I vowed to drink the shadows when I was nine years old. Turn my lips as black as the goddess’s own as She passed me on the road and become one of Her whisper women. Mother took me to see the procession because she wanted me to become what she never could be. She told me it was to put the fear of the goddess in me. Mother didn’t think much of the times she caught me looking bored, but watching my younger siblings was tedious and I was only allowed to learn about Mother’s herbs when orders were slow, and patients weren’t keeping her busy. According to her it was time for me to focus on learning what I could to become a whisper woman.
We arrived at the Calling Road early. Staked out a spot near the Goddess’s Wood, so we would be among the first to lay eyes on Her and Her whisper women. There was an unspoken hope that we would be able see what truly happened when She called the night. The old man who spun wool liked to speculate that they sacrificed a young boy for the ritual and that they always picked the fairest one, no matter where he was in the Realm. The huntresses always scoffed whenever he said it but then they would hide their sons away in their tents when the time for the procession drew near—even the ugly ones. I was more inclined to agree with Grandmother. She would give the old man an impatient look and shut him up by asking why the goddess would need a boy, of all things, for a ritual. The rare times he made to counter her after that question, she would shut him up good and final by asserting the time when she had seen the goddess call the night as a young girl. She said the night spilled out of the goddess’s hair and hands. And that’s when Grandmother’s sister, Old Lily, would snort and tell Grandmother to stop lying, that everything had gone dark all at once, but no one listened to Old Lily because they were too eager to hear Grandmother’s story for the hundredth time. I was determined to figure out the truth of it as I stood the forest’s edge and tried to will my eyes to see past all the evergreen needles and trunks into the forest’s depths.
Mother fidgeted with my cloak and hair as we waited and people hemmed the road in around us. They would stretch for miles, from here to the Seedling Palace, all hoping to get a glimpse of the goddess and Her elite on their yearly walk to welcome the recruits who passed the year’s trials into their ranks. I didn’t let my gaze waver from the spot where the Calling Road abruptly ended at the forest’s edge to look at the crowd—I doubted they were that different from my own tribe and besides, I knew there wasn’t a single one who could be as interesting as the goddess.
Mother knelt down beside me once the morning sun was high in the sky. “Don’t forget to prick your mark when She appears—and bow your head. Don’t shame me.”
“Yes, Mother.” I pulled my prayer needle from my waist pouch without shifting my focus from the forest.
She stood back up and readied her own needle. Shuffles, whispers, and then the longest moment of my life. There was no noise in that moment except for a single, loud thump from my heart. The goddess stepped through the shadow of a large evergreen as if it was a tent flap that only needed to be brushed aside. I didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Didn’t jab my needle into my thigh and avert my gaze like I knew I should. Her skin was a deep blue, the shade just before true night, that faded into the deep black of her hair that glittered with hundreds of tiny, captured stars. A dress of ash colored leaves and darker shadow curled around her waist and chest, leaving one shoulder free. My eyes widened through the shock as I realized that She seemed to only be a few inches taller than me. The goddess, my goddess, stepped forward again and the moment broke.
I dropped my gaze, yanked up my skirt, and pricked one of the black diamonds that formed my mark on my thigh with more force than necessary as other people noticed Her and scrambled to do the same. Blood welled and I suppressed a hiss of pain. Immediately, the blood dried and flaked away, but that didn’t seem like a sufficient enough offering when the goddess was only a handful of yards away. What if She knew that I hadn’t immediately offered my blood to Her? Terror dried out my mouth and throat. Of course, She had to know—She was the goddess. I pricked another diamond and another. The goddess’s bare feet stepped smoothly by, shadows gathering and curling around the hem of Her dress like a pack of puppies begging for attention. The air changed as She passed, a misty coolness settling on my exposed skin, and the strong morning light quickly faded in a deep gray, like the night on a full moon. There was no sacrificed boy or inky darkness spilling from Her hands and hair.
Heliquat walked and the night followed.
I cowered, breath short, arms shaking, legs weak. I only stayed upright because everyone knew that She hated weakness and there was nothing weaker than crumbling into a sniveling ball. I raised my needle to bleed my mark again as more feet passed, covered in soft looking fur shoes when one set of feet shifted direction. A cold, deathly pale hand gripped mine before I could bring the needle down. For a single, irrational second I thought it belonged to a shamble man and a scream built in my throat. My head snapped up to look at the threat and the scream froze into a lump, blocking air and words. A whisper woman.
