Sixteen Lesser Saints
I.
Pinagree
Without his selflessness would all wrong-doers be worked to death then worn to nothing.
He gave his life to guard the city walls against the onslaught of the Volte Army. The wretched many remained untouched, their places in the Volti's prison-yards forever empty; his disfigured soul will walk the plain forever.
II.
Esrii
Without her sacrifice, would not the famine have lifted from the snowy reaches of Kappa-Rys.
They brought yarn-wing Esrii's body to the Rysian kingdom as a feast, and she did not say a word when the killing bolt struck through her head.
III.
Luxuladra
Without his gift of appeasement, the spoilers of the kingdom would forever be without redemptors.
The well bred god-prince from the province of Yinmexi was called "His Majesty" even before he left the womb. His citizens sliced out his heart upon his own council's betrayal; he used his dying breath to whisper prayers of forgiveness.
IV.
Reimah
Without his demotion and fall from grace, the unbelievers could not scream in the face of all-truth's lost visage.
He once was something further than divine, and even so disfigured upon our unholy earth, he allowed his corpse to be a sacrament, albeit temporary, before it dissolved into acid dark.
V.
Myna
Without the mistakes of the fallow Myna-one-of-one-hundred-and-fifty-three, would we still be in the maze.
Made blind and dumb, they placed her in the city's labyrinth. Even so mutilated, still she scratched the marks that marked the dead-ends and the traps.
VI.
Kyrniko
Without Kyrniko's pain would the warring shores of Syfee and Torris would be drowned in blood.
He was executed in the midst of the battle, his sobs half-laced with laughter as they nailed him to the ground. The spectacle turned soldiers sick; the battle ceased, and churned itself to stillness.
VII.
Avaseire
Without Avaseire's desertion, would the armies of Lord Whitewing have been in vain for their victories.
He was a wicked beast with a cunning mouth. His blood laid them a trail, and they were glad, for those who followed found their sanctuary, far from swords and screaming ranks.
VIII.
Kamisirrek
Without Kamisirrek, the blindly suffering would know no respite from their daily tasks.
They brought him forth: a prisoner-turned-specimen, his innocence bare. He said no words upon the slab. The diagrams and notes taken of his vivisected body became the prophet's bible for so many years to come.
IX.
Ricuoun
ithout Ricuoun would the foolhardy have no reminder of Heaven's Resplendency.
In the kingdom of the mad, he gave his arm in the place of an innocent thief, his eyes in the place of a peeping tom falsely accused, and his words to all who gathered round to calm their frenzied hearts.
X.
Piraminot
Without Piraminot's small kindnesses in the face of the hatred of the twin kings of the second armistice, we would be lost.
With king's court clogged with spitefulness, this forced-fool smiled and gave trinkets to the frightened children, even as the guardsmen drove their nails and knives into his sides.
XI.
Ezdra
Without the path of Ezdra the Unnamed (of the Last Order of the Walkers of Cloth) could not the forgotten empty their hearts.
They marched him without food or sleep for sixteen days across the mountains cold and grey. Where he fell, they buried him. His blood, it soaked the swollen earth, the stain a place for true wise-men to weep.
XII.
Zicardia
Without the cruel bisection of the twins Zicardia, the convalescent would forever weep their ills.
They shared a name, and when the black king Urmizondri chose them as donors to replace his own collapsing guts, the parts he left behind could not contain their martyred soul, which drifted in the air as smoke and filled the lungs of all true sufferers who lay in sick-houses around.
XIII.
Taraza
Without his breath would we wander from the paths.
Inside the pit he died and starved, and when he died, he did not leave, but stayed to hiss his curses. His gasps, they still remain, not as guidance, but as warnings.
XIV.
Auvrem
Without its flight would our sworn enemies still whisper to us.
Its brain turned black by fungus, it took its moonstruck flight across the hills, sixty-one and three-fourths circles before its tired carcass fell. The dust from its wings fell down like snow, silencing the traitors in the trees forever.
XV.
Carnarie
Without whose fall would there be no lanterns to light the cliffs of Oumou.
When the tribe called for a martyr where there was none, only Carnarie was chosen, her body whipped and beaten from the cliffside steps. They came from far and wide to see her smashed corpse upon the rocks below and in such numbers that 1,000 torches came to emblazon their paths.
XVI.
Systecy
Without Systecy's blind rage would the legged have no tenement.
He was the emperor's best pet, a rampager in full. Upon the empire's collapse, his death-throes shattered temples flat, and on their graves, the once-lost villages bloomed like brick'ed roses.