Lilyana
Ellenos at night was a completely different animal than it was during the day. It was also when the city turned its eyes away to let the dust that had been swept beneath the rug come out.
Lilyana and Coraline of Ellenos were two specks of such dust.
Am I dreaming? Lily thought.
It felt like a dream, but it was very real. It was real, she knew, because it was a memory she had long since tried to bury.
Bury, but never destroy.
For each time she would try, it would simply sprout again from the dark soil in her mind, bearing twisted, awful fruit that would rot and fall to the ground only to bury itself again and repeat the painful cycle.
Bloom, blossom, and die.
Over and over again.
“Lilyana,” Coraline called from farther down the cobblestone street. “Listen to me.”
Her mother wore a gown that matched Lily’s dress: a soft, sky-blue affair with trails of white interlaced and a deep back that left little to the imagination. Yet Coraline’s lithe, regal figure did wonders to the long-sleeved gown that only natural beauty could.
Young Lily scurried over. “I was listening, Mother,” she lied.
Coraline gave her a look of doubt followed by a swift swat to the cheek, loving but stern. She pointed her finger at Lily and said, “None of that, young lady. I told you to follow closely. Now, do I have to hold your hand, or will you walk beside me like I asked?”
Lily gathered herself up and raised her chin. “I can walk myself,” she insisted.
“Very well,” her mother replied, still eyeing her warily. When she finally looked away, she pointed down the long road that led past the Temple of the Shaper. “That’s where we will be going for the ball tonight. Do you remember what I told you?” She looked down to Lily for an answer as the two of them began to walk. A slit on the side of Coraline’s blue gown let her take long, smooth strides as she glided down the road as easily as a leaf on the breeze.
“Yes,” Lily began. “Stay near you but out of the way. Make eye contact with anyone who speaks to me, and only speak when spoken to.”
“And lastly?” Coraline asked, not looking back or breaking stride.
“Never let you out of my sight.”
“So you were listening,” she replied. Lily couldn’t see it, but she could almost hear the smirk in her mother’s words.
The looming blue outline of the Temple of the Shaper stood in the distance, silhouetted in the moonlight and painted by the torches that filled the streets. For a city this size, it was no surprise to see Ellenos so busy at night.
Still, Lily thought, it’s amazing.
She had never been to the Temple, but had heard stories about it: that it was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, and that it was filled with devout Athrani running this way and that, carrying out the will of the Shaper of Ages. Tonight would be her first time ever seeing the inside of the Temple, and it had only come at the end of unrelenting pleading with her mother—paid for in full by Lily’s best behavior in months.
As they neared the guarded entrance to the Temple, her mother slowed her pace to come even with Lily, and reached down for her hand. Lily tried to pull away, but Coraline would have none of it.
“Stay close to me,” her mother whispered.
They approached two strong-looking Athrani men who were dressed in fine purple clothing. Beneath the cloth, Lily could see the faint outline of armor. Each of them held a pike in his hands, and they tapped them on the ground once, in time, at the ladies’ arrival.
“What have we here?” one asked as he peered down his nose at Lily.
“Lady Coraline and my daughter, Lilyana,” her mother answered. “We are guests of the Tallister.”
Before the guard could respond, they were surprised by the voice of an Athrani man who stepped forward from the shadows. He was tall and handsome, and looked older than Coraline by nearly twenty years. “Ah,” he said. “My accompaniment has arrived.”
He smiled warmly as he looked Coraline up and down, gently reaching out to take her gloved hand in his and placing a kiss on the surface of the white cloth.
“So good to see you again, Coraline,” he said. “And this must be the daughter I’ve heard so much about.”
Lily hid shyly behind her mother as the Tallister smiled down.
“It is,” Coraline answered. “She promised she would be on her best behavior if I let her see the inside of the temple tonight.”
The Tallister laughed as the guards parted to let them inside. “Well,” he said as they walked inside, “let’s hope those rules don’t apply to you as well.”
The hungry look in his eye as he looked at Coraline made Lily’s stomach turn. If the whole night was going to be like this, she was going to have to work extra hard to stay in line.
The inside of the temple had better be worth it, she thought.