The Wings of Ashtaroth

Chapter 4: Friends: Section III: Qwella

Qwella: Qemassen: The Shedi-Qalana

It was a strange truth to swallow that becoming a Bride of Molot didn't frighten Qwella half so much as the memory of her marriage to Sabeq. What did it mean that a goddess of death and secrets was more welcoming than Qwella's former husband?

The night before that first wedding, her stomach had roiled, pulled between nausea and excitement and dread. A trembling excitement filled her now, but it wasn't the same as the grim foreboding she'd experienced for every beat of her marriage ceremony, with every thought of a man's touch. The piles of gifts, the spectacle of the rites Samelqo had performed, the advice from all quarters as to how to conceive—each of these had been a heavy necklace weighing down her neck.

Qwella hadn't wanted pomp and fanfare when she'd left the empty, lonely halls of Sabeq's home for the final time, and had received neither. She was a bride for the second time, only now she was happy to play at pauper's wife, no matter that Molot's halls were said to glisten with gold.

It was just she and Hima, jostling back and forth in their litter along the bustling, winding streets of the Shedi-Qalana: the Alley of Voices that gave name to Qemassen's temple district. A bright sun cast its happy light onto the road, and a cool breeze carried the whiff of rich incense from the temple entrances. Qwella stared past the curtains as the litter chafed side-to-side against nearly identical transports. The litter stopped and started repeatedly as petitioners and priests ambled into its path.

The air was fat with the swell of music: the trill of flutes, the call and answer of Ashqata and Ashenqa singing prayers from the stone mouths of the temples along the street. The Shedi-Qalana was the opposite of loneliness.

She smiled. This was home now, as far away from Sabeq's legacy as she could run, as far away from her father, and Samelqo, and Qanmi eq-Sabaal as she could dream. Maybe to some, Qalita was a goddess to fear, but to Qwella, her walls were a sanctuary.

An acolyte of Seteq scrambled into view, cursing at a goat that had broken away from his flock. "Tchq-tchq-tchq," he beckoned, snapping his fingers. "Come, goat! Come!"

Qwella giggled.

"What is it?" Hima asked from the opposite seat. She'd been almost silent the whole journey downhill, a sure sign of her displeasure.

Qwella let the curtains fall back into place. "Nothing." This might be the last time Qwella saw her sister for months—she should take advantage instead of daydreaming out the window.

"There's still time," said Hima, not looking Qwella in the eyes. "You belong with your family, not those wrinkled priestesses."

"They're not all wrinkled." And there wasn't time. Qwella had given herself to Qalita when she'd whispered her secret into the goddess's mouth. That was the whole point. If she'd asked her father's permission, he'd have refused. And what would happen if Qwella broke Qalita's trust? Surely the goddess of vengeance would find a way to make sure the details of Qwella's crime made it back to Qanmi eq-Sabaal. He wasn't the kind of man to ignore violence done to his family, and soon enough the herbs she'd crushed into Sabeq's drink would become a noose around her neck.

But of course Hima would look for a way out. She saw devotion to the goddess as a prison sentence, not an escape. She didn't understand that this was Qwella's choice, one she was more certain of every morning since she'd made it.

Hima tore her gaze away, frowning at the wall. "But Qalita? Of all the gods. We could have found another way to stop the betrothal. It didn't have to be the Quiet Lady."

So many whispered of Qalita and witchcraft in the same breath. Qwella thought about bringing up Aunt Meg's rented rooms in Qalita's temple to help defend the goddess, but that connection probably wouldn't help her cause.