“We must, at all times, cleave to the teachings of the Holy Tree. Doubt is impurity, doubt is weakness, doubt is the crack in our heart which lets corruption in.”

“Yes Teacher!”

“In the teachings of the Holy Tree is recorded the wisdom which saved us and raised us up from the fallen world to our life under the protection of Divine Mazana’s blessed illumination.”

“Yes Teacher!”

“Should you feel doubt creeping in, should questions and uncertainties assail you, you know what you must do, do you not children?”

“Pray to the Holy Tree.”

“Confess our sins.”

“Do penance.”

“And through the suffering of penance will you find the light of the Holy Tree shining upon you once more.”

– Notes from the First Tender’s classes to the first generation of children born within the Garden.

I expected my intruder to be offended. She was from beyond the Thicket Wall and I knew everything beyond the wall was broken and monstrous. Or I thought I’d known that. Being called broken and monstrous seemed like the sort of thing someone would take offense at. That would have made things really simple. If she’d fought me, I would have…I would have…

I don’t know.

I should have fought her.

I should have raised an alarm and battled against her like all the life in the Garden depended on my victory, but I was so far past that doing that I felt like I’d stepped into someone else’s life.

No backsliding now. Please.

I almost chuckled at that. I couldn’t backslide far enough to return to my life if I was greased head to toe in Glowflower oil.

My intruder didn’t fight me though.

She was the one who chuckled.

And then laughed in my face.

“You’re not kidding are you?” she said said before her laughter got out of control. “You think…you think the wall is the end of the world?”

“Well, no,” I said, lying to avoid admitting how stupid I obviously was.

“What about all the food you eat? Where do you think that comes from?”

“From the Holy Tree?” I mean, the food we ate had to come from the Holy Tree. Where else could it grow?

“Even the meat? Does the tree grow meat bulbs?”

“No. Of course not. The meat comes from the Root Farms.”

“Root Farms? And come on, you don’t have any farm land in here. There’s nowhere your tree could grow anything inside the wall if it wanted to, much less have animals grazing for food.”

“No. The storehouses. The tree creates the food in the…”

I stopped as a question I’d swallowed at four years old belched itself back into the forefront of my mind.

It’s surprising more people don’t ask how the food gets in the storehouses, but then I suppose you’ve been trained to accept miracles as your just due.

“Are you really just figuring this out? I mean…really?” She looked like accepting that I was stupid as I clearly was was inconceivable.

“I…no. What did you come here for? What’s out there? Who are you?”

Was I falling apart? Nah. I’d already fallen apart. Was I losing coherency and spiraling into madness? Nope. I couldn’t be going somewhere I already was. 

I mean, nothing about the day had made sense so far, so losing my mind was clearly just going with the flow. 

Maybe this was Divine Mazana’s will?

Sure, that was it! It was a test. All I had to do to get back in the Holy Tree’s good graces was…was…

The thought of the penance I would be required to perform hit me and I felt sick. Not from fear though, not like I was supposed to. No, doing penance would be a violation. I knew a much better approach than penance.

Burn it to the ground.

Burn everything.

Did nothing made sense? Well ashes would make a whole lot of sense.

What about what’s yours? You’d give all that up too?

There was a gravity to that question that pulled me back together. My demon wasn’t idly chatting. What she had asked was somehow, in that moment, the most important question in the world and I could feel my whole life turning on its fulcrum.

Ashes on one hand.

And on the other?

The unknown.

No.

The future. My future.

I could feel the fire rising in me. I could fracture and let it loose. I could make everything make sense again by burning it all down into a very sensible layer of silt that a new world might spring from.

But I wouldn’t be there to see it.

I would be at peace.

I would be gone, past the madness, past the anxiety I’d carried for so long, past everything.

And what would I have?

Nothing.

No, we weren’t going to throw away everything.

The future was mine.

Mine.

No matter how long I’d been lied to.

No matter what they’d tried to make me into.

No matter what they did, I wasn’t going to let them take what was mine.

Strangely, the anger I felt worked to keep the fire in check.

Because they were both mine. My fire and my anger.

They were both me!

My intruder had been answering me with something like words, but the rush of flame within me had drowned it out.

