"Saintess. For the Empire and the Holy Order, we beseech you to call upon Lumina's grace once again."

Priest Kielan's voice was cold and unyielding. The Saintess nodded slowly. "I shall." Her voice was rougher than I had imagined, like someone recovering from a bad cough, but her tone was gentle. Could a Saint catch colds? They were supposedly something more than human, after all – according to the temple. I smirked inwardly. So much for divinity.

I thought I saw anger flash across Priest Kielan's face, but whatever it was only lasted an instant, and I could not imagine why he should lose composure now. So far the Ceremony was simpler than I had expected, but everything seemed to be moving along fine.

But the seconds turned to minutes and the Saintess did nothing, just stood there silently. Was I supposed to believe she was listening to the words of Lumina now? How long were we to wait? My resentment grew. Were they toying with me, trying to make me believe this sham, expecting me to trust their so–called prophecy after watching some woman just stand in front of the Holy Water for a short while? I had expected to be enraged at some elaborate production, to have them try to dazzle me with rituals and showmanship. This was just lazy, and somehow all the more insulting because of it.

Priest Kielan shifted as though about to move forward, and suddenly the Saintess spoke again.

"The Holy Water." Her hoarse voice was firm and calm. Priest Kielan went rigid, and a long moment passed. I could feel a palpable tension in the room as he stared at the Saint, his eyes hard. She did not move, head held high. What was I watching right now? Did every Ceremony involve a staring contest like this?

Priest Kielan broke first. After a quick, almost imperceptible glance at me, he jerked his chin at the priest on the Saint's left. When she did not move immediately, the Saintess unclasped her hands and held out her hand without looking away from Priest Kielan.

Movements a bit jerky as though she were hesitant or unsure, the priest pulled what looked like a large black ladle from somewhere in her voluminous robes. It seemed to be made of some sort of metal, but I could not quite guess what in the dim yellow light. The priest on the other side of the Saintess was stiff, eyes wide the Saintess grasped the ladle by the handle and began to kneel before the pool of Holy Water. Unease gripped me. This was more than just standing around, sure, but Holy Water was deadly. Why would she –

I watched, incredulous, as she dipped the ladle straight into the water and smoothly gathered a full cupful. Then in the same movement, practiced and sure, she brought it up to her face, lifting her veil above her mouth with her other hand. In the moment where she drank, I wanted to lunge forward, but remembered myself just in time and just jerked awkwardly. Priest Kielan turned a burning gaze on me, but I ignored him, watching in horror as the Saintess drank, her throat moving as she swallowed, once, twice, four times.

No one except the temple leadership really knew what happened during a Ceremony, but I had never imagined this. I had been baptized and remembered vividly how the priests had explained the Holy Water. According to them, it was divine power in pure form, and just a drop of it in a basin of mundane water made the baptismal elixir. When there was no Saint in power, the baptism served as a way to search for the new Saint – supposedly the administering priests would know when the right child resonated with the power of the Holy Water. Even when there was a Saint,  all children were mandated to be baptized. Each and every person over the age of four in the Empire had their small, circular scar on their left wrist from the burn it left. I could remember the pain of it, and how the burn had lingered for weeks before it finally healed.

So why was I watching the Saintess drink from the Spring itself?

After her last swallow, the Saintess lowered the ladle, carelessly allowing the remaining Holy water to fall back into the Spring, the droplets gleaming and casting new shadows before they hit the pool. She did not immediately let the veil fall back, and I thought I saw a small, twisted smile before her lips tightened and turned white. Then the veil was back, and she held the ladle back out to the priestess who recoiled slightly at first but then gingerly gripped the handle. Priest Kielan started walking around the Spring, movements hurried and very much not mystical or sacred–looking. The Saintess began to shudder,  and Kielan snapped at the priests. "Grab – support her! The Saintess will receive Lumina's guidance now."

