The Fight for Peace (36 page)

Chapter 2

IMPRISONMENT

Sinika stared out the bared window. The flared apex of the closest tower caught his wandering gaze as it shone in the golden light of dawn. Words surfaced. A name. It was the Chapel of Hope. For the first time, Sinika realized he was at the Temple of Solaire. He was home.

Only it wasn’t his home. Not any longer. Not just because he was a prisoner in one of Solaire’s towers, no longer the ruler of the High Council. But because he was no longer a Fire Priest. Sinika was not an Elemental at all.

He sat, watching the sun rise and felt no connection to its fire. His mind threatened to dissolve again. He swallowed the agony and fought to remain aware. He didn’t remember arriving in Solaire or having come to this room. There was nothing since the fight on Drufforth’s beach... months ago? The only judge of time besides scruff on his cheeks were Solaire’s towers, shining and new. And undamaged. The repairs to the Temple hadn’t been completed when he’d sailed to bring war to the Kith in their forest. The war that had defeated him, claimed Elantha’s life, and stolen his power. Madness held an attraction compared to memories.

“How has it been today?” a gentle voice asked from outside the barred door.

“Quiet. Unusually so,” came the gruff reply.

The door lock clicked and an old woman walked in. The healer’s gaze scrutinized him before she entered fully. Behind her the door closed as she placed a tray on a stand.

“You are with us today,” Matylda said.

“I have not been?” Sinika asked, words and voice coming rough to his lips.

“No. Not for awhile.” She walked to where he sat, close enough that he could see the blue flecks amid her brown eyes. She didn’t look older than he remembered. But then, the Priestess had always look timeless with her gray hair streaked with dark, smooth cheeks, and deeply wrinkled eyes.

“How long has it been?” The question left him along with all the air in his lungs. He so desperately needed to know the answer.

“Six months.”

That was far better than he had imagined. If she’d said two years, he would have believed it. “What has happened since? Solaire looks whole again.”

“It is. More than before. The Kith came and helped rebuild as their way of apologizing for the attack that destroyed so much of the Temple. I wish I could say we repaid the gesture, but none in Solaire can regrow trees.”

To that reproach, Sinika said nothing. “What else?” he asked when she did not continue. Matylida shook her head, swaying the heavy braid across her back.

“It is not for me to say. I will tell the High Council that you are awake.”

That stung. He had been on the High Council. Six months ago he had ruled the High Council, Solaire, and all of the Church of Four Orders. She would not even address him as High Priest. Of course, he was not. He wasn’t even fit to hold that title since he no longer controlled an element.

Matylda left him with the tray of food. The guard took it later. The day passed. Sinika watched the sunlight gleam on the towers until he could not stand only watching and not feeling. Frustration had always made him pace, but one turn around his large but hardly spacious room left him tired. Six months, Matylda had said. Six months he’d been lost to the world doing what? Sleeping, screaming? Whatever it had been, it hadn’t been walking.

By the time the sun began to set over Solaire and he heard the lock turn once again in the door, Sinika’s frustration had worn itself and him to weariness.

Behind him, he heard the door scrape open but he didn’t turn to great this new visitor. He’d pondered who would come from the High Council, attempting to remember who had died in the battle or who would return to rule Solaire with him gone? The list was short: Rhinnault, Ci’erra, Niri. Then he realized who it would be and he laughed. Fate was not kind to him, not anymore.

Sinika glimpsed blue robes from the corner of his eye and knew he’d guessed right.

“Good evening, High Priest Misshal,” Sinika said, gaze unchanged from the shadows growing outside.

“Good evening, Sinika,” Misshal said, pulling up a chair and table to join Sinika before the window. Sinika ignored him as Misshal set glasses and a decanter down. Despite the conversation with Matylda and knowing that he held no power, not hearing a title before his name sent a buzzing under his skin. All he’d ever worked to be was gone. He’d woken to think the prison cell was not his home. The day ended with him realizing he had no other.

