Chapter Twenty-One Adela #2
I nod, and she scoops out a generous portion, gently layering it over the sorest spots of my face. Again, I close my eyes at the care. If I weren’t so numb, I suspect this might break me.
While no one can fault Dad’s nurturing spirit, I have wanted this sort of mothering since I was twelve and woke up one morning abandoned. High Priestess Sarai’s touch is gentle, and she murmurs soft kindnesses to me. I don’t hear the words themselves. I don’t need to.
The most powerful unicorn-wearers can sometimes influence feelings, and I wonder if she’s using magic to relax me, or if it is simply tenderness.
Whatever the reason, my tired, bruised, broken soul soaks it up.
“Adela, I want to speak with you about your future,” the high priestess says gently. She sets down the jar of salve within my reach and takes a seat near me. She leans in, watching me closely.
My future.
With the matching hut gone, so is the only future I ever knew as a possibility. The skulls had been gathered over decades. Even if I am allowed to stay here in the valley, I wouldn’t be needed until my old age. Not as a matcher. And what else would I do?
This is what I have trained for since I was practically a child.
And sure, most days, I wished another had been chosen instead.
I didn’t feel worthy. I didn’t feel eager, like I ought to have.
The voices of the skulls haunted me, and sometimes I felt trapped even within the immense boundaries of the valley.
But at least that future was comfortable. Knowable.
Now, a vast unknown sits before me. Powers I never imagined wielding. A city I can hardly fathom living in. An order I don’t know the rules of.
All because I could not resist a kiss.
I don’t speak. I have no words, but High Priestess Sarai seems to understand.
“I assume there are no other skulls? No secret stash somewhere else in the valley?” Her voice is absolutely neutral, but the question is no idle inquiry. To admit we did would be treachery.
Kian watches me closely, an expression I don’t understand on his face.
I answer immediately and absolutely honestly. “We would never hoard the creatures’ skulls from the orders. We caretake for the creatures and keep the skulls safe until they can match. If the skulls grow quiet, as more and more have over the years, we give them back to the valley as we ought.”
I glance at the phoenix skulls on the table next to Kian.
Or we typically do.
I don’t know why Bartholomew left those to sit on the shelf in silence for so long. He’s not here to ask. But he made the right decision, whatever his motives. The phoenixes weren’t gone, only dormant.
I look at Kian, sitting beside me so steadfastly.
How strange to think that a man I’d never laid eyes on before last week, and had chased pleasure with only for the thrill of it at a feast, is now bonded to me for life.
If he regrets our explorations together, I cannot find the feeling in his face.
There is worry and perhaps some small desire in the way he leans ever so slightly closer to me, like a tulip reaching toward the sun.
Part of me imagines that perhaps he’s excited to explore this undeniable chemistry between us. Perhaps he might even want to explore beyond our physical relationship, to explore what caring for each other might feel like.
“Since there is no role for you here in the valley,” High Priestess Sarai says, pulling my attention away from Kian, “I would like to formally invite you to join the order as a novitiate.”
I knew this was coming, and there is not only a rush of relief at the words, but a burst of excitement at the possibilities.
A surge of guilt follows, that I am eager to leave behind the only world I’ve ever known, but I push that to a corner of my heart.
I don’t suppress it entirely. It’s allowed to live in me.
Of course there’s regret at what I’ve done and what I’m losing.
Cecelia said I’m allowed to live the life I want. I’m allowed to want. I lean into that idea, into the bubbling excitement.
A new future. A new fate.
And one, I realize, that might have been destined for me all along. From the moment the sun glinted off the phoenixes’ beaks. After all, the great goddess guides us all. I am not immune from her blessings, even if I don’t always see the way she works in and through me.
“Be sure this is what you want,” Kian says. I think I hear a note of hope in his voice.
I realize that I am utterly certain.
I pick up the phoenix skull from the side table and move to stand in front of Sarai. I kneel down and place it in her lap, keeping my eyes low. “Would you perform the matching?”
The high priestess quickly agrees. She picks up the phoenix skull. I close my eyes.
“Are you ready now to face your fate?” the priestess asks, echoing the ceremonial words of the matcher.
I open my eyes, relief surging through me. I nod, and she begins.
“How do you come before your soul’s match?” she asks.
I have no jewelry on. I remove my blood-stained cloak. I never imagined being on this side of the words, but they flow easily from me. “Bare of wealth or warmth.”
There are no oils or herbs, but I think of the tea with its fragrant turmeric and ginger lingering on me when she asks, “How do you come before your soul’s match?”
“With empty hands, prepared to toil for goodness,” I answer, meaning it with my whole heart. I may not be serving the great goddess the way I thought I would, but I can still be a force for good in the world. Even with a destructive power.
I will figure out a way.
“How do you come before your soul’s match?” she asks for the third and final time.
Again, there is no pine ointment, so I close my eyes and imagine the sharp tang of the needles that were crushed beneath me as I knelt beside Etana’s body.
Here my certainty wavers. Etana should not have been a casualty of me finding a new future. But I cannot undo her death. I can only atone for it. And with the matching hut gone and her foal safe with Lathai, the best way to do that is to serve the Huntress.
“Clearheaded, with eyes that search for truth and a tongue that speaks of both justice and mercy.”
She places the phoenix skull back on my face, gently fastening the leather strapping behind my head. Carefully, she leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Welcome, little bird, to your destiny.”
I am given a mere hour to pack and say my goodbyes. With the novitiate wing and the matching hut both ash, the order has decided to return to Insborough immediately. There is nowhere comfortable to stay and no reason to do so. It will be a long night.
