The Empty Ones (Fantasy Romance)

17. The quiet clues

What does your faith in the world depend on? For me, for a long time, it was hard to tell, but in my fourth star circle at the priory, I pretend to have an answer to that. I thought it would be the relationship you forge, the ones based on trust and love. That silent acknowledgment was shattered by the unexpected discovery of that foggy morning.

Sarella had murdered her sister and disappeared. She had killed the sister that loved and cared for her and who she at least pretended to love back.

Not even a star circle ago, another murder had happened, when The White Grace commanded that girl's heart to stop beating. By any means, death wasn't a stranger in the priory, nor in my life, but this time it was different; it hit harder. It had been one of us murdering another and that was a blatant statement that you could never trust anybody. And what a hit that was if the only thing you wanted to do was to trust.

All the change that happened in the past star circles between the girls in the priory, how they became more willing to help and trust each other, became suddenly noticeable because things shifted back in one single day.

A dead body and a fugitive made them lose faith in people too, even if they couldn't pinpoint it or didn't bother to think about the cause. Everyone became their most frightened and mistrusting version. Somehow, everyone was expecting a new attack.

Itotia was manab, born in the faith of Zenith. Our traditions require her to be set with clay in her hands on a blazing pier on a river or sea, to find, pushed by the winds, through fire and water her way to the realm of the gods. I didn't know if she actually believed in the gods or if she was like Mairi but it was certain that the small spring that crossed the monastery ground could not hold a pier afloat nor could a pier just float out through the small gap in the wall the spring was flowing through.

As a consequence, Itotia's body was burned on a pyer in the priory square, and her ashes were spilled into the spring. I was the only other girl close to her age that held the faith of Zenith so I was the one saying the burial prayers for her.

I did not really want to, but the White Grace said I should and one does not say no to her, least of all in that moment.

The day before I kept reading frenetically the rite. My father never took me to watch the funeral services he performed, so I didn't see a lot of them. The last one I saw was ironically his. And that hadn't been precisely a moment if my life when I paid attention to my surroundings a lot.

My hands and my voice were trembling when I stepped in front of Itotia's pier. All the girls and the sisters were watching.

"No pressure, Weedy. She is dead. Dead people don't mind," joked Mairi in her characteristic rude way. This particular time, I didn't find it funny at all.

"Through flames and water, clay, and wind, you shall find the way to the never-ending light." My voice was trembling so badly I felt like choking but then I thought about Itotia, how she deserved that I pull myself together and do that right. I swallowed and thought of my father, how he always thought I would likely embarrass him since he never wanted people from court to see me.
"May the gods extend their hands and guide you, so you find eternal happiness. Like clay, wind, fire, and water, mean both life and death, so the parting from this world shall not be an interruption to your journey. Fire, water, clay, and wind shall tie both ends of our existence together in this world and in the better one."

I felt like in a trance. The words just poured out of me, clear and undisturbed, and when I forgot the exact sentence I just said what I thought would fit and make sense. In the end, I lowered the torch, set the pier ablaze, and returned to my place between Mairi and Fera.