It was a mark of respect for the Chambers of the Elect, yes, but also a useful moment of self-reflection. Time to compose himself before his audience. Rhionna was gone, taken by the black-handed villain who had first defiled her. His grief and anger would have been less if he could believe that she had not gone willingly. But he knew his daughter too well; she stood in sin, she had turned from the light of the Sun long ago and rejected the duty for which God had granted her life. Ennis prayed every day for her soul, but he feared that prayer would not be enough. The Elect would demand more. At the top of the steps, he paused to catch his breath and looked up at the glistening pillars that flanked the entrance to the Chambers. Beyond them hovered darkness, a reminder to those without that the business of the Elect was no business of theirs. Pride ran her fingers the length of Ennis’s spine, and he stood straighter in his robes of state; from the first time he had come here, his father’s death still raw in his heart, he had felt that pride like rock beneath his feet.
