“Indeed. It is time that you were punished for your indiscretions.” The Ascending Priestess steepled her long thin fingers and rested her bony elbows on the shiny surface of her desk. “I have thought long and hard about what might help you mend your wicked ways, Novice, and it seems to me that a year or two at the Priory of Extreme Atonement will serve you nicely.”
“The Priory of Extreme Atonement?” Elli echoed and licked her lips nervously. “I…I have never heard of it.”
“Not many people have,” The Ascending Priestess informed her. “It’s a facility for the redemption of shameless cases like your own.”
Shameless cases? Elli wanted to tell the head priestess that she had plenty of shame about what had happened at the human Christmas party, but the other woman was still speaking.
“At the priory of Extreme Atonement, you will be locked in a meditation cell for twenty-three hours a day,” she was saying. “There, you can think long and hard on your sins and beg the Goddess for forgiveness. You will eat a plain and simple diet of paste wafers and bitter milk.”
“Twenty-three hours a day?” Elli’s voice trembled. “Alone? Meditating? Never seeing anyone else?” Just one week of silent meditation had nearly driven her mad. She couldn’t imagine two years of it!
“Oh, you’ll see other people, my dear—never fear,” The Ascending Priestess sneered. “The last hour of your day, you will spend in chastisement. The priests who run the Priory will mortify your flesh in order to heal your soul.”
“Mortify my…my flesh?” Elli shook her head. “I don’t understand. How—?”
“In my understanding, they alternate using a leather strap and a hard wooden cane,” the Ascending Priestess snapped. “In all probability, you will bear the marks of your mortification all your life. Which is a good thing—it will be a reminder to you that a priestess must never break her vows of chastity!”
“But…but I was given drugged punch!” Elli protested. “I didn’t do anything on purpose.”
“Don’t lie to me.” The Ascending Priestess narrowed her eyes at Elli. “I know why you were sent into the priestess-hood in the first place. I know what your stepmother caught you doing! Don’t try to deny it.”
“I…I…” Elli shook her head, not sure what she could say to defend herself.
There was no defense, in fact. For how could she justify abusing her own body for pleasure and then begging the mysterious male at the party to abuse her as well? No matter that she’d been given the drugged punch, it was still wrong of her to have such feelings and to break her vows of chastity.
Still, she couldn’t bear the thought of being locked up in a meditation cell and only brought out to take beatings once a day. It was too awful!
“Please,” she begged, clasping her hands under her chin. “Oh please, Priestess Superior, I know I have wrong thoughts and desires—I admit it! But can’t I simply go through the Ceremony of Shriving and drink of the Mortem Amore so I won’t have them anymore?” She looked longingly at the carved wooden cabinet hanging on the wall beside the desk.
“Most certainly not!” the Ascending Priestess snapped. “You must pay for your sins before you can be forgiven and shriven of them. After a year or two, you can come back and drink of the cup of Mortem Amore—only then will you become a proper priestess.”
Elli wanted to cry out that she didn’t want to be a proper priestess! That all she’d ever wanted was to be a zorel trainer back on her home world. But the words stuck in her throat and she could only shake her head in horror.
“Now go and pack your things,” the Ascending Priestess said coldly. “You will be leaving within the hour. Dismissed.”
And with that, there was nothing else Elli could do but leave her office to go and pack.
Five
“Please, help me! Roke, I need you! Please!”
Roke woke with a start and a curse. The dream was so vivid he half expected to see the little priestess standing in front of him pleading for his help. Instead there was nothing but the empty air. That didn’t matter though—he could still see her in his mind’s eye. Her long blonde hair with delicate streaks of pale jade green…her big green eyes staring up at him with such a pleading expression as she begged him to come save her…
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Roke growled to himself. Swinging his legs over the edge of his bed, he planted his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples hard. “It’s a dream,” he told himself over and over again. “Just a dream.”
The same dream he’d been having for the past two weeks, ever since he’d done the job on the Mother Ship.
“Should never have taken that job,” he muttered, still rubbing his temples.