In that lay my power.

The humor of it didn’t escape me.

“You have anticipated this, have you not?”

“I’ve seen the temple as a child and knew that it wouldn’t be easy for you to get in there. You’ll be shot and set ablaze before you even reach the gate.” I pressed a hand to my belly, circling a bodice reinforced with ribs of bone, the inside of the train that fanned out at the hips lined with bone chips. “Putting Pa at risk the moment you step out of this forest.”

Enosh’s hand curled tighter around mine, and his jawline hardened. He didn’t want me to go in there, but what could he do to stop me?

Nothing.

“This is the fastest, easiest way for one of us to get inside,” I said after a moment of brittle silence. “Perhaps I can negotiate my father’s release. Or at least find out where they keep him. If anything, it’ll draw their attention away from the gate. I’ll fight them from the inside, and you’ll fight from the outside.”

His heavy sigh puffed into the frigid air until he brought my hand to his mouth for another kiss. “One scream. One billow of smoke. If I sense a single mortal in there draw a weapon, I shall let death overrun this place even while they set me ablaze.”

“Sounds fair,” I said, willing my horse back into a walk. “If I leave you anything to kill, that is.”

Enosh’s hand held mine until the growing distance ripped our fingers apart. I rode toward the gate alone, a woman whose worth was determined only by the marriage she’d struck and the child she carried in her belly.

The two soldiers standing guard exchanged a look, then one of them approached with wariness in each of his slow steps. “Turn around, wretch. The high temple is closed for pilgrims until the King of Flesh and Bone has been recaptured. High Priest Dekalon’s order.”

When the other soldier tilted his head this way and that, taking too much interest in my dead horse, I dismounted and commanded it to turn and trot off. “From what I’ve heard, High Priest Dekalon asked for me. Is he here at the temple?”

“Aye, he is,” the first soldier said, my pulse quickening with excitement. “What would he want with you?”

“Bring me to him.” Of course, they chuckled at my words, the audacity of a woman making such a demand. But only until I said, “I am Adelaide, wife of the King of Flesh and Bone.”

Both choked on their amusement, stared at me wide-eyed, then lowered their short pikes. One soldier glanced behind me, likely searching the horizon for signs of Enosh before he looked up at the battlement that had fallen into commotion.

“You see anything up there?” he shouted.

A metal helmet reflected the first rays of the sun from where it poked out from the barbican to the left of the gate. “Empty and quiet. Not a sign of him.”

“I came alone.” I took a taunting step backward. “Of course, if you don’t want to admit me, I might as well turn around and—”

“Open the gate!” the first soldier shouted as he quickly rounded me, bringing the metal point of his pike close to my spine. “You’ll walk straight up that corridor without making a fuss.”

A corridor that opened up to the squeak of heavy oaken doors on damp hinges, letting out an unexpected whiff of pine, so intense it scraped my throat. White marble lined the inside all around, woven with specks of gray and polished to a shine.

I breathed in too deeply, sensing my ribcage expand until the pike’s point scraped at my dress, letting me shift forward into my first step. Dimness swallowed me whole, the corridor nothing but one poorly-lit straight line, with only a handful of golden fire basins lining it with great distance between them.

Strange.

Behind me, the door creaked shut, sending a shudder across my entire body. Only nerves. In five minutes, I had done what might have taken Enosh hours—accessing the temple so I may bring death to the heart of Helfa.

Ignoring the soldier’s spiteful remarks, I walked along the corridor, counting the furrows in the marble across the floor and even the walls. Amber in color, they reminded me of honey, yet appeared as solid and polished as the surrounding stone. Precious glass, perhaps.

I extended my mind, letting it brush along the flesh and bone of nearby mortals. At least a hundred with considerable weight strapped to their aching muscles and calluses on their hands. Soldiers.

However, I couldn’t sense Pa.

Nothing that would single him out, anyway.

Where was he?

“This way. Turn!” When the corridor parted, the soldier shoved me to the right, where it all slowly opened into some sort of round chamber. “Stand on the Sun of Helfa while you wait for the high priest, you bitch, and don’t dare make a single move.”

I positioned myself on the golden emblem set into the stone at the center of this high-vaulted chamber, right across from the wide dais with a golden chair sitting atop. The same amber-colored lines veined along the wall, pouring down to the ground where they came together at the gilded edge of the Sun of Helfa.

A glance over my shoulder confirmed that the other soldier had not followed. Unfortunate, considering how the bone beneath my dress quivered with the urge to shape into a dagger just for—

Someone was coming.

I didn’t so much hear the footsteps as I sensed the motion in the man’s knees, the strain along the muscles on the left and right of his spine as he approached.

He stepped out from behind a gilded metal screen of some sort that crowned the dais, rounded the golden chair, then stood at the edge of the first step. The way he stared down at me over his hook nose let the fire in the basin beside him reflect off his bald head, the man dressed in the white robes of the high priest.

“What a curious scenario…” He eyed me for another moment, then sunk into the red velvet of his chair. “Weeks of searching for the midwife from Hemdale called Adelaide, only for her to knock on my door? Light of hair, blue eyes…” His gaze trailed down my legs, then found mine again. “How do I know it is indeed you? Certainly, Enosh would not have allowed his wife to step before me, considering how eagerly he protected her.”

“Obedience was never my virtue,” I said. “Where is my father?”

His lips pursed, noisily sucking little gulps of air as his throat narrowed to the width of a grass halm, undoubtedly believing me now. “Why have you come?”

The vibrations of many soles pounding the ground drummed along my senses. He’d called in soldiers. Good. Would’ve been a shame if there was nothing to kill in this chamber but an old man and the soldier behind me.

I widened my stance so my dress would better hide how the bone chips shaped into small daggers beneath it. “Like I said, I came for my father.”

“And wherever might your husband be? The lords of the realm have their soldiers observe each path toward the high temple with cages full of doves in their tents. That none of them reached here with a message would mean you have truly come alone, leaving your husband and his army of corpses behind.”

It also meant that I had to make this quick and hurry to find Pa. They hadn’t spotted us in the forest, but the temple was likely sending doves out this very moment, commanding said soldiers to come here. A force we may be able to take on, but only together.

“Or it might mean that they’re already dead.” I grinned as I prepared a dagger just for him, the handle maybe or maybe not tooled with vines, but I sure tried my best. “I came to negotiate—something my husband has little interest in. Therefore, I came alone, but I will leave here with my father.”

The echoes of boots slapping the marble resonated in the corridor. Sure enough, a wave of soldiers marched into the vast chamber. I counted around sixty. Dressed in mail armor and white tabards embroidered with the Sun of Helfa, they surrounded me with their hands on the pommels of their swords.