I walk from the great hall to my house, stepping around the rubble of the lightning-stuck fountain, and realize that this may very well be the last time I cross this square.
It’s likely the last time I’m in the valley at all.
Only specially trained order members lead the novitiates, and the high priestess, of course.
I’m uncertain what my future holds or if the great goddess will guide my feet back home in time. It’s unlikely. Only one person I know has left, and she never returned.
I wonder how she felt in the hour before she left. Was her heart racing as if she had jumped from the loft of the hay barn and landed incorrectly, losing all of her breath in one big whoosh?
I push away my anxieties and enter the only home I’ve ever known.
Dad is there, waiting for me. He looks like a broken man.
Unable to face him in the moment, I turn to go upstairs.
I will say goodbye after I gather my things.
But he stops me, wrapping me up in a hug.
I stiffen, afraid I’m going to scratch him with the skull I am now voluntarily wearing.
He tucks my head into his collarbone. Once I realize he’s safe, I sink into the comfort.
This is how he’s hugged me since Mom left, with a sort of quiet desperation.
And though it hurts, it also helps.
My mind begins to spin, spiraling up and up, like the phoenix and her mate in my visions.
My contrary wishes war within me. I want to keep my past close and also spread my wings to explore this new future.
I worry about him and Cecelia and everything I’m leaving behind.
With no new magic, the orders may begin to lose their power in society.
There will be fewer boons, fewer tithes, even less money given for the community of keepers hidden away, caring for magical creatures that are slowly dying out.
Inside Dad’s arms, I realize there’s nothing I can do about any of that.
Except.
As a member of the order with ties to the keepers, maybe I can be a bridge.
Maybe I’ll be able to advocate for my community from the outside, to remind the high priestesses of the three orders and their councils that although it might take a while for the valley to replenish the skulls, it will be worth their while to remain steadfast in their promises.
His grief envelops me. I have never felt more loved. He places a hand on my head, and I press my forehead into his neck. “The order is leaving tonight?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry.”
“Shhhh. No need for that. You will be brilliant,” he whispers into my hair. The words he’s said to me my entire life. I believed them until I was twelve and the mom I had always admired, that I was so alike, left us.
I squeeze Dad one more time and pull away. My time is short, and I still need to find Cecelia and say goodbye to her as well. “Help me pack?”
He nods and joins me as I collect a handful of mementos. There will be no need for the raiments of a matcher, the beautiful bone jewelry and the like. I place it all in a pile and ask Dad to give it to Beadda for the future, when there will be new skulls and new matches again.
In the meantime, she can study the journals and learn the rituals I won’t be able to teach her. Cecelia will help, no doubt.
Cecelia comes to say goodbye, and Dad steps away. Her eyes are puffy and her nose and cheeks have a telltale flush, but her head is high and her smile is genuine. She’s been crying, but she’s good now. For the moment, at least.
She plunks down on my bed, and it squeaks as always. I sit beside her.
“Have the grandest adventures, my friend.” Her tone is fierce. “And write me about them all in detail.”
We’ve never been much for notes, but I suppose, why would we be? We’ve lived mere houses away for our entire lives. Once again I am nearly shattered at all I am about to lose. And how unknown the world is that I’m about to face.
Despite her sorrow, Cecelia’s excitement for me is genuine, and it gives me encouragement to embrace my own.
She chatters about everything I’m about to experience—new foods and new fashions, new people.
Mostly, though, she talks about the temple’s library, wondering aloud how it’s organized and how big it is, what books they might have in common with the valley and if it would ever be possible for them to lend her materials.
I promise to visit it as soon as everything settles down. I even offer to sketch a picture of it, but we both laugh about how futile that would be at actually conveying anything about it. I can’t draw.
There’s one big thing that we haven’t mentioned about being in Insborough, skating carefully around the topic, though I know it’s at the forefront of both our minds.
After all, Dad and I weren’t the only ones who lost her.
Mom’s disappearance was almost as painful for my best friend as it was for me.
Cecelia takes a deep breath and says the thing that gives me shivers just to think about. “Your mom?”
I flinch, but Dad isn’t here to hurt at the mention of her.
“Will you try to find her?”
“No.” It’s immediate. But I’m fairly certain it’s accurate. She left. Abandoned us. Why would I go after her? Cecelia doesn’t argue, or even respond. Just looks at me. I can’t tell if she agrees with my choice or not. “Do you think that’s foolish?”
She shrugs, with a thoughtful uncertainty. “I think family is hard. And you don’t have to make a forever decision. Take it day by day and trust yourself.”
I wrap my arms around her, squeezing tight. She stiffens for a moment, but then hugs me back fiercely.
“I will never have another friend as amazing as you,” I say.
She laughs. “Neither of us is dying, so you’ll still have me.”
And yet we likely will never see each other again. But I can’t say it aloud. I don’t need to. We both know. When I’m finished packing, Cecelia follows me downstairs.
Dad is there, stress cleaning. He looks up, eyes wet with tears. He puts down his broom. “Ready, love?”
The actual goodbye is a blur. One keeper after another comes up and gives me a hug, saying goodbyes as if they’d never see me again.
A sharp, coiled thing in the pit of me begins to vibrate.
With rage? With fear? With hope and excitement?
I shove it all away and sink into the same blissful numbness that came when Etana’s foal ran into the forest. I let it wash over and through me.
Kian comes close. He interlocks his fingers through mine and begins to walk toward the forest. Without looking back at all I’m about to lose, I walk with him.