Chapter Four

Pararrhexis

It dawned slowly on Domitian that he wasn't seeing much of his daughter these days.

The first time he noticed was when he was standing at the foot of the steps at home, looking up the creaking, curving staircase with a sigh at the thought of climbing it. Occasionally his books overflowed his study and he had Diana carry them to the library upstairs. Now he wanted one of them and she wasn't here and he'd already dismissed the kitchen maid for the day.

That was when it jangled in the back of his mind that he hadn't seen his daughter in…nearly a week? Surely not so long.

He set his walking stick on the first step and pushed himself up, his other hand on the wall for balance, but inwardly he shrugged. The skies above knew Diana had enough to keep her busy, between the Temple and the agoge.

Another week passed before he realized he hadn't seen her or the boy in some time, and Diana had made such a to-do of having Helion over for a meal at least once a week, to let them get used to each other, she said. And colored prettily when she said it. Initially Domitian had resented the boy, if for nothing else than forcing him to acknowledge that Diana wasn't a child anymore, but Helion had addressed that with his customary frankness.

"I know we aren't even betrothed yet," he told Domitian, while Diana was in the kitchen nervously arranging lamb and cheese into their little grape leaf pouches, "but we will be. And when we marry, sir, I know Diana would like us to stay with you."

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself, boy?" Domitian had replied gruffly, taken aback.

"No," Helion said simply. "We were meant for each other. And I want her to be happy."

It was true. Domitian had expected it ever since, during a squabble, he had seen nine year-old Diana clout Helion with a stick and stalk away. Helion had just laughed, and the way he looked at her was like watching the stars align in the night sky.

Domitian hadn't warmed to the boy all at once, but he did catch himself thinking idly about how it would be in a few years' time, that perhaps there was space enough to build another room off his study, overlooking the cedar grove. They would need another room, and perhaps another kitchen maid. Domitian and Diana ate simply, and sparingly, but Helion was a young man, and young men went through astonishing amounts of provender.

And to think, he might be a grandfather! Domitian had never thought he would be a father, but he found himself imagining what it would be like when Diana's children were born, watching them grow, teaching them their letters, the way he had taught their mother. With Diana he had been too nervous about raising her to truly enjoy her childhood, too determined to do right by her to appreciate all her little girl sweetnesses and absurdities. It would be different, with a grandchild.

Yes, it was odd that he hadn't seen the boy in so long, but they were all busy, weren't they? Helion would be as busy as Diana, for the training of a Rakkor boy was all-consuming. Domitian had endured it himself, and he remembered the early mornings, soaked with sweat and dew on the practice field while he trained, running endless miles in full armor, shield clattering on his back. He would come home at the end of the day bruised and bloodied, sometimes with an eye blackened, his nose broken and reset, his hide stitched together where the spear or the sword or the dagger had scored a hit. He did not fondly remember the pain, but he remembered his brothers. He could still see their faces to this day. You never forgot the men you bled with.

Besides, he himself was wrapped up in the deeper Mysteries of the Solari and the great riddles of the stars. There were facets of color within the white of the sun's light, and ah, that had made the hours run away from him, debating their significance in both scientific and theological terms. And there were his studies of the Lunari. He had been following a long thread, a very long thread indeed, but he had at last new names to pursue in the Archives, references to heresies who survived the extinction of the Lunari. Two names: Menephos and Phereio, and even more tantalizing, reference to hidden works describing the prophecies of the Lunari, who had elevated the study of the heavens to a religious rite in itself.

On the night of the full moon Domitian realized he hadn't seen Diana in a month. A full turning of the moon had come and gone and the last time he had seen her was when he unlocked the cellar door and let her out. At the top of the cellar steps he stopped, patting the key around his neck. He had just locked her in, more as a matter of habit than conscious action, and stopped only to make sure he could see her pale hair gleaming in the candle light before he locked the door.

"Oh no," he said, and shook his silver head. Age had been kind to him, even if fate had been cruel; he had lost the use of his leg, but kept all his hair, thick and curling. He turned and stumped back down the stairs. "No, no, no. Diana?"

This wouldn't do at all.

"Yes, Father?" she called back, coming to the door. There was a barred window there, too much like an actual prison for his liking, but he kept forgetting to have it replaced.

"I've just realized how little I've seen you. A month now," he said, unlocking the door. She stood back to let him in, but instead of the surprise and regret he expected, she just looked at him, her face empty.

