Chapter Three
She watched as they pillaged the sacred alters. There wasn’t much, but what was there they took and shoved into their sacks. The clay bowls. The candles. The iron symbol they had put on the wall in acknowledgment of the goddess Moyra, mother of all lost children.
The frail girl now hid behind the violet drapery that hung across the back wall. Through the thin material, Sera saw the one that had spoken to her. As he had instructed her to, she had taken the rope, and clenched in her tiny fist. But Sera, though gentle, had always had a small disregard for instructions. She had to do one more thing before leaving the Burial Grounds.
The girl had seen the worry in the kind Hilda’s eyes, and knew that he’d wanted her to run, as Ionia had ordered her to, as well. As soon as the men were gone she would find her friend, and then go.
They took their time. Sera watched them laugh and talk with each other, and her throat burned, seeing their carelessness. These were people who had just murdered hundreds, destroyed a service and a way of life that had survived for generations. For the first time in her short life, Sera had stirrings of hate. The emotion frightened her—she didn’t recognize it.
The Hildas had finished. Hoisting their sacks over their large shoulders, they left again. Sera sagged in relief. She didn’t know what she would do, but she would rather be alone than share the Burial Ground with those men.
She timidly stepped out, hunching her tiny body and staring around her like a frightened deer. Nothing jumped out, and nothing moved. She was truly alone.
Sera sniffed, more tears running down her face when she thought of Ionia. Where was she? Sera looked under the chairs, behind other drapes, around everything in the Prayer Chambers. They’d either buried her or taken her with, she thought fearfully.
Sera listened carefully as she entered the tunnels again, half expecting more sensations of death and chaos.
But this time there was nothing.
The Burial Ground had truly become its name.
The torches had been put out, and Sera stumbled about in the darkness. Never in her life had she felt so alone and desolate. Her mind was jumbled, anxious and confused. Why? It kept pounding against the wall of her head.
After she walked for what felt like years to her, she could see the flap of the Ceremony door up ahead. Covering her mouth to stifle more sobs, the violet-eyed girl inched forward slowly, reluctant to enter the Listening Room. She paused for an instant in front of the flap, reluctant and anguished. Then, trying to steel herself, Sera lifted it and stepped into the room.
The once-shadowed stone walls were awash with light, and she blinked, unaccustomed to the brightness. The entire ceiling was crashed in, and Sera could see none of the bodies of her Sisters and Elders and Old Ones, for which she was grateful.
Movement above. Glancing up, Sera saw that men still surrounded the ridge of the gap the missing ceiling had created. Sera drew back sharply into the doorway. They were dressed in the yellow robes of mages. She watched their mouths form odd words that she didn’t know.
The ground trembled. Terrified, Sera whipped around and ran back into the safety of the tunnels. Suddenly Sera was aware of faint colors at the edge of her vision. Life. Someone was still alive!
“Ah?” Sera called out, stupid and hopeful. “Ah?” She forgot all about the men that hadn’t seemed to leave yet, and shuffled around wildly in the tunnels, making sounds for any of her sisters to follow.
A hand firmly grasped her arm and jerked her to the floor. A hoarse sound of panic left Sera’s throat. Her eyes glowed as she struggled to recognize the color in her mind’s eye. Green…
There was a moment of stillness, the hand covered in sweat continuing to hold Sera captive, and then there was a flame, alighting both Sera’s face and the woman opposite her.
Sera’s heart stuttered, and then leaped.
Rinnane!
“Be silent!” the Elder hissed, and Sera had enough sense left to read her lips. “We are not yet alone.”
Sera nodded eagerly, crying in relief and pain. Ionia, Ionia’s dead—
“Not now, little one,” Rinnane snapped. “Now, we focus on survival. There will be a time for grieving later, when we’ve reached safety.”
Sera bit her lip. But her body, I wanted to say goodbye to her. Ionia—
“No,” Rinnane said sharply. “You do not want to see her body, Sera. It is best you remember her as you last saw her.”
The girl grew wild again. You know where she is? her hands signed. Please, show me!
“As long as I am alive, you will not see Ionia’s shell,” the Elder replied, voice lowered and furious. “It is not a sight fit for your eyes. But here is something I took for you, in case I discovered you were still alive. Seems I was smart to do it. Now keep it, and be silent!”
In Sera’s hands was gently placed a sigma—Ionia’s sigma. The one that she had always worn on her left breast. It had been a parting gift from Ionia’s father, as he went to try and settle a war among the Clans. He hadn’t thought it fit for a young woman to go on the journey with him, and the Sisters of the Oracle had seemed like the safest place to him, seeing as they had kept his wife alive from the Water Fever for a week—the longest anyone had lived with the fever.
Sera cradled it to her chest, sniffling. Sweet, sweet Ionia…
Rinnane tipped her chin up so Sera’s eyes rested on her face. “Follow me,” she said clearly, “and do not make a sound. Obey me without question when I tell you to do something.”
Sera didn’t even hesitate. She nodded. A man gave me money, she felt compelled to say, almost cowering at Rinnane’s expression of anger, but going on. He said to go to Winged, and perhaps get a position there as a servant.
The Elder’s eyes narrowed. “A Hilda?” she asked. Sera hesitated and instant, then nodded. Rinnane pursed her lips and held out her hand. “Give me the money.”
There was something dangerous and foreign to Sera glinted in her mentor’s eyes. She drew back for a moment, hesitating.
“Sera?” Rinnane frowned. “I know this is a day of horror and anguish, but we must prevail, as the others would have wanted us to. Ionia would have wanted you to live. You won’t know what to do with the money, but I do. I’ve been in the world much longer. Now give it to me, dear.”
Sera relaxed when she saw the gentle lines she knew so well deepen in Rinnane’s skin. She knew she was being silly.
She set the little bag of coins in the woman’s hand.
Rinnane smiled. “Good girl. Now we must go back to the tunnels. We will do as the Hilda suggested, and go to Winged. If this is a trick and there is some sort of ambush waiting for us”—that odd glow returned to her eyes—“we will not be surprised. They will.”
Sera moved her hands quickly. We are weak. Ionia was strong, and they hurt her—
“Do not question my judgment,” Rinnane cut in sharply. “You will do as I say, because my way is survival. Do you understand, Sera?”
Cowed, the girl nodded in the dying light. Seeing this, Rinnane turned her back with satisfaction. Sera bit her lip, trying to hold back her sounds of grief and fear.
But Sera’s bright violet, casting their hypnotizing color across the stone walls, eyes gave her distress away.
