Priestess

By Deidre Huesmann

Trapped on Mykonos, Azalee makes a deal with a god of death: find him Desdemona, and he’ll bring Joel, the love of her life, back to her. But her attempts are thwarted at every turn by an infuriating High Priestess, who touts great political pull and seems to have sinister plans for Azalee’s future.

Shipped back to Illyria, Joel is imprisoned beneath the Kurios’s quarters, where he’s unwittingly reunited with his dangerous elder brother, Deimos. Joel wants to rescue Azalee, but Deimos is determined to prove that Joel must break his pacifism to do it.

Though on opposite ends of Greece, Azalee and Joel’s decisions continue to twine across the threads of fate. Will fate bring them together, or are they destined to remain apart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Teen
• Release date: Mar 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781773391687

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Published by Evernight Teen ® at Smashwords

www.evernightteen.com

Copyright© 2016 Deidre Huesmann

ISBN: 978-1-77339-168-7

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Audrey Bobak

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

Many thanks to my dedicated beta-readers, who have helped my writing grow enormously in this past year.

And to my son, Quinn, for teaching me true dedication and patience.

PRIESTESS

A Modern Greek Myth, 2

Deidre Huesmann

Copyright © 2016

Chapter One

Temple of Selene

Azalee woke to mournful cries echoing eerily off the walls made entirely of rough, dark lodestone. Small chert rocks glowed, yet this night they appeared dimmer, as though their moon mother, Selene, was dispirited. Heaving a sigh, she threw off her sheets and joined the priestesses leaving their beds.

Masses of black hair, clothing, and footwear flooded the walkways. Pallid arms swayed as the women hurried toward the pool. Feet padded along the polished floor, some naked, most in sandals. Azalee’s were bare and still dirtied from the night before.

She shuffled along with the other priestesses, wearing the same dark clothes as the rest. Her white hair, falling from her loose braid, set her apart from the rest of the ebony locks. Scars crisscrossed along her arms and lower legs, peeking out from beneath her dark chiton.

Azalee had no idea what to do, so she followed the other girls and women. Her heart sank as they stopped behind the threshold to the scrying pool.

She’d just been here during the sleepy daylight hours.

Kneeling around the pool, several priestesses sobbed over the water. From where she stood, Azalee couldn’t see past the raised rim.

A voice rose above the wailing. Who immersed their open wounds in our sacred water?

Azalee’s breath caught in her throat. She tried not to look down at her bandaged hands, recalling the chill liquid soaking them several hours ago.

She hadn’t been on Mykonos two nights, and already she was about to be convicted of desecration and sacrilege.

The day before, while the priestesses slept, Azalee had been visited by the god of peaceful death, Thanatos. His ethereal appearance and unique voice made her suspect only she had seen and heard him. When he’d beckoned, she’d followed him to the scrying pool out of curiosity. Then he’d offered a bargain that she would have been a fool to reject. She had followed his instructions and scryed the location of his reincarnated love.

Or loves. Apparently, the ill-fated Desdemona had been reborn as a pair of twins—and Azalee had met them in Athens days prior.

Faced with her sins of scrying without permission and tainting the water, Azalee tried to keep her face impassive and calm. Yet her heart raced. Blood throbbed in her ears.

An older priestess turned a stern, disappointed gaze to them all. She wore different robes than the rest: dark blue with a silver sash around her waist and a silver peplos—a short, fashionable slip of fabric—draped over her shoulders. Azalee didn’t know her name, but her title was clear: High Priestess. Supposedly, she spoke directly to Selene.

So did Azalee, but as far as she knew, the priestesses were not aware. There hadn’t been time to do much more than give her a tour of the temple. She hadn’t even taken her vow of chastity, yet.

All priestesses with abrasions to their hands, step forward, commanded the High Priestess.

Several shuffled back, but a few meekly pressed to the front. Azalee steadied herself with a deep breath and followed them. The injuries on her palms burned guiltily. She’d bloodied them during an intense fight with an enemy ship at sea. Azalee had sliced her hands on glass shards to show Selene she was serious, begging her moon mother to save the young man she loved.

