Cyrene, Libya
The four days of cleansing rites had finished. The old god in the hills had been placated, sated with sacrificial blood for another month, and his sole priestess Sabra, tending his Temple under the earth, could barely recall the victim’s face. Barely.
That is, until she left the undying fire of the inner sanctuary and faced the total darkness of the Temple’s underground passages, where no light could chase away the vision of the child’s face and the torment of Sabra’s grief. She bit her lip and prayed to forget as she felt her way through the twisting corridors toward the world above. Years of practice steadied her steps along the uncertain path between pillars and over broken stones—years of practice, and more falls and bruises than she would ever admit.
The darkness had terrified her at first, when the last priestess of the Temple had taken her down into the belly of the earth and showed her the rites of the god she was marked to serve. How foolish, she thought now, to be afraid of the dark. It was almost a comfort to her since she had come to know the terror of god.
Her legs shook, weak from her four days of ritual fasting, and a headache throbbed behind her eyes, but she forced herself to keep moving. If she stopped, she would lose her sense of place, her sense of direction. The underground Temple was laid out like a labyrinth, its twists and corridors designed to keep the unconsecrated from the sanctuary, but it had almost snared her—her, the god’s voice, the god’s hands—more times than she cared to recall.
She passed a gap in the right-hand wall and marked it off on her mental map. Three steps later her left hand brushed a raised stone and she turned, feeling her way into the branching tunnel that followed. As always, a breath of warm, dry air sifted over her, strange after the clammy coolness of the deep sanctuary. It was the only reassurance she ever had that she hadn’t gotten lost. Ten more strides and another left turn, and all at once the corridor brightened enough for her to see her hands and, just ahead, the outline of the stone steps where they lurched up toward the street.
She reached the bottom of the steps and drew a deep breath. The sky over Cyrene opened above her, a pattern of pearls set in midnight silk, wide as the endless sea. After the blindness of the Temple, the dark of night felt strangely empty. There was no comfort in the stars.
As she dragged herself up the steps, a shower of golden torchlight spilled down the stairs from the street above. She stifled a cry of surprise, recoiling, and threw a hand over her eyes.
“Mistress Sabra!” a voice called from behind the brightness.
Her breath slipped out in relief as she recognized Hanno, one of her father’s Libyan eunuchs. He was only a few years older than she was, though he stood nearly a whole head taller than her and was twice as broad. Hanno’s mother had been Sabra’s own nurse, and she and Hanno had shared food and toys and secrets until Hanno had been whisked away to learn his duties for the governor and Sabra had been ushered into the service of the god under the earth. He was the closest thing she had to a friend, and she trusted him even more than her own slave Ayzebel.
Sabra fumbled her way up toward him, still wincing from the torchlight. As soon as her feet breached the threshold of the Temple she said, her voice a rasping whisper, “Hanno. Can you put that out? It’s too bright.”
“I’m sorry, mistress,” he said. “I forgot about the darkness.”
He extinguished the torch in the urn of sand by the Temple stairs, returning the night to moonlight.
“Did my father send you?” Sabra asked. She pressed her fingers against her eyes. “I’m in no danger.”
“He thought you might not be able to make it back up the hill.”
Sabra gave him a dubious look and Hanno grinned.
“All right, he didn’t. I thought you might not make it.” The smile was already gone from his face. “The god can’t be pleased to see you so spent in his service, tottering around like an old grandmother when your life should be blossoming.”
Sabra forced a weak laugh, throwing it like a veil over her fear. Deep inside she always worried that the god was indifferent to her. She could serve…or not. She could die…or not. Another priestess would do just as well, or perhaps better. Who could tell what the god was thinking, or what might please or anger him? At least the gods of the Greeks and the Romans—and even that strange new god that some in Cyrene had come to serve—at least their will could sometimes be discerned.
All Sabra could hope for was that her prayers and fasts were enough to keep her god deep in the earth. She never wanted to imagine what might happen if the rituals failed, but she knew she would never forgive herself if they did.
Sabra realized she was shaking, and not just from hunger. Dreams of death, of dry stones and fire and blood, had plagued her since she was a child, even before the mantle of the priestess had been laid on her shoulders. And though she tried to dismiss them as only dreams, she couldn’t escape the terrible fear that they were a promise…a portent of what would happen if she should fail.
“Mistress?” Hanno asked, touching her arm. “Should I call a litter for you? You’re white as sand.”
“No,” she said. She must not be weak. She must be strong, always strong. “I just need some water.”
Hanno disappeared without a word, his absence making the darkness deeper. Sabra rubbed her hands over her arms, chilled in spite of the warm wind that blew in from the south. The abandoned streets around the temple district of Cyrene usually didn’t bother her. Despite a lifetime of solitary hours spent in the darkness of the temple, Sabra had never felt alone.
Tonight was different. Tonight she was afraid, and she was alone.
Hanno returned with a dripping gourd of water, and Sabra swallowed it all in a few gulps that left her chest burning.
“Better now?” Hanno asked, watching her carefully.
Sabra handed him the gourd, tasting the drops of water that clung to her trembling lips. “Did you taste the water, Hanno?”
Hanno frowned. “No. Was it sour?”
“I’m…I’m not sure.” She licked her lips again, trying to catch the taste that had surprised her, but it had gone. “Does that ever happen to you? Something troubles you, and you can’t recall what, and it just festers in the back of your mind like a thorn.” She shook her head. “It was there a moment ago. Something about the water. Now it’s gone.”