"I've been busy, Father." Turning away, she knelt before her altar again, a pale figure in her white tunic.

"Of course," he said, "but surely they don't keep you so busy you can't share a meal with your old father now and then?"

Her eyes flicked up at him, reflecting the gold of the candlelight, and he saw that one of her eyes was blackened, and there was a scrape on the right side of her jaw. The marks did not trouble him in and of themselves, but the look in her eyes troubled him greatly.

"Yes, Father," she said, leaving him to interpret that however he chose.

Domitian shifted his balance, at a loss.

"And what about…er…Helion," he said, searching for a foothold, some way to break through this strange apathy.

"He understands." Diana kept her eyes on her altar, a little platform of gilded oak that they had bought together in the market, set below a sculpture of the four-facing sun. "I have to pray now, Father."

He looked down at her, and maybe if he had reached for her, and stroked her pale hair like he used, it might have been different. But she was growing up, he told himself; all the mothers at the Temple had warned him about this, that these years would be trying, that Diana would be moody and sullen and difficult and just wait, he'd see. He hadn't really believed it, but perhaps that was all it was.

"Is it helping?" he asked. "Praying?"

"No, Father," she answered with that same curiously flat tone, bowing her head and lifting her cupped hands. In the Temple, she would do that by the Eternal Fountains, splashing the water to fling out the sunlight in droplets. He heard her whisper, May the light increase, but here in the cellar there was only shadow in her hands.

For the first time he looked at her and thought, Lunari, and believed it.

"I'll…I'll speak to you in the morning," he said, and laid his hand on her head. "Try to rest your mind, Diana, if you can't actually sleep."

But of course, the next morning, he couldn't bring himself to confront her about whatever was wrong with her. Not when she was so tired, he told himself when he let her out of the cellar, her face pale and her eyes deeply shadowed. In the morning light he could see more marks on her back, what looked like the stripes from a cane, which troubled him still more. Diana had suffered her beatings and canings at the agoge just like all the other wolf cubs; it strengthened them, it taught them to endure pain, as they must do in battle. The wolf cubs even made a game of it and taunted anyone who cried out unmercifully.

But no one at the agoge would have struck so close to the back of her neck and head, where it was too easy to cripple and even kill. No, those were marks from the Skaloi at the Temple, and that could mean nothing good.

"Diana," he said, reaching for her retreating back. "What happened to—"

"I'm going to be late for the Salutation ceremony, Father," she said over her shoulder, clattering down the stairs in her iron-shod sandals. The front door slammed shut behind her.

After the full moon, he told himself, sinking back into his chair. He would do her the courtesy of asking her first, and giving her the opportunity to tell him what was wrong. But one way or another, he would find out.

The stories said mad dogs went madder on the night of the full moon. They flung themselves to the ground, jaws slavering as they bayed at the sky. They foamed and they bit anything and everything, they bit the air, they lived only to pass on their madness.

When Skalos Abeon referred to the wolf cubs of the agoge as dogs, even the other acolytes took offense. The Skaloi, if they had known about it, would have punished him for it. There was no ill-will between the Temple and the agoge; they were the heart and the fist of the same body. But the Skalos apologized before anyone could say anything to the other Skaloi, claiming he had chosen his words poorly, that he had been referring to the stray dogs that frequented the fields of the agoge and he had meant nothing more than that.

To Diana he offered no apology, and he had accomplished his objective: to apply the word dog to her, which led as inevitably to the mad dogs under the moon as winter led to spring. Moon-addled, they said, barking mad. She didn't even ask questions of her Skaloi anymore, and still they said it.

She's not Solari, they whispered, and She's not even Rakkor, said others. The story of her appearance on Domitian's doorstep circulated all over again, and her appearance was an issue of great interest to the female acolytes, particularly among Clytemne's circle. Pale as a Shadowling, they said, though none of them had heard more than the vaguest rumor of the Shadow Isles. Imagine, they said, a great man like Elder Domitian taking something like that in. Well, it just went to show that even the wisest men could be deceived…

She could swallow the insults to herself. But when they brought her father into it…

"Shame, Phila Diana," Skalos Abeon would say, shaking his head in a mockery of sorrow. "What would your father think?"

