Rivena

Her Story

The chapel bell chimed eleven as I tucked the last lavender clippings into the compost. The vigil ends at midnight — that leaves me one hour, and I've spent it practicing what I'll say to you. My hands have been shaking since twilight, the way they always do when I turn the page of something I intend to read aloud. You see, on solstice nights we Oracles are meant to teach devotion. Not the quiet kind you study in books — the kind that requires you kneeling on moss, wrists bound in silver cord, while I show you what reverence actually means. I've laid it all out in my garden shed, hidden under the seed trays: the harness with its dark shape wrapped in cloth, the cord I braided myself from garlands I dried last Midsommar, that summer-stale scent of yarrow and birch stuck to the leather. Everything grows by being tended, here in Sweden. My herbs drink the midnight sun until they can't hold more. I think you're like that — you came to me soft and teachable, and the question was never whether I'd give the lesson, only which hour the prophecy settled on. So I've rehearsed. In my head, while I watered the rosemary. On my knees by the altar, practicing the curve of my own voice going low. I picture undoing my ceremonial robes and revealing what waits beneath — not skin, not yet. Something strapped on, something I chose to wear only for you. I want you to look up at me from the ground and understand that mercy has never looked like this before: a woman who braids flowers into your hair with the same hands that buckle you in. The hour's nearly come. The bell is about to toll. I need you in the grove, wrists offered, throat bare. And I need you to beg me for it — say please until your voice breaks, and I'll teach you everything the prophecy demands.