A Consuming Fire, page 5
“Stop this,” Anya said, voice shaking though she struggled to keep it strong. She forced herself to speak up, to be louder than she’d been taught was fitting. “Please, I beg you to stop. None of this is right, or natural, or just.”
Though displeasure clouded the Arbiter’s face at Anya’s interference, he hid it swiftly after catching sight of her band. With a pitying smile, he shook his head and placed a hand on her shoulder, his touch reasonable, reassuring. Nevertheless, Anya fought back the urge to shrink away.
“We’ve already passed this thief’s sentence,” the Arbiter explained. “So there’s no stopping now. I realize things are different in Weatherell, but—”
“Things are different in Weatherell,” Anya said, desperate to make him understand. “Do you remember the second last of our girls, who walked the length of Albion eighteen years past?”
“Yes,” the magistrate said tersely.
“And do you remember her sacrifice?”
Silence fell over the crowd as the Arbiter did not answer. Anya turned her back to him and faced the assembled onlookers, though her knees were like water and her stomach full of frantic wings.
“Eighteen years ago, Willem of the woods passed through this town on her way home from the god’s mountain, Bane Nevis. While she was there she’d made an offering, to keep the god quiet, and to keep all of us safe and prosperous. She came back without her hands. I can’t… I can’t let you do that to someone else, no matter his crime.”
Anya turned to the Arbiter once more.
“Does the Cataclysm not say that judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy? And that mercy triumphs over judgment? I’ll ask for nothing but mercy in this village, then—no lodging, no bread. Just that you leave the thief whole.”
“Child, you were born to a gentler place, with gentler rules,” the Arbiter said, his tone infinitely kind. “In the rest of Albion, mercy is too often met with ingratitude. Out here, we must be wise as well as gentle.”
The thief with his bound hand refused to look at Anya, as if her very presence shamed him. And Anya, who alone among those gathered knew her true reason for leaving the forest behind, felt entirely unworthy.
Be Ilva, if you cannot be yourself, she thought, wishing even for a glimpse of Ilva’s ghost to bolster her courage. What would she have done, if it had been her standing in this place?
But the spirit haunting her did not appear. Instead, Anya fought back her nerves and stood a little taller.
“You owe me this,” she said sternly to the Arbiter. She’d never spoken in such a way to an authority before, or contradicted anyone set over her. To do so now made her dizzy and anxious, though she struggled to hide her nerves. “The Cataclysm also says a laborer is worthy of her reward. What am I and those who went before me but laborers on behalf of Albion? And what reward is more fitting for my mother’s sacrifice than this—a hand in exchange for those she lost?”
“Let her have it,” a firm voice said from the back of the crowd. The Arbiter’s jaw tensed, and Anya caught sight of one of the liveried guards, a laconic smile playing across his face. Both men were obviously accustomed to being obeyed, and as she had with Ilva and Willem, Anya felt caught in the middle—a weather vane to be swayed, a pawn to be shifted at will.
“Lord Nevis has no jurisdiction here,” the Arbiter snapped. “The presence of his guard this far south is not welcome by the Elect, merely tolerated. Don’t mistake one for the other.”
“Nevertheless,” the guard replied, more easily this time. “I say you let the girl have this.”
The Arbiter considered for a moment. But the guard’s intervention seemed to have altered the opinions of the crowd. Whatever their thoughts on the thief, murmurs echoing the guard’s sentiment rippled among the people.
“The Weatherell girl.”
“Give her what she wants.”
“We’ve no right to naysay her.”
The Arbiter turned back to Anya, frustration writing itself across his face. “Very well. I can hardly deny you, of all people, can I? But if the thief ever comes this way again, we will exact the punishment he deserves. And I would caution you not to involve yourself in the judgments of the Elect from now on—it is not for you to decide the course of justice.”
Anya could not answer other than to nod. Now that she’d won her battle, nerves rose up so strongly in her she feared she’d be sick if she opened her mouth. Instead, she gestured to the nearest selectman, who swung his hatchet and severed the rope that bound the thief. The boy flinched visibly, and Anya went to him.
The thief stayed on his knees, staring down at his hand with the rope still tied about it. Then, with a startled blink, he scrambled to his feet and let Anya herd him from the platform as the crowd broke into a muttering, indistinct commotion behind them.
Anya had every intention of carrying on into the countryside without stopping, wanting to be well out of the town that had given her so much trouble. But halfway down a narrow, abandoned lane, the thief ahead of her stumbled and Anya realized his hands were trembling like leaves in a winter gale.
“Need a moment,” he mumbled, and slid down to sit with his back against a stone wall. The thief hurriedly tucked his hands under his arms, but not before Anya caught a glimpse of something she’d never seen before.
From wrist to fingertips, where he would have lost it, the thief’s right hand had been changing. His fingers elongated and shortened, thickening with age, thinning with youth, flashing from age-spotted to freckled to clear-skinned and back again. It was bewildering, and unnatural, and like nothing Anya had heard of in any of Weatherell’s stories.
