The shaking of Emelia's head gave evidence to doubt on her part. Of what, Marta could not say with certainty. Though with the volcanic look Emelia gave to the door of their cell, doubt of their deliverance seemed very much not to be it. Praetor Irene, whom Marta knew not closely but well enough, might take a shine to the likes of Emelia.
"Then let us give mercy its leave, for its gentle presence shall not be needed here."
* * * * *
So they would sit for an hour, two hours, difficult was it to tell. Yet it was for a time seemingly interminable. To fill this duration Marta mentally steeled herself, fortifying her body for what was to come with the nourishment of the mind and spirit. She thought back to her time in the Temple of the Everburning Flame's seminary, as she after the War College went to further her theological study. Before the assembly of bashrahips and bashrahibes she had given her dissertation, the capstone of her training, to be inducted into the priesthood. She thought of it now, in summarized form:
No one is burdened by misfortune without their own consent.
The Gods of Order, among whose divine company Regel is a part, did not fashion upon this world slaves to the ceaseless stream of cause and effect. Nature abounds with prescribed order, and the Gods' laws closely guard all the elements of the world; ever bidden is the sun to rise in the east and set in the west, ever bidden is Pneria to cross before the slow march of Lessat every forty and five days. Yet these heavenly commands which permeate the whole of the physical world remain absent from that which is best of all the Gods' creations.
The mortal spirit.
Where even the most mysterious and seemingly capricious elements of the world, like that which forms the crooks and bends of a bolt of lightning, are determined, and that the products of this determination will go on to provide cause—seen or unseen—for further determination, true freedom is granted to mortalkind. Each man's will is his own, each woman's her own. What service, therefore, does this provide to the Gods, who in their great capacity could have made each of their children as bound to Order as the recess and surge of the tides?
It provides them with children of true goodness, proven character, and displayed virtue.
And to mortalkind, these are the greatest gifts of all. Born without disposition to good or evil, the spirit is ready to be uniquely shaped, the pot that is its own potter. The consequences of the Gods' ordering, alongside the full range of free actions, beneficent and malevolent, of one's fellow mortals, present themselves to the spirit, and it is the spirit which decides how it shall be affected. None can coerce it, none can coax it, for your will is blessed with freedom. All at turns, the choice to embrace Order or give in to Chaos is yours. "But misfortune has struck me." So, then, will you endure it, triumph, and come through all the stronger, brimming with life and light yet? Or will you descend into despair, one of the chief weapons of the Gods of Chaos, and curse the world and all creation? To either of these ends, the journey begins with one's own consent, and one's own consent alone.
And so was Marta steeled.
For at the top of the staircase, much movement could be heard, and men would soon be returning. Yet all of them, all of them, were powerless to diminish her fire. It mattered not whether the newborn day ended with her liberation or her death. She had the courage for both, to secure her return to Gild or to secure her place alongside Regel in the Fields of Duzen.
So let them come. Misfortune? These men would merely be proofs of Marta's character.
And she looked sidelong to Emelia, a knowing glance, an invitation to strike when came their best chance.
Emelia Atchins
