Chapter 9: Surya's faith(Omniscient's POV)

Jynessa still remembers how it all started. She was the leader of a small religious sect that worships both mother Rhoyne and the new god Surya equally.

She was originally only a fisherwoman tending to her boat and getting some fish. When one day she got lost in the warmth of the sun, the sun was different, it was much more lively. It was an enlightening experience. Suddenly, she felt within her the desire to give her faith to the sun.

She started to wake up before dawn every single day, taking a bath, trying her hair, and offering, in a copper pot, water with flowers to the sun.

Later, she started to perform a more organized procedure to do so. In the beginning, she had some limitations like not being able to afford cloth in red color.

As time passed she became more disciplined and maintained the body, mind, and spirit balanced. Her devotion inspired early success in daily life. It granted her all pleasures, good health, and wealth in life.

She started to teach other people around her and they gradually became a religion, from city to city, she traveled preaching about the sun God Surya.

She and her fellow devotees started from nothing and slowly shaped their place in the Rhoyne region. They did not have a central ideology yet or clear faith laws, they were just people that wanted to worship Surya. Prophetical dreams guided them about the mantras they should meditate on in other to worship Surya.

Several stories started to appear about their god, but there was only one about his origins. His origin tale in the Asoiaf world differs quite a lot from the ones in the original Surya legend. It related to the Rhoynars' tale of the long night.

The Rhoynars tell of darkness that made the Rhoyne of Essos dwindle and disappear, her waters frozen as far south as the joining of the Selhoru, until a hero convinced the many children of Mother Rhoyne, such as the Crab King and the Old Man of the River, to put aside their bickering and join in a secret song that brought back the day.

A detail was added to this legend about the hero. It's said that the hero, a mere mortal, used his body to separate the fighting Crab King and the Old Man of the River. With the seconds of attention that he got from the two gods, in his last moments, with his death merely being holden back by his sheer willpower, he convinced both gods and the other children of Mother Rhoyne to sing a song that return light to the world.

The weakened Mother Rhoyne seeing the selfless sacrifice of the hero makes it so, at the end of the song, he should be reborn and become the world light and so was born the sun god Surya.

After a prophetical dream, Jynessa saw the place where their faith would prosper the most and so they all would stop their pilgrimage and finally build a temple in honor of Surya in Volon Therys.