Old Words, Tradition-bound

The carriage rattled up the mountain pass as dusk stretched its long fingers across the sky, bruising the clouds with purples and reds. Cerina sat rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, the leather-bound book the priest had given her resting against her knees. She hadn’t opened it, not since leaving the village three days ago. The “old words” were nothing to her yet but ink and paper, meaningless squiggles that were somehow necessary to the next stage of her life.

Her mother’s words echoed in her mind: Six months, and then you’ll come home. Six months, and you’ll be ready. Ready for what, her mother had never explicitly said no matter how much her daughter asked. For an arranged marriage? For a life of…? Cerina wasn’t sure if she wanted to be ready. But the decision wasn’t hers to make. It never had been.

The driver, a man with a face like a weather-beaten cliff, cleared his throat and spat over the side. “We’re nearly there,” he said without turning. His voice was hoarse, like the rustling of dead leaves. Cerina wasn’t even sure if the man had slept in the three days of their journey. They had only stopped whenever the horses panted for water and rest. She’d relished those opportunities to leave her seat. To step out of the covered carriage and stretch her legs. But not too far. The forests were darker than they had been back home.

Cerina turned her gaze to the carriage window, watching as the forest thickened and the path narrowed, the smell of damp earth and pine growing thicker. The air that slipped through crevices in the carriage grew colder and sharper as they went, brushing her cheeks with a chill.

Around a bend, the monastery sat amidst a skirt of mist, a jagged silhouette of broken teeth against the bleeding sky. The building huddled in the midst of the woods as if shying away from the trees. Its stone walls were streaked with age and weather. A single bell tolled from a crooked tower, the sound low and heavy, like the mourning bells Cerina had once heard in the capital.

The carriage stopped abruptly, jolting her forward. The driver climbed down, boots crunching on the gravel. He opened the door and stood there, hand outstretched, but his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.

“This is as far as I take you,” he muttered.

Cerina hesitated, gripping the book tighter and hiking up the skirt of her best cold-weather dress. She wanted to ask why he’d stopped just within view of the destination, but he hadn’t answered any of her other questions along the way. So, she ignored his hand, stepping as gracefully as she could onto the uneven ground. A deep breath revealed to her that the air felt thinner, like the forest itself was on its final, rasping breath.