Its fruits were red, ripe and ready to be made into the finest Verdanii wine. Vivian knew the moment her fingers touched it. As if the fig tree could talk to her, begging her to pluck some of its fruit.
Perhaps the tree considered Vivian its mother. And perhaps all the other trees in that garden felt the same. It was not the biggest garden in the establishment, nor was it ever meant to become the biggest. But in her eyes, this garden was the most precious thing she had in her home. A gentle warm breeze poured in from over the sturdy walls of the garden, rustling the fig trees as if the spirit in the wind was entreating them to play. Sometimes the breeze teased Vivian too, brushing against her cheek and tickling her neck. She didn’t mind it. She loved it. Within the Lyle household, it was the only place she’d like to be in.
She had received the garden from her mother when she was seven. “It is a burden and a gift for all Lyles,” her mother had said. “Gardening is our lineage’s art, and we must practise it.”
“It’s been ten years, hasn’t it, Fitz?” Vivian plucked the fig off Fitz. “I’m going to miss you, Fitz.” She settled the fruit into the straw basket, hanging on her left arm. Her eyes scanned for other ripe figs on Fitz. When she found them, she plucked them and into the basket they went. “Thank you for everything Fitz,” Vivian whispered at the tree. “It’s a lot of fruits as usual.”
“Speaking to the tree again, sister?” A voice from behind her. It made her jump and her heart skipped a beat.
She turned to see her brother—Gareth—sauntering towards her. His long golden hair fluttered in the breeze. Golden hair he was very proud of.
“Why are you here, brother?” Vivian asked.
“Can’t I?” Gareth tucked his golden hair behind his ear, smirking like he was a king.
Maybe… in the Lyle household, he was a king. Or soon to be.
“Besides, I miss you sister.” Gareth shrugged. “It is very rare to see you. You’re never at family dinners. You lock yourself in your room. And the only time I get to see you is when you are in this garden, talking to a tree.”
Thinking of her own loneliness hurts. And even though Vivian hated to admit it, her pain began when Gareth was born. Love seemed to disappear from her parents. At first, she thought it was because Gareth was the son her father always wanted. But it was none of that.
It was all because of his golden hair.
“Do you remember? We used to play hide and seek among the trees when we were smaller.” Gareth pointed across the garden. “Sometimes, we’d sit under their shade and you’d read me tales from across Morbidia.”
Vivian’s throat tightened as nostalgia creeped out of the dusty recesses of her mind. “It was a very long time ago.”
“Indeed it was,” Gareth said before he sighed. “I miss that person. I still wish she would talk to me instead of a tree. Sometimes, I wish that she trusts me enough to tell me what’s wrong.”
Vivian hugged her little brother. Besides the garden and the trees, you’re probably the only person I’ll miss, she wanted to say. But she kept her mouth shut. Nobody must know, she was certain. But keeping that secret to herself was getting harder each day.
Sometime in the near future, maybe even tonight, Vivian had to tell someone in the family. She was afraid that the news would break her mother’s heart. She was afraid that she couldn’t withstand her father’s rage. Considering all the options she had, it might have to be Gareth. But maybe not now.
“Will you be joining us for dinner tonight?” Gareth asked, whispering into her ears as he hugged her back. “He may not admit it, but I think father is starting to miss you too. He might decide to bestow you the Lioness today. He has been blabbering about the sword a lot. And it’s the eve of your seventeenth birthday after all.”
The Lioness. The sword of the Leoric household, pride of the Lyle lineage. My birthright.
“Maybe not tonight, Gareth,” Vivian said. “There’s a service tonight in the cathedral.”
“You’re going to the cathedral?” Gareth frowned. “What for? A service of the flesh?”
“I just wish to talk to a vitar.”
“About your problem?”
Vivian didn’t answer nor did she give Gareth a nod. But Gareth knew.
Gareth groaned. “So you’d talk to a tree, and you’d talk to a vitar. But you’re not going to talk to me about it. I’m your family.”
What warmth remained of that hug they shared turned to ash when Gareth shrugged her off. He turned back towards the manor, fuming and stomping.
I’m sorry, Vivian thought. I’ll tell you when the time is right.
When Magna was low and the sky was darkening, Vivian trotted along Ofaniel Boulevard, making her way to Basilica di Cathela Vie. Many Dawnborns took this path when they travelled to the cathedral. Even now, men and women in their colourful suits and dresses were ambling past her. With the lush, flowerful trees along the boulevard, Vivian wasn’t surprised that the road was a popular spot for an evening stroll. In these hours, however, most of them were heading towards the direction Vivian came from—away from the cathedral and towards the Dawnclub District.
Some people recognised her, of course. Her red and gold dress stood out as much as the other Dawnborns.