“I’m glad to see you have returned to us,” Misshal said as he poured wine, handing Sinika a glass like they were old friends enjoying an evening.

“Are you?”

Misshal glanced at him as he sat, red-brown hair contrasting with the blue robes and eyes. “I do not wish you ill. Otherwise you would not be here.”

Laughter and anger threatened to break from him. He swallowed it with the wine. Control had come easier to him before. Now he fought to appear unruffled.

“It is a nicer prison than Gothark’s cell. Thank you for that. Of course, Gothark had still been an Elemental when he was sequestered in Solaire’s dungeons. At least you do not have that worry.”

Misshal gave Sinika his full attention for a moment before looking away. “I am sorry about that too. How are you?”

“Death would be easier. But since I am not, I will endeavor to find some... purpose. Who else of the Council lived?” Sinika asked, half curious but mostly wanting to change the topic.

“Kheten, Rhinnault, and Nahrhia as well as myself.”

“Then I am surprised I’m not dead... or down in the dungeons.”

Misshal gave him a half smile over his wine. “Well, you are in luck. Rhinnault has gone to the Temple in the Clouds to speak to the leaders there. Kheten has left for the restored Temple of Stone. Only Nahrhia and I are here now. She does not wish to see you.”

Misshal meant the information to tell him of the other High Priests, but it told Sinika so much more. “Temple in the Clouds? That is the who sent the other boats that blocked us in Drufforth’s harbor, was it not?”

“Yes. They hold the Sphere of Air. From what Rhinnault told me before he left, they are what remained of the Temple of Winds when the Church of Four Orders came to... claim the Order of Air as a part of it back in the War of Orders.”

“Which was after the Temple of Stone fell and became the Temple of Dust as you remember when you came with Felya to rescue me from its depths.”

Sinika did not mention Nirine. Her fate intrigued him, but he did not want to appear too eager to learn of the former Water Priestess that had imprisoned him in the depths of the flooded Temple. His search for her and desire for vengeance had been part of what started the war. Misshal knew that. Sinika had recruited the young, though very powerful, Water Priest in an effort to fight Nirine. And really, would she care if he still burned to kill her? It wasn’t like he could cause her harm unless he carried a knife.

“It was restored, supposedly by a mysterious tribe that rules the Great Desert of Ak’Ashanti according to the Kith. But... however it was done, the Sphere of Earth was returned there and the Temple is whole again. As an Earth Priestess, Kheten wants to restore it and the library. We lost over half of the Earth Elementals from Solaire, as well as a few of Fire, to its cause.”

“With Solaire rebuilt, three of the ancient Temples are restored then,” Sinika mused.

“All four are. The Temple of Mists has returned and with it the Sphere of Water.”

“Nirine,” Sinika said, not meaning to speak the name aloud. He kept his gaze steady at Misshal’s quick glance. “Only she would be able to restore whatever had been done to alter the Temple to one of Ice. You went there, I would assume?”

“Yes.” Misshal answered. “I went to see the Sphere of Water.”

“Your sphere. The Sphere of Air in the Temple in the Clouds. Kheten has the Sphere of Earth in the Temple of Stone.” Sinika stopped speaking with a realization that double beat his heart. “And the Sphere of Fire has been found and it is here.”

“You were always clever, Sinika. I would suggest not dwelling on that... possibility. You’ve had a long day and have much to come to terms with. I will leave you for tonight.”

Alone, Sinika approached the window that looked out on its multi-story drop. Careful for he’d found a hope that gave him a desire to cling to life, he leaned out and turned toward the east.

His window in the tower faced north, north-west. He could see Solaire’s harbor to his left, the harbor town, and the main part of the Temple before him. The old part, the one housing the High Council and where he’d once lived, was to the east. There, blazing against the faint moonlit shimmer of the Lake of Tears, one tower, higher than the rest, blazed like a star. Sinika knew where the Sphere of Fire sat.

—

The next morning, Matylda came again. From her words the day before, Sinika knew it would take time to win her trust again. But he did have her concern.

