“I thought the only way I could help them was to throw as much confusion into the remaining ritual as possible. I hoped to lose the four sisters amongst something worse, to so riotously upend the ceremony, everyone would be forgiven. Every sister that was near, I tried to drop, scare, or influence into violence. You can imagine how Vesna reacted. There was pandemonium at the end: the youngest sisters who were farthest away were crying; the child initiates were fainting; the floors were covered in salt; the blade was repeatedly lost then found in the commotion, rising in a fist to be taken down by a rumbling command; the mothers were trying to instill calm over Vesna’s love of the shackle; and through it all, I was either screaming or rolling threats. It was already mayhem when Master Aidan became aware.
“He truly had not suspected this would happen,” she told Orson. To the General she said, “You have only just begun to see the Cloitare, but to understand them, you must understand Aidan. He is a master of the mind, the only master the Cloitare knows. He is the original thought, the mind that first allowed travel. At the time of this ritual, my mind was very nearly as perfect as his, but I lacked the experience to be even a fraction as powerful. It didn’t matter. For Aidan, I was a tool.
“He moved in and from my mouth came blinding white authority to stop. But his command was following my dark terror and Vesna had already acted again to end it. Aidan was wrapped in my pain, lost in my scream, and couldn’t prevail over my voice. Vesna knew she would lose if she didn’t keep him trapped, and she was set on expelling me from the Cloitare. She was gathering and focusing the minds of the mothers, keeping Aidan submerged with the shackle, but she couldn’t shatter a mind she couldn’t reach, so she had to let me surface, which brought Aidan into the room. He demanded silence, but she struck hard with the full force of the mothers and then put us back under with the shackle. When she again relented, I returned to find everything slow, the water of my mind freezing over. She struck again before Aidan could speak. She was striking to chip away my voice, and because of the shackle, Aidan could neither get through nor out. The wide open waters of my mind were turning to ice, so to save me, Aidan tried to drown me, taking me deep into the dark, but Vesna had the control to stop it. The two were tearing me in different directions and I kept returning to a more shattered landscape until the only thing I could recognize was Aidan.
“I was trying to hide behind him, or within him, and out of desperation, he showed me something, something at the margin where the black meets the light, a way to escape.” Sable furrowed her brow in the same lost way the General had seen a number of times before, when she was confused about how she had arrived at some unexpected place. “He reminded me how to travel past the distance through time to something else.” She was squinting to focus far away. “It was a different type of night and I can almost remember the way back.” She searched harder, saying, “It was a trick of memory in the dark,” but then, unable to find it, she frowned and returned her sight to the room.
“The four sisters were safe while Aidan remained, but once he had me united with Remy, he returned to the unreachable silence where I cannot find him. I call for him to help, but the distance is empty and there is no direction to throw my plea.”
Orson still held her hand and ran his thumb across the scar. “Why are you calling him?”
Sable laughed without humor. “Your son has not told you I am mad?”
She’d previously had two facial expressions: laughing irreverence and a cold calm that always threatened to fall into the Stare. He’d seen more emotions cross her face in the last hour than in all the years he’d trained her. He asked sincerely, “Are you?”
Eventually she dropped his gaze, but the silence continued. She knew the answer, and part of her wanted to toss it off breezily for the General to confirm, but she was too tired for levity, too tired to have committed to such a serious conversation as well. “When I went to get the sisters out of the cells, I took the axe off the wall in a mind of fixed purpose. It was to kill Vesna.” She looked deeper into her lap. “But I got a little carried away.”
Theo sat back at the understatement.
“I killed three mothers before Vesna, and then I killed another four when they challenged my authority.”
Orson covered her wrist so it would not affect his judgment. “These mothers could have prevented you from freeing the sisters?”
