EVERY NIGHT in the Maiden House, they would tell the story of the woman who fell from the stars.
Hundreds of years ago, the suns went dark and a woman spilled from space itself. Though she was strange and her powers were alien, unlike anything found on Damaria, she was welcomed by the Flame Keepers as an honored guest and ally.
But she was not content to walk among them for long. She felt it was unfair that only men bore the flame of power, and her gifts were beyond even those of the Keepers that the suns had blessed with power. And so she left them behind, choosing to travel far and wide across the planet, bestowing her gifts on the chosen women of Damaria.
But all was not well.
This is the part of the story where the teller would lean forward and the girls would shrink back.
It changed each night, the painful ways the star woman’s gifted powers destroyed the daughters of Damaria. The storytellers never seemed to run out of new horrors, hammering it into the girls’ heads, trying to break them. Instead, it made them form even stronger armor.
The woman who burned up from the inside, her power turning her to ash. The woman who plucked her eyes out because every time she closed them, she saw flashes of the future. The woman who drove a spike into her head to stop hearing others’ thoughts. The woman who wasted away to a husk, too entranced with her new gift to even eat or drink.
They were too weak to bear it—and so are you. This is why you are kept here, away from everyone. This is why, when you come of age, you will be given to a Keeper to safeguard you from your powers. For the betterment of all.
Every night for ten years, they told the story to her and to the girls who would become her sisters in suffering.
They thought it was the right kind of threat. Keep the girls scared, keep them hurting, keep them thinking they’re weak, and you’ll keep the women they’ll grow up to be in the palm of your hand—right?
Wrong.
The girls born to this may not know the sweet taste of freedom, but she and her sisters remembered.
She saw their story for what it was. A tale born from fear: of power, of difference, of women.
What they thought was a warning she took as a rallying cry. A seed to nourish her into someone strong.
Once upon a time, the Keepers had feared a woman with power.
Rhi would find a way to make them fear one again.