Tarja had been banished to the border by Trayla more than four years ago, although the reasons why had never been clear to R’shiel. When he was sent away, all Joyhinia had told her, in a cold and angry tone, was that he had offended the First Sister. Judging from the startled looks of the gathered Sisters, he had done more than just offend her. Even Mahina, who had always had a fondness for her brother, looked shocked to see him, which meant it was obviously not she who had recalled him. R’shiel wondered if her appeal to Jenga had been the reason for Tarja’s recall, then decided it wasn’t. Jenga was not the sort of man to be swayed by a smile and a heartfelt plea.
“Your Grace,” said Jenga with a bow to the First Sister. “Lord Pieter. Sisters.”
“Lord Defender,” Mahina replied. She turned her attention to Tarja and gave him a long look. R’shiel glanced at her mother and was not surprised at her thunderous expression. Joyhinia was not pleased to see her son.
“Welcome home, Tarja,” Mahina said.
“Thank you, your Grace,” Tarja replied with a bow, then he turned to Joyhinia. “Mother.”
“I wasn’t aware that you’d been recalled, Tarjanian,” she remarked coolly. “I trust your time on the border has taught you something useful.”
“More than you could imagine,” Tarja assured her. He caught sight of R’shiel, and his eyes widened with surprise.
“This is your son, Sister?” Pieter asked Joyhinia, as he took Tarja’s measure. “You’ve never mentioned him before.”
Joyhinia’s expression did not change. “Tarja has been fighting on the southern border these past four years.”
“Killing Hythrun, eh?” Pieter chuckled. “A worthy cause, Captain. And just how many did you dispose of?”
“More than I care to count,” Tarja replied glibly. “Now, if you will excuse me, my Lord, I see that my sister is anxious to welcome me home. First Sister. Lord Jenga. Lord Draco. Sisters.” Tarja walked through the small gathering to R’shiel, took her arm none too gently, and led her away. He didn’t stop until they were through the stained-glass doors and standing on the balcony. As soon as they were out of the hearing of the gathering inside, Tarja let her go. “Founders, I was glad to see you! I don’t think I could have stood being surrounded by those vipers for a moment longer.”
“I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up here tonight. Mother looks ready to burst something,” she laughed. R’shiel was rather pleased at the disturbance his appearance had caused. Although it hadn’t occurred to her when she’d asked Jenga to recall him, she realized now that with Tarja back, Joyhinia would have another focus for her disapproval. She stepped back and looked him up and down, thinking that his time on the border had obviously taught him some restraint. A few years ago, he would have started fighting with Joyhinia the moment he laid eyes on her. “When did you get back?”
“Yesterday. You know, I almost didn’t recognize you. You’re all grown up.”
R’shiel pulled a face. “Hardly. I’m not even a Probate yet.”
“Being a Probate is not what I would use as a benchmark for maturity,” he laughed. “I suppose this means Joyhinia is still trying to mold you into the perfect little Sister of the Blade?”
R’shiel sighed. “I think she’s starting to wonder if it’s a lost cause. Somehow I get the feeling I’m not turning out quite the way she intended.”
“I don’t think either of us have turned out quite what Joyhinia intended.”
R’shiel had always been close to her half-brother, despite the fact that he was ten years older than her and already a Cadet in the Defenders when she arrived at the Citadel as a baby. Joyhinia forbade her to socialize with him, but it had been a futile effort on her mother’s part. As a child she had been spanked, on more than one occasion, for hanging around Tarja and the Cadets.
“Why do I get the feeling things are going to get rather interesting now that you’re back?”
“Because he’s a troublemaker,” a voice joked from behind. Startled, R’shiel spun around and found Georj Drake, Tarja’s best friend and her recent knife-throwing instructor, standing behind her. The young captain’s hazel eyes were full of laughter. “You should banish him again before he can do any damage.”
“Now there’s a tempting thought,” she mused. “Where shall we send him, Georj? Back to the southern border? Or maybe the Grimfield?”
