~ Kimber ~
I’d never owned a black dress.
Lunella chuckled and brought me one from her closet.
“We’ll get you plenty more. I’ve made a few when I couldn’t find something that worked.”
“Do we always have to wear black in public?”
“Oh, no, not at all! Black is our… hmm. I guess you could say our working color. Just like the style we wear is our working style. No one expects you to wear a dress while you’re at the carnivals!”
“A relief,” I mumbled.
She poked my shoulder. “I’ve seen your closet, Kimber. You also need to spice up your regular clothes as well. How did Elex put it? Every exciting shade of beige you could imagine!”
“That bastard…”
But I was grinning. He might be a bastard, but he was my bastard, and having him around was a lot of fun.
I picked a few stray hairs and threads off the robes of the station—they were nothing more than a fancy embroidered stole with a hood—and brushed them flat.
Again.
I was nervous. More nervous than I had ever been before. The black dress hid most of my tremors of fear, but I had clenched my hands to keep them from shaking.
The private ceremony at the temple a week before was really just a ritual breakfast. There was a small short ceremony where I signed my name to the Roster of Masters and the others sealed it with their magic.
After, everyone got drunk at the usual breakfast and wandered off at some point. The word anti-climactic was probably not strong enough.
But the ceremony I was preparing for now? That was the real deal. The one where the people of S’Kir were introduced to their new temple mistress. Where I had to sit on the council and hear complaints and make judgments with the others.
Being new, I wouldn’t be charged with hearings on my own for a few years yet. I was required to sit when the council was impaneled.
“You’re still shaking,” Mistress Maurielle said, grabbing my hands.
“I’m being announced as a master. It’s not what I wanted. It’s not what I dreamed. Teaching was always enough for me.”
Mistress Sora put a hand on my shoulder. “You will be fine. It’s because you are a teacher that the people will be overjoyed to find you here.”
“There are only three cases we will hear today, ceremonially,” Mistress Ophelia said from her seat. “We’ll be there less than an hour.”
I shook my head. “And then I get to go to the training garden and have Master Dorian beat the shit out of me again.”
Lunella chuckled. “It’s not Dorian this time. It’s the five of us.”
“We are all unique,” Mistress Maurielle said. “And if you watch each of us, you will slowly find your own unique brand of magic.”
Lunella straightened my stole one more time. “The only person I have ever seen with magic as intricately woven as a female’s is Master Dorian. I fully believe his first teacher was a woman, be it mother or wife or sister.”
Drawing a sharp breath, I jerked toward her. “Wait. So the bending I saw in Master Dorian’s magic—”
Mistress Sona nodded. “Is not the way men wield power at all. He is unique.”
I chuckled. “That’s why the other men have trouble fighting him. They can’t work magic like he can.”
Ophelia nodded. “It’s why they don’t like fighting us.”
Lunella laughed. “They can’t figure out our knots and bends and loops when we use it. Every woman is shown how magic works by not less than three other women.”
