came of invoking the goddess. Across the table from him, Salena watched him with a speculative expression, as if she could read his apprehension. She was one of the few people who knew how heavily Moranu’s hand sat on him. When the heroic Queen Andromeda had eliminated the scourge of Deyrr from the world, his mother had done it partly by making a bargain with the goddess, pledging her unborn child to Moranu’s service in exchange for Her help. That unborn child being him. A hell of an onus to be born under. Moranu hadn’t called him to Her service yet, but it was only a matter of time.
“What, exactly, are we writing down?” Rhy asked, trying not to sound as tense as he felt.
They all looked at him. “Haven’t you ever done this ritual?” Gendra asked.
“Nope.” He shrugged in the extravagant Tala style to remind them. “This is my first Feast of Moranu outside Annfwn, and the Tala don’t do this.” He wiggled a dubious finger at the quills and paper.
“True,” Salena said drily. “We’re lucky if the Tala write anything down at all.”
He eyed her. “Not everyone worships libraries, Princess.”
She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth, but Astar put a hand on her arm. “It’s good to remind us all,” he said, looking around the table. “For the past, we write down a regret we’d like to leave behind. For the future, we write down a promise, wish, or hope for ourselves or for someone else.”
“Isn’t the past already behind us?” Rhy asked.
Salena’s gorgeous lips quirked in an appreciative smile. “That is the definition of the past, after all.”
Gendra groaned and thunked her forehead on the table. “Why did we want them to start talking to each other again? I’m never going to make it to the dancing. Never.”
“The past,” Stella said, not raising her voice, but silencing everyone immediately with her gravity and the resonance of magic, “is only behind us if we make an effort to leave it behind.” She leveled her storm-gray gaze on Rhy, then on Salena. “Past mistakes and regrets can be like stones we tied around our necks of our own free will. They weigh us down, chains to the past that prevent us from moving into the future. If we are forever dragging those weights, they stunt our growth. This is an opportunity to break those chains and drop those stones of remorse, leaving them here to burn cleanly in the fire, so that we can move into the new year unfettered by past mistakes, free to grow into better people.”
A hush settled, and they all looked at each other. Rhy started to drink his mjed, but Gendra, beside him, put a hand on his forearm to lock it in place, giving him a pleading look. Right. No more delays.
Astar cleared his throat. “On that note, you all should have an idea of what to write down. Past first.”
They all bent over the task, quiet filling the room, the fire crackling and the wind roaring distantly among the high towers. A few of them were already scratching words down. Show-offs. Rhy stared at the blank paper, about a hundred possibilities flying through his mind of mistakes and regrets he’d love to never think about again.
“What if my paper isn’t big enough?” he said into the quiet. Five heads snapped up to level unamused glares on him, while Jak tossed him a jaunty salute.
“Pick one,” Salena suggested in a lethal tone. “If you like, I can make a list for you.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he replied. “The list is so long. How to choose?”
“Rhy,” Stella said, not without sympathy, “no one but you and Moranu will know what you write down. It can be anything at all.”
“Yes, well, Moranu is not that fond of me,” he retorted. “I try not to let Her into my head.”
Stella cocked her head, looking through him in that sorcerous way his mother did, and nodded to herself.
“It doesn’t even have to be real,” Gendra snapped at him, folding her paper several times into a tiny square. “Write down the color blue for all I care, just write something and burn it.”
He followed as she strode to the fireplace and pitched in her note. “But then I wouldn’t have your pretty blue eyes in my life,” he teased, stepping back in surprise when she whirled on him.
“Fine,” she hissed. “Don’t take this seriously. But do try not to ruin it for the rest of us.”