THE STEWARDS’ TESTAMENT JOAN
THE STEWARDS’ TESTAMENT JOAN
The three daughters, born one year after the next, were blooded divine, but fleshed in the vessels of humans.
They were born to a sheep farmer and his wife to the name Trent in humble surrounds and were christened Idia, Dione, and Joan.
As they grew, they took to unnatural practices.
They could carve riverbeds, divert floodwaters, and till soil with no tools.
They blessed the village with their magic as it strengthened.
When winters came, they summoned fire from the heavens that needed no kindling.
When the river ran dry, they called on water from the mountains.
They were called messengers of God, but this was not true.
The three daughters did not converse with any higher authority. When outsiders traveled to them to be healed, the daughters could not cure. When callers wished to speak with the dead, the daughters could not summon this magic.
The travelers took their stories to far corners and spoke of the false prophets who had refused them, who saw them swallowed by disease and grief and would not save them. They called the three daughters wicked, perverse. Witches.
But in their village, the Trent daughters were loved. The townspeople ran off any traveler who sought their blessing. The village prospered for many years.
But words spread like water. Like hellfire. The lust for power bore an enemy. It rose up like a beast. Like a devil.
And as the enemy formed, so, too, formed the first Stewards of these Trenched lands. They were farmers, millers, and loggers. They vowed to transport the three daughters to places of safety. To defend them against the enemy marching across the land, just as the daughters had defended their lands.
The Stewards planned to take the daughters each to a different secret place.
But Joan would not go. She feared for the safety of her town, her people. For surely, the enemy would trample it in search of them.
So the beast came to Joan first.
She wielded fire and water, arrows and blades, but even a daughter of God is limited. She was separated from her sisters, and eventually her power was drained. The Stewards were mere men and women, and they, too, were quickly thwarted.
Joan was captured. She was tied to a post for three days.
On the first day, they bled her, trying to take from her that which God had given.
On the second day, they took her flesh and consumed it, and still no magic was bestowed.
On the third, the beast’s patience waned. Mad with envy, they threatened to burn her where she stood if she did not give up her magic. “You will be reborn each day in hell,” they swore to her.
The youngest daughter, Joan, let of her blood, devoured, fell first.
Before fire consumed her, she said to all those who watched, “I die in the solace that my rage dies with me. I wish not to live among these men.”
By testament of the Stewards, Joan made no sound as she was released of man’s cruelty. If any remnant of her magic seeped free of the fire, then it seeped into the earth, while the eye of the enemy was enthralled by the flames.