5

Drizzle and Devotion

Candle left the house as fast as she could, stopping on the way to steal breakfast, lunch and possibly dinner from the pantry. Making sure she was unobserved she swung herself up to the fork of a large silver tree to eat the rest in peace. From her perch, she had a good view of a large swathe of her parents' gardens. It was a cold day with a harsh wind blowing from the south, that rocked the silver tree gently as she ate. The mountains were shrouded in clouds and the sky was a dull, steel, grey. Despite the cold, Candle relished her freedom, enjoying the roughness of the bark against her back, and the chilly kiss of the wind on her cheek. Eventually, the clouds rolled down the side of the Enchantments and soon the valley was enveloped. It started to rain then, a steady drizzle that didn't let up. The servants all vanished indoors and Candle watched the water dissolve the defensive charms on the boundaries and the roof with a sizzle and a pop as the water touched them. The charms were carved into the stonework of the walls and braided into the thatch and would spring back into being as soon as they dried. It didn't matter, because spirits hated the wet even more than humans. Candle was cold but found the water refreshing. Revitalising even. But she was growing stiff with the cold. Reluctantly she slipped out of the tree and trudged through the gardens back into the house.

Since it was raining, the house was full of people rushing here and there preparing for the party and working on their own projects. Candle had to take great care to avoid being seen. It was quite enjoyable actually, she thought, from under a tablecloth waiting for a group of cooks to pass by. If you ignored the fact that her parents might permanently imprison her if someone complained about her. But it did give her the opportunity to exercise both her wits and her body. And it gave her something to do.

She roamed the hallways for a while, pausing every now and then to look out of a window. It was dark for mid-afternoon, twilight would come early tonight. Eventually, she found herself near her family's bedroom wing and drifted into her sister's room where there was a light. Ishbel sat in front of a massive bronze mirror doing her hair, her cat on her lap, purring contentedly. Candle leaned on the counter stared in admiration at the cascades of braid and curl on her head. She wondered, uncharitably, who Ishbel was trying to impress.

"Your hair looks beautiful," she said.

"Oh Candle!" said Ishbel, turning her head. "I didn't see you there. They finally let you out?" She didn't wait for a response but turned her head sideways to admire herself in the bronze. "My hair should look good, it's taken the better part of an hour to get right."

Candle felt a tug of jealousy as she looked at her sister in all her finery. Candle had never been to a party and had never had the opportunity to dress up.

"Party tonight? Anyone interesting coming?" she asked, innocently, trying not to think about the future. A future where she would never be allowed to do anything. A future where she would inevitably end up locked up somewhere, alone and forgotten.

"Yup," said Ishbel, blushing. "And tomorrow night too! And yeah...there's ...someone I rather like. I really admire his... needlework." Candle snorted and raised her eyes as her sister expertly painted her face with just a hint of colour on the cheeks, followed by a subtle enhancement of the lashes and brows with glamour.

"Just a little," said Ishbel, smiling coyly, and Candle could see the gleam coating her face and her bust. Her nose seemed a little shorter and her eyes a deeper brown. Her hair shone with a not so subtle shine. "Of course, one shouldn't really use glamour," said Ishbel guiltily. But Candle could have told her almost everyone in the house did. Rasmus and Lady Enys seldom went without glamoured eyes, and their father liked to make his jaw squarer and his shoulders broader on a daily basis. But no one admitted it. She figured this was the real reason most people hated being out in the rain. If they were glamoured up all the time it might be a shock to suddenly discover the real shape of someone's nose or the real colour of their hair in a passing rainstorm! Ishbel chattered on about the party and about the guests. Candle helped her sister pick out an intricate moon drop pendant and fastened it around her sister's slender neck. As she tied it Rasmus bounced into the room in his festival clothes.

"Who let the rat out?" he said, smirking at Candle.

"Don't be an ass, " said Ishbel, smoothing her skirts, and pushing her cat off her lap gently. She turned her head for one last look in the mirror. "Oh, I hope the rain stops soon."

Her siblings started arguing about the weather so Candle bid them a hasty farewell and slipped out of the room before Rasmus had the chance to get bored. She stood in the corridor, listening to the rain beating on the roof and wondering what to do next. Then she remembered she hadn't yet burnt her stack of devotions.

She trudged back to her room and once there, she knelt in front of her altar and stared up at the painted faces of her Ancestors. Candle's altar was not that impressive, for as the least important member of her family she was entitled to the least interesting relics. She picked up one of her paintings at random and muttering a prayer, set the heavy parchment ablaze.

"Ancestors," she said, gazing up at their familiar faces, "please accept this gift." The sketch went up in smoke, the ashes dropping onto the altar. "Grandmother Inga," she said, "Grandfather Margh." The starry sky went up in flame. "Grandmother Meraud, Grandfather Carantok-" The hilltop castle dissolved into ashes. And so she burned them one by one, praying to each of her Ancestors in turn, until it felt like she had prayed her way back to the dawn of the Day Nation.

When she was finished she sat back on her heels in front of the pile of ash on her altar. She waited. Did she feel any different? She wriggled her fingers and toes, breathing deeply, trying to remember how she usually felt. She felt - exhausted. Nothing more. She took out her candle, sorrowfully, and touched a finger to the wick. "Burn," she whispered.

But it didn't. It never did, and it never had.