Ageless

Chapter 31

I was halfway down the hall to the lift shaft when I heard rapid footsteps approaching from behind me.

"Jillian!" came a call from the same direction. "A word, if you would?"

I turned around to find the High Priestess Margaret Velton marching towards me, her chin held high and maroon robes dusting across the floor as she walked. Her watery blue eyes squinted down at me, two bright specks burrowed into endless folds of wrinkles, as if nothing in life displeased them more than the sight of myself.

The New Church had appointed almost a dozen new priests to assist the Royal Council in the wake of Caollin's departure, but Margaret was the only female in the lot.

"There's only one reason why the Church would place a woman priest on the council," Hendrik had said, the first day we saw her sitting at the table at the front of the group, her lips pursed and her posture stiff and upright. "She's a bitch."

"I swear to god Hendrik-"

"It's not meant as an insult. It's just the general archetype of the few females that rise to the top of the New Church's hierarchy. I'd wager she has twice the fire of any of those old stuffy men sitting next to her. Take pains not to let her walk all over you, because she is sure to try."

I hated to admit it, but Hendrik's assessment was not far off. Margaret's code of ethics was as rigid and unbending as her posture, and she was willing to use that code as a blunt weapon to brow-beat any of her weaker-willed colleagues into the fetal position. The only man that could make her hold her tongue was my husband, and with him away, she was free to set her sights on me.

She rushed over to block my path to the lifts, waving a piece of parchment in front of my face. "May I ask, just what is the meaning of this?"

I snatched the paper out of her hand and traced a finger over the familiar print. It was the letter I had written in response to Cecilia. I folded it and looked up at her accusingly. "How did you get a hold of this?"

She crossed her arms and glowered down at me. "In all my years serving the Gods, I have never-never I say- seen anything as vulgar as this letter. And how did I come across it, you ask? Well it just so happens that it is my sworn responsibility to monitor any official communications leaving this palace that are affiliated with the Faith. That includes anything vile spewing out of our King's little 'Angel' as well. To think that the King sees you as the image of purity and innocence." She clucked. "My, oh my, what a mess you're about to make, dear."

"The giantess made a threat on my life, I'm not going to sit silently and pretend it didn't happen. Besides, this is a personal letter," I said. "It does not concern you."

"Nothing is personal when you are queen. That letter is full of petty rage and can be used as propaganda against the Crown. Now throw it in the fire and rest easy knowing you have refused to dignify a mercenary with a response."

She tried to rip the letter back out of my hands, but my reflexes were faster, and I shoved it into my blouse. "Not your call."

"'Is that right? What about the part in the letter where you said you would, 'send a legion of troops to crush her little prince like a cockroach in the King's Valley'? That, my dear, would not be your call either."

During the last council meeting, the general of the Royal Army had advised us that meeting the Prince in open battle would be disastrous, and under no circumstances should we engage the enemy until the Church arrived with reinforcements, which could take more than a month to mobilize.

I swerved my chair around the priestess and resumed my path to the elevator, hearing the footfalls of her falling in step behind me. "You better start listening to somebody else besides that asinine bard," she called after me, "else your term as Queen will be the shortest in the history of Lentempia."