Osiria set a stick of incense into the soft sand and bowed her head in prayer. The body of Andromache, Temple Mother, was laid out on a stone altar, covered by a fine silken burial shroud. Her woolen hair had been brushed back and braided, scented oils soaked into every strand.
The doors opened and the sounds of men dying filled the air.
"Temple Mother," a firm but not unkind voice called. "You are needed in the Healing Wards."
Osiria recited a few words more then stood, long white hair with red ends falling in disarray around her. With heavy feet she descended the steps and stopped at Sophia's side.
"How bad is it?" her voice was scratchy from grief.
"The King of Vale has no mercy," she responded and gently brushed the younger woman's hair into something more respectable. "We've had to construct another two sick rooms this year alone."
She nodded, basking in the physical affection for just a moment, then drew herself up to her full height, shoulders back and chin up. "I will do what I can."
"That is all we ask," Sophia dipped her head respectfully and followed a step behind.
-[-]-
Osiria was the third daughter born to a third daughter. Her family was poor but happy, farmers who grew olives and pressed the harvest into oil. One year there was little rain and they struggled but made it through alright. The next year there was also little rain.
The land was slowly dying in the sun.
Her parents made the pilgrimage to the Temple of Fire and made what offerings they could- soft, dyed wool, colorful ribbons, a bottle of olive oil. Still there was no rain, and again they went, this time taking all three daughters. At the sacrificial pyre Osiria recited a solemn prayer, asking the Maiden of Fire to bless their land, and the flames burned higher than before.
One of the temple priestesses gasped at the sight and ran, returning with stern faced woman who drew Osiria aside and spoke to her at length. Her family returned home shortly after that and rain fell for the first time in many months- but she stayed at the temple and joined as an initiate.
Though she was horribly homesick and cried often that first year, she made friends among the other girls and learned all she could about the temple and the Maiden of Fire. Chief among her duties, aside from learning to read and write, was tending the garden where myrrh and laurel grew. She was the best at that out of all the girls, owing not only to her background as a farmer but also because her body softly glowed with an inner light as she did. Plants tended by her hand grew healthier and resisted poor weather better than any others.
One day she was pulling weeds from the base of a sickly laurel tree and a black-haired woman came up to her, dressed in the robes of one of the lower order priestesses. The woman talked to her about the temple's teachings, told her a story and asked her to make up an ending for it, then vanished for a week. When Osiria finally saw her again, she told her how she envisioned the story ending and the woman's sad face lit up in a soft smile.
She saw her off and on for the next year, until it came time for her class' Temple Rites and the woman walked in wearing the robes of the Temple Mother.
Osiria was sure she looked like a fish, gaping at the woman, but couldn't help herself. After the ceremony she found the woman (Temple Mother!) in the garden by the once sickly laurel tree and demanded answers- which she, Andromache, gave.
She'd been searching for a Handmaiden, someone to follow at her side and learn from her until it came time for her to pass on the title of Temple Mother- and she wanted Osiria to do it.
The young girl denied the offer, citing herself as too simple, too low born to be something as important as a Handmaiden, but Andromache would hear nothing of it. She herself had been given up as a baby by a prostitute mother; birth station had nothing to do with deserving the title.
Osiria devoted herself to working with the sickliest of plants, the ones others were more likely to uproot than try to help. She cried a lot when she first arrived, but she never tried to leave and was kind to others. She had an optimistic mindset and was humble; an ideal Handmaiden.
Still Osiria tried to offer protest but Andromache disassembled every argument. Eventually she gave in, tired, and the stern faced woman who'd first talked Osiria into joining the temple's order became her personal tutor for the next sixth months.
Her name was Sophia and she'd been Andromache's previous Handmaiden before she'd grown out of the title (a Handmaiden could be no older than thirty).
Osiria thought the other woman would be upset that she was taking her spot, but Sophia only laughed and patted her shoulder. "It is a blessing that in all the time I've been in service there has been no need for a new Temple Mother."
Well, when it was put like that…
Andromache and Osiria traveled for three years, visiting battle torn villages and healing who they could as the Great War waged on, unseen except for bloody grounds and the sudden influx of wounded to the temple. One day, by some stroke of misfortune, they walked into a battle and Andromache was struck down while protecting her.
They rushed back home, careful of the wound, but it was too late. Healing only removed the physical scar, not the illness she picked up and carried in her lungs. In her final months she never left her bed and spent the time instructing Osiria in what would happen when she passed- great and terrible things she'd never said before.
"It will feel like fire," soft grey eyes landed on her weeping form. "Like a mother's love, like lightning when it strikes a tree. Do not despair- it will feel like… me."
"Andromache, please," Osiria begged. "I can't do this without you- I'm not worthy."
"Hush child," she laughed gently. "Haven't we already had this conversation?"
She was gone the next morning.
-[-]-
Osiria stared at the tall, merciless king with a sword of fire in his hands and a grimly determined set to his mouth- then fixed in her mind the image of her Handmaiden as Andromache had done before her. When the killing blow came, she turned the fire back on him and felt the magic leave her body.
His eyes opened wide in shock at the sight. She smiled one last time as his cloak burned (a fitting burial shroud).
The war was over in less than a year in Vytal.