XXVIII. KILLIAN

Killian paced the dingy courtyard between the street and the temple of Loviatar. He had driven nails into his breastplate, sharp side in, so when he moved fast he’d feel it. He was moving fast now, and the nails were pricking him, and he hoped whatever dribbles of blood the mess of scars on his chest let through would please the Maiden of Pain. But nothing could touch the excitement in his heart.

“In pain, Killian Kreel,” said one of the other clerics in salutation as he passed from the street to the temple doors. 

“In pain, Jonah Strake. May it please her.” 

“Mortifications in the courtyard?” asked Jonah. Most of the rituals of self-harm practiced by the Loviatans were done in private, though sometimes clerics whose pride offended the goddess had to shame themselves in public.

“I came outside to think.”

“To think about what?”

The importunate question annoyed Killian. Jonah was older than Killian, a higher ranking member of the church. But he was no Killian Nanther-cum-Kreel, darling son of the late Dundeld Nanther, darling slave of the Maiden of Pain. 

“The whip. The rack. The vise,” he responded.

Jonah accepted this tidy piece of orthodoxy with a nod and went his way. Killian kept pacing. He wasn’t thinking about pain at all, though the nails might have reminded him. Nor was he thinking about its instruments, its uses, the doctrine that its coexistence with pleasure was, to the enlightened, the nearest approach the flesh could make to immortal fleshlessness. He was thinking about love.

***

In the temple slept Iura. She had wandered there days ago. Kizami wanted to make sure everyone had a plan, but she couldn’t keep track of everyone. Iura’s first and only desire was to get away from the other tattooed people. The Resting-Place of the Whip looked like the temple of Ilmater she knew from her childhood, so she stumbled in. It was dark and smelled bad. The lone priest was dressed in a terrifying way. But when he told her to come closer, she did; his voice was soft and kind. He asked Irua what she knew about Loviatar. She had never heard the name. Iura realized that he realized there was something wrong with her and that she didn’t know what she was doing there, but he didn’t turn her away. They were alone. She saw him look around to make sure of it. He took her arm and made her go downstairs. She feared what he was going to do, but he didn’t do anything. He said he would help her and find a place for her to go and learn where she came from. He brought her ham and bread and wine like nothing she had ever tasted. She fell asleep, and when she woke up he still hadn’t done anything–but he was holding her hand. From one prison to another, she thought, wondering how she could think something so cruel.