Daughter of the War Read online

  Once, Sister Padal had sent her to the bathing cavern to scrape moss from the walkway for blinking too frequently as she recited a prayer. It was there that Rea had first met Sister Magora.

  Magora’s wisps of gray hair were hardly enough to cover her head. Patches of shiny scalp peeked through in places, though there wasn’t much she could do about it. The sister’s milky eyes saw only shapes and shifting shadows, and her knobby old fingers moved at a snail’s pace.

  Rea had been terrified of her, but as the pair worked together side by side, a comforting kinship had blossomed.

  Magora spoke of her own Calling, many years before most of the current sisters in the temple had been born. The high priestess had been among her peers. They had taken the same classes and even shared a room in the daughters’ dormitory.

  Magora also recalled Lyra, though she spoke softly and only briefly of the late priestess who had shown her kindness and respect. The confession warmed Rea’s heart, giving her hope, and despite fearing a fate similar to that of the Sister of the Hearth, Rea vowed to do the same, to offer kindness and respect to all the Moon’s Chosen, no matter their faction or treatment of her.

  Rea leaned against the carved mouth of the kitchen and loosed a relieved sigh. She was surprised and grateful to have made it this far without collapsing. The pain and exhaustion were taking a toll, but she pushed herself upright and shuffled inside to replace the brush and bucket under the stone slab that ran the length of the kitchen.

  It was dark at this hour, the pendant lamps over the slab all extinguished, and the hearth against the far wall smoldering with the charred remains of a black locust log. Rea took a moment to warm her hands over it and then hurried out of the kitchen and past the empty classrooms, eager to find her bed.

  The corridor widened at the far end. Three sets of stairs were carved into the stone—one in the center that led down, and two that curled upward on either side. Rea took the stairs on the right to the daughters’ dormitory. She was quiet as she snuck into the shared nook, but Nyna had waited up for her.

  “Great Mother,” Nyna hissed as she threw back her covers. “I thought you only had to clean the floor outside the dining hall. What did you do to earn another lashing?”

  “I slipped and fell too loudly.” Rea eased onto the edge of her bed and offered a faint smile. This was the first time Nyna had spoken to her all week. She didn’t blame her. Whenever Tawndra was in one of her moods, none of the other daughters so much as looked at Rea for fear of drawing the priestess’s attention. Not everyone was built for the demands of sisterhood.

  “I’ll get the salve,” Nyna said, leaving the comfort of her bed to fetch the healing balm Rea kept in a wooden box at the bottom of her robe basket. Sister Rashal had shown her how to make it from honey and yarrow during her fifth year at the temple. That was after Rea had mastered the sisterhood assessment, and when the lashings became more frequent.

  The assessment was the only morsel of control daughters had over their futures. Their first nine years were spent in the flatlands with their mothers. Then their second nine were spent at the temple, a sacred obligation, learning the way of the Moon’s Chosen. Their paths diverged at the Calling.

  Most daughters returned to the flatlands to become mothers, after being blessed by the high priestess in the maternity pool hidden in the caves that ran beneath the temple. They would bear the Moon new daughters the following spring. Some returned years later, after their first daughter went to the temple, to be blessed with a second.

  The remaining daughters, a rare few from each Calling, were chosen for sisterhood and stayed on at the temple. Those accepted by the Sisters of the Moon would continue training to become priestesses, and those taken by the Sisters of the Quill joined the sect that oversaw the bulk of the daughters’ studies and care. Those neither faction wanted, and who weren’t seeded by the Moon, were taken in by the Sisters of the Hearth—banished to the dank, lower level of the temple where they were tasked with servant duties.

  After the sisterhood assessment, halfway through year five at the temple, most daughters had a clear idea of what the Moon had in store for them. Nyna, for instance, was confident that she would return to her mother in the flatlands with a daughter nestled in her womb.

