"To ensure this, you will undertake additional meditations. Three hours each evening, focusing on the Litany of Chains. Perhaps repetition will cure what contemplation has infected."
Three additional hours. That would mean six hours of meditation total each day, on top of the dawn ritual and other duties. It was punishment disguised as prescription, designed to exhaust me into compliance.
"Yes, High Keeper."
She studied me for another long moment, searching for cracks, for weakness, for any sign that I was my mother's daughter in more than blood.
I found the stone beneath her gaze. Then, with the precision of a blade finding its mark, she spoke.
"Breakfast. Now."
The command left no room for argument. I followed her from my quarters, the corridor stretching before us like a throat waiting to swallow. Other Keepers emerged from their doors as we passed, grey robes rustling against stone. Each one bowed, eyes averted, not to Natalia but to me.
The last of Pandora's line. The sacred vessel.
The holy prisoner.
They revered what I represented and feared what I might become. None dared meet my eyes, those unsettling amethyst marks of my bloodline. In five years of bleeding for the Gate, not one had spoken to me beyond the requirements of ritual and protocol.
Except Ellie.
The great hall's doors groaned open, revealing long tables of dark wood and benches polished smooth by centuries of use. Keepers sat in perfect rows, eating in perfect silence, performing the morning meal with the same rigid discipline they brought to everything. Spoons rose and fell in unison. Bread was broken at precise angles. Water was sipped at regulated intervals.
Natalia's hand pressed against my spine, steering me toward the high table where senior Keepers sat. But I resisted, just slightly, my feet carrying me toward a smaller table in the corner where a lone figure sat surrounded by empty seats.
"Keeper Pandoros." Natalia's voice could have frozen blood.
"I require consultation with Keeper-in-training Eleanor regarding the kitchen rotations." The lie came smooth as silk. "She was assigned to inventory duties this week."
Natalia's eyes narrowed, but protocol was protocol. Kitchen management fell under my limited purview, one of the few responsibilities they allowed me beyond bleeding for the Gate.
"Five minutes."
She swept toward the high table, black robes billowing like storm clouds. The other Keepers carefully didn't watch as I made my way to Ellie's corner.
Eleanor Fairweather was everything a Keeper shouldn't be. Where we were meant to be austere, she had smuggled color into her appearance through a ribbon holding back her honey-colored hair. It was technically permitted, technically grey, but it caught the light like captured sunshine. Where we were meant to be silent, she hummed under her breath, too quiet for anyone but me to hear.
"You look terrible," she said the moment I sat down, not bothering with formal greetings. "Like you've been wrestling demons all night."
If only she knew how close to truth that was.
"Kitchen duty," I said, loud enough for nearby ears. Then, quieter I asked, "How do you always get corn bread? They gave me porridge again."
"Because I smile at Cook Marcus." She pushed half of her bread across to me. "And because I don't terrify him into compliance like certain blood-blessed Keepers who shall remain nameless."
I took the bread, trying not to devour it too quickly. The morning ritual always left me ravenous, my body trying to replace what the Gate had taken.
"Did you hear about the frost?" Ellie continued, chattering as she always did, filling the silence I couldn't. "Formed all along the eastern wall this morning. In the middle of autumn! Brother Francis claims it's an omen, but Brother Francis thinks everything's an omen. Last week a pigeon flew backwards and he nearly called a full conclave."
She talked about kitchen disasters and training mishaps, about which Keepers were feuding over prayer schedules and who'd been caught with contraband honey cakes. Her voice washed over me like warm water, normal and human and absolutely oblivious to the fact that the Gate had turned gold just hours ago.
I ate mechanically, responses automatic. "Mm." "Really?" "He didn't."
But my mind was elsewhere, replaying that moment when the light had changed, when something had shifted in the foundation of everything I'd believed immutable.
"—and that's when the entire pot of soup exploded," Ellie finished with a flourish. "Are you even listening?"
"The soup exploded."
