“Lena,” Father’s voice was accompanied by the heavy shaking on my shoulder.

“What is it?” I mumbled, sitting up in bed and fumbling for my boots. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s Offering Day,” he answered quietly. Slowly, I pulled myself out of my half asleep daze.

“Offering Day? Already? Isn’t it still too early?”

Father didn’t respond to that. Instead he said, “Put on something suitable and meet me downstairs.”

Then he left and I rubbed the last bit of sleep from my eyes.

Father’s words from the night before still burned through me. Along with the embarrassment. A nuisance and a pest and the complete inability to believe that I had managed to impress a highly trained King’s Ranger. Father never had come around to speak to me last night. I’d laid in bed for hours waiting for that conversation to happen. I’d even practiced what I’d wanted to say in my head. However, it had all come to not because I’d fallen asleep without speaking to Father.

And now he was waking me up early and claiming it was already Offering Day. Gods forgive me if I was less than convinced of that. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d decided to do it early this year just to wake me up before I had time to slip away from home and into the forest. Since that had definitely been my plan.

I shook my head. Unfortunately, it didn’t much matter. I dressed in the dress that I’d made to go to the party at the Mayoral Manse, unbraided my hair, and went to meet Father. He waited for me at the base of the stairs by the front door. In his hands, he held some salted pork from a hog we’d butchered last spring. But he had nearly twice the amount that we usually brought along with us to Offering Day. Odd to say the least.

“Here, take this,” he told me. He handed me what felt like a four and half kilograms of meat.

“Why are we taking so much?”

“The town has a need for it. Now come. We have quite a bit to do today.”

He pulled the door open. The sun was just beginning to crest over the tops of the forest trees as we set out. Father was nearly halfway down the path when he turned around and saw me still standing on the porch looking up at it. “Lena… we don’t have time this morning.”

“It wouldn’t take that long…” I mumbled. “We always used to watch it together when I was younger.”

“What was that?” Father asked, frowning yet again.

I huffed and kicked my boot against the porch. “Nothing,” I said as I hurried to catch up. “Nothing at all.”

My face must have said something different because Father’s face softened. “Maybe tomorrow morning. It has been quite some time hasn’t it.”

“Yes…it has,” I said. I highly doubted that was a promise he’d keep. Father would find something else more pressing to attend to the next morning I was sure.

The trek into town took until the sun had climbed well over the trees behind us and the sky had turned blue. Father and I cut through the market[ I still really want to fit Merrick buying her a cinnamon bun in here somewhere.] to get to the other side of town that was colloquially known as the ‘Temple Circle.’ The Temple Circle wasn’t an actual circle like the Inner Circle or the market. Rather, it was a cluster of temples on the western side of Woodhearst. There were about ten of them with a handful of smaller shrines that were little more than a lovingly tended altar that only a few devotees worshiped at. Standing at the entrance to the Temple Circle was the statue of Sealdír himself. It made sense since Woodhearst, like many other places in Miriah, considered Him to be our patron god.

Sealdír’s statue faced the rising sun. Fitting seeing as one of his many domains happened to be the sun and light. I always imagined he watched the sun rise every morning like I did. Imagine only because everything above His neck was obscured by a thick curtain of sky blue cloth that was slowly fading to white with time, age, and weather. Such was the case for all the most prominent deities in Miriah. They were faceless, all of them. In many of the temples, priests and priestesses covered Their statues and idols with sanctified veils. Hence why we called Them the “Veiled Ones.”

It sounded completely pretentious to me. The Veiled Ones…

Either that or the followers of old weren’t all that creative.

I’d once said as much in school but seeing as how Sealdír also presided over the realm of education, His temple was my classroom and his priests were my teachers. I’d spent the next two hours holding books over my head for that comment. Then there was the time that I’d made a comment about Sealdír having a problem with sharing since not only did He rule over light, the sun, and education, but over civilization, farming, and trade. That earned me a home visit from the chief priest and Father’s never ending embarrassment over my questions.

I fully expected Father to shepherd me towards Sealdír’s temple. It was where we always went on Offering Day. However, as I turned towards that path Father caught me by the arm. “Father… the temple is that way.”

I pointed over my shoulder at the doors of the temple. Father only shook his head.

“Not this time Lena. This way.”

“Why?”

“Just follow and you’ll see.”

Then he walked off and I, for the second time that morning, hurried to catch up to him. I tried to study his face once I caught up but it was an impassive mask. Suddenly I felt very uncomfortable. Like yet another weight had settled between the two of us.

