S
ome of the sculptures entombed in our halls had repulsed me as a child. I remember one of them in particular. A De Clare original, cast in pearly alabaster—a life-sized rendition of a fair maiden gazing tearfully down at a lamb in her lap. At first glance, the lamb seems merely asleep. Yet a closer look, and the awkward angle of its neck reveals it to be broken, its head flopped lifelessly in the maiden's embrace.
Once, when I had passed it in the hall, I had tugged on Mother's hem to ask her what it all meant.
“Sacrifice,” she’d answered, without even looking at the sculpt. “The maiden is Solterra, and the lamb—well, that is you, Adonai. All of you.” Pilate had been swaddled by her breast; Hagar, on her back. Miriam had stood besides me as I'd stared hard at the maiden's remorseful face, though I do not remember if she'd been listening.
“All of us.” And then Mother had gestured grandly to herself, to the bowing servants, to the children stacked two by two at her side, before casting her luminous gold eyes at me. Expectant.
“Because the House of Ieshan sacrifices, so that Solterra may live forever Free,” I’d finished, in a proud, yet reservedly so, recitation. She’d smiled at me before caressing my cheek.
“Yes. That is why, my darlings, we are so loved.”
Sometimes, I forget how desperately I had loved her.
There is a blank, powdered face peering down at me. I blink, forgetting momentarily where I am, until I spot my own surprised, ink-blue eyes staring back in a hundred refracted copies down this room of mirrored walls.
The living statues are so uncannily accurate in both their appearance and slow, methodical portrayals that for a heart-stopping, dreamlike moment I had thought the one before me the alabaster maiden, come to life at last to claim her sacrifice.
I would have said to her: A sick lamb is never brought to slaughter. Its diseased blood would surely sully the altar.
But in the face of this statue's stare I am silent, and this seems to be conversation enough. Hello, prince, she whispers to me. I almost think that I am imagining her lips moving; they barely do. A shiver trails ghostlike down my spine, yet I nod, my head bowed as if in prayer, and watch through my lashes as she reaches out a pale, polished limb, her manner smoothly lethargic, her smile like a flower blooming.
Father's wolf-fur cloak, knocked askew on my slippery shoulders, shudders as she slowly rights it.
A modest audience has gathered around us while she performs this. I recognize a few of the faces; others, merely blurs of color on a painter's palette. When the statue is done fixing my cloak I tease out a few harmonising chords from the gold lyre strapped to my side and they clap; the statue lowers herself into a graceful curtsy, and I echo her, sweeping by increments into a theatrical bow.
When our impromptu act ends, she drifts back to her marble pedestal and leaves me with the guests that choose to stay.
I offer a few of them personal tours. I take care to point out the De Clare originals; that our collection features works from across the four courts; that my favorite, is the center piece of this grand gallery.
And what piece of ours is more fitting?
Because the House of Ieshan sacrifices. I had known this as a child. All for the good of Solterra.
Yet my belief in this had died long ago with my mother.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space
BRIGHT SPLASH OF BLOOD ON THE FLOOR. ASTONISHING RED.
(All that brightness inside me?)
(All that brightness inside me?)
♦︎♔♦︎