“You are a cruel woman, R’shiel.” She liked Georj. He was almost as much a brother to her as Tarja. “Maybe you should order him to the Arena.”
“Georj!” Tarja warned. “I’ve already told you no.”
R’shiel looked from Georj to Tarja and back to Georj again. “What?”
Georj took R’shiel’s arm conspiratorially. “Well, you might be too young to remember, but back in the good old days, before Tarja publicly called Trayla a fatuous bitch, he was the undisputed champion of the Arena.”
“I remember,” she said, before turning to Tarja, wide-eyed. “Is that what you did? You called Trayla a fatuous bitch?”
Tarja glared at them but did not deign to answer. Georj tugged her arm to get her attention back. “Well now that he’s back, he has a duty to regain the title. Ever since we heard he’d been recalled, Loclon has been bragging about how he can beat Tarja. He’s issued a formal challenge, and your uncaring brother has refused it. The honor of every captain is at stake here.”
R’shiel knew of Loclon, a slender young lieutenant with lightning-quick reflexes. He had been the talk of the Citadel all summer.
“I said no, Georj!” Tarja snapped. “Cajoling R’shiel isn’t going to make me change my mind, either.”
“Why not? Are you afraid he’ll beat you?”
“No! I’m not afraid he’ll beat me. I’m afraid I’ll win, and then every half-witted, glory-seeking Cadet in the Citadel will want to take me on. I’ve done my time in the Arena, R’shiel. I don’t need to prove anything.”
“Why don’t you just take the challenge and lose, if that’s what you’re worried about?” she asked with somewhat contrived innocence, knowing full well the reaction such a suggestion would provoke. “Just let him beat you.”
Georj looked horrified. “Lose? How could you suggest such a thing, girl?”
Before she had a chance to answer, the Probate who had served the drinks earlier appeared at the doorway. She glanced coyly at Tarja and Georj before turning her attention to R’shiel.
“Sister Joyhinia wants you to come inside, R’shiel,” the Probate said pleasantly, although her smile was meant for the Defenders. R’shiel was surprised she had been allowed to spend even this small amount of time with Tarja.
She glanced at the officers and shrugged. “I have to go.”
“Poor little Novice,” Tarja sympathized. “Can’t ignore an order from mother now, can we?”
“Do you think if I called Mahina a fatuous bitch, I could get myself banished from the Citadel, too?” she asked under her breath.
The Envoy had moved away from the circle of women surrounding the First Sister and her mother, and was standing, half-hidden by a column on the other side of the room, fondling a rather startled-looking Probate.
R’shiel suspected her mother pandered to Lord Pieter’s appetites for her own reasons. Morality and sin were hallmarks of religion and the Sisters of the Blade never practiced anything that smacked of religion. The hidden artwork throughout the Citadel was concealed because it offended the Sisters to see the gods depicted, not because they cared what carnal activities the heathens were engaged in. Good government was based on law and common sense, not some heathen notion of morality. In R’shiel’s opinion, Lord Pieter had crossed even that generous line, and it was simply a sign of Medalon’s fear of offending Karien that no one remarked on the man’s outrageous behavior.
R’shiel, with Tarja and Georj close behind her, approached her mother. She was listening with interest as Sister Harith complained about the growing number of heathens.
“It is time for another Purge,”
Harith was suggesting loudly.
“I agree they are getting out of hand again,” Joyhinia remarked, which made Jacomina nod enthusiastically in support. Joyhinia could suggest running naked through the Citadel, and Jacomina would probably nod enthusiastically in support, R’shiel decided. “The rumors of a demon child have flared up again, too. But a Purge?”
Mahina glanced at the Sisters and shrugged, unconcerned. “The demon child rumor has been around for two centuries, Sisters. We should pay it as much attention now as we have in the past.”
“But this time it seems to be really taking hold,” Harith remarked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it reached all the way to the southern border.” She glanced past R’shiel at Tarja. “You’ve just come from there, Captain. Have you heard anything?”
