Emilia was fussing over me. It long time since I had seen her so worried. Over the years, she had grown more and more detached. When I was younger I had resented her for it, but over time I thought I understood her. Caring for someone like me was not easy. What was the use in getting attached to a child who was destined to be more of a symbol than a person? When the pain and sympathy I saw in her eyes as she looked at me faded into indifference over the years, I comforted myself that it was only natural. I understood more than anyone that it was easier to be apathetic than to care.

Today, though, I realized maybe I had never actually accepted it. Her acts of kindness, coming now so long after I had learned not to expect them anymore, were making me angry.

"Saintess, you still need rest. Please stop reading that and go back to bed. You were sick for so long..."

I was rereading a history of the Empire's Western region. One advantage to growing up in the Grand Temple was access to their library. From what I had heard, it rivaled even the Imperial Library in size. I was not able to see the world myself, but I saw much through my visions, and I relied on books for context. When I was younger, I had to describe my visions down to the smallest detail for others to try and place where they might be. Memorizing maps and descriptions of the Empire had been a lot of hard work, and I had always focused on the Western region where incursions were most common. Luckily, the priests had supported me, supplying me with frequent updates whenever terrain changed. I had taken advantage of that to learn about other things as well; regional dialects, the languages of local communities and neighboring countries, medicine, botany... I found from an early age that I could convince the priests that almost all types of knowledge were useful for interpreting visions.

Today, I was having a hard time focusing. It had been almost two weeks since the Ceremony, and I was feeling much better, but the thought of the incursion near the Azure Pass made me unbearably anxious. With only three days to prepare properly, were the defenders alright? Had the demonic beasts reached the nearby villages, like I had seen in my vision? That man from the Ceremony – in the visions I had, he had fought on fiercely with one arm dangling by his side, twisted to an odd angle and mangled beyond repair. Had he still been harmed, or even killed? No one would tell me anything about what had happened, which was unusual.

"Please, go rest now. I'll see if I can get you some warmed milk with honey. That always calmed you when you were younger."

Emilia's chatter continued, and I ignored her. The kind words and care burned. It was like I had been submerged in freezing water for too long, and even the tepid warmth she was showing me was painful. It was all I could do not to snap at her to shut up. Luckily I was not accustomed to speaking my mind and the sharp words remained unsaid.

My rebellion at the Ceremony had taken all the courage I had, and I was left shaky and obedient in the aftermath. Embarrassing Kieran had been incredibly satisfying, but it had also been painful, and now that it was over I did not know what to do next. How could I rebel when I was still trapped in the same cage as I had been since I was four with no one left to help me? There was no reason for me to expect the Imperial Representative to do anything after what he had seen. I did not know enough about the politics behind his appearance in the first place, but I was not naive enough to think that anything I had revealed was enough to overturn years of collaboration between the powers in the Imperial palace and the Grand Temple.

Sitting in my room with no news of the outside world, it seemed like there was nothing I could do but resign myself to waiting for the real Saintess to appear.

Emilia opened the door to leave, and a commotion from outside distracted me immediately. I could hear people running through the hall and the distant sound of raised voices. Emilia looked back over her shoulder with an expression of panic on her face and made to shut the door, but something made me lunge forward to stop her. The lack of information was suffocating, and I had a feeling that whatever was happening now had something to do with the repercussions of the last Ceremony.

My depleted courage surged, and I abandoned all decorum and ran flat out down the hallway, worried someone would try and stop me. The element of surprise was on my side – none of the priests except for those who had been present at the last Ceremony had ever seen me act as anything other than the perfect Saintess. Even Emilia was clearly shocked to see me act this way.

The surprised faces sped past me in a blur as I ran towards the voices. The sounds were coming from the direction of the High Priest's receiving hall, only a building away. The hall was not exactly public, but it was used for events that involved high–ranking outsiders. I had to go there once every six months for the official meeting between the Council of Priests and the Emperor, and there were many more events that occurred there that did not require my presence.

I flung open the door out of the Saint's complex and ran towards the grand entrance, slowing down when I saw the group of people gathered outside the ornate double doors. Looking behind me furtively to check for pursuers – there were none, somehow; perhaps my sudden dash away had confused them all so much they could not react quickly – I crept back so I was hidden by a large hydrangea. The once pale purple and blue blossoms were already wilted and brown at the edges.

A harsh voice, deep but so angry as to be almost shrill, cut through the chilled air.

