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“I believe your gift is…maturing,” she said, coming toward me. The bright light above her glittered off the obsidian ring on her finger as she gripped the back of the chair. “It would make sense that it would be happening as you’re nearing your Ascension.”
“So this…is normal?”
She clucked her tongue off the roof of her mouth. For a moment, it appeared as if she were about to say something, but then she changed her mind. “Yes, I do believe so, but I…I would not speak to His Grace about this.”
Tension crept into my shoulders at the thinly veiled warning. I was never sure if the Duchess knew about her husband’s…predilections. I couldn’t imagine how she could be completely blind to them, but there was a part of me that hoped she was. Because if she knew and did nothing to stop him, did it make her any better? Or was I even being fair to her? Just because she was an Ascended didn’t mean she held power over her husband.
“It would…remind him of the first Maiden,” she whispered.
Shocked, I stared up at her. I had not been expecting her to bring up the first Maiden, the one before me—the only other Maiden I knew of. “Did this…happen with the previous Maiden?”
“It did.” Her knuckles started to turn white, and I nodded. There had only been two Maidens Chosen by the gods. “What do you know about the first Maiden?”
“Nothing,” I admitted. “I don’t know her name or even when she lived.” Or what happened to her upon her Ascension.
Or why it mattered whether or not my developing gift reminded the Duke of her.
“There is a reason for that.”
There was? Priestess Analia had never told me anything. She ignored any questions about her or my Ascension.
“We do not speak of the first Maiden, Penellaphe,” she said. “It’s not that we simply choose not to. It is that we ca
“The gods…forbade it?” I suspected.
She nodded as her stare seemed to penetrate my veil. “I will break the rule just once and pray that the gods forgive me, but I will tell you this in hopes that your future does not end the same as the first Maiden’s did.”
I had a really bad feeling about where this was going.
“We do not speak of her. Ever. Her name is not worthy of our lips nor the air we breathe. If it were possible, I’d have her name and her history scrubbed in its entirety.” The chair cracked under Duchess Teerman’s hand, startling me.
My heart nearly stopped in my chest. “Was she…found unworthy by the gods?”
“By some small miracle, she wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean she was worthy.”
If she hadn’t been found unworthy, then why was she never spoken about? Surely, she couldn’t have been that bad if she hadn’t been found unworthy.
“In the end, her worthiness didn’t matter.” Duchess Teerman lifted her fingers. The chair was warped, splintered. “Her actions put her on a path that ended with her death. The Dark One killed her.”