The interior of the High Temple was entirely stone and prescious metals and gems. The walls were lined with carvings and statues. Even the huge, domed ceilings were carved and painted with scenes from stories.
The vast aisle lead to a center circle. My keepers brought me slowly up the aisle, their arrogance and carelessness gone, replaced by seriousness and respect. Our footsteps echoed in the vast cavern.
Itek held out a hand to stop me from going farther once we got to the center. The floor was a solid blue circle of a mysterious blue stone polished smooth. Maybe it was a metal? Then radiating out of it were many points, each one a different metal or stone or substance. The surrounding stones were all a mysterious white-flecked gray that reminded me of a thick fog.
"The Ruling Seat," Itek explained. "Where the clans meet to conduct matters."
"Formally," Korr corrected. "Much gets done outside the Temple. We only come here when we want the gods to overhear."
His tone was dry.
"What are those?" I asked, indicating where the floor stepped up onto a dais. On the dais, which I guessed was for speeches or such, there were two small statues of the same pattern on the floor, except each was only one half, with the blue sphere and only a few arms, while the other was the outline of the circle with most of the arms. Like someone had decided to make a crescent Moon out of the symbol, placing most of the Moon and some of its light on one side, and the rest of it on the other side.
"You are that ignorant?" Korr asked.
"She's a foundling," Itek said sharply. "Be patient. Don't assume some backwater enclave saw to her education. They might not have any to give her."
Ethat tapped his claws on the stone.
Korr shifted, then relented. "All the clans—shifter and human—have a place at the Seat, which is the ruling Council. Every generation, one clan agrees to produce a female heir, and the other clan produces the male heir. Those two are supposed to become consorts, and lead the council, possessing certain powers. It is also how the earliest hybrids occured."
He indicated the statute that contained the blue body to be the female half, and the arms to be the male.
I narrowed my eyes. "So a political Churn."
"It's a little more complicated than that, but essentially, yes," Korr nodded.
"Who is in control right now?" I asked.
"A male raven. There is no female heir." Itek said.
"... that sounds like that's a problem."
"It's a problem."
"Who was supposed to produce the female heir?" I asked.
"That's also muddled," Korr said.
"I'm confused."
"There are rituals and contests to decide who gets to produce the heirs," Korr said. "The outcome of the past two contests were... disputed. There are questions about the legitimacy of the Raven's claim this cycle, and the female heir, who was supposdly to be supplied by the hippocampi," Korr glanced at Itek, "was found dead under strange circumstances. The past few cycles have been..."
"Questionable." Itek said.
"Hippocampi?" I asked.
"Hippocamp," Itek supplied. "Equine and sea-serpent. The result of unicorns and sea-serpents, but they lost their horns. None of the unicorn hybrids ever kept their horns."
"So all the female hippocampi were killed?"
"An heir is designated," Itek said. "Like the heir to a high house. She was born and died as a small child."
"Babies die all the time. Why is it causing problems? Pick another one."
Korr grinned, but it was humorless. "True, but it's more complicated than that. There are arguments that the hippocampi didn't have clear title to produce the female heir at all, that the hippocampi can't find the killer, and that the true heir was spirited away and yet still lives and the body found wasn't her. Take your pick. Now we are stuck in an endless cycle of deliberations while the years pass, the country decays, the clans argue, and the time to choose a new clan to produce the next female heir can't come soon enough."
Ethat huffed. It clearly translated to Again.
"When is that supposed to happen?" I asked.
"Twenty-three years," Itek said.
Long enough even long-lived dragons might feel it.
Flanking the aisle were large statues of the various shifter races, and one human statue. Not all I recognized—they were other mythological shifters, Itek explained, that had retreated from the world or died out long ago. The hippocamp was glorious, with its swirling fins repalcing a flowing mane and tail. The younger shifter races were closer to the circle, while the older ones guarded the door.
The two oldest shifter races guarded the doors: the dragons and the unicorns. A large cat with a spotted pelt barred fangs sat next to the unicorn. That one was a pantere. The sea-serpent had a jaw that unhinged to like a lever to scoop up prey and long coils to smother anything. There were others—some that had not been seen nor heard from in a very, very long time—and only towards the end of the line were the younger species I'd known, like the ravens and wolves.
