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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Luz was a nobleman's child. To pledge herself to Iridan, she had renounced family and friends and fortune. When the Goddess rejected her, she had nothing, and everyone would know that some secret sin had kept her from Iridan's embrace. Yet Luz had no idea what her sin could possibly be.

eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: Sword & Sorceress 17, 2000
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2009

34 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [18 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [35 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [13 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [174 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [13 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [63 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [83 KB] , hiebook (KML) [61 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [48 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [11 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [14 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [45 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [24 KB]
Words: 4146
Reading time: 11-16 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The Goddess didn't speak to Luz. Luz lay on the stone floor of the temple, facedown, arms outstretched and legs together. Behind her closed eyelids, she saw the light wax and wane, and then wax and wane and wax once more. The sea wind whistled through the temple windows and the distant cry of birds carried on the breeze. Closer to her ear came the occasional rustle of the priests' robes and the slap of their leather sandals going past. Sunlight warmed her back, followed by night's chill, and then the whole pattern once more. Her stomach growled, her bones ached, and her bladder screamed its torment.

All this she saw, and heard, and felt. But nothing more. No vision came. Luz would have stayed, waiting for Iridan's sign, until her death; her mind willed it so, but her body rebelled. She rose on trembling legs and staggered from the temple to face the ruin of her dreams.

The sun lay low on the horizon, and the wind had died. A saffron-robed priest in the courtyard smiled at her. "Three days and two nights. Longest vigil in temple history. You'll have a good vision to report to Simeon, I'll wager. Did the Goddess kiss your hand?"

Luz said nothing, her throat too dry for speech and her grief too raw to share with this man. Her soul lay crushed within her, like a moth battered against stone.

She returned to her quarters, took care of her body's needs, and dressed herself in a clean, white robe. Then she walked along a cobbled passage to the spare, stone chamber of Father Simeon, High Priest of the Star.

The High Priest sat in a simple, armless chair, his muscular hands quiet in his lap. Through the window behind him, Luz saw the setting sun striping the clouds with shades of red. Simeon's angular face lay in shadows, but the star upon his brow glowed lightly silver, the special mark of Iridan's love. Among all the priests at the Seawind Temple, only Simeon bore such a sign.

"What did you see, my child?" he said to Luz.

She lowered her head, refusing to let the hot tears emerge from behind her eyes. "I saw the darkness and the light."

"What did you hear?"

"I heard the wind and the rustle of robes."

"What did you feel?"

"I felt the stone, cold beneath me, and the sun, warm upon my back."

"That was all?"

Simeon's deep voice echoed in her ears. She wanted to lie, to claim for herself the mark of Iridan's love, but to lie to a starbrow was to lie to the Goddess herself. "Yes, Father. That was all."

"Ah." In that single syllable, Simeon put a wealth of feeling. Luz heard sorrow and pity and something else she could not name. She raised her head. Dusk had fallen. Simeon waved his hand and the room filled with a soft silver light. His sea-blue eyes were unreadable, like a page written in a language Luz didn't know.

"You understand what must follow."