In her wake marched Stoneye. He was a powerful form indeed, bigger and handsomer and sadder than all the other eunuchs serving in the temple. Unlike many of them, he had offered himself freely into the temple’s service, knowing full well the fate of any man who lived in the presence of the Flame. Now, mute and sorrowful, he was ever in the high priestess’s company, her most devoted slave and bodyguard.
The priestess descended the temple steps, Stoneye close in her shadow. Her dark eyes studied the girls presented before her. Mouse had never felt more ragged and foolish than she did then, painfully aware of her humble clothes. She shivered though the day was meltingly hot. But her hair was lovely, and it flowed to her waist.
The high priestess’s gaze fell upon her and stopped. Mouse felt her heartbeat in her throat.
“This girl,” the high priestess said, her voice strangely cold in that blistering heat. “This girl will do. Send the others to the acolytes’ house to be fitted out. I’ll take this one into my personal service.”
Unbelieving, scarcely breathing, Mouse was shuffled away between two eunuchs into the temple and her new life devoted to the Flame.
Now, she fled it.
Through the temple corridors she ran, a small, ragged phantom. This place that over the last four years had become familiar, if never truly comfortable, now seemed a world of dread. Her bare feet made no sound on the polished stone, and she avoided the torches and braziers burning at intervals.
Like a thief, she slipped from shadow to shadow, past the lower priestesses’ living quarters, the acolytes’ house, and the barren barracks, where the eunuch slaves slept at night. She met no one. At last she approached the arched gate. There two guards stood watch, and she knew they saw her coming.
Mouse hastened on without pausing. She saw one of them step forward. He opened the gate, pushing the heavy door aside, then slid into the shadows along the wall and turned his face away.
Neither guard acknowledged her. She passed through the gate and out to the open grounds beyond, hearing only her own panting breath and the thud of her running feet for several moments.
Then the clang of the gate shutting behind her.
The blue star glimmered high above. The blue star, and the fire blazing at the top of the Citadel Spire.
The fire was never permitted to go out. Throughout even the darkest, most storm-tossed nights it burned. And before dawn the high priestess would rise, prepare herself with ceremonial washings, and climb the long stairs to tend that blaze in the presence of the goddess.
It became Mouse’s duty to help her in these morning preparations. She was unskilled at first, her goat-girl’s fingers clumsy and unused to fine fastenings and delicate sashes. Often she wondered that the high priestess did not replace her with a more adept acolyte.
But the high priestess never spoke a word of either praise or complaint. She merely sat, her face quiet, and watched the fumbling girl clad in black robes as she fetched gems and sashes and always the circlet of woven starflowers. Stoneye, arms folded, stood by the wall with his gaze downcast. Their silence unnerved Mouse, but she hastened about her duties and learned as quickly as she could.
A month into Mouse’s life at the temple, the high priestess finally addressed her as she worked. As though Mouse had passed some sort of test and now deserved acknowledgment.
“I once had hair such as yours,” the high priestess said.
Mouse paused while lifting the great black wig to her mistress’s head. Beneath the wig the priestess was nearly bald, her scalp covered in burns. The high priestess reached up and touched that ragged baldness now, her face a little sad.
“I had fine hair,” she said, “thick and shining.” Her throat constricted as she swallowed, but her face was otherwise stoic. “Loss of beauty is but one price we pay for the sake of purification.”
“You are beautiful, Speaker,” Mouse said. Speaker was the official name by which all the sisters of the temple addressed their high priestess, for she alone spoke to and for the Flame.
The high priestess smiled gently. “I was beautiful,” she said. “Now I am strong. Do you believe I am strong, Mouse?”
“I do,” said Mouse. Though it was hard to say with sincerity after a month in the high priestess’s service. Yes, the Speaker was strong in command, could order the lives and the deaths of all within the Citadel grounds or the sprawling lowlands beyond. But physically, she shuddered in a breath of wind, and her hands, arms, and neck were covered in burns. Another part of the rituals, of serving the Flame. But her face was like granite, unflinching in the service to which she had devoted herself. “You are strong, Speaker.”
The high priestess again touched her burned scalp, then motioned for Mouse to adorn her with her wig. “We are all of us like clay,” she said as Mouse worked. “Clay that must be put through the fire to achieve true strength. And even then, when dropped, we shatter.”
She took the starflower wreath for herself and placed it atop her head. “Even as the Silent Lady underwent torments to fulfill the will of the goddess and save us from the Wolf Lord, so must we endure any pain to which the Flame calls us. For the good of our sisters. For the good of ourselves. Do you understand, Mouse?”