Hey there readers. Welcome to part 4!! Thank you SO MUCH for following the book to this point! So yes, Fiona is gone, but the story isn't over yet. We haven't seen Manna and Karina for some time but now that will change in a big way. Let's get back to the Senmin! Their leader is dead. That's gotta be a pretty major thing...
Manna
It had been three days now since the messenger arrived from Auresir with an official communication from King Henry himself. Nita Fiona Amoral was dead. Henry expressed his greatest sympathies for the Senmin's loss. The body followed two days later.
Trenton had been the one to greet the messenger in Cainell. Manna wondered how he'd received the news. No doubt he had put forth the proper display of decorum and quiet grief when the message was read and Fiona's lifeless corpse revealed, but Manna knew that it would have all been for show. To him, Fiona meant nothing, though she had been their leader. He had always looked on her with disdain. Fiona was too headstrong, too independent, and too scornful of the Council. Still, Manna knew she should be grateful to the Council Leader. Better he had dealt with the formalities. She needed time to prepare herself. Time to accept the fact that Fiona was was gone.
The King's message reported that a woman was found with a fatal wound to the head in an alleyway near the western gate of the Capital. When the body was brought to the main guard post at the western gate, a commanding officer recognized her face. Soon after, the broken staff was discovered and the High Chancellor had been called to identify her.
Though the crime was still under official investigation, the King's message gave mention to the recent presence of the Vox Populi within the Capital city and of the Crown's continued efforts to eradicate the danger they posed, particularly since their attack on the House of Lords.
'We have ferreted out our enemies and they are running scared. We will soon wipe such evil from our midst,' Henry promised, 'And if Vox Populi are indeed found to be culpable in the death of Nita Amoral,rest assured they will be brought to justice in the name of the Crown and the Senmin people.'
The message made no speculation as to what the Nita had been doing within the city limits on this occasion, nor what she might have been doing venturing through the streets of the Middle district though curfew had been in place throughout the Capitol at the time of the attack. Manna wondered if any of the Council members had taken notice of those facts.
After receiving the body formally in Cainell, the Council had brought Fiona to the home of the Elder Nita. It was Manna's job to prepare her for burial. The body of a Nita was sacred even in death, and it was required that burial preparations be performed by a first ranking member of the Initiate.
The Seven had come to her together, Avery and Caleb at the lead, shouldering the unmarked pine casket. In spite of all she had done to prepare herself for the moment, when they removed the lid it took every once of strength Manna possessed to remain on her feet as grief washed over her.
She had not been cleaned. Dark patches of dried blood covered Fiona's cold pale skin and crusted on her face, hair, and clothing. The broken remains of her staff lay by her side, now nothing more than a pieces of splintered wood, devoid of life, like their wielder.
The councilmen had not stayed long, though Caleb had volunteered to remain should she need any help. Manna had respectfully declined his aid asking only that the body be removed from the box and laid out for burial preparations. This duty was Manna's alone to bear. It was then that Caleb had offered to take Karina along with him so Manna could focus better on her duties without interruption. She vaguely remembered nodding her consent.
When they left, Manna began her task, going through the processes instinctively, moving without thinking, trying to block all emotion from her mind. It was custom for burial to occur as soon as possible and the funeral was already schedualed for the following morning. She could not allow grief to prevent her from doing what needed to be done to provide her final service to the Nita and so, Manna held back her tears. She feared if they were released, they might flood the world.
Cutting away the blood soaked clothing, stiff and cracking, Manna looked over every inch of her former student. She bathed her, cleaning each horrible wound, the holes where bullets had pierced Fiona's precious flesh, now cold and unnaturally pale. Manna caressed the broken bones in her fingers, felt her dislocated shoulder, saw the bruises on Fiona's face and body. In the echoes of her former student's pain, she could feel the deliberateness of the suffering exacted.
