* * *
From birth I have served Antara, sovereign goddess of the Lura’e. Our mother, our guardian, our guide and solace. The bounty of Her womb gives life to our world; the clarity of Her sight guides our soldiers’ arrows; the warmth of Her arms comforts the brokenhearted and the dying alike. Her voice strengthens me in my darkest nights, and steadies me as I move through my days.
From birth I have served only Her. But there is another.
None outside the temple walls has heard the name of the Sleeping Goddess, the Dark Sister. None alive has witnessed the opening of Her Eye. For a thousand years She sleeps, then awakens for mere months before falling into another slumber.
But on the first night of Her waking, She is ours to petition.
Her language is blood. Speak in blood, and She will answer.
Tomorrow, I will call on Her with the death of a human, and She will respond in kind.
No human will survive Her awakening.
It is the only way to save the Lura’e from annihilation at their hands.
I can still remember the look in the human’s eyes when I answered his question on the day of his capture. When I told him his fate, omitting only the explanation of what it would mean for the rest of his kind.
I should never have told him.
I should never have spoken to him.
Sasha.
I should never have learned his name.
Celestial Page 8