It’s all so familiar, yet I feel like a stranger, here.
I stomp up the aisle, my nightgown billowing, my expression hard. The High Priestess freezes. Her long white robe swishes, her hair swaying against the backs of her knees.
My hand finds my necklace. Curls around the crescent moon pendant and yanks. The chain breaks, the snap echoing in my ears as the necklace comes away in my hand.
I reach the altar and slap it down, my palm stinging against the marble.
The High Priestess aims a stricken glance at it. Then up at me. “Sariah…?”
“I renounce Ishanna,” I say, loud enough for everyone to hear. Shocked murmurs circle the room, the resulting silence dense enough to touch. “I renounce the Book of Disciplines and everything in it. I have no use for a goddess who demands obedience, then refuses to show an ounce of caring. Who takes everything and gives nothing. Who asks us not to truly live. Do you hear me? I renounce her. I renounce this entire way of life.”
That prompts a chorus of gasps, and I spin on my heel and march back the way I came, my sudden burst of energy already sliding back toward despair. My limbs lighten and turn fuzzy, my blood fizzing strangely as I…
I pause. Brynne and Evelyn stand before me, blocking off the aisle, the looks on their faces unfamiliar. They stare at me, their mouths open, their eyes as round as dinner plates.
And…good goddess, what is this feeling zipping around inside my rib cage? Am I dying? Am I flying? I pause, look down at my hands, at the odd white glow emanating from my skin. It brightens and brightens, searing my eyes, swallowing me up. Warm flutters cascade through my body, swirling through every crack and crevice of me before finally dying away.
When I can see again, my sisters are as still and pale as death.
“Ishanna help me,” Evelyn murmurs, one hand flattened against her chest. “Sariah…your Grace. I can’t believe it. You finally got your Grace.”
Chapter 29
In spite of the fact that the retinue dispatched to Velindra won’t return for another few days, my father hosts my Gracing celebration that night.
I attend. I have nowhere else to go, and I can’t muster the energy to fight Evelyn and Brynne. They’ve maneuvered me into a stuffy gray dress, and now I sit in the dining room at the head of a table set with the china we only use on rare occasions. Platters stretch before me, but they offer only standard fare, hardly an upgrade from what we usually eat.
It doesn’t compare to a fae dinner. Or even a fae lunch.
Conversation surrounds me, but I sit stiff, unfeeling, a wooden puppet with a hollow core. Now and then, I catch hold of words, enough to surmise that my Gracing has somehow overshadowed this morning’s display of rebellion. My family seems to have collectively decided my antics can be ascribed to my recent ordeal, and no one brings up my public renunciation of Ishanna. Not even my father. It’s like it never happened.
Easier for them that way, I guess. Easier than asking why.
I pick up my fork, push a bite of boiled potato around on my plate. Set my fork down again.
“Not hungry?” My father sits to my left, as is tradition—theGracing celebration is the only time an Aethrolian monarch cedes the head of the table. Now he gazes at me with soft eyes, his anger over me “losing” his most precious asset apparently forgotten.
No surprise, because I’ve been Graced with a talent Aethrolia hasn’t seen in generations. One that makes me even more valuable than Carina.
“No,” I rasp, my voice unfamiliar. It’s as hollow as the rest of me—raw sound with no true meaning. “I’m not hungry at all.”
“Well, you should eat. You’ll need your strength. I’ll have you start working at the treasury tomorrow.”
A scoff falls from my lips. The treasury, where I’ll use my Grace to make my father richer than he already is.
Dryness prickles in my throat. “Doesn’t having unlimited money go against the principle of austerity? Violate Ishanna’s teachings?”
My father pops a bite into his mouth and frowns. “If Ishanna hadn’t willed this, she wouldn’t have Graced you with duplication.”
Duplication.
A rare blessing. So rare that I can’t even remember the name of the last Vandenore that received it, only that their reign was characterized by an abundance rarely seen in this kingdom.
I pick up my fork again, weigh it in my hand. Some new force lives inside me now, and I let it flow, let it surge to the tips of my fingers. When I drop the fork,twoutensils clatter to the tabletop. Both real, both indistinguishable from one another. They’ll stay like that for as long as I let them. For all time, unless I take them in my fist and let my magic flow in reverse, collapse them into one again.
This will be my life now. Duplicating things—coins and valuables, whatever I’m asked. If I wanted, I could duplicate this whole set of china, use a new one every day and smash it at the end, which wouldn’t matter because I’d already have made ten more for tomorrow.
The possibilities are endless.
