She heard a cry, like a long whistle. The air glowed gold, then tore like a curtain. A woman walked through the rift. Her hair gleamed like silver starlight, her eyes black as the winter nights. She wore a robe of shimmering colors, like sunset across the sands. Luz recognized her face from a thousand images. Iridan, the Desert Queen.
Heart empty, she stared at the Goddess who had destroyed her; she, who had sent no sign when a sign was so badly needed, mocked her by coming now. Iridan reached forward and touched Luz's brow. Luz waited for death, but felt nothing, not even a tickle along her skin.
"Go to the Seawind Temple,” the Goddess said. “Simeon will explain everything to you there."
Before Luz could react, the Goddess vanished.
Luz rose. She had no reason to obey the Goddess, and yet she burned to hear what words Simeon might offer.
* * * *
In her four-day trek to the temple, she was treated like a queen. When she feared she would die from lack of food and water, she stopped at a small village. Expecting only grudging charity of millet and water, she was startled when the villagers brought her roasted goat and camel milk. In the next village, the same thing. Gone was the contempt, replaced by something approaching reverence. Were the desert people renegades, Luz wondered, who had spurned Iridan's laws? She didn't ask, fearing that her questions would drive them to revile her, as the coastal people had done.
At last, she approached the Seawind Temple. Along the way to Simeon's office, postulants and priests bowed their heads to her. So changed was she in appearance, she was certain they wouldn't recognize her as the postulant who was expelled long ago. What then, did they think she was? Luz looked down at her ragged clothing, at her work-hardened hands, wondering what they saw in her.
Simeon sat in his office, small and sinewy as she remembered him, with hands as tough as ropes. He rose to meet her. She saw in his eyes that he, at least, knew who she was. “Luz."
She nodded. “I saw Iridan in the dessert. The Goddess said I should come to you."
Simeon gave a small smile. “You don't yet know, do you?” He went to a shelf and retrieved a hand mirror, then held it up to Luz.
She gasped as she saw her brow. The X remained, but now it formed the center of a five-pointed star. A star that glowed with silver fire.
She stared at the man before her, at the star that marked him. “You, too, once wore the mark of shame?"
He nodded. “Seven years it took me to return. In those years I learned what it means to be despised, to be lower than the lowest slave. I told you my heart would go with you. And so it did."
"But why?"
"The Goddess never sends visions to postulants in the temple,” Simeon said. “But only a handful will tell the truth. That is the first test. If you keep your faith and do Iridan's work, that is the second."
Luz stood in silence, reflecting on all that had happened. On her bitterness, and her hate. “I didn't keep my faith,” Luz said. “I cursed the Goddess."
"Faith is more than words,” Simeon said. “Noreen of Uraz sent me word of what you'd done. You risked your life for Iridan's law."
"I did it for the children,” Luz said. “Only for them."
"It is through each other that we serve the Goddess. It was her work you did."
"And all the ones who came from the temple and lied? How do they serve?"
Simeon spread his hands. “They are priests in name only. We—” He touched his brow. “We, the true priests, watch them, direct them. They are less of a danger to the faith under our eyes. If we expelled them, they would seek power in another way. The Goddess is wise."
Luz bowed her head. All those years she had searched for her secret sin. All those years she had lived at the edge of death, with bitterness in her soul. Was it necessary, all that misery? She didn't know. In time, perhaps, she would understand it all, but for now her heart ached with the pain of double betrayal. For Simeon, too, had his part in what had taken place. As she herself would someday have a part in the same deception.
They would give her robes and honors, a place in a temple such as Simeon had. And she would watch the greater number of her postulants lie and be received into a world of comfort and acclaim, and the few honest souls sent away to a life that not even a dog would envy. All of this she would do in Iridan's name.
The Goddess might be wise, but was she just? Luz's lips opened as if she might speak, but no sound came forth. She could think of nothing to say.
* * *
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