The Crown Of Ash and Silver
They said the Saint had awoken.
Inside the grand temple, Elysia waited behind the doors.
Her body still ached from the ceremony. The burn beneath her skin had quieted, but the gold in her veins refused to fade; it shimmered faintly through the thin linen of her sleeves. Attendants moved around her in silence, adjusting the folds of her robe. The fabric was white and impossibly soft, threaded with dust-fine strands of gold that caught each movement like flame. When they set the crystal circlet upon her head, the weight of it pressed against her temples like a crown of heat.