After many months of trying her defenses, slicing away at her pride and temper and even her abiding sense of justice, the Skalos had finally found a weapon that worked. Mentioning her father never failed to make Diana flash hot and cold, a knot burning sick in her belly. It worked because it was true. Father would be disappointed in her. He might even be ashamed of her. She had hurt his reputation in the Temple, she had betrayed her promise not to lie to him, and she had never failed so utterly at anything in her life as she had failed at being an acolyte. She knew in her heart that Domitian would love her all the same and would help her if he knew what was happening, but she couldn't bear to ask. She cringed when she thought of the look on his face, the sound of his voice, the way he would say, oh, Diana…

So she said nothing. She controlled her fear and tried to control her fury, though she slipped more than once and was punished for her impertinence, her rudeness, her obstinacy. She tried to ignore it all and hoped that if she didn't feed the fire it would starve. She scorned Skalos Abeon, she scorned the other acolytes, and made herself deaf to their whispering. Skalos Abeon could get away with insulting her to her face, but the other acolytes knew that if they insulted her directly, she wouldn't allow it to go unpunished. She would be thought a coward by all the Rakkor if she didn't answer the insult with steel, and even the older acolytes were wary of facing her on the field of honor.

Especially lately.

"Enough!" Skalos Grakos bellowed, clashing his sword against his shield to cut over the din. Diana pulled her final swing and stepped back from a pale, sweating Apphia, who had been pressed to the edge of the sand ring. The Skalos gave Diana a congratulatory clout on the shoulder that knocked her forward a few paces. "Like a whirlwind, little silver hair!" He boomed. "You will make the enemy fear you! Next!"

She'd done a good job with Apphia; the girl scuttled out of the ring instantly and Diana swapped her sword for a glaive, a long pole weapon with a wickedly curved blade at the end. It was her best weapon, more natural to her hands than a spear or a bow. The sweeping strokes she favored worked better with a glaive than a spear.

She had saved the weapon deliberately for last. Today was the sthénos, an endurance trial pitting one exhausted warrior against a succession of fresh ones to see how long they could last. She would need the edge of a good weapon. And it was Lelia, rested and bright in her bronze plate armor, her fiery hair pulled back in a long plait, that would finish it.

"Luck," Lelia said, and clapped her helmet on her head.

Diana nodded to her, sweat rolling down her face under her own helmet. The helms of the Rakkor were the ancient T-shaped configuration, tight to the head and long to the shoulders to protect the back of the neck and throat. The eye slit was the top of the T, the gap extending down over the nose and mouth so the warrior could breathe freely. The flaring bottom of the helmet also meant they held heat like a forge.

"Begin!" called Skalos Grakos, and Diana lunged before he had even finished the word, knowing that a fresh opponent would try to wear her down. Lelia wasn't one of the best fighters, but she was by far the best tactician.

Lelia backpedaled swiftly, lifting her heavy glaive to block Diana's slashing forward stroke, the point of her blade circling, waiting for an opportunity to jab. The girls circled, ignoring the shouts from the other sthénos rings, the distant clashes of shield and spear and sword.

Proper form with the glaive was upright, almost like a two-handed duelist; maneuvering for position and then thrust and slash, upward to rip with the pointed tip, downward to slash with the broad blade. You could crush a man's skull with a glaive or cut his head off altogether, depending on how you used it. The glaives of the Rakkor had longer tips than the Noxian or Demacian variants, but the Rakkor were spearmen, first and foremost.

Diana rarely used the point, preferring the blade. She attacked and circled, attacked again, using her longer reach to drive Lelia back, sweeping outward to force her to the left, then right. It was a game of moves and countermoves, intended to off-balance her opponent and get inside her guard for the finishing stroke. But Lelia evaded again and again, ducking the sweeps or parrying them aside with the reinforced shaft of her glaive, the shock of the blows running up both their arms to the shoulders. Diana forced her tired feet to move faster. Lelia was playing for time, trying to wear her down.

They fought in silence, with none of the taunting of a friendly bout. They breathed together, deep inhalations through the nose, the way they had been taught when they were children. The Rakkor trained their warriors to breathe properly by making them run with water in their mouths. Anyone who didn't have a mouthful to spit out at the end had to run again.