At first he knew her silence was not obstinance, she was thinking, but then having the answer, she did not want to share, so he waited. She finally sank with the admission, “I did not give them the opportunity to try. The first two mothers followed me to the cellar, harassing me down the stairs, telling me I had no right to interfere or enter the cells. When they barred access to the entrance, I gave them no warning to stand clear. I swung the axe and cleaved from jugular to heart, and then freed the blade to swing again and stop the second’s command to be still.” Sable lifted her head without remorse. “Then I saw what they’d done to Amele. After Aidan left, she had no protection. She looked like she’d been beaten, but for all the times I had ever been mentally knocked to the floor, and save for the ritual with the blade, I had never known the nuns to be physically abusive. I asked the sisters, ‘Did they hit you?’ and Ava told me, ‘They made us hit each other.’ She looked at Amele and told me, ‘We thought she was Vesna.’” Mania twitched the corners of Sable’s eyes.
“When the sisters shrank back to see Vesna and four more mothers enter the cellar, I could not have granted the mothers mercy if they begged. While they took in the scene of the two dead nuns, I readied the axe again so there would be no doubt of what I intended. I put the axe into a swinging arc and the mothers quickly united. With one voice, they demanded me ‘Down,’ and the sisters behind me fell, but so too did the momentum in the blade, dropping into the nearest mother. I explained, ‘Things work a little different in a mind that’s been shattered,’ and with the blade stuck in the mother’s shoulder and chest, I pulled her forward to the ground and used my foot against the handle to hammer the blade through her ribs, clarifying further, ‘Many things just slip straight through the broken spaces.’
“Not understanding how I was unaffected, the mothers started backing for the steps. They were rumbling cold, bringing light, trying to slow and chill my advancement, but I was growling back dark heat. They tried again united, ordering me ‘Down,’ and when I smiled at the attempt, they broke and ran for the stairs.”
Lowering her eyes, Sable slowly rolled and wet her lips like she was tasting the memory to come. She said, “I’m afraid you will find me inexcusably cruel. I willfully ignored the third tenet so I could enjoy Vesna’s fear.”
The General tried to remember the tenets of the Wind. Uncertain he had them in the correct order, he asked, “The third?”
She gave the answer with respect to Orson, “The purpose of picking up a blade is to cut the enemy.”
Orson nodded once.
“I used the blade less to cut than to grab Vesna from behind, propelling it around and then pulling it back to catch her in the guts with the lower corner of the edge. Once I had her hooked, I stepped in to wrap my left hand around her waist, gripping the top wedge, and then together with the handle, I yanked the axe head deep into her core.” Sable acknowledged, “I was cruel,” and after a moment, “but I wasn’t done. I knew the wound I gave her was mortal, but the death would be protracted, and there was time for her tell me the Cloitare’s plans.”
The General was unaware he had been pressing back into the couch until her words pulled him forward with interest.
“She was panicking, trying to stem the blood, and hysterically berating, ‘You were never more than an anodyne dream and now look what you’ve done.’ I swung her to face the sisters, reminding her, ‘I warned you not to hurt them.’ Then I gathered the blackest night, drawing it over us to hide in the deepest shadows. ‘Quiet,’ I told her until we lost the other mothers in a mind without light, and then, when it was only she and I, and it was too dark
to see, I spoke to her as the ghost she had slain. ‘I swore on my knees at the altar where you held me that I would kill you. It was an oath you made me make in my own blood. And now I have returned to give you the promised blade.’ In her ear, I whispered, ‘Your life is void.’ She was shaking in dismay, simpering fear because the truth of it was clear. But I wanted her smothering in despair, so I pulled regret into the dark, strangling her with the remorse of failed ambitions, torturing with, ‘There were still so many things you wanted to do, so many intentions left undone.’ The loss of the years left her whimpering. I told her, ‘Look at the blood that cups in your hands,’ and when she did, I asked, ‘Was I worth it?’ But I didn’t wait for her to answer. I buried her in desolation, letting her believe she was alone, waiting for the terror to escape her mouth as a long, petrified cry.”
Sable could not keep the malign brutality from showing as pleasure on her face. “Vesna thought she had known fear,” a moan rolled in her throat, “but then I joined her.”