“Lady Vivian!” A Lord called, well-dressed in a lilac and black tailcoat. The colour of the Eadberht lineage. Vivian couldn’t recall any Lord belonging to the Eadberht lineage. So she curtsied and hastened her pace to avoid him.
“A lady from the Lyle lineage? Come join us! We’re going to the Rahele Arcade!” Another Dawnborn called from inside a carriage. When she lowered the window, Vivian could hear giggles. The carriage was gold and white in colour. A white swan with a golden beak adorned the carriage’s body. The colour and sigil of the Nezzar lineage.
“Thank you for the invite, my ladies.” Vivian curtsied again. “I’m afraid I have to decline. I am making my way to the cathedral. I hope to arrive before dark.”
“Of course! Hope you can join us next time.” The Lady in the carriage smiled, but Vivian didn’t fail to catch her rolling her eyes.
Lowering her head, Vivian continued her journey to the cathedral.
In High Verdania, Ofaniel Boulevard had the most pleasant scent. And it is all thanks to my family. It was weird, almost difficult, for Vivian to walk through the boulevard. In a way, it reminded her of her duties as a Lyle. We are gardeners. We make the city beautiful. Something about it felt like a warning to her. As if the city was trying to tell her that it was unwise to drop her duties as a Lyle to pursue a path that she really wanted. But to stay with her family, was to succumb herself in a suffocating prison. To feel alone forever, and to regret not doing the one thing she really wanted to do in this realm.
She wanted to serve.
She wanted to become one with the Angel.
Her rumination made the remainder of her journey rather quick. Not long, she came face to face with the stairway leading to the entrance of the grandest building in all Verdania. Basilica di Cathela Vie welcomed her with its gigantic bronze gateway, always opened for anyone who sought the mercy of the Archangel Samael. His sigil shone in the apex of the gateway, the two braziers symbolising life and warmth. Looking at the lights never bore her, and they never failed to make her smile.
She climbed up the stairway and into the gateway. The bronze statue of the Angels greeted her. This time, instead of the curtsies she gave to the Dawnborns, she knelt down and bowed until her face touched the cold alabaster floor of the cathedral.
I am home, once again. I have come, seeking for a service of the mind. And I have come, to serve you, o’ great Angel who saves us from the Great Evil. Vivian prayed. I have come to find an answer to this discord in my heart and mind.
When she was done, she rose to her feet. She wobbled at first—her knees hurting after being pressed against the hard floor—but she steadied herself by holding onto one of the pews along the cathedral’s nave. She prowled along the outer rims and exited to a hallway.
On one end of the hallway was stairs leading to the balconies overlooking the nave. Small and private rooms were along these balconies, prepared for Dawnborns who were attending a procession or invoking a service. Vivian went into one of those rooms. Inside, she wrote on a tiny piece of paper the name of the vitar she was seeing. Vitar Ahren. Once she was done, she rolled it and slipped it into a bronze capsule. Then, she inserted the capsule into a long metal tube, leading to the parsonage below the main hall. The sliding metal swished until Vivian heard a subtle clang. She waited. Vitar Ahren arrived in the room five minutes later.
“Good evening, Lady Vivian.” Ahren gave her a light bow. “What brings you here today?”
“I wish to invoke a service of the mind,” Vivian said.
Ahren sat on a pew across her. He brought with him an unlit bronze censer, and vials of a variety of fluids. They came in different colours. Vivian knew what those vials contained. Malasence—the physical embodiment of the Angel’s Magic. In the face of malasence, humility seized her.
“Same issues as last time?” Ahren asked. “Have you considered my suggestion?”
“I have.”
“What do you think?”
Vivian paused for a while to think. “It’s a good solution, vitar.”
“But?”
“But it brought a new set of problems. How do I tell my father?”
“You are of age soon, Lady Vivian. When a Verdanii becomes seventeen, they are free to make their own decisions. It doesn’t matter if you’re a royal family, a Dawnborn, or even a pit dweller. If you fear your father’s wrath, you will forego a chance to become someone you want to be.”
“What of my responsibilities as a Lyle? The gardens. The fate of my lineage?” Vivian frowned.
“Have you not told me yourself that your family no longer wanted you as heir since your brother was born? That his golden hair is enough to convince your family that he carries more of the Lyle’s blood than you?”
That golden hair. She remembered how her father had beamed when Gareth was born. Her father had called Gareth a true Lyle. A true heir, it sounded like.
“Be a vitar, Lady Vivian,” Ahren said. “Let go of your lineage. You knew that the Angel called to you. You heard Him in your sleep. This is your calling.”
A calling that would cost her everything. Her birthright. The gardens. The influence and power of a Dawnborn. The sword, Lioness. Her own name. Her father and her mother would have to disown her. Gareth, who she could no longer call a brother.
