A muttered croak drew my attention. A white raven was watching me from the window, its feathers ruffled in annoyance. Its eyes were black, but as I looked closer, I realized that they weren’t lightless—they glittered with thousands upon thousands of stars.
“Artemisia,” it cawed, scolding me. “Artemisia!”
I startled awake in a small, whitewashed chamber, the raven’s voice still ringing in my ears. At first I thought I was back in the tower where Sarathiel had imprisoned me, and had confused my dreams with waking reality. But I didn’t recognize the view out the window, its shutters thrown wide: a green mountain landscape, the shadows of clouds racing over fir-covered slopes. A bell rang out the first hour of the afternoon, and when it stopped, I heard prayers being sung in deep voices. Slowly, my memories began to reorient themselves. My breathing stilled.
“Revenant?” I asked, not daring to hope.
“I’m here, nun,” it said.
I shot up, the coverlet knotted in my hands, joy flooding my heart like a sunrise. I had never imagined its hideous voice would sound so welcome.
“Before you say something embarrassing, you should know that we aren’t alone.”
I turned to find Mother Dolours sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. My joy instantly gave way to cold, drenching terror. Marguerite had explained things to her. How much, exactly, had she explained?
By now, the abbess had to suspect my relationship with the revenant. She might even know I had used Old Magic.
Incongruously, she was darning a hole in a stocking. I got the impression that, like me, she was the kind of person who wasn’t used to sitting idle. She would start going mad without a task to keep herself occupied. As though sensing my thoughts, she looked up.
“We are in the monastery of Saint Barnabas, in the far east of Roischal,” she said calmly. “You could have recovered in Bonsaint, but I thought it wiser to bring you to a place where fewer casualties would result if Rathanael suddenly began to feel less cooperative. The sisters will survive without me in the meantime, I trust.”
I couldn’t hold back the question any longer. “What are you going to do about the revenant?” I blurted.
The chair creaked as she leaned back. She eyed me keenly. “Do I need to do something about it?” she inquired.
A shiver gripped me. I couldn’t help wondering whether she had known the truth since the moment I had arrived in her convent and had been watching me the entire time. I found that I couldn’t meet her eyes. I felt as though I might see something in them if I did: a fathomless night sky, glittering with stars.
“Oh, don’t look so alarmed, child,” she said brusquely. “We had a nice long talk while you were sleeping, Rathanael and I. The Lady spared Rathanael for a reason, and I’m not going to argue with Her about it. She and I already butt heads enough as it is. These days I find I have to pick my battles, or I would never have time for anything else.”
I opened my mouth, closed it again. I suspected there was much more Mother Dolours wasn’t telling me. Had the revenant possessed me at some point while I had been unconscious to talk to her? I didn’t find the idea disturbing. But it struck me that Mother Dolours should have. She should have found it extremely disturbing. She should have performed an exorcism on me on the spot. What had the revenant said to her?
She had resumed darning the stocking. “Not everyone believes in wielding relics by force,” she remarked. “There is power that is taken, and there is power that is freely given. I’ll let you figure out what I mean by that on your own.”
My eyes went to her relics. She couldn’t possibly mean that she had befriended her own spirits. But it also seemed unlikely that Marguerite and I were the only ones to ever walk that path. And the way she had used her wretchling relic in the infirmary—tirelessly, effortlessly, almost as though it were cooperating with her…
Stunned, I watched her reach down to feel around in her darning basket. She grunted and drew out something that winked gold in the light. Crossing the room, she handed me Saint Eugenia’s reliquary. The revenant’s relief left me dizzy.
“If you’re to keep this, they’ll want you to become a vespertine,” she said gruffly. “You’ll have to put up with the robes and the duties, neither of which will suit you, I expect. You’ll find out soon enough that the trappings of high office exist for no reason at all except to keep people from being too effective at their jobs, which is a great inconvenience for the Clerisy.”
