The horde of blue and white-robed people that flooded the room to kneel and grasp Vala’s hand and sing praises and weep was very efficiently kicked out by Philomena one by one until only three blue-robed women remained aside from her. 

“Well, I should have expected that,” she said sheepishly. “I apologize, your Holiness, they had been waiting at the door for news of your health. Also, I know you just woke up and you are likely still finding your bearings, but we must prepare you to meet with the Archmage and then greet the people. Some in the crowd have been waiting since yesterday for your appearance.”

“The…crowd?”

Philomena took her hand and led her to a set of glass doors that opened onto a sandstone balcony covered in wrapping vines. The acolyte opened one of the doors, letting it swing open slightly. Immediately the room was filled with the rumbling chaos of a mass of people. Over the edge of the balcony, Vala saw the square below, which had people packed up against the stone walls of the temple’s outer buildings.

“Wow.” She stepped back quickly from the doors. “Those people are all here for me?”

“Yes.” Philomena snapped the door shut. “You see why we must have you greet them as soon as we can? They won’t leave until they see you for themselves. There are some who will stand in all weather for as long as it takes to get a glimpse of you.” She chuckled. “It’s been a bit of a mess. Some of the more tight-laced mages are very frazzled right now.”

Vala took a breath and thought for a moment. She still did not have her memories. She certainly did not know how to survive in this world. Meanwhile, she was being called a prophetess and woke up surrounded by opulence - not too bad for an amnesiac down on her luck. 

Also, while there was a part of her that still doubted that an actual god talked to her in her dream, she could not deny that if it was a coincidence, it was a massive one. And all the god asked her to do was to listen to his people and their message.

She made a decision. “What do I need to do to prepare for them?”

Philomena smiled and waved to the blue-robes, who hustled Vala into an adjoining room of white tile and cedar wood with an in-ground basin that was steadily filling with water. They treated her with an uncomfortable reverence as they undressed her and helped her into the basin. 

“We are your acolytes,” Philomena explained while directing the blue-robes in the oiling of Vala’s hair or the scrubbing of her knees and feet with pumice stones. “We see ourselves as novices under your care. All of us have earned the right to wear the white of a full mage, but we choose to serve you rather than to become great ourselves in the Conclave.”

“Well, that’s very kind of you.”

The acolytes glanced between each other, clearly pleased with Vala’s words.

“We know you have much to learn about this world and our ways,” one of them spoke up excitedly as she prepared a towel for Vala. She looked like she was in her mid-thirties, with deep purple skin, short black hair and a set of horns that curled around her head. Hooved feet peeked out from under the hem of her robes. “If you have any questions, just ask.”

“Reini,” another said with a warning tone - this one with pale green skin, pointed ears and her silver hair braided in a crown around her head. She seemed ageless. “I apologize, your Holiness. To speak to you without permission…”

“Don’t worry about that,” Vala said, embarrassed. It did not help that she was naked in front of these strangers, or that they had pulled her bodily from the basin and were now patting her down with towels. “If you’re my personal acolytes, it would be really inconvenient if you couldn’t speak to me freely, right? Um. How about an exchange of names? I believe my name is Vala.”

The women breathed in as one.

“The Chosen One,” the final woman said, looking up toward the ceiling. She was much younger than the others, surely no older than 19 or so. Her pink curls were piled high on her head in a bun. She bowed deeply. “I am Yena, your Holiness.”

“Reini,” the horned woman said quickly, matching Yena’s bow.

“Asha.” The green skinned woman held her hand over her heart and dipped her head.

Vala fidgeted with the edges of her towel. “It’s nice to meet all of you. I’m sorry if it takes time for me to open up. I’m still unsure of, well, everything in this place.”

“Nice to meet you as well,” Philomena replied, taking Vala’s hands and holding them against her forehead. “I assure you, we will do anything you ask of us, and we will help you gain your footing in our world. Trust in us, please, your Holiness.”

“Well, I’m in your care, I guess,” Vala said, laughing nervously.  

The acolytes moved her from the tiled room into the far corner of the room she woke in, where a carved wooden screen hid a vanity and a wardrobe from view. They dressed her in loose linen underclothes and sat her down to braid her thick, black curls. 

“It took three years of training for us to be deemed acceptable to serve you,” Philomena said as she smoothed lotion over Vala’s face and arms. “It was intense. They did everything in our power to break us.”

