That maybe shehadbeen able to invocate. And maybe … she would have been Matched with someone.
Perhaps a prince with eyes as cerulean as the sea.
But as she left the room behind, following the flock of other women in various shades of dresses to match their magic …
Ezer caught a glimpse of herself in full.
She looked like a true Sacred, the mask concealing nearly every dark, raised scar on her face. Her hair was lovely, cascading down her shoulders and back in perfect ringlets. Not a snarl in sight, thanks to Izill.
She belonged here. The wards had proved it, when they let her in. She had a job and a purpose, a mission to complete …
So why did she still feel like a Ravenminder locked away in a tower?
Because you are not like them,her mind hissed.Because you are still a mystery to yourself, despite all you have discovered.
She curled a fist around her mother’s ring.
And as she left the dormitory behind, her gown glimmering in the torchlight …
A part of her still felt like she was dragging her old chains.
Absolution took place in the training room.
A comfort, at least, that she knew the space by now. But when she entered, expecting to see the enormous room bare …
She found it transformed.
Music flowed from the right, where a group of musicians plucked at stringed instruments. Tables and chairs had been brought in, piled with food and desserts in elegant displays that towered far over her head like sculptures themselves.
Masked Sacred drank from golden goblets: the famed blue winterwine that could only be harvested in the north.
Ezer had never seen true dancing, beyond snippets of what she’d witnessed in rundown taverns with Ervos.
But here … the Sacreddanced.
The middle of the room was a whirlwind of every pillared shade, as Sacred Knights and Scribes spun about like they’d been practicing for centuries. Their movements were elegant, sweeping, perfectly in time to the strings.
And for a moment, with the late afternoon light spilling through the window wall, the dancers concealing the Expanse and the shadowstorm, far beyond the glass …
She couldpicture the war being over.
She could imagine the end of the Acolyte, and a world like this – the jewel of the north – being safe to go on as it pleased.
Forever… instead of just these few, fleeting hours. For when true night fell again… death would return like a promise. And some of the Sacred hiding behind these very masks, sweeping past her on the dance floor…
They would become nothing more than swords in the snow.
Nothing more than names on scrolls.
Ezer smoothed her gown and made her way to the winterwine table, needing a distraction from the emotions that washed over her.She’d tried ale and wine before, but she’d never loved the feeling it gave her. The loss of control.
She’d seen too much, what it could do to someone like Ervos.
A pang of sadness hit her anew.
Gods,she missed him.
She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted him to meet Six, stand at her side, help her with …
