there would likely be the spirits of guardian dragons inside the Hall, and she almost turned and fled, rather than have to face them. But she was too tired to go anywhere else and, besides, for her there was nowhere else to go.
“If a dragon says so much as a word to me, I’ll scratch its eyes out,” Treia muttered.
The great double doors, adorned with carvings of Vindrash and the World Tree, were generally kept closed. Treia would have to seek admittance from the dragons. She was about to do so when she noticed that the doors were slightly ajar.
That was odd, but Treia was thankful. She hoped she could sneak in unnoticed, avoid, for at least a time, being accosted by a dragon.
The Sun Goddess