009

LAIA

It's like a repeated routine: swish, scrape, rinse, repeat.

I'm outside the temple, scrubbing the floor... As much as I want to skip to the moment when I get the Relic and leave this pack, well I can’t seem to avoid the chores I need to do to get to that point.

A low rolling rumble that makes the stone under my hands tremble. I freeze, my breath caught halfway out of me. Then I hear it again, closer this time.

“Well,” says a voice from above, dry as dust but oddly amused, “someone’s determined to scrub a hole straight through the floor. Planning to clean your way to the underworld?”

I look up. Is it just me, or did this gargoyle statue just talk m I suddenly hallucinating? I blink once... twice.

A pair of golden eyes shines from the beam overhead. Then the shape around them shifts, wings unfurling like the crack of old parchment, claws scraping stone. The face that peers down at me was wolf-like, but not quite. Its grin is too wide, its body too strange, part beast, part something else entirely.

I can't speak, I can’t even fucking think.

“Cat got your tongue?” it asks, tilting its head. “No, no, that’s not right. Wolf got it, perhaps?”

I manage a small sound, something between a gasp and a whimper.

“Oh, eloquent,” it says. The stone creaks as it leans forward, eyes glinting brighter. “You’d be surprised how rarely mortals bother with words these days. You’d think after a few centuries someone would manage a proper greeting.”

I back away a little, hands slick with water and ash. My throat feels locked. If this is a dream, then I need to wake up right now.

“Relax,” it says, softer now. “If I meant to eat you, I’d have done it before you spilled half your bucket. Soap and ash are too harsh on my gentle stomach.”

That startles a short breath out of me, not quite a laugh, but close enough that it makes the creature’s grin twitch wider.

“There we are,” it says. “Sound at last. I was beginning to think I’d petrified you. Bit ironic, that.”

I swallow. “You’re… real,” I finally manage.

“Don’t sound so disappointed,” it says. “You’re in my temple, after all. And while you scrub, I guard. Fair division of labor, hm?” Then, after a pause: “Your technique, however, is appalling.”

Something inside me, maybe nerves, maybe defiance, spark. “You’re awfully chatty for a statue.”

It gives a rasping chuckle, like rocks tumbling in a dry riverbed. “Someone has to be. You’re not exactly a conversationalist.”

Dust drifts down as it shifts, wings stretching wide before folding again. “Back to it, little cleaner. The goddess likes their floors spotless. And I…” its grin softened, almost kindly. “I like to see them shine.”

***

I still am not sure if I just witnessed a talking gargoyle or it’s just in my damn head... or maybe I've allowed the Relic thoughts get the best of me... and all I do is hallucinate.

I catch up with Zia... she iss with the other women... talking and laughing.

"Hey...," I try not to make my voice high-pitched but of course no... my voice decides this was the very best moment to give me away.

"Hey, you good? You look like you've seen a ghost."

My face pulls into a frown... "Worse. Zia... Uhm, yeah, worse... I don’t know if it’s just me or I actually heard a talking gargoyle..."

A pause, and there’s an exchange of knowing glances followedby a sudden burst of laughter. Did I just say something so funny?

“Oh, him,” says one of the older sisters. Her name was Iri, I think. “You met the wolf-face, did you?”

My heart thumps. “He talked to me.”

Iri snorts. “He talks to everyone. Won’t shut up, to be honest.”

Zia leans closer, eyes bright with gossip. “They say he’s as old as the temple itself. When they built it, they carved him from the same stone, same vein of marble, same hands that shaped the pillars. But when lightning struck the roof one stormy night, it hit his perch first. Shattered the tiles, scorched the rafters... and woke him up.”

I blink. “Woke him?”

“That’s the story.” Iri shrugs casually. “Since then, he’s been stomping around, chasing pigeons, and offering opinions on everyone’s cleaning.”

“Helpful opinions,” another woman adds dryly. “Or so he claims.”

They all chuckle.

I glance toward the temple doors, where the faint echo of wings or wind might have stirred.

“So he’s really alive?” I ask.

“Alive enough to steal bread and blame the novices for it,” Zia says. “Alive enough to scold the abbot for leaving candles too close to the tapestries.”

“Alive enough to get lonely,” Iri murmurs.

That last part stays with me as I move through my day, reaching the last chore of that afternoon.

Walking to the said storage room Zia had showed me earlier. I clean through the dust-coated robes, broken incense stands, boxes of temple offerings which, I guess, have been long forgotten. 

I sneeze the particles of dust messing with my nose. My eyes itch so bad. Well, this is what I get for not covering my nose with a nose mask.

Under a pile of torn prayer flags, I find a wooden chest. The hinges groan as I push it open... I should just dust it and put it away. 

Instead, I open it before I know what I am doing. Books, papers, and a few framed photographs, edges curled with age stare back at me. One of the photographs sits right on top of everything, luring my eyes to inspect it.

It shows a man standing beside a woman in front of the temple’s old gates. The man is unmistakable, even in the faded picture, his posture and features something I’ve come to recognise everywhere I go in this pack.. And the woman…

My breath catches.

She looks like me. Not just a little. Enough to make my skin prickle. Same hair, same eyes, even the same faint curve to her smile, and of course I don't miss the fact that we have the same posture.

For a moment, I just stare, trying to convince myself it is a trick of light, or maybe my imagination. I mean, I talked to a gargoyle today. But I am just sitting there in a dusty room staring at my doppelgänger. 

On the back of the photograph, in spidery handwriting, are two names: Damon and Elara.

Elara… I whisper the name, testing it on my tongue. How come I haven’t heard anything about her?