“Well, nice talking with you.” I lurch to my feet, and this time the orange rolls off my tray and bounces on the floor. I pick it up, clear my tray, and exit the refectory without having eaten a bite. I’ll be sure to tell Zofia “I told you so” when she returns, but the humiliating pang of my failure pulverizes whatever smug triumph I might have felt.
An hour later, at Ovinsday services, I rise from my kneeler at the front of the Cathedral of Saint Vinnica, ascend the steps of the dais, and stand at the lectern. Pilgrims from all over the world fill the wooden pews in hushed wonder, waiting for me to begin the sacrament as they stare at the huge mosaic behind me. Saint Ovin stands in the center, plunging his sword into the heart of Elath, the snakelike demon at his feet. His daughter, Vinnica, stands to his right, clutching a chalice to her heart, her mouth yawning wide as the Great Demon’s immortal spirit enters her body. To Ovin’s left stands his second daughter, Saint Lanya, writing down The Song of Saint Ovin with the blue soulswift feather in her hand.
The Daughters of the convent kneel below me, their faces turned up in expectation, their shorn heads reflecting light in shades of blue and red as the sun presses through the stained-glass windows. The sacristy behind the altar once housed hundreds of Vessels in prayer. Now only twenty-three of us fill in the kneelers at the front like teeth in a beggar’s gap-toothed smile, and almost all those who remain are old women. No girl has been chosen since me, ten years ago, which means the day might come when I look out over the Daughters to find myself the only Vessel left, really and truly alone in the world.
My stomach growls into the silence, as empty as I feel. I stare down at one of my least favorite passages from The Songs, the part where the Knights of the Order of Saint Ovin deliver the Father’s punishment upon the ancient Kantari, the heathens who insisted—and insist to this day—that Elath the Great Demon is their mother goddess.
I press my fingertips to the embossed Sanctus text, and the Father’s Word takes hold of me, cold and invasive. May the Father forgive me for loathing it, this sensation that something other than myself is pouring into me and using me for its own purpose—His own purpose—however divine it may be.
You’re saving souls, Gelya, I remind myself, and I dutifully sing the verse as it comes to me through the sensitive skin of my fingertips.
Set the city of Nogarra alight, and I shall be the bellows of the flame.
Let the flesh burn away into ash from the bone.
Let the bone wither into dust in the unforgiving fires of the Father.
I shall melt down my enemies and make them anew
in the love of the One True God.
I tamp down the effects of my gift as I sing, lessening the way my voice makes my listeners feel the searing heat of the flames and hear the shrieking of helpless children. The Father’s wrath always plants a seed of unease in my gut. It seems impossibly harsh that children should suffer simply because their parents followed the wrong faith. Aren’t they human, too? Aren’t they also the Father’s creation? As I slog my way through the verse, unbidden words string themselves together in my mind, forming a question of the unquestionable: How can a Father who punishes His children with such cruelty be considered good?
I tamp that down, too.
Once the fires have obliterated every Elath-worshiping man, woman, and child in Nogarra, once the city crumbles to a wasteland of ash, my body sags with fatigue, and a sheen of perspiration beads uncomfortably on my upper lip and forehead. I close the holy book, clomp gracelessly down the dais steps, and drop to my kneeler beside Daughter Ina, the intimidating Vessel Zofia left in charge in her absence. Whenever Ina sings, her gift lifts her listeners’ souls toward heaven, while the dark brown skin of her perfectly shorn head remains miraculously sweat-free, as if Sanctus were effortless for her. She inclines her head toward me and whispers, “That was weak.”
I glance over my shoulder at the girls from breakfast. That Other Girl whose name I don’t know and probably never will shudders when her brown eyes meet mine. I face forward again and mutter, “I’d say it was adequate.”
After services, I go to the scriptorium with the other Vessels and settle myself beside a window that looks out on the courtyard gardens. Beyond the latticework, daylight paints the fat pears in the orchard a honeyed gold. I allow myself one last, wistful glance before I get to work, pressing my fingers to the embossed pages of The Songs of the Saints. The Father’s Word fills me with a cold, thick pressure that heaves upward against the back of my throat and tightens my flesh. Pushing aside my discomfort, I grasp my pen and translate the Sanctus song into Kantari.
I’m the only Vessel at the convent who specializes in Kantari, and since there are more and more Kantari converts to the faith every day, it seems like all I do anymore is translate The Songs for them. Or, at least, for the ones who can read.
While the Kantari do worship the Father, most of them still cling to the old belief that Elath the Great Demon is a goddess. They even call Her their “Mother.” They’re the reason the Order of Saint Ovin exists, the knights who guard Elath’s prison against the Kantari who keep trying to set Her free. If Elath is ever released, the world will end, so the other Vessels can sneer at my translations with that I-just-sucked-on-a-lemon face all they like; my work is literally saving the world one soul at a time.
At least I think it is.
Today’s translation from The Song of Saint Lanya explains the central tenet of Ovinism: Hundreds of years ago, Saint Ovin slew Elath the Great Demon with the sword given him by the One True God, a weapon called the Hand of the Father. As the demon’s body died, Ovin trapped Her spirit inside his daughter, Vinnica, the only girl pure enough to contain such evil. He then sealed the demon inside the Vault of Mount Djall, thereby saving mankind’s immortal soul from earthly suffering.
As the Sanctus text wears out my body, my gaze drifts once more to the view beyond the window. I find little joy in being trapped indoors when the world outside is green and alive. The scriptorium walls press in on me, and the stuffy air makes it difficult to breathe. I feel as though I might burst. The next thing I know, I’m on my feet, bonking my head on a low-hanging lamp as I dash for the courtyard door.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Daughter Ina calls at my back, but I shut the door against her protests and take a deep breath of fresh air. I don’t know how I’ll get caught up on my work, but the scent of hay drying in the fields beyond the convent walls is enough reward to make me push away any misgivings. Can’t a Vessel of the One True God enjoy His creation from time to time?
The pea gravel between the raised beds of the potager garden crunches pleasingly beneath my feet as I make my way to the ancient statue of Saint Vinnica. It stands in the shade of the Grace Tree, whose seedpods open in the hands of the Vessels chosen by the One True God. The tree is dying, and has been dying since long before I came to the convent. No one knows why. It’s another reminder of my loneliness, of the possibility that the Vessels of the Father are dying out right alongside it. And who will sing the Father’s Word then?
The statue beneath the Grace Tree is a weathered version of Vinnica, less severe than the other icons of the convent, the idea of the saint rather than the painful reality of her. I tend to come here when I’m feeling rudderless or lonely or both, which is more and more often these days, especially with Zofia gone and no one to talk to in her absence. While the other Daughters and even the laity wax rhapsodic about the way the Father fills them with love and understanding, the sad truth is that the One True God is silent when I pray to Him.