Page 4 of House of Gilded Nightmares

I’m thinking about the sound of my name rolling off the tongue of a stranger.

Chapter Two

The cathedral is aglow with the light of a thousand candles which mirror the blanket of stars that can be seen through the translucent amethyst dome above. A glittering night sky that would usually comfort me, but not tonight. I am too unsettled by the ceremony, too unsettled by the dream.

I feel a stir in my chest, the urge to flee from this glass menagerie. My life has led to this moment, and yet it feels surreal.

I don’t belong here.

My eyes stay down, head bowed as I walk toward the altar at the far end of the huge, circular room. I smell the stone of the walls, musty and tinged with time. How many others have performed this same ceremony, stood here on a night just like this, waiting for their fate to be decided for them?

But I know this night is not like the others before. Because this night is the first Choosing in over two centuries, the first since the return of magic to Aureon. For two hundred years, the magic was trapped in Illiare, in the City of Night, all the way across the continent from where we now stand. And then, twenty-five years ago, it was freed. But the magic did not return to all of the citizens. It only returned to a few: the High Priest and a handful of children. Me, Lilette, and the others we grew up with.

I feel the electricity riding in the air, feel the weight of the High Priest’s gaze as the tolorah walk closer and closer. We spread out in a semi-circle around the altar, about twenty feet from where he stands, the coriata standing behind us. The smoke from the nearby candles tickles my nose, and I fight the urge to sneeze. Next to me, Lilette stands so close our arms nearly touch.

Neither of us wants to be here. I wonder if it’s obvious to anyone else, just as the longing of the other tolorah, their desperation to be Chosen, is so apparent. Every one of us should want this, the greatest honor in the Amethyst Palace and, therefore, the greatest honor in Eldare. The High Priest and his consort create magic through their union that fuels the magic for our entire realm and will return magic to everyone, not just a select few. There couldn’t be a more important duty in all the land.

Lilette’s reason for not wanting to be Chosen makes sense. Mine, however, is merely traitorous.

I can still hear the echoed words of the Vor Kyran over the years. More than two decades during which everyone in Eldare waited for the first generation of those born with magic to be ready for the Choosing. Words she’d spoken over and over when she’d found me breaking some rule, usually the use of magic outside of a sanctioned ceremony. “You are ungrateful and selfish, Sarielle. Girls across all of Eldare would die to trade places with you…”

And I wish they could. I would gladly trade places with any of them. I’d never asked for this burden.

When the magic returned to the realms of Aureon, it hadn’t been the blessing everyone expected. At first, no one but the High Priest could summon it. It took a few years for them to realize that those born after the magic returned could potentially wield it. Not many, but a few children were born each year touched by magic. Those who possessed it were sent here to live in the Amethyst Palace and learn to use their power. Other than me, of course, who was merely abandoned on the doorstep.

Tonight, after all this time, they hope to find the one who will join with the High Priest and bring balance and prosperity to the land. The union of the High Priest and Priestess ensures that magic continues to bless us. Never has that been such a frenzied need as it now is, after losing magic for so long. This Choosing, of all the ceremonies held over countless centuries, is the most vital.

I see it in the haunted eyes of the coriata surrounding us. They’d lived through a time with no magic at all, and they’d endured all these years raising and training those who possessed what they did not. There is so much hope riding on the results of the ceremony tonight. A return to the golden era of a time long past, when Eldare was thrumming with magic and the Amethyst Palace full of those who could wield it with ease. Not just hope, but pressure from the royal family of Eldare as well, the king and queen. Whispered rumors of their displeasure with the High Priest and the lack of magic can be heard in the halls of our palace every night.

The ceremony begins soundlessly. It’s so quiet it seems I can hear the beat of each individual heart in the room. The High Priest begins by stepping to the altar, hands raised high above his head. Two of the coriata approach, each carrying a small silver bowl filled with water that has been blessed. Carefully, reverently, they wash his hands, purifying him of all earthly flaws.