“Please don’t remind me,” Reini said with a groan. “The trials were grueling. I almost drowned in the rain in the wilderness.”

“The rain wasn’t so bad,” Yena said shyly. “Fighting the beasts was much worse, I think.”

“Not all of us are prodigies like you,” Reini drawled as she finished her braid and threaded a thin piece of gold ribbon through it. “We can’t all keep the rain off with repelling spells and charm the beasts with a good glamor.”

“Really Raini, you are Yena’s elder,” Asha snapped. “You should be a better example to her. Frankly, you should act your age.”

“You’re right, of course,” Raini replied, chagrined. “Forgive me, your Holiness, I tend to speak without thinking.”

“I think that had more to do with how close you came to being flushed out of the trials than any rain or beasts,” Philomena said with a laugh as she pulled Vala up to standing. She waved Yena over, and the two of them helped Vala into a white robe embroidered with gold flowers. It billowed around her, its sleeves covering her hands. Yena cinched a woven gold belt around her waist.

“Why did you have to go through so many trials?” Vala asked as she examined the embroidery. 

“We are your acolytes,” Asha said with pride. “We must be ready for any possibility. Any task you hand us, we must complete. Any task.”

“Well, I’ll keep that in mind if I need you to kill someone,” Vala said with a grin. The elven woman did not smile back. In fact, none of the acolytes took it as a joke. “You can’t be serious. You’d kill for me?”

“The idea is that anyone you wished to kill would need killing,” Philomena said lightly, placing a golden circlet atop Vala’s head and fitting it snugly against her braids. “We aren’t just those chosen to dress you. Of all those who took the trials and passed, we four were the ones who proved that we could protect you. And unfortunately, there will be a time when you will need that protection.”

The acolytes moved away, allowing Vala to view herself in the mirror. She felt out of her depth, and she smoothed the robes and lightly touched the circlet, unsure of how to react.

“You did a wonderful job,” she said finally. “It doesn’t look like I was tramping through the woods half the day yesterday.”

The acolytes exchanged looks of confusion. Quickly Vala told them about the man she woke with, his same lack of memory, and his general helpful and kind nature. She did not mention that the man was handsome. She figured the acolytes would not be interested in a fact like that.

“And then I was pushed off a cliff,” she said, trying hard to sound nonchalant. 

“By the man?” Yena asked in horror.

“No, not at all. It was - well, it happened so fast. It was a blur of something furry. Maybe wolf-like?”

Yena gaped in horror. The others were varying degrees of distressed. 

“We were all working on the assumption that you manifested in the air somehow when you arrived in this world, which is how you had the injuries of someone who fell from a height,” Philomena said, tapping her index finger to her lips. “Not as high as the cliffs that mark off the beginning of the Orenna forest, though. That explains the burst of power we all felt. You saved yourself from the fall.”

“Were you the ones who found me?”

“Yes,” Philomena said with a tight-lipped smile. “The four of us and your official entourage - they’re the rest of the mages who passed the trials. Ten men and women who will serve as your personal guard. We were told where to find you by the Archmage. No one expected you to be injured, however. It was a shock to find you so broken.”

“You think the Namilunians found her first?” Asha’s tone was grim.

“Had to be. And I will bet anything that the man she woke with is their prophet. Come.” 

Philomena led Vala to the floor table and pushed her gently into a cushion. She offered Vala a ceramic cup with no handles filled with tea. The others joined them at the table, pouring tea for each other and sharing around the cups.

“Did our Lord tell you about the Namilunians?” Philomena continued before taking a sip of her tea.

“He didn’t use that word,” Vala said, trying to remember her conversation with the god. “He said that a war was coming, a war against his brother.”

“The Namilunians are the followers of Pailon’s brother, Namilun,” Philomena explained. “The two brothers are locked in a battle of wills and ways of life. Every thousand years, it boils into war, and whichever group of followers comes up on top is blessed to be the rulers of the continent until the next great war.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t skirmishes between the big wars,” Reini groused. “The Namilunians regularly raid the Conclave’s territory. Killing, stealing, raping, the usual chaos. And then the Conclave responds, burning parts of the forest, taking children to be raised in the Light.”