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Her lips were as black and dark as the shadows in the deepest part of a forest that never got to know sunlight, her skin and hair were paler than I had ever thought possible. Her dress had been crafted to reveal the large swirling mark on her left side, an unapologetic statement of power. My panic started to swell again as I recognized her from tales and rumors that never ceased about the goddess’s favorites. Lithunia, the High Priestess, second only to the goddess’s Beloved. She looked at me, passive and unreadable, until her lips and grip tightened slightly, “No, child.” Then she let go and swept back into her place in the procession.
I stared at where she had been. At my hand that she’d touched. Then I brought my gaze up to look at the sea of bowed heads around me, the countless dotted pricked wrists held out in supplication, my mother’s among them. I took in the spreading darkness as the goddess and Her chosen few continued down the road, heads held high and proud, bless marks bared. There was no terror there, no weakness.
My body began to shudder and the scream bumbled its way out of my throat in a whimper. I sank to the ground as my knees became too weak to hold me up even as I hated my body for the betrayal. My stomach felt sick and queasy, like I had just ate a bowl of pluckings that had sat out too long in the sun during the warm season. Even lightheaded and panting I refused to succumb completely to my weakness. I wouldn’t wrap my arms around my middle to hold the pain in, I wouldn’t curl into a ball or cry. I wasn’t a child.
A disgusted snort came from overhead as those around me began to shift and move. “You were supposed to be better than this.”
I swallowed so that I could speak past the dryness in my mouth and throat, and looked up at Mother to ask, “I thought you wanted me to be afraid?”
She clicked her tongue and gestured at me, “Afraid, not—not pitiful. If you were a proper daughter, you’d be able to accept your place and Her greatness without breaking.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Fear would teach you to be smart rather than clever. Get up.”
I forced myself to my feet, grumbling, “You’re never satisfied.”
“What was that?” she snapped.
I glared and snapped back at her, “I said that you’re never satisfied.”
Mother got a far away look for a moment before it quickly changed to one of her three looks of disappointment—lips pressed together, chin slightly raised, eyes looking down her nose—her favorite look for me. She flipped her braid over her shoulder. “Satisfaction is for dumb fools that see what’s around them and accepts that’s all there is to be had. Why would I ever have need to be satisfied?” Mother spat out the last word like a curse.
“You just said that a proper daughter accepts her place.”
She crossed her arms. “There is a difference between accepting your place as one of the goddess’s Daughters and settling for being some no name member of a water hole tribe.” Her voice took on her teaching tone, weighted and stern. “The worst kind of weakness is the kind that’s too cowardly to make use of all resources at its disposal. Always strive for more, Gimlea. Always.”
“It’s hard to strive for anything when you never let me do anything.”
“Ambition is?” She prompted.
Knowing there was no way around it, I supplied the end of one of her favorite phrases, “Nothing without discipline.”
“Good.” Mother clicked her tongue. “I don’t know why you make me work so hard.”
The sky started to lighten back to its mid-morning glory and as the sunlight got stronger my fear and its stupid weakness subsided only to replaced by exhaustion. I had to blink my eyes rapidly and clamp my mouth shut to stay awake and suppress a yawn. Mother didn’t need another thing to get picky and disappointed about.
“So?” When I didn’t answer she pointed down the road. “Why else did I bring you here? Let you see the procession when you aren’t even at your blooding years?”
“Because…” My brain felt sluggish and I railed against it. Mother always hated no answers more than my clever ones. “Because you wanted to show me what to aim for?”
Her favorite disappointed look sharped her face again. “To show you your opposition.” She knelt in front of me and took a hold of my chin. “Goddess knows why, but you have the one thing needed to reach true power in this place.”
I knew this answer. “My mark.”
She glanced down at my covered thigh before drilling her will through her gaze into mine again. “Your blessed mark. And that means you can rise to their station, surpass them.”
Just to be difficult I pointed out, “I can’t become Her Beloved.”
Mother’s gaze hardened. “No, but you can take what’s theirs. Become the High Priestess, take her position, and you’ll be above her and all the others.”
Lithunia’s pale face rose in my mind, her cold fingers wrapping around my hand. “Except for the Beloved.”
“Gimlea.” All she had to say was my name and her tone made the meaning clear. Don’t throw away your opportunity, Gimlea, the opportunity I never had. This isn’t all about you. Don’t be selfish. Don’t be weak.
Lithunia could say no. Her and her Sisters had been proud and tall. I couldn’t imagine fear and shame even touching their heads and backs. They were the goddess’s chosen.
“I understand, Mother. I’ll try.” But not for you. I’ll drink shadows and learn and reach the top so that I get to say “no” and you’ll have to find someone else to bully.
She chucked my chin and stood back up. “You won’t try, you’ll do it.” She gestured toward the direction we came from. “Now that you understand, let’s go. It’s a long journey back to the tribe.”
I wouldn’t be weak ever again. “Yes, Mother.”