Chapter Two
The Zenithian Hall, hastily erected yet already thick with the heavy scent of burning incense, pressed in around Mira like a suffocating shroud. Sunlight, filtered through rough-spun white cloths draped haphazardly over the windows, cast a stark, unforgiving glow, illuminating every restless fidget and forced smile within the assembled congregation. Perched uncomfortably beside Kat on the rigid wooden bench, Mira felt the unfamiliar stiffness of her dress against her skin—an unwelcome constraint. It was a modest garment, appropriate for a Zenithian sermon, yet even this simple dress felt restrictive compared to her usual tunics and trousers.
"Humility," Kat had murmured earlier, eyes alight with zealous conviction, "expressed even in our attire, a demure presentation before Zenith's gaze."
But to Mira, the unfamiliar formality felt less like humility and more like a quiet suffocation—a subtle pressure to conform, at odds with the wilder, freer spirit that chafed beneath the surface. She tugged at the stiff fabric cinched at her waist, its rigidity offering little relief, her silent protest simmering beneath a mask of forced composure.
At the far end of the hall, Lucien Altheris stood bathed in filtered luminescence, a figure sculpted from light and shadow, his white and gold robes shimmering with an almost unearthly sheen. His voice, resonant and melodic, filled the space, weaving intricate stories of Zenithian doctrine. Around her, the congregation sat enraptured, their expressions alight with devotion.
But to Mira, his words blurred into a monotonous hum, their rhythm lulling her thoughts into wandering paths, unraveling at the edges like aged linen.
Her mind, ever untamed, slipped past the confines of the Hall and into the emerald embrace of the forest beyond. She could see the dappled sunlight spilling through ancient canopies, shifting like mosaics upon the moss-laden ground. The scent of pine needles, damp earth, and decaying leaves filled her senses—a grounding balm against the incense-choked air. How she longed to be lost among the whispering trees, to trade the suffocating weight of expectation for the boundless freedom of the wild wood, to feel cool earth beneath her bare feet, to exhale, to be.
A sharp nudge to her ribs yanked her back into the present.
Kat, ever attentive, ever dutiful, shot her a reproving glance, lips forming a silent command: "Take notes."
Mira bit back a sigh, dragging her gaze toward the front of the Hall. Note-taking—an act of meticulous transcription deemed essential by others—had always felt like an exercise in enforced conformity, a tedious, mind-numbing chore. Still, to appease Kat, to preserve the fragile illusion of obedience, she pulled a scrap of parchment from her lap and traced aimless swirls and lines with a charcoal stick, the rough strokes smudging against her fingertips. Her body remained seated in the Zenithian Hall, but her spirit still roamed sunlit glades and shadowed forest paths, her heart beating to the wild, untamed rhythm of the woods beyond these whitewashed walls.
A moment of frustration stirred within her, a restless undercurrent of defiance. She blew a small puff of air upward—a childish yet oddly satisfying rebellion against the solemnity pressing down on her. A loose strand of wavy dark hair lifted with the breath, catching the dim light filtering through the cloth-covered windows before settling back into place, veiling her reluctant gaze.
Finally—blessedly—Lucien's sermon drew to its meticulously crafted close, his final words ringing with promises of Zenith's imminent, glorious reign. His unwavering certainty, so effortlessly projected, settled over the congregation like a warm, enveloping blanket. A collective sigh rippled through the hall, a subtle exhalation of tension released, mingled with quiet anticipation. The hushed reverence gave way to the low hum of conversation, the rustling of movement as The Chosen prepared to further cultivate their newfound faith through fellowship.
Beside her, Kat practically glowed, her hazel eyes alight with zeal, her posture vibrant with an energy that had only sharpened throughout the sermon. She turned to Mira, her face full of eager expectation.
"Come on, Mira, we should socialize!" Kat insisted, already rising with a renewed energy. Her voice, as always, was warm and inviting, but there was something more now—an urgency that made Mira's stomach sink.
Reluctantly, she followed, apprehension settling like a leaden stone in her chest. Socializing had always felt like navigating shifting ground, an unseen trap waiting beneath each step. The unspoken rules of Rivenglade society—subtle cues, measured pleasantries, quiet judgments—were a treacherous bog she had never learned to cross unscathed.
Kat moved through the gathering with grace, effortlessly weaving into conversations with the ease of someone who belonged. Mira, in contrast, hovered at the fringes of the shifting social currents.