I looked up at her and back down at the reliquary, like a child handed a gift that might get snatched away at any moment. Then I paused, frowning, and sniffed it. “Where was it?” I asked.
She snorted. “Your friend Marguerite hid it in an empty pot of lard in the infirmary.”
The revenant shuddered, but I regarded Marguerite with new appreciation. Back in Naimes, I had been instructed to rub lard on my hands every night before bed to help soften my scars, a process that she had gloomily endured with watering eyes and a wrinkled nose. I would have neglected the treatment if not for the unknown sister who had pointedly set the jar on my coverlet every evening. She had kept up the habit every night for years.
At least, I had assumed it was a sister. Suddenly, I wasn’t so certain.
Mother Dolours was likely right about becoming a vespertine, but right now, getting to keep the revenant was the only thing that mattered. Turning the reliquary over in my hands, I heard her move toward the door. Belatedly, I realized that she must have found herself in a difficult position after the events in Bonsaint.
“What are you going to do now that the Divine is dead?” I asked.
Mother Dolours heaved a sigh. “Give in to everyone’s demands to take her place, it seems.”
I remembered what she had said about arguing with the Lady. Not long ago, hearing that from an abbess would have shocked me, but my recent experiences had been educational. “The Lady spoke to you?”
She barked out a laugh. “Well enough, she has. I don’t want to do it, which in my experience is the surest sign that I need to.”
* * *
The monastery was a place of winding stone paths and windswept battlements. The wind smelled of mountain air, woodsmoke, and pine resin. When it blew from the direction of the sacred groves, I could sometimes hear the tapping of hammers as brothers drove pegs into the trees. Afterward, they returned with pails of sap to render into incense.
The monks didn’t know how to react to me, which was fine, because I didn’t know how to react to them, either. Theirs was a remote stronghold that received few visitors; they went about their tasks in near silence, meeting gravely for meals and prayers. The abbot was a shy, soft-spoken man with a single frostfain relic, flustered by the sudden influx of pilgrims to his domain. Thankfully, the visitors weren’t allowed past the cloister, though incidents still happened. Once a man made it all the way to the refectory and prostrated himself at my feet before the apologetic brothers managed to coax him away.
I spent my days alternately resting and getting scolded by the revenant whenever I exerted myself too heavily. By its measure, this meant walking all the way down the hall by myself or climbing a few steps to see the view from the battlements. Marguerite was acting as its accomplice; as soon as I escaped my chambers, she would come hurrying, her chestnut hair flying in the wind. Often she was clutching a letter from Charles, halfway through reading it over again for the third or fourth time. Now that her identity had been uncovered, there was talk of letting her study as a curist in Chantclere. The sisters in Bonsaint were already sending references.
A week had passed before I found out that Leander had traveled to the monastery with us. No one had wanted to tell me, and by then it was nearly too late.
“He is not fit to see visitors, lady,” babbled the nervous brother whom I finally managed to corner in the cloister, after hours of chasing monks around like frightened sheep. “Truthfully, I think he may have been brought here to live out his final days in peace.”
Roaring filled my ears as though someone had plunged my head underwater. Distressed, and perhaps more than a little terrified, the monks hastened to escort me to the guest dormitory. I didn’t remember going up the steps or down the hall; it was as though I simply appeared in the doorway to Leander’s room, where I came to a sudden halt. I stood frozen, looking inside.
He lay on a bed, his slender hands resting across his stomach, as elegant and still as a marble effigy carved on a sarcophagus. He was dressed in a plain linen nightgown instead of his confessor’s robes. Most startlingly of all, his hair had turned completely white. It lay curled on the pillow around his head, emphasizing his sharp cheekbones and austere brow. His pale skin held the translucency of alabaster.
“He has only woken briefly,” one brother informed me, wringing his hands. “There is little that can be done for him, except to make him comfortable.”
I hesitated, taking in his spectral appearance. I had assumed him dead; I had never imagined he might have survived Sarathiel’s destruction, not after the torments his body had endured that day. Even now he looked as though he were lingering within the gates of Death, transforming into a spirit before my eyes.
