Grantus' eyes stared fiercely back into Prae's as the cool steel of the blade slipped in between his ribs and found its mark. Surprised by the lack of resistance, she stumbled forward into Grantus, pushing the knife further in, up to the swooping, long flourishes of the cross guard.
"Curse you…Angel," Grantus coughed, a gurgling of blood dribbling out of the corners of his cracked lips, a few drops landing on her right sleeve.
And then his body went limp in her father's arms.
The curious villagers that had formed a circle around them whispered amongst themselves. A few broke off as panic spread rapidly through the crowd, like a fire to a forest.
"She killed him!!"
"We're gonna be next!"
Prae's pulse quickened as her breathing grew ragged and her world began to spin. But her arms tensed up as her muscles refused to let go of the knife. N-no! I'm not a murderer! This had to happen! I–
"Prae!"
Like a statue, Prae's body grew stiff with her hands still clamping down on the handle, cheeks moist from her tears.
"Prae!! The ceremony, quick!" Her father adjusted his hold on the corpse of the old man, scooping him up in his arms and turned to the fleeing villagers. "This man may have been a fool, but even fools deserve a proper burial! And somebody call the guard over!"
The lump in her throat seemed to grow as she kept trying to swallow it, but Prae soldiered on, reentering the house, short of breath. She jerkily tunneled her shaking fingertips into the folds of her robe and into the inner pocket, closing around a thin metal rod no longer than her index finger. Flicking her wrist, subsequent smaller sections slid out, snapping into place with a series of shrill clicks. Now the length of her forearm, the Needle was ready. Its azure tip, which Prae dipped into the crackling coals of the fireplace, radiated an ethereal-like glow as she carefully sandwiched it between her index, thumb and middle fingers. Grantus' body emerged from the doorway in her father's arms.
The pregnant woman gasped at the sight, leaning forward as she tried to get up from the bed. "What have you two done!? Grantus–"
Her father firmly pushed her back down by the shoulders. "Let the priestess work. For your child."
She opened her mouth in protest, but soon sunk back into the stack of pillows propping her up. He laid Grantus' body to rest on the bed beside her, still and unmoving.
Prae's fingers deftly glided over the surface of the woman's belly, trailing to a stop on a point just off-center, and raised the Needle. "To end their dying anguish," she spoke softly.
The needle tip released a burst of light illuminating the patterned cloth by the woman's left thigh. Her eyes widened as the metal tool and most of Prae's hand vanished into thin air, her breaths shallow and rapid. In an instant, Prae had connected both bodies with one motion, in and out of the large belly and into Grantus' chest, inches away from the fresh wound from earlier.
Prae paused for a bit, still hovering over where she had previously held the knife. "And so they will be reborn anew," she said as she felt a bit of resistance from where her hand was, like something was pulled taut. Although invisible to everyone in the room, the thread connecting both people had been formed.
"This vessel is yours to wield," she continued, as more rays sprung forth, intensely highlighting the contours of her face, the woman's and the bed in a bluish hue. The woman shut her eyelids, flinching at the sudden outburst of light.
"O Great Nature, I give myself to you."
Prae closed her eyes and pulled back on the "thread", as Grantus, the woman and herself were bathed in a brilliant wave of azure. Warmth seeped into her every limb as she felt her mind slip away into nothingness.
When she opened her eyes, Grantus' body was no more than a pile of freshly formed dirt, and the pregnant woman was being pried away by her father as she desperately clawed at the earthen mound, sobbing. The distant clomping of leather boots grew until a couple of leather-clad men appeared in the doorway.
"Please"–Her father gestured to the pile of dirt with his free arm–"allow him to return to Her embrace."
The woman raised her voice in protest. "I beg you," she cried, "Please, at least allow me to keep some of him as a memento!"
Her father shook his head and turned towards the door.
"...I'm sorry," Prae said, bowing. "Laarmes Pausitah."
Seven hours later, Prae found herself up again at the crack of dawn, back in the place of worship of her home village, D'vuspei. The sleep she had been looking forward to sounded better in her head. At least she had the other priestesses to keep her company in preparation for prayer this morning. One of them, Tesserta, had snuggled up to Prae on one of the benches lining the walls. She eagerly listened to the recounting of the events of the night before, her shoulder length blonde hair swishing back and forth tied back in a half ponytail.
