Born of Water

Born of Water Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

FAILED DUTY

The guards had not seen her. Yet, Niri's back twitched under watchful eyes as she moved awkwardly through the throng-filled street. The summer solstice festival was rising to its height as the sun slowly dipped toward the Sea of Sarketh to the west. Niri was running out of time.

Frustration as much as fear stalled her already labored breathing. Sweat from the warm afternoon slid down between her breasts, soaking the white priestess robes she wore hidden underneath a plain gray traveler's cloak. The heavy braid of her dark brown hair felt like a full sack against her damp back.

"Out of the way, girl!"

Niri dodged the team of four mammoth birds harnessed to a delicate chariot out of instinct. No one had called her merely a girl since she was nine. At her age of twenty-three, girl was a term used for disdain. Anger froze her feet. The jeweled and gilded wings of the birds brushed her face as they passed, she had stopped so close.

As the carriage rolled by, only the clothing of the occupant kept Niri from betraying that she was a Priestess from the Church of Four Orders and demanding an apology. The golden sun mask worn by a tall youth filled her vision, its appearance a mocking telltale of her failed duty at the day's summit.

"May the blessings of the sun shine on you!"

Niri backed away from his innocent mockery. He didn't know, couldn't know, who she was or what she had failed to do and now must set right. But the reminder of what had led her to sneak out of the public complex brought a cold end to her heated frustration. Niri stumbled against the warm stucco wall of the nearest building. The archway of a recessed doorway offered a shadowed reprieve from the crowded street.

She could go back.

The thought offered a momentary comfort. It would be a relief to abandon her hasty search. But Niri knew that if she returned to the Temple of Solaire without the girl she'd seen at the noon ceremony, the price would be paid in her skin and blood. It was far better to sneak out into the streets of the solstice festival and hope to find the girl, or at least a name, something to take back to atone for her lack of attention and failure. No matter how impossible the task seemed.

One moment of indecision as she'd watched the golden-haired girl laugh with a dark-headed friend had been all it had taken to undo the order of Niri's life. Potential had danced like a halo around the girl. Niri had no doubt that the girl - no, young woman, for surely she was near sixteen - was an Elemental like herself. The girl was meant for a life serving the Church of Four Orders as Niri did. But the girl had laughed in carefree gaiety. Niri didn't want to be the one who took that away.

Attention lost to that fleeting wish and the ceremony had paused, waiting for her. She'd missed her cue. Panicked, Niri had jumped forward, speaking the blessing for good fishing, few storms, and rain for the orchards. It was not until halfway through that Niri had realized what she'd done. She'd forgotten the girl. The time to proclaim the young woman as having been chosen by the Goddess to serve in the Temple of Solaire had passed. As simply as that, Niri's world unraveled.

She had only ever heard of one other Priestess who had failed in her duty. Her screams had echoed through the Temple for days and rung now in Niri's ears. The Priestess who had come back to the Temple defiant that the boy-child could wait another year had never left the Temple again and walked slowly ever after, bent over like the aged as she tried to hide the scars on her face. The only kindness had been deafness so that she could not hear the lessons in duty given to initiates whenever the scarred Priestess shuffled past.

Niri fidgeted with the hem of her cloak. There was no other alternative. She had to find the girl. Niri closed her eyes, seeking focus and calm as she'd learned when an initiate.