The Gardens of the Sanctified
"Here the faithful who served long are given rest, among the likenesses of those who went before them into the Light."
The Still Gardens lie in the highest tier of Vatira, within the cathedral's own walls, where the air is clean and the bells are near. Here the cathedral keeps its aged faithful in their final years — those who kept the observances and served the Light, housed and tended in peace by the Pale Sisters. They walk among the statues of the Saints, that the sanctified who came before may watch over those who will soon be received. It is the quietest place in the city. The faithful count it a great mercy to end their days here.
The Statue of the Blessed Father
At the heart of the Gardens stands the oldest statue: Oros the First, the Silver Crow, the Blessed Root-Father — the first of all the sanctified, from whom the line of Saints descends. The faithful lay ashblooms at his feet and read the words carved into his plinth. (The engraving is old, and the stone has weathered; some letters stand deeper than others.)
eYer-blessed, ever-mourned, ever-kept.
ThRough him the Root first opened its arms;
by hiM the faithful learned to be received.
Rest now, Blessed Father, in the deep;
Our hope endures because you endured.
The Silver Crow, the all-enduring,
The mercy that does not fail,
tHe Root-Father, conceived of the Root itself,
bEloved beyond all the Saints who followed.
Forever he intercedes for the remade;
forever Above he watches from the deep;
forever the Light remembers his name.
BlesSed be the first. Blessed be the giving.
BlessEd be the cradle that received him.
Oros, first of the Saints, pray for us.
Now and at the hour of our remaking.
AmEn.
The faithful do not read the letters this way. They read only the prayer. — the Register
The Garden of Graves
Beyond the great statue, the rows of the sanctified stretch away beneath the ashblooms — saint upon saint, each kept in the deep, each watched over by their own carved stone. The cathedral teaches that none here are truly gone: they are kept, forever, in the Root's keeping, and never released. Walk among them. Touch a stone, and read what it says — and, if you have the eyes for it, what it does not.
"The Sanctified are kept here forever, and never released, in the mercy of the Light." — and that is precisely the wrong they will not name.
The Nameless Stone
Set apart from the great statues, at the edge of the Gardens where the ashblooms grow thickest, there stands a smaller, older stone — the likeness of a child. It bears no name and no date. The Sisters say it has always been there, older than the cathedral itself, and that it is best not disturbed. The faithful pass it without looking. The children of the upper city are told not to play near it.
A View of the Gardens
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