Reliving the mental hysterics as Vesna writhed to get away, Sable lowered her head and covered her mouth to conceal her enjoyment. She tried to control her pulse, wanting to make it sedate, unaffected, telling herself, Slow. Slow. Calm the fuck down.
But when she pulled herself upright, Orson could see she was crazed. He strained to hear her continue. Leaning into a hoarse whisper that seized his imagination, her voice drew him in to force the impression on his mind. “I took her to where I began, to the black, and on the edge, I held her, showing her the drop, and then threatening to loosen my grip, to pitch her into the void, I tipped us forward without balance.”
Orson felt himself teetering on the precipice and groaned to shake off the image.
Sable wrapped her hand around his neck to pull them closer, her voice lower, “I wanted her to see and tell me if I was still an imposter.”
Changing the way he held her wrist, he motioned with his braced hand for his son not to come farther forward.
“I’ve never known, I’ve always doubted, and there was never a skeptic I could show that could endure it. But Vesna, if I took her deep and lost her or dropped her, her suffering would be too brief.” Sable’s hushed voice reverberated across the bones in his face: “I showed her the black abyss that cuts through my mind.”
Orson gasped. Reeling away from the chasm, he lost his equilibrium so that his head dropped onto her shoulder, but still he vehemently gestured for Theo to wait.
Nothing more than a subtle murmur, she laid her cheek against his to tell him, “I didn’t know if I could hold her in the fall.”
Afraid she planned to step straight off the cliff, Orson pushed back, assuring, “Sable, I don’t need to see the depths.”
She clutched harder, following his retreat, “Do you want to know what she saw?”
“Tell me but don’t show me.”
Her breath shuddered against his neck, laboring to change, her voice adding volume but no more releasing him than her grip. “Vesna only knew the weightless floating of the light. She had never fallen heavy through the night, feeling the pressure of air parting, wind wailing, wanting to scream through the descent but too choked by heat and drenched with dread to find her breath. ‘You had so many plans,’ I told her. ‘Feel them shear off your mind, slipping away into waste.’ And like rocks off a breaking ledge, they crumbled, dropping faster than she could save them. Clinging to me, but reaching for what was being lost, I made her choose when I released her to plummet.”
Orson swayed. Digging his fingers into her shoulder for support, he began to bend her hand into her arm.
“On the rushing air, I heard her pleas to be saved. Once again entwined, I warned her, ‘If you do not free yourself of this deadly moment, when we hit, you will break, you will shatter as I did.’ Then I showed her the ragged bottom.”
Through the punch of panic, Orson blocked Theo’s reach for the hand Sable had around his throat.
She kept whispering, “‘If you hope to survive, we must move into the future.’ Then wrapping her tight so a shriek of fear was pushed from her lungs, I dropped us with careless speed through the dark.”
Already falling, he lost stability and plunged even faster. The contents of his stomach rose to his mouth. He didn’t think he could be heard over the blasting gale, but then—piercing sound—Sable’s sharp cry cut through the blind dive.
Recognizing the control Orson threatened against her wrist, her voice broke with the sound of concession under duress. She bent with his direction, words rising not to be muffled against his chest. “Slow. Slow. We are not falling,” she pleaded to be heard. “The light of the fire reveals this is true.”
Out of the dark and back in his home, Orson had no sooner relented than Sable straightened to start again. “Mother Vesna maintained a single ambition.” Still locked around his neck, she stared into his eyes. “Can you see it?”
Swallowing against sickness, “Sable, I am not Master Aidan.”
“You are always so close to being a conscious witness.” She pressed again, but he remained closed. “The future has no place for kings. Do you see the palace?” She pulled once more at Orson’s attention, whispering, “It is dark. What light shines flickers from flames. But not disaster. Look, it is wax. They’ve ripped out the electrics. Look, Master Orson,” she demanded, yanking firm to pull him in. “See through me. Do you see the queen?” Sable pressed the image into his mind. “A mother in robes with a veiled crown for a headdress. See through the veil. Her features are mine and Remy’s. The children beside her all girls, all robed, all hers. There are no kings in the future. Only Queen Mothers. And I am the Mother of them All.”