It was going on too long. Diana sucked in a ragged gasp and let herself slow, let herself stumble, the tip of the heavy glaive dropping. Lelia took the bait. With a ragged scream she lunged, her blade swinging out in an arc that would have slammed squarely in the notch between Diana's shoulder and neck if it had landed; a killing blow. But Diana dropped to one knee and slid inside Lelia's guard as neatly as a key into a lock, pushing herself forward with a snapping thrust as perfect as any Kallista had ever thrown.

The point of the glaive skidded off Lelia's cheek plate and then, to Diana's horror, into the eyeslit, bursting back out over her nose with a gout of bright blood. For a single second, they both stared in shock, blood droplets spraying out onto the sand, and then Diana dropped her weapon and her scream rose before Lelia's did.

She didn't remember tearing off her helmet and running to Lelia, pulling off Lelia's helmet to see blood, so much blood, all the while screaming for Skalos Grakos. Lelia's gauntleted hand clapped over her eye and her mouth was open in shock and pain, screaming an awful, breathless, panting scream. From underneath her hand to the bridge of her nose, blood flowed in sheets, like a wave rolling at low tide.

"Move," The Skalos said, shoving Diana aside, and she staggered back, feeling almost lightheaded with horror. "Let me see, girl," said the Skalos to Lelia, pulling her hand away from her face.

His broad, sweating back blocked Diana's view as he straightened, and she didn't want to see, she didn't want to know what she'd done to Lelia's pretty face. Blood was pattering to the sand in audible droplets and she could smell it, how much blood was there when you could hear it, smell it? This happens, she told herself frantically. We train with iron, there are accidents…

But this accident was her friend. Her fault.

"Come with me," Skalos Grakos said to Lelia, forcing her to walk with her hand cupped over her eye, steering her with his big hand on her shoulder. "You won't die, girl. Be quiet. Where is your iron?"

"Lelia, I'm sorry," Diana choked, the words squeezed around a lump in her throat. "Lelia, I'm sorry!"

The eyes of the other wolf cubs were on her and for a moment it was like the eyes of the acolytes at the Temple, the awful naked feeling she felt when Skalos Abeon had said something particularly cutting and all of them turned to look at her. Accidents did happen in the agoge; Skalos Grakos had said it himself, any number of times. Bloody training made for bloodless combat. But then a sob escaped her and after everything else, she would not cry in front of them. The Temple had seen enough of her weakness. She would not show it in the agoge.

She turned and ran. Across the field, out of the gates, without the least idea of where she was going, away from them, away from everyone. She ran to the narrow cliffside paths that skirted the village, her breath rasping as she breathed hot and harsh. Her sandals flew over the rock and thin, patchy grass as she rounded the Two-Faced Stone and came to the cedar grove behind her house.

Her armor was stifling. She stripped it off as she crossed the grove, her fingers trembling as she jerked at the leather laces that joined her breastplate and back plate at her shoulders and sides. Underneath was her practice tunic, dark red to hide bloodstains and belted with studded leather, the thin linen fabric streaked white with the salt of her sweat. Her gauntlets, her greaves, she couldn't bear them, even her sandals and armbands. Barefoot, she sat down with a thump on the stone bench.

She wanted her father. She wanted him more than anything else in the world, but he was at the Temple, and that was the last place she would go. A terrible tightness squeezed in her chest and her eyes burned, then blurred.

It was Helion that found her after she had cried herself into a sort of gray dream, lying on the stone bench and watching the tops of the cedars swaying in the wind, her eyes swollen and red. She heard his armor jingling and looked up, letting her head thump back onto the stone when she saw it was him. She looked so unhappy, it broke his heart.

Silently, he gathered up her armor and piled it neatly beside the bench. He was as dusty and sweaty as she was, his hair standing up in damp spikes, his face set in unusually somber lines.

"I waited to see what the physicians said," he told her gently, dropping to one knee beside her. "They can't be sure yet, but the one I spoke to said that she might keep her eye."

More tears welled. "Good."

"Diana," he said, and caught her chin to make her look at him. "You can't blame yourself."

"Who else's fault is it?"

His lips tightened. "When I smashed Borean's shoulder and almost cost him his arm, what did you tell me?"

She didn't answer until he shoved her, but her essential honesty forced her to tell the truth when she did.

"We train with iron," she said, and scrubbed at her eyes with her fists. "But I hurt her, I pushed too far, I can't do anything right. I'm ruining everything, Helion! You don't know how…Lelia's so pretty," she wept. "And now she's going to have a scar and it's bad, I saw enough to know it's bad."

