Éibhear glanced at his fellow Mì-runach, then walked over to the double doors that led out to a balcony. He stood out there and looked over the beautiful city. He was sure Rhi would like it here. It was large, had amazing architecture, and strong walls surrounding it. Lots of things for her to sketch.
He walked back into the study. “I’d want to stay within the city walls. Once those gates are closed, they could hold off a sustained attack if they had to.”
“How can they be in the city and we not know?” Layla asked.
“Especially when their top people blind themselves in some kind of solidarity with their god.” Izzy added.
Éibhear stared out at the city again. “There must be a way for them to stay out of sight and be near a power source that helps them with whatever they’re doing.”
“What about this god?” Aidan asked around his food. “We know anything about him?”
One of Izzy’s cousins stepped forward. “I went to the library like Izzy asked and spoke to one of the sisters. Chramnesind is called the Sightless One. He has no eyes. He’s the god of earth and pain.”
Izzy scrunched up her nose. “That sounds awfully unpleasant.”
“The god of earth?” Uther asked. “You mean like dirt?”
“That’s unimpressive,” Aidan sighed, his food now gone. “You might as well be the god of grass. Or the god of cow shit.” Aidan blinked. “What?” he asked Éibhear. “What did I say?”
Éibhear went back out on the balcony, looked out and down.
“Do you lot have a sewer system here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Maskini replied. “Don’t you?”
“No,” Izzy answered.
“Ew.”
Éibhear scratched his chin. “Do the sewers run under all the temples?”
“Of course.”
Izzy walked out on the balcony and stood by Éibhear. She stared up at him until he looked out over the darkening city. She followed his gaze and cringed. “Oh, no.”
“It makes sense.”
“I know.” She put her hands to her face and rubbed her forehead. “But we both know this can’t end well.”
Maskini gazed at her beloved son’s child. The grandchild she never thought she’d get to see, much less meet. And to find out that her son’s only child had become a beautiful, intelligent, and powerful warrior brought nothing but great pride and satisfaction to Maskini.
So Maskini gazed at her beautiful grandchild. She gazed and asked, “Have you lost your f**king mind?”
“That’s still up for debate.”
“You want me to unleash the Imperial Guard into the sewer system under all the temples? Because this fire-breathing lizard thinks—only thinks, mind you—that the Cult of Chramnesind might be somewhere down there? Don’t you think someone would have noticed them by now? Wandering around? A cult?”
“Maybe she’s right, Izzy,” the lizard said.
“I know I am!”
“No. I think Éibhear’s right,” Izzy pushed.
“How could you think he’s right?”
“Because it’s the perfect place for them.”
“How could the witches, magi, and sorcerers in these temples not know they have some cult leeching off their power?”
“Perhaps they’re part of the cult,” the lizard with gold hair suggested.
“No,” Izzy said. “They can’t afford pissing off the other gods by just choosing one.”
“Especially this Chramnesind,” Maskini’s granddaughter, Rachel, explained. She’d been the one to talk to the sisters at the library since she already had a good relationship with them. “The other gods hate him.”
“Bit of a prat?” Izzy asked.
“You could say. He wants to be the one god. The one we all bow down to.”
“Then for his acolytes to quietly use the power of other gods for their rituals would be quite the insult.”
“Plus the shit.”
They all looked at the brown-haired lizard. Uther, maybe?
“What?” Izzy asked.
“The shit.”
“What about it?”
“It makes sense they’d use the sewers to get around.”
Maskini glanced at Rachel. “Because of the shit?”
“He’s blind, yeah?” the brown-haired one went on. “Their god? And so are some of the acolytes. If they consider the sewers home . . . it must be easy to get to if they can smell it, especially since they can’t see it.” When they all just stared at him, he went on. “When you’re blind, you use your other senses. We have a few Mì-runach who’ve been blinded in battle. Not just lost one eye, but both. But just because they’re blind, don’t mean we can’t use ’em. We just give ’em some time to get used to being blind; then they come back in with us. They use their sense of smell and their hearing to get around. They’re bloody brilliant in battle.”
“You use the blind in battle?” Maskini demanded, unused to this sort of barbarianism in her own home.
“We don’t force ’em, do we, Éibhear? But if they want to fight, we let ’em fight. They’re damn good, too.”
“A Mì-runach would rather die in battle,” the blue-haired lizard explained, “than sit around a cave waiting for death. So missing limbs . . . missing eyes . . . doesn’t really stop a Mì-runach.”