It is the cusp of a year: one is ending, the other is just on the horizon, turning peach-pink in the early light. Soon, it will rise blue and bright and axes of the world will lock in place, for a single moment, before continuing their weighty rotation. A new year. Another start. So we assemble. From the twelve covens, the High Witches, the Aunts, lead their Prodigies to the House of the Gods, the sacro-summit, the central mountain range, gilded with marble and carvings and gold.
Gods don’t care much for art, in the grand scheme of things, when all is said and done. It’s more for the human heart than the eternal’s, something created in their image, something to rival their power. Something that says, Look, we can endure too. And witches are material creatures. They love nothing they can’t make a charm out of. So here is the jagged crown of cliffs in the waning, fading light before dusk: the high and dark points of stone teeth and scales; the gold that the first witches poured from the summit, that runs, brilliant and bright, along winding rocky paths on the mountain’s northern side, its front; the pale blue veil over granite faces, twelve identical, ambiguous girls, lining the pathway to the cavern entrance, their eyes twelve different sets of jewels. They stare at each other, six neat rows, matched according to The Shift, reflecting each other’s shine. January faces August, February faces October, March’s gemmed eyes are fixed upon May; you know this order already. We all do. We feel it in our blood, and we hate it, and it is the will of the gods, so sometimes, we hate them too.
Some covens more than others.
The High Witches and their Prodigies stand at the foot of their coven’s pillar. The Prodigy stands in the shadow of all the girls that have come before her. She is them, as she is the stone carving the now comprises her sky. The High Witch was once her too. Give or take four exceptions.
Final words vary between High Witch and Prodigy. Each coven has a different process, a different legend, and a different god. Some are kinder than others. Some girls will not be coming back. This is the burden of magic. January clasps her prodigy’s cold hands. Aunt May holds her prodigy’s faces, parts the hair and kisses her forehead. March is doing a final drill of tactics, things her prodigy ought to know. November is kneeling, assuring hers that there is nothing to fear. Only September, with her long neck and ancient face, is laughing.
We begin the year with sacrifice. We begin the year with longing. We begin the year with darkness, because from darkness, there is light.
It’s time to enter the cave.
''[[I'm ready.|Diantha]]''
''[[I'd rather watch, thanks.|November]]''
Your name is November. Aunt November, when one is feeling polite, though you don’t care much for titles. Your name wasn’t always November, but it is now and it has been for enough years that it has all the weight a name ought to have. You are forty years old. People have called you Aunt November for ten.
You are the High Witch of the November Coven. Tradition is what dictates you essential enough to your coven to share its name. November witches order themselves in accordance to passion and so you are the High Witch because you care the most, in your own way. Of course, the competition is not so stiff, the number of Gifted Witches being, at all times, no more than fifteen.
November’s gift is lightning. That is the element that chains you to the Goddess, whom most call The Lightkeeper. (You do not call her that.) All members of the coven are witches, and all witches are able to do the simple stuff – charms and hexes and telekinesis – the essentials that allow a witch to be a witch. The Gifts are different. Some extra power, some other special ability. God-given, but not quite right. The covens dispute the reason, but all agree there was a Shift. At some point powers were reversed. Some cunning, heavenly trickster, some spat between the goddesses, some curse. It doesn’t matter, only that things are wrong now and have been for centuries, since before the oldest of you can remember, though the memory persists in the magic.
The movements one uses to conjure lightning are loose, flowing. They fill you. You must drown yourself in the sensation in order to summon a storm, throw a bolt. The September Coven is your opposite. They control tides and waves and rains, but their rituals are quick and pointed, barbed as a hunter’s knife or a predator’s teeth. They should be your moves. Their god should be your god. She used to be.
At some point, there was a switch. The magic was flipped and now, instead of entering the mountain to encounter that goddess, the prodigies encounter a goddess that every inch of their body stirs against. For them, lightning doesn’t feel right. It feels like a curse. This is why there are only fifteen of them in the coven. Using a goddess’ gift gives them power. Jealous and embittered, witches have not been inclined to give their overlords that sort of energy. But connections must be maintained and rituals must abided. After all, being cursed is better than being forsaken. So ten girls are trained at a time and, every year, one is brought to the caverns and meets The Lightkeeper. And because The Lightkeeper is more benevolent than her peers, most November prodigies return.
You went and, and you returned, about twenty-three years now.
You do not resent your goddess.
You do not fear your goddess, either.
(You do not long for the water.)
(But you’re different. You changed, twenty-three odd years ago.)
And so, you kneel. You place a hand on Madeleine’s shoulders and look into her wide eyes. She’s nineteen, which makes her younger than many of the other girls here, but not by much. She’s nervous though, biting her lip and twisting her fingers into knots.
“Relax. You’ll be fine. I trained you. I know you can do this.”
“I don’t know – I. I – I think maybe this is a mistake. I shouldn’t. We should’ve let Agatha – I –“
“It’s fine. You volunteered, remember? You wanted this. That will mean volumes. It means you know, somewhere, that you’re ready. You’ll be great, kid. Don’t stress. Stay loose, so you can be loose. Otherwise, you won’t find your spark. Don’t give me that look. You’re going to be just fine, okay? Look at me, Madeleine. I wouldn’t lie to you. You’re going to be just fine. She’s – The Goddess – ''[[she’s kind...|N1]]''”
Your name is Diantha, prodigy of the April Coven, The Seer's chosen, and you have always been ready.
The process is familiar. This is the end of your twentieth year, and this will be your fifth year as Prodigy. You are the longest serving Prodigy, across any coven, for at least a century. Maybe two.
This is because you are the best.
The April Coven believes in merit. Of the five gifted candidates, you are always chosen because you are the best. Aunt April is the High Witch, because she, too, in the best. And you respect her for it. You do not aspire to be her – beyond the obvious inclination to inherit, because of course you will be her successor; who else would they pick to be High Witch, when the time comes? – but are grateful and you regard her in all the ways she is due. Your aspirations, if they had to be contained, would come to resemble Aunt March’s rigid shoulders and sharp judgements. As long as you’ve been born, the Eastern covens have been consolidated under the Empress, and long as you can remember, Aunt March has been the steadiest court advisor. Aunt April and Aunt February are no less in status, but they lack the same appetite for politics, for scheming, for persuasion. You would call that a mistake, if it wouldn’t be to your disadvantage to seem so arrogant.
Under their appropriate statue, the High Witches are saying last words to their prodigies, before the sunlight mellows and Annual Rites are upon them. You respect Aunt April, too, because she does not drag this process out. She is empathetic, but unsentimental. She doesn’t say anything condescending or stupid.
Then again, that might be because she never says anything at all.