"...And it was horrifying…I…I still remember the feeling in my hands," Prae muttered, looking down at her right sleeve, still stained with the remnants of Grantus' final breath. She frantically scraped at the caked blood with her fingernails, but the stubborn patches refused to come off.
Tesserta shot up from the stone bench in shock. "Are you okay!? I'm sorry you had to go through that…it must be a lot to take in."
"Yeah…I just need some time to rest." Prae discreetly folded up her right sleeve and the few splotches of dried blood vanished from sight. "I'm not sure I have the strength to do that again."
"I just thought us priestesses didn't directly, y'know, take lives…I just hope I won't have to do something like that too."
"Well, you were also a trainee up until last month…regretting your decision now?"
"No, but–" Tesserta crossed her arms, going silent for a moment. "I–I don't know if I could do it…if I was in your shoes. The…killing, I mean."
Prae shook her head, gritting her teeth. "S-sometimes that's what you have to do as a priestess. It's the same, right? As offering them the Fel'venae." It's the same. It has to be. Dad said so, after all.
"Well, the ending is the same but that doesn't make it–I don't know, it just feels wrong!"
"Tess, the entire village was at stake! Besides, we both know how bad letting another Soulless be born can be, especially in the middle of all those innocent people."
"Yeah, the same innocent people that call you–"
Tesserta paused for a moment, clearing her throat. "Sorry, I–"
A voice came from behind. "The 'Angel of Death'? Heard they've finally spread their wings."
The two girls jerked back in surprise at the sudden appearance of a boy in loose-fitting, plain earthen-tone clothes, nearly falling out of their seats. He lazily wrapped his arms around a broom handle behind his back, grinning.
"Allaver! That's going a bit too far, even for you," Tesserta snapped, shielding Prae with one arm. "And you really need to stop sneaking up like that!"
The boy chuckled, running his fingers through his short, wavy brown hair. "My bad, my bad. Ya feelin' alright though? Lemme know if I can do anythin' to help besides cleanin' the place," he said, glancing at Prae with a hint of concern on his face.
But Prae was no longer listening, instead staring down at her fingers. It was a miracle she was able to perform the ceremony last night. After all, they were trembling like crazy, as if left out in the cold for far too long. The images of Grantus' face flashed before her eyes as the events of last night played back religiously in her head.
"He–llo? Is Prae still in there?" Tesserta playfully rapped her knuckles on the girl's shoulder.
No response.
Allaver put a hand on his hip. "Maybe ya should, like, shake her or somethin'? Make some use of those wrestling skills of yers, yeah?"
Rolling her eyes at him, Tesserta turned back to the speechless girl on the bench.
"Hey, Prae!!" She gently held Prae's trembling hands and cautiously put herself into her field of vision, inches away from her friend's face. "Are you actually okay? Will you make it through prayer like that?"
"...yeah, thanks Tess."
Voices soon echoed off of the brick walls of the sacred structure's tunnel entrance to the south. Villagers trickled in on the watery path, guided into the heart of the temple by the creek. With a splash, their soles entered the temple grounds one by one, giving the nearby foliage a refreshing reprieve from the desert heat.
"Oh! Your dad's here," Tesserta whispered, singling out the head priest from the crowd. "We'll talk more after this, okay?" She gave Prae a quick hug and nudged her towards the droves of people near the tunnel.
"I'm not too great with all this prayer stuff," Allaver said as he rested the broom on his shoulder and sauntered away with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "But just do it the way ya usually do, yeah?"
Prae nodded and headed down the center aisle of the rows of rugs forming a circular pattern of bright crimson against the sandy interior. Before her was a smaller wooden stand with a roof that had an assortment of Rytaenxi hanging, long, wooden ladle-like tools with a mould at the end of the skinny handle. Facing the incoming crowd, she bowed slightly, scooping up a bit of the wet clay lining the creek flowing through the temple with one of Rytaenxi. Hovering her hand over the mud in the tool, orange sparks flew from her fingertips in a brilliant burst of light, revealing a neatly chiseled looking brick in her hand. Prae swiftly carved her prayer into the building block with the sharp end of the Rytaenxi and knelt on the podium before the massive sunlit central structure. The cylindrical brick cage, around thirty bricks wide and now three floors tall, was what was known as the Offering Tower. It basked in the rays of the sun through an opening in the ceiling, and was the result of the combined efforts of everyone in the village. Come on Prae, just business as usual. You got this, girl.
