Lucia grabbed a thick cover-up and wrapped it around herself before stepping outside the camp.
The path ahead wasn't paved or ceremonial—it was worn from generations of bare feet and stubborn travel. The night air was cool, but not biting, and the sky above glimmered with stars that never seemed to move.
She soon found herself facing the familiar bustle of Fauria's modest city.
The ground was still wet from yesterday's shower, and the scent of petrichor lingered like incense. Children claimed puddles as their kingdoms, shouting rules and challenging each other with sticks that resembled swords.
It was a kind of chaos that could only exist in peace.
Housewives haggled fiercely in the market stalls, defending their goods with eyes sharper than blades. Their husbands, burly and flushed, clashed in arm-wrestling matches over mugs of cloudy beer—the closest the Faurians could get to anything brewed with quality.
Kids skipped stones in the ponds, daring each other to find the flattest, most magical rock. Girls raced barefoot through patches of clover. Everywhere Lucia turned, there was life.
These moments—the unscripted, the mundane, the warm—were the ones she loved most.
In the middle of town stood the gazebo.
It bloomed with red roses that curled around its wooden beams like veins. At its center, surrounded by water lilies and still pond water, stood the golden statue of the Saint King.
Lucia's breath caught, like it always did.
Even in erosion, his form remained divine—sharp eyes, regal posture, a sword held with grace. The historians might have exaggerated, but the awe he inspired was real.
She stared, dazed. Maybe even a little love-struck.
Then she giggled. "What if he was just an average-looking dude?"
Still, she was supposed to marry him. Metaphorically, anyway. Every devoted daughter of the Red Stone was.
She slapped her cheek lightly, shaking the irreverent thoughts from her head.
Around the pond, delicate girls in linen gowns shared baskets of ripe strawberries, laughing under the moonlight. The market buzzed behind them with chatter—some holy, some scandalous. Jessica and the milk distribution man were the current headline.
Most everything was shared in Fauria. No greed. No taxes. No government breathing down their necks. Just people—struggling, surviving, together.
And yet…
Lucia stood apart.
She didn't belong—not really. Not yet.
The night had only just begun in Fauria, and like every night on the island, it stirred with life. Laughter echoed in the distance, drums softly thumped near the edge of the village where young men told stories around the fire. Somewhere, a girl sang a hymn.
"Ah—it's little Lucy," an older woman called, wringing out laundry in a shallow pond.
Lucia forced a smile. "Afternoon, madam. May the Saint King bless you."
She had said that phrase for as long as she could speak. Sometimes she almost believed it. Almost.
As she weaved through the clustered market paths, her eyes caught a familiar silhouette near the herb stall.
Cynthia.
Tall and thin as a dried reed, she stood with her back turned, inspecting bundles of mint and feverfew with a critical eye. Even in the dimming light, the dark circles beneath her eyes were stark. The years had not been kind, and the burdens she carried had carved their mark on her body. But still, she stood tall.
"Mother," Lucia called out, before she could stop herself.
Cynthia turned, startled. Her stern face broke into a tired but genuine smile. "Lucy."
Only Cynthia called her that anymore.
Lucia moved closer, lowering her hood. "Didn't expect to find you in the chaos of the market."
"I could say the same to you." Cynthia handed a few coins to the vendor, tucking the herbs into her satchel. "Don't tell me you've been skipping training again?"
Lucia winced. "No. Well. Maybe. But not on purpose."
Cynthia raised an eyebrow but said nothing. They walked slowly together through the marketplace, a quiet understanding passing between them. Around them, the sounds of laughter and bartering swirled like wind through leaves.
Lucia hesitated before speaking again. "I've been thinking."
"Dangerous habit," Cynthia muttered, but with a soft chuckle.
"I want to visit the ruins of Valene Fortress"
That stopped her. Cynthia turned, frowning. "Lucia… it's not safe beyond the grove. Especially not for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" Lucia challenged, heart thudding.
Cynthia didn't flinch. "You're the heir. The future Matriarch."
"I'm nothing like a Matriarch," she muttered bitterly.
Silence stretched between them like a tight rope.
Cynthia eventually sighed and took Lucia's hand. Her palms were calloused but warm. "Come with me. To my tent"
Cynthia's quarters smelled of incense and crushed fennel. The smell clung to the walls like grief. Lucia sat in the corner, legs tucked under her, watching the priestess grind herbs with more force than necessary.
"I'm fine, Cynthia."
"Liar," Cynthia said gently.
Lucia looked away. The older woman didn't raise her voice, but her words carried weight—like stones dropped into still water. Cynthia had a way of hearing the things you didn't say and dragging them into the light where you couldn't run from them.
