Chapter 1 Maeve
Maeve
The toll of the Abbey’s bells cracked through the silence. Maeve lurched upright.
Fractal sunlight arched across the basilica’s ceiling like the ribcage of a great leviathan.
This late in the morning, she was alone in the colossal room, a fact she was secretly thankful for.
Praying was a vulnerable practice, with her knees aching and the nape of her neck prickling with cold.
She preferred privacy with the icons to the other acolytes’ whispered requests.
Her icons.
Her chosen saint, a middle-aged woman called Siobhan, stared down at her with her usual lack of emotion.
The wall before her held the Abbey’s hundreds of icons, each neatly framed and hung from long lengths of silken rope stretching from one end of the room to the other.
Despite all the options Maeve could kneel in front of, she returned to Siobhan because she liked the colour of her robes.
Cadmium yellow was so hard to get lately.
She studied the stone floor under the kneeler, the spot of red beside her left knee. She scraped it with her nail, examining the flakes stuck to her thumb. Oxide red.
The guard stationed at the door to the basilica tutted at her tardiness as he eased open the double doors for her to leave.
Maeve dropped her eyes, ignoring the heat in her cheeks and the weight of the guard’s gaze as she passed.
She’d overstayed her allotted time. Acolytes could only enter the basilica alone under strict supervision, but her status as an iconographer granted her some level of leeway.
Even so, she shouldn’t make a habit of abusing it.
A briny layer of seawater coated the corridor leading to her studio. The room occupied a lonely corner of the Abbey, far from the other acolytes. Maeve liked the seclusion; painting was an act best done alone, in her opinion, but the walk to and from the basilica often felt never-ending.
Her boots slipped on the wet stone as she quickened her pace. She needed to return to her studio before the oil paint hardened beyond use. Ezra’s temper might burst if she let more paint go to waste. She’d already begged her mentor for coin to buy more onyx and ochre twice this month.
Besides, Felix might be early, and she couldn’t stomach the idea of the saint waiting for her.
Gaining an audience with Felix was a privilege earned through years of devotion, study, and dedication to her craft. Though she was trained to paint an icon with little more than a vague description, the honour of having a saint sit for her was one she didn’t take lightly.
Felix was her first in-person sitting, the first saint of his stature she’d put to oil and canvas.
She couldn’t help the dart of hope shooting through her chest – maybe it was more than an honour. Maybe it was a sign.
Brigid, the lead iconographer, hoped to retire in the next few months. The position would be open.
It could be Maeve’s… possibly. If she kept her wits about her and proved her devotion, she could move up in station and have her voice heard in the strictly regimented Abbey hierarchy.
She would be allowed to form friendships with the other craftsmen, a seat at the monthly conclave of elders and senior craftsmen where every moment of Abbey life was decided.
After fifteen years of living in the limestone halls, she would finally see behind the curtain.
Her life would no longer be one of questions and sightless trust. Purpose and belonging: two peaks she had long pointed herself towards, finally within reach.
If her icon of Felix met Ezra’s ruthless standards, of course.
Simple tasks, really.
The stiff set of her shoulders finally relaxed at the sight of her empty studio. No Felix yet.
She lowered the scarf from her hair and toed off her boots, stepping into a pair of soft-soled slippers. The studio was small, barely more than a closet, but it was hers. It was more than many people held claim to, and she was grateful for it.
A draught from the half-closed window slunk through the space, skating down her neck with icy fingers.
She crossed the room to close it fully. It was usually open to air out the ever-present smell of turpentine and oil, but as winter sharpened its claws, she’d need to put up with the fumes. That, or freeze.
Would the room be comfortable enough for Felix? Wherever he spent his time when he wasn’t at the Abbey, it was sure to be lavish.
If he lived at the Goddenwood, she could only dream of the luxury and comfort he was used to.
The secluded village where the holiest of saints lived in community with each other was a fabled mystery in its own right.
She’d never been tasked with painting it herself – her talents lay more in portraiture – but she’d studied depictions of it enough to picture its gabled, gold-tipped roofs and jewel-toned buildings with perfect clarity.
Outside of the Goddenwood, saints lived in isolation, sequestering themselves to better focus on the prayers only they could answer.
