Page 51 of Joy Guardian
Normally, I would get lightheaded even from skipping a meal or two. With the support of his tendrils, I’d lasted for over two weeks without food. I felt much better with plenty of water sloshing inside my belly now, but my limbs still seemed heavy, weighted down by exhaustion I couldn’t shake off.
“Maybe I should take a nap?” I eyed his bed with longing.
He gave me a concerned look. “Let me find something for you to eat first, then you can rest.”
Since he refused to remove his tendrils from myleilathas, afraid that I would collapse without the support of his magic, we had to search for food together.
“What’s this room for?” I asked as we approached the wide archway at the bottom of the stairs.
“That’s our study. We spend most of our time in it and often take our midnight meal here too. There may be some food left. Let’s see.”
I followed him into a space that was more than just a room as it was a combination of several caves and niches of various sizes. They branched off each other and interconnected with a net of short corridors and arched walkways.
Embroidered floor cushions marked the reading areas, with trays of books or baskets of scrolls standing nearby. Wooden shelves lined the walls all the way up to the high vaulted ceiling. The shelves held stacks of books in thick leather bindings. Metal racks between the rooms had parchment sheets draped over them.
I lifted a corner of one parchment, finding a hand-drawn map on the inside.
“Are these all maps?”
“Maps, garden layouts, or building plans.” Kurai inspected the trays with books, then rummaged through a basket with a lid next to a sitting pillow, searching for food.
“Who drew them? The Joy Guardians?”
“Yes. Some, like the plans of the temple and the nearby caves. But most came from other temples.”
“Are there more temples like this one?”
“There is only one Temple of the First Priestess with the Source of Joy. But other priests and priestesses serve other gods, who have their own temples.”
He moved on to the next room, then the next, as I followed, trying to learn more about the temple, the people who lived here, and the shadow fae society in general. I lifted scrolls, opened an occasional book, and asked questions.
“How many Joy Guardians live here?”
“Twelve.”
“That’s not that many.”
“There can only ever be twelve of us—two for each corner of the hexagon.”
“Why hexagon and not triangle or square, for example? Circle is as good a shape as any, too.” I shrugged.
He gazed at me with amusement, propping his hands on his hips.
“The hexagon is the shape of a honeycomb cell that holds the sweet nectar. Sweetness brings joy. Just like you.” He smiled gently, pausing to caress my cheek with his fingers before continuing his search for food.
“But you don’t enjoy sweet things anyway. To you, it’s like any other taste. Why worship it?” I gestured at the spines of the books, most of which had some kind of hexagonal design imprinted into the binding. Many of the maps had honeycomb frames. The hexagon shapes were also carved into the edges of the shelves and over the walkway entrances.
The elaborate mosaic in the queen’s palace often had patterns with hexagonal shapes, but their significance wasn’t as apparent there as it was here where the hexagons were the only shapes in any trim or decoration.
“Because Joy is divine, my sweet Ciana. For us, it’s extremely rare. Maybe that’s why we treasure it more than you ever could. Well…” He ran a hand through his unbound, still damp locks. “It looks like no one was planning to take their meal here today. No one brought any food in here.”
“Where do you usually store it?”
“There is an ice chest upstairs where the nightly offerings from the pilgrims are stored. Most of our food comes from the people who visit the temple. We’ll have to go back up there.”
Ready to follow him upstairs, I was about to close the book I held when a strip of paper slipped out from between its pages and flattered to the floor.
“What’s this?” I bent over andpicked it up.