It had worked, but left her with deep gouges that would take weeks to heal.

Amongst the dozens of Selene’s priestesses, thirteen stood before the High Priestess. Murmurs erupted and Azalee’s stomach clenched tighter. Thirteen was not only an unlucky number, it was the only one associated with Hades, the underworld, and death.

Thanatos’s obsidian eyes lingered in the forefront of her memory.

The High Priestess waved for silence. If the number perturbed her, she did not show it. Instead, she ordered the girls and women before her to form a line. As she demanded each show their wounds, Azalee began to feel faint.

This is what I get for listening to Thanatos. Fiery furies, Joel, where’s your big dumb smile when I need it?

But Joel wasn’t here. Not in the temple or on the island of Mykonos. Azalee had to survive without his help, this time.

Once she and the other twelve priestesses exposed their cuts, the High Priestess scrutinized them. A young girl with silvery-blue eyes was dismissed immediately. Hers was barely a scrape, not enough to leave swirls of red in the water. Azalee’s heart thrummed erratically. She tried not to clench her fists.

After three more were sent back, relief swallowing their expressions, the High Priestess ordered the first in line to the pool.

Place your hands in the water. At the young woman’s horrified expression, the High Priestess said, It is already tainted. You cannot bring upon more ruin at this point. She gestured to the crying women surrounding the scrying pool. Their tears fell into the water, sending ripples over the surface.

Azalee wondered how that helped. She was hesitant to ask. This was supposed to be her new home. The Chertzes populating the island didn’t know she planned to leave, and Azalee desperately needed that illusion to hold up.

But then, it was supposed to be her new home. She needed to know.

Azalee glanced to the woman at her right, a tall, willowy figure with a youthful face and green eyes. She whispered, Why are they crying?

Willow Woman didn’t answer.

To her left, someone else did. Their tears are to nullify the effects of the blood tainting the holy water.

Azalee glanced to a girl about her height. Her hair was short and curly, shaped like a fluffy cloud rising up from her head. She didn’t meet Azalee’s gaze, but her expression was soft.

Why aren’t we all crying into it, then?

The fleecy-haired girl brought a single finger to her lips. Azalee looked back to the pool. In her periphery, the High Priestess scowled.

The first priestess fell to one knee before the pool. She dipped her hands into the water.

Nothing happened.

Next, ordered the High Priestess.

Another woman, her hair falling down her back in a hundred small braids, followed suit. There was no reaction with her, either.

Four more dipped their hands into the pool. Four more walked away unscathed.

The High Priestess turned her opaque gaze on Azalee. Blistered child, step up to the scrying pool.

Azalee spoke without thinking. No.

For such brilliant green-gold irises, the High Priestess gave her a bitingly dark look. It was not a request.

Azalee held on to the gold in her eyes. With the High Priestess’s sharp nose and long hair bound in tight curls atop her head, Azalee could almost imagine she was the pompous, long-winded Theseus—the influential son of the mother of Mykonos. He had tried to claim her as his future wife nearly two nights before. The memory brought forth a bitter taste in the back of Azalee’s throat.

Keeping the image of him firmly in mind, she said, I was told not to enter the scrying pool.

You have permission now, said the High Priestess.

I’m scared.

In fact, she was terrified. She didn’t know what these people would do to her. Nobody had greeted her warmly, and nobody here knew her as anything other than the Blistered child: the seventeen-year-old who had been touched by Helios’s agonizing flame and cooled with a moon goddess’s kiss.

The High Priestess remained unmoved. She pointed to the water.

Azalee’s feet felt like iron bars as she made her way to the pool. All eyes were on her, adding weight to her steps. Azalee wracked her brain for a way out but came up with nothing. Murmurs filled the room, and she distinctly heard someone say, The Blistered child? before the High Priestess hushed them.

She kneeled before the pool, inhaled deeply, and sank her trembling fingers into it.

Do as the others, and reopen the wound, said the High Priestess with a measure of impatience.

