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Until Sister Agatha deviates from the path.

It’s only one left turn when it should be a right, but it throws my entire being off balance.

Alarm bells ring in my head and my steps falter. I’ve never gone this way. I’m not supposed to go this way. Whenever there is a choice in turns, I must always go to the right.

My entire life is a circle that must not be broken.

Oblivious to my inner turmoil, Sister Agatha tugs harder on my arm, too hurried to glance back at me. Accepting I truly have no choice in this, I push away my reservations.

My heart quickens with the thrill of change, and though these weeping stone walls look the same as the other stone walls, Isavor them. My eyes eat them up simply because they’re new to me.

There are variations in the cracks I have yet to trace a million times. New stories I can make up to amuse myself by pretending the cracks are rivers or roads leading to a magical destination.

When we pass through an open doorway and reach the bottom of a set of steps, my heart beats so hard I’m afraid it might beat right through my chest.

Are these the very steps she dragged me down after the Judging? Is that the spot, right there on the dusty floor, where Jeffrey first beat me?

I try to look closer, letting the memories of that day flow through me, but Sister Agatha snaps at me. “Would you stop your gawking, you little idiot!”

Making a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, she grabs her habit and starts up the steps.

Any other day, any other time, I’d quickly correct myself to avoid her ire. But not today. Not when my very soul is aching for more of not thesame.

Reaching the top, Sister Agatha drops her habit and yanks me down a short, dark hallway.

Memories come flooding back to me. Memory of this very hallway. This has to be the way she first led me after the Judging, and that means for the first time in a decade I’m above the ground again.

My breathing quickens to match the beat of my heart and my head grows light at all the implications.

Sister Agatha pushes open a door and sunlight, blessed sunlight, hits me.

My vision swims with tears, leaving me mostly blind. I’ve lived in the dark for so long, it feels like my eyes are being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles, but I don’t care.

Elation and giddiness fills me and I turn myself toward the sunlight. Wanting to feel it on my face. Wanting to feel it warm my flesh.

Not having any of it, Sister Agatha viciously yanks on my arm, pulling me closer. “What is wrong with you?! Have you lost all your senses?!”

She drags me away from the sunlight, and I twist in her hold, desperate to feel it again. The urge to run to it, to throw myself at the stained glass windows, to be free, thrumming through my very soul.

We make it a few feet of me dragging my heels and trying to pull away from her before she completely loses her temper.

“Keep your face down!” she snaps. Shoving my head down, she tweaks a muscle in my neck. “There are holy men present!”

Ah, yes…men. The literal bane of my existence. The reason I’ve been locked away and hidden for so long. The Order afraid I’ll somehow lead them all astray with a mere look and into the clutches of Satan.

How could I forget?

Forced to stare at the floor, I finally notice how quiet it is around us. Like a hush has suddenly fallen. Were there sounds before? I think so but I’m not sure because I was so caught up in the moment.

The back of my neck prickles as Sister Agatha leads me across the cathedral. Eyes are upon me, and no doubt I’m a shocking sight.

Dressed in a white nightgown stained with blood and being forcibly dragged against my will by a nun.

But if there are holy men here to witness this, as Sister Agatha claims, none of them speak a word.

The shadows on the hardwood floor grow darker and darker, and we pause just long enough for Sister Agatha to open a door.

Though I can’t exactly see where we’re going, between the lack of sunlight and the dusty staleness in the air, I sense she’s leading me somewhere deeper in the cathedral.