Page 85 of The Half King
“Can you find out something?” Cerise asked. “Maybe look around in Mama’s old letters? Or in her journal? Any detail would help.”
Nina huffed another sigh. “I’ll try. But only if you promise to let it go.”
“Look in Father’s journal, too,” Cerise added.
“I mean it,” Nina said. “Promise me.”
Cerise crossed her fingers behind her back. She had no intention of sitting idly by and wondering who had fathered her. His identity was too important to ignore. Breaking the curses might depend on it.
“I promise.”
…
“So your father is dangerous?” Daerick asked with a glance over his shoulder. He held a shovel like a walking stick, his voice breathy from the exertion of wandering around under the midday sun in search of melon brambles. “In what way?”
“I don’t know,” Cerise said, a little breathless herself. She wanted to hold Kian’s hand, but her palm was too sweaty. “All my sister said was that my parents wanted to hide me from him.”
“Interesting,” Daerick mused. “From what we know, I think we should consider the possibility that your father is a priest who also has fire blood.”
“But I’ve never heard of priests fathering children.” She looked to Kian. “Have you?”
Kian shook his head.
“I haven’t, either,” Daerick admitted. “They do seem disinterested in the whole business. I noticed it when I visited my brother at his temple. The closer he came to receiving his gift, the less often he turned his head when a pretty girl walked by. Now that he has magic, an entire parade of naked courtesans could dance through the temple and he wouldn’t care. It’s like that part of him has switched off.”
“They’re all like that,” Kian said. “And I would know. There’s not a priest in my service who I haven’t met at some point or another.”
“Well, to be fair,” Daerick said, “they’re good at keeping secrets from you. If any of your priests reproduced, I doubt they would volunteer that information to you or even to their own brethren.”
“Especially not to their own brethren,” Kian said. “But you’re right. I can’t read their minds. Maybe some of them do have desires of the flesh.”
“What about you, Cerise?” Daerick asked. “Not to be indelicate, but have you noticed a change in your…well, in your romantic awareness since your gift manifested?”
Reflexively, her eyes darted to Kian—to the taut muscles of his chest, the rhythmic motion of his stride, and the regal way he carried himself. She recalled the confidence with which he had mastered her body. Her blood rushed with the thought of feeling his touch again.
“No.” She fanned her face. “Not at all.”
“Then it would seem the rules are different for Shiera’s descendants,” Daerick said. “That means there could be others like you, Cerise. Any number of priestesses out there in the world, hiding in plain sight. As long as they were careful not to use their magic around the wrong people, no one would know.”
She lifted a shoulder. After what she had witnessed, she doubted that anything could surprise her anymore. But she didn’t understand why she was the only person they knew of who could travel at will to the Mortara underworld. And then there was the cryptic message left behind by the old emissary:As above, so below. The flame you seek to dampen will consume you. Did that mean Cerise was the flame…or the one who would be consumed? And what about the Reverend Mother’s warning about false idols? How did that fit in to everything?
She blew out a breath. What was her purpose in all of this?
“If my father was a priest with unusual traits,” she said, “that could explain why my parents were afraid of him.”
“And why they hid you from him,” Kian agreed.
“So who could it be?” she asked. “How do we find him?”
“If your mother spent time at court,” Kian said, “your father could be any one of hundreds of priests who served at the palace.”
Cerise chewed the inside of her cheek. Her parents had claimed that they’d never visited the palace, but with as many lies as they had told her, she hardly knew what to believe. “Let’s assume she was never at court. Do we have records of which priests lived in the Solon temples the year before I was born?”
“I’m sure of it,” Kian said. “We can also find out who visited Solon.”
Daerick added, “I can think of one priest, even without the records.”
Kian and Daerick shared a dark look that immediately told her who they were referring to. The most legendary priest to ever visit Solon was Father Padron. He’d been dispatched there by the old king to put down an insurgence. She couldn’t recall what year the rebellion had taken place, but the timing seemed like it could fit.
