Stones, Echoes, and Altars by Octavia J. Riley

Author:Octavia J. Riley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coven chronicles, fantasy, demons, witches, dragons, magic
Publisher: Poisoned Apple Publishing
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Father of the Realm Above and Mother to Those Who Dwell Below

The temple hadn’t been hard to find, and as Thea had followed the river and asked a few kind strangers where to point her, she realized she shouldn’t have bothered. The temple was tall, skinny, and looked like three small houses stacked on top of each other. Much like the building on top of the floating rock.

When she first walked into the temple, she was graced with a large, lavish room with a shrine in the very back. A smooth, white, stone statue of a woman with six arms, all holding various tools, was fluidly posed around a striking male statue of pure onyx who was also holding objects in each of his six hands. Around the shrine, the supporting beams were ornately carved and decorated with draping curtains, banners with things written on them in a language she couldn’t read, and thin ribbons of all different colors.

She had stepped forward to gather a closer look at the statue, but before she could discern what the figures were holding, one of the doors on the side of the room slid open sideways. She was greeted by a familiar face, Siàu, holding an empty tray in her hands. The woman blinked slowly at coming to find Thea in the temple’s entryway before she’d stepped aside and allowed Thea to bypass her.

Once Thea had passed through the door and aimed a soft, “Thank you,” the woman’s way, she’d been assaulted with the strong odor of grilled meats and alcohol. She blinked at the sheer amount of food spread out on the long, thin table in the middle of the room. Boisterous laughter harmonized with the soft twang of music. A woman in the corner of the room sat on her knees with a long, wooden, rectangular instrument hovering over her lap. Her fingers plucked delicately at its many strings, and the faint notes were peculiar but pleasant.

“I thought you said you didn’t have time to prepare for a feast,” she said as she took a seat beside Renkilo. The old man already sported a flush to his cheeks, and a tiny, miniscule cup in his hands that couldn’t have been practical for drinking out of. “And where’s Namara and Agni?”

Isabel was laughing at Fatik’s failed attempts to eat with what looked like two delicately carved sticks. The redhead snorted another laugh as the brown noodles Fatik had grabbed with his utensils slipped back into his bowl before she addressed Thea. “Renkilo ordered some of the clansmen to bring in a tub of water for her to sit in, so she doesn’t get anything ‘drenched in water’—her words, not mine. Agni went with her, probably to carry the thing.”

Thea turned toward the Clan Leader who was expertly wielding the wooden implements with one hand and knocking back his drink with the other.

“Thank you, that was very kind of you,” she commented before reaching for her own sticks. She studied them a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.