Chapter XVIII #4
Dolenza nodded. Taking Fia by the hand, Ariana stepped forward.
She faced all those gathered—the sorias who’d stayed, the handpicked members of Orden’s court, the king himself, the Priest and her infant son.
The cloister children were in bed, and Ariana was glad of that—she could not have done what she was about to if Celina had been there.
If she’d been forced to reckon with tangible evidence of all the things she’d surrendered thus far, in her impossible quest to live up to Lyria’s highest precept.
With Fia’s hand still in hers, Ariana opened her mouth and began to sing. All before her was darkness and confusion, and into that twilight of the soul, Ariana made music to the goddess of peace she still loved above all else.
She chose one of the oldest hymns of the Beloved Three—a song made for three voices, one to represent each of the divine sisters.
It began sweet and transcendent, Ariana’s voice rising alone to the far wooden roofbeams and the smoke from the Inver fire gathered there.
The hymn was one without words, a call and a cry to break and remake weary hearts.
Ariana abandoned herself utterly to her worship—in it alone had she ever found freedom, and the perfection she so devoutly sought.
Her voice spiraled beyond them all, leaving the cloister behind, reaching to the gathering night itself, and the stars springing to life across its dark expanse.
Through the darkness, intertwining with the music she worked, there came a lower, achingly sublime sound.
Matria Dolenza, lending her voice not for Raea but for Silith, singing the call of the moon who pulled the tides along the shores, the blood through women’s veins, moving the dim and mysterious things of the world as she waxed and waned.
Dolenza’s voice joined Ariana’s, most often in harmony, occasionally shifting into a note or two of transcendent unison.
In their singing together, Ariana found her confusion over her goddess, over Orden, over Honoria’s fate and the politic games of nations, all slipping away.
There was only this. There was light. There was music.
There was the welcome darkness and silence in between.
Ariana thought she could hold no further drop of joy, no fuller measure of bliss.
Then, springing to life in warmth and power, Fia’s voice joined them like the sunrise.
She sang for Raea as she lived for Raea—fiercely, whole-heartedly, with an energy and conviction that put Ariana to shame.
She was the welcome light of day, the heat of midsummer and the slender, treasured hours of winter solstice.
She was life and growth and well-being, the mother who fed and nurtured and healed.
Her singing cast out the last remnants of shadow that existed between Ariana and Dolenza, between Lyria and Silith, leaving them bathed in the divine illumination that surpassed all others—the full and blessed light of the Beloved Three.
Separately, their voices rose, each taking the required part. Then in a last burst of music, a moment of pure peace, they fell into unison, rejoining the realm of the human and mortal and flawed with a final sustained note.
Silence fell in the chapel. How long they’d made their music for, Ariana couldn’t say. When they’d begun, the last pale blue of dusk still stained the western sky. Now it was fully dark, Silith sailing high in the long, open windows, the night a glory of burning stars.
On Raea’s altar, the flame Aurelia kindled had died utterly, not even a spark of it remaining.
There were still lanterns fitted with beeswax candles that bathed the sanctum with a golden glow.
By their light, Ariana searched the gathered faces again.
The sorias were in a state of near ecstasy—most had not even hoped to hear such music in their lifetime, Lyria’s daughters were now so few and so hated, Silith’s so wary and suspicious.
A few of the royal party looked far away, as if the music had moved them in ways they hadn’t expected.
Most seemed untouched, closed off and carefully guarded in this den of ancient and pagan worshipers.
It was Orden who mattered most. He’d wanted this from her—asked her for faith and for worship.
She’d shown him the truest thing about her, which was what she had left of both.
Eagerly, Ariana sought him with her eyes, and a chill ran through her as she found a war-ground on the king’s face.
Thwarted passion, yearning, and envy all battled for supremacy in him.
It had been too much, too quickly, Ariana realized with a sinking sense of dread.
She’d shown more than she ought to have, laying bare the farthest recesses of her soul that still rested incandescent and untouched, beyond the grasp of kings.
He wanted to know and possess her utterly, and she had revealed a hidden truth long understood by the daughters of the Three—that nothing and no one could be utterly known, just as they could not be possessed.
The highest calling a soul could answer was not to grasp for more, but to give, pouring oneself out over and over again as an offering, not of sacred blood, but of the sacred will.
Orden Inver, however, believed his will to be indomitable, inviolable, and a thing to which all others must bend.
He’d been taught so from the cradle and reaffirmed that belief when he took the throne.
Supremacy was both his crown and his shackle—the thing that raised him above others, and kept him chained there.
Tearing her gaze from Orden, Ariana’s attention fell inadvertently on the Priest. He still stood by the doorway, cast into intermittent light and shadow by the flickering lanterns.
The Priest held Justus close, as if their nearness was important to him, as if the presence of the baby could comfort him from some hidden hurt.
And after a moment, Ariana realized it was not only the shadows playing back and forth across the Priest that made it seem as if he trembled.
Though he could shed no tears, she saw by the heavy movement of his shoulders that he wept.
Dolenza drew the queen and Fia to the altar of the sun goddess, for the moment of silent reflection that followed an offering of song. Beyond them, the crowd gathered in the sanctuary began to disperse.
“Matria,” Ariana whispered, daring to breach their shared reverie. “I have a warning. I beg you to take care, for I fear that in order to make your realm his own, my king means to bring about your downfall.”
Dolenza only smiled, her eyes shut, her face uplifted to the likeness of the sun. “Orden Inver is not mine to check or govern, but yours. What will be, will be.”
“Matria,” Fia began entreatingly, and Dolenza raised a hand.
“No. Fia, you’re dismissed.”
With reluctance, the postulant moved away, and robbed of Fia’s presence, Ariana found herself angry.
“You’ve been goading Orden,” she accused, still in a murmur. “Why? What possible purpose can it serve?”
Dolenza opened her eyes and fixed Ariana with her relentless gaze.
“Consider that perhaps he himself is the goad, used against a power I have previously failed to move. Watch carefully in the coming days and choose wisely, Ariana Cultellus. I repeat: Orden is not mine, but yours. The fate of this cloister, of Honoria, and of the Hand rests in your care.”