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“A bit different from the temples back home?” asked Jaspar, bringing her back to the moment. Ms. Securia walked ahead without so much as a look in her direction.
“Is it?” she asked, looking around.
They were on the southern outskirts of the city, in an open meadow that stretched to the farmlands beyond. Dotted throughout the sunflower-speckled grass were black-fruiting olives and pink-flowered pears—without any logic to their placement. Some of the trees were bunched together in haphazard groups, creating shaded nooks where families and young couples were feasting. Elsewhere, spaces without trees left sun-drenched dells erupting with competition—men and women pulling on ropes or throwing flattened stones.
All humans, she noted, with not a giant or kobaloi to be seen. Jaspar might well have been the only nonhuman in the entire field.
Among all this, insects clicked in the grass and a medley of birds sang in the high trees. It was as beautiful as it was overwhelming. But the one thing it certainly wasn’t, was a temple.
Jaspar had a look of amusement. “What?” she said.
“You’re looking for a building, aren’t you?”
“Yes?”
“I did the same thing when I first got here. It all makes sense once you stop thinking like a Mestibian.”
It took several more minutes of wandering through green before she finally understood. “There is no building? This meadow is their temple?”
Jaspar nodded. “The Fields of Life, temple to the goddess Ardor.”
“But, if this is a temple, then isn’t all this sacrilegious? Running and screaming and fighting?”
“In Mestibes it would be. But what better way to celebrate the goddess of fertility and passion and the sun?”
“Yes, but—”
“Come on,” he said, leading her toward a ring of apple trees in the middle of the meadow, so thick that it hid the space beyond. “I’ll show you something that will convince you.”
They pushed into the tree line, darting through the sweet smell of apple blossom, until they came to something which took her breath away.
It was a field, far wider than she’d expected. In the center was the most enormous oak tree she’d ever seen—its roots spread wide, like fists clutching the soil, its foliage so broad overhead that it formed its own meadow against the sky. Around the thick roots, Ardoran citizens were placing baskets of fruits and amphorae of wine. A man with an unclothed torso laid a fat lamb carcass, so freshly killed that the blood ran down his sweaty back.
And surrounding this mighty tree was a swaying sea of rose buds, a hundred yards deep and growing like grass rather than from a bush. They were all fully enclosed in their green shields, with not a single petal on display.
“The Great Grove! With the sacred Oak of Fertility and the Eternal Roses of Passion!” she said, stories from codices coming to life. “This is where couples come to test their love!”
And the roses are the true chrysalis of the satyrs, she thought. The thing they cannot touch, or they’ll permanently morph into their imago form.
Teigra didn’t say that last thought out loud. Talking about therians and mystical beasts? Jaspar would probably mock her, just like Aurelius had.
“And of course, the rose is the true chrysalis of the satyrs,” said Jaspar.
She smiled. “You believe in that as well? The therians? All the mythical beasts and legends?”
“Of course! I’m a minotaur. We were attacked by harpies on the way here! And every Ondocian sailor I’ve met will avoid certain seas in a storm, lest a massive cetus drag their ship under. If the Five can make creatures like that, like me, why not therians to punish those families that annoy them?”
There was a sudden commotion on the far side of the field, and Jaspar buzzed with excitement, just as he had on hearing of Gyges’s engagement. “Oh, look! Look! He’s going for it!”
A young man of perhaps twenty-one, with short hair and strong muscles stood sentinel at the edge of the field. Behind him was a girl of around the same age, with hair the color of saffron and eyes of sparkling green. She clutched her hands together, nervous but excited.
Teigra’s eyes bulged. “He’s... going to pick a rose?”
Jaspar nodded, his smile huge and expectant. “You’ve heard the stories?”
“If their love is true,” said Teigra, “then Ardor will guide him to his one true rose, which will bloom at his touch, never to wilt or fade until both of them pass on.”
“And if he chooses wrong, then the rose will wither, and he will be cursed to live a loveless life.”
