Raed grinned, but it was a bleak expression with no comfort in it. “Who knows what she was trying to do, Merrick, but now we are all stuck. Not much else we can do but go on.”
The three of them did, indeed, have no choice. Garil would tell them no more, though Merrick was sure that the elder Sensitive had Seen paths of both success and devastation ahead of them. He had brought them back from the Otherside, and his part for now had apparently been played as he had Seen.
“So, what is the plan?” Raed asked, his hand curling around the hilt of his saber. “Are we just charging in?”
“Hopefully, just walking,” Sorcha replied mildly, though she sang with tension through the Bond. Unlike Merrick, she might not remember the glimpse of the geist realm, but the body and soul did.
“With all these Sensitives around?” the Pretender asked.
Sorcha’s lips twitched. “In the history of the Order, no one has ever breached a Mother Abbey. Those few on watch will have their Sight fixed on the walls.”
“And the others?”
She raised a finger to her lips. “I strongly suggest silence.”
They slipped out into the frosty night air where their cart stood. The donkey was mercifully quiet, his head drooping slightly as he chewed on scruffy lavender that grew against the wall. Avoiding the loud white gravel of the paths, they followed alongside them farther into the complex, toward the Abbey itself.
It had been only a few short weeks since the two Deacons had walked here with all the possession of belonging. Now every tiny noise made Merrick’s heart leap. He could, of course, send his Center out, but then their chances of being detected would be even greater. To any Sensitive, another’s Center would be a bright beacon, and would be bound to invite investigation in the quiet of night.
Instead, they had to rely on soft footsteps and low breath to get them deeper in. They kept to the shadows of the gardens and worked their way toward the side entrances. Above them towered the shape of the Devotional, the tallest building in Vermillion—not even the magnificent Imperial Palace stood as high and proud. The great spire blocked out sections of the stars like some ancient giant; that which had been so comforting to Merrick now seemed to loom over him like a disapproving parent.
The cool feel of the wall cut like ice against his back as they took their bearings before entering.
“Guards within?” Raed’s whisper sounded loud in the still silence.
Sorcha shook her head mutely, unable to meet the Pretender’s eyes. They might have been manipulated into this Bond, but Merrick could feel the strength in it. She had woven the Bond with Raed as casually as she had with Merrick, but it was as deep and as powerful as any he had studied. If he concentrated, he could actually feel the Rossin hidden with Raed, like a coiled darkness waiting to be set loose among them.
For a second, the Beast looked back at him, with ancient eyes that surveyed him as if he were an insect. Merrick broke away with a little gasp.
The Pretender, with no trained senses, was already moving toward the door. Merrick had to hurry to catch up with the other two as they lifted the bar and slipped into the Abbey. It was colder inside than outside. Merrick’s breath fluttered white in front of his eyes.
Hunched low, they ran up the nave toward the rear of the Devotional, where a series of doors led to the living quarters of the Arch Abbot and the Presbyters. Out of the corner of his eye, Merrick saw something twist like a glimpse of ash blowing through the air, and instinct made him grab hold of both his companions. He yanked hard, since yelling would have only echoed down the stone Devotional like a gunshot.
No one ever expected Sensitives to be physical—but like the Actives they had their own training regime. Geists were supposed to ignore Sensitives, but that didn’t mean that humans always would, and geists were not the only threats a Deacon faced. The other two jerked to a halt, and he pressed them down among the pews with a hand on each of their backs.
Something white was indeed floating in the opposite direction from them, only a few feet away. He could barely believe it—there had not been any geists, any shades, in the Abbey, since the first few days after their arrival. And yet there it was; a shade in the deepest sanctuary of the Order. The pale, flickering form lit up a corner of the vast building with a shifting blue-white light, a shimmering flutter to normal eyes. But when Merrick used his Sight, he could make out far more detail. What he Saw took his breath away.
