Chapter 16
The curtain opened into an antechamber where a collection of young priestesses dressed in simple, homespun, yellow dresses waited.
No veils in sight. Smooth skin, bright eyes, a warm flush to their cheeks, shining hair. They looked young. Not much older than Emyre.
Novices, perhaps.
Audra couldn’t imagine anyone choosing to dedicate one’s life to something as useless as gods, especially so young. Was it even a choice, though? Or were they conscripted too? Were they just as captive as the initiates? Or were the fae gods just that much better than the humans’ gods?
Well, they must be—the fae gods hadn’t abandoned them.
One priestess pulled away from the rest and hurried toward her.
She was a slight thing. Her bones appeared thin and fragile as a bird’s, though she, like the rest, lacked the haunted, starved look of the other priestesses.
At least these ones were allowed to eat.
Her skin was a deep, warm honey color that matched her round, large eyes.
She bowed her head in deference to Audra and gave her a small, hesitant smile.
Audra didn’t return it.
“I’m Acolyte Twyla Desolateborn; I’ll be your opinante during your tenure. It’s an honor to meet you.”
“Audra Evers,” replied Audra stiffly. An honor? This whole exchange felt performative. Why indulge in niceties when she hadn’t chosen to be here?
“Please follow me, it is time for the trial.”
“Trial?” Her stomach flitted with renewed nervous tension.
Images of trials from stories flashed through her mind—Te’Vere, the famed hero from the Junathion reign, battling twelve dragons and leaving without a scratch on him.
Hozza Frost, who was ordered by King Agne the Wicked to mend his favorite tapestry in one single night, but given only a blunt needle, one candle to see by, and not a single stitch of thread—failing would result in the death of her entire family back three generations.
Hozza accomplished it, of course, as all whose names lived on in tales did; it was the failures who were forgotten, swept from history, and Hozza had the help of the gods and thick-stranded waist-length hair.
But the gods had abandoned them, and Audra had never even seen a dragon, as all magic-wielding creatures of course had left Khaveah along with magic, the fae, and the gods. And anyway—Audra’s unbraided hair was thick—but the strands, thin, would be impossible to weave into threads.
Twyla laughed, the sound lovely and carefree—it was so startling emitting from a fae being, Audra almost reeled backward at the sound.
“It’s not so awful, and it shouldn’t take long at all. Hurry, though, the next trial starts soon.”
Without a choice, Audra followed the girl slowly, glancing backward a few times, hoping to catch a glimpse of Wilder. Disappointingly, they exited the antechamber before Wilder emerged from the green curtain.
“What is an opinante, exactly?”
“I’m assigned to you. As you are a potential Heir, I’m here to serve you. Mainly to guide you in your holy studies, but not just that, I will also help you with your other lessons as well. Please let me know anything you need, and I will ensure you have it.”
“I see.” Audra nodded her head at another student who passed by with his own opinante, going a different direction. A different trial? Or had he finished his?
Audra followed the acolyte through a series of passages until they exited the temple.
They braced against the frigid wind, hurrying toward the castle.
“This building is called Central Main,” Twyla announced as she heaved open a heavy, iron-bound door. “After the trial, I’ll take you on a short tour while your results are calculated.”
They hurried through winding, interior corridors. Suddenly, Twyla stopped and thrust open a door, revealing a theater.
The theater smelled musty, unused. Tattered, raised velvet seats filled the majority of the room; the rest was filled with a wooden stage swathed in tattered curtains. She couldn’t tell what design had once been painted on them.
Audra was the last of the group gathered there, apparently, because the moment she took her seat, a fae male dressed in a tailored suit at the front urged everyone to reach beneath their seats—where they would find a quill, a vial of ink, and an assessment.
Audra felt around, her not-quite-numb fingers passing through what she prayed were frayed threads and not spiderwebs, before they brushed a thick envelope, a cloth sack with a quill, and a miniature inkpot.
She looked around as she pulled the contents into her lap, and it was only then that she saw that the theater seats held an oblong bit of wood attached to the arms that could be brought up and around as a sort of desk.
“Begin. You have a quarter of an hour—inability to answer all questions will result in immediate failure.”
A frightened murmur. What did “immediate failure” mean?
