2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two:
~Keida~
Avaris preserve me .
Vien give me strength.
Davros…keep me sane. This woman is going to kill me.
Every solstice there are three things guaranteed to happen.
I will be the only sober cleric within the castle by the end of the night.
Including Hierophant St. Augustine. After spending weeks dusting, cleaning, and blessing the holy halls, I will wake tomorrow to two trashed pews and a paladin strung up by his small clothes to the rafters, somehow.
And I will spend most of the day not protecting the halls but instead being dragged all over the kingdom by Melrose St. Augustine.
If they’d told me that the divine blessing of being picked to be Lunar Cleric under the Hierophant St. Augustine also came with being irrevocably and unapologetically in love with his daughter…
I would have laughed. I was not looking for romance.
In all my years, I vowed that I never would.
My heart belonged to the church, to Avaris and the gods.
Then I stepped into his back office on that fateful day, having been brought from my original temple under Cardinal Janus, to the Cathedral at the side of the mountain…
and found the prettiest woman I’d ever seen (forgive me, Eluvia) rushing to cover herself.
A torrid affair on her father’s desk with some faceless knight, it should have disgusted me or should have left me with a sour taste on my tongue. Only a fool desecrates a holy place!
All it did was make me want her more. Melrose could flirt with the sky itself, and I’d still yearn for her. With every toss of hair off her shoulder, every twirl of her skirt, every single bat of her eyelashes, I was doomed.
On the solstice her father sent me out to ‘have fun’ with Melrose and I spent the entire time trying not to fall more in love with her.
Avaris preserve me. Vien give me strength. Davros keep me sane.
“Oooh! Yes, two please,” Melrose giggled, snapping me out of my head.
I blinked back to reality and found her talking with one of the many food vendors that lined the outside of the cathedral.
The snow dusted over every roof within the castle walls, making the carts steam from the warm food inside them.
Melrose shivered as she rubbed her hands against the outside of her sleeves.
I rolled my eyes, already undoing the clasp on my cloak.
Unlike her, I wasn’t wearing 2 layers of silk for the first day of snow!
We live nestled against a mountain, Melrose, what were you thinking?
I knew what she was thinking. She believed that dress draped around her like a dream and made me want to feel her in my hands.
It made me want to throw my gloves to the ground and grab her by the hips, see if I could find where her breath hitched when I dragged them up her sides. Goddess above, save me.
Clerics are allowed to have relationships outside the church.
We are permitted sex and flings and dalliances.
It wasn’t that I refrained from pleasures of the flesh—not that there was a single soul here who caught my fancy OTHER than her—it was that she was the Hierophant’s daughter.
Akin to being a knight and trying to sleep with the heir to the throne, her father would have my head.
While Melrose wasn’t a cleric, she was off limits.
A fact known among the Order: Hierophant St. Augustine was very protective of his daughter.
Any cleric worth their salt who wanted any chance of ever doing more than small baby shower blessings and aiding sniffling noses knew to keep their hands away from Melrose St. Augustine.
That knight who was on their knees in full plate armor, tasting her nectar on the first day I met her? She is a guard for the north tower, never to see anything but snow and ice and rock for the rest of her days.
And if I was going to be Hierophant someday, goddess permitting, my hands would stay at a reasonable distance from her tempting hips.
I dropped my cloak onto her shoulders and cursed myself as I wrapped my arms around to clasp it closed in front for her.
Doing so meant my gloves brushed against her exposed collarbone and I felt her shiver even through the leather.
It didn’t help that I could smell the floral soap wafting off her hair or feel the warmth seeping out of her skin to fill the air.
Melrose straightened, twisting to see who it was dressing her.
I pulled away, bowing my head respectfully.
“You ought to wear something thicker for the winter solstice.”
“And cover up all my hard work?” She huffed, and yet, she dragged the cloak in tighter around her.
“Maybe designing thin fabric gowns is ill-advised,” I countered as I stood up straight again.
Melrose opened her mouth to talk back, as she always did, but stopped as the vendor popped up with our skewers.
Her face immediately brightened and she gushed about how good the food smelled.