~~~~~~
The future Sable showed him felt grim. The image of the Queen Mother surrounded by her robed children all staring with dead eyes was unnervingly sinister. Orson shivered off the touch of cold and turned to his son. “If the Cloitare come to rule, they will take the country back to the impoverished past.”
The General told Sable, “We must keep your children away from the clergy.”
“Perhaps it would have been that simple,” but she twisted her mouth to show it was unlikely. “I think, though, by the time that daughter was old enough to be taken as a novice, Remy would have been killed, you as well, or in no better a position to help than your father. And I …” She looked away. “I saw my future. I was overwhelmed to the point of mindless, having bowed to accept the title Mother of All.” She told Orson, “Before Vesna slipped through my hold, I asked her how they could possibly hope to make me accept the title and Vesna said, ‘A mother will do anything for her child.’” Sable’s expression turned severe. She became ruthless. “Well that future is over. I have changed it. I had myself sterilized. There will be no children.”
The General rocked as though the room had been moved.
Orson could only ask, “Sable?” wondering what she had done.
“The clergy do not yet know. Neither does Remy. But the future has been irrevocably altered.” Now she was at a loss. “When the mothers find out …” Sable left the idea hanging with trepidation. “What are they going to do? They will change the meaning of the prophecy to fit their ambitions, but how? I took the lead, but I don’t know where I have taken us. None of this was supposed to have happened,” she reminded Orson.
The General had heard none of her concerns. He was still reeling. He declared as fact, “It can be reversed.”
“From the incinerator?” she scoffed. She was once more harsh with finality, “I wasn’t fucking around. The option is gone. Removed. No need to consider it further.”
Disbelief made him look her over. “When?” He hoped she was lying. “How?” But he knew she was nuts. “What did you do?”
“You’ll remember that Remy did not speak to me for over six weeks. In the first weeks, I left Ava in my room after dinner and went to a clinic in Alena. Your people that follow me are not very aware; one nun looks much the same as another to them. I was back by the next evening.”
She shrugged as though it was nothing. “No one thought I had left my rooms.” When he still appeared to be in doubt, she became impatient. “You need to accept that it will become known I am sterile. The public does not need to know why. Catherine will turn it to some advantage and a surrogate will be found to have the King’s heirs. Understand,” she stressed, “anyone can have the King’s children, but only I could have Queen Mothers. The whole future the clergy imagined is now ashes.”
“So too are the plans we made.” Orson turned her hand to study the palm. He told his son, “It was always a possibility Sable would be captured, and for such events we prepared.” From the beginning, he had been particularly careful with this topic, concerned Sable would see through his excuses to discover what he taught was not a contingency plan but as fixed as his commitment to return her to the Cloitare. “She was meant to forget her pride, act humble, and gain the mothers’ trust.” To Sable he said, “You have given yourself away.”
Silently she agreed. She picked up the bracelet again to cover her wrist, but Orson still would not release her hand. She was apologetic. “I lost all perspective.”
“No, pet, I am not finding you at fault. What happened is beyond such criticisms. But the battlefield in no way resembles anything we devised, and from behind your own lines, you just indiscriminately set the field alight.” He smiled at his son still in shock. “Sable is the worst strategist with the poorest judgment I have ever taught, but on this she was correct. She took the lead to stop the enemy from leading.” With affection, he squeezed her hand. “I could not have asked you to do it, but—”
Sable called him short with blunt familiarity, “Yes, you could have and you would have. We are agreed on the goal.” She said flatly, “Win by any means.”
Orson lowered his head with respect. “The second tenet is uncompromising.”
“And now?” Sable asked sincerely. “I held my resolve through the worst of it but was still tricked into saying yes in the end. There was no plan for outside the convent. None of this was meant to happen. And maybe you’ve noticed, but I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Sister Sable (The Mad Queen Book 1) Page 28