  Rea missed her already. The last three years of her first nine in the flatlands had been spent under the care of Nyna’s mother. The girls had shared chores and a bed. And Nyna’s mother, while not exactly warm, had been fair. She worked them hard in the terraced gardens that lined the mountainside, and harder still in her kitchen where they salted and dried their bounty, sending half to the temple and saving the rest for winter.

  “You really must be more careful,” Nyna whispered as she peeled away the back of Rea’s robe and examined the damage in the moonlight that filtered through their narrow slit of a window.

  “I know,” Rea said, then she sighed as Nyna’s cool fingers probed her wounds, filling the tears in her flesh with salve.

  “You smell like that wild goat that got into our onions the year you moved in with us. Do you remember?” Nyna snorted out a quiet laugh, and Rea grinned in spite of herself.

  “I do. It was awful,” Rea admitted. “But it’s much too late, and I’m much too tired for a bath.”

  “Then at least strip out of this filthy robe,” Nyna said. “I’ll help you into a fresh one.”

  “Thank you.” Rea swallowed and blinked away a tear as she stood. Her body protested, but she quickly shucked the bloody, sweat-crusted garment and draped it over a wicker basket in the corner. She hated redressing without bathing first, but it was unavoidable for now. She was spent.

  Nyna pulled the last clean robe from another basket beside Rea’s bed. It smelled of lavender and rosemary, though the backside was dingy with faded bloodstains. Rea had done her best to keep her humble wardrobe pristine, but the sisters had not made the feat easy.

  Nyna left the new robe open to prevent the rough material from dragging over Rea’s back. This was not the first time she had aided her friend, and she’d suffered through a lashing or two of her own, mostly as a result of associating with Lyra’s daughter.

  Once Rea was in a somewhat comfortable position on her stomach, Nyna pulled the cover up to her waist. Then she untangled the braids looped around Rea’s head, carefully unknotting them and combing the hair to one side, away from the ragged flesh. She smoothed the loose strands with the balmy residue on her fingers before retying the braids and fixing them in place at Rea’s crown again.

  When Nyna stood to return to her own bed, Rea stirred, having nearly drifted off at her friend’s comforting touch.

  “Thank you.”

  “Rest now,” Nyna whispered, pressing a hand to Rea’s cheek.

  “Thank you,” Rea repeated, a groggy slur to her words.

  “Shhhh.”

  “You’re going to be the very best mother,” Rea said. Then sleep dragged her eyes closed once more.

  Chapter Three

  REA WOKE BEFORE THE sun the next morning, stiff and feverish, but she pulled her covers away and gathered the basket of soiled robes. The slice of sky that peeked through her window was dark, but a faint wash of purple touched the horizon and backlit the swollen Moon as she dipped lower.

  Rea thought of the secret room and the staff. The memory was hazy around the edges as if it had happened a very long time ago. Or maybe only in a dream. Perhaps she had fallen asleep as she scrubbed the floor outside the dining hall. It had been late, and she’d been very tired, especially after all the extra hours she’d spent studying and preparing for the Calling.

  In two days, when the Moon reached her zenith, the high priestess would gather the eldest daughters in the sky basin for the fateful ceremony. Rea hoped her back would be healed well enough for Nyna to hug her goodbye. The only chance their paths had of crossing after the Calling would be when the mothers and daughters of the flatlands delivered their bounty or when they came to the temple for the First Moon that her
alded the growing season. It was the only day of the year that all the Moon’s Chosen came together as one.

  Rea held her breath as she tiptoed past Nyna’s bed, not wanting to disturb her friend. She slipped out into the corridor and followed it to the stairs that fed into the temple’s main passage. After descending the first set of steps, she turned sharply and took the stairs that led to the lower level.

  A narrow tunnel waited at the bottom. Rea walked briskly, allowing gravity to pull her down the decline as she covered the distance that stretched beneath the entire length of the daughters’ dormitory. The sconces were fewer and farther between in this part of the temple, marking small openings spaced along the limestone walls that led to cellars full of provisions from the flatlands.

  When Rea reached the mouth of the tunnel, it opened into a massive hollow within the ridge. Here, it was hard to tell where the temple ended and the mountain began.