Aunt April adjusts your bangs, sweeping them to your right. The rest of your violet hair is kept in a high ponytail; when it comes to serious magic occasions, you prefer if it keeps out of your way. She touches the diamond studs pierced through either ear and the golden choker around your neck (Aunt April’s is a ring of clear crystals, a symmetrical cicatrix of diamond teeth), for luck; her touch has always been thought lucky. She mimes a kiss to either side of your face, so her make-up won’t smudge. And that’s it. Then she recedes and waits for the procession to begin.
You wait for some time, because the November witches are apparently ill-prepared. Their prodigy is fidgety. She has short brown hair and probably dents in her lips, given how hard she’s biting them. Pretty enough, but pretty doesn’t mean much before your goddess. She’s clearly lacking in ability. A mistake of a choice. Covens that choose to order themselves on other principles and eschew merit – well, they can do whatever they please, you concede, but they have no right to hold you back.
You stand in stiff silence. You are patient. You are practiced. You are perfect.
Aunt November takes her simpering prodigy by the hand. //Finally.// ''[[The covens proceed.|D1]]''
You look around. Most have finished. They stand, their faces now as neutral as stone (a High Witch is professional, with only a few exceptions). December and January and watching you, waiting. March, the old general, makes eye contact and then looks to the sky. A judgement. A silent, //Hurry Up//.
You look back at Madeleine’s nervous face and smile and take her hand, press it to your breastbone (does she feel it?). Then you begin the procession. Prodigies wear identical dresses: black, without a waist, falling to their knees, sleeves ending just past the elbows, high collars. Some prodigies have adornments, jewels or tokens or other trinkets that signify good luck or reassure against fear. Madeleine wear nothing. High Witches, too, wear black, but each Witch’s garb varies. There are patterns, of course, trends between like-compass points, but their position and age grants them liberties the girls are not allowed.
And anyway, they are not the sacrifice. Not anymore.
You walk Madeleine to the cavern entrance. December and January, their prodigies in hand, follow.
“You’re going to be great. She’ll –“ You hesitate for a moment, almost say something you don’t mean. Soemthing you don’t actually hope to be true. “She’ll be kind.”
And then you let go.
“Follow the topaz path,” you remind her, quickly, before assembling at the mouth of the cave. The same, amber stone glimmers on a ring on your right hand. The first witches – or perhaps the goddesses themselves – chiseled out twelve altar rooms, each marked by different jewels. You do not watch Madeleine recede into the dark. December and January beckon, and you take their hands gently, before [[vanishing into the air|N2]].
She’ll be fine.
The mist clears, and you stand at the summit, which is not cold, despite the height, or dark, but a bowl of light, filled with all the colours of sky. The ground is even and the area sparse. At the centre, the very centre, the centre of the entire world, if stories are to believed (you have met a goddess, and so you, at least, are willing to give stories the benefit of the doubt), is the council table, carved from the mountain’s dark rock. A simple ring, with identically tall chairs and before each, a pool of water encased in coloured glass. December takes her seat before the turquoise pool, her mouth thin. These Annual Rites are a solemn occasion for the December Coven. Few come back. Their stories tell, like many of the stories affixed to the greediest of gods do, that prodigies ascend, that to spill red at the altar of The Lifebleeder is transcendence, that she gathers you in her jaws and turns you into the stuff dreams are made of. A privilege. A nymph’s existence, the life of a demi-god.
It might be true.
But Aunt December doesn’t know and so Aunt December can’t be soothed. It must be challenging, to prize objective knowledge so highly while being so dedicated to obscuring the truth. The December Coven is filled with illusionists and they find themselves increasingly reliant on their magic, and so their goddess is increasingly powerful. It means more choices in prodigies, you suppose, but it also means Aunt December, who has glass before her eyes and severe-looking eyes and, for formal occasions such as these, tends to put her hair up in an immaculate bun, while being the foremost scholar of her coven, has also never met her goddess – and probably never will. And those few that do return, seemingly at random and at whim, are changed. (Though this might be true for everyone.) They cannot remember their time in the chamber, that there was ever a chamber at all. And so the divine remain mystery that you are sure confounds and frustrates her.
January is youngest of the High Witches. Thirty-two on the verge of thirty-three. This is her first year. But she’s calmer, not so flushed with excitement. She sits on December’s left, you take the right.
The three of you comprise the North Witches. And, as a cohort, you are always first. Your entrance is what breaks the silence, resets the clocks. You pride simplicity and practically. Not like the -
''[[Well, speak of the devil.|N3]]''
In come the Eastern witches, in a blurry of colour and smoke and glimmer, putting on a show when no show is required. Frost Witches, you Notherners call them, because unlike the other compass-points, their ceremonial garb is bejewelled. Their bodies sparkle like cold stars. Aunt February’s amethyst tiara, Aunt April’s diamond choker, just visible under her black hood, and, in the center, March, with brilliant and pale blue gems stitched up across her high collar, spilling across her wrists.
(March is never Aunt March to any of her peers. She is too strict, too cutting, too infuriatingly imperious to match such a warm title. If one says, The High Witch, you know they mean March. General March, Advisor March, Lady March, in theory, though you very much doubt anyone calls her that.)
They are all beautiful though, regardless of their ostentation. February’s a portrait, her hair slicked back. April, in flowing robes, her face done up, slashes of white and sapphire over her eyelids and her mouth; she has a long face and simple, black hair, but is known, even within the busy, clockwork and extravagant Eastern cities as being a beauty. You suppose it’s nice she noticed for something, especially at her age (April is fifty, if you remember correctly, a few years shy of March), especially when the witch in question has not spoken in at least thirty-five years. But most eyes will always be on March, March who always finds a way to be in the spotlight, to judge and judge harshly with her cold eyes. Even March is beautiful, though perhaps in the same way a snake is beautiful. She looks dangerous and untouchable. White, wild hair, cut messily above her shoulders; pointed lips; and the scar that runs, diagonal across her face, so that everything on her right side, the observer’s left, runs a little higher. The scar starts higher, her smile – if she ever smiles – rises just a bit higher, is cut off on her left. You asked about it when you first entered the Council and instead of giving you a look (as she has come to give you often, as she gives most people), she laughed.
“My goddess tried to split my face in two. It was thoroughly endearing.”
March hates the gods, but if you'd narrowly escaped from their hands, maybe you would too. Her story is famous, even in other covens. Most prodigies aspire to March’s status, especially if they've been trained to vanquish rather than converse or submit to the altar top. A spear of ice through the Cavalier’s eye. March blinded a goddess. You can hardly stand her, but she’s not one to be trifled with either.