With shaking hands, Audra used her thumbnail to break the wax seal on the envelope and withdrew the papers.
Panic flared hot as her eyes flitted over the pages. She couldn’t read the text.
The writing was neither Khaveahan Common nor Ruscali, the tongue favored by the north, her first tongue. She glanced around with wide eyes, seeing others doing the same.
How were they to answer the questions if they couldn’t read them?
The male at the front watched them with a severe expression before his face cracked into a cruel smile.
“You should see your faces, you look like lambs lost in a meadow, no shepherd in sight. Here, this will help.” He turned his back on them and stepped up to the slate plaque affixed to a wooden stand center stage.
With a charcoal pencil, he drew a strange symbol on the slate.
Audra’s eyes lost focus as she watched him draw it, as though she were suddenly underwater.
Her brain felt a little like it sloshed to the side, as though she had fallen, and then, when he finished the final stroke of the last curve of the symbol, her eyes focused again. Her brain ceased its vertigo.
When she glanced back at the paper, the words had been transformed into her native tongue.
She ran her fingers over the printed letters; the ink was dry, the parchment was the same, it had not been switched.
This was the first magic she’d ever seen, and for the first time, it hit her that this was scary and terrible, but maybe it was a little bit wonderful.
The direction was clear: state her name, nameday, parents’ names, and place of birth at the top of the parchment, then answer the following questions to the best of her ability.
What color did the Azalla turn when it was held in your hands?
Azalla … the triangle metal object? Burgundy. But … what had Khari muttered? She wrote: “Autumn.”
The next question seemed nonsensical.
Do you believe that ghosts only linger because they have unfinished business?
Audra tapped her quill against the triangular desk.
Goddess, her feet ached. They burned. She gripped her quill, furious that the fae were quite aware that the humans had had to walk through icy water, that their feet were freezing, that her skirts were still mud-soaked, and that everything hurt.
She could hear the chattering teeth of the boy behind her.
“Ghosts aren’t real,” she wrote.
Who won the thousand-year war?
She glanced up at the fae at the front, who watched the clock. Time was passing too quickly. The alarm would ring soon. Would he be the one grading these assessments? Or was he simply the proctor?
She hesitated, her quill poised above the parchment.
Should she write that it was the fae who won?
Would they want their ego stroked? Or should she put the humans—if the bards were to be believed, the bards whose songs were written by the monarchy to uplift morale and spread devotion to the realm, that it was the humans who cast out the fae after they won the battle …
She scrawled, her fingers still thick, aching from the prolonged exposure to the cold: “In war, there are no winners—only the death of soldiers, the tears of families, the cries of hungry children. Even the wealthy elite pulling the strings don’t win, for their souls are forever stained with the brutality they wrote with a swipe of a quill, the stamp of their seal. ”
If you found an enchanted ring that turned you invisible, what would be the first thing you would do with it?
Audra slitted her eyes. These questions seemed to make no sense to her, follow no pattern that she could see. But it seemed as though this question was to test her sense of morality.
She imagined all the things she could do with a ring like that.
She could slip away from here, steal a ship, and return home.
She could slip unseen into any wealthy manor she liked and pilfer every golden candlestick, every pair of ruby earrings, every single bag of coin.
Or set her sights higher … She could thieve the gold from the bank’s vaults themselves.
Nothing and no one could ever hurt her again.
But she also knew something: If she ever found a ring like that, she wouldn’t tell a living soul.
Not one person would know … but there would be signs. Oh, there would be signs.
“I would return it to the authorities immediately. The ring is not mine and, therefore, not mine to possess.”
The clock chimed. Time was up.
“Leave your papers and supplies on the desks,” the proctor commanded just as the opinantes filtered back into the room to gather their assigned initiates.
Twyla stepped up to Audra with a ready smile. “Ready for the tour? By the time we finish, your guild should be decided, and you can pick out your room, change into dry clothes.”
“Central Main houses the dormitories, this is where most lectures will be held … But I thought it best to begin our tour with the dining hall.” Twyla pushed open a set of towering wooden doors, stepping backward into a cavernous chamber lined with storm-cloud-colored windows.
Round tables stretched into the gloom.