Moments later Nimue trailed behind her mother, who walked the smooth stones of the Sacred Sun Path toward the veiled entrance to the Sunken Temple. Though she never seemed to rush, Lenore was always ten steps ahead.
“You will find the wood, you will carve it, and you will string the bow,” Lenore told her.
“Josse is a half-wit.”
“And you will apologize to his father,” Lenore continued.
“Anis? Another half-wit. It would be nice if you took my side for once.”
“That fawn will feed many hungry mouths,” Lenore reminded her.
“It was more than a fawn,” Nimue countered.
“The proper rituals will be offered.”
Nimue shook her head. “You’re not even listening.”
Lenore turned, fierce. “What, Nimue, what? What is it I’m not hearing?” She lowered her voice. “You know what they say. You know how they feel. This sort of outburst only feeds their fear.”
“It’s not my fault,” Nimue said, hating the shame she felt.
“But your anger is your own. That is your fault. You show no discipline. No care. Last month it was Hawlon’s fence—”
“He spits on the ground when I pass!”
“Or the fire in Gifford’s barn—”
“You keep bringing that up!”
“You keep giving me reason to!” Lenore took Nimue by the shoulders. “This is your clan. These are your people, not your enemies.”
“It’s not like I haven’t tried. I have! But they won’t accept me. They hate me.”
“Then teach them. Help them understand. Because one day you’ll have to help lead them. When I’m gone—”
“Lead them?” Nimue laughed.
“You are gifted,” Lenore said. “You see them, you experience them in ways that I will never understand. But such a gift is a privilege, not a right, to be received with grace and humility.”
“It’s not a gift.”
A distant bell sounded. Lenore held up Nimue’s torn and muddied hem. “You couldn’t make an exception? This one day?”
Nimue shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Lenore sighed. “Come.”
She proceeded carefully through a veil of clinging vines and down a set of ancient stairs, slick with mud and moss. Nimue grazed her hands along the sculpted walls, which depicted ancient myths of the Old Gods, to steady her descent into the enormous Sunken Temple. The sun poured hundreds of feet down through a natural vent in the canopy to bathe the altar stone.
“Why do I have to attend this at all?” Nimue said, padding along the tilting path that spiraled all the way to the bottom.
“We are choosing the Summoner who will one day be the Arch Druid. Today is an important day, and you are my daughter and should be by my side.”
Nimue rolled her eyes as they reached the temple floor, where the village elders had already gathered. A few of them glowered at her presence, and she made a point of avoiding the circle and slouching against one of the far walls.
Kneeling before the altar in meditation was the son of Gustave the Healer, Clovis, a young Druid who had been a loyal acolyte to Lenore and was respected for his wide scholarship in healing magic.
The Elders sat cross-legged in the circle as Lenore took Clovis’s hand and helped him to stand. Gustave the Healer was also present, dressed in his finest, beaming with pride. He sat with the elders as Lenore turned to address them. “As Sky Folk we give thanks to the light that gives life. We are born in the dawn . . .”
“To pass in the twilight,” the elders answered in unison.
Lenore paused, closing her eyes. Her head tilted as though listening to something. After a moment, glowing marks, like silvery vines threaded up the right side of her neck, up her cheek, and around her ear.
The Fingers of Airimid appeared on Nimue’s cheeks and those of the elders in the circle.
Lenore opened her eyes. “The Hidden are now present.” She went on, “Since our dear Agatha passed, we have been without a Summoner. This has left us without a successor, without a Keeper of Relics and without a Harvest Priest. Agatha also shared a deep communion with the Hidden. She was a dear and devoted friend. She will never be replaced. But the nine moons have passed, and it is time to name a new Summoner. And while there are many attributes that a Summoner should possess, none is more important than an abiding relationship to the Hidden. And though we love our Clovis”—Lenore offered a reassuring smile to the young Druid standing by the altar—“we still need the Hidden to anoint our choice of Summoner.”
Lenore whispered ancient words and lifted her arms. The light spilling in from above took on a sharpness, like the fires of the forge, and tiny sparks plumed away from the light to dance in the air. The same light drifted from the moss that covered the obelisks and ancient boulders, mixing with the sparks into a flowing luminous cloud.
Clovis shut his eyes and spread out his arms to receive the blessing of the Hidden. The sparks drifted toward him in an amorphous mass, then curled and twisted away from him and the altar, lengthening and stretching toward Nimue, who watched, eyes gradually widening, as the cloud poured over her. She lifted an arm to shield herself, though the sparks caused her no pain.
But what was happening caused a stir among the circle of Elders.
Lenore stood tall, with an expression of wonder, as the murmurs of protest grew into raised voices. Gustave stood up to protest. “This—this ritual is impure.”
One of the others said, “Clovis is in line.”
And another, “Nimue is a distraction.”
“Clovis is talented and kind, and I value his counsel. But the decision to name the Summoner belongs to the Hidden,” Lenore said.
“What?” Nimue said out loud. She felt cornered by their accusing stares. Her cheeks burned and she shot her mother a furious look as she tried to escape the cloud, climbing to her feet, but the light particles were determined to follow her, bathing her in light at the very moment she wished to be invisible.
Florentin the miller appealed to logic. “But Lenore, surely you can’t suggest . . . I mean, Nimue is too young for such responsibilities.”
“True, at sixteen years she would be young for a Summoner,” Lenore acknowledged, speaking as though not surprised by the turn of events, “but her rapport with the Hidden should outweigh such considerations. Above all else, the Summoner is expected to know the mind of the Hidden and to guide the Sky Folk to balance and harmony on both planes of existence. Since she was very young, the Hidden have been drawn to Nimue.”
Lucien, a venerable Druid, who supported his bent frame with a sturdy branch of yew, asked, “It isn’t only the Hidden who seek her out, is it?”
The scars on her back tingled. Nimue knew where this was going.
Lenore’s lips pursed ever so slightly, the only sign of her fury.
Lucien scratched his white and patchy beard, feigning innocence. “After all, she is marked by dark magic.”
“We are not children, Lucien. They may call us Sun Dancers, but that does not mean we are ignorant of the shadow. Yes, when she was very young, Nimue was lured to the Iron Wood by a dark spirit and would have very likely been killed, or worse, were it not for the intervention of the Hidden. One might suggest that event alone makes her a worthy Summoner.”