Next, two different priestesses approach with bowls of fragrant, burning herbs. They move in a circle around the High Priest, fanning the flames with small wooden paddles, bathing him in sweet-smelling smoke. This is the final step in cleansing the spirit. The High Priest closes his eyes in reverence and contemplation as they work. The smoke rises high above their heads, spiraling toward the dome overhead.

The High Priest opens his eyes after several long moments. Then he steps to his right and lights a tall, black candle, and to his left to light a tall, white candle, which together represent the balance of magic in the world. Next, he lifts a long silver dagger from the altar. Lifting his other hand, he makes a small cut along his palm, closing his fingers around the sharp blade. He holds his bleeding flesh above a tall silver goblet and lets several crimson drops fall within.

The coriata step forward, one by one, to let him take their blood as well. An offering to the dark goddess, the one who took magic away for over two centuries, and the one who even now we must appease, lest we lose it again. As meager as the magic has been these last two decades, it is better than no magic at all. Every day we pray to the goddess to continue to bless us with this gift.

I watch the faces of the priestesses as they approach the altar, one by one. Serene, still. Not a single one flinches as the blade cuts them. They make this offering each week, after all, the cut always in the same place, never quite healing. An ugly red reminder of the debt we owe and what we stand to lose. They don’t even keep them bandaged for more than a few hours, just enough to stop the bleeding. After that, they go about their lives, ignoring the raw skin, feeling that bite as they move about their days.

And tonight, I will join them.

Tonight, I become one of the coriata of the Amethyst Palace.

All of us know what comes next, so we do not need instruction when the last of the coriata makes her blood offering. The tolorah standing on the far right soundlessly moves forward to present herself to the blade for the first time. When she stops before the High Priest, he takes her palm and draws the blade across it, just as he had for the coriata. I watch the next woman walk forward, and the next, and the next.

Lilette is fifth in line to make her blood offering. She approaches the High Priest with slow and steady steps, eyes cast down, face blank. Nothing of her thoughts or emotions can be seen as she approaches him, and when he draws the silver blade across her skin, she does not so much as blink out of rhythm. I wonder if she’s thinking of the meadow.

And then it’s my turn. I approach the altar and the High Priest. My eyes flicker up for the barest of moments. His eyes seem intent on mine as I approach, and I try to remember if he had looked at the other women in the same way. My heart accelerates slightly, and I fling my gaze back to the floor, focusing on the tips of my boots peeking out from beneath my long velvet cloak with each step.

I stop before him and hold out my hand. His fingers are soft on mine where his skin touches, too soft. The blade is cold where the tip of it presses into my flesh. The High Priest’s thumb presses into the pulse at the base of my wrist to hold my hand steady, and he brushes it in a circular motion across my skin. A cold sweat breaks out along the base of my neck.

For the first time, I imagine what it might be like to have to perform the duty of High Priestess, consort to this man. And I don’t know why here, now, I’m thinking this for the first time. I have never considered it possible that I would be Chosen, but feeling his touch against mine and his breath against my cheek, I want to yank my hand out of his grasp. It’s not that the High Priest is an unpleasant-looking man, though I know he’s more than a century old, long-lived as most of the magic users are. But something about him makes me recoil, makes me very much pity anyone who must perform those sacred rites to appease our goddess.

But then the sharp tip of the blade bites into my skin and moves slowly along my palm, opening a line of brightest crimson along my pale skin. The pain is a welcome distraction, and I realize for the first time why all these women endure it with such grace. The High Priest releases my wrist and I let several drops of my blood fall into the goblet. Then I turn and walk back to my place in the line of women before the altar.

It is done, then.

I watch as the remaining tolorah, the women I have grown up with my whole life, all follow behind me, offering their blood and their service. When the last of them returns to her spot in our row before the altar, there’s a moment of deep silence. I feel a hum in the air, as if the night above is pressing in on us, trying to seep in from beyond the dome. And then, the High Priest finally speaks.

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