And, to her credit, she appears to care. None of her prodigies are under twenty-five. She prefers them to be thirty. March was eighteen was she was submitted before the Cavalier. She seems to think, survivor or not, that it was too soon.
You watch April’s hand skim March’s, for a brief moment, before the Eastern Witches make their way, in unison, to their seats. March likes April, which you would call an anomaly. Or maybe it’s stranger that April appears to like March. Their covens are close, but that doesn’t necessarily explain anything. Neither talks much. One doesn’t talk at all. Perhaps that’s why they get along.
Next the Southern Witches, the Flower Witches, named for their customary adornments and their commitment to fragrance and kind looks. You meet May’s eyes as she appears at the mountain-top and she smiles at you. It hasn’t been long, but it’s still been too long. On either side, Aunt June and Aunt July mirror each other, a practice that comes naturally to them because they are identical in face, in height, in everything but their powers and their gloves. June wears white and July wears black. Healing and poison, health and sickness; you wouldn’t trust them, even if your life depended on it.
They didn’t always have the same face. One of those strange consequences of facing the gods. But they were contemporaries, send into the caverns in the same year, like you and May were. That bonds you, in some ways.
Finally the Western Witches, the autumn crones, as they are known now, because they are all well past seventy and enter in a flurry of hot air, familiars crawling across their shoulders, cackling to each other as they complete the council.
The sun is lowering in the sky. The night is about to begin. ''[[Here we go again|N4]]''.
From your seat at the table, you have a clearest look at March (//wonderful//), Aunt April, and Aunt May. Everyone is settling in before their pools of water. In yours, under an amber pane of glass, you can see Madeleine in the chamber doorway, fidgeting. You feel something tighten in your chest. You feel a bit of jealousy too, but you try to put that to the side.
Most will not look away from their pools. March always watches intently, and never flinches. April does not watch so religiously, but then, when you are gifted with prophecy, maybe it’s a bit redundant. May never wants to watch, but sometimes she does. May is High Witch not because she wants to, and not because she trains the prodigies (as High Witches usually do, as one expects you to do; May refuses, always), but because May is the only May Witch – perhaps ever – to survive Retribution. Their goddess is the cruellest or perhaps the most loving. Who knows which? So May never wants anything to do with this ceremony, never wants to look, but sometimes, it can’t be helped.
She’s looking at you now, though.
May’s face has always been warm and kind, a softness in her smile. Her hair is faded, and tied in a low bun, wreathed with delicate flowers. You know she hates being here, being part of any of this, but she comes anyway. She’s hopeful. She’s always been hopeful.
//Come over//, she says in the tilt of her head, the way she raises her brows.
''[[You go to her.|N5A]]''
''[[You smile, but shake your head, and watch the amber water instead.|N5B]]''
You stand up, and walk around the table, passing behind the crones instead of risking an encounter with March.
You lean on the back of May's chair and she reaches behind her to take your hand for a moment, a passing greeting. She smells like lilies.
"How are you?" She asks, looking up.
“I’m okay.”
Her hand hesitates, then makes a decision, clasps around yours.
“You didn’t visit this year.”
“No,” you avoid her eyes for a moment, look into the emerald pool before her. It shows you nothing. “No, I didn’t. I’m… sorry.”
“If you’re sorry, you would come.” May’s smile falters. She lets go of your hand you feel the chill absence leaves. She doesn’t sound angry or accusatory, just disappointed and that does make you sorry. “I ask you every year.”
When she sees you aren’t going to speak, she continues in her gentle voice, “How many years has it been now?”
“Since we’ve known each other? Twenty-three. Since I’ve been on council with you? This is the tenth.”
May was forced into being High Witch the moment she turned twenty. She’s been May longer than you’ve been November. She’s been May for a lifetime. She’s been May longer than her prodigies have seen the sun. You did go to her, then, the first year after her very first Annual. You tried to make her laugh and she tried to laugh for you.
“Aunt June and Aunt July and I are beginning to think you just don’t like how we smell, the way you put me off like this, decades at a time.”
“No. No it’s not that – It’s – It’s something else.”
“The same something or a different something?” In your mouth, this would be flippant, teasing. In hers, it’s serious; it radiates concern. You don’t know if you love or hate the way she means everything she says.
“The same something. Maybe. I… I never know. I wish I did.”
“I wish you’d come.”
You want to say, //It’s not you//, but instead you say, with a coward’s half-hearted laugh, “You smell great though. Promise.”
You don’t need to look down the table to know March is shooting you a look.
May smiles. A different smile.
“I wish I had words for it – It’s just –“
“Oi! Auntie November!”
All heads look up. You look at Aunt October. The other High Witches look at you. Wonderful. October’s pushing grey hair out of her orange eyes, peering over into your pool. (How does she see when you never can? You’ll have to beg the hag for some of her secrets, but later.)
“Don’t look now – or hey, maybe do look now! – but I think you’ve got a runner.”
''[[//Just wonderful.//|N6A]]''
You smile back, but shake your head. Not now. Not yet. There’s a whole night to get through. Maybe later. Besides, you’d rather watch the water. You want to see the exact moment //she// appears. You always miss it.
Madeleine’s still in the doorway, like she can’t make up her mind. You’re always surprised to witness indecision in the House of the Gods. You never felt that. Only the pull, only the sundering bolt that drew you forward. Magnetism. Static. It shocked; you drowned in it.
On your side, December resting her head in her hands. She leans towards you.
“What’s the point?”
“Of sacrifice? The perks of martyrdom, I imagine. Or the knowledge that, because of you, your goddess won’t rain down damnation on your people. Take your pick.”
“Not //that//. It’s just, //Lifebleeder//, how does your glass work?”
“It just… shows things? Here’s the chamber. Here’s Madeleine. There’s the goddess herself, whenever she decides to appear.”
“How fortunate. Mine is a whole mess of delusions and illusions. As if we don’t have enough of those. I don’t think I’m ever going to figure it out.”
“So don’t,” you say, and December rolls her eyes. “What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is knowledge, November. The big deal is unwraveling divinity. The //big deal// is figuring out why they’re goddesses in the first place! The big deal is –“
“Oi, Auntie Novem,” Aunt October’s leering over your other shoulder.
“What?”
“You’re up a lady and down a lady.”
She’s looking into your glass. How does she manage to see anything? Hags. They know too much for their own good. Maybe December should be consulting October instead of you. Clearly the crone has answers.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you goddess showed up and your prodigy fled the coop.”
''[[“//No.//”|N6B]]''
“Oh yes,” October grins and leans back with a wicked sort of cackle. “Up and down, and up and down.”
You rush back to your seat – and May follows.
“Well, no one saw that coming,” you hear March say, sprinting behind her chair. The General doesn’t look up though. You’re not worth it.
