Chapter XXI #2
“It’s a rite meant to secure guidance,” Fia said, neglecting to mention that she’d been delayed by undertaking the same thing herself. “It means Ari’s foundering. That she feels she’s lost her way. You—you didn’t tell her what Gileta and Gwylen asked us, did you?”
“Gods, no!” Fia had never heard him sound so taken aback before. “I never would. There are some things she doesn’t need to know, for her own sake.”
Fia nodded emphatically. “I couldn’t agree more. I suppose it’s only Orden’s new war that has her rattled, then. Unless…”
Her voice trailed off. It seemed foolish to mention the brief warning she’d overheard Ariana offer to Dolenza at the altar, that Orden might be a threat to the Matria in some way. For two hundred years Raea’s emissaries had withstood the Invers’ desire to overthrow them, and never faltered.
But the Priest shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking extremely reluctant.
“The queen was preoccupied all the way home, and I never managed to pry the reason out of her. Orden told me himself, just before we reached the city. He plans to take over Raea’s cloister, not by force, but by subterfuge and religious maneuvering.
He’ll incorporate Raea into the Inver pantheon, and her two sisters as well, in order to create a unified civil faith behind which all of Honoria can rally.
Then he means to turn both his wars into something far larger—a crusade, to expand his influence to every corner of the known world. ”
Fia looked at the Priest in horror. He seemed singularly undisturbed by the prospect, which only added to her distaste. “Your Inver gods and the Beloved Three couldn’t be more opposed to one another. There will never be an accord between them.”
The Priest shifted again, a pensive expression writing itself across his face.
“Is it so unthinkable, though? Improbable, yes. But your goddesses are known for their peacemaking. Couldn’t they join with our gods and then rein in Orden’s ambition?
A little more unity would be good for Honoria. Good for all of us.”
He spoke wistfully, as if the outcome he imagined was a gentle and desirable one. For her part, Fia saw nothing but the ruin of her dearest values. The goddesses would become a tool for warfare like Afon’s bastardized vision of Silith, a warrior deity who hungered for strife.
“It would be the end of the Beloved Three as they are now,” Fia ground out.
“They would lose their light, their power, their virtue. Or at least, they would here. Above and beyond us they’d exist as they’ve always been, but do you really think they’d move us through dreams or hear our songs or mark us for faith and service were we to defile their worship with conflict and ill-gotten blood?
We would lose something immeasurably precious, and once given up, it would be impossible to regain. ”
“Haven’t you spilled blood by violence?” the Priest argued. “Aren’t you disobeying Raea now, just by being here, when she granted you a vision of what she expects will come to pass? Yet your faith, Fia, burns brighter than anything else I’ve ever felt. You scorch me with the heat of it.”
“I’m no soria,” Fia shot back with a disdainful toss of her head, even as the reminder of her transgressions threatened to drag her down.
“Nor a goddess, to exist without flaws. This world is a mire, and Inver court more so than most places. Raea will understand if I’ve sullied myself a little during my time here. ”
But doubt ate at her, gnawing away at the edges of her soul.
Perhaps this was the source of Dolenza’s reluctance to hear her oath—perhaps, despite her protestations to the contrary, the Matria saw a fundamental lack in Fia’s nature, an absence of piety and holiness.
Bright Raea herself only knew that when Fia looked inward, she saw nothing but fire and hunger and intemperate passion.
Or perhaps Dolenza meant to leverage her as a weapon against the king who would topple their goddess. Fia only wished her Matria had spoken plainly and told her what choice was expected. What path would best please the goddesses, when all of them seemed rimed with blood.
“Orden plans to make you Matria in Dolenza’s stead,” the Priest said quietly. “You’d be a support to Ariana, an ally to me, an arbiter of how the joining of faiths proceeds. Would you take the role, if the queen and I asked you to?”
“You speak very easily of an event that would require my Matria’s death. I myself would rather die than become an Inver puppet, no matter the comfort and power it afforded,” Fia said. “Besides which, I’d put Raea’s cloister to the torch before I let you dim her light in any way.”
She strode off, but within a moment the Priest’s hand was on her arm, halting her in her tracks, pulling her back to him.
“Don’t touch me,” Fia murmured, because there were servants and idle courtiers watching them now, as well as Glora. She wouldn’t give the satisfaction of letting them overhear a word.
“Think about it,” the Priest pleaded. “Don’t you trust Ariana?
If she chooses this, don’t you think it could be for the best?
I’ve little enough love for Orden, but in this one thing, I believe he may be right.
A joining of our ways and yours—it could mend something vital that was broken two centuries ago. You could be part of that.”
“I am not your absolution,” Fia told him, scorn radiating from her words.
“And while I’d trust Ariana Lyrien with my life, Ariana Inver is someone else entirely.
Your brother has his claws in her. He’s made her into something other than a daughter of stars, clouding over the face of her goddess until she can’t see clearly.
And I trust nothing about Orden—not his words, his actions, or his intentions. ”
“What about me?” the Priest asked. “Would you trust me?”
Fia couldn’t help relenting a little. She turned to him fully and raised a hand to his face.
“I want you to live,” she said, all the ire gone from her voice. “I want you to die at peace, an old man in your bed, as no Inver from the line of kings has done for two hundred years. But that doesn’t mean I trust you.”
“I wish you could,” the Priest said, as if it would be the crowning achievement of a torturous lifetime to have her place her faith in him.
“Yes,” Fia answered, with a trace of her customary sharpness. “I wish I could too.”