I wanted to hear her words, but too much else was roaring through me so I held up my hand for her to stop for moment as years upon years of the insanity I’d been living with came crashing down around me.

Had I known this would happen if I confronted her? Had I wanted it to happen?

Those weren’t the questions I needed answers to.

Why she’d come into the Garden? What she planned to do? I didn’t need those answers either, at least not as much as I needed the answer to the one question I’d been avoiding for far, far too long.

Are you mine? I asked without words.

Am I? came my demon’s answer.

My demon.

Mine.

Yes. The word didn’t explode out from me. It exploded inwards, etching each letter onto my soul so indelibly that I would never be able to deny them again.

Never be able to deny her.

I wasn’t a good Sylvan.

And I wasn’t possessed.

I was the possessor.

And what did I possess?

Flame and exaltation leapt from me. My hands twisted into claws and scales slid down my arms as wings flared from my back and strength I’d been crushing with denial since the night when I’d found her ripped through my whole body. My strength. Her strength. 

My goddess’s strength.

YES!

Her relief was so palpable, it drove me to me knees.

I was afraid that was going to take much longer, but still, that was a long time.

You’re really mine? I asked, tears of flame tumbling down my cheeks.

As you are mine.

I fell to my hands and knees and vast wings wrapped around me, sheltering me as they’d always been ready to.

I was losing so much as the ramifications of what I’d chosen shot through me, but what I found in the wreckage of the life I’d known was so much more.

I could feel that even if I didn’t understand it, could sense the critical importance of not just finding the god I carried within me, but the small precious thing that was me. The real me. The me I chose to be.

When I rose again, no claws adorned my hands and no scales shielded my arms. The wings on my back were gone as well, or perhaps it would be better to say they were hidden.

And my intruder?

She was positively gleeful.

“I knew it! I knew it, I knew it!” She danced from one foot to the other, a smile as wide as the sky gleaming on her face.

And then she frowned and turned a bit to say, “Shut up. Okay, yeah, your idea was a good one. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think it was though. So there.”

“Umm, who are you….” I started to ask, hoping I hadn’t driven my intruder crazy with the tiny little life shattering revelation I’d been overwhelmed by.

That would be me, a new voice whispered in my ear.

Umbrielle? My god sounded surprised, which was an odd thing for a god to be but then my lessons on the nature and abilities of the gods were demonstrably flawed so who was I to say?

Draconia? I thought, I hoped, is it really you though?

Of course! Who else would I be you silly shadow!

That sounds like you, but the Draconia I know would never have allowed herself to become the trapped by an overgrown shrub.

Why don’t we try fighting like we used to and you’ll see just how much like my old self I still am.

Okay, now that does sound like you.

Brat.

Demon.

Flirt.

Can you blame me? I’ve been missing you for centuries you scaly beast.

“Should we let you two have the chapel to yourselves?” my intruder asked.

“You can hear them too?” I asked.

“Trust me, hearing them isn’t the problem.”

Now, now Theia, Jilya probably needs a moment, and our help.

Umbrielle is right. Can you cloak us? The shrub is stupid but its master is annoyingly adept. I wouldn’t have put off Jilya’s revelation for the world, but he can’t have failed to notice it.

Draconia. Please. You do remember whom you’re speaking to, do you not? I cloaked us the moment we entered the chapel. The only reason Jilya was able to see Theia at all was we’d caught a hint of your presence.

In the distance, I heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

A lot of approaching footsteps.

Umbrielle, my dearest, most hated, most beloved Umbrielle, exactly how certain are you that your shadows could have hidden a True Blessing. My only True Blessing, I must point out, in centuries and the only one which I am presently maintaining.

The step grew closer and I knew who they were.

The Tenders. Four of them.

And at least a squad of conscripts.

Muscle power and magic enough to solve any problem within the grove.

Well, maybe any problem.

Fire burns a whole lot of things after all.

You’re only Blessing?

I am…I was lost. I am not what I once was.

Oh Draconia, none of us are.

Almost none of us.

You know of her? You can sense her?

My bones are the bones of the world. My blood is the blood of life. I am the Treasure and the Guardian. I am…I lost. I lost and she stepped in to protect us all. You stepped in.

