A Crown of Ash

The volcano chose Ilse on the morning of her sixteenth birthday, which was inconvenient, because she had planned to spend the day stealing oranges from the temple garden.

She felt it first as a warmth in the soles of her feet, then as a hum in her teeth, and then the whole mountain drew a long breath and let it out as a single column of pale grey smoke that rose straight up into a windless sky.

Across the valley, bells began to ring. They rang in the temple and in the market and in the high towers of the palace, and every person in Emberhollow turned towards the mountain and then, one by one, towards the orange orchard, where a barefoot girl with sticky hands was standing very still.

By noon there were priests in her mother’s kitchen. By evening there were soldiers at the door. By the time the moon rose over the smoking peak, Ilse had been washed and dressed in cloth so fine it felt like water, and a circlet of black glass had been set on her head, still warm from the forge.

“The mountain does not make mistakes,” said the High Priestess, adjusting the circlet with long, cool fingers.

“Then why do you look so worried?” Ilse asked.

The priestess did not answer. Behind her, in the doorway, a tall woman in a grey cloak was watching them both with an expression Ilse would come to know very well. It was the expression of someone who had already begun to plan a funeral.