Remember the Dawn by A M Macdonald

Author:A M Macdonald [Macdonald, A M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781730833786
Published: 2018-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

Takha felt at home in the shrine for the first time since his ascent with the one hundred disciples so many weeks ago. Luck may have brought them into the inner circle of the faith, but the one hundred had quickly earned their place.

He had toiled and sweat in rags for far too long, the rigors of manual labor far below his stratum. Exhaustion and self-pity had laced his many long walks back to his home near the Nightmarkets—a much nicer place to sleep than most found so far inside the city. Most high-strata commoners yearned to live close to the Astral and near the outer perimeter, but he hated change and preferred to stay where he was.

What was he doing? Doubts plagued him, and he questioned the brutal, shameful extent of his effort. He hated the Astral more than ever. The growing fury was fueled by what he’d learned of the faith and its teachings. It was a union of unstoppable rage and zealous persecution, and he was ready to wield the might of a religious following with no limits.

Tonight, underneath the chamber's dome and amid the pomp and regalia of the ascension ceremony, everything felt just right. The ceremony was not normal, not routine, not just the mark of the end of the starless journey to epiphany; instead, it recognized the elevation of a chosen few to the solemn role of prophet, selected from the one hundred to carry Gethael's words to the people.

He stood to the side, casually leaning up against a wall and watching. The hall was filled not only with the one hundred, from whom the prophets would be chosen, but ten times as many starless faithful, kneeling on the floor and chanting under a warm, cloudless night. Starlight seeped in through the spiral openings in the dome, bathing the faithful and causing their blue robes to glow. The one hundred lined the walls of the chamber, a ring around the worshipers, and amongst them walked the Starmother. She passed through, touching men and women on the shoulder, bending down beside them to whisper words he'd never know. Likely she spoke the same dogma etched into his mind, the same call to the stars and Gethael's salvation. No matter how he truly regarded the faith, he recognized its awesome power. It was a galvanizing cause bringing starless together into an unshakable force.

The Astral were right to fear the faith; the shadow man was right to want to destroy it. Yet he’d permitted Takha’s plan to infiltrate and manipulate the faith, perverting it to their own ends. It was a dangerous gambit.

“Enjoying the show?” Juppa snuck up beside Takha, the prophet’s cheery voice an unwelcome interruption of his thoughts.

Curse this man!

“It's quite a sight, I must say.” Takha altered the tones of his voice when speaking to Juppa, catering to the man's status and attempting to invoke a sense of wonder. “So many came back to the stars. Your doing, Prophet Juppa.”

“Not just mine,” said Juppa. “I only share in the Starmother's success.

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