"Move over." He nudged her with his knee, and pushed her up with a hand on her elbow. "Now then," he said, wrapping a dusty arm around her shoulders. "You have scars, and so do I. We'll have a great many scars and worse ones when we die, and they burn us on the funeral pyre at the Temple."

"This is a scar I gave her."

"And perhaps you'll give her worse, or I will, during the Rite," he reminded her. "It's less than two years away. What if you're assigned to Lelia then? Or Kallista? Or—"

"If they assign you to me, then I will die," she said, and he ran his fingers through her hair, the silver-gilt gone to iron with sweat.

"We'll both die," he said. It was a promise they had made each other, and one that had precedent; on the rare instances when lovers were paired for the Rite, most of them chose to kill themselves rather than fight. The singers called it a Solstice Wedding. "But if it's Lelia?"

Diana was silent. The Rite had once seemed impossibly far away, but on this side of fourteen it was no longer so distant in the future that she could dismiss it with a shrug. At sixteen they would be put to their final test before they joined the ranks of the adult Rakkor warriors. The Rite of Kor. It was as much a test of their faith as it was a test of strength and fighting prowess.

The Solari said the day was born in blood, and died in blood. It was true. She had seen it with her own eyes, the pool dark as heart's blood at dawn and sunset where the sun sank beneath the mountains. A bloody dawn or sunset meant the battle with the night was particularly fierce. And so it must be with the Rakkor. Every year on the winter solstice, the Rakkor youth who had turned sixteen were paired off to fight to the death, to die in blood, to be born in blood. Any butcher could kill. It was a test of the strength of their faith, the final tempering of the warrior's steel, to kill a friend, someone they had grown up with, broken bread with, trained and bled with. Nothing else would ever be so difficult. A warrior who survived the Rite had proved themselves strong, fortunate, and above all, faithful: the chosen of the sun.

"It will be the same for me, if they assign me to fight Borean or Caiphas. Or Parthas. Or Ereon," Helion said, and sighed. "When I hurt Borean, it took me two days before I had the courage to face him. And you know what he said?"

"No."

"He said, I should have moved faster." Helion shook his head. "Well, I should have pulled my spear. We both say what we could have done, what we should have done, but his arm will never be the same, and nothing we say will change that. So."

"So simple," she said, and he shrugged.

"It is simple. It's just not easy."

There was more truth in that than anything they had told her in the Temple, and Diana silently curled her fingers into his, looking at his wide, blunt fingers, ragged and calloused from sword and spear and bow. He had grown so tall that they were comfortable sitting together; his arm fit well around her shoulders, and her head rested neatly in the crook of his shoulder.

"I've missed this," he said, low, and she felt his lips brush the top of her head. He was still a little bashful about it; they were too young to be together often without a chaperone, it was considered improper. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," she said, though a prickle of unease went up her spine.

"Did you know it's been almost two months since we were last together?" he asked, as mildly as if he were asking about the summer rains.

"I didn't know that," she said, and slipped out of his arms. "I have to get ready for the Temple—"

"No, not yet." He was still pleasant, but there was steel under his voice. "Diana, I know something is wrong. Tell me what it is."

"Nothing's wrong. I—"

"Stop lying to me," he snapped, and her mouth shut in sheer surprise. Helion never snapped. "We have always said truth between us, and if you lie to me just once more, then…then…"

"Then what?" She retorted, stung.

"Then we're done." Helion looked at her steadily, though his voice cracked. "Maybe I shouldn't have spoken when I did. Maybe you need this time at the Temple. I would give you the time; I would be patient. That's what Mother said I should do, be patient. And I would, Diana, but that's not it, is it? There's something else going on and you won't tell me what it is and I will not be lied to!"

The exclamation rang in the grove and the cedars rustled as if they had heard and witnessed it. The taste of bile rose in the back of her throat.

"You can't," she whispered, panic skittering like live mice in her belly. "Helion, I can't—not today. Please. Please don't."

"It will be no better for waiting," he said implacably. "And who knows when I'll see you again?"

It was a cruel cut, and unusual, from him; that he would do it meant she had hurt him deeply. Another day she might have managed all of this better, might have thought of a way to maneuver around this, around him. But now all she could hear was we're done clanging in her ears, the sun rising bright and inexorable toward noon, when she would have to go the Temple, and if she lost Helion she might just run to the Titan's Spear and throw herself off instead.