Then a shadow fell across her.
A woman, elegant in pristine white linen embroidered with delicate gold filigree—an unmistakable emblem of Zenithian refinement—approached with a well-rehearsed smile. Her expression, though polite, felt brittle as spun glass, and her assessing gaze skimmed over Mira with the sharpness of a blade.
"Mira, dear," the woman purred, her voice honeyed but laced with the faintest hint of condescension, setting Mira's nerves on edge. "That gown… it's… interesting. Quite sheer." A pause, deliberate and measured, her lips curving in something that could barely be called a smile. "You really should consider wearing dresses more often, you know. They do frame your face well, darling. Much better than your usual, shall we say…" Another pause, an eyebrow arched ever so slightly, "rough clothes."
Mira blinked, momentarily caught off guard. Social niceties—the delicate dance of veiled insults wrapped in polished insincerity—had never been her strength. The words lingered in the air, laden with expectation, waiting for the appropriate, carefully worded response. But Mira had none.
"Rough clothes are… practical," she finally muttered, her own voice sounding foreign to her ears. The words landed clumsily in the space between them, lacking the unshaken composure of an effortless deflection.
The woman's smile tightened, the barest fissure in its polished surface. "Indeed, practicality has its place in… certain walks of life," she conceded, the subtle emphasis slicing through the air like a well-honed dagger.
Her gaze flitted over Mira once more, assessing, calculating. Then, in a tone dripping with faux kindness, she added, "Though perhaps a touch less Rivenglade dirt adorning your face when within the hallowed halls of Zenith, dear? Purity—" a brittle laugh, void of warmth, "—you understand. Cleanliness is next to… well, you know."
A fleeting touch patted Mira's arm before the woman turned, her mission complete. With an effortless grace, she rejoined a cluster of women, their flowing white gowns fluttering like a flock of pristine birds. Their laughter, tinkling and unfettered, carried through the air like the chiming of crystal in a world Mira had never quite learned to inhabit.
She stood there, shoulders slumped, the burden of another failed social interaction pressing down on her like an invisible stone. It was always the same. A pattern etched into her very existence—one she couldn't seem to break. No matter how she tried to navigate the confusing expectations of Rivenglade society—the veiled meanings, the rigid proprieties—she always took a misstep.
The wrong words. The wrong clothes. The wrong presence.
Kat was the exception—the only constant in an ever-shifting world. The only one who truly saw her and didn't try to reshape her into something more palatable. The one person who accepted her, flaws and all, sharp edges and awkward silences, wild spirit and unrefined truths.
A familiar ache curled in Mira's chest, creeping into the hollow spaces of her heart—a cold tendril of loneliness winding tight.
She wanted to belong.
No matter how much she pretended it didn't matter, that desire had always lived inside her. The yearning to be liked, to be wanted, to be enough. To step into a room and not feel like she was standing outside of something, watching through glass, unable to cross the threshold.
But she had always felt other.
A creature apart.
A solitary wolf circling just beyond the glow of the fire, watching from the dark edges of a world that had never quite felt like hers.
And in moments like these, she wondered if she would ever truly belong at all.
The stifling atmosphere of forced piety and the relentless, subtle barrage of social judgments finally became unbearable. Mira quietly, almost stealthily, slipped away from the Zenithian gathering, melting into the dispersing crowd. Her silent escape went unnoticed amid the excited post-sermon socializing.
Mira shut the cottage door and exhaled, finally free of the stifling weight of the Zenithian gathering.
Home, blessedly, was quiet. The comforting scents of woodsmoke clung to the aged timbers, mingling with the faint aroma of old paper and well-worn leather from her father's book collection. The subtle fragrance of beeswax polish and dried herbs hung from the rafters, grounding her in a sense of familiarity.
She found her father, Elias, in his usual sun-drenched corner by the window, bathed in the soft, mellow light of late afternoon. He sat silently, motionless, immersed in the well-worn pages of a thick, leather-bound volume—some ancient tome of forgotten lore, no doubt, a world away from Lucien's passionate sermons and Zenith's rigid doctrines. The sight of him, a steady island of calm amidst her own turbulent thoughts, offered a small, fragile measure of comfort—a momentary respite from the relentless storm of self-doubt and social inadequacy raging within her.
