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I turn back to the Cathedral’s entrance, my neck stiff and slow with the motion, and then step forward and through.
Inside, the vaulted ceilings reach so high that my breaths seem to echo through them, let alone my footsteps as we walk through the hall. Hundreds of wooden pews stretch before us. Their ends are carved into ornate detailing. All the pews are filled, save for the one at the front where there’s still room beside my aunt and my cousins. Beyond the sea of pews, the cathedral opens to a high domed chamber. The gods are painted onto the curved ceiling and are imbued with aether, making them seem as real as all the people gathered on the pews.
Meysus the Wise, God of the Moon, sits on a crescent moon. He has a long white beard which swirls like smoke and wears midnight black robes embroidered with silver thread. He flicks through the thick tome he is reading. It is Meysus which Tirith venerates the most, though they pray to all the ten major Caelum.
On the opposite side of the chamber is Zelene, Goddess of the Sun. Her skin is deep amber, and her hair and eyes shine brilliantly with golden light. The white skirts of the single shoulder dress she wears flutter around her legs. She holds the sun in her hands, high above her head. The Mother Goddess is worshipped fervently by the people of Selynis, and it is said she is the one who shaped humans from clay and breathed life into us.
On the eastern and western sides, Aion the God of Wind and Navis the God of Sea stand opposite each other. A great eagle perches on Aion’s shoulder, while Navis clutches an enormous trident. The rest of the chamber’s domed ceiling features the remaining ten gods: Iara the Goddess of Music strums a lute, Tyronis the God of Thunder strikes his hammer and calls down lightning, Avris the Goddess of Dreams slumbers on a cloud beside Meysus the Wise, Ranthir the God of Love aims an arrow with a heart-shaped head, Thela the Goddess of Hunt throws her spear at deer, and Vetia the Goddess of Luck jingles her coin purse.
Beneath all the gods lies my mother’s coffin. Like the Arcanium’s atrium, it is formed from crystallized aether. It’s of a pale purple hue, and the surface glimmers as the light reflects across it. The crystal is translucent enough that I can make out my mother’s shadow through the sides.
The sight of her, vague though it may be, brings me to a sudden halt. We are halfway through the cathedral now, and everyone turns to look at me, but I barely notice them. All I am aware of is the strained rhythm of my heart.
I stare at her crystal coffin for so long that the cathedral spins around me. My father catches me before I fall, though it’s only afterward that I realize I was falling. He helps me to the front right pew, where my aunt and cousins have left room for us.
On our way, we pass Kaely and her father—as well as Eliya and the rest of her family. The other two Archmagi are also gathered here: Lorette Gidston, Archmage of Knowledge, and Krasus Lanord, Archmage of Finance.
I slide down onto the pew beside my father. The wood is cool and smooth beneath me. As solid as the bench is, I feel no more stable than I did on my feet, and I dig my fingers into the edges to prevent myself from teetering over.
For a long while, no one dares to say anything—not so much as a hushed whisper. We all stare at the crystal coffin in the center of the chamber. My sight blurs and then there are three coffins: one for my mother, one for my father, and one for Eliya. And maybe I should imagine one for myself too, because I fear my heart will cease beating at any moment, suffocated by grief.
My gaze trails up to where the Goddess Zelene is holding up the sun. Golden petals scatter around her. It’s as though they are made from sunlight.
She created us, and we are supposedly her children, but it’s impossible to see her as a loving mother. If she cared for her creations, why would she allow us to suffer? Why would she create humanity with a capacity for such evil?
But Zelene, or at least the enchanted painting of her, doesn’t answer my questions. She continues staring up at the sun above her head, her gossamer skirts twirling around her.
There’s no afterlife, either. Though Selynis would have you believe otherwise. We magi know better. Upon death, souls disperse into the energies they are made from and return to the atmosphere. Only the most powerful sorcerers can hope for their souls to remain intact enough to become aether spirits drifting through the world. Perhaps some of Selynis’s priestesses burn so brightly with light magic that their souls transcend to the Heavens upon death and become immortal saints. But that is merely conjecture, since Nolderan has neither proved nor disproved the fate of Selynis’s priestesses after death.
As for my mother, it’s unlikely fragments of her spirit remain in the world. Heston warped the aether in her soul into dark magic, and my father obliterated the resulting wraith. All that remains of her now is her paintings and her gardens.
“We gather here today to commemorate the life of Mirelle Ashbourne,” a priest begins, pulling my attention from my thoughts. His voice echoes through the grand hall. Light magic radiates from him. He wears white robes decorated with golden thread.
“And to commit her into the hands of the gods,” he continues.
The finality sends fresh tears streaming down my face, and I consider shouting that none of the gods care about us mortals. They are locked away in their Heavens. Only for priests and priestesses might they spare a second thought.
They certainly don’t care that my mother is gone.
I barely hear his next words, too busy trying to control my weeping so that it doesn’t echo through the cathedral’s vaulted ceilings and disturb everyone else listening to his speech. I vaguely hear him talking more of the gods, of aether and light, and of how my mother had been a kind and brilliant woman.
My blurred gaze fixes once more on my mother’s crystal coffin. In the shimmering surface, I see Heston standing over her body, her veins throbbing as poisonous dark magic chokes the life from her. And I see myself helpless to stop him from murdering her and raising her as a wraith.
If only I weren’t so weak. If I were stronger—as powerful as Kaely—then I would have been able to fight Heston with her. We would have held him off long enough for my father to arrive. And then my mother would still be alive.
I can blame Heston for her death, even my father for not executing him five years sooner, but I can’t deny that I also had a hand in her death.
If only, if only—there are so manyif onlys,and yet I cannot change the past. I must accept what I have done. That my weakness killed my mother.
My father rises, and as I feel the shift of his presence, I notice that the priest has finished speaking. My father gives a speech, of how he met my mother when she painted his portrait upon his succession as Grandmage of Nolderan, of how she scolded him so many times to sit still. His words twist the dagger already piercing my heart.
Eventually he falls silent once more, tears streaking his cheeks. I doubt he is aware of them. The Grandmage of Nolderan would never normally allow himself to cry in public, to show that weakness. He is too proud for that. But what use is there for pride when my mother is dead?
The priest continues to speak of gods who care not for us, and he offers more prayers to them and her memory. Only his final words penetrate my ears: “That which is aether may never truly die.”
If I were not choking on my tears, I may have laughed at what a half-truth that is. Yes, aether can never be destroyed—that part is not inaccurate. But what Nolderan’s favorite maxim fails to mention is that aether can be warped into dark energy, while the reverse is impossible. When my father destroyed my mother’s wraith, the dark energies consisting of her soul scattered through the world.
She is dead in every sense of the word. The saying does not apply to her.
