A thousand times.

He was weak.

So weak.

The wound would not close. It was not becoming tender, the flesh was not bruising. It remained red and fresh. He ran his fingers along the stitches, staring at himself in the mirror. His skin was drained of blood. He had had to sit himself down, banishing all from his bedroom. It was hard to focus on his reflection. His head was light and his vision swam. It was an hour before he felt well enough to stand.

He had stripped himself of his robes and corset, trading it for something lighter. He pulled a transparent silk robe over himself, tying it about his waist and left his room.

Larkin was tired of wondering, tired of waiting. He wanted answers and solutions. He had been visited by the Lune priests before and now he was going to visit them.

Hundreds and hundreds of years before, when the people actively worshipped the moons and relied on them for nearly everything, temples had been built into the castle. Seven temples. Though rejected and ignored, the priesthood still survived. When Larkin had come into power, he had forbidden the presence of charms and other superstitious nonsense. Naturally, his attitude had been adopted by most living within the castle.

There was no one else. The priests had, at least, whispered explanations in his ear as to why no doctors could explain what was happening to him. Why none of the healers could heal him with their hands. They laced these reasons with things Larkin liked to hear – that these people were all fools and did not deserve to live. But also, that if Larkin did not find a working treatment soon, that they would be honored to have him in their temple. That if he graced them with his presence, they could tell him more than any others could.

The temple was built entirely in black marble. The doors stretched thirty feet to the ceiling. Torches lined the hallway past that, burning with a redness that was unnatural even for fire. Larkin’s feet were bare. A velvet carpet, red, stretched through the center of the corridor, taking him down it. It opened into a room that was circular, a hundred feet in circumference. The walls stretched up into a tower, the top opened now to the sky. Wind came down from it in a whirl, blowing Larkin’s hair from his shoulders and face.

In the center of the room were seven pools of water, different sizes, all lined straight. In the three largest were reflections of the moons, not perfectly centered. The others were black. It was the only natural light in the temple. It was the only light in this particular room. The walls were adorned with nothing.

It was cold and quiet save for the hiss of air against the marble walls. Larkin followed the carpet-trail. It veered to the left, toward an arched entry way. Firelight flickered on the wall inside. This room was pillared, the ceiling only half as high, but high enough for there to be a breeze. It stretched emptily in a curve to the right, to another doorway. The carpet led him onward.

In the next chamber he was not alone. It was the same as the last, curving to the right, immense, but voices echoed here and it was not empty. On the floors were littered pillows and cushions. Larkin thought it was queer – priests sat amongst the pillows, some of them playing ancient card games, all of them dressed so that few of them showed their entire face. Eyes and skin like milk stared out from the black garments, yet now only one priest had seen him. The priest stood, leaving his cards face down on a pillow, and went into the center of the room, where the carpet stretched through. He went down on his knees and bowed his head. The others watched him, still and puzzled until they spied Larkin, then the rest did not hesitate to do the same and bow.

The first to bow was the first to rise, the others remained kneeling, eyes downcast. He approached Larkin and went down again it front of him. His eyes never left the floor and he spoke in a hoarse whisper, “your magnificence.”

“Yes,” Larkin said.

“Shall I take you to Sashin?” Sashin was the high priest. He was very much a recluse, yet he and his apprentice had ventured to Larkin’s bed chambers on more than one occasion, the first time before the moons rose on the night of the ball. They had not claimed to being able to heal the governor, yet assisted in other ways.

“Yes.”

The priest led him past the others. Larkin glanced down at them on his way. They were motionless and silent, never lifting their eyes. He expected the next room to be built in the same manner as the previous two - but was instead three different hallways. They took the right one, and at the very end was a set of doors. The priest opened the doors for him, and he stepped inside.

The room was large and circular. In the middle was a deep red rug. Sashin sat there on a pillow, an unclothed woman lying next to him, her chin in her hands. The rest of the rug was covered in pieces of parchment, and Sashin was arranging them. He did not look up, nor did the woman, and he said, his voice rough and angry, “I am busy.”

“I can see that,” Larkin said, “breaking your celibacy, priest?”

Sashin’s eyes lifted to see Larkin, and they went wide. Parchment fell from his fingers as he stood, pulling his robes closed and lifting a hood over his gray, bald head. He stepped over the woman, frozen in her place, and came to Larkin. As he went down on his knees, he grasped the corner of Larkin’s robe and pulled it to his mouth, whispering, “forgive me, sire, master, I was not expecting you.”