Maeve aspired to their piety, dreamed of it, even, but she found the idea of such a lonely existence hard to grapple with. Maybe that was why only the holiest of saints were allowed to live in the Goddenwood – community truly was the highest reward.
Monasticism might have been a virtue, but loneliness…
The Abbey was isolating enough as it was.
Hundreds of people lived in the limestone halls – acolytes, craftsmen, elders, guards, household staff – yet interaction between them was kept to a bare minimum.
Sometimes, Maeve went days without speaking, longer without touch.
Coupled with the Abbey’s strict censorship of information from the outside world, the solitude often felt like a physical weight on her chest. Impossible to breathe around.
The saints were worth every bit of the sacrifice living at the Abbey called for. Maeve was grateful for the life she had been given, the life her parents had chosen for her at seven years old. Always, always grateful for the opportunity to pray and to paint.
The icons she dedicated her life to creating were more than just portraits – they were objects of focus, symbols designed to connect the intercessor to the saint. She didn’t take her role in the sacred practice lightly, nor the prayers sent dutifully to the saints she so carefully depicted.
Carefully, Maeve traced the edge of Felix’s profile with the tip of her paintbrush.
A heady tremor passed through her fingers.
A slow-burning peace, undercut by the steady thrum of devotion, not unlike what she felt during prayer or hymns.
Warmth, bright and golden and consuming, threaded through her chest.
She’d already completed the underpainting in preparation for Felix’s sitting.
Hopefully, the remaining work shouldn’t take more than four or five sessions, though oil painting was a fickle beast and might take longer than she’d mapped out.
The detail work could be done without the saint, of course, but a part of her was tempted to extend it as long as she could to keep herself in his presence.
Her hand twitched, smearing a line of burnt umber across his jaw.
Maeve dropped the brush.
No questions. She needed to stay professional. Only professional.
Just as she was collecting her brush from where it had dropped on the floor, a knock sounded at the door. With a stern word to her nerves to stay in line, she moved to open it.
Felix stood on the other side.
The reality of him forced the breath from her lungs.
A saint. Here, in her studio.
Felix was tall and imposing, with dark brown skin and a finely boned, carefully blank face. Perhaps five or six years older than her. He stared down at her for a beat before his gaze fixed somewhere over her left shoulder.
Words formed and died on her tongue. She’d seen him at a distance before, but never so close.
The thick brocade piping on his black robes shone silver as it swirled over his shoulders and down his chest. A swathe of shiny scar tissue ran up the left side of his neck to spider over his cheek and jaw, dragging down the corner of his eye.
A medallion hanging at the centre of his chest glinted as he breathed, revealing a hollow centre.
It wasn’t a relic, a medallion that signified an elder’s connection to a particular saint, but it resembled one.
Enough for her to take an unconscious step forward to examine it closer.
She was sure she had seen something wrong in the light refracting off the metal.
Felix cleared his throat.
Maeve flinched, stepping aside to let him into the room. ‘Apologies. Thank you. Welcome.’ She cringed, swallowing another rush of mindless words as Felix moved past her.
‘Where do you want me to sit?’ he asked. His voice was low, scratchy.
‘There. Please.’ She pointed towards the stool she’d set up by the window.
He complied, angling himself to face almost entirely in profile. The scarred left side of his face wasn’t visible from Maeve’s position by the easel. Usually, saints faced fully forward, one hand raised, the other on their lap. Her preliminary drawing had posed him that way.
She picked up a brush and tried to think around the heavy silence.
She needed to ask him to move, but would it offend him?
He seemed wholly absorbed in staring out the window.
If it weren’t for the stiff set of his shoulders or the subtle movement of his fingers under the cuff of his robe, she’d wonder if he was aware of her at all.
She couldn’t paint him as he was. Ezra wouldn’t be pleased, and she needed Felix’s icon to be perfect.
‘Felix?’ Maeve hedged. Her knuckles bleached white around the paintbrush. ‘Could you… I mean, please, could you move to face me?’
His eyes flicked briefly to hers. ‘No.’
‘I need to see your entire face for the icon,’ she said, voice petering softer with every word.