"Father?" she greeted hesitantly, her voice barely above a breath, a whispered offering into the quiet cottage air. She hesitated, uncertain how to broach the heavy, long-unspoken question that had gnawed at her for years—a persistent ache beneath the surface of her carefully constructed composure.
Elias looked up from his reading, lifting his gaze to meet hers. A small, rueful smile momentarily softened the weathered lines around his mouth, a fleeting flicker of warmth in his steady grey-blue eyes. "Mira. Back already?"
A long silence settled between them, thick with unspoken words, the weight of carefully avoided conversations pressing against the still air. The question hung between them humming with tension.
Finally, gathering a fragile courage born of desperation, Mira plunged in, the carefully constructed dam of her silence cracking as the words tumbled out in a rush—a torrent of long-suppressed vulnerability.
"Father… why am I so… different from everyone else? Why do I never… seem to belong? Here, in Rivenglade… or anywhere?"
Elias's fleeting smile faded, dissolving into something more solemn, the familiar shadow of sorrow settling over his usually steady gaze. He gently closed his worn leather-bound book, marking his place with a thin, calloused finger. His gaze, softened with something deeper than mere words, settled wholly on her.
"Mira… oh, little starling," he murmured, his voice a low rumble, roughened by years of unvoiced grief and solitary contemplation. The endearment, a rare yet profoundly comforting relic of her childhood, stirred something deep within her. "You are perfect, just as you are. In every way that truly matters."
He reached out, his calloused hand surprisingly gentle, cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing lightly against the delicate curve of her jaw—a fleeting gesture of paternal comfort.
"Don't waste your precious, passing time on this earth fretting over what others think, agonizing over the petty, meaningless judgments they cast upon you. Their opinions, their narrow perceptions… they are but whispers on the wind—impermanent and inconsequential. What matters, Mira, is who you are within. The fire in your heart, the strength in your spirit, and the truth that burns bright inside you."
Mira sighed, a long, drawn-out exhalation filled with years of self-doubt and unspoken longing. She leaned into the warmth of his hand, drawing comfort from his steadfast presence. She wanted to believe him, to let his words settle inside her and quiet the ache, but the isolation, the feeling of being an outsider, clung to her like a second skin. No matter how many times she tried to dismiss it, the dissonance remained—a part of her she couldn't untangle.
"But I want to fit in," she confessed, her voice a quiet tremor. "I want to have more friends, to feel… connected, to be liked… to be normal." The word felt impossible, desirable yet utterly unattainable.
She gestured vaguely toward the world beyond the cottage window, toward Rivenglade—a place that had once felt like home but was slowly slipping away, reshaped by Lucien's influence, by Zenith's growing dominion.
"But everything I love, everything I feel drawn to—the forest, the sea, the old stories whispered on the wind, the freedom of open spaces—it all seems so different now. So… wrong somehow, compared to what everyone else values. It's like I'm speaking a different language. Like I'm living in a world that's becoming unfamiliar to me."
A quiet lull settled between them, broken only by the rustling of leaves outside the window.
Mira's gaze lingered on the vibrant flurry of life in the ancient oak, her eyes tracing the darting, fluttering movements of tiny birds weaving through the sun-dappled branches. She hesitated, breath catching in her throat, before finally asking the question that had simmered beneath the surface for as long as she could remember—the unspoken root of her persistent sense of otherness.
Her voice, thin and unsteady, carried the fragile weight of a child's unspoken longing. "What do you think… Mother… what do you think she would say to me? If… if she were here now?"
Elias grew quiet, his gaze drifting inward, his expression distant and haunted. His thoughts retreated into the deep corners of his memory, into a realm of unspoken emotions and carefully guarded secrets. Another long, heavy silence stretched between them, thick with grief, punctuated only by the faint, mournful sigh of the wind rustling through the oak branches, whispering of what was lost, of what could never be reclaimed.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity drawing out into infinity, he spoke, his voice softer now, tinged with a deep-seated melancholy that always surfaced when the specter of her absent mother intruded upon their carefully maintained silence.
"She… she would say the same thing, little starling," he murmured, the endearment a quiet echo of a long-lost tenderness. "That you are… that you are perfect, Mira. Just as you are."
A deep, visceral sadness welled up in Mira's chest, sharp and aching as a physical wound, tightening her throat, constricting her breath. It was a familiar, suffocating wave—an unbearable longing for a presence she had never truly known, a mother forever a ghost in the edges of her memory, a whisper on the wind, a phantom limb aching with an unfillable void.