She knew that only calculated hatred could have inflicted such wounds. This had been no random act of violence. Fiona had been discovered and brutally punished for her betrayal to the Empire. But Manna could not bring the ire to rise in her heart. Staring at Fiona's body, at the closest thing she had to a daughter, lying there, stiff, devoid of life, she could only feel a hollow sadness. There was no room for anything else.
Once the blood was washed away, the liquid in the bowl beside her turned a dull red, Manna picked up a second dish and began running a white cloth fragrant with herbal water along Fiona's skin to purify her body.
She could see the woman's whole life story written upon her flesh. The small marks on her fingers from picking hawthorn and rosehips. The white scar above her eyebrow where she had been hit by a wooden blade, training under Caleb Blackwell, the stretch marks across her belly where she had carried Karina in her womb. Manna noticed how much Fiona had aged in the past few years. Her brow was lined with wrinkles of worry. Her hair, once so glossy and rich was dull, streaked with gray. And yet, she had been so young still. Far too young to leave this world.
When she had finished cleaning her, Manna dressed the body in the traditional clothing of the Nita. She remembered the day Fiona had been first presented to the Initiate. Manna helped dress her in similar garb then as well. It had been so difficult to calm the young girl and keep her still enough to brush and braid her long chestnut hair. Of course imagining Fiona's youthful self only brought on another wave of grief.
Taking Fiona's cold hand in her own, Manna closed her eyes for a moment, trying to hear in her mind that nervous bubbly voice that had asked so many questions. She tried to see the young, impatient face filled with excitement, fear, and anticipation. Manna had never dreamed that she would have to one day dress that same girl for her final journey to the other world.
Manna did not know how much time had past since beginning the task. It might have been days, or week or a merely a few hours. But suddenly the body was fully dressed, hair carefully plaited and wrapped in a chignon, arms folded across her chest, and Manna was alone with nothing more than the shell of the woman she had loved so dearly. For a moment she just stood motionless staring at the body lying in front of her.
Eyes closed, with the wound to her head carefully covered by her hair, Fiona looked so peaceful, though Manna knew that she had died in agony. And while the Nita appeared as if she merely slumbered, Manna knew Fiona would never rise again. She bent over and kissed Fiona's closed eyes before turning away and walking from the body.
Without a task to complete Manna found herself filled with anxiety, unable to remain still. It was a strange and unfamiliar sensation. She had always been one content to sit motionlessly in her own thoughts, even in the darkest of times. Perhaps it was the presence of Fiona's form so close and immobile, that inspired her nervous movement. As the hours went by, turning day into night, she paced her home aimlessly.
The Assembly was to be held the day after the funeral. Manna would be expected to name the Nita's successor. Just one day remained before all would be revealed and she would have to face the Council with the truth of her betrayal . But Manna's mind could not fully focus on the implications of that reality. Not yet.
The house felt suffocating and uncomfortably quite but the idea of being in another's company felt equally unbearable. As she sat by the fire, sat at the table, stood by the window, looking for a place to finally rest, she thought of Fiona. Of her ghost, her sprit so intrinsically linked to every inch of her former home.
Manna could see her playing by the hearth. Standing over the mortar and pestle, sitting in her favorite chair reading from the great book. She could see a girl whose whole life had stretched out ahead of her, full of optimism. A girl with a bright future unmarred by disappointment, and distrust. Now Manna would be forced to place that same girl in the ground and bury with her all of Fiona's unfulfilled hopes and dreams. And when it was done, Manna would have to face the consequences of their actions alone.
So this chapter's a short one. Hopefully an emotional one as well... The next chapter will actually be a new POV. Anyone wondering about Fiona's student Mina? While Manna and Fiona have long plotted to name Karina as the next Nita, Fiona did have a student that everyone else expected to be her successor. That poor kid has NO IDEA of her teacher's plotting. The next chapter is her POV! You will also meet a brand new character. She hails from the cloisters of Sithrah( home of the Senmin Initiate). I know they have really only been mentioned in passing before, but the Initiate is about to become a lot more present.