Chapter 01
On the Saintess
‘What is a saintess?’
A wanderer of the wilderness once asked about the value of a saintess.
‘Is she not the purest woman in the world, a symbol of peace and love, and of great self-sacrifice?’
The shepherd of the empty field answered.
Who could dispute such a noble truth?
Saint. Sainted man. Holy Mother.
Beneath them stands the Saintess.
—From the Caner Martyr’s Chronicle 14:1–7
Tok, tok. Dewdrops slid down white petals.
White lilies—the sacred flower of the Caner faith—were everywhere.
Wherever followers of Caner lived, lilies filled the air with their fragrance, and this prayer room was no exception.
Among flowers freshly cut at dawn stood a statue of the goddess Caner.
Sunlight streaming through a narrow window caught floating motes of dust, turning them to shimmering gold beside the goddess’s image.
It was so quiet that even the slow drift of the sunbeam seemed like motion.
Beneath the benevolent shadow of the statue knelt a young woman.
O Goddess…
She called to the deity she believed in, as she always did.
But nothing ever changed. The heavy silence was an iron fortress no plea could breach.
“…Grant me rest,” she whispered.
She knew better than anyone that no answer would come, yet her gaze never left the statue.
Praying was all she could do.
In the motionless prayer room, the only thing to break the stillness was the woman herself.
She tugged at the veil that flickered before her eyes.
When she blinked, her lashes trembled like strands of golden silk.
Her blue eyes, lifted toward the goddess, held the deep clarity of a windy field’s sky.
Long golden hair like spun sunlight framed that gaze perfectly.
She was delicate, with skin as pale as fine paper.
Her small, strikingly white face seemed hardly different from the lilies surrounding her.
Lowering her eyes at last, she revealed hair like woven gold and eyes like sapphire—
and the honored mantle given only to the Four Great Servants of the Caner Church.
All signs pointed unmistakably to one identity:
The 48th Saintess, Ninia.
A child who had let out her first cry beneath a lone star in a moonless black sky,
a woman who had watched over the suffering with a spirit of sublime sacrifice—
that was who she had been.
Until a month ago.
…Not anymore.
Once a vessel of compassion and a symbol of sacrifice, Ninia’s appointed duty had reached its final chapter.
For every Saintess of the Caner Church there was always the same beginning and the same end.
The beginning was the holy temple.
In the Piechen Empire stood the temple founded by the first saint, who lit the sacred torch when the world was in chaos and darkness.
All candidates for Saintess were raised there until they fulfilled their purpose.
“What is the worth of a Saintess?”
Ninia had grown up hearing that question repeated endlessly.
Under the god’s embrace, she obeyed the high priest and the clergy who raised her.
Sacrifice was natural; everything was the will of the deity.
So it was, too, on the day meant to be her last.
Caner’s Day.
This sacred festival commemorated the goddess’s first descent into a world of chaos.
Now in its 996th year, it lasted three days, and Ninia, as Saintess, appeared before countless people.
With a gentle smile, she blessed the crowds.
The final day was the true Caner’s Day.
At midnight—the hour the goddess first came to earth—Ninia stood upon the temple altar.
The people did not know that the Saintess was meant to be a sacrifice.
Yet everyone understood that her worth lay in her self-offering.
“Secure your existence through sacrifice.”
At the High Pontiff’s command, two high priests, each bearing the symbol of a serpent, took their places at her sides to draw out her holy power by force.
Standing on the altar, Ninia looked around.
Below her feet stretched a gathering of the most exalted: the Emperor of the Piechen Empire, kings from distant lands, nobles of every rank.
Commoners were ignorant that the Saintess would be offered up,
but the higher one’s station, the more clearly one knew.
They believed witnessing the Saintess’s final moments brought them closest to the divine.
Seats in the temple were arranged by the size of each patron’s donation to the church.
“O Goddess, we offer your flower as sacrifice.”
The high priests wrenched Ninia’s holy power from her.
Pain like bones splintering and fusing again, like skin carved with a knife, wracked her body as she struggled.
The holy energy drawn forth shone with a radiance so brilliant it made all who watched gasp.
At last her body buckled to its knees.
She toppled, her ragged breath ceasing.
A priest approached to confirm that every trace of holy power was gone.
“Not a spark remains,” he reported to the High Pontiff.
Thus ended the grandest of festivals—and Ninia’s life.
Her body, emptied of all holy force, would dry and wither upon the altar, then crumble into ash to seep into the sanctuary.
This was the Saintess’s final fate.
The Pontiff and the nobles began to turn away,
their rare spectacle finished.
But before they could reach the threshold, they froze.
“Hh—ah…!”
An irreverent cry from a priest drew a frown from the Pontiff.
Faces turned back in shock.
The Saintess who should have been dead was rising, staggering to her feet.
Ninia collapsed forward again and again, only to stand once more, dozens of times.
The hall sank into a cold, uncanny silence.
Afterward, by the Pontiff’s order, Ninia was locked in the spire’s prayer room while the temple debated her fate.
Yet they hoped she would die on her own before a decision was made.
But unfortunately for them, Ninia still breathed.
I should have died then.
What had she felt when first told she was to be sacrificed?
She had answered calmly, as always, with a serene face.
Privately, she only thought the timing a little early.
Once the messenger left, her smile faded.
Was it relief I felt, or sorrow?
She could no longer remember.
Ninia looked down at her bloodless hands.
She lived, but she was not the same.
Since expending all her holy power, her body had changed.
Even the simple rhythm of sleeping and waking in the prayer room left her exhausted.
Yet staying awake was better.
Each night she was tormented by the nightmare of her sacrifice:
the noble spectators’ bloodshot eyes, their applause for her death.
The memory of pain sharp enough to witness death itself would never fade.
It was etched into body and mind alike.
What sin did I commit?
She had devoted herself to the life granted in the goddess’s name.
She could swear she had upheld the goddess’s teachings without shame.
Of all the Saintesses ever offered as sacrifice, Ninia alone survived.
Perhaps surviving that day was her sin.
“…What will happen to me now?”
Curling against the wall, Ninia hugged her knees.
She was no longer a Saintess, only an ordinary woman.
Yet that, too, was a problem.
The temple could no longer act directly against someone separated from the Caner faith.
Moreover, the offering ceremony had been a grand spectacle witnessed not only by the temple but by the Emperor of Piechen and dignitaries of many lands.
The matter had become a political wildfire no single body could resolve.
Why am I still alive?
Even she did not know.
Ninia grasped a lock of her hair and examined the ends.
The tips, which should have been a bright platinum, were stark white, like the tail of a stoat.
To Ninia, pure white—more distant than the deepest darkness—had always seemed the color closest to death.
The embrace of the divine meant death.
And so the divine was always pure white.