  A hot spring bubbled up from a depression in the cavern’s floor. It formed a large pool where the sisters had chiseled away the gypsum and limestone, creating a suitable place for washing duties and bathing. Steam rose from the water, swirling and dancing through the air before being sucked toward a narrow opening in the cave wall.

  The Sisters of the Hearth lived in the damp, crowded dormitories carved from the rock that curled along the opposite side of the cavern. Most had already turned in for the day, having finished their nightly hearth chores, but a few remained at the water’s edge, wringing out bedding and robes that belonged to the elite sisters of the temple.

  Large oil lamps lit the cavern, but once the sun rose, its rays would sneak past the opening in the side of the mountain and turn the water a blue so intense that the cavern would glow all on its own. That was when the daughters liked to bathe and wash their robes. Which meant the Sisters of the Hearth had to finish their washing and bathing by lamplight.

  The priestesses had their own hot spring pool in their quarters at the opposite end of the temple. That fact relieved Rea to an embarrassing degree. Though she sought to join their ranks, just being in their presence seemed like a sin. In truth, there were not many of the Moon’s Chosen that Rea did not feel her very existence offended.

  “Well, if it isn’t the Moon’s sunny cousin,” Armal, a Sister of the Hearth who had been Called after Rea’s first year, greeted her from the edge of the pool where she scrubbed and wrung out rags from the kitchen. The jab was playful, not like the taunts the temple daughters spat at Rea.

  Armal knew what it was to be shunned. And she knew that being ignored was sometimes even worse than being pitied, though she detested both. The last two fingers on each of the sister’s hands were fused together. It was a defect Armal had been born with, one that was hardly any hindrance at all but still considered unacceptable by the high priestess.

  Like Nyna, Armal had wanted to be a mother. But Lady Cora had said the Moon would not seed a flawed vessel. And when Armal’s mother had requested the blessing of a second daughter, she’d been rejected, too, out of fear that her womb would produce another less-than-perfect daughter.

  Rea wondered what would become of the poor woman and Armal’s grandmother once they became too old to tend to their sheep. What would happen to their family home when they were gone? Who would remember them and carry on their sigil?

  “Good morning,” Rea said as she stripped out of her robe and hung it from a jutting rock on the cavern wall. If she washed it with the others, she would have nothing dry in time for her first class, and she knew better than to be late again.

  She knelt at the water’s edge beside Armal, and the sister handed her a lump of soap. They scrubbed and rinsed in silence, mindful of the weary sisters sleeping in the rooms at their backs. It was soothing work, breathing in the steam and herbal aroma that wafted from the suds on the surface of the pool.

  When Rea finished, she twisted and squeezed the excess water from her robes. Then she tucked them back inside the wicker basket before migrating around to the shallower end of the pool for a quick dip to wash the dried sweat and blood from her skin.

  The water burned in her wounds, but it felt nice on her aching muscles. She would have lingered longer if not for Armal’s scrutiny of her backside.

  “That looks infected, sunshine.”

  “I have ointment,” Rea said as she exited the pool. She reached for her robe, but then hesitated, noting the pinkish water running down her arms. It was sure to stain. The aftermath of a lashing was even more inconvenient than the initial agony.

  “Best ask Magora for the good stuff,” Armal said, gathering up her basket of rags. She gave Rea a tight smile and headed for the tunnel to the main hall.

  Even in summer, frigid winds embraced the highest peaks along the West Ridge of LouMorah. But the Moon’s Chosen were accustomed to such conditions. Still, Rea grimaced as she took up her basket of wet robes and slipped through the opening in the mountainside.

  A short passage led to the outer face of the ridge. Its domed ceiling and walls were crusted with moonstone and crystals. Rea thought it was the most beautiful, serene spot in the entire temple, especially when the gems captured the sun’s light and welcomed it inside the cavern.

  The pool drained through the same exit, steaming water rushing down a channel cut into one side of the walkway. Outside, it filled a shallow dip in the bluff before gushing off the mountain in a magnificent waterfall that spilled into the river far below.