“Of course not,” May says behind you. “That’s the nature of surprise.”
“And yet only two of us here are surprised.”
March looks up for May. The natural tension between opposites knots its way across the room. March would make time for May even if it cost her her own life. That’s how it is, when the gift that should be yours is in someone else’s gut, pumping someone else’s blood. You’ve seen the way March and May look at each other, with alternations of contempt and longing. (More notable because most of May’s looks are looks of longing, and most of March’s contempt. Not with each other, though.) March’s mouth twitches. April’s hand moves. She goes back to looking down.
October’s not wrong. The doorway’s been vacated and the room is empty too. Just darkness. Just echo.
Someone has to be there.
You take a step back, take a second step and then you’re caught.
May’s got her hand around your wrist.
“Don’t do it.”
You blink.
“Don’t go.”
''[[I have to.|N7A]]''
''[[I want to.|N7B]]''
You look down into the water and blinding light stares back.
She’s here.
She’s back.
And Madeleine’s gone. There’s no black star of her body floating in the brilliant, luminous flood.
It’s just the goddess.
Someone has to be there.
Someone //has// to be there.
You take a step back, take a second step and then you’re caught.
May’s got her hand around your wrist.
“Don’t do it.”
You blink.
“Don’t go.”
''[[I have to.|N7A]]''
''[[I want to.|N7B]]''
“It something I have to do,” you say and you say it firmly, to make it true. “Why else are we here?”
May doesn’t let go.
You grin and she looks more doubtful than before. “I’ll be careful.”
“Mean that,” Her voice is a whisper. “Promise me.”
But you won’t, because your promises mean nothing to her now, just like your apologies. You’ll have to prove it some other way. And she knows this, too, because she lets go and all you have left is your cold wrist.
A simple cloud of smoke and you’re standing in the darkness, guided only by twelve sets of jeweled eyes, blank faces. How many girls have stood under them? You stop asking questions before you ask yourself too many.
You enter the cave.
It’s cold and it’s quiet. It sounds empty, but the cavern walls pulse with the weight of twelve or so gods, the strain of twelve divine interactions and all the vastness they entail. You think, now, it almost seems impossible that one mountain can contain it all, that twelve women can preside over it and not feel a thing.
You don’t remember the way. You thought you would. You were sure you would, but you don’t. It’s been ages, and so the dark rock hears your murmured incantation, feels, inside it, the way you gently twist the topaz ring. The hallway lights up. The topaz flakes in the cavern, the jewels set into stone burst into light.
You walk.
You walk the orange path deep into the mountain, winding past ancient carvings (the stories of old gods, of the goddesses then and now) and the occasional sealed door. Wedged between the bloodstone gates, the lofty red-specked frame where the Cavalier has descended, something reflects warmth back at you. You touch it – cold – and then pry it carefully from where it was forgotten. The knife levitates before your face. You study your black eyes, the crow’s feet, the places you’ve aged. Just for a moment. Just for a second.
You think about all the time you’ve lost.
You take it.
Another corridor. The ceiling slopes. It’s colder, but not by much. You’ve slipped the knife under your sleeve, where it sleeps silver dreams. You wonder if March gave it to her prodigy. Or if it was their own design. A girl’s choice or a woman’s? Your chest constricts, heavier now, close now. Maybe there isn’t much of a difference.
The Lightkeeper’s room is empty of its prodigy, no blood in it, and so the door hasn’t yet sealed, so the steady flashes of illumination leak out. You turn your face to it, stand before the hollowed gate, and can’t see a thing. But you know. You feel it. You’ve always felt it, but never like this. Never so much. Not for so long.
[[You walk into the light.|N8]]
“It’s something I want to do,” you say and you mean it, but you try to ignore how stunned May looks in response. You don’t have to think about it. There’s a glow in your chest and the magnetism, the twenty-three year old ache, all turned into kindling. It’s something May never had, never understood, and you never questioned.
(Part of you liked it, prided yourself on it. No one else has this. You've held the hands of ten prodigies now. None of them, surely, none of them have this.)
A simple cloud of smoke and you’re standing in the darkness, guided only by twelve sets of jeweled eyes, blank faces.
You enter the cave.
It’s cold and it’s quiet. It sounds empty, but the cavern walls pulse with the weight of twelve or so gods, the strain of twelve divine interactions and all the vastness they entail. You think, now, it almost seems impossible that one mountain can contain it all, that twelve women can preside over it and not feel a thing.
You don’t remember the way. You thought you would. You were sure you would, but you don’t. It’s been ages, and so the dark rock hears your murmured incantation, feels, inside it, the way you gently twist the topaz ring. The hallway lights up. The topaz flakes in the cavern, the jewels set into stone burst into light.
You walk.
You walk the orange path deep into the mountain, winding past ancient carvings (the stories of old gods, of the goddesses then and now) and the occasional sealed door. Wedged between the bloodstone gates, the lofty red-specked frame where the Cavalier has descended, something reflects warmth back at you. You touch it – cold – and then pry it carefully from where it was forgotten. The knife levitates before your face. You study your black eyes, the crow’s feet, the places you’ve aged. Just for a moment. Just for a second.
You take it.
Another corridor. The ceiling slopes. It’s colder, but not by much. You’ve slipped the knife under your sleeve, where it sleeps silver dreams. You wonder if March gave it to her prodigy. Or if it was their own design. A girl’s choice or a woman’s? Your chest constricts, heavier now, close now. Maybe there isn’t much of a difference.
The Lightkeeper’s room is empty of its prodigy, no blood in it, and so the door hasn’t yet sealed, so the steady flashes of illumination leak out. You turn your face to it, stand before the hollowed gate, and can’t see a thing. But you know. You feel it. You’ve always felt it, but never like this. Never so much. Not for so long.
''[[You walk into the light.|N8]]''
//What does light taste like?//
The beginning. All beginnings. The first beginning. Roots in earth and buds on the trees. And the time before trees. And sky. And sun. And all the things before it.
//What does it feel like?//
Heavy. The distance from the surface to the bottom of the ocean. The weight of every condensed column of air, the breaths between particles, the searing white-lightning flash of connection.
//What does it sound like?//
Her voice in your ear, and then pouring downward. The hum in your chest. The beat of your heart, electric. The nerves of your body, plucked raw.
//What does it feel like?// Drowning. //What does it feel like?// Drowning. //What does it feel like?//
Drowning.
''[[Open your eyes.|N9]]''
The goddess appears in light, and then in darkness. She the flash and then the thunderclap. She has translucent skin and shifting form, storm clouds gathering and blowing across the cave ceiling. You can see hurricanes inside of her. You can see the empty eyes and the mouth of tiny, sharp teeth. She is horned and the horns are static and energy. Her palms shock.