"I hadn't realized there were so many," I said, noting especially the creatures of the sea.
"Many of them are gone," Itek said. "Retreated from the world, or have died out, or only a few left, and a few does not a clan make for the Seat. We have not seen a sea-serpent in a very long time. We know they existed, but legend says they went to explore the deep ocean's mysteries a long time ago. Now the unicorns also have not been seen in a hundred years."
Korr nodded soberly.
"I thought unicorns are a myth," I said. "Virgins, forests, all that."
"They're real. Or were," Korr said, expression troubled. "They were always secreative and reclusive, so no one realized how few there were left until there were none left. The last sighting I heard of was a hundred years ago, on the northern coast. A small herd visited a griffin roost. Where they went nobody knows."
Itek nodded.
"I don't know about the taming a virgin part," Korr added with an attempt at humor.
"No, it was they could be tamed by a virgin," Itek corrected.
Korr snorted. "Considering that they were the progentiros of at least three more shfiter races, I don't think they were too obsessed with virginity."
Ethat rumbled something and clicked a few different syllables.
"What did he say?" Itek asked Korr. "I only caught half of that."
"He was pointing out that unicorns were creatures of purity. They could lick wounds to make them heal, could run demons through with their horns, their horns when ground up could heal any sickness," Korr said. "Like how dragon-scale armor is the strongest, most prized armor, or our claws or wingbones the finest weapons any species can weild. The gods created dragons to fight their wars, and the unicorns to heal the wounds."
Itek nodded. "Purity, virginity, how very human."
"Eh, the ravens and wolves prize virginity as well."
"They prize having what no one else can lay claim to," Itek said. "No one else will ever be someone else's first."
Ouch. I flinched, and swallowed the acidic taste at the back of my throat. Tynn had been my first and only. I'd known nothing about sex besides what I'd heard from the gossip, and the crying of maids and stableboys, and the wails when someone turned up with a baby in their belly and it seemed like everyone's life was ruined. It had taken a long time to trust Tynn.
In the end? Just sport. I'd been a prize. A virgin, then I'd been his virgin, and he'd always be able to say that. Forcing him to court me and win me had probably been everything his little wolf's heart (and cock) had adored and been worth it.
"So why did the gods create the pantere and sea-serpents?" I asked, trying to hide the gutted, hollow feeling that reminded me how I was, in fact, hollow. I was a damned trinket. I had a bloody collar around my neck. I was just their pet. I may as well purr and lick them.
"The pantere to collect secrets, and the sea-serpents to guard them," Korr said.
"What kind of secrets?"
"If we knew, they wouldn't be secrets," Itek said.
Ethat chuffed a laugh.
Amazingly funny. Not. I must have been too primitive and small to appreciate the hilarity. "So is that why dragons came out into the world again? Because the unicorns disappeared?"
"Because the world is rotting, and it's time to pay attention," Korr said like he was slamming a door in my face. "War is coming to this country. The rest of the world blames us for this. This is the crown of the world. Try to keep up, pet."
I flinched.
"And that concludes your basic lessons in civics," Korr said. He abruptly spun on his heel and strode towards the doors.
Itek headed after him.
Ethat stepped behind me. Unlike Korr, his breath was warm and fragrant, like a spring breeze, but without the scent of taint and dust. He breathed out against the small of my back.
I held very still. Every part of me warmed, the opposite of Korrs's sharp frost.
Then he shoved me.
I stumbled, caught myself, and spun around to glare at him, flushing with embarrassment. I'd steered clear of sex my whole life except for Tyne (and look how that had ended, good job, Theia) and now I kept getting hot and moist for a bunch of shifters that wanted to put me on a leash.
"I'm going, I'm going," I told him, stumbling back around and trying to find my dignity somewhere in the folds of the dress. The sheer fabric got all twisted and tangled between my thighs, rubbing my clit a bit. I grabbed the fold and picked it free, hoping it hadn't left a wet spot, and hurried after Korr and Itek before Ethat picked me up by his teeth and carted me out.