“Occupied with another fool, I’m afraid,” he moaned. “You’ll have to deal through me. Sorry.”
Sacrifice? Night Lady? Why are they calling me Celeste? She tried to think, peering back to her memory, only to be greeting by a dribbling drum beat of pain behind her eyes, more so behind her right eye. She groaned.
"Shh, Sky, I'm here," Lyn whispered, before directing her voice to the room. "So what if the emperor finds out? These sacrifices are completely voluntarily. No one is forced. Maybe it’s time for us to show the City what we’ve been really sacrificing for their safety and prosperity.”
“You do, and I guarantee you’ll have imperial soldiers right here in this room before the week’s out—”
“The Empire wouldn't dare.” Lyn hissed. “They'd risk a populous revolt! Many of the Empire’s own subjects pilgrimage here." There was a pause. "There are still pilgrimages from all over Gen Shemver coming here too. If any would be hurt by an imperial attack." Another pause. "Princess Zana, she's the emperor's sister. She'd be able to stop him."
"If the emperor didn't show mercy to his brothers in Ladress, would you think he would to his sister? The only thing keeping him away is” —he chuckled— “the city’s belief in your supposed piety.”
"Then…then, we will die for the Golden Lady, won't we, sisters?"
"Admirable," Mister Conner said. "But, yes, it’ll end that way if you priests aren't careful, and you won’t become the martyrs you think. The emperor’s a crafty one. If he finds out about the human sacrifices, he’ll do exactly what we would do. Start rumors in the city. Rumors that Celeste was meant to be killed; that she was starved and ill-treated. That she was spared the sacrifice by the mercy of the Golden Lady. That others of this fine city’s daughters met the same fate. Then a whispered word glides along the wind: ‘did you hear? I heard some of the priests have Ragnarok sympathies, why look at what they did to those poor girls.’ A few encouraged cut-purses loose in the City, maybe a series of unexplained fires that kills a family or three. Then there's a suggestion made: Zandagor, the Golden Lady, has forsaken her priests, the Princess and the City because of your supposed Ragnarok worship. You won't even have to die to protect your goddess. Without one imperial soldier, you'll all be run out by your own people. And by then…” He chuckled softly. "I can tell you we're pretty good at what we do, but even we can't keep you all safe from a mob. And all your exquisite record keeping will be just the evidence the mob would need. How does being exiled sound to all of you? Looking behind your backs for the rest of your lives? You’ll be living like those Ragnarok Cultists. All of this while the Apostate Emperor strolls into the Temple proclaiming himself a hero, a liberator, a ‘convert.’"
Sky felt tension thicken in the sudden silence before the Doyenne said, “Thank You Mister Connor for that rather cynical speech.”
“Your welcome. No shirt off my back what you ladies decide to do. But speaking only for myself and not my benefactor: I’ll be damned if I let the Empire get their hands on two Shards of the Almighty. Remember that ladies, when you decide what to do.” A threat?
“Then we have no choice,” the Doyenne said. “We will postpone Celeste’s sacrifice till next year—"
"No," another elderly woman said. Her voice sounded ragged, but strong. "The Golden Lady rejected her. She can’t offer herself again. Another offering must be made.”
“Fine, next year,” Mister Conner agreed.
“This year,” the ragged voice replied. “And Celeste can no longer be involved.”
Mister Conner barked, “stubborn all the way to the grave—”
"You've made your point," the Doyenne said with a clack from her cane on the floor. “These are spiritual matters now, Mister Conner.”
Sky tried to speak but her throat burned. She opened her mouth, but felt Lyn lean closer to her, whispering, “Don’t speak, Sky—”
"What's going on," Sky worked up to a cough.
"Don't tell her anything," Doyenne's said. "I…I have to be the one to tell her."
A womanly laugh came from somewhere in the room. "Oh, she's unclean, Your Holiness. You can't—"
“Get out,” the Doyenne erupted. “All of you! We’re done here." After a short pause, Sky heard footsteps tapping away from her and the shuffling of bodies making their exit.
“Let me know what you guys decide,” said the man, his voice trailing.
“You’re still as beautiful as the Goddess," Lyn whispered. "You'll always be a priest to me, Evening Sky." Then she left with a click from the door’s handle. Always be a priest?
