Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 7

too warm again, and Corin stilled, feeling completely unsettled as he stared towards the ceiling.
    There was nothing in the room, Corin thought. It was a by-product of his nightmare. Alan and Mavir were the only company he had, sleeping quietly nearby. Forcing himself to move, Corin flipped, letting a gust of cool air under his blanket. Lying flat on his stomach, Corin buried his face in his stale-smelling pillow and tried to go back to sleep. The uneasiness slipped away after a few moments, and Corin fell back asleep, determinedly thinking about nothing at all.
    ****
    Corin paused in the act of lifting his cup of tea to his mouth, staring when Rafferty and the other priest appeared at the door to the dining hall again. This was the third day they'd shown, selecting five of them to go clean a library. It was the same library each day, and none of the gossip Corin had overheard made it make any more sense.
    Probably the priests were being finicky, Corin thought as Rafferty listed out names again. Corin didn't breathe again until Rafferty listed the last name. He wasn't picked, which was a good thing. He wasn't looking forward to whatever scrutiny the priests were putting them under—
    Corin's thoughts stumbled to a halt when Rafferty looked right at him, a pensive look furrowing his brow. He turned away in the next second, and Corin stared after him, wondering what that was about. Rafferty hadn't given him a spare look since he'd dropped Corin off at the monastery. Setting down his cup of tea, Corin tried not to worry. Rafferty probably didn't remember Corin and couldn't place why Corin looked familiar. There was no other reason for Rafferty to be giving him such a strange look.
    He didn't get a chance to think about it any further as the normal priest came in then and started handing out assignments. Corin was assigned with a handful of others to cleaning the great hall where the priests held their sermons each week. Corin ended up scrubbing the dais where the head priest stood and lectured.
    It wasn't a difficult job. The dais was made of smooth, polished wood that required very little in the way of actual scrubbing. He took his time doing it, not eager to move onto the stone portions of the floor. The dais was large, covering as much floor as the tiny room he slept in. A podium, carved out of dark gray stone, was set directly in the center of the dais. There were cubbies on the side facing away from the audience area of the room, Corin noted. They were empty, but dusty, as though they hadn't been cleaned or used in a while.
    A semi-circle of tall candelabras stood behind the podium. They'd be lit during the ceremony that opened the sermon, and the candles were left to burn afterwards. The wall behind the dais was decorated with tapestries that depicted famous scenes from the priests' teachings: lightning striking out against dark clouds, a man standing tall against a shadowy monster, light wreathing a man dressed in priests' robes.
    Sliding his bucket along the dais towards the nearest candelabra, Corin started washing it. He glanced back over the hall, unsurprised to see the rest of his group working as slowly as he was. They were chatting though, and Corin stifled another wave of homesickness. He wanted someone to talk to, but no one here would give him the time of day. He deserved that, he supposed, for being so dismissive of Karli.
    Eight months. That wasn't too long, right? So why did it feel like he was never going to leave? Corin rolled his eyes at himself—that was about as dramatic as Karli and her shadows. Corin turned to focus his attention on the candelabra again, only to have his eye caught by a flash of red. An apple, bright and ripe, sat on the edge of one of the cubbies of the podium.
    Corin swore it hadn't been there before. He'd looked in the podium—it had been all dust and nothing else. Corin glanced back out into the sermon hall, but no one was close enough to have snuck up and put it there without his noticing. He wasn't concentrating that much on cleaning. Looking back at the podium, Corin frowned pensively at the apple. His stomach flipped uneasily, and he turned back to the candelabra, focusing on running his rag through the grooves and designs decorating it.
    There was something wrong, Corin decided, but he didn't know what, and he didn't know what to do about it. He wasn't touching that apple, though. Nothing good could come of that. Corin turned and glanced at the podium again. The