When will God reply?
From where shall he answer?
Doth he hover o'er rainbows? the blue sky?
Then he know not of me
To wit,
A heart ev'r estranged from joy

and laughter

Myungeun was kneeling, her head resting atop the edge of her bed as the wailing of a bereaved woman exited her small mouth, the usual warmth of her lilt no longer there. Her makeup that she had spent over an hour getting ready was smeared and a wretched look had overtaken her soft features. She felt hopeless. Words previously spoken by her doubtful brother echoed in her reddened ears, "Nesher won't help us."

The distraught priestess had cast off all signs of splendor and was clothed in her linen tunic, hoping to persuade her god to give her a much needed answer to her prayer. Her face contorted with a tangible anguish and she continued to cry, coughing and choking, feeling the asphyxiation that accompanied her lament manifest in a figurative serpent that coiled around her neck.

 "Help!" she cried out to her god, but he would not answer.

 Sounds of a commotion was heard outside. It sounded to her like the jovial sounds of a festivity, but today was no holiday to the pagan gods of the Sanritem. She quickly dismissed it and stretched out her body across the wooden floor of her room. She recited prayers she had memorized from the scroll her brother had hidden. Surely praying the appropriate words would convince her god to answer, right?

Frustration and anger toward her god prompted her to scream with a delirious voice. She questioned, was her god even listening? Still, the sound of mirth coming from out her window disturbed her thoughts. She slouched against the side of her bed and huddled her knees that seemed to blush with a scarlet hue, having knelt for so long. She breathed in and out, her heart was still heavy and the knot in would not flee even if she promised it untold riches. Depression sank in and her face scrunched up as she began to weep again. 

She looked at her golden jewelry atop her vanity; it gleamed in the sunlight and served as a reminder that she was not like the rest of her people, the Adamah- she was a spoiled princess that lived in the haven provided by a lying king, under the refuge of her brother that yielded to a malign devil of an adoptive father. Her whole body became engulfed by the flames of wrath as she rose and broke every one of her once treasured finery, now loathsome trinkets. She whinced when one of her earings pierced her soft palm, causing her to stumble backwards until she finally lost all sense of balance and fell to her rear. She groaned and moaned with a small voice.

She thought she deserved the pain and much more for having believed the lie fed to her by the despot and Myungsoo. Not masochistic in any sense of the word, she thought she warranted much more for having lived a lavish lifestyle up until now when contrasting the miserable estate of her people.

A creaking sound, the sound of the door opening stifled her thought. "Go away, traitor!" she shouted with a voice of rancor. She presumed it was her brother, but she hated the idea of seeing him now.

He had betrayed her trust when the hand that always carressed her cheek with an indescribable warmth and gentleness, the hand that always lovingly held hers, struck her with an animosity she never knew existed in him. He had betrayed their people when he ate the food supplied by the malevolent ruler, and surely said food was prepared by Adamah thralls who mostly likely cooked the meal with a relentless heartache and bitter tears of dolor. "Leave me alone! "

The door finally opened and Myungsoo staggered forth before falling headlong with a miserable groan. Myungeun gasped as she looked on the sight of his back, marred, bloodied with raw flesh exposed and strips of skin desperately clinging on. He spasmed and d at the air, his hand futilely reaching for his sister. What had happened? She, pushing aside all grudges, brought kindness to the forefront and helped her brute of a brother up onto her bed. He grunted as she let go.

 "What happened?" she questioned, a voice undoubtedly filled with concern.

 Myungsoo coughed at first but found strength to speak after glimpsing at his sister's anxious eyes, resembling porcelain with an amber jewel fitted in the middle as the sun reflected off them. "Someone had to be punished for your tantrum."

 Myungeun, guilty, gritted her teeth and crumpled her tunic. "I'm sorry."

 "Don't worry. This is nothing. I was once told to protect you at all costs, and I'd rather be dead and have maggots eat my flesh than to see you suffer."

 "Don't say that!" she cut in, turning away her face so that she would not meet his eyes.

Myungsoo felt a sense of joy after hearing her objection. Though the sense was not enough to strip him of the pain of his wounds, it was more than enough to assure him that she still loved him. Her love was something he could never do without. After having everything ripped away from him at such a tender age, the sight of her subtle smile, her bright eyes and graceful beauty told him to continue living even when everything else told him otherwise.

