Page 79 (1/1)

Yes!

The final Leering fell silent for a moment Touch the white stone, it whispered

Lia sat up in the ossuary, staring at the billowy curtains of the Apse Veil The white stones shone like noonday sun, al her with the intensity She approached one of the inlets and reached out her hand It was glohite-hot, but she did not fear it Reaching out, she cupped it in her hand and peered at it

In the le word appeared on the stone

A word she could not read

"There is no anger above the anger of a wohts are reat ocean"

- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN:

Apse Veil

As Lia stared at the single word, she trembled with panic She could not read it She could not read anything Why had the Alderht she could pass the maston test? She had come so far, taken so s she quelled The white veils of the order covered her How could she stop when it was so close? A few squiggly lines in a burning stone halting her purpose She stared at theer and frustration boiled inside of her This was not fair! She was a wretched How could she be expected to pass a test that required reading? She stared at the word again, intently, the light burning her eyes She winced at the brightness She felt a prickle of disco hotter

She realized as happening The Mediuhts were driving it away The protection it provided sloithdrew She thought aherself to think Why would the Aldermaston have sent her if he knew she would fail? She knew him too well He would not have sent her unless he believed she would succeed A h herhad appeared on its s, but he could not read it because it ritten in Pry-rian and he did not know Pry-rian Theon the stone was not the sae – what she had seen on the orb What language was it written in then?

Another memory surfaced When she and Colvin had fled froardens outside the Abbey grounds and met Maderos He had looked at the orb and understood the writing, even though he had never studied Pry-rian

Do not doubt Never doubt I cannot read Pry-rian It is a forgotten language now by sowhat it said, little sister The Mediues

Then she understood, as if a stroke of lightning came out of the sky and struck her mind Even a maston would not know the ritten on the stone, for it ritten in the e of Iduue of the race of the Essaios The test hether or not one would despair No matter how many toe It was a language that had to be felt, a language only the Mediuht She knehat she wanted It burned fiercely inside of her I want to become a maston I need to pass the Apse Veil She stared at the stone in her hand It no longer burned her She stared at the word patiently, waiting for the Medium to supply the answer to the riddle She kneould come It had always come to her The name of a spiky weed in the midst of the Bearden Muir The recipe for tartarelles The proper way to e had always co the Mediu her hts she kneould coe – a Muirwood apple She saw herself holding it, tasting it, savoring it Within each apple, a crown of five seeds Each seed containing within it the potential to beco the possibility of producing thousands of apples, each with the possibility of producing trees, over and over, generation after generation Never ending Never beginning

Fruitful

The Medium whispered the name to her What a brief, innocent little word But the enorination with its poignancy She was but a seed right now In the ossuary, she had been buried below the ground A future transformation awaited her A future ine A future the Myriad Ones were forever jealous of for they could never enjoy it They were the very opposite of the word The white stone blazed violently, stunning her with light and pain It was so bright it burned her hand like a hot coal, so she set it back on the inlet of stone She rubbed her pal She looked closer The burn had left a pink mark on her skin in the center of her pal it was no accident