“You are still with us then?” she asked after gazing at him from the door.

“I’m hoping to stay actually,” he answered, keeping his voice warm. “Was I that bad before that you stop at the door to see how I am?”

“Some days, yes,” Matylda answered with a a sniff.

“I am sorry. I was not myself,” Sinika said, meaning the words.

“Oh I don’t know. Raving mad and violent or calm and violent, they are still a part of who you are.”

Yes. He would have a long journey ahead to win her trust. Each day he stayed nice, trying to get her to talk and to stay a few minutes longer. For over a week, she rebuffed him. And Misshal did not come back.

Whenever he despaired, he looked east, especially at night. The name to the Chapel of Hope evoked laughter. It had never felt so fitting.

“You sit there a lot,” Misshal said from the doorway.

Dusk had just settled and Solaire’s light warmed into the night, competing with the rose light of the lesser moon. Sinika sat with his back to the west edge of the window, tucked into its curve with practice ease as he gazed east.

“I didn’t hear you enter, High Priest. My apologies,” Sinika said, swinging his legs from the ledge. Misshal remained at the door watching him.

“Why?”

“The tower reminds me of Elantha. It makes no sense, I know. But... I have fond memories of the time we spent there while she spoke to her spirits.”

Sinika had no idea where the words came from, but the breath they rode on left his chest with a hollow ache. Of all the guilty reasons for him to stare at the Chapel, because he’d once ruled over the High Council there or because it now housed the Sphere of Fire, he’d never considered the moments he’d spent in it with Elantha when the rising sun would gild her into a statue fitting of the Goddess.

“You miss her... though you are more than a little the cause of her death,” Misshal said, crossing the room to set down the decanter of wine in his hand.

Whether he meant what he said or not, Sinika’s answer had been found acceptable by Misshal. But damn him, Sinika wondered if he hadn’t meant it. He’d dreamed of her every night since he’d come to himself, often thinking of that last night in the boat while the spirits drove her mad in the hold and he’d woken to find his bed empty of her. He could have protected her. Did, in a way, until the end when he used her to cause havoc.

“Aren’t I responsible for many deaths?” Sinika asked, dropping into the chair across from Misshal.

“Yes,” Misshal answered, pouring the wine. Sinika took a glass, sipping deeply to both savor the taste and to chase away memories. Misshal watched him. “You never consider I could have poisoned that?” he asked.

“You could kill me in so many ways. Have killed me before now. Really, why would you resort to poison?”

Misshal sat, picking up his glass. “Matylda said your mind was back. I see she is right.”

Sinika’s hand froze before he sipped again from his glass. Then he laughed. “You are still concerned I will cause you trouble? Locked up in here surrounded by a Temple full of Elementals, many of whom want me dead and I defenseless as than any citizen of Myrrah? You worry too much. It shows you take your responsibilities seriously, but you worry too much, High Priest.”

Sinika kicked his heels onto the windowsill. “If you worry I think too much and watch things, send me some books or something to do. I will most likely be cooped up in here for a long time.”

“I’ll consider that,” Misshal said. “And there are quite a few we thought dead in the battle that survived. Most of those onshore that first night were taken captive by the Kith. Garam and others taken prisoner were released as part of the Kith’s offer of peace.”

One name caught Sinika’s ear though he ignored it while sitting in front of Misshal. “What of Tohkef? Was he with them as well?”

Misshal set his glass down with a sharp click. Anger snapped in his blue eyes as he glared at Sinika. “No. He died after killing a Kith girl. But thank you for asking after him. I’m pleased to know you are concerned... now.” Misshal stood. “I have other tasks to intend to. Good evening, Sinika.”

Sinika hadn’t meant to rile Misshal, but he wasn’t surprised. The young Priest, youngest on the High Council when Sinika had ruled, had always been prone to a quick temper. Sinika had always thought Misshal would have made a good Fire Priest, but birth had given him the ability to control the lesser element of water. But his control... was matched by none except perhaps Nirine.