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6/5/2025, 11:47:39 PM
>>6253438
“Beg. Beg for what, Argia Candente?” Rosandra’s voice is made of shards. It is as if someone crashed it into a thousand pieces while you were not looking and now she is hurrying up putting it all together, in haste, making several mistakes. “Not to have it destroyed? This is— this has touched Her flesh! This has rested on Her for whoever knows how long! How can you not feel it? This— how could you have been given… how… who…” Rosandra blinks, her eyes growing misty. She sets her jaw, pushing against the wave of emotion. “This little thing of ivory. It is so close to Her heart. How could I not feel it when I first saw it? Veritably a fool! A fool…” Rosandra’s breathing thins and her hand trembles.
She draws another breath.
And another, scraping one, deep through her nose.
You know what is going on.
Perhaps it’s a chance to keep your cameo intact.
Heretic or not.
“Dry earth,” you say. “And the smell of grapes, ready for the harvest. I was a vintner ere I was a Knight.”
Rosandra does not linger on the fact you are not a Knight yet.
That Willow robbed you of that chance.
Rather, her eyes lose focus, then go back to your face — for the first time since you have known her, her gaze does not get past you, like you were a stain on glass, but stay.
They stay.
And when she opens her mouth—
“Cinder. And burning wood. After the Epochalypse, light was our currency, warmth our hope. We trudged through days dark as ink, stumbling and groping, our prayers, finally answered when She birthed us the new sun.” Rosandra gulps. “I found Her when She was still pregnant. Bowing and scraping, I threw myself at Her feet. Her hand, all six onyx fingers of it, rested upon my cheek. I have been at Her service for so long I have seen kingdoms raise and fall, and the Seven lose one member. And nothing has defiled Her.” Then her usual sternness comes back to her eyes, stiffening her lip. “Nothing until the Adversary. The Stilladìa is always close to Her thoughts. I cannot understand…”
“I would have the Adversary pierced, if I could,” you dare interrupt, “It’s thanks to her merchants that my family has been led astray. We have lost our land, our fathers’ prized grapes. I have had this hair,” you coil a silver lock around your finger, “since I was born. If the Adversary truly has marked me, she has a most strange way to display her favour.”
Rosandra does not answer. She closes her hand over your cameo, and, with utmost kindness, cradles it close to her chest.
[cont.]
“Beg. Beg for what, Argia Candente?” Rosandra’s voice is made of shards. It is as if someone crashed it into a thousand pieces while you were not looking and now she is hurrying up putting it all together, in haste, making several mistakes. “Not to have it destroyed? This is— this has touched Her flesh! This has rested on Her for whoever knows how long! How can you not feel it? This— how could you have been given… how… who…” Rosandra blinks, her eyes growing misty. She sets her jaw, pushing against the wave of emotion. “This little thing of ivory. It is so close to Her heart. How could I not feel it when I first saw it? Veritably a fool! A fool…” Rosandra’s breathing thins and her hand trembles.
She draws another breath.
And another, scraping one, deep through her nose.
You know what is going on.
Perhaps it’s a chance to keep your cameo intact.
Heretic or not.
“Dry earth,” you say. “And the smell of grapes, ready for the harvest. I was a vintner ere I was a Knight.”
Rosandra does not linger on the fact you are not a Knight yet.
That Willow robbed you of that chance.
Rather, her eyes lose focus, then go back to your face — for the first time since you have known her, her gaze does not get past you, like you were a stain on glass, but stay.
They stay.
And when she opens her mouth—
“Cinder. And burning wood. After the Epochalypse, light was our currency, warmth our hope. We trudged through days dark as ink, stumbling and groping, our prayers, finally answered when She birthed us the new sun.” Rosandra gulps. “I found Her when She was still pregnant. Bowing and scraping, I threw myself at Her feet. Her hand, all six onyx fingers of it, rested upon my cheek. I have been at Her service for so long I have seen kingdoms raise and fall, and the Seven lose one member. And nothing has defiled Her.” Then her usual sternness comes back to her eyes, stiffening her lip. “Nothing until the Adversary. The Stilladìa is always close to Her thoughts. I cannot understand…”
“I would have the Adversary pierced, if I could,” you dare interrupt, “It’s thanks to her merchants that my family has been led astray. We have lost our land, our fathers’ prized grapes. I have had this hair,” you coil a silver lock around your finger, “since I was born. If the Adversary truly has marked me, she has a most strange way to display her favour.”
Rosandra does not answer. She closes her hand over your cameo, and, with utmost kindness, cradles it close to her chest.
[cont.]
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