Amara looked over at Saoirse after she had gone quiet for a moment.
Her friend then opened her mouth to speak, but this time her voice held a nervous undertone and was markedly different from before when she excitedly gabbed about her meeting with Brenden. "I think I am supposed to go alone, but I need you there. I don't know much about the goddess Nyx, or her followers. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, so if you were there, and we could do it together, I'd feel better."
"Why did you join that cult anyway?"
"Don't call it that!" Saoirse squealed and jabbed at Amara teasingly with her elbow.
Amara giggled and playfully elbowed her back. "Alright, not a cult." Even though that is what the kingdom referred to it as. "What would you rather call it, a gathering? Why did you agree to go? Besides the obvious. Brenden."
Saoirse shrugged, seemingly indifferent, but then her voice turned sad, and she even sounded a bit angry. "I agreed with him. I think there must be something more to life than our boring village. I don't want to live in a world where this is my lot. I hate it. What do I have to look forward to? Never leaving the village, being poor, and toiling my entire life away just to live like my mother? I'd rather die."
Amara couldn't respond to that. She accepted her life, even if it might seem dull to outside eyes. Besides, even if she did hope for something better, such as an exciting adventure or whirlwind romance, there was no way she could ever achieve it. It was pointless to try. She didn't know what to say to her friend to change her mind. And she didn't know how to find common ground with her on this subject either, never having felt love for a man before.
Amara said goodbye to her friend when they entered the village of Pict, located in the moorland south of Avalonesse. Life on the moor could be bleak and desolate, but they had strong traditions with the land and their own unique culture. Roles in their society were traditionally fixed. The men were shepherds by nature and would leave during the day to herd the flocks of sheep and protect them from wandering bands of wolves, although those were becoming less frequent these days, as the kingdom had grown with more people and commerce. Married women would largely stay within the home to do all the chores of the household, and they were also responsible for the weaving. Weaving was a strong tradition in the village, with many women becoming experts, supplying their entire family with all their garments and undergarments. Children and young unmarried girls would often go out and forage for herbs and berries, which is what Amara had been doing earlier that morning.
Pict consisted of circular stone hut houses centered around a village square that included a bonfire and market. The villagers would gather at the square for festivals and during bonfire night every fortnight. It was a popular place for young boys and girls to meet. The houses were round and made of stone and had thatched roofs covered in peat moss. On the outside, it looked small and maybe even primitive to city folk from Avalonesse or Bridgetown, but the homes were much larger on the inside and had all the comforts a home should have, such as carpets, armchairs, round wooden bathtubs, wood-burning stoves, and woolen stuffed mattresses.
Amara entered the stone hut she called "home," and there was an old woman at the wood stove stirring the contents of a stew pot. Amara walked up to her and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. The woman turned, and her face lit up into a smile. Amara showed her all that she had gathered that day, and it seemed to please the old woman, who added the herbs to the stew pot and started boiling water to make a tea from the flowers. Amara washed the wild bilberries in a basin and set them in a clay-baked bowl on a square wooden table. She took a loaf of bread out of the breadbox and went to the larder to get butter and the bilberry jam her grandmother made from the last batch of bilberries Amara picked. They then sat down to have a meal. No words were spoken between the two because the old woman was mute and deaf. Amara made signs with her hands to communicate with her "grandmother."
However, she wasn't her real grandmother. Amara never met her parents. She was an orphan and ended up on the old woman's doorstep when she was only a few days old. But her grandmother was all the family Amara ever wanted or needed. Even though she had questions about where she came from and why she was abandoned, she figured that discovering the reason why would not change her life in any way.
Later that evening, after the sun had already set and the stars had come out, Amara made sure her grandmother was sleeping. She could not change her clothes, or her grandmother would wake up, so she threw an old, crocheted blanket over her nightgown and slipped her bare feet into her worn leather boots as she snuck out the door.
She met with Saoirse at a secret location that took a small walk outside of the village to get to. There was a man with an oxcart and a torch waiting. Saoirse was already there and was wearing a black hooded robe. She handed Amara a similar black robe. "Put this on," she instructed.
The warmth from the thick hooded robe was a welcome from the chilly night air. Amara had heard of these rituals before. Because of the secrecy, you weren't supposed to know who the other members were. She put on her robe, making sure the hood covered her face, and waited in the cart with Saoirse. The Finnegan brothers walked up to join them. The one Saoirse was keen on, Brenden, was the youngest.
The oldest brother spoke. "Why are there two of you?"
"I brought a friend. I hope that is alright," Saoirse answered, lowering her head.
Brenden then lifted his head to look at them both over the hood covering his face. He smiled, but they could not see his eyes. "No, all is well, brother. Let's set off."
Saoirse squeezed Amara's hand, trying to suppress a giggle. Amara squeezed her hand back, also trying not to laugh. They were still just innocent girls, and talking to boys set them off into a fit of giggles.
On the cart ride over, Saoirse and Amara snuck looks at each other from under their hoods. Amara started in a shaky voice, addressing a question to Brenden. "Why did you start following the Dark Mother? If … if you don't mind my asking?"
There was a silence that lasted too long to be comfortable. Talk of the Dark Mother was never spoken between the unaffiliated, because membership in the cult could mean a death sentence.
Brenden spoke up after a while. "I want to send a message. I want it to be known that the king cares nothing for our people or our land. What we have is very little; even so, the king takes the best cut for himself. It's not just the king either, for it is the entire system. We can never reap the rewards of our justly earned profit. It's stolen from us! But the Dark Mother has promised us change and a new world of prosperity. That is why we all need to follow her path and let her guide us."
Amara wondered why Brenden felt this way when his family was the richest in the village. From her viewpoint, he already had everything. She kept this opinion to herself, though, so as not to upset Saoirse on her big night.
Saoirse answered Brenden, her voice full of wonder, "Yes, I do too. I mean, I agree. There needs to be a change."
Both brothers seemed pleased with her answer, but the rest of the cart ride was made in silence.
It would take almost four hours to get to the ritual site, which was to the north, past their moorland. They were entering the Ancient Ruins, a haunted, cursed land full of ghosts and monsters. At least, that is what the children would whisper to each other and what would keep them up all night in fright. No matter what the children would dream about in their nightmares, the area between the moor and the Great West Road was merely the ruins of an ancient city and the barrows of kings long ago. The barrows had long since been looted and the names of the kings forgotten, but one knew not to wander the ruins alone, especially at night.
Amara felt better being with others, but not safe. Ever since they entered the ruins, she had a foreboding feeling that she could not shake. A question shot through her mind. "How close is Avalonesse?" Why that question appeared out of nowhere, she had no idea. There was no reason to go to Avalonesse and she wouldn't know what to do once she got there. She had no coin in her purse nor kin in the city.
The cart creaked ahead past the ruins in crumbles that had once been walls to the entrance of a mighty city before Vallin was a kingdom. No one lived in this remote place, but occasionally they would hear a low howl or see a flash of yellow eyes in the distance. The ox would snort a warning when a wolf got too close, but it wasn't enough to make him skittish. Wolves were timid around fire torches and men, as they should be.
Amara thought of the great knowledge of the past buried here that had somehow been forgotten. Why had it been forgotten? The city must have been enormous and vibrant at its height. She wondered what it looked like before its downfall as she gazed at its ruins, which were nothing now but moss-covered broken stones, tumbling ivy-laden arches of marble, and decrepit crypts of former kings, only an echo of its former glory.