Natasha was losing her faith.

She knelt before the Supplanter with the other chosen supplicants, the Blessed Mothers, as they were called. It was the most honored position for someone of her faith, but she didn’t feel honored. She felt isolated and alone.

Natasha was the second daughter of a poor family in the Kingdom of Talla. Eldest daughters were traditionally given in marriage to secure a family alliance within the complex social structure of the highly stratified kingdom. Among religious families, second daughters were usually given to the temple. Natasha willingly accepted her role, which helped secure her family’s spiritual standing. As she moved through the system of temples, impressing her mentors and advisors at every level, she had always been told she would make it all the way to the Supplanter’s inner circle. Now that she was here, it did not feel like an accomplishment.

They were in the Border Mountains, the most northern part of Talla, where, at this elevation, snow still covered the rocky slopes around them, and travel outside was strictly prohibited. This temple complex housed over 100 people, a few dozen delvers, and was well stocked for the winter, so she had few physical needs, but as a disciple of the heart, she could not so easily ignore the desires of her soul. She longed to see the flower gardens of her home village, which would be in full bloom about now. She yearned to hear the bubbling brooks and twittering of birds harmonizing through the forest behind her family’s home. Even seeing the sun again, not a common desire for a pale-skinned Tallashite, would bring her heart a measure of warmth and joy she felt was missing.

Natasha’s rise to this position had not prepared her for this. The temples she had moved through had been vibrant places, filled with gregarious hospitality, energetic singing, and optimistic enthusiasm, not a dull monastery of cold stone and dimly lit hallways. Most of the 100 residents of this temple were supplicant women like herself, longing for a chance to hold her coveted position, but were resigned to menial tasks about the complex, cleaning, cooking, or maintaining the fortress for the rest. They looked at her with too much jealously to ever be friendly, and she was too busy with her duties to sustain a meaningful friendship anyway.

Trying to shut these distractions out of her mind as she knelt in the private meditation room, Natasha turned her attention to what should be both the target and source of her desire: the Supplanter himself. He spoke to them fervently, urging them on in their calling, letting them know that the time was near. For years these young women had been preparing for the assentation, and soon it would be at hand. They had been through half a dozen selection processes where only a tiny percentage moved on, but here they were, the final four, each at the top of their chosen specialization.

As she listened to the benediction her master laid on them, Natasha’s eyes couldn’t help wandering down his body. He was not the Supplanter of her dreams, a thought that wasn’t just fanciful hyperbole. She often dreamt of the Supplanter, the one to whom she believed she would give her life, and this man before her wasn’t him. She didn’t even know his real name. To her, he was just the Supplanter, or, more cordially, Master.

But he did not look like a master, a man supposedly in control of an entire religion. Unlike herself, he was a northerner, as the Supplanter needed to be, but he was not tall or imposing. Tallashite men were usually short, rarely reaching six feet, and then only if they were terribly thin. Natasha was tall for a Tallashite woman, at almost five and a half feet, and when standing, she could look her master in the eyes, not that she was supposed to. The Supplanter never looked her in the eyes either, his attention more often drawn downward.

Natasha was not ashamed of her looks and believed strongly that her appearance resulted from her devotion. She had dedicated herself to understanding and cultivating desire in herself at a young age. So, as she had gone through puberty, her appearance had been magically shaped by the powers of the Elementals to represent the desires of those around her. Tallashites had pale skin, nearly snow-white, with black hair and diminutive stature. It gave them a sickly appearance to most foreigners, almost diseased, but Natasha’s skin was vibrant. Others best described it as ivory or polished stone, as if she were a statue of the goddess of beauty come to life. Her hair was long and silky smooth, its black sheen so intense it looked like polished onyx. Natasha had perfected the application of makeup, making her full red lips and dark eyes a perfect contrast against the slight color in her cheeks.