One of my many things that I loved about her was that Melrose St. Augustine wasn’t like other children of powerful people I knew.
She was kind to service workers, smiled at babies in the church pews, and did a lot of community service without having to be told. She genuinely liked helping.
And even when I hadn’t asked, she bought me a large skewer full of roasted meats and glazed vegetables.
She turned, offering the steaming, glorious collection of roasted items impaled upon a stick.
It smelled wonderful. My stomach groaned, desperate to have some as I took it gingerly from her fingers.
The first bite was worth the little scorch marks on the edge of my tongue.
Mouths full of rolling smoke like dragons as we tried to eat the burning hot food, we stepped out of the way to allow other people a chance to purchase. She giggled after swallowing, “Maybe it’s ill-advised, but I’m not really a woman for reason or sense.”
You can say that again.
I studied her oval face from behind my skewer.
Long, loose curls of chestnut hair, a strong, straight nose, button sized white dots across her satiny ears to match those on her fluffy hips, and plump lips always pulled into a teasing smile.
Her honey brown eyes blinked up at me before crinkling at the sides as she smiled bigger.
“Come on, don’t tell me you only wear your cleric frock. ”
“Frock?” I scoffed.
“It’s got no form! No shape!” She scoffed, waving a hand at me like there was any shape for the dress to hold other than flat.
I was skinny. I have always been skinny.
Orphaned fae dumped on the doorstep of a poor church when my circle disappeared into the night, never to be heard from again…
plus the whole ‘putting meat on my bones’ was hard.
It wasn’t that I had a bad relationship with food.
I love food. It just seemed like food didn’t love me.
There were many things I couldn’t eat: strawberries, watermelon, red onions, anything coated with paprika (yes, I am very upset about that one), bell peppers, and most types of fish.
Any of those would make my body break out in dangerous hives or close off my throat if I didn’t hurry off to a healer.
Unfortunate side effect of one’s throat closing up, not being able to cast magic.
To my delight, my skewer was definitely death free.
I could taste the butter, the salt, the pepper, and garlic of course, but it was missing the powder that would certainly end me.
When I peaked at hers, I found hers also mysteriously not coated in the usual array of spices that vendors tended to dust their stuff in.
But, unlike you, Melrose St. Augustine, I’m flat as a board. She could wear a potato sack and still be high fashion.
“I have no shape,” I grumbled.
“Pfft, yes you do!” She rolled her eyes, tearing off another piece from her skewer.
“How would you know?” I rebutted.
“Everyone has shape, and good clothes show that off,” Melrose spoke between bites before swallowing. “I could make you something if you’d ever let me see what you’ve got underneath that dirty brown frock.”
“These are cleric robes!” I defended, motioning at my thick, albeit brown, robes that wrapped around the simple, thick wool underdress.
“It’s garb. So bland and tasteless it doesn’t even deserve to be called robes.
Robes have more than a hem and a rope belt.
” Melrose licked her lips clean. I watched her pink tongue swipe across them, and I felt like Avaris stared deep into my soul from over my shoulder.
No better than a hungry wolf staring at a limping lamb.
Those honey orbs flickered up to my face and blood rushed to my cheeks.
I turned from her, taking a rather robust bite of my food, and chewing it hard as if I could stamp down the feelings roiling in my gut.
“And what would you have me wear? Two silk layers covered in beads and gold?” I charged forward toward the field of bushes and trees that made up a make-shift park.
The cathedral was nestled nicely between stone walls and thick trees.
A path was carved through the trees toward the main part of the city.
However, as Melrose caught up to me, she swiped my arm away from my side and steered me in the direction of the more intimate flower garden.
It was a circular tunnel covered in ivy and many wildflowers growing over the awning.
The exit spat out in a maze of flower beds, where even in the dead of winter, butterflies and birds roamed about.
Glamorous magic. A waste of resources, but who am I to judge?
I spent hours enchanting a tapestry, so it never settled lopsided and thus was always perfectly hung. We are all beasts of habit.
At the center stood a circle of stone, the six gods carved into the silvery marble, all with altars for praying at their feet. I bowed my head, but I noticed Melrose stood, frozen in place. When I straightened, I glanced at her in question.
