Author's Note: Hello and welcome to the third installment of "Cross". As mentioned in my previous author's note, this installment picks up where the first drabble left off, during Priestess's childhood and her initiation into the clergy.
As always, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to review the last chapter, Roses-and-Cinnamon, xevanescentstar, MythStar Black Dragon, Genius-626, FireChildSlytherin5, Faith-Catherine, stormyseas77, and Inwe[z]247. I'd also like to thank everyone who took the time to add this story to their favorites/author alerts lists. Thank you all so much! Your support and encouragement is truly appreciated. I do hope you enjoy this installment.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Priest.
Part 3 The Clergy
The Churchmen took her from her home, a land of plains and open desolation and stale air that hung heavily over sun-scorched flatlands, to a place of walls. And this place of walls was within another wall, one that reached its stone and steel fingertips around the base of a city that had once been grand but now stood encrusted with the grime of so many wasted centuries.
The harried noise and chaotic congestion of the gloomy metropolis was enough to startle Rowan's young senses. She was guided through the labyrinthine streets by the Churchmen, a small, scrawny girl in a paisley dress surrounded by tall and gaunt-looking strangers. The people in the city, she realized, walked with their heads bowed, their shoulders hugged close to their bodies, their fingers knotted into nervous fists.
Seeing them, Rowan couldn't decide whether they were praying…or maybe just sad.
And they had a reason to be sad. A reason to be sorrowful when they were hemmed in by the stinking gutters and the clouds of polluted smoke and the burning neon signs that glowered down at them, glaring words like REPENT and FAITH.
It all confused Rowan. Made her heart patter in her chest. Made her hands go numb and her little lips tremble.
But she would not cry. Sage had taught her not to. Stiff upper lip girl, he'd say. Keep a stiff upper lip.
She would not cry.
The Churchmen did not keep her in the streets for long. Once inside the city gates, they brought her to the only building she had seen that was not made of steel, a stone church that had chilled marble floors and decadent statues of nameless saints who seemed ready to weep for the huddled masses outside.
The saints stared at Rowan and she stared back at them, daring them to move, daring them to blink. Because she wouldn't be scared. She would never, ever be scared.
The Churchmen took her into a circular room in the middle of the building and left her alone, fading from her side like passing shadows. And as Rowan, who was bewildered but not scared, looked about her, she saw the others.
The others that were like her.
Some were children. A boy with runny green eyes and a mop of dark, stringy hair. Two twin brothers who couldn't have been more than six, soft-featured children with long eyelashes and warm, copper-colored skin. A few teenagers in dusty work clothes and scuffed, mud-splattered boots. And a young man with angular features, impossibly white skin and blue eyes that were sad, sad like the people outside. Sad. Sad. Sad.
Rowan wasn't the youngest of the group, nor was she the oldest. She felt very unremarkable standing there, the cold from the marble floor slithering up her bare legs, her hair swinging limply in a messy braid. She edged her way over to the boy with the watery eyes. He seemed to be about her age, around ten years old. And he was frightened, so very frightened.
Rowan was drawn to his fear. It was companionable, a weakness she did not share but could understand. Seeing the boy quiver and wring his hands and wipe his equally runny nose on his sleeve calmed her somehow.
She was not alone, she realized. Not alone.
"Is this the Church?" she asked the boy.
He looked up at her, his lips folding into a crooked, taut smile. "It's a church," he replied.
"What does that mean?" Rowan questioned. Vaguely, she was aware of the others stirring about the chamber. Maybe, she thought, she wasn't supposed to speak. Maybe the silence was sacred, like a prayer.
The boy didn't answer.
A set of doors in the back of the chamber opened, bringing with them a cool breeze that reminded Rowan of the winter and the season when the nights were longest and people stayed locked inside for fear of them…the vampires….
She shivered.
A woman came into the chamber and Rowan recognized her immediately, not for her face or for her voice, but for the ash-colored cross tattooed on her brow, the mark of a Priest…
…or Priestess.
Her mother had told her stories of the clergy, of those strange, silent sentinels who guarded against the night, who drove back the dark because they could kill. They were saviors. They were soldiers. And Rowan knew that she should fear them, just as she should fear this woman, because she was horrible in a strange sort of way.
Horrible. Horrible. Like winter nights. Like vampire fangs and blood. Horrible.
The Priestess wasn't tall, but her presence filled the circular chamber like a sudden rush of flame and rising smoke. She had reddish hair and flat features, although her nose was aquiline and the left nostril was jagged, as if it had been ripped or cut or maybe even bitten.
Rowan fought the urge to cower before her. Stand tall, girl, Sage would say. She stood tall.
The Priestess observed them, her expression an awkward mixture of disappointment and interest. She looked at Rowan, the green-eyed boy, the twins and the teenagers. And then she looked at the sad young man. Her jagged nostril widened as she exhaled sharply.
"Do you know why you are here?" she asked them.
No one answered the Priestess, save the echo of her measured voice which swirled around the chamber.
"This is simple," she continued after a breath, her booted feet shifting on the floor, signaling mild annoyance. "You have all been chosen. You have all been deemed worthy. You will be brought into the clergy. There is a war. A Great War. You have seen people die. You have seen them killed by vampires."
Daddy, Rowan thought. Suddenly, she felt very much like crying, no matter that stiff upper lip business.
"Now you will kill vampires," the Priestess said. She paused, then added, "This is simple."
The green-eyed boy started to weep. The twins followed.
The Priestess raised an eyebrow and Rowan noticed another scar on her face, one that trailed across her right temple, pale and delicate looking like a spider's web. "They are young," she said, speaking exclusively to the sharp-featured man, as if he alone would understand her. "They will learn."
And then she left the room. The flame went with her, the smoke lingering, feeding on doubt, on the little tears of the scared children.
But Rowan wasn't frightened. She was angry. Angry as she had been when her mother put her to bed without supper for sassing her. Angry like when she had fought with Sage and her brother had pushed her. Angry like she was sometimes when she looked out at the vast plains surrounding her old home and saw only the blank sky and the dead, dead world.
Angry. She was angry.
"I hate her!" she spat with all the venomous petulance of youth. "She's horrible!"
The others shifted. The green-eyed boy stopped crying. The twins continued. The teenagers seemed stunned and solemn. None of them would look at her…except for the young man with the high cheekbones and drained, white face.
"You shouldn't say that," he said. He was the only one who didn't seem frightened or angry or upset. Just sad. Just plain sad. "You'll be like her one day."
"No," Rowan insisted, loathing, all the while, the weak stubbornness in her voice, the painful lack of conviction. "No, I won't be."
The man dropped his hands into his pockets, his shoulders rising in a shrug. "You don't have a choice," he told her, his sorrow so real that Rowan's eyes began to burn just listening to him. "None of us do."
Author's Note: Just to avoid any confusion (I know I introduced many new characters in this chapter) Rowan is our Priestess, the green-eyed boy is Black Hat, the sad young man is Priest and the rest of the characters, including the red-haired Priestess, are OCs.
Thank you so very much for taking the time to read! If you have a free moment, please leave a review. I'd absolutely love to hear from you. The next installment is in the works and should be posted in a week. Until then, take care and be well!