Everyone Compromises Eventually

The meal ran late but the barbarians were not as boisterous as Aliana had expected and mostly ignored the people of the temple as they crept around the edges of the hall and nervously gathered food for themselves. Finished dining and conferring with his men, Ferich had Aliana show him to Isarius' quarters. Aliana had never been to Isarius' wing of the Temple, but she, like everyone knew where it was. The two great doors in the throne room--plated with gold and situated just behind the largest altar--lead to the holiest of places where the Great Isarius lived and ate and slept. 

The doors were abandoned now, no soldiers stood guard and the doors opened easily at a touch. Aliana couldn't help a fission of fear as she stepped through them. But she was not smote down for daring to enter where she should never have been granted passage. Indeed, there was no immediate consequence, and why should there be? Ferich had no patience for her hesitancy and strode briskly through the sumptuous rooms, an expression of pure disgust growing on his face. When they came at last to what had been Isarius' sleeping quarters, he shook his head at the massive bed swathed in silks and velvet.

"No, I cannot sleep here. You must show me other quarters."

Aliana glanced between Ferich and had to admit that next to the rough utility of the warrior, all the costly glamour of the room did seem a bit...gaudy. She could not imagine him living in these rooms any more than he seemed able to. It was an absurd notion.

But. She remembered the first bloom of chaos after Isarius' death; how everyone they had looked to for guidance had fled, or embraced death themselves. She was tired of fighting to achieve the simplest of goals, and she remembered that there were people starving for no other reason than for want of a leader. The Temple Priests had killed themselves, but there were other priests, further afield, and plenty who were still devout enough to cling to whatever empty symbol they could. Isarius had many sons, and many former lords who would want to keep their power. It was easy to imagine what an empty set of holy rooms could come to symbolize. It was easier still to imagine the successive bouts of chaos that would follow. Aliana was tired of chaos.

"I think," she said, "it would be better if you did sleep here."

"I cannot. This is," Ferich gestured broadly about, seeming at a loss for words. "This is foolish. Insane."

"Then change it," Aliana shrugged. "If you leave them empty, the people will say these rooms are waiting for another god to fill them."

Ferich sneered at her. "You want to turn me into a god like the one you lost."

"If you like."

"You are faithless."

Aliana pressed her lips together and bit her tongue. It was true she had never been very pious, did not spare long, rambling thoughts for the meaning of sacrifice and the confluence of divinity and flesh that was Isarius. Her mind tended toward practical matters, but she had carried out the daily rituals without fail. She had loved Isarius in her own way, and she, too, felt lost without him. 

"You have killed my god and my king. If you do not replace him, someone else will." 

Ferich scoffed. "A man cannot be a god."

"Then don't be!" Aliana snapped, perhaps unwisely. "You don't have to be a king either, let the people hate you for all I care, but at least tell them what to do because they certainly haven't been willing to do it for themselves." 

Ferich stared at her as Aliana crossed her arms in front of her chest and refused to take back her words. Finally, he said, "The rooms must be changed."

Aliana sighed. "Tomorrow."

She turned to go, but his voice stopped her. "There must be other sleeping chambers somewhere in this maze. Find one for yourself."

Aliana blinked at him. "I have a room."

He sighed at her, as if she was the one being obtuse. "I do not understand your people." He looked around him with a renewed sense of derision. "You do. You will remain close so you can tell me what I must know."

Aliana opened her mouth to suggest that there were others more suited to such a position, but closed it when she realized that, no, there really weren't. Instead, she nodded, and went off to find a place to sleep.