CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Spring 495
In early spring, when I was barely fifteen, during the impossibly cold nights on which the ewes gave birth, they came for me—nine priestesses of the isle. I needn’t be told what was about to happen; I had waited four long years for this night.
As I followed behind the solemn procession to the top of the Tor, I tried to recall the tales told of the initiation of a priestess. No one who had successfully passed the tests had ever spoken of them, for they were sworn never to reveal the secrets to the uninitiated. Still, rumors followed every initiation ceremony, and before the crescent was set onto the new priestess’s brow, tales of horror and adventure floated through the House of Nine, leaving the young ones petrified yet excited at the prospect of one d
