The matron hazardously puts her hands up to her chest, face tense. “I’ve missed you from our sermons. Even your father’s been asking.”
Something awful spins in Mistress Vincenza’s voice, scratching out, “no talk of him.”
It never came to me that she would have parents. I assumed they were… dead. She encouraged me to be closer with mine—why isn’t she close with hers?
“I wouldn’t think to impose, dear. Are we here to talk about her?” The matron smiles at me.
“You can speak, Catarina,” Mistress Vincenza states.
“I asked to go here. I had questions to ask you. In private? If that’s okay?” I hedge.
“May I take her into the building to speak?”
Mistress Vincenza nods.
“Come on, dear.” The matron gracefully strides until our steps turn onto hard wood.
“The glade is so beautiful,” I say as the door closes. “I want to come here often.”
“You’re free to! No charge for entry. No conditions. The Great Ring wanted you to see its wonders; it’s why it decided for you to exist.”
“Thank you… It sometimes doesn’t feel like that’s true.”
“In what way, child?”
Child. Mistress Vincenza sees me as one, doesn’t she? That must be why the word burns something behind my eyes.
I shrug, pathetically. “The world is made by Ringborn, isn’t it?”
“They are the holiest of us.”
“Sometimes… Doesn’t—Are you a Ringborn?”
“Yes, but I’ve been celibate. The Ring never called me to anyone.”
I was hoping she’d say no. I was hoping for a consort to consort conversation, but this is still my best hope for my questions. “Doesn’t it ever feel like non-Ringborn aren’t open to the Ring’s wonders?”
“In what way do you feel that? The Great Ring doesn’t try to hurt its faithful.”
Was Oliva not faithful enough? Was Nascia?
No. That’s not it. Nascia led Mistress Vincenza in their faith, it was implied.
“I don’t know.” My eye twitches. “This is… I don’t know why I’m asking this. Why can’t everyone access the Ring? Doesn’t it ever feel so awful that so few will ever get to touch it?”
“I’ve never touched it, and I don’t feel awful.”
I stir my tongue, mumbling, “but you had the choice. Why not I?”
The matron pulls me close to a mural: people reaching for, but never touching, the Great Ring. “I want to reiterate that it is holy, and that it is infinite.”
I blink, staring at her. Why does she sound like she’s about to contradict that?
“But, the Ring is fragile. Our magic is privileged to exist because it tears at the Ring.” She traces her fingers along the painted arc of a falling comet, disappearing into the atmosphere as a holy relic. “The Ring is generous. The Ring loves us. And we love the Ring. But while the Ring’s love is gifting, ours is abusive. We steal from it—take its luster. The only way we can express our love is with a sacrifice, and the Ring sacrifices.
“The Great Ring spends every moment compromising. We are too immoral to be trusted with unfettered magic; we would destroy the only thingthat makes us beautiful with our fetid desires. So, the Ring chooses a few curators, the Ringborn, who ensure only the most productive and sweetest get to access it.”
“Itchoosesthem?”