My throat tightened. I wished he had died swiftly instead of suffering this drawn-out fate, and yet I was grateful to see him again, a feeling that startled me with its painful, punishing intensity—like swallowing a draught of water and finding that it burned instead of quenched.
Seeing my expression, the brothers made their excuses and hurried away. I found a stool and dragged it to Leander’s bedside. Then I waited.
The sun slid across the floorboards and onto the wall before his eyes opened. Unsurprised by my presence, he gazed up at me with the calm fatalism of the dying. I had started to get used to his appearance by then, but it came as a new shock to see his white eyelashes against the vivid green of his eyes. They looked like they were coated in snow.
“This dream again,” he murmured breathlessly. “My favorite.”
“What dream is that?” My voice sounded hoarse.
“The one in which Saint Artemisia stands over me in judgment.”
“I told you, I’m not a saint.”
“Even in my dreams,” he said softly, “you never cease arguing with me.” He said this in distant wonderment, as though it were a quality he admired. “But you must realize… if you weren’t one before… you are now. Not just a saint, but a high saint. One of the seven.”
“Technically, he’s right,” the revenant commented into the void that followed this remark. “Saint Agnes didn’t destroy Sarathiel. You did.”
Leander blinked. Frowned. “Have I been praying to you? Is that why you’re here?”
“This isn’t a dream.” My throat was dry. “You’re awake.”
His eyes narrowed, struggling to bring me into focus. “No,” he decided. “The real Artemisia wouldn’t be here.”
At that, an emotion close to anger prickled hot across my skin. My chest ached. It wasn’t fair of him to make me feel sorry for him. He didn’t deserve my pity. “Stop dying,” I told him.
A faint smile touched his lips. “Is that all?” he asked softly.
I remembered what the old curist had said in the convent, and realized there was another thing I wanted to know—especially since this might be my last chance to ask. “What happened to your brother?”
“Ah,” Leander said. His eyes drifted shut. He didn’t answer for so long that I thought he had lapsed back into sleep. Then he murmured, “The view from the battlements of Chantclere, overlooking the sea… it’s a very good place to think. My favorite place, in fact. Gabriel went up there during last year’s feast of Saint Theodosia. He jumped. I never found out why.”
Silence reigned between us, filled with the soft rasp of Leander’s breathing. I thought of the prayer book’s dedication. I’ll see you soon.
When he spoke again, I had to lean closer to hear. “In the cathedral, I meant to say… when I used Saint Liliane’s relic on you in Naimes, to hurt you, I had only been ordained as a confessor for a few months. It was my first time using it that way. I didn’t predict that it would be quite so…”
“Painful?” I suggested. “Cruel? I know you aren’t sorry. You’ve used it on plenty of people since.”
“I don’t expect your forgiveness. In fact, it would be better if…” He briefly seemed to lose the thought. He turned his head aside, blinked a few times, and then picked up the thread, “As I told you, one can’t like oneself in order to be a confessor.”
I shook my head, disgusted. “All those people you hurt—you did it to help control the penitent?”
“When you put it that way… but no.” Bitterness hardened his tone, turning his words as sharp and brittle as broken glass. “I did it so they wouldn’t slow me down. A necessary means to an end. I believed the Lady wouldn’t send anyone to help, and if I wanted to stop the disaster in Roischal, I would have to do it myself, alone. But She sent you. And you accomplished in weeks what I had been striving to accomplish for months. You succeeded where I failed.”
His hand moved slightly on the coverlet. I noticed for the first time that his fingers were bare. He no longer wore the relic of Saint Liliane.
“Do you truly want my judgment?” I asked.
That caught his attention. His gaze had grown clearer, sharper. I wondered if he had realized that he was awake, but his eyes held a fevered intensity that I doubted he would let me witness if he thought this was real instead of a dream. “Yes,” he answered, very quietly, so quietly I could barely hear.