Although she usually kept most of her skin hidden from the sun – as most Tallashites did – and even indoors, wore long-sleeved hooded cloaks, her clothing underneath was form-fitting, and her generous curves and graceful movement left little to the imagination of what lay beneath. She could feel the eyes of every man on her (and most of the women) as she moved through the vast temple, but she rarely returned the looks and knew better than to stare down the Supplanter when he examined her with thinly veiled desire. Only on her knees, as she now was, could she look the religious leader in the face, and after reviewing his unimposing body, she did return his gaze.

They were hollow eyes, lacking power or passion. As one who had devoted her life to the study of the heart, cultivating a deep sense of her own desires and preparing to join the Elemental, such a lack of passion was revolting, especially in one on whom her devotion should be centered. Her meditations led her to believe that her dreams – subconscious visions brought about by her heart’s desires – were prophetic in nature. She dreamed of being with a man, whom she could only assume was the Supplanter. He was consumed with passion, driven by it. And he was powerful besides, with the height and strength that the Talla people usually associated with the northerners. This Supplanter before her had none of that. All he had was ambition.

But perhaps that was enough. Perhaps once this man fully possessed all four Elementals, he would become the man she saw in her dreams. Then she would willingly give herself to him and bring about the salvation of the world that was prophesied. Perhaps she just needed a little more faith.

The women beside her didn’t seem to lack her conviction.

Eastasia, another Tallashite woman, knelt to her right. She was exceptionally tall, only a couple of inches under six feet, and fit the profile of her people by being remarkably thin, with almost no curves to speak of. Her face was similar to her master’s, shallow and deary, her pale skin more ashen than vibrant, her hair more dark gray than black. But her mind was a thing of beauty. Eastasia could speak half a dozen languages and had memorized every ancient text available from a young age.

Further to her right was a study in contrast. Britany was a giant of a woman, not as tall, but twice as big. She was a northerner and looked like she could easily work as a logger or miner with many of her countrymen. Natasha knew that most of her size came from elixirs she drank daily, but they had transformed her body into a powerful machine.

The last woman in line was also from the north and was full of life, literally. Quinsha was pregnant with twins. Natasha thought she looked like she would pop any moment, but the woman still had six weeks to go. How the child’s life would aid the master’s ascension wasn’t entirely clear, but it didn’t bother the other women.

They had faith.

Natasha knew the Supplanter religion was practiced differently in the north, where the temple leaders usually tested the female disciples in bed, evaluating their cultivating skills before passing them up to the higher temples. The Tallashites attempted to keep the women pure for the Supplanter, enacting less invasive testing methods for promotion. Though, since there was often more than one man claiming to be a Supplanter at a time, there was little to stop an ambitious temple leader from making that claim, creating his own harem of women from each of the four disciplines, and beginning to accumulate power.

Natasha had avoided these ambitious leaders, and her evident skills kept her protected as the devout members of her faith knew she would be a prize for the true Supplanter, who many had felt would come to prominence soon. According to everyone else, this man before her now was him.

Still, this Supplanter had not taken her into his chamber yet. She knew he had been with many other supplicant women housed in this temple, including many of the heart disciples, but something kept her off-limits. It wasn’t the Supplanter’s lack of desire for her, for she read that as clearly in his eyes as anyone else. Her only guess was that it involved the actual human Elementals that had been recently discovered and that the Supplanter promised would arrive at their temple any day.

These were not the accumulated powers of dozens of cultivating women who would transfer that power to their master through an intimate union. Instead, these were the ancient powers used in creation that had been forever lost in the fall. Natasha had heard tales of this and knew that the Savior religion believed these would be revealed when the true Savior would come. Natasha once again looked into the eyes of the Supplanter. Was he the true savior?

The master was concluding his morning speech, bidding his chosen supplicants to rise and go about their duties. They should retire to their private rooms and remain in meditation on their chosen Elemental disciplines. He would call on them individually later in the day to cultivate their powers concerning the natural elements, the sources of which were also only recently discovered.

Natasha rose and left the room with her head bowed, shuffling out with the other women and down the halls from the Supplanter’s private chapel. After the other Blessed Mothers had left down the appropriate hallways that led to their rooms, she found herself alone in the massive temple, her thoughts jumbled as she neared her quarters.

