“You are Lady of Avalon,” I said with a sigh, “but we are both daughters of the Lady who rules over all. In everything that concerns the good of Avalon I will obey you, but it is because I choose to do so.”
She looked up at me, her seamed features carved in lines of light and shadow by the moon.
“You are young,” she said in a low voice, “young and proud. Refuse to fear me if you will—life itself will teach you to be afraid, aye, and the meaning of compromise!” She began to make her way back along the shore.
“Dierna is my kinswoman too,” I called after her, “and I will not let you keep me from being with her!”
At that Ganeda turned once more. “Have it your own way,” she said tiredly, “but when I was younger, I too had visions. I have looked into the Sacred Well, and seen that it is Dierna who will be my heir. You do well to make a friend of her, for I tell you now that it is she, not you, who will be the next Lady of Avalon!”
Slowly, the terrible summer of Becca’s death faded into memory. I knew what that tragedy had done to her sister, but as time passed it became clear that Ganeda had also been affected, more deeply than we, or perhaps she herself, knew. In body she was still vigorous—indeed, I do not believe that anyone without superior stamina could do the work required of the Lady of Avalon. But the edge that could cut friend and foe alike, was gone.
I found it hard to be sorry, and being young, I did not understand how life’s buffets can wear down the spirit. Nor did I care enough to try. Strong in body and delighting in my own rapidly maturing powers, I went eagerly to my testing, and, certain of my decision, bestowed the bag of gold aureii with which I had been provided upon the family of the boy who had given me Eldri ten years before.
And so I entered the mists, and drew up from the depths of my being the Word of Power that would open the way, laughing because in the end it was so easy, as if I were simply remembering something I had learned long before. Heron and Aelia did likewise when their turn came, and like me were received back with rejoicing. But Roud never returned to us.
In the year of silence that followed, I was forced to look inward in a way that the myriad demands of my training had never before allowed. It was this, I think now, that was the true initiation, for it is not the adversaries outside oneself, that can be confronted and defied, that are most dangerous, but the more subtle antagonists that dwell within.
Regarding the oath with which that year ended, I must also keep silence, save that it was, as Ganeda had promised, an act of making sacred, of sacrifice. But though I offered myself to the Lady to be used as She willed, I did not then understand the warning that we cannot predict or control what the Goddess will do with us once that commitment has been made. Nonetheless, when my oath had been given, I passed through the Mystery of the Cauldron, and the blue crescent of a priestess was placed upon my brow.
With my attention fixed upon my own struggles, I did not at first realize that things were not going so well in Avalon. During our year of silence, Aelia and I grew ever closer. I was surprised to find that wordless, I understood more of what was in her heart than ever I had when we concealed our thoughts in conversation, and knew she felt the same for me. Using our voices only to sing the offices of the Goddess, words themselves took on a new and sacred meaning.
Thus, the deliberations at the first full meeting of the consecrated priests and priestesses to which I was admitted after my year of silence seemed charged with unusual significance. In truth, matters were serious enough. It had been several years since any new youths or maidens had come to be trained at Avalon, and Roud was not the only one who had gone out for her testing and never returned. In addition, the princes whose contributions helped to maintain the community on the isle had become increasingly unwilling to pay what was due.