Larkin yanked his robe from the man’s fingers and curled his lip, “You suckle a whore and place your mouth on me, dare you, you filthy priest?”

The priest placed his hands and forehead on the floor. Larkin looked up to the woman and pointed at the doorway, “Get out.”

When she was gone, Larkin walked passed Sashin and to the papers on the floor. He stepped on them, stood in the middle of these delicate pieces, and turned to look at Sashin on the ground, who turned to watch him, fingers clenched into fists and terribly distressed as the parchment crumbled beneath Larkin. Larkin looked downward, tilted his head.

“Ancient prophecies,” he said. “I thought I ordered these burnt.”

Sashin’s tight face broke into a grin, his lips shaking, “You did, sire.”

“You disobeyed me. I should not have expected more from you.” Larkin twisted a piece of parchment between his toes. It disintegrated into hundreds of tiny pieces. “I am going to destroy your temple and kill your priests.”

“No, sire, please – we can do so much to help you! You must,” he was holding his neck, still standing on his knees, “you must give us a chance.”

“Help me?” Larkin laughed, “How? Spells, lunatic rituals?”

“There are things you must know. About yourself, about the sorceress.”

“She doesn’t matter anymore. I killed her.”

Sashin got to his feet and came to the edge of the rug and the papers. He extended his finger and pointed to Larkin’s chest, “I know why you do not heal. Sire, you cannot tell me you don’t believe the effects of the moons. You saw the sorceress, you saw what she could do. It is of the unexplained.”

“Then you tell me, priest. Enlighten me.”

Sashin circled the rug, then stepped gently over the papers to come up behind Larkin. He pressed his fingers against Larkin’s back. Blood leaked through the bandages to soak into the delicate silk. He raised himself on his tiptoes to whisper into Larkin’s ear. Larkin did not move, but said,

“Do not touch me.”

Sashin removed his fingers. “This wound,” he whispered, “is cursed with her magic. It will never heal as long as she is alive.”

“She is dead.” Larkin growled, “I killed her.”

“If you had a strong cleric, a natural-born, it could be healed to a degree.”

“She is dead,” he repeated, “Her heart exploded. The blood was ankle deep.”

“The sorceress lives.”

Larkin looked down to see Sashin’s fingers pulling the bandages from his chest.

“Do not touch me.”

The bandages fell away to reveal the stitching. Blood came forth, tiny trickles of redness down his pale skin. Sashin rubbed the substance between his fingers. He said, voice hushed, “She is in the prophecies you stand upon.”

Larkin kicked his foot. Papers crumbled.

Sashin flinched.

“I have been to lands no man has ever seen,” the priest said, lifting Larkin’s arm to slide the robe from him.

“As have I.” Larkin’s eyes were sweeping across the ancient papers, the glyphs and symbols.

“I have met beings that would walk on us and look past us as if we were dirt. Beings so powerful and wise and heartless that they sleep beneath the land of boredom for thousands of years. They emerge and live amongst us without our knowledge. They are ancients, the sons and daughters and vessels of the Gods. I was in the presence of a creature that could only have been birthed by Stryphus himself. I felt him, smelled his smell…”

Sashin’s nose touched Larkin’s bare shoulder. He breathed in and exhaled, “like smoke, burnt earth… fire.”

“Do not touch me.”

He folded Larkin’s robe, dropped it outside the circle of papers.

“You,” he whispered fiercely, “you are not a man. A man could not endure this.”

Sashin’s arms were around Larkin, fingers pressing against the wound.

“You are going to lose your hands, priest.”

“I can perform spells for you, master. I can cast curses. I can help you acquire the things you want.”

Larkin turned, placed his hands on Sashin’s shoulders and shoved. Sashin fell onto the papers, and they became little more than dust under him. Larkin fetched his robe, tore away the rest of the bandages, and put it on. The silk stuck to his wet chest and back.

“You and yours will be dead if I am failed. Here is what I want, priest – I want the boy and I want triumph over all who oppose me. Can you make that happen, priest? Can you?”

Sashin grinned up at him, “I can.”

“You’re a pathetic liar. No spell can do that.”

“Oh, sire, it can. With the blood of a virgin and a being so powerful as you, Stryphus would listen.”

“Tomorrow night, I will be here with a virgin,” Larkin went to the door, and turned to look at Sashin, “Did you like that whore?”

The priest stood, shaking pieces of parchment from his robe, “Yes, I did.”

“She was pretty. Do you have her often?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she now?”

Sashin became alarmed. “With… the others.”

“Ah.”

Larkin left.