darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,77

so we’ll be safer down there than anyplace this side of the salt line.”

“Really?” I asked. “A hidden shrine? I’ve never heard a rumor of anything like that. Not even when I was First Blade the last go-round . . . How did you find out about that? About all of it?”

Siri flushed, and touched a finger to the smoke that threaded her hair. “My divine affliction. When I came back here after my final mission for Namara, the temple was still smoldering. The Sword and the Hand burned everything that they could, furnishings, panes, doors, bodies. . . .”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Much was brought out and torched under the sky, but those things that were nailed down or otherwise inconvenient to move, they burned in place. Smoke was everywhere in the deeps, and smoke passes where people cannot. There were secret ways under the temple, passages long forgotten or that only the priests knew. Smoke found a way in, and I followed it.”

“But you didn’t find the lost swords.” It was a statement rather than a question—I was quite sure she’d have told us if she knew where they were.

Siri shook her head. “I suspect that if they reside anywhere within this mortal plane, they’re on or near Namara’s island. The pool there was sacred to the goddess millennia before the advent of our order, if Kayla and Ashkent are right, and I’ve no reason to doubt it. They told me that Namara hallowed that island before the first humans ever walked under sun or stars.”

I blinked at that; it was the first time Siri had mentioned her Other connections in weeks. “They spoke of Namara?”

“Only when I begged them to,” said Siri. “The First do not like to talk about your gods as they call them, though Namara they hated least.”

I would have loved to hear more about what they’d had to say, but Siri’s expression didn’t invite questions. Instead, I waved a hand toward the ruined temple. “I think we’ve given everyone enough time to get over the initial shock of seeing it again. It’s probably best if we got under cover now.”

I turned to Faran. “Once Siri’s shown us to our temporary refuge, I think you and I should pay a visit to the village up the coast and collect a couple of those floating baskets that the fishermen use in shallow water—it’ll make hauling our gear across to the island much simpler.”

* * *

This is giving me a case of the horrors like you wouldn’t believe. I sent the words silently to Triss because I couldn’t very well admit it out loud.

The First Blade wasn’t allowed to fear, not even when he stood on the edge of the desecrated grave of his entire religion. Not where his followers could see him, anyway. In the years since the fall I had returned to this place twice. I had not lingered either time, and this creeping horror was why.

The first time I returned was only a few weeks after the fall, and I had only briefly passed the outer gates of the temple and gone no deeper than that. After seeing the names of the dead and the banned on the stele out front, along with the ruined stone orb that once held the spirit knives of the Blades, I’d had no reason to believe that anyone yet lived within those walls. On my second visit, when I recovered my swords from the deeps of the lake, I hadn’t so much as set foot on the salted ground, swimming out to the island at an angle from the still living part of the shore to avoid having to do so.

We came in to the temple from the lake side now, avoiding the stele and the desecrated orb—both to keep from passing too close to the still active road and out of mercy for the feelings of the students. In through the postern gate we went, a narrow slit in the white stone wall that had once allowed access to the docks and the lake without having to circle the whole of the temple complex. In the old days it had been concealed from casual observers by a thicket of gnarled thornbrindle, but that had burned away with all the other trees and shrubs.

The gate itself lay twisted and broken beneath a pile of stones torn from the roof of the arched passage that led into the inner gardens. There were