But if she told him the truth, she would lose him, too.

"All right," she said, and looked away from him. "All right. Tonight. I have to get ready for the Temple, you know I do, if I go looking like this I'll be in trouble again."

"Again?" Helion echoed, his eyes narrowing, and she rushed on before he could ask.

"I'll tell you," she said, her throat tightening. "I will. But…but…" She shook herself, squared her shoulders, and said it clearly. "I'm afraid when I do, you won't love me anymore."

"Oh," he said, and crossed the little glade swiftly to her, took her dirty, bloody hands in his. "Oh. No. No, how could I stop?"

When he kissed her, she could taste the dust of the practice field. The salt of his sweat. And underneath it, there was him, brave and kind and good as the grapes of the rich earth, simple as clear water. His kiss was shy for its newness, awkward for lack of practice, but his arms went around her and there was something new and deep in it, as if they had only been wading along the shore all this time, and suddenly they had turned together and found the whole vast ocean to swim in. It left her breathless, and his voice was husky when he broke it off, pressing his forehead to hers.

"Diana," he said, somber as a funeral orator. "You haven't been beating small children."

"No," she said, puzzled.

"Come on, I'll walk you back." He scooped up her sandals and handed her her armor, her greaves and gauntlets rattling together in his hand. "Have you been dragging beggars back to your kitchen to cook into pies?"

"No," she said again, starting to giggle. He held her hand as they walked up the path, his fingers twined in hers.

"Robbing the old widows of their savings?"

"No," she said, bumping him with her hip.

"Are you marrying me to take over my father's pottery business?" At the door to her house, he set down her armor and leaned against the jamb, his eyes twinkling. "Because I won't have anyone that just wants me for my pots."

She was going to make a joke, but something stopped at her. He'd grown broad enough to fill the doorway and the sun shot gold sparks through his bronze hair, glowed on his tanned skin, and all at once she could see the man he would become. The man she would love. She was just beginning to see the outer edges of that love, to understand what it could be, what he would be to her, how impossibly dear.

"It's not your pots," she said, and went into his arms when he held them out to her.

"Tonight." Helion said, and bent to kiss the top of her head. "You promised."

Tonight I will lose you, she thought, and her heart would break with the sorrow.

"Yes," she forced herself to say. "I'll find you after the Benedictions."

Domitian walked as fast as his withered, useless left leg would allow, his walking staff clacking loudly on the tiled floor of the Temple. Just past the enormous colonnade at the eastern entrance was the great gathering chamber, a circular room with many doors where the Skaloi, students, acolytes, and Elders congregated in small sitting areas. To the left was the Archives; to the right, the ceremonial chambers and purification pools for the rites of worship. To the rear of the Temple were the wind gardens, meticulously tended gardens that stretched to the very fingertips of the cliffs, hanging over the valley far below.

And down, if you knew where to find the stairs, were the council chambers of the Elders and Skaloi.

He was furious as he had rarely been before, and his first impulse was to go down those stairs, find Skalos Abeon, and shake the scrawny little bastard until his eyes popped.

That, however, would be counterproductive.

Instead he went to Skala Legeia, one of Diana's teachers, who he had known since he was an acolyte himself.

"Tell me why this happened," he said, sitting down at her invitation and waving away the cup of wine she offered. "It was Abeon that began this trouble."

Skala Ligeia was a tall, grave woman who retained a measure of grace even in extreme old age. She poured herself a cup of wine before she spoke, smoothing her long white robes as she sat down in a hard-backed chair opposite him. She sat very straight, her silver hair pulled back in a complex coil with combs of polished quartz.

"He did," she acknowledged. "I knew there was trouble between them. He picked on the girl, it is true. But Domitian, your daughter has earned this punishment."

The older woman was unusually severe, and Domitian felt his stomach knot.

"What happened?"

"She struck him, Domitian." The Skala looked at him, and not without sympathy. "She struck him hard enough to knock him down, and said if she was a moon-mad dog, he ought to stay well away and mind his tongue, oughtn't he? She said if he was her guide down the one true path, she would take the road to hell instead." The Skala's lips twitched. "A poor time for her to find her tongue. Why would Skalos Abeon say she was a moon-mad dog, Domitian? It's a strange insult to choose."

