Getting out a mortar and pestle, I grind the violet flower down so it makes a thin paste. I then add this paste to the worm goo.The things I do.The thought slips through my mind, an internal eye roll to the Goddess.
There is one more ingredient, though. One more thing that makes the vicious dragon guarding the dark cave in my chest open his eyes and puff his smoke.He has been sleeping, but when I truly need him he makes himself known. A comforting presence in a disheartening world.
Argus is the keeper of all my secrets. A dragon of the old stories, soot black with the clearest eyes. I trust him to keep me safe from parts of myself that no longer serve me, all those lethal hard truths and devastating obstacles hidden away.Maybe it isn’t healthy for me to deal with my daemons by locking them behind others, but just add it to the list of oddly specific ways I’m coping.
Life’s greatest question, what does it all mean? If I knew maybe I wouldn’t need the extra help.
With my fairy’s breath remedy in hand, I make my way to my final destination for the night: High Priestess Cardinal’s chambers.
As I stand at the doors to her quarters, tracing my namesake into the smoothed wood, I ask Argus to step up one more time and find space to carry the new burden that is brewing behind the door in front of me.
My hands tremble as I grasp the door handle firmly and push.
I am met with a cloying smell of patchouli, turning my insides into ash—a bare tundra, barely accessible.
Argus is alert and unruffled in his guard duty as the once rhythmic beat of my heart petters slowly out.Eight rotations of this. How much can one person take?Each time, I come back more of a husk of myself than before.
Yet, I still crave the scraps Cardinal throws my way.
I keep my head down. My damp hair from my long-forgotten bath chills my blouse.
Thankfully, I managed to rustle up some clean clothing in the middle of my duties. I know the expectations of tonight’s ritual, and I am not here to relive the consequences of messing up. Not tonight. Afterlast night’s misadventures, I find no need to seek physical destruction as well.
My heart bleeds enough for both body and soul.
The room is barely lit except for a soft glow that emanates from the door towards the side of the room—Cardinal’s sleeping quarters.
She often splits her rhythm between the castle and the temple. However, she’s been preferring the temple somewhat of late, leaving gossip to spread like wildfire about the king taking another lover. Whispers on the wind have often expressed the king’s appetite for pretty things.
I tread quietly towards the door, hearing the crackling of an open fireplace. My body naturally cowers at the prospect.
Before moving inside, I whisper a quick prayer. The first thing I spot is Cardinal’s brown, fluffy wolf rug in front of the lapping flames, a long-ago relic of our illustrious past.
Without instruction, careful to avoid the dancing fire, I move to the centre of the rug, kneeling, head slightly bent, placing the small bowl of worm goo and fairy’s breath in front of me. I turn my hands to face upward on my knees as a sign of respect and devotion to the one Goddess, and I wait.
From my position, my eyes dart around in expectation.
I find the large four-poster bed draped in different shades of red cloth, white taper candles on two low wooden bedside tables. Gold filigree is interwoven in mahogany bedposts, creating a climbing vine. Birds of every colour and shape line the walls in flight, and a lone desk sits underneath a large bay window.
That’s where I find Cardinal, engrossed in writing, her hair cascading down her back and her body draped in a white silk robe. A picture of elegance.
My body freezes as I bend my head further down and continue my waiting game.
A quill falling and robe swishing are the only indications she is done. On silent feet, I hear her move towards me.
I tense every muscle of my body and release in a pattern of grounding—a trick I learnt from one of the older, nice priestesses when my floating mind sent me into a fainting spell after a particularly hard sun turn.
Coming within view, pale, wrinkled hands place a fine, pointed silver dagger in front of the bowl at my knees.
Feeling like a leaf swept within a harsh breeze, not even the warmth of the fire behind me can heat my back at the scene.
“It’s time to serve your Goddess, my child.” Those velvety sounds mince through my ears as I release a harsh breath and pick up the dagger, placing it on my left wrist over the small ceramic bowl.
The last ingredient.
My mind spins, my strength dissipating, so I lean on Argus, his wings outstretched, beckoning me towards a home—a home full of warmth, safety and protection.
At last, everything goes blissfully black.