Hanno bent his head. “I should have tasted it first,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, mistress.”
“I’m fine,” she said, clasping his arm. “It was just…I’m tired, that’s all. And hungry. My mind is playing tricks.”
He nodded and looped the gourd onto his belt. Then he guided her arm around his neck and started for the long hill that led up to the governor’s palace. Sabra leaned more and more on Hanno as they went, but he never complained.
She drew a ragged breath and murmured, “It was so hard this time. I don’t know why.”
“They’re drawing the name tomorrow, aren’t they?” Hanno asked.
She glanced up at him, surprised to find sadness in his eyes. Sadness and fear, and something like hope.
“Yes,” she said. “In the evening.”
“Are you worried?”
She stopped and faced him, pulling her arm free from his shoulder. “I serve the god without fear, Hanno,” she said, hoping the tremble in her voice didn’t betray her as a liar. Then she dropped her voice to a whisper. “But these are the days I hate above all others.”
“It never gets easier?”
Sabra hesitated. Against her will, her eyes dropped shut, and she remembered the last sacrifice as clearly as if she stood before the god’s cave again. High on a hill outside the city, gaping like a maw among the houses of the dead, the cave waited to swallow the victims she provided. Deep in the corners of her memory she could still hear the faint haunting melody of a distant flute, the drums echoing the chaos of her own pulse, the weeping of a child.
The dry wind stung her eyes and she lowered her gaze. It was only when her lashes brushed her cheeks that she realized they were wet with tears.
She swiped at her cheeks. “I don’t regret,” she whispered. “I don’t fear. I don’t fear.”
Hanno muttered something under his breath and started again for the palace. She stumbled beside him, biting her lip to keep from crying, staring fixedly at the plain tips of her shoes faltering over the paving stones. Somehow Hanno managed to get her all the way up the hill, though she felt so heavy she wondered how he could move with her at all.
She mumbled a greeting to the sleepy slave who met them at the door and let Hanno guide her into the open peristyle. Her servant Ayzebel knelt beside a low coal brazier under the portico, coaxing the embers back to life. She rose when she saw Sabra, but even then she kept her head bowed and eyes averted.
Sabra sighed, too weary to be saddened by the girl’s withdrawn attitude. Ayzebel had served her for nearly seven years now—almost half their lives—but the girl never seemed comfortable in Sabra’s presence. At first Sabra thought she was just timid, but lately she’d begun to believe Ayzebel simply hated her. And nothing she did seemed to change that.
Sabra collapsed onto a pile of embroidered cushions close to the fire, enclosed in its warm circle of light. A cool autumn breeze trickled through the columns of the open peristyle, trembling the leaves on the slender branches of the fruit trees. She leaned toward the brazier to escape the chill, letting the fire’s warmth soothe away the numbness and the aches she’d collected in her vigil at the Temple.
She stared at her hands, watching the low firelight burnish her too-pale skin. Her father’s complexion showed his Numidian lineage, and, though she couldn’t remember her Roman mother, Sabra imagined that she must have had beautiful olive skin. But Sabra resembled neither of them, with her pallor and her strangely golden eyes. She looked nothing like the sun, and everything like the grave. Marked by the god himself for his service, the old Priestess had said. Serving him was her fate.
A kitchen slave approached with a dish of dried fruits and nuts and a flask of water. Hanno took them and dismissed the boy, then settled cross-legged beside her.
“Mistress, eat something,” he said, and nudged the dish toward her.
She reached for a raisin, mumbling, “Too tired.”
“Eat first, then sleep,” he said.
He was scowling at her with a look black as thunder, and Sabra couldn’t help a smile.
“Oh, have it your way,” she said. “Hand it here.”
He gave her the plate and she picked through the offerings, leaving the walnuts and eating the almonds and hazelnuts instead, washing them down with tepid water. She caught Hanno eyeing the leftover walnuts.
“Eat them if you like,” she whispered.
Hanno peered around the open courtyard, but Ayzebel had disappeared to prepare Sabra’s bed and no one else was around. Only his fingers moved then, sneaking up to the plate and scooping a few walnuts into his palm. Sabra tried to smother a laugh but failed.
Hanno grinned. “I haven’t heard you laugh in months.”
“I laugh!” she protested, her smile faltering, but the words didn’t convince her. Then, “Months?”
“Months,” Hanno pronounced, setting his jaw. “It just gets worse and worse. I hate to see you like this.”
Sabra stared at him, then shrugged. She was too tired to argue. “I’m not unhappy, Hanno. I wish you’d believe me.”
He gave her such a skeptical look that she found herself smiling again.
“And don’t blaspheme the god, either,” she said, when he opened his mouth to speak. “I know what you’re going to say. I don’t want you to say it.”
He shook his head and shoved the rest of the walnuts into his mouth so he couldn’t say anything. Sabra followed his example, stuffing a handful of raisins into her mouth and savoring their sticky sweetness. Ayzebel returned as she finished, waiting with an oil lamp to take her to her chamber. Sabra avoided her gaze and handed the plate to Hanno.
“See to that. I’m going to bed.”
“Sleep well, mistress,” he said, standing and helping her up. “I pray that the nightmares leave you in peace tonight.”
Sabra shuddered. “Those nightmares spoke of future days,” she whispered. A cold dread seeped through her veins and she looked up into Hanno’s dark eyes. The words were out before she could stop them: “I don’t need them anymore.”