Page 88 of A War of Crowns

Talia

Talia was awake when her mistress, Skatia, arrived to fetch her from isolation at last. She had spent three days drenched in darkness and silence, as was customary—fasting from all food, all water, and all influence from the outside world.

The Cleanse, it was called. A time for communion with none other but Our Lady Below Herself.

The first day had been the hardest. Talia had never thought she was afraid of the dark until it surrounded her. Slowly smothering her in the small cell that held nothing more than a cot and a hatch-covered hole in the floor through which she could relieve herself.

There were no windows. The door was sealed shut. Nothing had greeted her in that quiet save for the sound of her own breath and the thrum of her pulse.

Not even the voice of Our Lady Below.

Talia had waited, andwaited, hungry for any sign her goddess was with her. She thirsted for any recognition at all, more than she thirsted for the water the Sisters denied her during the Cleanse. But there was nothing. There was always nothing.

There had always been nothing.

She wasn’t sure why she thought her Cleanse would be any different. She wasn’t special. She wasn’tchosenas Skatia had been.

And she most certainly wouldn’t be surviving her trial.

Eyes staring into the nothingness above her, Talia lay there, unmoving, until the door flew open on a loud scrape of wood against stone. Rolling away from the door onto her side, she squeezed her eyes shut against the blinding light pouring into her dark, tiny prison.

“Today is the day,” came a familiar purr from behind her, and Talia relaxed at the sound of Skatia’s voice. She parted her lips to answer her mistress, but no sound came.

Her throat was too hoarse. Her mouth was too dry.

“Are you ready?” Skatia asked her after a small span of silence.

Talia nodded and pushed herself to a sitting position. She swayed from that minuscule physical effort alone, weakness clinging to her like wet fabric—heavy and damp.

Cautiously, she cracked open her eyes, slowly adjusting to the light.

“Did you hear Our Lady Below while you fasted?” her mistress asked her next, and Talia nodded again, more quickly this time.

It was easy enough to lie when one had an excuse not to speak. But still, Skatia’s eyes crawled all over her—those gloriously golden eyes she had always envied, beautiful andother.

Scouring. Searching.

She was too much of a coward to meet her mistress’s gaze in those moments.

“Good,” Skatia eventually declared, and some tension eased out of Talia’s shoulders. “Then let us go. Your trial begins shortly.”

After three days of doing little more than pacing and lying on a hard cot, Talia wasn’t sure how she could be so tired. But she certainly felt that exhaustion all the way to her bones when she rose to her feet and followed Skatia through the narrow doorway and out into the world.

Thirst gnawed at her, leaving her thoughts turned toward nothing but the burble of the fountain whispering in the distance. Her hunger had ebbed into a dull nothingness long ago. But the thirst? It was maddening—so much so, she almost didn’t notice the fact that she was being marched through the temple grounds by a couple of Witchsworn she had never seen before.

The towering brutes flanked her on either side, pressing in close as if wary she might try to escape her fate.

Talia pushed aside the twinge of hurt plucking at her heart at the realization Skatia thought she needed to be under guard. Perhaps it was simply a custom her mistress had to observe, as ordered by the Mother.

There was no way for Talia to know for certain. She had never witnessed another apprentice undergo their trial before. Only full-fledged witches could witness such a thing.

She had never heard of an apprentice trying to flee from their trial either, though. The trial was simply the way of things, once one was promised to the Order of the Sisterhood—either by choice or by misfortune.

One underwent the trial to become a full-fledged witch, and they either survived and joined the Sisterhood or they died in the attempt.

She had known for many years her fate was to be the latter.

Talia only vaguely remembered the day her father had brought her to the temple after her mother’s death. She remembered the day Skatia chose her as an apprentice with a good deal more clarity, though.

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