Jiian studied the thirty feet tall, obsidian statue of the Mother of Ibris. She stood with outstretched hands looking down at Jiian. A cloth draped over her head and shoulders flowed down to the floor. Her face was calm and serene with a slight smile on the edge of her lips. A glyph encircled her feet, casting white light upon her features.
Death's shadow lingered on every surface. The ceiling bled into darkness hundreds of feet above. The heavy shadows pressed in from all sides, wishing to embrace all who dared enter.
"I know you didn't come here for the ambiance." Jiian called. He tilted his head to the side to look at Coara.
The room spanned for miles in every direction, quickly falling into deep shadows outside the statue's glow. Jiian looked down at the symbol and shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. How ironic the symbol of life should shine so brightly here.
Decorated stone plinths lay in perfect lines radiating out around the mother of Ibaris. The occupants lay still; suspended moments before death. Faces contorted in agony. Anguish and sorrow in their eyes as they made a terminal choice.
Coara stood four plinths over looking at a newborn child lying on the stone plinth next to her. She wore a simple black dress with a high neckline. The back of the dress draped down to the middle of her back. Her hair was artfully arranged over her right shoulder. The right side of her face remained the same rounded features and small lips he was accustomed too. But the left side was covered in four scars. The torn flesh pulled her skin into gruesome jagged valleys with black rivers of ink running down them. The scars ran from the top of her forehead, cutting her eye in two, down her neck and ending at her collarbone.
She looked up from the child. Her gaze drifted to the statue.
"Although I enjoy her company in stone and in person, she is not why I am here." Coara replied. She turned back to him.
Jiian leaned leisurely against a plinth, placing his hands in his pockets. He wore simple black pants and a short black shirt that finished at his pants line. He took his time letting his eyes remember every detail of true face. She stiffened at his gaze.
"No illusion?" He asked.
"Not here." She whispers into the silence.
"I much prefer this face." He said. A smile began to bloom on his face as he waited for her reaction.
"Oh and why would that be? You sculpt a beautiful face for yourself by the standards of the mortal realm but prefer my grotesque appearance?"
"If you recall I was not raised in the mortal realm," he gestured towards the child's body next to her, "and I am not beholden to their beauty standards.
"You are infamous and known for these scars not because of some expectation of beauty. But because of the incredible things you have achieved. You have found a way to shape the mortal realm more than any other and all while not getting caught by the higher spheres. That is what makes you beautiful. Not your outward appearance but the woman beneath.
"And I love the mystery and fear your reputation has built." He finished with a mischievous smirk.
"I see." She responded, with a smile she couldn't keep off her face.
He dropped the smirk.
"I take it you're here to discuss the profit?" He said, a serious tone in his voice.
"Indeed. My creation of the three profits were in the interest of both Paeneya and Ibaris. Why are you interfering"
"Anelle."
"I was keeping him distracted and away from her." She snapped.
"And how long could you keep that up for? As things were going she would have married that luthier's son and visited that church every eight days for at least another five maybe six decades. It would only take one misstep in all that time for him to get too close and see who she really is." He explained.
"If she married that luthier's son and had children you would be closer to your goal." She countered.
A grim expression washed over his face. "The risk was too great."
"If Cythri is killed I will have you thrown into the abyss."
"I can assure you that won't happen. I won't interfere with the King of Ealrian any more. You have my word."