“I heard a crazy man ranting about it. But nobody took him seriously.”
“There! You see?” Harith announced, her point proved.
R’shiel wondered what rumor they were talking about. The goings-on among the few miserable heathens left in Medalon were not something that reached the ears of a mere Novice, even one as privileged as R’shiel. She leaned toward Georj and whispered, “What’s a demon child?”
Mahina heard her and answered her question. “According to heathen legend, R’shiel, Lorandranek, the last king of the Harshini, sired a half-human child. They call him the demon child. He is supposed to have a great capacity for destruction.”
“All the more reason to hunt him down and kill him,” Harith added.
Mahina chuckled. “Hunt him down and kill him, Harith? This child was supposed to have been sired by a man who was last seen two hundred years ago!”
“But we don’t believe in the gods; therefore logically, such a child cannot exist.”
Mahina nodded in agreement. “Well said, R’shiel! And we are not going waste valuable resources sending the Defenders out to hunt down this nonexistent child. The rumor will die down as it always has.”
“But you cannot deny that the number of heathens seems to be on the rise,” Joyhinia pointed out. R’shiel recognized that feral gleam in her mother’s eye as Joyhinia neatly maneuvered the First Sister into making a public blunder.
“I don’t deny it, Sister. It is a matter of great concern to me. But I have to ask myself, what have we done to make these people turn from the Sisterhood? Does the fault lie with our administration? We should clean up our own house before we start looking at others.”
Joyhinia bowed to the First Sister. “By your words you demonstrate the wisdom worthy of a true First Sister, Mahina.”
The older woman nodded in acknowledgment of Joyhinia’s eloquent compliment. R’shiel glanced at her mother and shuddered. She knew that look, knew that venomous, bitter gleam better than anyone. Joyhinia despised Mahina. R’shiel sipped her wine as she watched the elder Sisters and wondered how long it would be before there was another funeral, another public Burning, and another First Sister. She caught Tarja’s eye and thought he was wondering the same thing.
chapter 4
R’shiel straightened her tunic, checked that her fingernails were clean, and smoothed down her braid before she knocked on the door to her mother’s rooms. The spacious apartment on the third floor of the Sisters’ main residential wing had ceased being her home from the day she put on the Green. Not since she had been sent to the Novices at twelve had she returned without requesting entry. There was still a room referred to as her bedroom in the apartment, but it was bare of any personal touches. Visiting home was as warm and welcoming as visiting one of Brodenvale’s well-kept inns. But she didn’t really mind – one of the advantages of being a Novice was that it meant she didn’t need to live at home. It was perhaps the only reason that she had never done anything serious enough to get herself expelled.
The door was opened by old Hella, Joyhinia’s long-suffering maid, who stood back to let her enter with a barely polite curtsy. Joyhinia was sitting by the fire, an open book on her lap. The room was uncomfortably hot. Although the bitter winds of autumn had begun to swirl through the streets of the Citadel, today had been unseasonably warm. Joyhinia preferred the heat. She looked up, closing the book carefully.
“You may go now, Hella.”
The maid curtsied and let herself out. Joyhinia studied R’shiel’s new gray Probate’s tunic for a moment before looking her in the eye.
“Well?”
R’shiel shook her head. This ritual had been going on for years now. Every Restday, when R’shiel arrived for their weekly dinner, Joyhinia met her with the same question. At first, when R’shiel was younger, Joyhinia had asked the whole question: “Well, have you had your menses yet?” As the years dragged on and nothing happened, the question had become abbreviated to a short, impatient “Well?” She had seen every physic in the Citadel, and none could give her a reason why she had not begun her cycle. All her friends had reached their time before they were fifteen. R’shiel had just turned eighteen, and although she had every other physical sign of womanhood, she remained amenorrheic. She wished Joyhinia would stop asking her.
Joyhinia shook her head impatiently at her reply. “Gray is not your color,” she remarked, placing the book carefully on the side table. “You looked much better in the Green, with that red hair.”