He joined the priests and stood over them as they held her shoulders. She jerked back, falling back gracelessly to sit fully on her behind, for all as if she were a drunk falling down on the street. Then she began to shake, trembling turning to more and more violent movements until she was seizing on the floor. One of the priests, the one with the ladle (which was now discarded on the stone floor, drops of Holy Water beaded around it like oil), took a small piece of thick leather and slipped it in her mouth under the veil.  She looked calm now, no longer nervous, just someone doing their job. The other priest was not so steady, his face a rictus of revulsion as he looked at his sacred Saint convulsing in pain.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, this was all wrong. The power from the Spring was suffocating me, my muscles tense as if a demonic beast might materialize at any moment just as it would at a rift. The priests were handling the Saint without reverence, pretend or otherwise. At either side of her, one was detached, the other disgusted, and Priest Kielan –

I narrowed my eyes as I looked at him. He was gazing down at her with unmasked contempt and resentment, as if she were a pest who had ruined a perfectly good piece of his property. Then he looked up at me, face blank and eyes cool.

"The power of Lumina is strong and unknowable. Great visions come with a cost. We are blessed to have a Saintess who can bear witness."

I stared at him. There was only the sound of the Saintess struggling on the ground, her movements growing weaker now. He looked pointedly at my hand, now on the pommel of my sword. I did not remember putting it there.

I did not move it. "This is the Ceremony?"

He glanced at the Saintess then met my eyes again. "We all do our duty under the blessings of Lumina. This is her duty, and it is ours to assist her." The man's eyes turned faintly mocking, but his voice stayed even and polite. "Even you have your own duty, do you not? Captain Erik Oesten."

Another jab at my weak position in the Oesten duchy. The illegitimate oldest son, the discarded one. Too crude and low–blooded for the court, destined to work in mud and blood on the battlefield against demonic beasts.

This jab stung, and not because I was offended at his ridicule or ashamed of my status. Rather, it was a reminder that no matter my titles and blood ties, I was weak in the face of the temple's political power. If I left here and tried to expose this... whatever this was, who would listen? To start a real fight with the temple, one needed connections, allies, and political clout at the very least. Even the Emperor could hardly hope to oppose them on anything of substance. Sure, I had barreled in here and annoyed the crap out of them thanks to an archaic loophole in the law, but that was about all I could hope to do. I had wanted to pressure them a bit, expected they might be a bit prompter in their support of the frontlines for a while if I did so if only to keep up appearances and avoid further annoyance. I had wanted to embarrass them. But I had not really expected to find anything other than puppetry here at the core of their power.

Instead, I had found something twisted. I had seen the root of the Empire, and it was a rotten thing. And Priest Kielan, although he was obviously pissed off that I had seen it this way, was smugly telling me there was nothing I could do about it.

That was something to consider more later. The Saintess had stopped moving, and I finally could not stop myself and walked forward, ignoring Preist Kielan's "Stop!"

I knelt between her and the Spring, grabbing her wrist. Her pulse was erratic but strong. I heard Priest Kielan stalking up to me, but before he reached me the Saintess suddenly woke. I still held her wrist, and with a surprisingly quick motion, she twisted her hand and gripped my sleeve.

I could not see her face, but I could feel her gaze as she spoke. "North of Azure Pass. Between Diel and Lowen. A pond... a lake maybe, green water. You have three days. Move north, or the villages... More knights." Her voice was much hoarser than before, her fingers were trembling, and I could see sweat on her now–exposed forearm where her sleeve had slipped back. She held on tightly, though, and held her head up, and although her face was covered I could feel her looking at me intently as though she was waiting for an answer.

I nodded. What she said was nothing like the polished, poetic lines we received as official prophecies. But she was telling me what I needed to know. I was not sure if she knew who I was, or just how desperate I was for the information she was giving me, but she was so emphatic and direct as she spoke to me that it felt as though she did. Maybe this was how it always was with a prophecy, but her voice was earnest and insistent, as though she were afraid there was no one listening. Seeing this, I wondered if sometimes that was the case. I did not know what I thought of prophecies anymore, but I knew I was facing someone who needed me to hear her, and she was giving me something I needed, too.

In that moment, I wanted her to know that. I gripped her hand. "Thank you, Saintess."

Then Priest Kielan, who had been shouting at me all the while, ordered the other priests to take her. I am sure if others had been allowed inside, he would have called in the guards, but it was not as though he could take me on himself, especially not since the rules required I not be disarmed as the Imperial Representative. They pulled her away, and I let go of her hand.

The Saintess was carried out, and I stood staring after her for a long moment before I finally heeded Priest Kielan and walked outside.