The face, tilted slightly upward toward the rose window, was bone-white and skeletal, so the victim was long dead. But it was the robes it wore—the cloak of a Deacon—that appalled him. He could make out the hint of blue about the clothing, through the Sight, and when it turned, even the glimpse of gold could be made out at the shade’s shoulder. It was the mark of an Order, indeed, but a graceful circle encompassed the five bright stars, rather than the fist and eye of the newcomers from Delmaire. The stars were the symbol of the native Order, the one that had destroyed itself nearly seventy years before the Emperor and his Arch Abbot had come across the water.
Raed’s eyes widened and Merrick knew why. The Rossin twitched, stirring with that hidden part of the Pretender. The thought of the Beast loose in the Abbey was a nightmare that Merrick couldn’t let become real.
The younger man called not on his training, but on his past. He whispered across the Bond, words of comfort and calm—the words of a mother to a restless child; soothing balm to a creature not even human. And they worked. Sorcha might not have known what she was doing when she made that Bond, but there was no doubting the strength of her work.
The geist was so close they could have reached out for it. Merrick’s partner, crouched at his side, twisted under his grip. The Active training was kicking in, and she reached for her Gauntlets. Grabbing her hand, Merrick shook his head firmly. This is not the place. Words were getting easier to send.
This was the type of Bond that Deacons dreamed of; a true symbiotic partnership, and yet Merrick was scared by the reality of what it could mean. He recalled dark tales of such closeness, taught to Sensitives in those special history lessons no Active was ever allowed to attend. History could well be repeating itself.
He couldn’t think of those possibilities now. Merrick flicked his head upward and risked opening his Center. The geist was moving away from them. He found he was squeezing Sorcha’s hand tightly—half to keep her from reaching her Gauntlets and half to steady himself. It was strange what a couple of weeks could do. The man terrified of his own partner was long gone. He’d seen enough in the intervening time to give him far more to worry about than Sorcha.
He probed gently toward the geist with as little Sight as he could open. This one had no sign of self-awareness and was merely operating on a single track, probably a repeat of its living habits. It might not belong here, but it was not inherently evil. He gestured his two companions on, toward the Arch Abbot’s quarters. They could not dare a cleansing until things were clearer.
The hallways were still deserted, but they had only a few scant hours until novices would be about. Some kinds of training required darkness, and the moments before the sun rose were often the best times for new recruits to glimpse a little of the Otherside, the boundary being at its weakest.
Together, the three of them padded through the corridors to the door. It looked just as it had last time Merrick had been here. He recalled standing nervously outside this very portal, waiting to go in and find out if he had passed the test to be accepted into the Order. However, it had been nothing like the nerves he was feeling at this moment. The pounding in his chest and the sweat on his brow were matched only by the tremble in his hand as he reached out for the door handle.
Inside was the small antechamber where the Arch Abbot’s secretary slept. Their entry was quiet, until Sorcha managed to trip over a small stool in the half-light. And then she swore. The clattering and the exclamation broke the silence like a rock dropped into a still pool. Merrick winced, sure that they were about to be discove
red.
All that came from the niche by the window was a gentle snore. Sorcha straightened as the three of them shared a cautiously hopeful glance. She stepped over the stool and walked to the sleeping secretary. Merrick joined her. It was easy enough to see, even without Sight. A silver pattern gleamed on the lay Brother’s forehead.
A cantrip! Merrick couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. A cantrip used on a Deacon, even a lay one, seemed impossible.
Sorcha shrugged in his direction and he saw a wry smile on her lips. Cantrips, like many of the lesser magics, were only barely taught to novices. If they wanted to learn them, it was generally done in their own time, and yet here was one blatantly used in the very hallowed halls of the Arch Abbot. Merrick bent to look it at a little closer. It was indeed the curled spiral of the cantrip for sleep.