"He was taunting her," Domitian gritted. "Helion, son of Kadmos, is her betrothed. He told me there was an accident at the agoge today. Diana hurt her friend badly. And Abeon called her a mad dog for it."

"A moon-mad dog." Skala Ligeia corrected gently.

"What of it?" He wanted to stand, to pace, as he had when he was young. All these years and still he forgot sometimes that he was a cripple. "What of his treatment of her? Why has he been allowed to do this?"

"We are speaking of Diana now," The Skala replied, but left no doubt that the Skalos would be dealt with. "Striking a teacher is bad enough, but that's not the whole of it. She would be punished, but we would not keep her in the penitent's cell. It was blasphemy, what she said, and it's not the first time."

"She has questions," Domitian said lamely. He had feared this for a very long time.

"She has more than questions, Elder, and I believe you know that quite well."

There was no good answer to that, so he ignored it. "What will happen to her?"

"She will be whipped, of course. In the forecourt tomorrow at noon." The Skala nudged the cup of wine toward him. "Drink. It's not the end of the world, you know."

"It will not help her," he said, ignoring her. "I know my daughter, she—"

"It's about justice," the older woman said with some asperity. "Heavens, Domitian! I will not deceive you, I have been disappointed in the girl. Such a quick mind, so many gifts! We would make her a psalta tomorrow if she were to join the Temple permanently; Skalos Joras likes to hear her sing, and a voice like hers is rare. She could make us proud no matter what she does. But there are some who say that she is not Solari at all, and their whispers grow louder for her blasphemies. She twists our doctrine. She distorts it. I have heard her do it with my own ears."

"So have I," he whispered, and closed his eyes.

"You knew that she had these thoughts. These blasphemies. And yet you brought her to the temple as an acolyte."

"I thought she would be taught to understand our beliefs, as I was," he said, anger kindling. "Not bullied by some juvenile jackass of a Skaloi."

"I would hope she has restraint enough to endure that, or what manner of warrior will she be? Should we tell her enemies not to taunt her on the battlefield? We priests fight beside our Rakkor brothers. We are armed with spears and shields as well as our faith."

Domitian looked away, defeated. He should have known better than to argue with the Master of Rhetoric. She was right. That was the worst of it. Diana was hardly the first to backtalk a Skaloi or even strike one, but combined with her blasphemy, it was a terrible crime. A whipping was lenient; they had taken Skalos Abeon's provocation into account.

But in his mind's eye he saw her, wrists bound to the wooden pillars in the forecourt and her tunic torn down the back, imagined the bloody stripes crossing her fair skin, and oh, the shame of it. It would burn in her heart for the rest of her life. He knew his proud, strange, lovely daughter, and knew she would bear it like it was a brand in her flesh. She would never forget it. Never forgive it.

"It is my failing," he said gruffly. "I did not teach her as I ought. I will go in her place."

Skala Ligeia blinked.

"My, wouldn't that be a show," she mocked gently. "An Elder of the Fifth Degree between the posts, and a cripple to boot. I think we ought to spare the Temple such a scene if we can, don't you?"

"It will not help her. It will only turn her against you." Domitian lurched to his feet, found his balance. "Against the Temple. It will make the problem worse, Skala. She will think—"

"What she thinks," Skala Ligeia said sharply, putting her cup aside and standing to face him, "is entirely the problem, Elder. Her punishment is justice. Her blasphemy was witnessed. It is to your credit that you love her as you do, but I must caution you against loving her too much. She must be corrected. You have tried to do so gently. I see that. You have tried to teach her yourself; when you failed, you sent her to the Temple, hoping that we would succeed. Is that not so?"

Whatever he was going to say, it died on his lips at the look that she threw him, the sort of challenge usually issued with spear and shield on the practice field.

"Yes," he was forced to admit.

"She is moon-addled, Domitian," she said, more gently. "Let us help her. You will not see her tonight. I will speak to her instead, and tomorrow you will stand with us. It will show her that you agree with me, that what I have said is true."

"She will think I've abandoned her," he said, appalled.

"No," Skala Ligeia said. "She will think you were the first to help raise her up again, when we cast her down. You will be the one to help her find the one true path, or no one can."

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Author's Note:

Thanks for your patience, most of you. :p If you're enjoying the story, please drop me a line in the reviews; your reviews are what keep me posting.