I’ve only ever been a part of my greater self, Umbrielle said and I felt an impression of her ‘greater self’ that stretched out wider than the sky. 

Well, now I’m only a fragment of my true self as well, a tarnished treasure at best.

“No.” Anger snapped the word out of me. “You’re not tarnished. You’re mine and no one gets to abuse you. Ever.”

Ah, blossoming faith, Umbrielle said. Always so fierce.

“Oh yeah, I definitely sounded like that,” Theia, my intruder, said, meaning precisely none of the words she spoke.

You express your faith in your own manner. I find it charming, Umbrielle said.

“I’m going to need some explanations, a lot of explanations,” I said as the marching steps grew much too close for comfort. “But we need to leave. Now.”

“Aww, I was wondering if we were going to get to fight again,” Theia said.

“We will in about thirty seconds if we’re not out of here.”

“Ooo!” she said, gazing at me hungrily only to stop as her ears twitched up. “Oh, yeah, you’re right, we need to be elsewhere.”

We should be cloaked from them, Umbrielle said.

We should have been safe from them two centuries ago. Let’s not make the same mistake of underestimating them again, shall we?

“Do you know a better hiding spot?” Theia asked, stepping back close to me.

I wracked my brain for a moment trying to think of one, which was challenging since we were already at one of the safest places I’d been able to think of.

“Wait, yeah, I do know of a place no one will be at now. I don’t think we can get there though,” I said, trying to picture even the most unreasonable route that might get us to safety.

“That’s not a problem. Just hold it in your mind and hold onto me.”

And then she hugged me.

And then we vanished.

“In all things, we look first to the defense of the sacred tree. This is why the Thicket Wall has no gates or other weak points, much as we must eliminate the weak points within and among us.”

“But teacher, what could attack Holy Mazana?”

“Our enemies are debased mockeries of life, but without constant maintenance, even the most resilient of defenses can grow weak and frail. Ever and anon those beyond the Thicket Wall pressed against it and burrow below, seeking any ingress they can find or manufacture.”

“They’re really stupid aren’t they? I mean if they get in here the Holy Mazana will just be like ‘Die!’ and they’ll all die, right?”

“Indeed. The sacred tree’s prowess is unmatched and uncontestable. For everything there is a price though. Were the sacred tree to interfere, it would mean that we had failed in our duty. Become impure in our dedication, and what happens to the impure?”

“They’re tossed over the wall!” “They’re chopped up and chucked outside!” “They get sent away”

“Yes. We cast out the impure because where we receive the gifts of the sacred tree and nourish it with our love and devotion, the impure take and take and only give back sickness and disease.”

“I wanna fight the Impure!”

“And someday you will. When you are old enough to be called to service, you will stand as the sacred tree’s first bulwark with your faith and your purity as the truest of shields.”

– an except from Children’s Lessons for Boys, as delivered by the First Tender.

Golden eyes were locked onto my own and it felt like I could fall into them forever.

“You smell different,” my intruder said, searching for Holy Mazana only knew what in my features. “Better.”

“I purified this morning,” I said.

Because that was reasonable. Words hadn’t totally escaped me and I was fully in control of the situation.

“Hmm, no, not like that. You’re…something else?”

“No I’m not,” I lied. “There’s just something wrong with your nose.”

Could people smell the bad decisions I’d been making?

Could they tell I’d broken faith with…with everything?

Did I smell impure?

My expression slipped out of my control for a moment as the soul crushing horror of everyone being able to see what I was pounded my head with hammer blow after hammer blow.

“Rude,” my intruder said, and twisted her head to side to look at me from a different angle. “I said you smelled better now.”

“I don’t…listen, how I smell doesn’t matter. What are you doing here?”

There! I’d gotten a question out. The question!

“Looking for you.”

Which was not what the answer was supposed to be.

“Me?”

“Well, sort of. I didn’t think I was going to find anyone like me in here, but what is life if not a big old basket of surprises, right?”

“Uh, I’m not like you at all,” I said, the words instinctively leaping from my lips with zero input or consideration from my brain.

“Few people are, I’m a hard act to measure up to.” And then she struck a pose! 

“No. I mean, you’re not supposed to be here! If anyone finds you they’ll kill you, or worse, toss you over the Thicket Wall!”