There was another moment of silence, so Sky risked opening her eyes again. And again, the lamp blinded her, but she caught for an instance the silhouette of a hunched over figure some feet away from her bed. The Doyenne.
"Does the light bother you," she asked as the cane’s knocking approached the bed.
"It does."
"Then I'll put it out. Come now, open your eyes."
Sky opened them, and although the lamp was out, the room remained lit with a fuzzy dancing blue halo radiating from everything, the bed sheets, table at the end of the bed, the walls, the chairs in the room, even the Doyenne.
"Is that better for you?"
"What...what happened, Your Holiness," she asked as a wave of fatigue forced her eyes to shut. Her head pounded again to each beat of her heart. She heard the elderly priest drag over some furniture, probably a chair.
"You’re still alive, Sil," she answered. “That’s what happened.”
"Alive? Sil?"
"Yes, Sil is a short form of your name Celeste, isn’t it," she continued. "What is the last thing you remember?"
She resisted looking back to her memory, remembering the pain it brought. "It hurts to remember," she said instead.
"Yes, I’d imagine your heart is torn, but I—"
"No, Your Holiness, it hurts, the pain in my head." She reached up to her forehead, rubbing her forehead above her right eye. "When I try to remember, my head hurts so much. Was there an accident?"
The Doyenne sighed deeply. "Sil, ...you were to offer yourself to the Golden Lady."
"Yes, I know. I suppose it was postponed. I heard you all talking but it didn’t make much sense."
"It wasn't postponed," the Doyenne answered. "Yesterday morning, you offered yourself to her and…the Zandagor the Golden Lady rejected your offering." The words didn't make sense at first. Rejected her? Was that even possible? Sky supposed it was. The Golden Lady was a Fragment of the Almighty, she could do anything. But why? Because of Gene? None of it made sense. "While you were recovering, the Synod was convened." Sky felt a hand grip her right wrist. "I'm sorry, Sil. They have decided to defrock you. You can no longer carry your priestly name: Evening Sky." She groaned again, the pain in her legs radiating upwards and head still pounding. Defrocked? What did that mean? She struggled to concentrate with so many pains and sensations throughout her body. Her arms felt as though they were carrying pails full of heavy fruit. "I am so sorry to burden you with all of this so suddenly," her Holiness continued. "but your situation here is becoming very perilous. The Synod is clamoring for another sacrifice but…no one in the Inner Circle is willing. Not so soon. And then there’s Mister Conner. That contemptible man…he…made some good points.”
“Mister Conner. Who is—”
“Sil,” the Doyenne interrupted. “Tomorrow night, you are to stand before the Synod. Your purity is to be examined." Purity? That, she understood. How much she struggled to make herself into an acceptable offering, the years of study, meditation, self-sacrifices, all to discipline her body and mind to command the arduous —and dangerous— martial magics.
"I have never—," she raised herself from the bed against the complaints of her body before another wave of fatigue brought her back to her pillow.
"I know, child. I know. But in all the years since the Golden Lady woke, she has never refused a human sacrifice."
"My sister," Sil muttered, feeling the heav
y weights in her arms spread through the rest of her body, a drowsiness consuming her. "That must...be…"
"Be at peace," the Doyenne said. "You won't face them alone. I will be your advocate tomorrow. Be at peace."
And then unconsciousness took her.
***
Sil woke to the sound of birds chirping and a warm breeze caressing her face with the fragrance of sweet fermenting grapes. She smiled. The birds don't sing this early, she thought. “No! I'm late. My devotions!” She opened her eyes and sat upright: bed, table, her Holiness sitting on a chair beside her, resting her head on her cane, soft sleeping breathes. Her headache was gone and her eyes weren't as sensitive to the light, but her head and neck felt strangely light and very cold, sending shivers all over her. She rushed her hands to her head, feeling the course stubs of her once beautiful silver locks. Confused, she looked at her hands, feeling her fingers. 'The Synod has decided to defrock you,' she remembered. She felt something deep within her begin to shake, her hands trembled. Shame welled up, flowing out her eyes and onto her trembling hands.
