Vestera is many years older than me, and the only mother I have ever known—though not the one I was born to. She doesn’t acknowledge my arrival; she is deep in her focus. I fold my cloak and place it on the ground so I can kneel at her side. I peer into the surface with her as she occasionally passes her hand over the water, causing ripples in its shiny surface.
I try to quiet my mind of all questions and wait for her attention. I breathe the tension from my body, as I was trained to do so many years ago. Minutes pass quiescent between us; they always have, ever since I was a small child in her care. Silence is where intuition can be heard, not with one's ears but with our hearts and minds.
I enjoy these hushed moments with the Lady. There was a time I slept curled into her side every night, waking from time to time to find the bed empty and cool without her. Her constant presence throughout my entire twenty-five years has been both a balm and a pressure on my spine. The weight of being the ward of the Lady of the Isle is knowing you must always strive for excellence, even when you are unmoored or unwell. This is not to say she holds me to some unique standard; all of my sisters here are held to the same. We are the students of Naedra, goddess of the land of Elemyr and teacher in the ways of the below. We all carry our calling with reverence.
This sisterhood is sacred.
The longer my eyes remain on the water, images begin to take shape in its dark reflection. Unfamiliar landscapes, circles of stone, and hillside villages appear before me. People of every variety smile up from the waters. I do not know them. The Lady’s hand glides out again, and the ripples scatter the images back into the night.
After the pool settles again, I wait. I breathe. A set of eyes that are similar but don’t quite match my own. They are green and sorrowful. They stare into my very soul. It changes again, eyes the color of the rich loam soil of my Isle home, crinkled at the edge, and filled with worry, complication. Then, just as quickly, the eyes are blue. Rimmed in dark like the sea at midnight. These eyes pierce deeply into me, and it's almost as if I can see the gentle features around them before it fades again into the ripples.
A long time passes before I see anything else on the face of the water. Wind sweeps away the glasslike surface over and over before it becomes still again. Slowly, a murky group of figures comes into view. They appear harrowed and dirty. There are great mountains behind them. Their skin is red and chaffed. They hold each other tightly against the icy wind, two men and a woman. The snowy peaks rise before them, small and inconsequential. Their features aren’t clear, but somehow? My stomach tightens with certainty. I sit with this, breathing the tension out of me and back into the ground with each slow exhale.
I am one of the three figures.I do not know how or why, but the truth of it is visceral in my body. The water stirs with the wind once more, and the vision is gone.
All I see now is my swaying reflection in the water and the reflection of my Lady. My long, near-obsidian braid hangs heavy and forward from my left shoulder, and my cream shift loosely falls across my chest. My skin is as pale as the milk from our goats, but there are bluish grey shadows under my eyes.
Dark brows are heavy on my face and pinched with focus. For a long time, that is all I can see.
I have never considered myself to be a great beauty, nor have I considered it of great consequence if I were. I am taller than the average woman, and I am strong from my work here. More often than not, I am hauling materials to maintain our dwellings and hunting fowl for our meals with my bow. It is a good body, with strong shoulders from the use of my bow, and long, heavy thighs and calves. They have always seemed to me to be sufficient to take me wherever I need to go.
It’s a beautiful thing, I know, to live on an island of women and girls. Men may come here to entreat the Lady for her wisdom, but hardly are we to engage with them. Their opinions of our beauty bear no matter to us, and so we spend our time meditating on feeling well, strong, and growing wise. This is as I have been taught to do, measure their interested gazes and answer according to my own will—and that of Naedra.
Truth be told, I occasionally enjoy gazing at them as well. The dedicants and brothers from the Isle of Men and from Elemyr sometimes spend our feast days and rituals with us during a sun cycle. We are free to interact, and sisters are allowed to share our bodies with whomever we choose. They come during the celebration Rites to honor Naedra, Caelestis, and Nerine. I have had my own entanglements, who have looked on my soft stomach and deep curves bared to the light of the pyre or moon with approval. When coupling is over, they leave, and I return to my life; it is as simple as that.
Finally aware of my presence at her side, the Lady Vestera turns to me with a small smile and knowing eyes, and I snap my attention back to the present. “Daughter.” Her voice is rich and low, but there is a hint of familiarity that many never hear from her. She appears weary.Weary with me?I wonder? I lower my eyes and turn my body toward her. She lets out a long breath and places her palm on my cold, bitten cheek. I close my eyes at this gesture of affection, and I lean into her silent blessing with relief. I let out a long, even breath. She didn’t summon me here to witness Naedra’s call because she was disappointed in me. In her way, I am important to her, as are all of the sisters here.
When I was a small girl, she spoke to me always kindly, even in reproach or lessons. I have been a woman now for many cycles, and while the affectionate tones are sometimes replaced with stony teachings, I know in my heart that she loves me as if I were her own flesh, not just an orphaned girl brought to her Isle to be an initiate to the teachings of the below. It is a great honor and responsibility to be the chosen daughter of the Lady, one I will never turn away from.
Her hand falls away from me, and the Lady rises to her feet, slowly righting her azure gown and straightening to her full height. She is an imposing figure, not tall, but she carries her title in such a way that she is regal, a Queen in her own right. When she speaks, she speaks with the authority I have always been awed by.
“My child. Naedra has spoken. The dedicant of the Land has been chosen.” I turn my head fully toward the Lady.
The sun has started to peek from behind trees across the waters, and the Lady is bathed in a soft golden glow, divine in her declaration. Who has been chosen? Why was I summoned here to witness this? I wait for her answer, and her face grows rueful. Slowly, the realization washes over me like I had slipped into the pool by mistake. I am chilled to the bone and more awake than I have been this entire morning. Not dread exactly, but disbelief washes over me in waves.
“Me?” I whisper, eyes wide.
“You.” She says, authority marking each word with meaning. “My child. Naedra has chosen you to represent her in the next Trinity of rulers. You will be the representative of the land. The next Queen of Elemyr.”
CHAPTER TWO
Vonetta
The next hours pass in a haze for me.
As if I am not in my body, but observing it from above. We walk to the Hills and raise a beacon that the northern Isle, the Isle of Men, will see. There, somewhere beyond the shores of my home, someone will be relaying the message to the priests that the dedicant of the Land has been chosen.
The Lady speaks in low tones to me as we travel past her dwelling, a quaint building not much larger than the one I slept in this very night. Before we reach the hills of Naedra, she tells me what little she knows of the current highborn— the eldest son of the King and Queen of Elemyr. He’s not much older than me, two cycles more. He has only one sibling, a younger sister.
He has known his whole life that this day would come. I have had but minutes to internalize this shift to my own future. I have always imagined I was training to be Lady of the Isle someday, as Vestera has no children born to her. At the very least, I had a surety that I would remain here, teaching the next generation of girls and learning everything I can about the spirits of our land. But everything…everything will be different now.
In three days’ time, the messenger will reach Ilyora, the capital, with news of what took place this night, and I am afraid.
“Lady,” I pause, waiting for further assurance that I may address her. She nods her assent, and I continue, “I have always done as you have asked of me. But I feel…” I pause, searching for the right words. “Humbled by this task.”
Her smile now is wistful, not so dissimilar to the one she gave me at the mirror pool. She lifts her chin and peers into my eyes when she speaks to me.
“Child, this is not merely a choice. You witnessed Naedra’s wishes—as did I.” She takes my hand into her own as we walk onward. Hers are thin, each bone felt in my own hand. But she is strong in her grasp, grounding me.
