"I cannot," Dianna replies with quiet finality laden with disdainful resignation.  "I have to find another way."  The priestess' eyes dance back-and-forth across the table, her lips pinched faintly.  "There is another way that I ...have, I suppose," she exhales.  "Father Aureth, I ...have no family, anymore.  Not a single one," Dianna informs him in a muted tone, perhaps unnecessarily, her gaze not lifting.  "Not from my former life... unless... I am to count Alecstazi as one."

Dianna's brow tightens; she bites and rolls the corner of her lips.  "Father, what would you do if you had to hold a secret... and you had no one to share it with?  And yet, you were alone in sorting out the meanings..."  Only now does Dianna lift her amber eyes, heavy and narrowed with thought and burden, though her voice is quiet and her mind open, "...such as this situation with one's ancestors, such as we have been discussing?  What would you do?"
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"Pray," Aureth answers, and it's an almost ironic smile, as he settles his shoulders back against the seat. "But you do have a family, my dear. You joined the Faith, and your brothers and sisters are the godsworn." He taps fingertips lightly against his knee, in a one-two-three tattoo, an idly rhythmed fidget. "Blood doesn't define family alone. Choice, and oath, the bonds of fealty and will, those do. But if that helps you not at all, well-- a secret may be kept by a priest, under the seal of secrecy demanded by the Scholar's oath to Vellichor. Such confidences must be kept."
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"Father... I cannot tell... I cannot give this one away, I think.  Not even to a member of the Faith, for... it is an oath I cannot break.  It does not shield me from my duties as Godsworn; and it ...was sworn long before.  I am a ghost in my own right, I feel - held between two lives," Dianna quietly speaks.  Her voice drops even more quietly, "I will never say that I made a mistake in my choice to be godsworn.  But... this oath binds me, still."  She swallows, "Gods know I wish to break it; it feels like chains I've somehow bound myself with - as do all of the secrets I keep.  ...So, I pray.  Daily.  To Death, to Aion; I make my rounds, and I pray."  The priestess' eyes gaze distantly as she ponders silently.
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"There is nothing dishonorable in keeping to an oath, for a godsworn vow does not forsake any other oaths than those you disclaim in the taking of it," Aureth says with the drop of a shoulder in a partial shrug, "nor do I offer you any pressure to speak." He rubs an eye with a fingertip. "But all I can say, if there is no one to whom you can speak but the gods, is that prayer may be the only answer you have. I'm sorry not to have any better answer for you. Perhaps a ritual prayer, with sacrifice and an offering to burn, may yield more concrete results. Sometimes it can." A beat passes, and he adds with an air of wry admission, "Sometimes, I get terribly obscure rhymes out of which I can make neither head nor tail."
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A soft smile lifts Dianna's lips, "I expect such would be somewhat entertaining, for me, at least.  I will take up your advice; I thank you.  I have... but one last question for you, pertaining to something different.  ...If you... were to come upon someone who was walking down a path that most certainly leads to the Abyss... how would you encourage them to... pause, and turn from it?"  The priestess becomes sober again with this last question, though there is some hope, now, in her expression.
Inhalation long and slow, Aureth hesitates before his reply. He has no glib answer to this, no immediate, snappy reply. His breath trickles past his teeth, and then he says, "I can but tell you that to rage and storm at them to try and frighten them from their path is almost certainly doomed to fail. Perhaps if I had known Tomwell's lesson sooner, I might have prevented... well." He shakes his head. "The path of the Faith may be the path of compassion, of mercy. The darknesses that plague those who fall to the taint of the Abyss... fear can be so quick to lead us to the fall." His throat works in a swallow, and then he says, "In the end, each of us must make our own choices, and we cannot protect those we love from themselves. No matter how much we might wish. We can only be there for them, and hold the light to guide their way, and never forsake the hope that they might turn aside."