Sins & Virtues

Chapter One: A letter with a black ribbon

Marisol

Lady Arianne's Temple, Marinoss

The sun beat down against her exposed skin as Marisol raised her face to the sky, shutting her eyes against the light and spreading out her arms. Cleric Austyn began his speech and all around her the Sisters and Vestals said their parts and prayers with her, their murmuring words an echo reverberating off the walls and columns of Lady Arianne's Temple.

Marisol spoke the words as if they were engraved upon her tongue, slipping smooth and mechanically from her lips. Every day before that day, she spoke them with all her heart, her mind fixated only upon the prayers and hymns, and the sun's warmth absorbing into her.

That morning was different.

She had awoken before dawn, in her small stone room in the sleeping quarters of the Temple, as she normally did. She had dressed in her white gown and fixed her white cap over her golden braided hair, as she normally did. Subduing the prickle of hunger pangs deep in her belly, and not thinking of breakfast still hours away, as she normally did. But she had not felt normal.

As if the sun rising over the temple grounds, hot and comfortable in the chill of the dawning day, did not touch her. As if a shadow loomed over her.

Marisol had lived at Lady Arianne's Temple for over half her life. Since before she had become a woman, and since her father and Cardinal Blythe had decided that life as a Vestal was right and virtuous for the future Queen of the Kingdom of Marinoss. She had not returned to Marina Fell, the capital city of her father's kingdom, since the day she left. She had believed once and briefly that her sister would join her, but Marigold had only visited, dressed in her finery and vivid pink gown and bringing colour to the starch temple.

A hand shook her arm and Marisol startled, opening her eyes to smile at her friend in gratitude. Cleric Austyn had finished his speech and the sun had slid past dawn, the crowd around them moving to leave.

Lady Persephone Greer was her companion.

She had been sent to Lady Arianne's by her parents, to accompany Marisol whilst they were both away from court until the time came when they would both return and Persephone would become her handmaiden. Politically, Marisol understood why they had sent Persephone; the girl was a similar age, the same height and build, and had long blonde hair like her own - though Persephone's was a softer ashy-blonde compared to Marisol's golden curls she fought to keep straight each morning. The two had been mistaken for each other many times throughout their long friendship.

With memorised steps, the two-dozen Vestals followed the Sisters out of the temple, and only once they had stepped past the plateau of the Sun's Throne; the central structure of the temple where all Scorching took place - an optimum place to receive the Sun God's blessing, did they fall out of formation and disperse towards the dining hall for breakfast.

In the city of Amity, the Heart City of the seven kingdoms that surrounded it and the parent city of the Carmine Sun, the Clerics, Sisters and Vestals would march back through the slate white and pewter streets, an elegant silent parade, after the Dawn Scorch. Then to and from the Noon Scorch, and again to and from the Setting Scorch.

Persephone and Marisol fell into step beside each other as they headed across the grass toward the dining hall, the younger girls dashing in their eagerness to quench their hunger, while the more seasoned of the temple's residents strolled after them. Once breakfast was finished, the daily chores would be allocated and they would all work diligently until noon and lunch. Better to relish those brief moments of rest, even if hunger panged them just as much.