The High Priest and the Idol by Jane Fletcher

Author:Jane Fletcher [Fletcher, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction, Lesbian, Contemporary, Romance
ISBN: 9781602820852
Google: tGVmPQAACAAJ
Amazon: 1602820856
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2009-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN -GOD OF DESTRUCTION

After twenty days, Jemeryl was still unsettled by the sight of Tevi with blond hair, a thin face, and blue eyes that were level with her own, even though it was her own magic that had wrought the change. The risk of them being recognised in Kradja had made the disguise necessary. Jemeryl suspected that her partner was finding it no easier to adjust to the new appearance she had given herself.

Jemeryl had cast a transforming spell while they were on the ship to Serac, to give them a chance to get accustomed to their new forms before they re-entered the region affected by the morphology. To minimise the adjustment, she had left their gender and approximate ages unchanged, but the new bodies still required getting used to.

Tevi was currently sitting opposite her in the wagon. Jemeryl studied the set of Tevi's shoulders, the way her hands moved as she talked, a twitch of her eyebrows. The familiar mannerisms on the unfamiliar body were disconcerting. The disguise could not be undone until the idol was destroyed and the ability to work magic returned, but if everything went to plan, that would not be long. Kradja was less than a mile away. The caravan had nearly finished its journey across the desert.

She and Tevi were in the second to last wagon, with Larric and Ashkinet beside them. The rest of the seats were packed with zealous pilgrims and aspirant warriors, eager to join the new holy army. The floor well between the rows of seats was piled with baggage. As transport went, it had been one of the worst journeys Jemeryl had ever endured. Dust and heat had made the cramped conditions all the more unbearable.

However, what had really tested her was the incessant, inane babbling of her fellow travellers. The nearer they got to Kradja, the worse it had become. If Jemeryl still had the ability to access the higher dimensions, she would have been desperately tempted to cast a spell of silence on them, regardless of what Coven rules said about the treatment of the ungifted.

Suddenly, as if her wish had been answered, a hush fell on the wagon. Jemeryl broke from her contemplation of Tevi's appearance. The cause was easy to spot. The final few hundred yards of the road into Kradja were lined with a row of gibbets, each one exhibiting a rotting corpse. The bodies were sun blackened and pecked by birds, their desiccated lips pulled back into an obscene parody of a smile. Jemeryl felt her stomach make a dry heave. She clamped her hand to her mouth, fighting back the nausea. One of the other passengers was not so successful, although luckily he was able to get his head over the side of the wagon first.

"Unbelievers," a stony-faced pilgrim muttered.

The word was taken up by others, as if no other justification of the executions was needed.

Sentinels were stationed around the bases of the gibbets. Jemeryl did not need Tevi's professional opinion to know that the military quality of Sefriall's soldiers had fallen yet lower.

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