The Bone Queen

Chapter Four

     It was almost dusk when evening lessons came to a close and Rina was more than ready to retire to her bedroom. The last lesson was supposed to be focused on covering the annual celebrations and feasts, but was instead aimed at the ways in which the soon-to-be clerics must conduct themselves during the Ceremony after they passed their tests.

     Rina spent the entire hour imagining the high cleric in charge of laying out the rules was looking at her and giving instructions on how to bury herself properly after she fails.

"Now, don't forget to choose a plot of land that has soft soil. The harder the soil, the longer it will take to dig."

     Rina imagined interceding by saying, "What if you plan to be incinerated rather than buried?"

     To which the high cleric would have said, "Excellent question, Rina. If that is the case, please remember to burn your corpse downwind. This is VERY important. If you do it upwind, your disgusting, lying, failing, non-magic ashes will get all over the food."

     Needless to say, never had a single hour felt so long. When the old cleric had finished telling them who to bow to and what the order of events would be, she practically sprinted from the Temple.

     After returning to the Main Hall, she sat at a table with a plate of food waiting for Oria to meet her for the evening meal. Her legs were crossed beneath her as she shoveled in a bite of sweet, aromatic pork followed by a cringing swig of bitter wine. She was only able to handle a small amount of the overly rich pork before her stomach protested against any more food, gurgling uncomfortably.

     Rina had long since abandoned the food on her plate by the time Oria gracefully floated into the dining hall, mother goose to a gaggle of giggling younger girls. Each one looked up at her with shining adoration, hoping to say something to draw out her approval.

"Oh my goddess, did you see the flowers and glass they were taking into the Hall?!" A small girl asked the group, her pale and delicate hand pressed dramatically to her chest. All of the others shrieked in agreement around the dinner table causing Rina to wince.

"Oria, what are you wearing to the ceremony?" Interjected another girl, nearly identical in appearance to the growing number of girls around the table.

     Only Oria and herself could say they really stood apart from the others in appearance. Her's being an unflattering difference that rendered her invisible and Oria's being an otherworldly glow that drew the attention of every eye in the room. It was those differences that caused the others to form a circle around Oria, pushing Rina to sit at the edge of the group - separate enough to not be subject to questions of the others but still uncomfortably close when one of them shrieked.

"I will not spoil it for you, you will just have to wait," Oria said, feeding into the mystery that surrounded her. "But, I suppose I can at least tell you that it may be just a little bit... promiscuous." Her words were immediately followed by the excited, if not also jealous conversations surrounding how beautiful she would look and how excited they were to see her. As her friend continued to feed into the frenzied young women, Rina took the opportunity to quietly slip away.

     Relief coursed through her body as the sounds of squawking girls receded and Rina began the lengthy walk up to her room. Her footsteps echoed through the marble halls as she admired the beautiful silver running down the walls. The blue that weaved itself throughout the stone walls only making the molten silver stand out more as she tentatively reached a hand to touch the metallic stream. It felt like cool liquid against her skin, but as always, when she drew her hand away it was completely dry.