aeve lost herself in the day’s work, she being one of only a handful of villagers who had stayed behind to look after the animals and keep an eye on the gates. Personally she had little confidence in the strength of walls against a determined foe. After all, she had grown up in wealth and splendor and now she was little more than a farmhand and a vagabond. Not even gods were proof against ruin.

It was with these dark thoughts that she moved silently through the rest of the day. Mog was one more creature in a long list that required cleaning, feeding, and attending to. Sensing her mood, he did not speak to her and bedded down without complaint. She was relieved he had stopped vomiting but the cough was nasty and she forced him to endure another mustard plaster and made him breathe in the steam from steeping herbs she knew would soothe his aching lungs from the cold dry air.

“I’m sorry if I’ve offended yeh,” Mog croaked as she banked up the fire in the hearth for the night while he lay on his back beside it. She dropped a few coals into her bed warming pan.

“I am not offended,” Maeve said, glancing down at him, then looking away from his gentle face, “Good night and sleep well.”

Soon she was settled into bed but the past flooded her mind with unwelcome memories. After a day of hard work, it was difficult to resist the pull of sleep but unsettled dreams rose up to meet her and she thrashed in their net to lay awake gasping or angry. After midnight she succumbed to the sweet hypnotic drone of Rin small pipes, grateful for a respite from the grim and violent nightmares that lurked like ruinous demons in her subconscious.

The music drifted up to her window along with a warm spring breeze laden with the scent of flowers. Rolling onto her side she opened her eyes and it was as if she gazed into a mirror. Her twin gazed back at her with a bemused smile upon her lips. All of their young lives they had dwelt together as if they were one being. Every morning held the same comfortable rhythm of awakening together to the sounds of the temple stirring from sleep. The pipes stood out against the quiet movements in the courtyard below. It was a welcome sound that heralded an unusual occurrence.

“Lo ro,” she murmured, letting the dream take her with a mixture of relief and sadness. She would never again hear Radha’s delighted giggle or speak their secret language. Radha batted her playfully with her pillow and the two of them erupted with laughter.

“Go see,” her sister insisted, “Mae mo.”

She blushed red to the roots of her hair before bounding lightly out of their shared bed and slinking toward the open lancet window. They lived in the Aethryl Tower, the highest point in the temple complex. The round chamber was suffused with an amethyst glow as sunlight poured through the elaborate patterns in the rich violet and blue stained glass. They dwelt in sacred splendor for they were Lyssae, the holy twins chosen at birth to embody the goddess. The walls were swathed in rich tapestries of masked figures depicting the sacred dualities. Their bed was draped in the finest silks and damask perfumed in the evening with flower petals or buds of dried lavender.

Sacred duties aside, Maeve was enduring the first flush of adolescence and a strange curiosity about boys. Both of them had been told a few basic details about the changes in their bodies. Sex was, after all, included in many of the Lyssan rites. They were of an age, however, when the priests and priestesses still barred them from observing or participating in those secretive events. They were accorded all the respect due a deity and yet restricted to the rules of children. It was beginning to chafe on both of them.

As preparations for the Festival of Splendor hastened, more enticing strangers arrived. Seeming to detect the emerging curiosity of the girls, the Cantors increased their vigilance, forbidding them from areas of the temple that had once been freely available to them. The only time they were alone was once the prayers and seals had been placed upon their chamber door after evening Reflections.

She gazed down into the courtyard and watched the pair of boys. The gangly redhead had found a patch of lawn on which to sit while he practiced his pipes. His towheaded friend was doing handstands and drumming his heels against the stone wall in time to the music.

“One each,” giggled Radha, pressing in close so that their shoulders touched. Maeve blushed.

“They’re… cute,” Maeve whispered, realizing she had no better words to describe them.

“Out of reach, too,” Radha said glumly. Maeve glanced at her sister, wondering what she meant.

“We could sneak out after morning rites. We’ll have a few hours before the festival while the attendants are busy.”

“Cantor Amura would be furious.”

Maeve imagined the stiff old woman turning red in the face with anger and found the idea amusing. What would the Cantors do if the two of them sneaked out to talk to some boys? There was only one way to find out.

“I want to talk to them,” Maeve murmured, wondering if the redhead had a fine voice. He was tall like the people south of Rin. Did he speak with the common brogue of that region or court speech.

“I’ve seen Ginger before. The blonde one is new.”