For all that sacrifice, she would gain something invaluable. The power to preserve and restore life. The love of all Verdanii. But most important of all, she would gain a true purpose in life.
“I understand that it is a hefty price to pay,” Ahren said. “But know that even the greatest of us was willing to make such a sacrifice. Remember that four hundred years ago, a prince forego his claim to the Verdanii throne to become one with the Angel.
“No sacrifice is too big, Lady Vivian.”
Quick and brief, memories of her youth flowed like an unrelenting river. She remembered the kindness of her mother, bringing her to a vitar when she broke her leg running and falling in the fig garden. She remembered her father, taking her to see this grand cathedral for the very first time in her life. And she remembered the day Gareth was born, when three vitars came into her household to deliver her brother. Everyone was joyful that day.
Even in her memories. The most joyful of her days came when the Angel was involved. The Angel called for her, then and now.
“I have decided,” Vivian said. “Tonight, I shall tell my father.”
“What are you planning to tell father?” Gareth barged into the room. “What have you decided, sister?”
Gareth’s eyes were rheumy. He grimaced, and his brows curled like nothing Vivian had seen before. Gareth was supposed to be the young prince of the Lyle lineage. The household groomed him to be one. Always pretty. Always handsome. But in that moment, Vivian could’ve sworn that Gareth had aged, even for a short while.
“Why are you here, brother?” Vivian asked. It came out like a stutter. She was terrified.
“I followed you here!” Gareth snarled. “Because I am curious. What exactly is my sister doing in the cathedral on the eve of her seventeenth birthday? On the night father is passing the Lioness down to you, and naming you the heir of our household? I was wondering, what could possibly be more important than that? Is this why you looked so mournful this noon? Were you talking to those trees to say goodbye? What about my goodbye?”
Gareth smashed the bronze censer Ahren was carrying.
“TELL ME! WHAT HAVE YOU DECIDED!?”
Vivian shuddered, and with a quivering voice, she said, “I have decided to become a vitar.”
Gareth covered his face, perhaps, trying to cover his sadness. He dropped down to the ground, arse first and his back against the wall. Then, he swore. A loud, guttural scream.
“I considered telling you in the gardens.” Vivian knelt beside him, prying his hands open so that she could place her own on his cheek, hoping to comfort him.
“Why? Why do you choose to abandon us?”
“The Angel calls to me. This is thicker than our blood. You should be happy, little brother. You’ll become what I could never be. You’ll lead our family. Isn’t that what you always wanted? I won’t be in your way anymore.”
“How could you say that? I look up to you! I admire your love for the gardens, for our art. The thought of usurping you never crossed my mind. I was looking forward to tonight, for I was certain that— I was hoping that— When you become heir, you’d finally be happy. You won’t be sad all the time. And you’ll finally spend time with me again.”
“Father wants you to be heir.”
“How would you know what he wants when you don’t talk to him?”
“I- I don’t—”
I don’t know, she wanted to say. But did she not know, really? Thirteen years, all they talked about was Gareth and his golden hair. Gareth and how good he was with the sword. Gareth and how much of a good rider he was.
Vivian took a deep breath, gathering strength. She said, “Because for thirteen years, since you were born. You’ve turned me to nothing.”
The disgust on Gareth’s face tore Vivian’s heart. Then, his gaze shifted towards the vitar, who all along, was a witness to this spectacle.
“You!” Gareth pointed at the vitar, his face was burning red, so much that his tears seemed to evaporate. “You brainwashed her.”
Ahren raised an eyebrow. “My lord?”
“You told her lies. Brought her to believe that the Angel is a solution to all her problems. You convinced her that her own family is her enemy! What other lies are you telling her? That she will be all powerful? That she will heal all wounds and bring joy to the realm? Did you not tell her of the obligations she had to fulfil? That she’ll be turned into a whore?”
Vivian slapped him. “One more word and you’ll be named a heretic in the Angel’s own home.”
“I don’t care! Name me a heretic all you want! You don’t get to steal my sister!”
“Gareth!” Vivian growled, silencing her brother.
When anger began to seep away, the sadness returned once again. Gareth cried, this time letting all his tears fall out of his eyes. “Please tell me you’re lying. Please tell me you’re not becoming a vitar.”
“I’ve decided for quite some time. It’s just a matter of telling the rest of you.”
Gareth shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, sister. And father will be too.”
He slapped Vivian’s hand away. A quick but sharp slap that encroached deep into her heart. After all, how could a slap to the hand make her heart hurt so much?
Gareth rose, and stomped out of the room.
“I’m telling father. Don’t return. You’re no longer welcomed.”
Joshua Dharmawan 