Chap 1.
The market was already sweltering by the time Neve got up to do her shopping. She was lucky today, so she had been told. On the streets, Arkavos was already bustling; chariots, carriages, and serf-drawn palanquins already raced through the megopolis's streets. Neve was surprised when a guard and a palanquin stood outside in the entry courtyard waiting for her. Special treatment for once, Neve mused to herself. Her father and stepmother must want to appear to actually care for her before casting her off. Hung about Neve's broad shoulders were drapes of white linen with navy strips, marking her as a vestal bound for the Pantheous Gardens. It was the infernal veil Neve cursed, tucked under with her thick long curls bound in some elaborate bun that was humid. It's dark plums were made to be free under sunlight. This made Neve hope she was given over to the Basiliacas Of Water, specifically to Auluan. His cloister was only for women, able to walk around unburdened by covering within their personal monastery. She'd never said so in front of her Helios-obsessed guardians. Besides that, Neve realized as she bounced along in the cart.
"I haven't the foggiest idea how many cardinal temples there are, let alone specific deities."
Despite this appointment, Neve had about zero affinity for religion. Nearly blacking out during any sermon she was present for. Cloistering was better than marriage. That was the only choice for Neve.
Neve picked up whatever was sent to her on the "required needs" list sent out by the induction committee at the Pantheous. A few robes were included, meaning, for once, Neve's father had allowed an excess of coin to be spent on her. It had been so for the past few weeks when Neve announced right after her 25th birthday, "I wish to spend my life studying in a temple." Not entirely true, but better than being married off at a late age to whatever merchant's third son needed a free housekeeper. Neve had been raised in the Guild Merchant's Quarter, even though her father's household now stood just across the district line in the Peacock Garden District. Rich merchants. Not noble, but running in the same financial circles.
They rumbled to a stop, and Neve exited the cart, stepping on narrow footpaths between cramped buildings. All the way back to her favorite part of the ever-seething market. A quiet nook where Neve could find clothes and colored cords unlike anywhere else in the Merchants District. A small bell sounded as Neve entered; the shop was thick with the scents of far-off incense.
"Oh, Neve, did you come here to get something for your sister Sophia?"
The shopkeeper's daughter, a familiar face, popped up from behind a loaded shelf. Like her mother, Priana had pleasant elflike features, their dark irises rimmed with emerald green in the right light. Golden-skinned, her heart shape face always made Neve's heart flutter. Which she stuffed down; such trists were taboo in Arkavos. Neve's tendency to find attraction in all walks was kept under more secretive wraps than her veils.
"No, Priana, I'm here of my own accord. I've decided to take to the temple and get out of my sister's way for her marriage offerings."
"Well, I heard that you had abysmal prospects, but I'd always hoped that you would, you know, use your talents and join one of the shopkeepers. Maybe find your own independence."
Neve sighed and continued to browse. Ruminating at some point when she was younger, she had hoped she would be allowed to join her father in his distant travels and, rather than get married, serve as a business liaison and lands where women were not looked down upon; however, her family's desire to assimilate to the nobility of Arkavos dashed that idea. To allow a woman to work would not be something that her father's newest newly established family would allow. However, the dedication of your first daughter shows the desire to assimilate the appropriate way so she would gain her family's favor and end up out of their hair. In the background, the shopkeeper continued to prattle to herself about how smart Neve had always been and how she had always hoped that she would join the ranks of free women who decided to live by the sweat of their own brows even while being cast aside,
"Such a smart girl be a damned waste to rot in the temple complex."
Neve thought so too but realized she was being scrutinized by the other wives and daughters that were in the same proximity to her and would undoubtedly mention things to their husbands that would be mentioned to her father which would later make her sound ungrateful for the opportunity to join the complex. So the young woman continued shopping and throughout the day just imagined what her life might be like had she not been born a woman.
*The Ethereal Plane*
Somewhere out in the cosmos, unbeknownst to anyone, deities watched in reflecting pools as worlds and realms turned. Intervening more for than own entertainment than any other motivation. Ayshixi was curious about this realm that they had left behind for ages. They began to look down upon it and saw a tremendous, overwhelming city that had swallowed not only other Burroughs near it but entire countries creating a place that seemed to have no end to the streets. They wondered why they had left this corner of the cosmos so unattended to their watchful eye; it seems like this place may have developed an interesting personality that they may want to reacquainted with. They become bored recently. Yes, they were not the dominant God of this particular realm however, every place could be served by a good amount of chaos being dished in to day new dedicates entered a great complex created only from the worship houses. Perhaps for the first time in many years, they would choose a dedicant that dwelled in this world, allowing them to become their next scion. The megapolis hierarchies have gotten too rigid. Too many suffered without tasting the opulence of life. It was a damn shame. Ayshixi sent a message to their favored scion realms away from this one. A pomegranate dropped and split under a tree, spilling a cryptic message. This temple was in a realm far from this miserable place. Whoever became their next monk in this miserable Arkavos would need all the support they could get..
*Arkavos*
Neve wander from Priana's shop through the cool back alleys, only stepping onto the large busier street when she neared the bathhouse. The thick white veil she wore, had three dark navy rows of embroidery. Common florals like buttercups, laced around heliotrope, men walked in wide circles around her keeping their heads down. For once, no one looked at Neve with ire or pity. In these few limited blocks, everyone knew that her father was excited to be granted his full naturalization, giving over a daughter to the temple would cement the Xinnathas house as noble merchant class. Outside of her home, at the bathhouse especially this sacrifice was venerated. Neve's scalp was oiled, and her hair plaited for free this visit, none of the other women whispered about her this time. She just hoped it was one of the Arkavos patron gods, though Neve had never visited the inner temple compounds, she knew their dedicants had it best.
For the last time, Neve stepped into the cleanly swept upper Merchant's District streets, hailing a palanquin home. There was no one there to greet her, per usual Neve's guardians were likely at some social climbing even. Whichever serf her father had recently brought home, whispered "scuse me young madame, I must load your things." Snapping Neve from her thoughts, her few possessions had already been packed into a single humble trunk, the gifts for the temple she entered in much more elaborate gift wrapping. Neve knew she was to simply wait in the front courtyard until retrieved.
Behind her, the most gilded carriage of the household plodded up.
Neve snapped back to the present, "oh no, thank you" then shuffled out of the way. Once her things were loading Neve entered the carriage.
In the carriage her father's cold pale face regarded her with nothing more than scrutiny as it always had since her mother had died. Finally breaking the silence, her even more pinched face stepmother said
"Neve you finally made a decision that makes us truly proud. Now you can pray for our families rise without standing in the way of it."
Neve barely blink slowly knowing that this moment was trying to go to her into one final argument before they left as she had wanted her to marry some random Lord on the other side of the river a petty Lord someone who owned the surfs that worked in Peganous Quarter. Going to the temple complex was the last amount of freedom she had been allowed to exercise and even then, she had snatched it.
Neve's household was not the only one giving young people over to the temples tonight.
The mass ceremony was opened by the new high priest of the Helios Temple Guild. So large was Arkavos' pantheon that less important deities got small cloisters or spaces within the patron deities sprawling monasteries. Words from the sermon barely drifted to Neve as she waited.
Neve realized that a lot of what she would be doing within the temple would probably be the same mundane chores she had been forced to do her whole life, at least inside the compound she was told the gardens were so lush that it was 20 degrees colder there even on the hottest summer day and the water from the pumps always ran clean. Something that couldn't even be assured in the better parts of the Agaria where Neve was originally born and raised until ten. With a sigh to the unknown, Neve walked through the gates of the Holy District.