"Then… then why did she leave?" she choked out, the question raw and unbidden, escaping her lips before she could fully contain the years of suppressed hurt. "Why… why didn't she want me, Father? Why didn't she raise me? Why did she abandon me to… to this life?"
Elias's composure fractured, his expression abruptly closing off, his features becoming rigidly stoic as the familiar mask of impenetrable silence fell into place—a fortress wall against the painful memories stirring beneath the surface. His jaw tightened, a muscle clenching visibly in his cheek, and the small, tender smile vanished completely, as if it had never existed.
After an agonizing pause, the silence so heavy it felt almost suffocating, he finally spoke, his voice clipped, strained, devoid of warmth. "She simply… couldn't, Mira."
Frustration, long-simmering beneath the surface of her carefully controlled composure, ignited—a small spark flaring into a fiery burst of uncontainable anger.
"But why?" she demanded, her voice rising, trembling with the force of emotions she could no longer hold back, her violet eyes flashing with raw, wounded intensity. "Why couldn't she? Why can't you ever give me a real answer? Why can't you ever tell me anything real, anything true about her—about my own mother?" Her voice broke, cracking under the weight of years of unanswered questions.
"Why is it always better this way?" she mocked, bitterness lacing her words, echoing his oft-repeated, infuriating, utterly meaningless mantra. "How is not knowing better? How is growing up feeling unwanted, unanchored—adrift in a sea of unanswered questions with no explanation, no connection, no mother—how is any of this better?"
Elias's carefully cultivated reserve finally shattered. His tightly controlled frustration ignited into a rare and deeply unsettling flare of palpable anger, his usually composed features illuminated with an intensity that made Mira's breath quit in her lungs. He stood abruptly, the worn leather of his precious book slipping from his grasp, falling to the floor with a soft, forgotten thud.
"Because she's not like us, Mira!" he snapped, the words laced with a furious, painful finality that brooked no argument, tolerated no further questioning. "Can't you understand anything, child? Can't you see it, even after all these years? She walks a different path, Mira. A path… a path we—you and I—can never follow."
The harsh, clipped words struck Mira like a physical blow, stealing her breath and leaving her reeling. But just as quickly as the fight had flared, it drained out of her, extinguished in an instant, leaving behind only a hollow, aching emptiness. A profound, bone-deep exhaustion settled over her, stealing her strength, her will to argue, to resist—to even breathe.
She was too emotionally depleted to engage in yet another futile, fruitless confrontation. Too worn down by the endless, cyclical dance of hope and bitter disappointment.
Tilting her head back, she let her gaze drift, unfocused, to the aged wooden beams overhead. Her vision blurred at the edges, her eyes burning with the painful, prickling onset of unshed tears, a dry, aching sorrow building behind her eyelids.
"Fine," she whispered, the word barely audible, a defeated murmur lost in the ringing silence of the cottage, a quiet exhalation of utter, desolate surrender.
"Okay, Father. Fine. Okay."
Without another word, without another glance at her father's rigid, unyielding figure, she turned and left, retreating into the small, familiar solitude of her room—a sanctuary that felt, increasingly, like a prison. The heavy wooden door closed behind her with a soft click, the latch catching with quiet finality, echoing the painful certainty of her father's words.
She stood before the small, cracked mirror hanging askew on the wall, its surface clouded with age and dust, and met her own reflection. Haunted violet eyes stared back at her—striking, unnatural, undeniably otherworldly. The very thing that marked her as different. As eternally separate.
The tears finally came, silently spilling over, breaching the fragile dam of her forced composure. They traced hot, wet paths down her pale cheeks, mingling with the Rivenglade dust still clinging to her skin, leaving faint, murky streaks—mirroring the fractured, muddied landscape of her own soul.
Who am I? she wondered. And why, despite all her yearning for connection, did she feel with such deep certainty that she never truly would?
Not in Rivenglade.
Not among Zenith's Chosen.
Not in this world.
And perhaps, chillingly, not in any other.
She was groundless, unanchored, a solitary starling lost in a world that demanded she be something—someone—she fundamentally, irrevocably, was not. And as the shadows deepened, enveloping her small room in their quiet, suffocating embrace, the weight of that truth settled over her, heavy and inescapable.
The light may have swallowed the silence in Rivenglade, but in Mira's heart, a different kind of silence was growing.
A quiet, aching void that threatened to devour her whole.