Page 29 of Joy Guardian
KURAI
“So, you live at the temple?” Ciana’s voice sounded rough.
“Yes,” I replied, drawing the cover lower over my face.
We’d been walking for a while, with the sun steadily rising and the heat gaining strength. The air over the black sand of the desert shimmered with heat rising up. The ground was scorching hot already, baking my feet inside my boots.
I hid my face in my clothing, yearning for shade. The wind was picking up, steadily growing into a storm. But we had to keep walking for as long as we could. We needed to put as much distance as possible between us and Kalmena.
Since my mission had failed and no harm had been caused, I’d committed no obvious crime. I’d never shown anyone my tattoo either. They had no proof of my taking a part in the Watchers’ plot. But now, I stole a precious Joy Vessel.
Ciana was a crown jewel that couldn’t be taken without consequences. The Royal Council might forget about the small commotion I’d caused in thesarai, but they wouldn’t let me get away with taking a Joy Vessel. They would never let me keep her.
The wise thing would've been to point Ciana in the rightdirection and let her walk back to Kalmena on her own, hoping that the guards would find her before the day storm would trap her. But I couldn’t risk leaving her alone in the desert. And if I were completely honest with myself, I preferred not to part from her at all.
Maybe it made me delusional, but I believed I could take better care of her than the Joy Vessel Keepers in thesarai. I didn’t trust them to keep her happy because none of them took their time to learn what made her sad in the first place. They didn’t know her the way I did.
“How does it work?” She kept talking despite the wind shoving at us from all directions. “Do all of you live in the temple together? Like monks?”
“We’re Joy Guardians, not monks.”
“You’ve said that before, but what’s the difference? If you all live at the temple and pray like monks in a monastery?”
“We don’t pray the way monks do. We don’t worship any of the gods. They have their own temples, priests, and priestesses. Our main and only purpose is to take care of the Source of Joy.”
“What exactly is that Source?”
“Visually, it’s a magical honeycomb of glass. But it’s filled with joy that cannot be fully appreciated by sight only. It was created by the First Priestess and filled with joy from the fae of the Above. We guard it. We protect it from any harm or…pollution.” My voice hitched as I glanced at her.
Whether she realized that the “pollution” included her, she didn’t show it.
“Are you allowed to fall in love?” she asked. “Can you have a family?”
“It’s not forbidden but highly discouraged. Male and female Joy Guardians know not to spend too much time one on one as not to facilitate any attraction forming between them. We all live together and work in groups rather than couples. In addition, the female Joy Guardians leave the temple for a week around their fertile period.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s when an attraction can trigger the mating fever in shadow fae, which may result in offspring.”
“And that’d be bad? Why?”
“Not bad but inconvenient. Having a spouse and a family reorganizes one’s priorities. We cannot lose our focus.”
“Which is to serve your Joy Source?”
“Exactly.”
She caught my eyes with her gaze. The sun truly didn’t seem to bother her as much as it disturbed me. She even seemed to enjoy it, squinting in the sunlight that made her brown eyes look like drops of honey.
“Are you content with that purpose, Kurai? Is that how you’re intending to live the rest of your life? In the temple with your friends?”
“The Joy Guardians aren’t friends but colleagues,” I corrected.
“Why can’t they be both?”
“Because friends will often betray their duty to help each other. But we will forsake each other in order to serve our cause.”
“That sounds harsh.” She rubbed her wrist, looking uncomfortable.
