Page 15 of The Scarlet Star

She didn’t recognize herself when she looked in. A girl stood in a glittering dress with silk hair, a smooth face, and shimmering powders. Even Heva’s jaw hung open as she crowded into the mirror space to see better. The dirty gardener girl had vanished at some point in the last hours, and now a noble lady commanded the room.

“You still have scrapes on your arms,” Heva pointed out. “You’ll have to hide those. They’ll be a dead giveaway you’re not a Weylin noble if people see them.”

“Why? Are Weylin nobles invincible?” Ryn rolled her eyes.

Heva shot her a look. “They don’t hide when the Folke show up at their door, for starters. They don’t try to fight them, either. And they don’t sneak around at night, they don’t get their clothes dirty, and they don’t look so painfully afraid all the time.” The guardswoman swatted Ryn’s arm, and Ryn winced. “Snap out of it. Don’t you want to save your people?”

“Just because you’re an Adriel doesn’t mean you representallthe Adriel people when you speak to me.” Ryn rubbed her arm.

“I’m not an Adriel.”

Ryn looked Heva up and down, not that Folke armour or her silver-bead hairstyle gave any clues. “You’re not? But the Priesthood…”

“I’m of Weylin blood. I escaped a terrible home when I was little, and I found my way into a priestess’s temple not far from here. High Priestess Geovani took me in and raised me,” Heva said. “Speaking of which…” She glanced out the window and eyed the sun. “We’re going to be late, Maiden.” She headed toward the door, but she paused in the doorway. “Do you wantme to call youMaidenorRyn? OrEstheryn?” she asked. Then, before Ryn could answer, she decided, “I’ll call youMaidenin front of others, andRynwhen it’s just us.”

Heva led the way out.

Ryn scooted after her, keeping close behind. Her nerves fluttered along her skin as she thought about being ‘introduced’ to the King—especially in Marcan’s artwork. She wondered how many minutes were left before the introductions would start.

Down the hall, the other girls slipped from their rooms in dazzling gowns: pearl white with dark blue threads, black stitching over blue taffeta, wide organza cascading to the floor. Everything had the same feel—the dark blue sky, the silver stars, and occasionally, a golden sun. Emblems and hues to bring blessings to the King via their praise of the Divinities.

Heva changed direction. She slid into a dim adjacent hall and waved for Ryn to follow.

Ryn watched the other girls heading toward the Hall of Stars where Marcan told her they’d be announced. But Heva kept waving, so Ryn scampered the other way after her. They scurried down a dark corridor and around a bend where morning light broke through slit windows, bleaching the walls in long shapes and blinding Ryn.

“We’re going the wrong way—”

“Shh. Hurry!”

Ryn’s gold-spun sandals slapped over the floor as she tried to keep up. The gems in her dress rattled, and she imagined Marcan’s outrage if any broke off. She also imagined missing the Introduction Ceremony and alerting the whole palace that they should be suspicious of her.

“Heva,” she tried again, but Heva was jogging now.

Finally, they reached an arch that was too narrow to go in side-by-side, so Heva slid in first.

Ryn released a heavy breath before she followed, ready to demand an explanation from her guardswoman. But her lips parted when she stepped into the wide room that was crumbling yet looked more beautiful than the great palace atrium had been with all its dark blue murals and Celestial statues.

Beige stone walls enclosed a room of pillars, most of which were smashed or had deteriorated. Overgrown ivy spilled from a hole in the ceiling’s corner that was open to the sky, and soft tweets came from the heights of the domed space where birds congregated in the stream of morning sunlight.

Four inches of water also covered the floor.

“Heva, I can’t come in here,” Ryn said.

Heva glanced back at her dress. She doubled around and lifted the train of Ryn’s skirt, and they walked in that way—Ryn kicking through the water in her sandals. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” she asked, wincing as water splashed up her legs.

“This is the old temple, now called the Abandoned Temple after it was deserted when a groundwater stream burst through. No one’s bothered to repair it, so no one comes here,” a white-haired woman Ryn hadn’t noticed before explained from the centre of the room. The hem of the woman’s emerald green robe swished through the water as she turned around. She brushed her palms clean of birdseed, and Ryn watched it sprinkle into the stream.

“We only have three minutes,” Heva said over Ryn’s shoulder to the woman.

“Who is this?” Ryn whispered back to Heva.

The woman chuckled and waved a hand through the air. “Apologies, Estheryn. I’m Geovani, High Priestess of the Adriel God, representing the Adriels in the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces for the royal court.” She came a few steps closer, revealing a soft smile and bright eyes amidst many wrinkles.“You have a red ‘R’ painted upon your forehead. Did you know that?”

Ryn didn’t realize she’d taken a step backward until she bumped into Heva. Sure, Ryn had heard of visions. Visions from the Celestial Divinities were what gave the Intelligentsia their power and wisdom to govern daily affairs. Ryn’s mother had believed in visions but had then called the palace sages liars. Geovani didn’t have the look of a liar, but she talked like a crazy person.

Also, Ryn had just been looking in a mirror—there was no redanythingon her forehead.

Geovani raised another hand of apology. “I don’t know what it means yet, but I know you must be important. Sometimes an “R” stands forRevivalist, but I think we’ll have to wait and see with you.”

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