Completing her brief prayer, she added her brick to the tower and took a deep breath, spreading her arms towards the kneeling audience members. "The Tower is now open for offerings. T-Those of you who need help with Mirusol, raise your hand!"
Mirusol. As a child born to a farming family, this was an invaluable skill to have. Working hard to earn your meals, caring for each and every crop, and taking great care to not overharvest were all taught to mankind many centuries ago by Mother Nature, the goddess of creation. With these teachings, she also gave mankind a mysterious magic to help them prosper, later named Mirusol, miracles of the sun. The bricks that formed the very foundation of the Temple were proof of that. Her late mother had said that using these bricks to create a tower reaching into the sky, they would give back to Mother Nature every day as a form of thanks. At least, the sky is where people think she lives.
The villagers mirrored Prae's actions, setting their offerings in place on the tower with a series of satisfying low-pitched hollow sounds. All except for one. Explosions of clay splattered the clothes of the nearby villagers, who raised their voices in exasperation. Seeing this, Prae quietly approached the young child, Roluemi, who was covered head to toe in wet clay.
"Need help?" Prae asked, wiping some clay off Roluemi's shirt.
"P-Prae!?"
The child whirled around, startled, sending clay in every direction. Instinctively, Prae thrust her palm out, and a tiny orange orb of crackling energy formed in the center, sucking in all the dispersed clay in a vortex. Roluemi, still in awe of the display, eagerly held out her hands.
"Try to aim for this," Prae said, placing the clay in the girl's tiny hands, now in the shape of a rectangular brick, as if each face was expertly cut by an artisan. "Now what's been troubling you? And where's Ruemie?"
"Rue's, um, looking a-after Dad right now, so we lost half our crop this month. I wanted to pray for him, but I can't perform Lataedis as well as you…"
"I'm sorry." Prae knelt down, bringing her face to Roluemi's. "How about I help you practice then? For his sake."
"Except you should really just let her use that brick in your hand for now," said Tesserta, emerging from the sea of people. She turned to Rolumi, placing the brick in the child's hands. "Come ask me later! You might not know, but while Prae's a pro at Mirusol, she's actually really bad at teaching it."
Rolumi beamed, waving at the two as she hurried towards the Offering Tower.
Prae stood up, hands on her hips. "Hey, that is so not true by the way!"
"What? Don't think I haven't forgotten who tried to teach me way back when."
"Ugh, but-"
"It's fine," Tesserta chuckled, putting her hands on Prae's shoulders. "Besides, you make up for it by being the best Mirusol user in the village! Isn't it like basically breathing to you?"
"Thanks, but I think that title actually belongs to Allaver…he's an actual genius when it comes to it."
"You think so? I like the guy too, but he's just some city boy who moved here a while back." She lowered her voice further to almost a faint whisper, scanning the surroundings. "Also, I hear they don't even need to use Mirusol there, but we use it practically everyday to grow crops and make bricks."
"Hm, maybe you do have a point–"
The voices died down as a repeated clacking of boots on the wooden floorboards of the podium rang out louder than the last. The two girls looked at each other for a brief moment and rushed to their seats. Her father soon arrived in front of the tower, but two men were whispering amongst themselves in the second row:
"Does he still think he's Irysstia? He can't even hold a candle to what she did!"
"Hey, keep your voice down…like it or not, he runs the village now, so you better–"
Her father's voice boomed, echoing throughout the temple with gusto.
"As the Acting Head Priest, I know you all have been deeply saddened by the loss of Irysstia. To everyone here, she was a leader and a figure respected by many. To me, she was the love of my life and the lifeblood of our family. Despite my best efforts to take her place, I know there are many of you that will always resent me for what I have done and even what I haven't been able to do."
He paused, and shot a glance towards the man's direction, then at Prae. The man turned his head away, ducking behind his friend's shoulder.
"Which is why, I hereby appoint one of our priestesses, Tesserta Noellengard, as the next Village Chief and Head Priestess of the Temple!"