Her eyebrows knitted on her face as she stared deep into Avaris’ sweet expression. Avaris was always depicted as motherly. A tall, robust woman in flowing robes with long hair and a pleasing smile. She looks like home to me.
“Melrose?” I murmured.
“I’d dress you in a single layer of silk, a pearlescent blue with little white floral details like snowflakes,” she breathed, twisting to face me again. “And I force you to dance with me under the stars in it just so you could see how pretty you look in it.”
“Pretty?” I blinked rapidly but her gaze returned to Avaris without hesitation.
“Do you think Our Lady ever puts someone to rest and regrets it? Regrets taking them from us too early?” She spoke so softly I almost didn’t catch it. Oh.
I stammered for a minute. Because what COULD I say? Her father was the Hierophant. If anyone in all the kingdom knew the sermons and hymns backwards, it would be Melrose.
It didn’t take a fool to notice Melrose’s mother wasn’t in the picture but was in every portrait.
The Late mother of my Melrose was in every painting I found behind the closed doors of the cathedral.
Our Lady Avaris apparently took Affinia St. Augustine seven years ago on the winter solstice.
Lung rot, an affliction she fought with since she was a young child.
Saved by none other than Leonardo when he was but an acolyte.
I imagined being a 14-year-old girl stuck in a moldy well for a few days when a random 16-year-old cleric just happened to go to get water and find her…
it doesn’t matter how much magic there is in the world.
Some things can’t be fixed. Even with the Hierophant as her husband, the late Affinia passed on in the middle of the night.
Everyone talked of her like she was a saint—endlessly kind, caring, generous, and funny.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that Melrose always acted extra extravagant during the winter solstice.
And as her gaze moved away from Avaris, to question my silence, I found myself without a witty quip or informational sermon to give her.
For what could I even say? A child who knew their parents their whole life only to have them ripped from their fingers was a far crueler fate than mine.
At least I never knew mine.
“I think those who preach that everything Avaris does is for a reason forget to mention that we can never understand her design. As it’s not a design one can see with their mortal eyes. And to try and glean something from tragedy is only a study in pain…and suffering for yourself.”
Melrose gave me a half-hearted, damp laugh as she dabbed away tears from her eyes. “Are you saying I’m no goddess?”
I chuckled, “If I did, it’d be heresy and you know that.”
“Boo,” she giggled, giving me a nudge with her shoulder as she turned away from the garden of the gods. “You’re no fun.”
“I can be fun,” I snorted, following after her.
“Oh yeah?” She scrunched her nose in my direction before finishing off her skewer.
I could tell she was trying to squash the wound that bled all over her pretty sleeves.
And thus, the reason I didn’t fight going out with her every Wintersdark.
As much as it tormented me to be by the one woman I wanted with all of my soul but could never have…
I couldn’t leave her alone with that grief.
Not till she was finally ready to put it safely in Avaris’ hands and let herself move on.
So, every year, I let her drag me all over the kingdom, my resolve growing ever weaker with each passing year, simply to ensure she smiled.
And maybe that’s why her father always insists.
Melrose tossed her skewer into one of the magical pouches that allowed for recycling wood, then clapped her hands clean of her snack. “Prove it.”
“Prove that I’m fun?” I scoffed.
“Prove that you’re fun and I’ll grant you a wish.” Melrose planted her hands on her hips, her right eyebrow arching in challenge.
“What are you? A fairy godmother?” I scoffed with a roll of my eyes. Ha, ha, I’m a fae, real funny. I’d never heard that one before.
“I’m the daughter of the Hierophant, so basically, yeah! I’m your fairy godmother.” She shimmied her shoulders a little with flair. “But if you think you can’t prove you’re fun…”
“Fine!” I huffed, snatching her hand. I tried not to think about how warm her palm was or how easily her fingers wove in mine. But if I’m being honest…the only thing I want to wish for, Melrose St. Augustine, is the taste of your lips on mine.
Which is exactly why I pray. Avaris preserve me. Vien give me strength. Davros keep me sane. This woman is going to kill me.