Offering Day was an annual pilgrimage for all farmers and we were no exception. When I had been younger, Father had taken me by the hand as we walked with our offerings of pork, stones, or coins and explained how important it was to ask the gods for guidance and protection for the next growing season. He’d squeeze my hand, ruffle my hair, and tell me how one day it would be my responsibility to come make the offerings by myself when I was older. That day had never come. We still always went together. Though these days he’d never held my hand. He hadn’t done that since I was seven. Some days I really missed that… almost as much as watching the sun rise with him.

Because he doesn’t trust you. The thought crept into my mind as we passed Atheia’s temple. Father slowed and paused as he looked into the attached cemetery. Then I remembered what else Father always did on Offering Day and guilt seeped into me.

Mother was buried in Atheia’s cemetery. He always visited after giving our offerings. Perhaps a more likely reason that he never actually let me complete Offering Day by myself.

“Father, did you want to stop before…” my voice trailed off.

“No…” he interrupted me with a sharp shake of his head. “No, our duties first then with our own leisures.”

“It doesn’t seem like leisure to me.”

Father laughed a little under his breath and reached out to pat my head before gently pushing me away from the low wooden fence that separated the road from the cemetery. I followed him until we reached nearly the very back of the Temple Circle. Right towards Zorena’s temple.

Now I knew why I felt so uncomfortable. “The goddess of fate?” I asked, dragging my feet to a complete and dead stop.

“It befits the timing.”

I had very little idea what that was supposed to mean but I could take a wild guess and probably land close to Father’s intentions. I’d have crossed my arms if there wasn’t about four and a half kilograms of salted pork in them. Father turned before he saw my glare and walked up to the temple’s double doors that hung open.

“Magdalena!” he called from somewhere inside when he noticed I hadn’t followed after.

Begrudgingly, I forced one foot in front of the other and followed into the temple.

Zorena’s statue loomed at the end of the long hall-like sanctuary, a rich purple veil hanging over Her downturned face. Her arms stretched downwards to draw worshipers’ attention to the singular path that diverged into two on either side of Her. The candle lit altar sat atop the singular path. The incense that burned there filled the temple with a sweet smell that felt overwhelming. Father didn’t seem to notice it or be too bothered by it judging by the fact that he walked right up to the altar with no trepidation whatsoever.

He knelt by the altar, placing the offering into the bowl, and folding his hands in his lap. A member of the priesthood would be around to collect it shortly after we left. I sighed and followed suit. However, as I went to place the other parcel of salted pork on to the plate, Father grabbed my arm. “No,” he said quietly.

“Then why did we bring it?”

My voice echoed through the temple. Father glared at me sharply as it ended. “Have you forgotten how to speak in a temple since last Offering Day?”

“Sorry,” I whispered. “Why did we bring the other package of pork?”

“Hush, and stop asking pointless questions. We’ll get around to it eventually this afternoon. All you have to do is be a little more patient.”

“I am…”

“Fold your hands in your lap and bow your head.” Father reminded me, voice clipped.

So I did.

“Lady Zorena,” Father’s voice rose through the room in much different way than my own did. It was rich and full and so much different than the usual way he spoke. “We ask for your blessings this year as our crops and animals grow. It is only fitting that we do so.”

That made me crack one eye open. It was usually ‘only fitting’ that we ask Sealdír for the same blessing.

“You pull the strings of our lives, weaving them into the fabric that wraps around us, guiding us down the path that you’ve determined for us since before we were conceived. To go against what you have designed for us would be to insult you and the rest of the Veiled Ones. You have given us all a purpose to serve here on the mortal realm and no purpose is small or insignificant.”

A chill washed over me. Then it was quickly replaced by fire. So here was the lecture that Father had promised Aust to give me last night. He’d just saved it for the temple. To shame me in front of the gods apparently. I curled my hands into fists around my skirts and felt the tendons in my wrists strain painfully. Instead of a discussion, I got a lecture in the form of a prayer to a goddess that Father, and half of everyone in Woodhearst for that matter, thought I was spitting in the face of!

If you cause a scene in this temple, Father will hold it over you for the rest of your life.

The last of Father’s words floated off as my thoughts boiled over in my head. To make matters worse, I could feel Father’s eyes staring right at me. As though he were trying to figure out how effective his pleas to the deities had been. “Let’s visit your Mother and sibling,” he said to me in a hushed tone.

I snapped out of my trance and shook my head.

“No… I’ll… I’ll give you some privacy this year,” I told him as I stood up. “I’ll visit their graves a little while later.”

“Lena,” Father started but I interrupted him before he said anything more.

“It’s fine. Do what you need to. I’ll be in the market when you’re ready to come find me.”

And with that, I turned on my heel and stormed out of the temple without a look behind me.