Azalee flexed her fingers, wincing as the move separated a fresh scab from her flesh. A little red floated into the water near her hands, mingling with the darker cloud of crimson in the center. The water was cold against her cuts.

Aside from residual whispers at her back, nothing else happened.

Azalee let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She stopped to pick up her bandages before joining the rest of the crowd.

Amazingly, the other standing priestesses dipped their injured hands without repercussion. The High Priestess’s nostrils flared when the last came away clean.

Primly, she said, You may all leave.

Weak with relief, Azalee flowed with the others out of the room. She turned down the hall to head for the prayer chamber. Chert minerals glowed atop high shelves carved into the lodestone. They lit her way as well as a half-moon would in an inky black night.

Soon Azalee stepped into a chilled room. Some priestesses kneeled in the empty space, deep in prayer. Others stretched out, face down, so their fingers were splayed across the floor and their knees tucked beneath their body. They took on the appearance of large, sleeping infants. Azalee had learned these women were meditating, asking for Selene’s guidance.

Before Azalee could kneel, a cold hand on her arm stopped her.

Excuse me, said an older woman. Her gaze was calm and violet, betraying no thoughts Azalee could discern. Your presence is requested in the gardens.

Azalee eyed the woman warily. Who is asking for me?

The woman pointed. The gardens, she repeated. Then she glided past Azalee and kneeled on the floor.

Heaving a sigh, Azalee padded off down the hall. Now that she wasn’t in trouble, she wanted nothing other than to return to her prayers.

Then again, all evening her heart had been filled with a wistful ache for a certain pair of azurite-blue eyes and a broad smile. Joel. How could she miss him, when they had shared little more than a single kiss and promises of the future?

No—there was more than that. The weeks of travel, him patiently teaching her to read, treating her like any other person and not a cursed Chertz … and his unending, unfailing kindness. How could she not miss him?

It was clear that praying wouldn’t do her or Selene much good at the moment.

As she descended a flight of stairs at the front of the temple, Azalee took the peaceful pause to revel in the moon. Selene’s eye was the barest of slivers, glimmering with latent strength and energy. The lodestone of the temple took on some of her essence, but it was nothing compared to standing directly under her silvery-white gaze.

All Chertzes thrived in the moonlight. Azalee might have been Blistered as well, but she remained a Chertz at her core.

Priestesses walked past in a gaggle of girls no older than her. One glanced back, but turned to face forward when one of her friends scolded her.

She should have felt isolated, but the experience was nothing new to her. Better than imprisonment beneath the home of her own parents. Back in Illyria, the village of her upbringing, she’d spent almost thirteen years locked up. Not because she, unlike the Spinel people, couldn’t flourish in direct sunlight. She’d been imprisoned for not being a Spinel, for rejecting Helios’s blessing when he’d tried to physically change her.

At least the people here on Mykonos looked her in the eye.

When Azalee reached the bottom of the stairs, she strode along a short, dusty path before turning toward a wrought-iron gate overgrown by leafy vines. This particular plant blossomed only at night, further proof of Selene’s blessing upon their hidden island. Azalee paused to stroke one of the violet-tipped petals, marveling at its softness. Then she hissed, snatching her hand back to stare at the blood welling up from a pinprick upon her unbandaged finger.

The bougainvillea are not a kind flower, Blistered child.

The voice stiffened her spine. Azalee stormed past the open gate to get a better look, just to be sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

A man in his late twenties stood in wait. His long hair hung loose down his back, with two large braids hanging from his temples and ending near his navel. Ghostly lips stretched into a wide, cutting smile that made her stomach roll. The man was dressed differently than last they had spoken. He’d traded his silver clothes for a gold-trimmed violet shift that grazed the tips of his perfectly groomed toenails. The leather sandals on his feet looked soft, as though they’d been rubbed with fine oil. Even his stinging stench of styrax oil was absent—that, or she couldn’t smell him over the bougainvillea.

At least his eyes were the same molten gold. It reminded her of his despicable temperament.

