Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [46]
"You know as well as we do that you're not meant to be a High Moonmistress," added Velsinore.
Maybe Velsinore was trying to be soothing as well. Maybe she had meant the words as an expression of sympathy for Feena's situation. They didn't come out that way. Feena whirled on her.
"Is that what you really think, Velsinore? Is it?" She glared at Mifano and asked, "What about you?"
Neither silver-haired priest nor tall priestess said anything.
"So," hissed Feena after a moment. She stepped back away from the table and spat on the floor. "All right then. Velsinore, you can run the temple and keep the numbers in your accounts. Mifano, you can make nice with the other priests of Yhaunn and carry on your petty seductions in pursuit of donations. I'll be standing by Dhauna when she needs me most."
She turned and flung open the door.
"Feena!" Mifano called.
Feena spun around and snapped her teeth at him.
He jerked away, color draining out of his face. Velsinore flinched and reached for her holy symbol.
Feena could feel the wolf pacing within her. When she looked down at her hands, they were huge and hairy, nails halfway to changing into claws. Her face… she could feel her nose and mouth pushing forward into a muzzle, her skin itching with a fine layer of fur. She bared long teeth at Mifano and Velsinore.
"Am I not blessed of Selune?* she growled awkwardly.
She pushed the wolf away, drawing back her anger, and stalked out of the room as a woman.
***
Julith was in Dhauna's sitting room, trying to restore the scattered books and scrolls to some kind of order. She looked up as Feena strode in. Like Velsinore and Mifano, she flinched back, but Feena could tell it was only from the violence of her expression.
"Feena," she asked, "what happened?"
"I had another talk with Mifano and Velsinore," Feena explained as she walked to the window and looked out over the courtyard. High overhead, the moon was fading toward a crescent. Feena raised her chin. "I need your help, Julith. You know things about Moonshadow Hall, about Yhaunn. What you did yesterday, coaching me into intimidating Colle and Manas…"
She turned back to the room. Julith was staring at her, an unraveled scroll clutched in her arms and a puzzled look on her face.
"Could you do it again?" Feena asked. "Could you show me how to be a proper high priestess?"
The Stiltways seemed especially lively that night-blazing with light and color, roaring with noise, and fiery with excitement. Or maybe, Keph thought, it was all just him.
Real or imagined, the night felt good around him.
The elation of the ceremony, of drawing on Shar's power and channeling it into magic, still surged inside him. It felt like the night was a wave, carrying him along, or a great dark heart, driving his pulse. It felt as if there was nothing he couldn't do. He was invulnerable!
Keph swung his arms around the shoulders of Talisk and Starne, two of the Sharrans Jarull had first introduced him to. A third, Baret, swaggered along behind them. A few days before, the cultists' names had slid right out of Keph's head-they were Jarull's friends, not his. Since the ceremony, though, it seemed as if he'd known the three forever and they were his friends, too. They were close in age to Jarull and him, and moved in similar circles. Keph wondered if he'd seen them before at parties or at the Sky's Mantle. Why had they never met before?
Maybe because Strasus had kept him too tightly under his thumb?
That wasn't going to happen again. Hail to the Mistress of the Night, he thought.
"Will it be the Mantle or Cutter's Dip, boys?" he shouted over the noise of the street.
"Mantle!" roared Starne.
"Cutter's Dip!" yelled Talisk.
Keph twisted to look back at Baret.
"Mantle!" said the third man.
"Mantle it is!" Keph replied.
He planted his feet and hauled