Maeve smirked at her sister’s name for the taller boy, imagining he would be annoyed by it. Then she laughed and batted Radha’s shoulder playfully upon realizing her sister had been eying the boys before her.

“I wonder who they are.”

Radha shrugged, rising from the window sill to straighten her long silk gown when they heard the key being turned in the lock of their door. By the time the two women who attended to them had the door open, Maeve and Radha stood calmly at the foot of their bed with all the innocence of spring sunlight. They suffered the indignities of being bathed and groomed. Their smooth black hair was tied up around crescents of mother of pearl with sprays of gold and gems. Maeve, as always, donned the dark visage of Lyssa. Her mask was divided into a platinum half-moon ornamented on the other side with ebon cloisonné and intricate silver knot-work. Radha wore a mask of gold with its rays of inspiration. She was the bright face of the goddess and the one the prior Lyssae had determined would grow into the role of Seer and Oracle. Maeve was sometimes jealous of her sister for having earned such a distinction. Perhaps that was why Radha often acted as if she were in change.

“Fine,” Maeve thought as festival robes were layered over her, “I’ll just talk to the boys and leave you out of it.”

Soon the two of them looked nothing like naïve adolescent girls. No part of their flesh was exposed. Even their masked faces were concealed behind a gem-studded mist of diaphanous veils. They were led away to their place in the temple proper to be put on display, the two of them posed to receive pilgrims and penitents, to dispense miracles merely by being gazed upon.

Maeve normally did not mind performing her duties. After all, her mere presence brought succor or divine inspiration. Radha’s eyes all but glowed with delight as she gazed down brightly upon the finely dressed clusters of nobles who entered and were received by High Priestess Vivane and her consort, High Priest Calach. Maeve and Radha stood hand in hand behind the holy people upon a raised dais, their elaborate robes carefully arranged so that worshippers could touch the hem of their gowns for good luck.

On festival days, Maeve and Radha would see hundreds of new faces pass through the wide doors of the temple. Some would have traveled hundreds of miles, even sailing across the sea. Theirs was the only Lyssan temple that maintained the tradition of the sacred twins. It was a source of great pride, but also a responsibility, for their presence was also an important source of wealth and prestige. That was why the first hour or two before the festival was reserved for the small groups of nobles who had paid for the privilege of a private viewing in the Chapel of Manifestation. Radha’s fingers tightened over her hand when the next family was ushered in.

“Lord and Lady Simagh,” announced the herald as the immense bronze door swung open to reveal the next group of nobles. Maeve could not speak while the two of them were embodying the goddess, which was what the holy people called it when they were in costume. She wondered why her sister was trying to get her attention and then her stomach flipped. Kneeling before the feet of the priest and priestess was the young boy she had seen that morning. Only now he as just a few feet away and she could gaze down into his earnest blue eyes and drink in the beautiful lines of his face and body.

“I wish to pledge myself to Lyssa,” said the boy, “I have served as an aspirant for one year and a day.”

There was an older woman standing behind the boy, a tall, silent figure with fiery hair tied up into an elaborate braid. Her face was grim as she stood at the side of a lean black-haired figure.

“This is your fault,” said the man angrily to the woman. It was as if once the door closed they were alone, as if the embodiment of the goddess and the two holy people did not exist or could somehow not hear the conversation. When Lady Simagh did not respond except with an icy glare, the scar-faced man continued, “You turned my son against me. I forbid this.”

Maeve felt pity for the boy, noticing how he flinched at his father’s words as if he were being stung by a whip.

“Lord Simagh, your son is of the age of decision?” asked Vivane.

Fury burned in the man’s gaze as he rounded on the priestess.

“If the stupid oaf turns his back on his family and heritage, then he may come here to live as a peasant. Do you hear me, boy? Not so much as a coin from me while you dwell here and none to this bloated mockery of a temple.”

Vivane nodded serenely, failing to look annoyed or alarmed by Lord Simagh’s words. She gazed down at the boy.

“Mog Ruith, what is your choice?”

Maeve met his eyes though the gauzy veil as he looked up to her as if for divine guidance. Her stomach did another flip and she smiled beneath the mask.

“I choose to follow the call of Lyssa,” the boy said, raising his face in defiance.

Maeve gazed back down at the boy and saw the man in his place, his face no longer soft with youth. His eyes were still gentle and earnest but time had drawn lines upon his brow and laugh lines around his mouth. But there was sorrow, also, a sorrow they both shared for things lost forever.

“I must fly away in the spring. The past is behind me and there it must stay.”