ARIDEN SARETHOL IS A LIAR. Upon witnessing a hostile organization try to take control of a family heirloom, he must enact a dangerous plan that may get him and his friends thrown to prison, or worse, killed. As the veils of false peace slowly fall a...
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2412 Crescin 23, Reshpe
The Temple of Earth changed as much as the element it represented, which meant never. Lufi, back in her old robes as a priestess, pinned her blond hair up, muttering a curse under her breath. Never mind how she used a god's name while inside a sacred site. These spindly locks have to go. Maybe she'd burn in hell later.
Her sandals scratched against the pinkish marble floor, careful of making too much noise. The guards never checked who came and went in the servants' quarters, so it was easy to sneak in and out of her old post. As for her coworkers...well, she'd deal with them when she has to.
The rim of her wicker basket bounced against and dug into her waist with every step she took. The apron she tied around her waist did nothing to block out the aggressive knocks, so she gritted her teeth and sucked it up. It's nothing. The show must go on. It didn't have the time for mere insects like her.
Which alluded to everything she felt during this caper. When she met the team, she got along with them almost immediately, but being with them every fortnight for capers and during her down time, their micro habits and mannerisms started grating on her. The more she knew them, the more the qualities she never looked for in a person floated to the surface like toxic waste.
Not that she blamed them for having it. They have their reasons, and Lufi has hers. Sure, she was a tad richer than when she first started receiving minimum wage in the Temple, but it should have never been her sole reason for sticking with a bunch of barbaric thieves and secretive operatives.
The twins and Faw, she could manage. Since they're barely past their passage, she could influence them and keep them in line. But how could she tell off a former soldier in the Potentate's army, a spy whose face they had never seen before, and the freaking Crown Prince, himself?
And from there, a clear rift between their lives could never be denied. If Lufi hadn't acted out and risked pushing Ariden's buttons, she wouldn't have gotten the real reason she had to go back to this stale slab of rock and set her sights on its allegedly prized artifact, if that thing even existed.
The twins were somewhere outside the Temple gates, doing what they did best, which was providing them ways out when things go sideways. It's not a requirement for every caper—there were times they walked out of a mission the same way they walked in—but this was different. If Ariden's information was to be trusted, if they were caught here, they'd either greet Pidmena immediately or get thrown into Brittlewood.
Which fate would be worse? It's troublesome when she couldn't decide.
"Dorellan!" a stern voice rippled off the Temple's expansive corridors. It's a voice and a person Lufi never, ever, wanted to encounter again.
Slowly, she whirled to come face-to-face with her overseer, Mailah. "You called, Frin?" she said, addressing Mailah in the title fit for her rank. The prickly witch hated anything less, anyway.
