Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

not quite sure where they would see their realities as being rooted. When I was a boy, I had taken it for granted that I would fall in love with a woman from Skythorn and raise my family there. That no longer seemed realistic. Perhaps it was a certain concern that was brought to the forefront of my mind by our troubled interaction with the inn keeper. Whatever the reason, the question plaguing me was: Where could a durrow live on the surface without fear of persecution?

After a certain point I became so consumed by this question that I barely noticed I approached the Temple until I passed through its open gate. Suddenly I blinked awake upon the stone path that spiraled over the lawns. It had not been the gate that stirred my awareness, though, nor the proximity of the holy house itself—rather, it was the splendid woman who swept the walk, long waves of chestnut hair hanging around her face while she minded her work.

No face was required to place her in a crowd. The pattern of her body was unmistakable, and the patchouli scent of her flesh on the wind overcame me with joy. Even the blue cloak hanging from her shoulders seemed somehow well-suited to her, though I had no specific memories of her wearing such a garment. I simply knew her ways, and recognized her at the glimpse from the farthest distance.

Elishta-bet!

I had expected to see at least one or two fellow orphans from the old days, but Elishta and I had been thick as thieves until she was sent off to a convent as was the custom with unmarried, unadopted young ladies who fell into Weltyr’s service but showed no interest in the more dynamic clerical activities of serving as paladin.

“Elishta!”

Invested in her work as she was, Elishta didn’t recognize my voice. Perhaps she was not expecting me back so soon, or even at all. Her head lifted from her sweeping and she looked past me before looking at me. Eyes widening, she very nearly dropped the broom—certainly she looked twice at it in her hands, as if wondering what she was doing sweeping walking paths when I had returned to Skythorn. Leaning it against the nearby column, Elishta emerged from the breezeway around the quiet Temple entrance and threw her arms about my neck.

“Rorke,” she exclaimed, her face aglow with joy, “oh, Rorke! Welcome home!”

“Elishta! What a welcome face! Perhaps this visit will go smoothly after all.”

That joyful expression fell as she leaned back upon her heels. “Only a visit? You mean you’re not staying?”

“My quest isn’t over,” I told my old friend, taking her hands in mine while admiring the disappointed contortions of her coppery face. “I’ve come back to ask Father Fortisto to help me find two vagabonds…they may have information on the location of the Scepter.”

Her hazel eyes quite wide at that, Elishta said, “Really! You’re on its track? When you wrote me about embarking on your quest, I thought for sure—well, I thought at least you would be side-tracked by some pretty lady and settle down a hundred leagues from here.”

Thinking of all the pretty ladies waiting for me at the Mongoose who were, so far as I could tell, not particularly interested in conventional forms of settling down, I couldn’t help but laugh at Elishta’s concern.

“Of course not, Eli…you know that my heart is Weltyr’s before anything or anyone’s. That reminds me”—I touched her elbow and her whole body tensed as though she needed to brace herself against my touch for reasons I didn’t understand—“just what are you doing back from the convent?”

“Oh—well…”

Blushing, Elishta wrung her hands and glanced bashfully to the side.

“It’s nothing, really. I just—I’m not very suited to the nunnery, I think. You know how my imagination is! My head in the clouds all the time. I just can’t live so rigidly. You and I didn’t even get up so early when we were children!”

“Contemplation takes a long time…but it also takes a willing heart. There’s no sense in forcing a woman into the convent if she can’t take to its ways.”

Nodding, Elishta told me, “Father Fortisto’s been very kind, though…he let me come back here to work and says I’m welcome to teach when I feel the urge.”

“Now, that does sound a mite more pleasant than spending the rest of your life in a convent! Will you tell me, Elishta, where Father Fortisto is at the moment?”

“I suppose he’s in the rectory hall…let me walk there with you, Rorke.” The suggestion uttered from her lips like a sort of plea. As her hand landed upon mine, her complex eyes searched my face. “I’ve missed you. How worried I’ve been!”

Leaving her broom behind, we made our way into the anteroom just within the main entrance. “Worried? Now, whatever for?”

“The thought of you traveling abroad, looking for that relic with nobody to help you but whatever mercenaries the Temple let you hire—it sounded to me like a wild goose chase, and dangerous.”

“Dangerous, perhaps, but all in the name of the All-Father.”

Our voices softened to see the chapel doors were open. Carefully walking upon the carpet rather than the metal floor beneath to keep our sound down, we glanced within at the trio of priests who planned services near the back of the pews. The warm scent of incense embraced me as a son while the soft murmuring of the old men filled the dimly lit, richly-ornamented space like the sound of a brook.

One of them, seeing my tattoo peering from beneath the plates of my armor, nodded at me with great respect. I felt a boyish flutter to remember that, by all appearances, I was a fully ordained and consecrated Paladin of Weltyr—a member of the Order, rather than a mere initiate. We continued beyond the doors and I resumed to her, “At any rate, I haven’t been alone. I’ve joined with a handful of fellow travelers. With them at my side, I’d venture a