"Absolutely impossible. Your request is based on a poorly interpreted passage so old it no longer has relevance –"

That was Kielan. The realization shocked me – he was so agitated, I could hardly recognize his voice. A calm, implacable voice that struck me as vaguely familiar cut him off.

"The interpretation you are questioning comes from renowned scholars of the Grand Temple. Are you arguing that their works should be reevaluated as a whole? That could take years, and the implications of any changes to the fundamental terms of the Empire's relationship with the Order of Lumina are... difficult to predict."

A strained silence followed. I had to bite my lip to stop from smiling. The specifics of this disagreement were unclear to me but it was obvious that whoever had just spoken had completely outmaneuvered Kielan's argument.

I took a risk and edged forward, wanting desperately to just catch a glimpse of Kielan's face in that moment. I managed to get a partial profile. His face was white apart from two spots of high color on his cheeks, and his dark eyes gleamed with rage. I gave up on not smiling.

"Captain, no one here wishes to undermine the principles of the Empire's faith. Priest Kielan is simply passionate. I ask that you focus on the matter at hand. Your request is highly irregular."

This speaker was the High Priest Rhea, a woman of a sort of implacable dignity that made me feel like a worm when I spoke to her. Her power was obvious; she had been chosen as High Priest decades ago by virtue of her greater–than–average resonance with Holy Water and, I assumed, her terrifying political acumen. The Empire saw her as a kindly guardian of their faith, but within the Grand Temple's walls she was a ruthless and terrifying person.

A new, unfamiliar voice responded smoothly.

"It may be unexpected, High Priest Rhea, but it is not a request. We are simply renewing a neglected aspect of the Grand Temple's duty. There is no theological justification for your refusal."

I wanted to whistle in admiration. I had never heard anyone – not even the Emperor – so completely disrespect the High Priest. Not only was this person standing their ground, they were implying that if they didn't get what they wanted, the High Priest herself would be guilty of failing to fulfill her Goddess–given duty. There was no greater insult to the temple. Not to mention they had called her High Priest Rhea instead of just High Priest. This person had to be a member of the Imperial family. It couldn't be the Emperor or the first prince, as I knew their voices.  The voice sounded feminine, and about my age – perhaps the oldest princess, or the Empress? The twin princes were still just seventeen, the youngest princess only twelve; the second prince had just recently died.

As I was considering who it might be who dared throw metaphorical mud directly in the High Priest's face, Kielan spoke again, seemingly unable to bear any more of this.

"No Saint has left the Grand Temple in generations. Would you discount such tradition and rob the Empire of the guidance of Lumina by dragging our Saintess away from the Spring of Blessings and into danger?"

My heart seemed to freeze in my chest. Leave the temple?

"Rather than that, we are asking that the Saintess bless the Empire with her presence and healing as was written to be her duty." That familiar voice – the Captain from the Ceremony? – spoke just as calmly as before, but with a sharpening edge to his voice. "For too long the Order of Lumina has neglected the Empire from inside the Temple, and for too long the Empire has turned a blind eye to the needs of the Temple. For the sake of our –partnership–, is it not most prudent to turn to the most fundamental texts that define the Order of Lumina's relationship with the people of the Empire? And in those texts, the steps are clear."

Texts? I racked my brain, and realized that they must be referring to the –Proclamations of Lumina–, the same ancient texts where it said that an Imperial Representative could be present at a Ceremony – something most people regarded to be an irrelevant technicality that undermined the sanctity of the temple's work. Or at least, that was what the priests had taught me.

What else was written there? They were almost universally agreed to be the original theological foundations of the temple's faith, but simultaneously were rarely studied directly by anyone other than temple scholars. I had always wanted to study them, hoping to find some truth to help explain my visions and how a fake Saint could even be possible, but I had never been allowed to read them myself. Instead, my teachers in the temple had told me what they said and what it meant. Clearly, they had left something out. Not exactly shocking in retrospect.

The First Princess – I was now certain it was her – spoke before either Kielan or the High Priest could respond. "Indeed. We cannot ignore the will of Lumina, no matter who we are."

Goddess, she had managed to turn their sanctimonious words back onto them. I wanted to be her best friend. Not that I had ever had any friends, but – still.

It was then that I heard people approaching from the direction I had come from. It seemed as though the stunned witnesses to my mad dash over here had finally pulled themselves together enough to track me down. I had to make a decision now: step forward, or go backward.

I chose to step forward.