You remember a room, close and claustrophobic with heat. Voices, some high, some low, calling and singing across each other in a twisting intermeshing cacophony as you are brought in. The atmosphere is both celebratory and funereal. You are elated and you are frightened.
Colour and light, dark and flickering. Four great fires lit in the name of Zorir, the god’s name spoken by a hundred mouths and each speaker dressed in robes and cloaks of shimmering fungal colour. Before them all, on top of the three stone steps standing and before her throne is Saradis, the Skua-Rai, in her bearded mask, and she sings in a high discordant voice that hurts your ears. You should be enjoying this, this should be a momentous moment for you, a waystick on your path to greatness. But all you feel is fear.
All you feel is fear.
They have put all they are into you, and all you feel is fear.
The singing and drumming and cymbal crashing reaches a crescendo, the monks holding your arms grip you tight because no matter how brave you say you are they know the truth, the weakness and the fear that runs through you. They know you may run at any moment. That here, before Zorir-Who-Walks-in-Fire, before a god whose voice you have heard echo round the throne room, you are all too aware of your betrayal. Surely, here and now is when you are revealed in your utter and complete unsuitability, that your doubt and your lies, will doom you in the eyes of a creature that burns those who disappoint it to ash while they scream and beg.
“Zorir!”
With that shouted name the Skua-Rai cuts her hand across the singing, stopping it dead. In that moment of silence you have never felt so alone. You want your sister, but she is gone. Never worthy of the mysteries. Dead upon a sandy path.
You know that was where your doubt started, she was better than you in all things. Better scholar, better fighter, better tactician and no matter how many times you hear “but she is older”, that is all. You know it for the lie it must be. She did not weep into the arms of a gardener. Then weep again for his loss.
But if that was the case. If your sister was more. Then that would mean the Skua-Rai was wrong, and she is infallible, the vessel of Zorir, she is the container of the furnace. She is the one who will be the architect of the future of Crua, and for her you will burn the world, and it will be reborn in glory.
You should not be afraid.
You should be sure, and you should be confident and you should be righteous.
All you feel is fear.