What that could mean, he couldn’t say. “Are you ready for this?” Sorcha’s words were flat and void of emotion. He wanted to say no. He wanted to tell her that this was a mad idea, and they should turn around and go back. Yet what other choice did they have? They were hunted, and come morning there would be nowhere for them to hide. Without the Arch Abbot clearing their names, they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Sorcha read these thoughts in him. He read her thoughts reading his. For a moment, they were seamless. One creature reflected in itself. That creature felt its own power. That creature wanted answers.
TWENTY-ONE
All Is But Mere Flesh
Merrick pressed his ear to the door, cocking his head and listening to something that the Pretender could not hear. Sorcha’s blue eyes were turned toward him, gleaming and unnaturally bright in the half-light.
Part of Raed wanted to touch her, reach out and reclaim some of that heady magic that had grown between them on the dirigible. The other part of him, the royal rebel, was still seething with anger.
He’d been chained his whole life to a curse that he hadn’t had any part in causing. The knowledge that he was responsible for his own mother’s death was a nightmare he also could never escape. To be tied unwillingly to anyone, let alone the woman he found himself falling in love with, was a terrible blow. He had yet to decide if he could forgive her.
He wondered if she knew how close she had come to waking the Rossin when she’d tried to break that unsanctioned Bond. The Beast was not far away; that much he could feel. Sorcha’s attempt at un-Binding, and then the hint of geist presence, had enflamed the Rossin. It yearned to rampage through the Mother Abbey—nothing would have given it more pleasure. The image of ripping Deacons limb from limb as they slumbered tasted delicious to the stirring Beast.
“Sorcha.” He touched her shoulder, and the gesture, meant as nothing more than a warning, flared into something more. His body responded to her nearness even as the Rossin howled for her blood. “What is your plan, exactly?”
Her smile was a ghostly flicker of a happier one. “This is my Arch Abbot, Raed. He will set things right.”
Could the Arch Abbot negate the bounty on the Pretender’s head? Unlikely. But he was here now, and they had to find out what the conspirators had in mind for the people of Vermillion. His capital, even if he might never claim it.
Raed straightened as if he were one of his father’s soldiers. “Then after you, milady.” He gestured to the open door as if it were the portal to a throne room.
She drew in a little, shaky breath, a combination of what she was no doubt sensing across the Bond and the weight of the terrible situation. He followed on her heels. Inside was even more deathly quiet.
Raed might have thought a lot of things about the Arch Abbot from across the sea, but after seeing his bedchamber, he would not think him ostentatious. The cell was as bare as a sunbaked rock. The domed roof gave the impression of one of those isolated cells that communing Deacons sometimes took to in the wilds, and the furnishings were nearly as sparse as a hermit’s. One niche contained two hard-backed chairs, a tapestry-covered stool and a carved wooden table; the other niche on the far side looked to serve as a sleeping area. Merrick was already there, standing above the rumpled blankets. It was obvious that the Arch Abbot wasn’t in.
Sorcha was frowning and turning about slowly, as if she expected the man to emerge out of the shadows—but there was no one else present. Nor were there any doors apart from the one they had come in through.
“Looks like he is not receiving guests right now,” Raed muttered, folding his arms and trying to calm the yammering of his chest; he knew it was related to the Beast’s desire for chaos.
Sorcha pushed back the thin blankets as if she expected to find him curled up in there somewhere. “Something must have happened to him,” she muttered with real concern in her tone.
“Not prone to nighttime wanderings, is he?” Raed couldn’t help the sharp tone in his voice. The Deacons had been so sure that coming here would solve everything.
“Not at all,” Merrick whispered, leaning back against the cool stone with a ragged sigh. “The Arch Abbot is always supposed to be available, should the realm ever need him.”
“Someone put that cantrip on the secretary,” Sorcha hissed back. “I think he’s been kidnapped.”
Raed was about to ask who would have the power to do such a thing, but then he thought of what they had faced back in Ulrich—and swallowed the question.