Why that would be worse for someone who clearly was not Sylvan and therefor clearly had no place in the Garden wasn’t something I gave any consideration to, it was just the most horrible fate possible.

Right?

From my intruder’s confused expression, it was possible that wasn’t quite as certain as I’d been led to believe though.

“Don’t worry beautiful, I can land on my feet. I’m real talented like that.”

“Land on your…?” It was my turn to be confused. “You’ll be eaten.”

“Eaten? By what?” Her confusion looked to be, impossibly, as deep as my own.

“The things. The monsters. You know the…” I stopped.

And my mind nearly snapped.

My intruder wasn’t a native of the Garden. There’d never been a Sylvan ever who looked like her.

Which meant she had to come from somewhere.

Somewhere that was Not The Garden.

But I’d been told that all of the ‘Not The Garden’ places were filled with death monsters and despair beasts.

Girls with golden eyes who looked like they were my age and had about a thousand times the self confidence could not survive in places that were filled with death monsters and despair beasts.

“Where are you from,” I asked. I already knew the answer but I had to hear it. 

I didn’t want to. In fact, I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t process the words I knew she was about to speak. 

They couldn’t have been lying about THAT to us.

Not to all of us.

Not all this time.

“Goldflower Borough, Low Town,” she said, searching even more intently. “In the Third Wall.”

The.

What?

“Third…?” I started to ask what that could possibly mean, when I heard voices in the distance.

Far off in the distance.

Sorry. You needed the warning.

People were coming.

I was hearing people walking to the Chapel from much farther away than should have been possible.

“Much farther away” however was still far too close.

Without an instants hesitation for thought or panic, I reached forward, grabbed my intruder and hauled her onto the seat beside me as I rose to block her from view by anyone coming in the door.

Then I started singing.

Glory to the Holy Tree. Glory to the Pure and Faithful. Glory and Glory and Glory to Our Garden and All It’s Righteous Children!

And to the liar who had to practice alone.

It wasn’t hard to put a warble into the song to make it sound like I was practicing and needed the space to myself.

Over my song I heard the footsteps come to a halt before they reached the door.

Which clearly wasn’t possible. I should have drowned that out with my singing.

Please, do give me more more credit than that. Even your silly shrub could manage a gift that properly sharpened your senses.

I wanted to say I couldn’t be hearing what I was because I would never willingly use a demon’s gift, but even I wasn’t that stupid. If it meant staying undiscovered, I would happily accept the ability to hear trouble coming before it got to me, and offer a silent thank you to whomever or whatever provided me the chance to continue living.

If I had a heart, I believe I would be having a heart attack now.

I sang a few more verses, repeating myself as though I was practicing desperately to get the song right. The desperation part was real enough to be convincing it seemed since the conversation between the approaching people resumed as their footsteps retreated from the chapel without venturing inside at all.

“Thank the roots!” I gasped as soon as they were far enough away that they wouldn’t hear my song stop.

My intruder was sitting beside me, staring at me like I’d turned into something at once horrifying and fascinating.

“You’re strong than you look,” she said, making no move to get away or to attack me.

“Sorry,” I said, remembering that I’d grabbed her and plopped her down pretty rudely.

“No. No, that was interesting. I…hmm, and your smell. It was complex. What did you do there?” she asked, her whole body still and her eyes focused on me to the exclusion of all else.

“I sang something like the song they tried to teach us today,” I said. Why I was answering her questions, I had no idea. I was the one who needed answers, but losing control of the conversation made it like the rest of my life, which had apparently spun completely out of my control at some point.

“Why?” my intruder asked.

“I didn’t want anyone to come in here,” I said. “If they thought I was practicing alone, most people would leave the chapel for me to work on worshipping properly.”

“But, hmm, how can I explain this.” She looked away from me, searching for words in a manner which felt very familiar to me in that moment. “When you sang, what I’ve been calling a ‘bad smell’ came back but it was subtle. If you had my Blessing, you’d probably experience it in some other manner but, for me, foul magics, or corrupted divine power, those smell bad.”

“Foul magic? I wasn’t working any magic though,” I said, drifting right back into the confusion zone.

