The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2)

by James Islington

Do you remember the tempeall albios? The… white place?” He’s speaking faster and using more complex words than he was—from anger at the subject matter, I think—and it takes me a moment to catch up. “Yes. There were… two others. A man and a woman. Like you.” Memory still hazy of the bloody chaos of the white rotunda, but clearer than it was. “The Grove is intent on killing all who come to the tempeall albios in the way you did, because Ruarc has convinced them to. And they hide this shame from the other draoi. He asks them to kill without trial or explanation, and they obey, against all sacred duty.” The disgust in his voice is thick as he urges the horse beneath us to motion. “He has made them fear where you come from, what you may mean, what you may be able to do. He has made them so fearful of the unknown, of what may be, they have abandoned what should be. It is a corruption of all the draoi are meant to be. And so, I fight.”