Page 1 of Unlikely Omega

1

ARIADNE

Time for the evening ritual.

My bare feet whispering on the stone floor, I walk over to the niche, where the sacred candelabra are set. There I light three slender candles and whisper an incantation and a prayer, touching my forefinger to my chin over my black veil and then my bare brow.

Trying to ignore the people filling the council room just like they are ignoring me.

Everyone ignores us Temple acolytes and disciples. We’re tools used when needed and otherwise forgotten. We eat and breathe, perform our rituals and carry out our chores, but we’re not important, just a part of the Temple.

I grew up forgotten in this place, in Artare, in a Temple in the province of Tauri, far from the Central Capital and the Central Temple, far from the commercial bustle and politics and the energy that visitors from the capital carry with them like a sparkling, hot aura.

An acolyte of Goddess Artume shouldn’t mind being forgotten, being ignored as I move around the room, chanting the incantations of keeping and protecting the four cardinal points.

Artume is, after all, a lonely goddess—or rather a goddess who likes solitude—living in the wilderness, hunting animals when she’s not befriending them.

I’ve always wondered why I was dedicated to her. Doesn’t sound like me.

Though I do like the martial-like dances of her rituals, with the bow and arrow, as well as with the sickle blades twirling in my hands. I perform at every dawn and dusk, and I like the strength it harnesses in my limbs and the calmness it lends to my mind, even if briefly.

What more could I ask for, right? A child given to the Temple. An unremarkable human, a woman who won’t ever taste the joy and tears of a family, of motherhood or the sacred bonds of mating.

What do I exist for?

My goddess. I exist for my goddess.

And yet… Look, I know it’s blasphemy, but the question is… is that enough? Should it be? And is the mere doubt an act of sacrilege?

Words from the discussion around the oval table filter through my thoughts and it does occur to me that the talk is more heated today than on most days when the council convenes. In fact, didn’t they just convene two days ago? What’s going on?

An acolyte of Artume should be quiet and detached, her mind like a star over a forest, cold and relentless, spinning in its own light.

“But the Fae were exterminated!” Councilor Saran Kaidan exclaims, slapping his hand on the marble table top.

I flinch.

Yeah, I’m not much of a star. My blood thrums in my veins as curiosity grips me, digging like talons inside my head, and not only because of his uncharacteristic outburst.

Nobody speaks outright of the Lost Race.

Tearing my gaze away from the intricately carved dragons that form the door frame of the council room, the door through which I should be stepping right now to continue my daily ritual cleansing of the fort, I glance at the table.

Councilor Saran Kaidan’s face is flushed with anger. The others look distinctly uneasy, fidgeting with their silver goblets and studying the tapestries hanging on the walls, depictions of battles from the Fae War. Another reminder of the people nobody wants to talk about.

The Fae. Aloof and beautiful, patrons of the arts and sciences. Separated into Courts – the Koryvans, the Silmarans, the Celembrans, the Baccharans, and the royal courts of Day and Night. So alien to us, and so familiar at the same time, they left behind the foundations of what became the human civilization.

Councilor Mazarine Elend has her gaze on Kaidan, like me. “Don’t be a fool. No race is ever fully gone, much less one so powerful. Such power cannot be deleted or even checked. Or such beauty.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Kaidan says, still red-faced, and looks at me.

Why is he looking at me, and why am I looking back? I’m invisible, an initiate, a neophyte in the fort and the Temple. Not that I’m new here. I actually grew up here and Goddess Artume has claimed me from the start, or so I am told. I can’t hear her voice in my head like other acolytes say they do. We don’t often hear the voices of the gods nowadays—so that’s not so unusual.

I step back, hastily lower my gaze, busying my hands with another candle. I lit one already but if anyone asks, I feel bad energies in this room and it needs an extra hit of purification.

Nobody would question the will of the goddess, surely. Don’t look at me. I’m only here to light the candles and check the crystals, to pray and purify the rooms.

So much purity and innocence, a veil for the intrigue and plays for power in the Temple ranks, but anyway, for me, it’s all crystals and hymns and the sacred dances for a hunting maiden goddess.

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