She is beautiful, still.
She does not move to come closer, she moves you, she moves the room, she fills it and draws you closer and that is how you end up a breath away, your face in her tempest hands.
“Miss November,” she speaks, but she does not //say//, not like you say. She speaks and you feel her voice smile in your chest. It stops you. It moves you. It traps you. You have no gravity in her presence; you are hers.
(And every magic muscle in your body says //no//, but the sticking feeling, just below the breast-bone, it never falters.)
“You remember me,” you try, and you hope it's a joke. (You haven’t had too much luck with them today, have you?)
“I am you,” says the thunder in your blood, says the tide washing over your heart.
You’re staring into your empty eyes. (How is it that you see so much in them?)
''[[I missed you.|N10A]]''
''[[You’re not me.|N10B]]''
“I missed you,” and it comes from your blood, rather than your mouth, it comes from every inch of your body, words packaged in a head, tilting into the palms of her hands, sinking into her skin.
You missed her.
You missed her for twenty-three years.
“I was with you,” she says, and you feel it illuminate in the marrow. “I was always with you.”
Because she put herself there. Because you lay on the altar top and she descended upon you, smelling of dark, underground water and the highest, burning arcs of the sky. And she touched you with soft, translucent hands and she kissed you with a mouth full of sparkling, sharp teeth. And she said //only you// and it’s only ever been you. When she held you, held all your girlish limbs together, she made the cave walls disappear; she made you disappear from here, from all the things it entailed, and there was her. There was only her.
And then a new year came and the hours were done and she knew and you knew that you would not be back, but she held you still. She ripped a piece of herself from her own throat. She put lightning inside of your chest, just below the breast-bone. She put herself there.
She never left.
And nothing else ever compared.
(You have gone years, dedicated to her shadow. You are her High Witch and you are her passion and when you move, she moves inside you too. Only you. Only the two of you.)
Her eyes are empty, her eyes are holes in the universe where there are no stars, they are vast and swallowing and infinite.
You see yourself in them.
“Not enough,” you say.
She smiles.
The room glows, but it’s not her. Light is pouring out of chest, illuminating from under your skin, soaking your bones.
“So have more,” the Lightkeeper replies in a voice that speaks from everywhere, but mostly from your heart. “So don’t leave this time.”
She says, “You don’t have to leave.”
She says, ''[[“You are my only one.”|STORM WIFE]]''
“You’re not me.”
She’s not you. She’s not with you. She hasn’t been with you for twenty-three years, not since you lay yourself down on her jewelled altar, seventeen years old, and waited. And she did come to you. She came in light and bluster and she came and you saw right through her pellucid grey face and the stratus and nimbus of her hair. She let you see straight into her brain, the way she can see straight into yours, and she touched your face, she reached inside of you and touched the arcs of your ribs and your weathervane spine, spun it all in circles, round and round and round.
“Aren’t I?”
She tilts her head and the earth beneath your feet shifts too, which is also her. It’s not earth. You’re floating in her, lost in her. And it’s just like before, so you know how to hold your breath now, you know how not to get dizzy. (You know it will stop. You know – and this last thought comes clear to you only now, freshly excavated from the tree-rings lopped round your bones – that it will leave.)
(Again.)
“Didn’t I put myself in you?”
And once she had touched your ribs, and once she had pressed her airy mouth to yours, and left her voice in your hair, she took some of the lightning from her throat and said it was yours now, said it was you, said it was her //in// you. She left in shimmering, simmering, just below the sternum. She left is twisting, murmuring for years. She said it was a gift. She said //no one else//. She said //only you//.
And that’s what happened.
You were only you.
Because she was gone. Because when she done, the cavern opened and the new year begun and at first your body sung, but then it didn’t. Then it was nothing, just this voice in your chest you couldn’t talk about, couldn’t articulate to anyone, because no one would understand (that no one would want to understand, that everyone would want to hack out and leave bleeding, that sometimes you did too). This thing that prevented you from moving. This thing that bound you to her service, that lit up all your veins and made you want to teach and train and bring girl after girl to her door. That made you wary. That made you watch paranoid, waiting, to see if it was really //only you//.
“Didn’t I love you?”
She didn’t love you,
She ate you whole.
Her face so close to yours, she’s got you by the jaw, cradling, cooing, and isn’t it nice, and doesn’t it glow. There’s a light in your chest and sears at the heart.
“//Don’t I love you?//”
Maybe she does. But it wasn’t enough.
Maybe she did, but it isn’t good.
''[[You just want to be free.|NCUT]]''
So the witchs draw the knife.
So you cut her throat.
Her entire body rages and howls and thunders. Noise leaks first, and then she bleeds light. She bleeds light everywhere. Thick, blinding beams from the divine arteries of her celestial neck. Then gold, hot and molten and dripping across the altar top. You hold her by the hair. Her eyes go wide and wide and wide until they’re windows, until they’re eating up every last wisp of her hair, her beautiful transparent face, until her body falls to the ground in rays.
The light eats her up.
You drown in it.
A moment passes. A brilliant, blinding pulse. Then darkness. Then shape. Then beginning.
Then you.
Your hands are silver and they burn. You can’t let go of the knife. You can’t let go of her hair, her skull, but there’s nothing there anymore. Just a puddle of gold and your hand, washed it in, and your finger curled around something empty. And you can’t let go.
You breathe in.
You breathe out.
''[[The whole room smells of rain.|NRAIN]]''
You stumble out of the cavern. Your fingertips fizzle. You smell wet, you feel wet, but your skin is bone dry. You can’t feel your legs, you can’t feel the way you move, you can’t tell you’re moving at all –
You’re caught by a bed of lilies. Petals moving across you face, stroking your hair, lips to your forehead, and then hands holding you close. You smell her first and then, as she holds you, as her hands turns over your arms and watch the way the gold blood rusts along your fingertips, you know her.
“I don’t know – I’m sorry – I –“
What do you tell her?
“It’s okay, Eralyn.” You jerk and surprise yourself. You thought you’d forgotten that name. Your name. “It’s okay.”
May is smiling. She’s always so warm. She’s always so pretty. She’s got you by the shoulders and holds you while you shake. She pries the knife from your hands, not because you’re fighting her, but because you don’t know how to move them. Not anymore. Not yet.
''[[“You did the right thing.”|NMAY]]''
May tells you things, while she holds you on the cavern floor and you feel, even this deep underground, the light begin to rise over the mountainside. She tells you simple things first, meaningless meaningful things. How she stubbed her toe last week, the new tea leaves she keeps by her cottage window, the shape of the sun in the morning on her side of the hill. She tells you all things she’s wanted to tell you for twenty-three years, all the things she would’ve told you, if you had been there.