A man stepped out of the shadows before her, causing her to jump in surprise. It was Prince Dantell. For a Tallashite, he was an imposing figure, not that much taller than she, but with a strong jaw and determined eyes. He grabbed her by the arm, and, after glancing leeringly inside her open cloak, he did look her in the face.

“How was this morning’s benediction? Is your faith renewed? Are you still a loyal subject?”

Natasha regretted ever confiding in this man regarding her doubts. She had felt alone in this isolated temple, so far from her family. The prince had been the only one who had shown her any kindness. Most men had been kind to her growing up, but the few men in this temple treated her with indifference or objectification. Prince Dantell had seemed different.

He had been curious about her family and upbringing. Why the heir to the throne of Talla should give her such regard, she didn’t know, and when he had proclaimed his well-reasoned doubts of the faith, as most royals did, she had echoed some of his thoughts.

Then he had brought the natural elementals to the temple several months ago. Despite his claims that he had doubts about the master, he gave them over willingly, which had won him favor with the Supplanter. Natasha had naively assumed this show of religious compromise would make him a good king one day, but she had been wrong. Shortly after the natural elementals had arrived at the temple and Natasha had been promoted to a Blessed Mother, Prince Dantell had shown his true colors. She had been a curiosity to him before, but now that she had meaningful power, he wanted it for himself, caring only for selfish achievements and personal conquests. She quickly understood that the kindness he had shown before had only been an attempt to get in her bed, a mortal sin now that she was one of the chosen. This meant he had to take more direct tactics and try to get her to deny her faith altogether.

Luckily the prince wasn’t always around. He came and went as he pleased, one of the few outside the faith that knew the temple’s location. His aging father, the King of Talla, had him doing menial tasks in the capital city of Talladon, but he had most of his time to himself. Natasha didn’t know why he chose to trust this temple with the natural elements, but he did. Most royals spent their time with the people or the military or negotiating relationships with the neighboring nations. But Prince Dantell acted as though the key to his future success lay in this temple.

The citizens of Talla were a religious people, and the Supplanter religion was the largest one. But since every prophecy said that the Supplanter would be from the north, the royal family shunned the belief. They didn’t forbid the religion, seeing it as better than the alternatives, but they didn’t like the idea of their people following someone from the northland, an area the royal family had long marked for conquest but had never been able to accomplish.

That Prince Dantell would ally himself with the latest Supplanter was odd to Natasha, but she tried to use this as evidence that her master was the true savior of humanity and that her doubts about him were misplaced. She had seen the prince and the Supplanter talking together many times and guessed it wasn’t about religious matters, as the royal heir never attended any ceremonies.

She studied him as he held her arm firmly, reading him as easily as a hawk reads the wind. “I am one of the chosen,” Natasha replied to the prince, trying to pull her arm from his grasp. He had a firm grip for a Tallashite.

“If the Supplanter knew of your doubts,” he threatened, “you wouldn’t be for long. Don’t you think you would make a much better queen?” His hungry eyes went up and down her body again.

Natasha could feel the desire and passion emanating from him like a strong odor. And truth be told, her own body ached for someone like him to satisfy her needs. Spending all day meditating on her passion and deepest yearnings only to save herself for a man that did not stir any of those emotions within her was like being a master chef preparing the most sumptuous meals and enveloping oneself in their tantalizing aromas only to eat nothing but stale bread, or not to eat at all.

No! She fought against those temptations. She would not throw away her life’s mission on fleeting sexual attraction. In addition to cultivating deep emotional awareness, she had also developed an iron will. “I am true to the Supplanter,” she said fervently, trying to convince herself it was true.

“A pity,” he replied, releasing her arm. “There are other supplicants in your discipline. You were not the first of his chosen. You do not need to be the last.” He had given this pitch many times before and knew his best-negotiating tactic was to put further doubts into her mind right before her morning meditations. And so, he left her to her own thoughts now as she moved the last few steps toward her quarters. Unbeknownst to the prince, her thoughts would not be on him or the Supplanter, but on the northerner who filled her dreams, on the man she hoped the Supplanter would become.