“Magic’s not always intentional. That song you sang though? There was magic in it. Ugly magic.”

“It was just a song of praise. Everyone sings them.” Though, to be fair, I did sing them well enough to be in the choir for Blueshine, and this wasn’t the first time someone had called my voice ‘magical’, though usually it was just people being nice or flattering.

“You were praising the big tree though right?” she asked.

“Of course.” Praising ourselves was a sin worthy of public humiliation.

“Okay, that explains why it smelled bad then. The thing is though, you also smelled really good too. Like actual Divine Blessing good.”

“I have a few of Holy Mazana’s gifts, but I wasn’t using any then,” I said.

I wasn’t using Holy Mazana’s gifts but…

Go ahead and complete that thought whenever you like, I’ll be here waiting.

But…no.

“The tree? Yeah, no, anything you get from the tree is corrupted as hell. It all comes from one of them.” She rose to look me eye to eye and then leaned in slightly closer to give me a sniff. “You…sorry, I know the smell thing doesn’t mean anything to you. I can sense, if that sounds better, something old from you.”

I was tempted to say ‘I’m no older than you’, but that wasn’t what she was talking about.

“Not something bad. Not the corrupted stuff that’s all over this place. This is something real. Something, I don’t know I haven’t smelled..sensed anything like it, but I think it might be related to what I’m here for.”

Oh look, a thought that wasn’t the one I wanted to avoid! I jumped all over that!

“What are you here for? This is so dangerous.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” she said and then added to no one in particular. “No, this was all your idea. I was just the idiot who volunteered. Hey, don’t blame Kalkit. Sure we listened to him, but can you blame us?”

I was silent.

There were easy, obvious questions I could ask.

Should ask.

Things like “who are you talking to”.

Take your time.

“Sorry,” my intruder said, shaking her head. “It can be distracting to be one of the Blessed.”

“The Blessed?”

I was not a good Sylvan. I had been possessed by a demon for years. My life was a shattered window hanging together for a moment before the wind of literally anyone’s awareness brushed against me. There was no version of the world in which I was ‘blessed’.

“It’s a whole thing,” my intruder said. “Turns out if you make the mistake of having a bit of faith and being a good match, you can become the home for a god, or a piece of one usually.”

“The gods are dead though. They failed the world.” Again my mouth opened and spit out words which had been driven into me since I could understand that syllables had meaning.

“Dead? Yeah. Sorta. Most of them. Their gods though, so in addition to being colossal pains in the ass, they’re also kind of a part of us, the Blessed and the rest. So if we’re here, then so are they.”

“But…wait…I don’t understand. If the gods still existed, they would be monsters wouldn’t they? I mean, everything beyond the Thicket Wall is broken isn’t it?”

“Beautiful, this whole world is broken. You, me, everybody. That’s why I’m here. See my God? She’s been protecting us, all of  us, and I think she’d like to take a break sometime before the end of eternity, so it’s our job to start putting things back together.”

“Have you given any consideration to the eventuality of rebellion?”

“That seems more like a problem you would encounter in your ‘Mount Gloria’. Or have you reconsidered my suggestion of organizing your servants into a worshipful mass?”

“Oh, my people will worship me. Me and not some silly overgrown plant. But rituals? Holy days? Structured observances? Mandatory public appearances? Ugh. No. Far too much work, far too little reward.”

“But the grace we can collect…!”

“I assure you, there are other, far less bothersome methods of extracting grace from a population.”

“Perhaps, but without their love you will always be in danger of the rebellion you are asking me about.”

“Love does not last, but fear? Fear can live on forever.”

“And you think fear will prevent them from turning against you?”

“Not in the slightest. They will all be against me. I will simply assure that they are set against each other even more strongly. That is a stratagem which will be closed to you should you desire their love however.”

“And should that fear fail and they find the courage to turn against you?”

“Visiting destruction on the occasional overly brave fool is a delight I look forward to with some glee.”

“Whereas I will not even need to lift a finger to destroy those who lose their faith in me. My people will strike them down for me and sing my praises as they do.”

– High Accessors Vaingloth and Sisarai discussing minor population maintenance issues prior to the Sunfall

The Garden isn’t a small place. In a sense it was the size of the whole world, given that the rest of the world was a sterile wasteland of death and despair.