You’re here now. Your eyes can barely see and your body shakes and your hands are plastered in a goddess’ blood, but you’re here. Finally, you’re here.
“We’re taught to fight them, May witches, unlike you. We’re taught to fight her and we never win, because we can’t ever win. I don’t know what yours is like, but ours is something else. Maybe she’s the worst. Maybe ours and March’s are the worst. They’re the greediest anyway. I didn’t fight her. I should’ve, but I didn’t. I wanted to live. You were going to live. I wanted to go back home and I wanted to see my parents and I wanted to see you too. I wanted a future.
“So I didn’t fight. I bartered. They only want your magic. They want to be near it again, to be near themselves, I think. Or they want to use it. They want to eat it. They want to love it. She thought she loved me, she did. She really did. But she was a goddess and I was a girl and she was cruel and I was young. She didn’t love me. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to.
“I think she did want to.
“So I said take my magic. Take it, instead of me. She didn’t understand at first, because to them – to all of us, I think – it’s not that different. I thought it might be, even as I offered it. I didn't speak from knowledge, I spoke from instinct, from the will to live. She drained me of all my fire and all the hard parts of me that wanted to be ice and I became the only person in this world without magic. With nothing. Not even the simplest charm.
“But I was happy, for a while. I am, for the most part. I had survived. I had lived. And I could grow flowers in the garden and I could //have// a garden and I could see my parents cry when I came home, because I came home. They cried because they were happy too. Few of us in the May Coven, the ones with gifts, get to be happy. Not these girls they make me march here. Twenty years. Twenty girls. All gone. It’s such a waste. I don’t care if they’re gods. It’s such a waste. They shouldn’t need to run on us.
“I wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you everything. I knew you’d understand, in some way. I knew you had been touched too, though in a different way. I listened to stories about you from home. All these years and all the ways you rearranged the sky. I had hoped you were happy.
"You were powerful, at least. Some people say that's better than happiness."
She sighs.
''[[“It changes you. This whole ritual. No one comes out the same.”|GODSLAYER]]''
You spend a long time in the dark.
May tells you stories and touches your face, and then she just touches your face and then you touch hers, and the Lightkeeper’s blood doesn’t burn or make her flinch or turn away. She leans her forehead against yours. She smiles. And, on a knife lodged gently into a stone floor, you see yourself smile back.
“You realize, you’re going to be March’s favourite person now, her //hero//” May whispers, near your ear and you both laugh because there’s nothing else to be done.
You kiss her anyway.
''[[END: GODSLAYER.|Start]]''
You embrace the goddess first by her lips. Next, your hands, sinking into her chest. And then her hands around you. And then her hands inside you. And then oneness. And then light.
So much light.
Stories will be altered; legends will be told. You will hear them, and you will not hear them. You will believe them, and you will be beyond them.
You see farther now.
For you, she has made another sky – and there are no words to describe how brightly it shines.
''[[END: THE STORM'S WIFE.|Start]]''
First the Northern witches. Minimalists. November, December, and January pass. (Aunt January is a new face, a High Witch with whom you have not yet become acquainted. She looks young. You wonder how young.) They face their prodigies one last time at the cavern’s entrance and then the High Witches assemble themselves into threes. They are never of much note, the Northern witches, and so their transportation spell is the same: into thin air and nothing more. Simple, effective, and boring.
Aunt April does not take you by the hand. She does not need to. By now, you know your cues instinctively. The two of you walk, side by side, and are joined by Aunt February and Aunt March and their prodigies. You cast a look into the dark mouth of the mountain. Inside, you can hear three sets of steps. There is the faint trace of illumination: amber, turquoise, and crimson paths of light. You don’t dwell on it. That’s not why you’re here. You turn and Aunt April’s black eyes give you a //look//. You catch yourself feeling exposed. Sometimes, you wonder how much she knows.
Everything, your coven says, but surely that can’t be true.
She gives you a look and then her face is as even as ever. In their row, the Eastern High Witches have pressed their palms to one another’s. You watch them evaporate into shards and sparkles. A exit worthy of divine ceremony. And then, as the Southern Witches approach, you turn. Your path is lit for you: pure, white light, leading you away from the cooler flashings of colour that beckon to your fellow Eastern prodigies.
You walk straight down into the cave’s gut. The light is kind, but superfluous. You could walk your passage blind. Which is good, because it means you, at least, never stutter or delay.
''[[You would never keep a goddess waiting.|D2]]''
You walk down, down the bright ghost-white skeleton path, and then eventually there are stairs, chiseled out by the earliest of witches, who poured golden rivers, or perhaps by the goddess herself, and so you climb them. And at the end of the steps, there is an open mouth to a quiet chamber, and its framed in a mantelpiece of diamond stone, which looks as smooth as black river ice, and has the constellations carved across its face. On your first Annual, fifteen and young (and nervous) and full of unknowing, you paused as identified each cluster of stars, each April legend, the rivals and lovers and enemies, the children and mentors and beasts of The Seer, of Lady Fortune. You wondered if there was a place in the sky for yourself, and where it would be. Folded along the Twin Maidens’ knees or set opposed to The Old Serpent?
You would place yourself at the center, if given the choice.
But you’re not fifteen and you’re not nervous and you feel, as you enter the black room, more permanent than ever. You kneel before the crystal altar top and unclasp the golden necklace, lay it on the ground so it looks like a misplaced slice of the moon.
The spell you cast is simple, and the band of gold no longer shines, but reveals the colours of the sky; you watch the bloody red lasts of the sky give way to night. When the sky is perfectly dark, the goddess will appear. So it is written, so it is said, and so it is known.
''[[You will be patient.|D3]]''
''[[You wait.|D4]]''
''[[And wait.|D5]]''
...
''[[And wait.|D6]]''
Your golden necklace has turned black.
You are patient. You are steady. You are even. You are the best the April Coven has to offer. You’re the best any coven has to offer. You can perform feats of magic beyond your years and you can weave your eyes through the thread of fate with accuracy. You can see all The Seer sees, you’re sure of it! She put her gift behind your eyes and it’s all you see. You are the //prodigy// and you are here to meet the goddess and you are //ready//.
And still, you’re not good enough.
Your teeth lock. Something rises up inside of you and so you try to suppress it, quickly, effectively. So you slam your fist down into the stone and your necklace breaks in two.
''[[You have a secret.|D7]]''
But it feels more like a shame.
Sticky and black and obscuring all your bones until you’re sure, one day, everyone will see. See that you’re a fraud. See that you’re a fake. See that you’re not good enough and they’ve all made a reprehensive mistake. (Aunt April gave you a //look//.)