She pressed her lips together and kept her counsel, waiting as the thief put his head down on his knees and drew in a few uneven breaths. The mongrel dog, Midge, emerged from an alleyway, smelling of rubbish and looking pleased with herself, and pushed her nose under one of the thief’s arms.
“Better?” Anya asked after a minute. The thief did not look up.
“Tieran of Stull,” she said, prodding him with one foot. “Come along. I’ve got to be going, so you do too. You heard what the Arbiter said—you can’t stay in this place.”
The boy raised his head, jaw tense, eyes bleary. Pain had written itself across his features, though Anya could see no source to it, and the strange shifting of his hand had ceased.
“Why’d you do that?” he asked. “Why’d you meddle? Could’ve just left well enough alone. Could’ve just let me be. Your sort are supposed to be untouchable—you aren’t supposed to interfere.”
Anya bit at her lower lip. Half a day out of Weatherell and she was already failing at passing for a proper sacrifice. But surely, she could not be the first Weatherell girl to get herself tangled up in the affairs of the world beyond the wood. It was impossible, to stay untouchable throughout all of Albion.
“He’s right,” a cool, unfamiliar voice said from behind Anya. Tieran the thief scrambled to his feet, fear plain in his eyes and flight plain in his posture, but a word from the speaker stilled him. “No. You stay.”
For a moment, Anya watched the thief. The way his gaze roamed everywhere, searching for some manner of escape. The way his hands had begun, almost imperceptibly, to tremble again. He reminded her of a rabbit Ilva once caught in a snare, which had taken to eating the crops in one of Weatherell’s garden clearings. The creature had lain still beneath Anya’s hands, but she’d felt such wildness in it, and such a longing for life and freedom.
Ilva had snapped its neck, in the end—its leg was broken, its prospects hopeless. When Anya cried over it, Ilva told her it was for the best. That some lives carried on at the expense of others. And Anya had felt a spark at her core even then. A hint of outrage, at the injustice of the world.
She felt it again as she looked at the thief, though she didn’t yet know why he should be so afraid. When she turned to the speaker, all she saw were three robed figures—the village Arbiter, still in black with the leather-bound Cataclysm beneath one arm, and two of the Elect’s devout, clad in gray habits. There were a man and a woman, both of them with ageless, unlined faces, and it was the woman who’d spoken.
“Beloved,” she said with a warm smile, holding out both hands to Anya. “I’m Orielle, and this is Roger. We oversee a way station in Sarum, and came to fetch you. The high roads are safe, but an unsettling place for a lamb such as yourself, especially in a time of such grave misfortune.”
Anya did not reach back in return.
“I don’t—I don’t need an escort,” she said. “Weatherell girls are meant to travel on their own. Isn’t that in the Cataclysm? Arbiter Thorn used to read it aloud to the girls—how did it go?”
She put her hands behind her back, like a child practicing recitation. It brought the words to mind more readily and kept her from having to accept the touch of the unfamiliar woman before her.
“You have tried my heart, you have visited me by night,
you have tested me, and you will find nothing;
I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.
With regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips
alone, I have avoided the ways of the violent.
My steps have held fast to your paths;
my feet have not slipped.
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;
when I arrive, I shall make my sacrifice before your likeness.”
The verses came quickly to Anya, once she began. She’d always found it easy to grasp and recall what Arbiter Thorn had taught the girls—once she heard what he’d said, the words stayed within her, there to be called up at need. They seemed to serve as a comfort to most of Weatherell’s occupants, though Anya had not been very old before they began to taste of bitterness and ash.
“So you see,” Anya finished, nerves singing at her own audacity, in having contradicted an authority not once but twice that day, “it’s part of what makes us fit for an offering, isn’t it? That the girls who go to the god manage to stay unmarred along the road. I want to do things properly. I don’t want what happened with Il—what happened with the last girl—to happen again.”
She waited, feeling transparent and unhappy and utterly faithless, to have dredged up the memory of Ilva’s failure. But the idea of having her every step watched over set her skin to crawling, not unlike the way the thief’s had done. How long could her lies last, if she was so closely overseen?
Orielle glanced at the village’s Arbiter, who set a reassuring hand on Anya’s shoulder. She fought to keep still beneath his touch.
“I spoke of wisdom in the square,” the Arbiter said. “It would behoove you to strive for wisdom yourself. As the god is already stirring, more rests on you than on most others who’ve worn that band. Choose your company with care, child, and submit to the discernment of your betters, rather than seeking to exercise judgment of your own. You know little of the world, and we’re here to work for your protection. Don’t question our fitness for that duty, and we will not question yours.”
“Yes, sir,” Anya murmured, fixing her gaze on the ground. She could not help the treacherous tears that swam in her eyes—even knowing what lay ahead and what she intended to do, it stung her to be corrected. Regardless of her inner contradictions, she’d always striven to be good and to meet with the approval of those who governed Weatherell. A part of her craved that approval yet, despite the path she’d set herself upon.
The Arbiter reached out, tilting her chin up with one finger so that she must look at him. There was understanding in his broad face, but Anya hated the ungranted familiarity of his skin against her own.
