charloft Omission

[faedefrance]

On this night she would shed her her role as Maiden and enter the Realm reserved for women who had learned that Mystery which was always hinted at, but kept safely hidden from those who had not yet experienced it. Outside the ancient palace celebrants stoked huge bonfires. Some even twirled bullroarers over their heads, the sound echoing off the stone cliffs and over the valley intermingled with the din of drums, flutes and sistra. In thousands of years the Rite of Becoming and its importance had not changed. But no young woman who underwent it ever emerged from the Mysteries of the Rite herself unchanged.

She knew about what happened next, but as she laced the ebony handled dagger to her waist, she knew the man who had been appointed to raid the Temple and steal what lay within the Naos had not been told what Fate and the Island's youngest Initiate would give him for his trouble.