Or at least that was what I’d been taught.

The things beyond the Thicket Wall were supposed to be the shattered pieces of the spirits of the Old World, remnants of the failure of the dead gods. By doctrine, they were near mindless machines of malice and destruction. If we could see over the Thicket Walls, we were told that all we would bear witness to was endless despair.

I’d never questioned that.

I’d also never questioned the idea that the Garden was beset by enemies from all sides, including below. Certainly, the enemies had to be real because they killed the defenders who were drafted with agonizing regularity.

So, who were they?

Not just broken spirits randomly lashing out at anyone who came close.

The veterans had plenty of stories of facing enemy troops, and the sorts of daring maneuvers each side pulled against the other (well, ‘daring’ for our forces, ‘underhanded’ for the enemies, because of course they were the hateful aggressors and we were the valiant defenders of the Holy Tree).

In not one of the stories though, and definitely in none of the doctrines, had our enemies ever been depicted as capable of speech.

They weren’t people.

They were monsters.

Which raised a question that filled my mind as I stalked back towards my home.

You just noticed that ‘your Intruder’ talked to you, didn’t you?

I’m not stupid.

What do you think the odds are that you’ll remember that?

Demons are never helpful.

I waited a moment on that thought, but of course no demonic help was forthcoming. She couldn’t find my Intruder for me.

Be very grateful of that.

My capacity for gratitude was as severely diminished as my capacity for rational thought.

Which might have been why I changed course.

I’d been heading home because that was the last place I’d seen my quarry, but she clearly wasn’t there.

Searching the entire Garden wasn’t an option since, as I’d noted, the Garden is impossibly large.

Also, people were already searching for her. 

Lots of people. 

Maybe the Tenders had focused the search in Blueshine. Maybe someone in the borough had caught sight of my Intruder, briefly, and the Tenders had narrowed their search so they wouldn’t alarm the entire Garden.

But that wasn’t how things worked.

Alarming everyone was absolutely their first course of action in most situations.

The True Sight spell they’d tried to teach us was proof of that. It was obviously a dangerous tool that they’d rushed to put in our hands at a time that could not have been coincidental with my Intruder showing up.

That the Tenders were keeping things far quieter than usual screamed that they were afraid of something.

But what could they be afraid of?

Holy Mazana hadn’t abandoned them.

Wait, had it?

I stopped and glanced up at the divine tree that was our sole sky.

I’d blasphemed against my deity, and I could feel the terror and the regret that was waiting for when I had a single instant to consider my actions, but my heart hadn’t abandoned the Holy Tree.

Only it’s minions.

Was god responsible for those?

Or were we supposed to listen to what the First Tender had taught us and work out for ourselves when people were falling short of the grace we’d been taught to cultivate?

I was pretty certain that was not how it was intended to work.

Wisdom and proper judgment were a gift given to us by those who were closer to Holy Mazana. If we thought we knew better than they did, then we were guilty of the sin of Hubris.

The same sin which destroyed the Old World.

I knew I was damned. I knew I wasn’t a good Sylvan. Even thinking the thoughts I was proved that.

Inside though a little spark of the fires of damnation still burned.

And the memory of saving Pulia lingered.

Who I had been was desperately trying to hold me back.

Desperately trying to bring me back to my senses.

Desperately trying to save my life, the life I’d spent so long defending.

I loved her. That girl I’d been.

She’d worked so hard. 

She’d endured so much.

I couldn’t throw away what I had. Not after all she’d invested in it.

“Sister, are you well?” The Tender had been walking past and should have continued, but something had given me away.

“I am blessed to stand in the light of Holy Mazana,” I said, injecting the kind of quiet cheer into my voice that was expected from a devout and faithful aspiring minister.

“What brings you to this place?” the Tender asked, his voice all concern, and his motives clouded.

“My class was released early after a mishap during our instruction. I was going to return home, but I did not wish to place a burden on my household. I thought to find a secluded place for prayer so that I could commune with Holy Mazana and understand how I might serve better when we are called on again tomorrow.”

It was a good lie, and I delivered it without a break or a pause.