“The Conclave steals children?” Vala said, aghast. “That doesn’t sound like a great way to keep the raids from happening.”

The acolytes were clearly having deep, wordless conversations with each other via their eyes over their cups of tea, and it confused her. “Why are you all looking at each other like that?”

“You’re a perceptive woman,” Philomena said with a smile. “Not everyone who is part of the Hierarchy of Mages is fond of the decisions made by the heads of the Conclave. But that is a conversation for another time. What’s most important is that you may have had contact with Namilun’s prophet.”

“Not only that, he sounds nice.” Yena sighed and cradled her head in her hand. “How awful.”

“It is a waste,” Reili said with a nod. “You see, the only way the war ends is with the death or subjugation of one of the prophets. Knowing that Namilun’s prophet is a good man but has to suffer for the Conclave to remain in power is… unsettling.”

“He has to suffer?” Vala said, feeling slightly panicked. She was starting to miss the emotional haze that had covered her completely. “I don’t want anyone to suffer!”

“And yet, the world is filled with suffering,” Asha said calmly. “It is the conundrum of living with empathy.”

“Neither brother thinks the other is good at showing people how to live a happy life,” Philomena explained. “There was a time when they fought each other so brutally through their followers that the land was devastated. No one wants to rule a kingdom of ash. Waiting one thousand years before each grand war and granting the winner the right to the land was their compromise.”

“And Namilun is ready to rule.” Reili scowled. “He and his tenet of do as thou wilt and his habit of blessing the followers who take that tenant to the most entertaining places. He wants to spread his chaos, to stretch his shadow over the whole of the continent. It’ll be a bloodbath if he takes over.”

“Pailon’s rule is certainly quieter,” Asha murmured, staring into her teacup. “I don’t know if it’s any less bloody, but it is…less disorderly.”

“What we’re saying,” Philomena said over the last of Asha’s words, “is that Namilun’s prophet will have a lot of pressure to lead a war against the Conclave. He may be kind, but he was chosen to serve Namilun for a reason. Something he fundamentally believes, deep within his soul, connects him to Namilun, just as something within you connects you to Pailon. You may have to fight against him whether you want to or not. But.” She nodded at Asha, who pulled out a small wooden box from within her robes and handed it to Vala. “If there is ever a chance to speak to him again, it would be a good idea to wear this while you do so.”

Vala flipped the box around in her hands a few times curiously before opening it. Within was a ring made of a dull, gray metal.

“It’s for protection,” Asha said. “Keep the box on your person, wear it if you are ever able to meet alone with Namilun’s prophet. It will protect you, and hopefully give the two of you a chance to attempt to make peace between the brothers.”

“You just said that they used to fight each other until the land itself was ash,” Vala said doubtfully. 

Philomena chuckled. “Your acolytes are a hopeful bunch. No one who knows grief wants to fight a war. Oh, and it would be wise to not tell the Archmage about possibly meeting Namilun’s prophet.”

“Wouldn’t he want to know?”

“Of course he would. He’s an old opportunist.” Reili grinned at Philomena. “If he ever hears this story, he’ll have a field day with the people. Pailon saved our prophetess from certain death, Namilun’s voice on earth tempted her with his snake tongue, that sort of thing.” 

“It’s undignified,” Asha said, nodding her head. “Better he’s never told.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“Good!” Philomena clapped her hands. “Let us finish this, and then go to the Archmage. He’s likely worked himself up into a lather by now waiting.”

Vala pocketed the ring and sipped at her tea, studying the women as their conversation moved to more mundane topics, like what her schedule would be for the rest of the day, and general information about the temple. Something was strange about them. For four women who claimed to devote themselves fully to the Conclave, they were oddly irreverent of their church despite their reverence of her. And being warned against telling the head of that church that she had run into her supposed enemy felt completely off. Not only that, they encouraged her to talk to the man again if she ever had the chance. Were these women really zealots for Pailon? 

Furthermore, did she even want them to be? From the little she heard of Namilun, he did not sound like a god whom she would ever want to follow, but the way Philomena casually threw out that stealing children was an acceptable thing to do in the Conclave did not sit right with her.

But she felt on an almost instinctual level that the acolytes could be trusted. And given her situation, there was not much else she could do until she had more information. She pocketed these thoughts just as she pocketed the ring, letting them sit at the bottom of her mind to sort through later.