“I shall try to become a Sister as fast as I can, Mother. Perhaps the Blue will suit me better.”
Joyhinia either did not notice the edge in her voice or chose to ignore it. “If you applied yourself, there is no reason you couldn’t get through the two years as a Probate in one,” she said thoughtfully.
“I was joking, Mother.”
Joyhinia looked at her sharply. “I wasn’t.”
“Shall I pour the wine?” R’shiel walked to the long, polished table, which was already set with dinner, and picked up the decanter. It was time to get off the topic of her academic progress. That route could lead to awkward questions R’shiel did not want to answer.
“So, have you moved into the Probates’ Dormitories yet?”
“Last Fourthday. I’m sharing with Junee Riverson.”
Joyhinia frowned. “Riverson? I don’t know the name. Where is she from?”
“Her family come from Brodenvale. They started out as fisherfolk on the Glass River. Her father’s quite a wealthy merchant now. She’s the first in her family to be accepted into the Sisterhood.”
Joyhinia sipped her wine and shook her head. “I’ll have you assigned to a room with someone more appropriate. The daughter of another Sister, at the very least.”
“I don’t want to be moved. I like Junee.”
“I really don’t care what you like, young lady. I’ll not have you rooming with some river peasant from Brodenvale.”
“We are all equal in the Sisterhood.” At least that was what the Sisters of the Blade espoused.
“There is equal, and there is equal,” Joyhinia replied.
“If you interfere with my rooming assignment, everyone will know,” she pointed out, handing Joyhinia her wine. “There is already a suspicion that I’ve only succeeded so far due to your influence. If you change my room for a better one, that suspicion will become fact.” To be more accurate, the suspicion was that were she not the daughter of a Quorum member she would have been thrown out of the Novices long ago, but Joyhinia did not need to be reminded of that.
Joyhinia glared at her for a moment, before relenting. “Very well, you may stay with your pet peasant. But don’t come crying to me when you can no longer stand her screeching accent or her infrequent bathing habits.”
R’shiel was not fool enough to gloat over this minor triumph. “I promise I shall suffer the consequences of my foolishness in silence, Mother.”
“Good,” Joyhinia agreed. It was odd how her mother only ever seemed truly pleased with her when she was able to outwit her. “Now let’s eat before the roast cools.”
R’shiel took her place at the table as Joyhinia lit the candles from a taper. The walls had dimmed to about a quarte
r of their daytime luminosity, and the candles did little to light the room. R’shiel waited until her mother was seated before she lifted the domed silver cover off her plate. It was roast pork, accompanied by a variety of autumn vegetables. The pork was tender and pale, and smothered in rich gravy. The sight of it made R’shiel’s stomach turn.
“What’s the matter?”
R’shiel glanced at her mother, wondering if she should say something about the meat. It smelled off, but then most meat did these days. Then again, she was probably wrong. She had warned her friends about eating meat that she could have sworn was rancid, only to find they considered it perfectly sound.
“Nothing,” R’shiel replied, picking up her fork. “It looks wonderful.”
“It should,” Joyhinia grumbled. “It took enough effort to arrange. You would think I’d asked for some exotic Fardohnyan seafood dish, the way the cooks carried on when I ordered pork. You’d better eat every bite, or I’ll never hear the end of it.”
With a grimace R’shiel cut into her meat. They ate in silence, R’shiel forcing down every swallow. Joyhinia appeared to be enjoying the meal. If there had been even a hint of taint on the meat, she would have sent it back to the kitchens with a blistering reprimand for the cooks.
Finally, Joyhinia put down her fork and studied R’shiel across the table. “Jacomina says you missed class three times this week.”
“I wasn’t feeling well.” Having her mother’s closest ally as the Mistress of Enlightenment was proving rather uncomfortable. Mahina had never reported half the things she got up to. “I’ve been getting headaches. They seem to get better if I rest.”
“Have you seen a physic?” Joyhinia had no patience with illness or invalids.
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