She was tall, always had been, but her frame had thinned with the years. Her collarbone jutted like a mountain ridge beneath her robes, and her eyes bore dark circles, deep enough to lose yourself in. She hadn't always looked like this. But being Head Priestess meant more than performing rites and smiling during feast days. It meant training girls who cried themselves to sleep. It meant soothing dying believers in their final hours. It meant keeping an entire encampment together while the world outside wanted them dead.
Lucia didn't have a mother. Not anymore. Not since she was six. Her mother had passed peacefully, yes, but peace was a rare and fragile thing in this world. You couldn't survive here without a mother's guidance—or something like it. And Cynthia had become that for her. Warm in all the ways Lucia didn't know she needed, fierce in the ways the world demanded.
But even so—
"Yeah…" Lucia muttered. "I'm tired of lying to you."
Cynthia turned, setting down the mortar and pestle. Her expression didn't change. "Then stop."
"I don't know if I can. If I tell the truth, I might lose you."
Cynthia's silence stretched for a moment too long.
"You won't lose me," she said. "But if you keep pretending, you'll lose yourself."
Lucia wished she could believe that.
Because the truth was, she—Lucia, daughter of the Patriarch—was an atheist.
The irony was unmatched
She had spent her entire life among the most faithful people left in the world. In a village hidden from persecution. In a community of the devout, the broken, the hopeful. And yet she stood at the center of it all, hollowed of belief. The next Matriarch of Fauria—faithless. A heresy not spoken, but always felt.
Cynthia would never betray her. But secrets like this didn't stay quiet forever. Especially not now. Her father was dying. The Patriarch's condition had worsened, and eyes turned toward his only child.
And what had Lucia shown the elders to inspire faith?
Nothing. No miracles. No fire. No spirit.
Only doubt. Quiet, trembling doubt.
She could almost hear them whispering already: She doesn't even respect the Saint King.
Once that got out, she knew she'd collapse under the weight of it all.
But that was the cruel paradox of it. Lucia did care. Not about the Saint King, not about prophecies or sacred stones—but about her people. About every woman who whispered blessings through cracked lips. About the little boys who memorized the sacred hymns and the old men who still remembered the mainland before the purges began.
She hated that they gave their lives for a deity that gave them nothing in return.
But she loved them. And that made it worse.
She wished—desperately—that something would come and summon faith into her chest like lightning. That she might understand. That she might become what they needed.
She wanted to be a worthy Matriarch.
And that word—it meant nothing and everything at once. To the world, she was the daughter of a man who led a tribe of beggars on an island no one wanted. But to her people? She would be the spine that held the legacy together.
Fauria was small. Exiled. Forgotten. But her ancestors had dragged these people through war, through fire, through oceans of blood—and given them a family.
She couldn't take that title in a lie.
Not when there were others, surely, who believed more fiercely, who could lead with their soul on fire.
"You're more than you think. And even if-" Cynthia was about to say something, but herself. her voice softened, "The point is that i'll always believe in you."
Lucia looked away quickly. "Yeah…" Her voice cracked before she could fix it.
Cynthia gave her hand a firm squeeze.
"You will never lose me, Lucy. I may be a priestess, but I'm also a woman who's watched you grow up. I've cleaned your scraped knees and held you through nightmares. I love you as if you were my own."
Lucia blinked back tears. The words were almost too much.
"There's something pulling me to the ruins. I don't know what, or why. But I have to go," she said. "Please… just let me go knowing I have your blessing."
Cynthia studied her, long and quiet. Then, with an almost imperceptible nod, she reached into her satchel and handed Lucia a folded red cloth.
The same cloth used in ritual prayer. Sacred.
"Take it. Not for faith," Cynthia said, "but for protection."
Lucia clutched it to her chest. "Thank you.".
Cynthia adjusted the satchel on her shoulder, her gaze drifting toward the horizon, where the ruins lay tucked beyond the trees.
"There was a time I thought about going there too, to the Valene Fortress ruins" she said softly, almost to herself.
Lucia tilted her head. "Really? You?"
Cynthia smiled faintly, but there was something behind it. Bittersweet. Like a secret too heavy to name.
"I was younger. Stubborn. Thought I could find answers buried in stone and old stories." She let out a quiet laugh. "Some things we seek not with our eyes, but with the heart. It sounds foolish now."
Lucia squinted at her. "Did you find anything?"
Cynthia looked at her then, really looked. Her eyes were the color of old smoke—clouded with memory, but still sharp as flint.
"I found something. A vision of sorts..…" she said after a beat. "Something that never quite let go."
Lucia opened her mouth to press further, but Cynthia patted her hand and stepped back.
"Go now. Before I change my mind."