Theseus, she said flatly.

His smile, if possible, grew even wider. Come, Blistered child. Walk with me.

She stepped away, folding her arms over her chest. No.

Knowing his temper, Azalee thought he would rage. Instead, the light in his eyes turned smug. I heard the High Priestess did not care for your refusal. Rest assured I shall not, either.

How did he know about that? Azalee tried to recover her jaw from the ground. An eerie sensation gripped her, threatening to drag her beneath Gaia’s earth. The sweet scent of the bougainvillea turned sickly.

I am not here to make any uncouth moves, said Theseus. He raised his slender hands. Merely to talk.

Are you even allowed to be on these grounds? she demanded.

He blinked once, unfazed. Of course. The Temple of Selene is open to all who wish to worship, and her gardens are quite well known for their calming atmosphere. Particularly at night. He extended a hand. Shall we?

Disgusted, Azalee stepped back again. I’d rather not.

For a moment, his smile faltered. "And I would rather not ask the High Priestess to cease protecting you from your deserved punishment for dirtying the scrying pool. I suggest you join me."

He knew.

The High Priestess knew.

How was Azalee always the last to figure these things out? She hadn’t noticed any difference when her hands had submerged. Nobody had said anything to her. Sweet Elysium, she hadn’t even glowed, and just hours ago that had been her biggest clue something important was about to happen.

She thought back to the whispering girls and a lump jammed up her throat. Was it possible they knew something as well?

As though sensing her withering resolve, Theseus became all pleasantries again. Let us try this again: shall we? He kept his hand out, palm up.

Shaking her head, Azalee swept past him and headed for the center of the garden. As Theseus trailed on her heels, the tightness in her chest worsened.

She hoped that Joel Crete-Spinel—the big, silly, sweet young man she’d fallen in love with, and now stood so far from—was having a better night than her.

Chapter Two

Father

Joel had little concept of time between Niribelle’s last visit and his first meal, but he could surmise it had been a while. He was starving—and that was intense for a teenager of his immense height and build. Even at fifteen years old, Joel towered over everyone in his village, well over six feet. He could stand fully upright in his metal prison, but the tips of the hairs upon his head brushed against steel when he did so.

For the moment, he was content to sit on the floor. The ship swayed back and forth, dipping along with the gentle waves of the sea. Joel was used to the motion. Combined with his lack of energy, it often made him sleepy.

Someone knocked on the steel slab of his door, and he snapped wide awake. He made no movements when the lock outside shifted with a heavy clang. His stomach growled as the scent of fresh bread and ripe fruit coasted into his nostrils, but he remained firmly seated.

An unfamiliar, dark sense of humor touched him. This was how I found Azalee a month ago. Except he’d never taunted her with food.

He’d also never tried to bribe her.

Joel caught the intruder’s gaze. His mouth drew into a flat line. Fiery furies…

Hello, son.

His father was also large, though even at his full height he lacked a couple inches on Joel.

Kyros Crete-Spinel never broke eye contact as set the platter of sustenance on the metal floor, nudging it forward with a sandaled foot. His eyes, hair, and skin were a shade or two darker than Joel’s. His square jaw jutted from a thick neck. But aside from the typical Spinel traits, they shared other similarities: broad shoulders, narrow waist, and a penchant for sheering their heads so the barest of fuzz proved their coloring.

Joel ran a hand through the half-inch of hair that had begun to wave at the tips. He needed a trim.

As much as Joel wanted to come out the more defiant of the two, he had never been good at directly standing up to his father. He lowered his gaze.

Kyros scoffed. Look me in the eye, boy. You were brave enough to betray your people and run off with the Chertz. Don’t tell me you can’t face your old man.

Joel clenched his fists and then tried to relax them. His fingers didn’t want to cooperate. Good to see you, father, he said stiffly.

I cannot say the same.

Joel glared at the floor. He loathed himself for the heat that crept up his neck. Defying his father had been much easier when Joel had planned never to see him again.

"You might as well eat. Keep up your