"Oh, Sil," the warm voice of the Doyenne rose from sleep. She handed Sil a white cloth. She buried her face in, sobbing inconsolably.
The Doyenne extended a hand to her shoulder but Sil jerked herself away. "No," she said in a broken voice. "Your Holiness can't touch me. I'm unclean."
"Child, my hands were given to me to comfort," she said, placing her hand Sil's shoulder anyway. "It is alright for you to cry. You have reason for it. Cry it all out."
She screamed into the cloth, biting it, twisting it in her hands. "Rejected," she cursed, biting harder. "I've been rejected. My vocation rejected. Why? I've struggled so hard to remain faithful. What have I done? My life...."
"Oh, Almighty," Doyenne said softly. "Only we humans can complicate something as simple as your love. Have I ever told you the story of the little girl from the City?" Sil didn't reply, overwhelmed with emotion, she continued sobbing into the white cloth. "There once was a girl from the City who used to go to the Temple to pray with her family. She loved kneeling before the Golden Lady —this was before Zandagor returned and woke the Shard, you see. She would close her eyes and listen, hoping to hear something from this Shard of the Almighty, something of love from Zandagor. She would pout and tell her mother, 'I heard nothing again,' and her mother would reply, 'you must be very good to hear her.' The little girl would spend winters, spring, and summers in the City. Falls in the country with her Uncle harvesting apples, pumpkins. Doesn't that sound nice? I suppose you wouldn’t care about harvest right now. One day, on a particularly cold Autumn dawn. The sun hadn't risen yet. She went outside to the porch —she would do this quiet often— and watched the stars and the dazzling glow of the City on the horizon. The little girl's Uncle, like many nights like that one, would be busy getting ready for the morning work. She cherished those moments. Darkness all around her. The lights above like windows into heaven before his lanterns spoiled it all." She paused. "Then one night, the birds began chirping wildly, flying off their hidden perches in confused flights. The ground began to shake underneath her. A loud noise, like a hideous thunder by your ears, threw me to the ground." Sil perked up, listening more intently. "I was so scared. So afraid, I closed my eyes, not for a million more windows into heaven would I open them. My uncle threw himself over me before a violent, hot whirlwind pressed down upon us, destroying my uncle's house and ruining much of the farm. When I opened my eyes, the dazzling glow of the City had become a fiery maelstrom of smoke, ash, and faint screams." Sil rose her head from the cloth, watching her Holiness stare off into the empty room with piercingly lucid eyes. "The next morning, against my uncle's wishes and knowledge, I went to the City. Hundreds, hundreds of dead, many more wounded. Confusion everywhere. Moans amid the debris. Crying, always someone crying. I searched and searched but I could not find my family. The Holy Grounds had been completely destroyed, blocked by collapsed buildings. Already, Ladress" —Her eyes tightened— "before the kingdom broke, came to help us." She turned to Sil, her face quickly softening as though she had forgiven some simple offense.
"What, what happened?"
Her Holiness sighed. "After three days searching, I came back to my uncle to fill my starving stomach and hear a well-deserved stern scolding. My family had died, Celeste. They died when Zandagor returned to the Golden Lady. Even now, we can't approach her without protection. I often ask myself why did she do that? What is some fault of mine? Of my family? Of the people? Why did the love of the Almighty, the most sublime Shard of the Almighty, destroy the City? Had we become too comfortable with the divine? Had we lazed in our devotions? Our people today still bare those scars, those suspicions of hidden sins that might cause the Golden Lady’s wrath to flare up. ...I'm sorry, Sil. You're looking at me as though you need that answer, but the only one I can give you is what I gave myself then: I was still alive. If I hadn’t gone to my Uncles, I would have died. And so, on living I went to becoming who I am today." She smiled, but it wasn't a warm smile, but a smile that hide something behind it. Doubt? Resentment? "So, I ask you now, Celeste Casmarus, to go on too, just like that little girl from so long ago."
Sil looked back onto the tear drenched cloth in her hands, head feeling drained and foggy. "I spent most of my life preparing for this. I was going to make up for my sister, my family. I was going to be the Golden Lady's Valkyrie. All I had to do was die. ...Now, more than ever I just want to disappear."