"I love you."

 Myungeun scrunched her brows from a mixed sense of worry and relief as she sniffed in a breath of air. "Me too," she said with a strained voice, pouring all her being into the effort of not bawling. It didn't matter if she cried or not, however, since by this time Myungsoo had passed out from the unbearable and horrifying throes of the flogging. Being as naive as she was, she continued to speak to him. "I'm sorry for ever hating you. It's just... It's just I hate the way you lied to me and the way you love me without regard for our other brothers and sisters, the Adamah. They need to know love, too. Nesher has to answer us!"

Myungsoo grunted in his sleep, prompting her to remember a small container of cream she had stored in her vanity, a cream that eased pain and sealed wounds, called "Bell". Twisting open the jar, her lips pursed and her brows tensed once more, doing her best to imagine just how much anguish he was enduring. She gathered an olive-sized amount of the cream on the tips of her two fingers and daubed it on the first of many wounds with ginger . Gentle as she was, a fervent pain shot up Myungsoo's entire body the instance her fingertips touched his open wounds, jostling him from sleep, the pain resembling the bite of a serpent.

He cried in pain as his body tensed up; Myungeun gasped and panicked, dropping the jar that sat on her knees. She stood and gathered her bearings, along with the round container of cream. Her lips trembled and a sweat seeped out her skin, yet she strengthened herself; Myungsoo needed her now.

In a seemingly endless cycle of shouts, groaning, grunting and cursing, she finished rubbing the cream on all of his wounds, so that she proudly spoke when she finished, "Don't be such a baby!"

Myungsoo groaned with a distinct sound. "Yeah, you would know." Loosening his grip on the covers of Myungeun's bed, he let out a deep breath. His head throbbed with a great ache, but he felt relief now that the stings of his scourging were mostly gone. "Thank you," he said with a slight strain as he craned his neck to catch a glimpse of his sister.

Myungeun felt like the older child in this situation. She felt proud to have saved Myungsoo in his time of need. She dipped her head, gently rubbed his, and  his wild hair, grimy and sweaty though it be, much like Myungsoo always  hers. "You're welcome." He didn't answer, instead falling into sleep once more because of exhaustion.

She had pulled a chair to sit beside him and kept observing his sleeping face. All those signs of torture, all those drops of blood, he had endured for her sake. She knew Myungsoo loved her, she would never question that, but just how much would always elude her. His love for her, his only kin, could lighten the voids of cosmic darkness and much more.

Her dainty hands curled up into fists and she asserted that Nesher had a purpose for all this misery his worshippers were bearing. She felt the air leaving her nostrils become hot, her whole face radiated an intense heat.

She was angry, not at her god, but at the evil devil that brazenly called himself her father. The punishment Myungsoo bore was one that he ordered, no doubt. She knew she had to do something. But what? A thought struck her.

Standing up with a sudden start, she decided to hurt Oscuridaon where she thought it hurt him most. Though frail and unable to ever wield a weapon, she had something that no other Adamah had, she had influence. She was high priestess of Bolar, god of the Sanritem, and everyone loved her unlike her brother. If the leader of worship denied her deity then most certainly, others would, tossing their beliefs into doubt.

She spoke with a low voice as she knelt and her sibling's hair in motherly fashion. "For Nesher. For the Adamah. For you, I have to go and declare the truth for all to hear, Sanritem and Adamah alike."
                     

              . ..............

Now only a small strip of land separating her from the main square, Myungeun gathered her thoughts and assembled a small speech in her head. Her stride, at first resembling the proud marching of soldiers walking into battle changed to the confused steps of a lost dog meandering about as she paced back and forth. To no surprise, she had begun to doubt herself. Beads of nervous sweat crowded her front and soon enough, she felt her blood turn cold as it coursed its way through her body. A light ache had come upon her and the pulsating beats of her heart resounded in her head.

Spotting an Adamah slave across from where she stood, she observed the lifeless eyes he had, devoid of light and bleak in color, a faded tone of grey. The slave awaited his master shopping for fruits at a stall. Reaching for the basket of produce with his spindly arms caused her to swell with a pity. What happened next lit blazing embers in her eyes. The slave dropped an apple and was afterward whipped by his master.

