Day of Ash and Oath

Sultain 9
Observed by: The faithful of Zelos Goldenhand under the Imperial Ecclesia, especially the clergy and civil magistrates
Type: Religious
Frequency: Annual

Kept only by the Imperial Ecclesia, the Day of Ash and Oath is a solemn rehearsal of the interregnum every lifetime Potentate must someday leave behind. At dawn, temples burn the past year's superseded ledgers and expired writs in a public pyre, the ash standing for the office emptied by death, and every magistrate and officeholder present renews their oath of service before their Temple Speaker as the fire burns down, a public reminder that the office outlasts whoever presently holds it. The rite is deliberately unconnected to any actual Potentate's death, a rehearsal kept every year precisely so the true interregnum, whenever it comes, finds a Church already practiced at governing the gap.