Page 8 of The Amber Sunburst

When she’s finished, she glares at any girls who made noticeable mistakes in the ritual, and then, thank the Forms, claps loudly to announce that they’re finally done.

The younger girls groan, whispering to their friends about what they did wrong in the song or the dance. The older girls cheer in relief that it’s over and remove their robes to take them to their allotted hooks.

As always, the end of the ceremony makes her feel one hundred times lighter. She’s found she’s always most maudlin whilst chanting. But there are things to look forward to this week, and she’d rather charge ahead than look back.

“Aikateriiiiiiiiine,” she sings, her voice floating through the room until her friend turns to her conspiratorially.

“Opheeeeeelia,” Aika screams back, because she never could sing. Years ago the Mothers told her to mouth the words during chants because ‘her horrible voice was ruining them,’ All Aika did in response was laugh and yell louder.

Ophelia adores her.

“You know what I heard?” Aika asks.

Ophelia smiles. She loves this tradition of theirs.

“Oh, goodness! What did you hear?”

“I heard there’s—” she shakes Ophelia’s shoulder “—a party this weekend.”

Ophelia gasps and exclaims, “How sacrilegious. A scandal!” She falls dramatically to her knees. “A horrible insult to all that is Good.”

Aika falls next to her. “It’s horrid, I know. Enough to make a grown woman weep.”

“Would you guys stop it?”

Isadora—the third and final piece of their close-knit group—takes their hands.

“This terrible happenstance is too overwhelming to bear, already!” Isadora cries, pretending to faint on the cold tiles.

Everyone else in the Atrium rolls their eyes fondly. They’ve seen this routine enough times. It happens at the end of every week.

The first party invite they’d ever received left them scandalized. A party? How could they possibly be expected to break the rules? They reacted like nothing worse had ever happened—they weren’t close enough then to know how much all three of them loved to break the rules.

They all showed up separately, of course, because who were they to turn down a rare invite? Once the party was in full swing, they encountered each other on the dance floor, drunk out of their minds on cheap wine, and laughed themselves silly. They’ve been inseparable ever since.

Now parties are a drachma a dozen, and no one would dare leave the three of them off their invite list, but the joke persists.

Isadora links her arms with theirs and drags them up the north stairs to the roof.

“Okay, so are we going to this party tomorrow or what?” Isadora asks.

“Please can we?” Ophelia immediately whines. “I’m so bored here I’m going to die.”

Aika kisses Ophelia’s cheek. “Our beautiful dreamer. Only you could be bored of being a Priestess. You know everyone wants to be us.”

“Right,” Ophelia responds. She forgets sometimes that her friends are not nearly as dissatisfied with this life as she is.

“We’re going, don’t worry,” Dora insists. “If we don’t, how will we wear the outfits Aika and I bought when we were blessing that school in the sixth Arc?”

“With what money?” Ophelia asks. They’ve been doing this more and more—buying things.

Which Ophelia doesn’t mind, of course. She loves ‘things.’ But Priestesses aren’t meant to have an income. They’re supposed to live austere but elegant lives outside the capitalist system of the Producers and the communist system of the Leadership Classes.

“Oh, you know,” Aika says as Dora nods mysteriously.

It’s impossible to pry something out of the two of them when they don’t want you to, so Ophelia gives up on understanding for now. When they reach the top of the twisting, ornately carved stairs, the scent of dinner wafts pleasantly through the air.

She separates from her girls and finds her floor cushion in the giant circle of Priestesses. The Priestesses are purposely placed far from their friends because, according to the Mothers, ‘Dinner is meant to be a time for reflection and thanking the Good for all that we have. Not for chitter-chatter.’