“What’s that?” Merrick raised himself off the wall by his elbows, his chin pointed up toward the ceiling. Raed strode over to stand next to him, determined not to be left out of any further discoveries—he had a real stake in all of this now. Sorcha and Merrick scrambled onto the Arch Abbot’s bed so that they could trace the strange shapes.
Indecipherable letters were scrawled on the ceiling of the alcove. Raed was no expert, but they did seem familiar. He’d spent many years in exile as a child, being schooled by the aristocrats who had chosen to go with their king, and he had learned many languages and many stories. These words seemed on the very edge of his understanding. They looked similar in construction to the Brytsling tribesmen’s language of the far north, but also similar to the Edgic letters of the warm swamps of the south. He was just beginning to figure out the pronunciation when Merrick, closer in years to his scholarship, whispered the sounds that had been forming in the Pretender’s mouth.
“Taouilt.” He blinked hard. “Isn’t that the word for—”
The grating of stone against stone bought the words to a halt in his mouth. The raised dais of the bed was beginning to shift. The two Deacons leapt down hastily.
“Hidden.” Merrick finished his sentence softly as the stairs leading downward slotted neatly into formation.
Sorcha grinned brightly. “Arch Abbot Hastler is trying to help us—he must have been able to scrawl that before they got him away.”
Raed ran his fingers across his beard and considered. He did not like the idea of blindly going down those stairs. They seemed a little too convenient for his liking. But they had come this far, and it wasn’t as though they could just go back the way they had passed. He would have said something but he knew it would matter little; if there was one person Sorcha Faris believed in, it was Arch Abbot Hastler. Instead he swallowed his suspicions and determined to be on his guard, even if his companions were not.
He placed his foot on the topmost step and turned to look back at the Deacons. “Well, let’s find the old man.”
He wanted to hold out his hand to Sorcha, and in fact half raised it toward her, but then remembered his anger. He tucked the hand instead into his belt as smoothly as possible. This was going to make a difficult situation even worse. Everything about this was wrong. He wasn’t meant to be on land. He wasn’t meant to be falling in love with a Deacon who had betrayed him. Vermillion should have been his city.
Raed let out a little sigh. They’d whispered that into his ear since his birth, but he’d never really believed in it. Still, others had, and he felt responsible for them and their hopes. What would happen if he died here, though? The vision of his g
reen-eyed sister, so fragile and happy, flashed in his memory. He knew the answer—she would be the heir, and the Curse would fall on her.
Raed disliked the atmosphere. As they descended, it filled his lungs like buckets of ice. The steps were wetter the deeper they went, and in Vermillion they surely couldn’t go very far down. The lagoon couldn’t be too far below them. He wiped moisture off the back of his neck. The lantern Merrick had taken from above cast orange light about them as they reached the bottom.
If the Abbey above was huge, below was just as vast; it was a cathedral of the earth. Soaring limestone walls leapt above them to meet in smooth vaulted arches, while great caramel-colored decorations swooped down at some points, almost resembling gargoyles. Merrick’s small lantern was not the only light now. Vast patches of glowing blue lichens covered the swells of limestone like fine tapestries, filling the intricate crevices with a soft light. Everywhere was the sound of water and the feeling of moisture on the face. For a second, the Pretender stood still in the unexpected beauty of it. A secret world that a man of the sea could never have dreamed existed.
“Did you know this was down here?” Raed asked softly as they looked about.
“No.” Sorcha’s whispered reply did not go far, swallowed up by the vastness and not returned.
The more scholarly Merrick looked just as surprised. “I’ve never even heard a rumor of it, but this place must have been known by the native Order; the stair mechanism would never have been put in easily by the Arch Abbot. Not in complete secrecy.”
Somehow the way he said “native” sounded ominous to Raed’s ears. He knew as much, if not more, than they could know about the Order that had once occupied the halls above their heads. His family and Arkaym’s native Order had been as intertwined as two snakes, sometimes mating and other times fighting. Those Deacons had originally claimed to be benefiting the people of the continent, just like these new ones. However, they had fallen into corruption, and not all of it political.
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