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Damon removes the Amber Blade from the belt at his waist and gives it to the Guardian of Weapons who sits at the temple entrance. He places it in a basket and nods to Damon as he takes the steps that lead down to the lower levels of the Temple. Below the ground, many of the structures are unchanged from the Rose Temple of two hundred years ago. As Damon descends, ornate carvings are everywhere. The Sidusia. The twelve Sidu of Artemia are still worshipped in Azuria, but not as Mother Greyheart’s twelve Gods, but as the twelve prophets of Zai.

The air is cooler at the bottom of the steps. Two women wait on the last one, Zai Brides in robes of yellow linen. Damon nods to them. Another woman, an older bride steps forward.

“State your business in the inner temple, sinner,” she says plainly.

“I am Damon Darekul,” Damon says, “Bastard son of Prince Rafus Darek, Crown Prince of the Empire. I seek an audience with the Immurite.”

“Very well.” She looks past Damon to one of the women behind him. “Give him a white stone.”

Damon places his hands behind his back, ready.

The white stone is not really a stone at all. It’s a piece of carved bone belonging to some long-dead creature. Damon has heard it said the white stones are daedon bones. It is placed in his hands as he holds them behind his back. A cool smooth cylinder.

“Welcome Damon Darekul,” says the woman. “Zai, hold your heart.”

“Zai, hold your heart,” echo the brides behind Damon.

Damon nods and steps forward. The doors to the inner temple, black inlaid with gold, are swung open by two of the temple guards in their gold breastplates. Beyond is a passageway with pink glittering walls, lit by candles. Damon’s sandals make a soft sound on the stone floor as he walks alone, holding the white stone behind his back. There are many sacred spaces in the inner temple. Pools and shrines. This, he suspects, is where the rumoured labyrinth must be, if it exists, and many more hidden spaces besides. Much of the inner temple is only open to Doroth Zain and his council. Other places are hidden from all but the Brides. Damon follows the corridors of the inner temple. He passes guards and servants and more brides. He passes other temple visitors who hold a white stone behind themselves as he does. Eventually, he reaches the entranceway to the Temple of the Immurite.

There are twelve small chambers that every petitioner of the Immurite must pass through, each with a shrine to a different Sidu. Damon walks through them, paying them little heed.

The thirteenth chamber is a plain circular room lit by flickering candles. The walls are black, lined with a low bench all around the circumference, with a single gap for the single door. The door is guarded by one temple guard. In the centre of the hall is the sanctum of the Immurite. A low structure, also black. The Immurite never leaves the sanctum. Damon has no idea what is inside. Like every aspect of the Immurite’s existence, its details are sacred.

Approaching the sanctum, he kneels at the petitioner's window, rings the bell and waits.

The Immurite has been one of the great pillars of Zai since the time of Damon’s namesake king. There must always be an Immurite in this chamber, giving thanks to Zai with her life of prayer and silence and solitude. She gives her life in this way to save the souls of all the virgin brides who are dedicated to Zai.

Damon doesn’t know where the Immurites come from, how they are selected. Who they were before being walled up in this chamber. No one does. The secret is one kept closely by the inner heart of the faith.

He has heard rumours. Zai Brides must swear to remain pure. For them to lie with men is a great sin in the eyes of Zai. If a Zai Bride is discovered to be pregnant she is executed as soon as her babe is birthed. Those babes are then raised as temple acolytes, sold as slaves or perhaps given to noble families who need heirs. But many people think that some of them are selected to be raised as potential Immurites. Female babes who are kept in peace, separated from the world all their lives.

But it seems unlikely that the Immurites could be children of such great sin. Bastards like him.

After a few moments of waiting, a hatch in the wall of the cell in front of him slides open. Behind it is an iron grill. Behind that, the mostly obscured shape of a human face.

Damon says, “Holy Immurite of Zai, I am Damon Darekul.”

“Welcome Damon Darekul,” says the Immurite’s familiar voice from the other side of the metal grill.

“I have returned from holy war. I have liberated Jur-Mattan from the heretical faith of Artemia. I have driven the last Hevelikar further from our borders.”

“Zai sends much glory to you.”

Damon takes a breath. He is not here to have the Immurite praise his deeds in battle. He is here to confess. Audiences with the Immurite are private. The Immurite speaks to no one of the things she is told. As a boy Damon was taught that the Immurite should know every secret of a petitioner’s heart. The Immurite does not punish sinners. That is the job of the Order of the Enforcers. The Immurite simply listens, simply knows. And it is not the first time Damon has been here, with the same sins weighing on him.

“My old sins of the body have returned,” Damon says, words he cannot imagine saying aloud anywhere else.

“How have those feelings troubled you, Damon Darekul?”

“There is a man. A pleasure slave. We divided the spoils of Blackstone Castle in Pellex. I took him.”

“Did you ask for him?”

“No. I refused him, but then I realised he would be killed if I didn’t take him.”

“Why not let him be killed? You are a soldier, are you not?”

Damon notices his breath coming in heavy. “Because I desired him. I did not want him killed because I desired him.”