You’ve been Prodigy for five years, and you’ve never seen the goddess.
Other prodigies see their goddesses! They see them all the time! Some see them and never come back. You don’t see and you come back and come back and come back again. You train, you study, you pour over all her legends, you know her better than she knows herself (you know her as well as any witch can hope to know a god). You know her twelve Golden Age prophets and how they met their ends. You know the expanse of her power, the accuracy of her exactings. You know under which Empress the April Coven switched from offering flowers to incense to birds, though you have no way of knowing which she prefers.
You know you’re worthy.
You have to be worthy.
''[[How could you not be worthy?|D8]]''
All you have is this dark room.
A old, dark room and suffocating emptiness. A darkness that reflects all your inferiorities, all the ways you’ve failed. You’ve failed, again. Another year of failure. Another year of insufficient work. Another year of being overlooked by the gods.
It’s not fair.
It’s not right.
You don’t deserve this.
So ''[[leave|leave]]'', part of you says.
Or maybe you should ''[[wait|wait]]''.
Just a bit longer.
Just a bit more hope.
(But what if it’s just more wasted time?)
(What if it’s all just a waste?)
You leave.
You’re better than this. You don’t need this. You don’t deserve to be treated this way, to be ignored. You’re better.
You’re the best.
The mountain is lightless now, and all its passages are dark. You pick a direction and walk. You don’t care where. Apparently it doesn’t matter. You pass, at one point, the opal-capped door of the October Coven, and wonder if The Nightgale greets //her// prodigies. Maybe she’d take you instead. How hard could love magic be? No harder than prophecy. Nothing’s harder than good divination, an accurate prediction.
A stupid mountain, a stupid ritual, a stupid set of gods. (You hate being alone in that room. You hate all those hours with yourself, your inferior self, and nothing else.) Or are they all playing pretend for a day a year? Some great lie to keep the covens in rotation, balanced against one another? No. It can’t be. Aunt April has seen the goddess. You know she has. Most of Aunt March’s prodigies never come back. The prodigy before you, Ming, she whispered silly details, the only things her tongue could share, about The Seer’s face. It shined.
Nothing here shines. Nothing here thinks you’re worth shining for.
You fume as you walk and you walk far and deep, past all the ornamental doors, deep and down until you only know you’re surrounded by stone because you can hear it, dense and solid, under your feet and feel it when your feet slip and your body lurches and your palm reaches out to skim the side of the wall, right yourself. One foot in front of the other. You don’t know where you’re going. You don’t know if there’s anywhere left to go, really. If there is a //farther down//, an //under//, or an //out//.
''[[And then there’s a flash of light around the corner|DLIGHT]]'' – you didn’t know there was a corner – and your left hand smacks against the wall to keep from falling.
You wait.
You dig your arms into the stone and tell yourself that your name is Diantha and you are the April Prodigy. You are the only prodigy. You are the best. You are the best. You don’t need a goddess to tell you this.
But you’d like it.
You’d really like it.
Anyway, be practical, you tell yourself. Be reasonable. Be better. If the goddess won’t show, you’ll still keep your appointment. What would you do if you left? Where would you go? Stay here. Stay and wait and try not to stay in your head, where the black thoughts stick. Stay and when Aunt April comes for you in the morning, don’t mind her looks, don’t mind a thing. Stay, endure, and in a few years you will be Aunt April. And you will be better.
(But how will you train the prodigies, if you don’t know what you’re training them for?)
(Don’t think about it.)
Don’t think of anything.
Close your eyes.
''[[Breathe.|patience]]''
You turn the corner and squint. Nothing.
You spend what feels like an hour but is actually more like a minute waiting, because you don’t want to be the one to ask. You rarely have to ask for anything. But it seems silly to give up waiting only to wait some more and whatever made the light isn’t exactly forthcoming, so you put your hands on your hips. And sigh.
“Look, I can hear you breathing.”
A flicker of light, like a string of fireflies pulled into halos.
Oh.
It’s the November prodigy, the snivelling girl, making sparks with her hands.
The tips of each of her fingers are connected by tiny veins of light, which she draws together into a solid column, pulls into a jagged blue beam that fills the corridor. So she’s not useless after all.
The light stabilizing in her hands, the November girl looks up and then jumps, nearly spilling the blaze from her palms.
“//Oh!//” She says. “You’re – You’re Diantha.”
And clearly not so stupid either, despite appearances. She knows enough to know you.
At least someone knows you.
At least someone in this stupid, horrible mountain will meet you, talk to you, even unintentionally.
“What are you doing here?” You ask. Her eyes are dark and all her features are small. Somehow, that only makes all her expressions bigger.
“I –“ You really hope she doesn’t fumble with her lightning. You’re not in the mood for an electric shock. “I – I don’t know – I said I wanted this – I told Aunt November – but I – I couldn’t. I mean, I don’t know! The Goddess! I don’t know, I don’t know. I couldn’t.”
You could laugh.
“Somehow I understand that.”
The November witch balls all her blue light into one hand. She tries to tuck some of her hair behind her ears, but it’s thick and stubborn and, from your perspective, surprisingly springy.
She looks at you, “Why are you here?”
''[[Evade.|DEvade]]''
''[[Tell the truth.|DTruth]]''
“Not really your question to ask, Junior,” you say. It’s an instinct. You don’t have to answer to anyone who doesn’t have answers.
“Sorry – Sorry – I just. I just figured you’d be in your chamber, right? With everyone else? I mean you’re a pro.”
“Yeah, well…”
You give yourself a moment to think and:
“I think I’m done with this. It’s not all it’s intended to be, really.”
The other girl’s smiling like that’s some kind of comfort. You didn’t mean it to be, but, somehow, it makes you feel better that it is.
“It – It’s so nice to hear you say that.”
She looks so relieved. You think you might too.
For a moment, the electricity just crackles between you.
“Oh! I’m – I’m Madeleine. Not Junior. I mean, I know who you are – everyone knows who you are! – but you don’t know who I am. Obviously. You know that. Only now you do know me so I guess you don’t…”
“Madeleine.”
“Yes?”
''[[“It’s nice to meet you.”|RUNAWAYS]]''
Deep breath now.
“I… I’ve never seen my goddess.”
“//What?//”
“Exactly. Five whole years and nothing. I guess I’m just sick of this. I don’t know. It seems kind of pointless now. Like I haven’t been worth anything.”
“Or maybe – maybe it’s just not worth you.”
You look up. You look at her, really look at her. And then you do laugh.
“Ha, yeah, maybe. I wasn’t thinking about it that way. But maybe you’re right.”
She smiles and her front teeth are coloured-in blue, like her lips, like her hands, like her stubborn hair and the whites of her eyes.