The sight of the slave squirming in pain and the sound of his groans, low and piercing bellows resembling an animal's rather than man's, shook her soul. She was reminded of her brother whom she left in a peaceful repose not even an hour ago. The difference lying in the fact that the slave had no respite, for after receiving no less than ten lashes, he got up and stood as best as he could to then pick up the apples that had fallen as a result of a simple accident. Myungeun saw the master reaching for her whip, but she didn't stop to only look this time. Daringly, she ran to the slave's rescue, shielding him with her arm from the cracking of the cord.

The master gasped, "The high priestess! Please, what are you doing?!"

 Her eye flinched and her whole body shuddered from the pain. "Stop it! He is also a being who feels pain!"

 "He is a mere slave!" the master objected, trembling from terror after having injured the high priestess, the punishment of which is death.

 "No, he is an Adamah! Like me!"

 "But you are different! He is a dog, you are chosen progeny whose life is touched by Bolar himself to represent him on this plane of existence!"

 Myungeun dropped to her knee, unable to resist the pain that seemingly swallowed her like a starving serpent. "He is no god! Listen!" her eyes looked around and noticed a small contingent of spectators become a mass of people ripe to listen to her message. Could she smile, she would've, being happy to receive such opportunity, but the seriousness of the matter halted her. She stood and pulled aside a wooden crate from the stall nearby.

Standing atop the crate like a beacon of hope and light for all to witness, she casted her vision on all the people that swarmed the street. The city square was the center of life for all the Sanritem of the kingdom, also being the place where she danced to Bolar on holidays, yet it had been emptied by her. All the people vacated the square and left to see what she would say, what declaration, what revelation Bolar had entrusted to her. But, the murmurings of the people were misguided, they all spoke of her in relation to their god, Bolar. She wasn't here standing to honor him. No. She was standing to share the truth she had been enlightened with.

She signaled the slave that had been whipped and called out, "He is Adamah, I am too! His god is Nesher! And he is my god, too! Most importantly, he's the only one and true god!"

 The announcement prompted all the Sanritem in attendance to gasp. "How could she say that?" "What blasphemy!" "Kill her! "

Myungeun continued with an indomitable spirit, knowing Nesher was there in the midst, overlooking her.

            ..............

Myungsoo woke up as in a drunken stupor, although he had never tasted the blood of grapes. He clapped his cheeks and swept his long ebony hair behind his shoulders. His eyes scanned the room and remembered fondly how his sister had treated his wounds without hesitation. A pleasant smile adorned his face.

Turning to face the window, the blast of a horn caught him by surprise. Such sound always portented to the execution of an individual, usually a rebel or escapee slave found in the city. He shrugged his shoulders and yawned, his arms splaying in separate directions, much as a cat stretches itself.

"What poor fool," he heartlessly mused. As he fastened his boots on, the clamor of the people made him curious as to what person would meet their end. This curiosity was not out of a streak of sympathy, to feel sorrow toward the soul whose life flickered like a dying ember, rather it was a whimsical intrigue that could be likened to an ear itching to hear the latest gossip. 

Stepping outside the tower, Myungsoo remembered that he needed to pick up his trappings that are presently in Hoya's care. Not even a few yards he had walked when Hoya's face entered Myungsoo's field of view. He was running desperately, as though chased by phantoms; no one was pursuing him. 

 "What is it?" Myungsoo asked as he checked to see if Hoya carried his accoutrements.

 Hoya, still panting from such running, looked at Myungsoo with an indescribable expression. After handing over Myungsoo his equipment, Hoya swallowed his spit and prostrated himself on the dusty ground. "My sister! Please! At least spare her! Have mercy on her!"

 Myungsoo was perplexed. His brows furrowed with a worry and his mind surged with suspicion. "Why are you begging?!"

 "The high priestess!"

 Myungsoo picked Hoya up by the collar of his mail and aimed a fierce, savage look at his eyes. "What of her?!"

 "The king! He is prepping her execution!"

 "What?!"

 "My sister, she is one with doe eyes and is an angel! Spare her!"

 "Today you have saved her life and yours. Take her and leave the city for I will make demands! The streets will flow with blood- away with you now!" He hurled Hoya aside and ran in direction of the city plaza.