“You aren’t a good person, but I think you could be if you tried. So perhaps you should try.”
For a long time, he didn’t respond. It wasn’t until I stood up to leave the room that he spoke. “Thank you,” he said softly, and seemed to mean it.
* * *
Slowly, I regained my strength. I didn’t visit Leander again, but I heard he had narrowly escaped death and was on his way to an astonishing recovery. I happened across a pair of monks huddled behind the refectory, discussing in hushed tones how he had begun improving immediately after my visit. “A miracle,” they murmured. “A true miracle…”
Too busy signing themselves, they failed to notice me slipping away.
One early morning before dawn, I wrapped myself in a blanket and snuck onto the battlements. I had chosen this solitary spot for a reason. Over the past few days, the revenant had been uncharacteristically quiet, obviously working itself up to something. We wouldn’t be disturbed here by Marguerite or the shy glances of brothers, their ears straining to make out the words of my frequent “prayers.”
Winter had fully descended upon Roischal. Snow flurries rushed down from the black sky to land shivering on my blanket’s wool; the cold numbed my ears and nose. But I didn’t have to wait long. The revenant soon said, “Nun, there’s something you should know before you choose to remain my vessel.” It was silent a moment, then plunged onward. “I’m the one who invented the binding ritual. I’m the reason why relics exist.”
My insides flipped. At first I felt sure it had made some bizarre joke, but then I thought—Traitor. Scorned One. Betrayer of its own kind.
Its vile little obsession with Old Magic.
I had never gotten a clear answer about why it was called “the Scorned.”
“I didn’t do it purposefully,” the revenant continued. “In fact, I never intended for the ritual to be used. I was trying to find a way to help Eugenia control my power. That particular version… I discarded it after realizing that Eugenia would need to sacrifice herself for it to work. But of course, being my vessel, she had helped me transcribe it. I couldn’t hide its existence from her.”
I listened as though bespelled, cocooned inside the blanket’s warmth. I had wanted to know more about Eugenia for so long, but I had never dared ask. Now I wondered whether I desired the truth after all.
“Later, there was a battle. She survived, but lost hundreds of soldiers—men who had foll
owed her charge onto the battlefield. Their bodies couldn’t be recovered. In the next battle came the riveners.”
My chest tightened. I remembered the defeated rivener kneeling before me, struggling to rise. If there had been a chance of it being the soul of someone I had known, fought alongside—Charles, or Jean, or Enguerrand…
“After that, she changed. We failed to make progress on the ritual. She began praying to the Lady for hours, sometimes through the night. One morning, she blocked my voice from her mind. She went to her general and told him to find her a new vessel. She gave him the notes—the ways in which I could be controlled by a priestess after I had been bound to her bones. I fought, but she used every method at her disposal to subdue me, including the ones that I had taught her. And then came the pain, and the fire. I lived every moment as her bones burned to ash.”
The snowflakes hurled themselves down, seeming to fly at me with dizzying speed until they drew closer and drifted the rest of the way like eiderdown. They landed on my cheeks in gentle puffs of cold.
“She was only fourteen,” it said, “and she died screaming to your Lady.”
I shook my head in denial, my heart aching. I could easily imagine how Eugenia must have felt, willing to make any sacrifice in her despair. “That couldn’t have been what the Lady wanted her to do.”
“Are you so certain? Even if you’re right, it was done in Her name. In the end, for you humans, does that make so very great a difference?”
For once, I had no words to argue.
“I’ve told you all this because you should know that the Dead despise me as much as the living. One day we may face another revenant—one even more powerful than Sarathiel. And if we do, it isn’t going to be pleased to see me.”
The snow landing on my face suddenly felt like the pricks of icy needles. I pictured the melted crown of Cimeliarch the Bright, dripping down its skull. The skeletal hand of Architrave the Dim, holding its unbalanced scales. Their ancient minds twisted with resentment, grown cruel and clever and half-mad from centuries of imprisonment at human hands.
Vespertine Page 34
