The man straightened and turned. The Keeper of Rhyssa. Old, but not fragile. His robes were simply brown, unadorned save for the bronze clasp encrusted with a fire symbol at his throat.He had the kind of face that had weathered many nivalens without losing its kindness.
He had taught her everything she knew about faith, and just enough of what she didn’t.
“Ah,” he pondered, smiling. “Only the gods know.”
He bowed slightly to her and she stepped closer. He smelled like smoke and dried herbs.
“It’s been some time,” he remarked, straightening up.
She looked around the room, at the quiet flicker of the flames, the old symbols painted into the stone floor and worn half away.
The priest tilted his head, considering her as he always did before answering. As if every word might be his last, and he wanted to mean it.
“You’re not here for rites,” he said.
“No,” Evelyne admitted. “I’m here because I needed to.”
“A better reason than most.”
The priest drifted aside, letting her approach the fire.
Evelyne knelt before the white stone sculpture; her knees pressed into the woven red mat that had warmed in the hearth’s glow. The statue of Rhyssa loomed in front of her. Soft and serene, almost present.
The Great Hearth. The Mother. The patroness of women’s roles and all the delicate things men tried to name with reverence but often reduced to duty.
She tilted her chin up, studying the goddess.
The sculpture had been carved with care. Perhaps too much care. Rhyssa was well-figured, sensual almost. Her robe draped generously across ample hips and arms, her breasts high and round beneath folds of stone that looked more like velvet than marble. Her lips, slightly parted, were the kind of mouth Evelyne imagined inspired lustful poetry. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in thick waves, each strand meticulously etched as if the sculptor had loved her just a bit too much.
Praying had always made her skin itch. She didn’t like the idea of whispering wishes to an invisible power in hopes it would answer. What did it mean to surrender to a deity with thick hips and a knowing smile?
She sighed quietly and folded her hands on the stool, though she didn’t close her eyes.
Maybe she envied it. The quiet conviction of people who could ask for things. Who could kneel and unburden themselves and believe something was listening. Maybe it was easier, after all, to put it on someone else’s shoulders. To say, “This was the will of the gods,” instead of:I failed.
Her gaze drifted toward the hearth, to the slow-burning flame.
If you ever watched, Rhyssa... if you keep what’s sacred, then let this not be wasted. Let something good come of it. Just let it not end in blood.
She was not one to be ruled by feeling, yet something shifted low in her stomach. She exhaled, watching her breath rise in the air, warm against the cold.
“How do you feel, Your Highness?” the priest asked.
Evelyne remained still, eyes fixed on the folds of Rhyssa’s robe. There was a small chip in one of the sculpted toes.
“I feel,” she admitted, “like I’m asking questions to someone who doesn’t answer.”
He said nothing. Just sat there, waiting like it was his first language. That was one of the reasons Evelyne liked him. Where others tried to fold her into neat comforts or pious lectures, he only ever offered space. Sometimes silence. Often questions.
“So why do you ask?” he asked after a moment, gently.
Evelyne exhaled and leaned back slightly on her heels. The fire popped beside her. Rhyssa said nothing.
“I keep thinking there’s some version of me that already knows how to do it all,” she went on, eyes still fixed ahead. “That woman walks with dignity, speaks with ease, gives her husbandexactly what he needs and her people even more. She doesn’t flinch when they call her empress. She doesn’t forget to eat, or wonder what would’ve happened if she’d saidno.”
Her whisper cracked at the end, and she swallowed it down like something poisonous.
The priest’s voice came, calm and slow. “That version of you does not exist. She never did.”