"You tried that, child. It didn't work. Now, give living a try. Not all rejections are made from fault. Some are redirections. If my family had lived perhaps I would have been a farmer instead of Doyenne. The Golden Lady has other plans for you, I'm sure of it. Trust in that."
Sil found herself smirking at the thought, but her emotions were still conflicted. Other plans? Sister, she thought. But how can I undo the past? "And my hair," she said, sniffling. "Maybe the Golden Lady has plans for it too."
Her holiness laughed. "I'm sure she does too. If it can grow back, so can you. Now, we must go over your defense for tonight."
"What are they planning," she asked, bending up her knees and wrapping her arms around them. "I have already paid the worst price."
"Much worse, I'm sorry," Doyenne said with a frown. "Some talk of sacrificing you anyway. Tying you to the Golden Lady and letting you starve there."
"That sounds dreadful," Sil added, tightening her hold on herself. "Not the peaceful sleep I was expecting."
"Not at all, and worse, it would be murder, Sil. The Golden Lady does not want your life. But." She smiled. "There is nothing to be afraid of. I will be there with you. And the Synod are not strangers. You know them and the questioning with be done behind closed doors, so you can be as much as Evening Sky as you wish."
Sil relaxed her arms. "Mother Lyn was here last night. Will she be there?"
"Yes, she will.”
"She'll be on my side," Sil said, feeling more confident. "They won't find fault with me. And they'll have to ...they'll have to...? Doyenne, what will they do if they don't condemn me?" Sil placed her hand on her head, feeling the strange coarseness of her scalp like the emptiness of a friend's missing presence. How dreadful I must look, she thought, but her beauty wasn't meant for others. Her body was spoken for, but if not anymore, then... "If I am no longer a priest. What can I do?"
"You’ll always be a priest," the Doyenne said. "You made your vows. You have not broken them. No one can take that away."
"But, I...cannot serve as one," she said. "What can these hands do now?" Dry calluses outlined the boarders of her palms with some scarring from wrongly spell casts. How she wished she could go back to carrying pails of water and fruit all day and be forgotten. For her whole life, people were always around her, teaching her, administering to her preparation. They were voices of encouragement and aspiration. Now, they probably wanted to know what was wrong with her. Sil...wanted to be put in box and forgotten. She grabbed hold of her knees again and squeezed. "Please, Do
yenne. What's going to happen to me?"
Her holiness hesitated a moment. "As it stands, the Synod, if they find fault with you —which they won't, child— will probably ask you to leave the Holy Grounds under a vow of silence."
Leave? She jumped. "Alone? I have never been outside alone. What will I do for food, shelter? How will I live?"
"You will live," the Doyenne answered. "But for now, we must go over your defense and it will be centered around your sister, Whitewave Fallingstar or rather, Genevieve Casmarus. Last we knew, she went off to Ladress to fight against the Empire but never returned when her time came. We must put the blame on her."
Sil felt heat rising in her chest. "Yes, it was her," she said, clenching her bed covers tightly with in her fists. "She’s not my sister anymore. She betrayed us. She must be that ‘fallen priest’ we’ve heard about. This is all her fault. It is her fault I’m not—
"—dead?" Doyenne said.
"Yes."
Doyenne sighed, stood, and while leaning heavily on her cane walked a few paces away. "Sil," she began. "Why does the Golden Lady demand sacrifice?"
"For reparation for our sins in this world," she said from memory. “As to fight by her side in the next.”
"Why now? What happened all those years ago to awaken her? Why did we begin this practice then?"
"The practice was always there. When she awoke, three thousand three hundred and forty-four people died, the number of years prior to her rediscovery."
Her Holiness lowered her head, shaking it.
"Was I wrong with the number of years," Sil asked.
"No, no," the Doyenne replied, still sounding disappointed. "Quite a good memory. But that’s not important. What is important is to remember, the Synod’s cares more about the Golden Lady, not your welfare. There are seven members. I am one, but I will be your advocate. That leaves six. One will be a guard. She will not ask questions. Another, will be an observer; memorizing what is said. That leave four of the Synod that you must face. One will be your peer. Lyn volunteered. Three remain and they may as well be hostile towards you. "
Call of the Chosen- Broken Kingdoms Page 10