Mara closed her eyes a moment, begging for guidance and comfort. Then, again not for the first time, Mara questioned her own worthiness for the Sisterhood. Not for the first time Mara wondered if Ura would make a good sister of the order. Her own sacrifice, as Ura called it, was made so that later generations of girls in her family would have those things Mara chose to renounce. Mara's heritage meant clan position, powerful allies, an array of well-positioned suitors, and an assured good marriage to a son of another powerful house. When the girls had exchanged histories at their first meeting, Ura had been incredulous, then almost angry that the daughter of a powerful Lord should take eternal shelter behind the walls of the order. Mara had come close to defying her father to join the order. Ura's admission to the temple was a public demonstration of family piety, ordered by her uncle, the self-styled family Lord, who sought admission into any clan that would take his family. Mara considered her sister-to-be: Ura was a foul-tempered girl from a clanless but wealthy family in Lash Province while Mara was from an ancient and powerful family, the Acoma. At seventeen years of age, Mara prepared to renounce the temporal world, like the girl at her side who – in another nineteen chimings of the gong - would be counted her sister, though they had met only two weeks before. The gong chimed again, the third ring of twenty-two, twenty for the gods, one for the Light of Heaven, and one for the imperfect children who now waited to join in the service of the Goddess of Wisdom of the Upper Heaven. Mara prayed to the Lady to guide her to the inner peace she so fervently desired. Silently she begged the goddess's forgiveness, pleading nerves - fatigue and excitement combined with apprehension. Now, of all times, her attention must not stray. Reminded of the goddess's eternal presence, Mara inwardly winced at her irreverent thoughts. She had barely lifted the cloth and already the thing dragged at her arms like stone weights! The gong sounded again.
Awkwardly posed with the linen draped like a tent above her head, Mara impatiently awaited the moment when the headdress could be lowered and tied. She shivered, though not from chill, then glanced slightly to the left, where another initiate knelt in a pose identical to her own, duplicating Mara's movements as she lifted the white head covering of a novice of the Order of Lashima, Goddess of the Inner Light. Mara knelt, the cold stones of the temple floor draining the warmth from her. The solitary note echoed back and forth, diminishing to a remembered tone, a ghost of sound. The sound reverberated off the temple's vaulted domes, splendid with brightly coloured carvings.
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