Since it was what I was supposed to say, and since the Tender would be able to verify it later if he chose, he didn’t question it further.

“The Red Bark chapel is approved for silent prayer until nightfall,” he said and gestured in the direction of the chapel which I’d clearly already been walking towards.

“Yes Tender. Thank you Tender. If I may ask, is there a chapel approved for song? Our instruction today required an invocation.” I didn’t need to say any more than that. In fact I didn’t dare to. I didn’t need to explain that trying to think of a place where I could sing was why I’d stopped along the road. I also didn’t need to explain to him why I would be looking to practice a skill my class had clearly failed at. A lifetime of subterfuge had taught me that the best lies were the briefest and fewest ones.

“The Grey Deeps chapel will be empty for the next few hours, but you should go to the Red Bark chapel.” It didn’t have to be phrased as an order to be an order.

He was going to check in at the Red Bark chapel later. If he remembered. Either I would be there, or there would be word of me having been there, or he would know I’d been lying.

The smart move would have been to go to the Red Bark chapel, wait a couple of hours, and then leave to continue my search.

I couldn’t be sure I had a couple of hours though.

It felt like I didn’t even have a couple of minutes, but I knew that couldn’t be true I had to will that not to be true. 

I had time.

Not a lot of time. 

But some.

I put my thoughts together as well as I could as I walked to the Red Bark chapel.

And then kept assembling them into something adjacent to a plan as I walked right on by the Red Bark chapel and continued on to the Grey Deeps.

I’d been to the Grey Deeps chapel before. It was where the Blueshine borough celebrated its Renewal Day remembrances, and I’d sung in all of them since I was old enough to join the choir.

Seeing it again, empty and quiet, brought back memories of comfort and safety. The Renewal Day celebrations had been wonderful as a child, mostly for the treats admittedly. Later on though I’d understood the emphasis on remembering those who’d come before us, and had appreciated how the crowd of people kept attention away from me.

Alone in the chapel, those memories swirled around me and seeped in to give the “old me” added weight. The temptation to turn away from all the madness and crawl back into the life I’d worked so hard to build seemed so reasonable, and so right. 

My mother had made me a new tunic for each of the choirs I’d sung in. Could I walk away from that? My family had been so proud of my singing. Could I leave behind the love of everyone I knew? I’d felt like a part of something so much bigger than myself as part of the choir. Could I turn away from everyone who’d sung with me. Everyone who’d supported me?

And wasn’t that what demons did? Led you astray. Made you ungrateful for all the blessings you’d been given. Turned you away from the trust and love that had been freely shared with you.

Except that it hadn’t been free.

The tunics had been a coin paid in service to my mother’s prestige among her friends. My family’s pride hadn’t been in me but rather in the glory they could claim for being a part of a ‘prosperous house’. 

And feeling a part of something bigger?

The choir was a perfect reflection of my life. If I was a part of something bigger it was because I performed as I’d been instructed to. The words we sang weren’t my words, and I wasn’t the one who chose the notes or the tempo. The only role I was allowed to play, the only role that held a place for me in the choir, or in life, was The One Who Surrenders. 

The One Who Is What Someone Else Desires That She Be.

I sat down on one of benches at the back of the chapel. I could sing, or I could scream, cry or break out in hysterical laughter. I was free to rage or go mad and no one would hear or know. It was the perfect spot to put myself together and choose my future with a clear head.

If I’d been alone.

“You are a puzzle.” The speaker was behind me, hidden in the shadows at the back of the chapel, but I didn’t need to turn around to see that.

Or to know who was talking to me.

No one else sounded like my Intruder did.

“They told me you would be the first to let the hunters know where I’d been. But you didn’t.” She walked towards me as she spoke.

“They told me that you might hunt me yourself. Which it seems you did.” She stalked down the aisle beside me and I caught sight of that strange, fluid grace she moved with.

“They told me that you would make yourself bait for a trap, and that all you would do, no, all you could do, was to lure me to my destruction.” She walked down the row of the benches in front of me and stopped so she could sit opposite from me, facing me with her golden eyes.

“But that’s not what you’ve done, is it?” she asked, her eyes searching from something in mine.

“No. It isn’t,” I said.

It wasn’t hard. I’d made my choice.