“Oh! I’m – I’m Madeleine. I mean, I know who you are – everyone knows who you are! – but you don’t know who I am. Obviously. You know that. Only now you do know me so I guess you don’t…”
“Madeleine.”
“Yes?”
''[[“It’s nice to meet you.”|RUNAWAYS]]''
Something inside you sparks. You make a decision.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I don’t think I – I don’t know the way out.”
“Neither do I.”
You smile, and take her free hand. Yeah, that feels right. Something finally feels right.
“But I’m sure we can figure it out.”
“… Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let’s do that.”
Madeleine pauses. She moves to tuck her hair again, but remembers that hand is full of fire and light. So she doesn’t, instead she says, “But once we do get out… Let’s just – let’s just keep going. Let’s really go.”
“You read my mind.”
So you go.
You just go.
And, in some ways, it really is that simple.
''[[END: THE RUNAWAYS.|Start]]''
The walls of the mountain chamber fall away; there’s no light to pierce through the silver-white altar top. There’s just darkness, just nothingness, just you. You, willing yourself not to feel small. You, and a light.
It starts in your gut. You see it there, somehow, first, see it travel up through the blood and into the mind, burst across your eyelids: a web of stars the room. Light, and suns, and sky.
You open your eyes.
And ''[[The Seer|Seer]]'' looks back.
She is a web of light, spread out across the expanse of room. She is the intersections of stars. A wall of them shimmer before your eyes and from the ends, two hands reach, a body splayed out against a celestial cross, made of snowy stellar dust. At the head, a crystal skull, the dust settling around it to make a face, a beautiful face, a face you’ve seen a thousand times in art, read about in textbooks, and heard in the tales of grandmother’s, but none of them came close to describing its beauty, its wisdom, its… kindness.
She’s smiling at you. And her smile is gentle and filled with all the warmth the future can offer. You feel compelled to move forward.
She smiles, and you see all her teeth. She has stars for eyes and her teeth glow yellow behind her glimmering lips. You see the bones, the heart, luminous beneath translucent skin.
You’re breathless. You’d fall to your knees if you weren’t already on them.
The Seer holds out a hand.
''[[“Stand up, Diantha.”|DSTAND]]''
You're not sure you know how, all your pride and bravado aside, not in the presence of a goddess.
She takes you by the hand (it does not bend, it reaches out from its small nebula of stars; The Seer’s face remains fixed, her position unchanging) and you stand.
“You know me.”
“I know a great deal of things,” she says and she sounds amused, endeared, but you feel yourself flush and then flush deeper for showing your embarrassment. Of course she knows things. She’s an oracle. It’s her job. Her eternal job.
For better or for worse, you go on the offensive, if only to shift things away from your own mistakes.
“What took you so long?” (But not joking, and not cutting, small. Too small. Smaller than you thought it would be, could be.)
She’s still holding your hand.
“It did not feel so long to me.”
“Well it was.” Are you being honest because she wants you to be or because something in her compels you to be? “It was a long time for me.”
Her head tilts, and the room seems to tilt with it. She is fixed, everything else moves across and with and around her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
You didn’t think gods apologized.
“Some things are so clear to me. At times, meeting you was irrelevant, because I knew what you would say, and what I would say, and all the consequences, all of their potentials. It was like we had already met.
“But you are not inferior, Diantha. You are dazzling.
“All your potentials spoke to me, and in so many colours. I wanted to make sure I picked the best one for you. That we would create the best path //together//.”
Her hand is sliding into your hand, fingers overlaid over, inside, yours. You feel a sharp cold, but don’t shiver. Your body embraces the feeling.
“So I considered, and it took me time. I don’t have your human impatience – but then, neither do you. Not so much of it. I shirked the ritual’s convention, because I wanted to get this right. Right for you.
“Despite myself, ''[[I have made errors.|DAPRIL]]''”
“Mistakes? You?”
“You wouldn’t think it, would you? But discerning the future is not always the same as discerning the heart.
"Leonora – your High Witch. The choice mute –“
“Aunt April?”
“Yes. She was also brilliant. Remarkably so. And I wanted to reward that. I offered her greatness.”
“Greatness?”
“Power. Glory. Sight. Sight beyond sight. And love. Isn’t that why all aspire for greatness? Admiration and acclaim and affection. I offered it all to her and she!” the stars spin and rage; this is anger. The voice laughs, but the body does not, “And she denied me.”
Her teeth shine, but never move. Across her face, that canvas of frosted window-glass skin, the lips soften. Bemusement.
“I cursed her. It was not supposed to be a curse, but then it was. I gave her prophecy that surpassed restraint. She would not come. She wanted to give it back. You cannot give a gift back. So I said she would not always be believed. I said her visions would inspire absolution in others, full acceptance or denial. They would accuse her of lies or follow her guidance without hesitation.
“She realized, of course, that her power, my power relies upon her use. So now she runs from it. She uses it sparingly, to give me nothing. She does not speak, so as to not afflict it on others. She is brilliant, but ungrateful.”
The room turns. It feels bigger than a room. It feels deeper than an ocean.
“But you’re different, aren’t you. You want more. You need it.”
Your throat is dry. The goddess extends her second hand.
“My stars are imprinted across your bones, Diantha. Surely, this is inevitable.”
A pause. You are drawn closer to her face.
“More than inevitable. ''[[Surely this is desired.|EMBRACE]]''”
It is.
She’s not wrong – and you will no longer have to be. Never again.
You seize her second hand, the offering.
Her mouth is so close to yours, close enough you feel her words when she says, “Do you know what you’re accepting?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want all it entails?”
You are Diantha, for a last moment. You are Diantha of the April Coven, their Prodigy. And you are the best. And you are worth all a goddess can offer. And you want to be all the goddess is, to be her, to be with her. You feel her across your veins, and know you have felt her from the beginning of time.
''[[“//Yes//.”|DOUBLE]]''
You embrace the goddess, and your body collapses into light, and all the places light fails to reach (space for her hands, her brilliant eyes, her lips and shining teeth).
There are new now stories for young witches to learn.
Another year passes, and it passes in a different way than you and all your hands remembered.
Another year and another girl, kneeling inside a hollowed mountain and raising her head to the summit.
The horizons pours itself in between the stone.
They tell stories now of a goddess with two faces. Of two body in parallel, two hands joined, clasp tight and unyielding, the bones of the fingers overlaid and intertwined, the touch of permanence, across the bed of stars. They remember two sets of identical, glowing teeth.
And every star bleeds greatness, and every vision comes true.
And you are better, better than you ever thought you would be.
''[[END: THE DOUBLE GODDESS.|Start]]''