Chapter XXXIII #3
“Yes, Matria,” Fia said suddenly. “I’ll make my ascendancy oath.
But I warn you, my judgments will not always align with yours, and there are conditions to my acceptance.
To begin with, half the cloister’s incaendium powder must go to Silas Inver for the Progenitors’ War.
He won’t hold the throne without it if Gileta does not renew her ties and trade with the Invers, and he will need it as a threat to keep Afon in check, even if Song Royale does ally with us again. ”
“I would not have chosen you to succeed me if you gave way to my will in all things,” Dolenza said with equanimity.
“As for the incaendium, consider it done. It will not be the first time Raea’s house has taken sides in a war with the hope of ending it more swiftly or forestalling other conflict. Is there anything else?”
“Miriel.” Fia looked over at her little golden daughter, and her love for the child was a cloister of its own.
Indomitable, unchanging, and brilliant in its potency.
That would never alter, no matter what other cares took root in Fia’s heart.
In many ways, Dolenza had achieved her goal.
She had widened the scope of Fia’s consideration and the number of her affections.
But in this, she had failed. All that Fia did still proceeded from this one perfect font—the love she bore for Miriel, and her desire to see her daughter grow up in a better and brighter world.
“Promise me that for as long as you are Matria, you will keep Miriel set apart from any scheming and politicking. She must be untouchable, no matter who would seek to use her or how effective a tool she might be. I will not serve as your intendant otherwise, and I claim the same promise for Celina. Ariana’s children are as good as my own, and while the other two are beyond my influence, I will have this for my daughters. For Miriel Raeana and Celina Inver.”
“A fair bargain,” Dolenza conceded. “And no less than I asked for my own children and spouse when I made my ascendancy oath. I trust in time you will come to see every child under the cloister’s roof as yours, and sacrosanct, just as I’ve done.”
“Your children?” Fia asked in astonishment. “I’ve not heard a whisper of you having a family, Matria.”
Dolenza smiled in her placid, enigmatic way.
“No. Only Aurelia knows of them, and now you. You choose to protect your dearest one by keeping her close. I choose to protect mine by keeping them far from the business of Raea’s house.
I won’t deceive you, Fia—I plan to pass Raea’s mantle to you as soon as you can bear up under it.
My family has been everlastingly patient over the years, but I should like to enjoy my grandchildren and our land while I’m still possessed of my full strength and wit.
I’ve been on the watch for you for a long time. ”
Celina tugged at the hem of Fia’s sleeve, wanting to be held. She lifted the girl and settled her as she issued a warning. “I’m entirely unschooled, Matria. It may take a decade for you to prepare me to assume your role. Someone with more learning would make a quicker successor.”
“It will take the time it takes,” Dolenza answered, unbothered. “I’ve accepted your terms without argument. Now let me hear your oath.”
“At once?” Fia asked in surprise. She gently warded off Celina’s reaching hand, as the small girl attempted to pat her face with fingers caked in earth.
“Yes. It needn’t be anything formal—this business is between you and I and our goddess. Swear to Raea that you’ll take my role when I’m gone, and work on behalf of peace, and that will be enough.”
So on her knees among the vegetable beds, with an Inver child in her arms, Fia became intendant of the greatest house of the Beloved Three.
“By Bright Raea, goddess of my mark,” she said, “I swear to learn what is necessary, and someday take the place of the sun’s servant, Dolenza Raeana. As the goddess’s voice and hands, I will be a steward of peace in Honoria and beyond. If I fail in my oath—”
Fia faltered. Her gaze caught on the children around her, growing strong and glad and clever in the rarefied atmosphere of Raea’s house.
She ached for Justus, protected from his own conniving people only by the fragile threads of the Priest’s and Nikolau’s devotion.
She imagined Ellimere, being raised as Ariana had been for a devotion so costly it could kill.
She thought of the young Corrinians scattered across the Hand or left in their failing homeland, bereft of security or safety.
She considered the child she herself had been, and the brutality of her earliest years.
Dolenza was both right and wrong. Fia did not need time to see every one of them as sacrosanct, and worthy of her fiercest defense.
“And I swear,” she said, her chin jutting out defiantly, her eyes sparking, “that whatever it costs—my own body or blood or conscience—I will see peace flourish across all of the Hand before the span of days granted to me has ended. But I will pay the price for it. Myself, and no other. If I fail in this oath, may the sun strike me dead.”
Dolenza let out a slow breath. “An ambitious oath, and more than any of us have asked for in centuries. I see you’ll be a Matria of my own bent. One who never chooses to do things simply, when you can walk a harder and thornier path instead.”
“I was born for hardship and trouble. How could I have it any other way?”
And thinking of all she’d done and all she had yet to do, Fiametta Raeana smiled.