27: The Matriarch

The Matriarch rose before dawn, old bones creaking. She told her attendants she would be spending the day at the sanctuary she'd had built in Brother Cleas' memory. Then she left Diablotin alone. No one saw her passing.

Very soon, she knew, she would face the Centre and answer its eternal question. Then she would stand up for the seventh time, in a new place and body, and she would spend that new life working their will with no expectation of reward. Except, she smiled, that she would be with Rab until they grew old together, in some distant century.