  Though the sky was slightly brighter now, the waterway that snaked past the mountain was hidden in the shadow of a thicket that lined the bank opposite the ridge. Rea could still hear the thunder of the fall, and she could see the ocean it eventually fed into in the distance, reflecting the thin morning light.

  She could also see the robes and bedsheets strung up on the rocky ledge beside the brim of the fall. The sea of wool and linen whipped violently in the wind, even with the stones that weighed them down. The drying lines were as thick around as Rea’s thumb, and it took at least three pairs of tied stones to keep a single robe from ripping free.

  Rea felt a stiff breeze tug her toward the edge and wondered if maybe she should weigh herself down, too. The stones used for securing laundry were piled in the corner where the ledge met the mountain. She squatted down to collect a few, stashing them in her basket on top of the damp robes.

  As she stood, the stones over a nearby bedsheet slipped loose. Rea grasped for and missed the escaping fabric before realizing that the wind was not to blame.

  “You smell like a slaughtered goat that’s been forgotten on the kitchen slab,” Magora said, rolling the bedsheet over one arm until it was bundled enough to tuck down into her basket. She placed the tangled laundry stones on top of the linen to keep the wind from claiming it.

  “I just bathed.” Rea angled her nose down at the bend under her shoulder and sniffed. Then she held her basket up to smell her laundry.

  “Blood and herbs.” Magora’s milky eyes narrowed on Rea as she breathed deeper. “And infection. You’ve taken another lashing.”

  “It’s nothing,” Rea mumbled. “I was just too tired to wash before dressing it last night.”

  “Take heart, child. Tawndra’s whip has seen its last of you.”

  “It has?” Rea’s breath hitched hopefully. Magora did not make frivolous claims, but Rea had seen Tawndra deliver lashings to several first-year priestesses and at least one second-year priestess.

  “It has,” Magora repeated. “Nevertheless, you’re going to need something stronger than Sister Rashal’s flower and honey concoction to fix that.” She waved her hand impatiently at the empty line above her hunched frame. “Hang your robes, then come see me. Make it quick. I’m old and need my rest.”

  “Yes, Sister.” Rea stepped out of the way as Magora lugged the basket of bedding past her and through the opening in the mountain.

  “And wear something next time you come out here,” the sister’s voice echoed from inside the crystal passage. “The buzzards will mista
ke you for carrion.”

  Rea shot a nervous glance up at the sky as she set about stretching her robes on the line. She secured them with the laundry stones. Then she scooped up her basket and hurried inside, pausing to collect her dry robe before heading to Magora’s room.

  Shortly after making the elder sister’s acquaintance, Rea had discovered that the Moon hadn’t taken Magora’s sight but rather redirected it. Her awareness stretched beyond the visible world and, occasionally, outside of the limitations of time. Though Magora chose to keep the Mother’s blessing to herself and those closest to her.

  Rea was not sure when she had become one of the precious few, but she was proud to be among them. She was also puzzled by how the high priestess could not know that such a sacred gift had been misplaced amongst the Sisters of the Hearth.

  Lady Cora was not the high priestess who’d announced Magora’s Calling, but surely the Moon had revealed the error to her by now. It felt like treason to even think ill of the high priestess, but Rea could see only two possible reasons for the oversight.

  Either Lady Cora was intimidated by the power the Moon had given to Magora...or Lady Cora had no power at all and, therefore, no idea how gifted Magora was.

  Neither explanation satisfied Rea, but she kept the question to herself. The answer was not worth the lashing that she was sure to receive for asking such a thing. Nor would it inspire the high priestess to welcome Rea into the fold of the Sisters of the Moon, if Cora were indeed making the decision on her own without divine guidance from the Mother. So, Rea tried to put it out of her mind.

  Even in the lowest sect of sisters, being the eldest had its advantages. Magora was the only Sister of the Hearth with her own room. It was still damp and windowless, as were all the chambers in the lower level, but thanks to the hot spring in the cavern, it stayed warm even in winter.