Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

24. The Pledge

Kozima stepped forward and knelt. He didn't step on the carpet. He chose to be next to me, on the hard tiles. Turmoil pooled in his eyes, not spilling over yet, only welling up as tears. His throat bobbed up and down, his hands shook.

I swallowed too, imagining what was going on inside him. Kozima was too shy to even sleep in a room with other orphans. He blushed before crossing an empty court-yard. All those glances trained on him must have been driving him mad.

Strangely though, his back was the straightest I'd ever seen. It gave his lanky figure the air of maturity he previously lacked. Also, it reminded me that his shoulders were wider than they appeared when he walked around hunched. His knee-length shirt didn't conceal them or the narrowness of his waist. His curls hang loose to his shoulders. Some other man must have helped him to shave his scraggly stubble to a length that shadowed his chin attractively.

He looked so beautiful, my heart lurched.

The Head Priestess allowed the scene of humility when facing judgment soak into the gathering. Then she almost chanted. "The Temple of Gala brings forth the charge of seduction on behalf of this young man."

The very words I feared she'd say next rung out so loudly, they seemed to reach the sky. This was a disaster, a nightmare. Kozima, Kozima... He seemed so smart, yet he'd done something so monumentally foolish, confessing his ruination!

This was one charge in the world that hurt the accuser more than the accused. And he brought it forward. The fool! He risked everything, his future, his dignity, Anastasia's favor... why, o why?

My glare fell upon his face. It was still completely composed. There was not a trace of impulsive passion men are given to.

He risked it all on the off chance that I would agree to remove the stain from his honor by--

"Ina'amatus, ina'guarda, ina'Gala," he rasped the words as his gaze slowly lifted to my face.

To be guarded by thy love and Gala's. A marriage pledge as written thousands years ago in the Mother of All Tongues.

Or, in his case, this wasn't a pledge. Neither was it a challenge. My whole body would twang like a bow string if I saw a shadow of challenge. It was a plea. His eyelashes trembled, like leaves in the wind, before he said the final word that sealed it. "Ismar."

"I—" I started, but the Head Priestess' lips twisted in disgust.

Oh, it was well-rehearsed, her interjection. Parneres would have applauded her timing. "Ismar, you stand before Gala, before Her Maxima and me. Before you answer, consider this."

My innards tightened. The gloating didn't behoove the graceful matriarch she had always professed to be. I searched the Captain's Commander's face and found it a mask of serenity cast in bronze. I wish I had the same ability, for I could feel my face twisting with every revelation.

"Do you think I know not what goes on in my Temple? Why Kozima walks into columns? Don't you think I know how a seduced man smiles?" the Head Priestess went on.

If she knew all along, if I was a wingless bug in the palm of her hand to catch, why did she allow the sacrilege to continue within her own Temple walls? Why?

She read that question in my eyes, her snide smile said. She tightened up the invisible screws on my symbolic torture rack. "Do you think that the guards were incompetent rather than ordered to not intervene with the will of Gala and Mythra, who are allies in Nirvana?"

I felt sick to my stomach. Kozima wasn't the only person to believe he could entice me back with his nubile body. I could forgive him for his delusion. I could forgive him anything!