Chapter 31

Sarah POV

Ollie drove us through the park for about a mile before we stopped at a small station along the one-lane road. There was no gate, but it was obviously a checkpoint. Zane rolled down the window on his side, and a man dressed in white with a blue sash draped over his chest leaned in to look at us.

No one said anything, but after a moment, the man straightened up, and our car continued on.

“That was a Luna priest,” Zane said quietly. Then he thumbed the intercom. “Partition down, Ollie.”

The divider between the front and back came down, and I realized it was so we could see the structure up ahead. I’d seen enough drawings and clandestine photos online to recognize it as a Luna Temple.

The building was a domed cylinder of marble, pure white and without windows. Part of my mind whispered it looked a bit like an aspirin tablet, but I told that part to be quiet. The dome reached 1,600 feet in height and was held up by twenty fluted columns with no base. I knew there were chambers inside, though not how many or for what purposes.

I knew it was a flight of fancy, but there was something familiar about the sight of it as it loomed ever closer in the windshield, like something I’d seen as a child. But that was silly. As I said, I’d seen photos and drawings online. That was all I was feeling.

Or perhaps it wasn’t that silly. There was something about the structure that just screamed it was of religious significance. If I had been walking along and found it and had no idea what it was, I would still have known to walk carefully and with respect.

Ollie parked about a hundred yards from the wrought iron temple gates, which were about another hundred yards in front of the front doors of the temple itself. From this angle, I could see there was a long rectangular building stretching out behind the domed temple. I supposed it was the living quarters of the Oracles and priests.

Zane lent me his arm, as the centuries-old pavement was somewhat uneven, and we walked to the gates where two temple priests were standing. They opened the gates with solemn nods as we approached and then closed them with a loud clang once we had passed through.

The doors opened at our approach as well. We walked through to a small, dim antechamber. I waited a few seconds for my eyes to start to adjust to the muted candlelight, and then I looked around. The chamber’s marble walls had stylized carvings of flames, of the moon (or course), and other things I didn’t recognize.

A door that had been set into the wall opened silently, and two of what I assumed were Luna Oracles walked into the room. They were dressed in hooded white robes, and their long sleeves ended in folds of the robes, so I couldn’t see their hands.

The Oracle on the right bowed to Zane, then she turned and walked out. With a look and a nod to me, Zane followed her. Then the other Oracle bowed to me and turned, and I followed.

She led me down a short, curved corridor that opened into a small room almost as plain as the first chamber, except it was slightly brighter and contained a small bench on which lay a robe as white as the Oracle’s, complete with a hood.

“Dress,” the Oracle told me, which made me jump. Her voice was low and musical.

“In the robe?” I asked somewhat stupidly.

The Oracle just looked at me. Or at least, her hood looked at me.

“Right,” I said to myself. I took off the suit and got down to my underwear, then reached for the robe.

“No,” the Oracle said.

I stood there uncertainly.

“Only the robe.”

Oh. Not liking it, but not about to argue, I took off my bra and panties and put the robe on. In addition to having no hood, it was quite sheer, not at all like the concealing robe the Oracle wore. I shivered a little; it was cold in there.

The Oracle turned and I followed in my see-through robe and bare feet. A bit more of the circular corridor took us to a tiny room with a small bath.

The Oracle stood to the side, her back against the white marble wall. There was a metal hook on the wall near her.

“Bathe.”

OK, I could do that. I took off the robe and hung it on the hook. The Oracle didn’t object, so I guess that was the right call. The bath itself was just a thigh-high well in the middle of the room, and as I stepped into the warm water I could see I would have no room to squat.

I cupped my hands in the water and sort of poured it over myself. I saw nothing to suggest I needed to wash my hair. There wasn’t even any soap.

The water was quite nice and scented with lavender, a favorite scent of mine. I smiled in the candlelight and supposed the whole thing was more a spiritual act of cleansing than any real attempt to make myself clean.

“Dress.”

I stepped out of the bath and put on the robe, adjusting the hood on my head so it hung like the Oracle’s. The robe clung a bit to my wet skin. The Oracle turned and while I expected more corridor, instead we came to the largest room so far. It was furnished with a low table and two floor pillows—all white, of course.

On the table was a teapot and two cups.

“Sit.”

I sat on a pillow, and the Oracle sat on the other one. Finally, I saw her hands as they emerged from the robe and poured tea into the cups.

“Drink.”

I nodded and lifted the cup to my lips. It smelled a little bitter but tasted of jasmine. The Oracle did not touch her cup and sat there motionless until I finished mine completely.

Then we sat there for a moment. The room was quite warm and cozy. I found myself smiling and feeling quite at home, safe and protected, as though all my worries had gone to their rooms for a nap.

The Oracle turned on her pillow and reached behind her. I realize one of the marble walls wasn’t a wall at all, but rather a curtain. She pulled it aside, and the draft that made blew out the candles so that we were sitting in the dark.

Beyond the curtain was another, gauzy drape that I could see through quite clearly. Zane was standing there, naked, in a thigh-high bath.

“Oh my,” I whispered into the folds of my hood.

“Speak,” the Oracle whispered back.

“Strength,” I said, looking at his shoulders and chest. He had light brown body hair that looked incredibly soft and showed off all the lovely lines and angles of his muscles. His abs bunched and moved as he poured the water down his body, shining in the candlelight as though drawing and re-drawing the length of a thigh muscle, the dip of his waist between his ribs and his hips, the flex of his softly curving backside, and the long, proud lines of his shaft.

I sat there and drank it in.

“Continue.”

I realized I had been speaking my thoughts aloud and breathed out a laugh. “I sing the body electric,” I quoted. “The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,/They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,/And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.”

“Pretty words,” the Oracle said.

“They don’t begin to do him justice,” I whispered. “I would sell my last possession to take him in my hands, in my body. I would fight armies to be worthy to stand by his side.”

The Oracle said nothing then, and soon the warmth around me closed in like an embrace, and I knew nothing more at all.