Megaira did not expect the consequences to arrive so quietly.
Maybe that was her first mistake.
The Church had many ways to correct behaviour - privation, isolation, public prayer spoken with bowed heads - but it had always favoured noise. Bells. Voices. Even the scrape of sandals in unison. Silence, when it came, was usually deliberate and heavy, meant to be felt.
This was not that.
The morning prayers had passed without interruption. The hymns remained unchanged. No one reached for my arm when she knelt. No one corrected the cadence of my voice when she spoke the liturgy.
If anything, they were gentler than normal.
That unsettled me far more than any discipline would have.
She told herself it was a coincidence. That the library excursion had gone unnoticed, that the Church's attention was simply elsewhere. It was an easy conclusion to reach, especially when everyone around you wanted to believe that as well.
Belief, Megaira had learned, was a communal act.
Still, she was careful.
Careful not to linger in the corridors where the light thinned. Careful not to return her gaze too quickly when she felt watched. Careful not to think of the name again.
It came anyway.
Asteria Kyrane did not intrude. She did not interrupt my prayers or cloud my thoughts with visions or promises. There was no voice waiting for me in the quiet corners of my mind, no pressure urging me toward devotion.
There was only presence.
Like a held breath that had never been released.
Megaira became aware of it in the smallest ways. The way her posture straightened without conscious effort. The way the ache in her knees during long supplications faded far sooner than it should have. The way silence, open oppressive, now felt… navigable.
As if it belonged to Megaira.
She did not speak of it.
She did not need to.
The Church had trained us to confess with our bodies long before it trusted our mouths.
During lessons, she answered a few questions, but when she did, the instructors listened more closely. When she was corrected, it was with explanation rather than rebuke. She was praised once -softly, privately, as though it were a favour.
"You are attentive," one of them said. "That is a rare quality."
It was meant to be encouragement.
It felt more like an assessment.
By midday, Megaira was certain of one thing: they had noticed a change.
Whether they understood its source was another matter entirely.
In the refectory, she ate in silence, watching the others beneath my lashes. They all laughed too loudly, prayed too eagerly, and spoke the names of the Crowned Seven with the easy confidence of people who had never wondered whether the answers they were given were complete.
Megaira had wondered when she stopped being one of them.
Across the long table, Elyra met her gaze.
She looked away first.
That was new.
Elyra had always been careful -more careful than most. Where others clung to the doctrine for comfort, she slung onto it for survival. She knew which questions not to ask, which answers to repeat, which silences to honour.
She also knew her.
Her avoidance was not fear. It was a calculation.
Megaira finished her meal and stood, leaving her cowl exactly where it was. Order mattered. Deviations were noted. And she had no intention of giving the Church anything so obvious.
The corridors felt narrower as she walked through them, the walls closing with familiar intimacy. This place had raised me. Shaped me. Corrected me.
It had never belonged to me.
In the Sanctum, sunlight spilled through the high windows, catching dust in its glow and turning it briefly into something beautiful. Megaira knelt with the others, bowed my head, and she even let the rhythm of prayer carry me.
She spoke every word.
She meant fewer of them.
As her voice joined the chorus, warmth returned -not stronger, not insistent, simply there. It did not contradict the liturgy. It did not challenge the names she spoke.
It waited.
That is what unnerved me.
Waiting implied confidence.
When the prayers had ended, Megaira remained kneeling, hands folded, expression composed. From the corner of her eyes, she saw one of the overseers watching her -not openly, but with the kind of attention that lingered a beat longer than it should,
She met his gaze.
He smiled.
Megaira did not.
Later, alone in the narrow cell that passed for her quarters, she pressed her back against the stone wall and let herself exhale fully for the first time that day. The air felt thicker here, heavier with old incense and older disciple.
She should have felt fear. Instead, she felt aligned.
The word came unbidden, setting into place as if it had always belonged here.
Alignment was not obedience. It did not require surrender. It was simply the understanding that effort no longer ran counter to purpose.
Megaira wondered, distantly, whether this was how faith was meant to feel.
The thought startled me enough that she laughed -once, quietly, into the crook of her arm.
She was not faithful.
She was observant.
If something had changed, it was not her devotion. It was her clarity. The Church had always taught that certainty was dangerous, that doubt kept the soul humble.
They were right about one thing.
Certainty was dangerous.
She lay back on the narrow cot, staring at the ceiling, tracing the familiar cracks in the stone. Somewhere above her, bells rang out the hour, their sound measured and controlled.
She counted the chimes.
With each one, the warmth in her chest remained both steady and unflinching.
Whatever she had touched in that library had not marked her.
It recognized her.
And for the first time, Megaira wondered -not with fear, but with something dangerously close to anticipation- what would happen when the Church realized it had lost control of the narrative.