Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

2. He Helps Me Leave

The singing acolyte inside the temple put more heart into her duty than the early hour warranted. Maybe Divine Gala was answering her prayer. Maybe she enjoyed singing hymns at sunrise. Regardless, she kept belting out her verses, and so she wasn't my concern.

Kozima was.

One heartbeat, two heartbeats, I counted as I stared down this dimwit. If I had time, I'd laugh my head off: Anastasia and I had talked about the boy yesterday, and here he was before me, in the flesh. I didn't have time to make light of being caught by him from all people or, for that matter,  stare at him.

However, it was hard not to look. My would-be pursuer exemplified the terrible age at the tail end of boyhood. He was seventeen, like me, and had already acquired all the emotional instability of his sex. Unfortunately, his frame hadn't filled out yet to the eye-pleasing forms.

In his rush to catch up with me, he didn't tie his shoulder-length hair back, so it stood in a cloud around his thin-featured face. Unlike Anastasia's coveted red-gold hair, Kozima's ringlets didn't differ from mine, the coal-black of a native Palmyran. His bronzed cheeks were smooth as a girl's. 

I imagined his face once it's hardened and gained the satin shade of a beard every morning...and swallowed. In a year or two, Kozima would become very pretty. Then, many respectable woman would consider him suitable for marriage, despite how little an orphan could bring to a union. 

But that was in the future. 

Right now, with me, his mouth hung slightly ajar, as if stuck on the last syllable of my name, and no sound came out of it. 

They teach men to be shy with words, and, lucky for me, Kozima carried the demure behavior even farther than what was proper. Weren't I a fugitive, I would have said he carried the sweetness too far, for I always prefererd sassy men. 

Since this wasn't a normal day and I needed obedience more than any other manly quality, I spoke with a womanly authority.

"What are you doing here at this hour?"

Since I also had to speak in a whisper, the words came out of my mouth like a snake's hiss.

"Ismar?" He extended his hand as if to catch the edge of my tunic, but his arm fell down to one side before he touched me. Good thinking, even though he couldn't have possibly noticed my hidden knife.

"I'm leaving," I said. "Gala's blessing be on you."

His eyes bulged out despite his natural shyness. "You... you can't leave. You can't! Your mother died in childbed, so you must become a priestess."

He blushed when he said bed, then his glance darted to the terracotta tiles. If he found the tiles prettier than me, I couldn't help his taste, but Bhutas take him and his taste!

Those handsome tiles were already burning the soles of my feet. The sunshine on the back of my head felt warm too. The rising sun painted the stones of the temple walls into their famous rose-and-gold hue. Soon, it will move the shadow on the sundial to the Waking Hour and then I'm going to be caught for sure.

"I don't want to be a priestess, boy!" I whisper-screamed and dashed for the wall.

Kozima's sandals clip-clopped only a step behind me, but he was breathing like bellows. If I had a few hundred yards, I'd leave him eating my dust.

I only had one hundred yards, if that, so I came to the wall at a hard run. Using my momentum, I leapt into the air, springing with all the strength my legs had for jumping.

I still missed the lowest protruding stone. It wasn't out of reach, but it required focus to get a grip on. I gritted my teeth. How was I supposed to focus with Kozima wheezing down my neck? He was now at the base of the wall too, bent double, clutching his side.