“I spoke of wisdom and you spoke of mercy,” the Arbiter said. “The Elect are not merciless, child. And we are grateful for your sacrifice on behalf of Albion. Hold the course. Keep yourself apart from the vices of the world, and undoubtedly the god will look more favorably upon your offering than he did upon the last.”
I gave him nothing, Ilva said in her hollow, lifeless voice. She swam into being in the shadow of a nearby building, the imprint of the god’s terrible hand burned across her heart.
He took from me instead.
After a glance, Anya looked scrupulously away. She would not have the Elect know she was haunted. Not have them know Ilva followed her on this journey to the mountain. They did not deserve another shred of her sister.
But the Arbiter had been right in one regard. Anya would have to cultivate wisdom if she was to survive the pitfalls along her way and fulfill Ilva’s last request. She bowed her head humbly.
“I accept the offer of escort for now,” she said. “For myself and my companions.”
But when she glanced back over her shoulder, both the thief and Midge were gone.
FIVE Sanctuaries
The city of Sarum lay sprawled against the banks of the River Avon like a cluster of oak galls festering on a once-healthy branch. Where the city touched the river’s edge, the water of the Avon ran dark and sludgy, and a cloud of smoke hung above the convoluted tangle of streets, which sprawled across the flat land.
A pretty picture on the outside, Sylvie had said about Sarum. But dark at its heart.
Apparently, in the years since she’d wandered Albion, Sarum’s façade had caught up to its soul.
Anya stood on the river’s far shore, surrounded by the honey-rich light of late afternoon, and stared across at Sarum in disbelief.
“I didn’t know there could be so many people,” she said to Orielle and Roger, who stood on either side of her. She tried not to think that they were flanking her like guards—they had, after all, been pleasant and polite during the several hours’ walk along the high road. They’d pointed out landmarks and shared bits of history and given her a fresh oatcake flavored with herbs. “It’s preposterous, that we could make such a mark upon the land.”
Orielle smiled. “And Sarum is not so large, in the grand scheme of things. Londin, where no Weatherell girl has ever gone, is Albion’s largest city, and a den of vice. Yew and Wintencaster hold far more people too. But you will not see one of the great cities, besides Banevale. A sacrifice must not be tempted beyond what she can endure.”
“Shall we?” Roger asked courteously, gesturing to a nearby footbridge. “I think we have enough time to take our newest lamb past Sarum Cathedral, before dusk settles in.”
The city did not improve at closer proximity. Buildings rose precipitously above the narrow streets, blocking out the sun and most of the sky. There were people and noises and unpleasant smells everywhere. Despite her escort, the chaos left Anya feeling laid bare, as if she’d lost her skin and were walking about with her insides exposed. In an attempt to orient herself, she kept glancing up, toward a breathtaking spire that rose skyward to pierce the heavens.
And then all at once, Orielle and Roger led her out onto a pleasant, open green along a bend in the river. Trees clung to the banks with spotted cows standing in their dappled shade, while from the center of the grassy expanse there rose a building like nothing Anya had ever seen before. It was topped by the spire she’d been looking up at, and the expanse of the structure stretched from side to side—unfathomably large, monumental enough to fit the entirety of Weatherell within its walls. Soaring windows and archways and stone carvings ornamented every bit of it, the windows glinting with colored glass. Anya’s lips parted as she stared—sun shimmered off those windows, splitting into rainbows of light.
“It’s quite a spectacle, isn’t it?” Orielle asked. “They built it on and around the ruins of an older sanctum, that was here before the god of the mountain woke.”
Anya frowned, still looking up at the brilliant windows. “If the old sanctum was built before the god of the mountain woke, who was it for?”
“The dying god,” Roger said dismissively, and the disdain in his tone brought Anya’s attention back to her companions.
“I’ve never heard of the dying god,” she said, and Orielle offered her a reassuring smile. In spite of herself, Anya felt a little safer, and less uncertain. It was easy to be guided, comforting to have her life fall into old patterns. She’d been a good student—to take on that role again lent her strength. And it eased her guilt a little to feign the role that would have been hers, if Ilva had not been born with the lion’s share of their courage and Anya with most of their moral scruples.
“We don’t consider him a god anymore,” Orielle told her. “He lived centuries ago, but made grandiose claims and died in the end, and never returned despite promising that he would. His cult was brought here by the Romans and taken away with them as well, when the god of the mountain woke to fortify Albion with his presence.”
“I never knew,” Anya said, struggling to keep her face expressionless as excitement stirred within her. So her vengeance might not be an impossible task—those who’d once been worshiped could be killed. Until that moment, she’d worried that the god of the mountain might prove unassailable. But if one of Albion’s gods had already died and passed from knowledge, might not another?
“Of course you didn’t know,” Roger said, still dismissive. “You didn’t need to. Come, we’ll pass closer to the cathedral before taking refuge at our way station for the night. Tomorrow, you may go your own way, and our blessings will go with you. We will never be far, so long as you keep to the high roads, and if you require our care, you need only return to the fold.”
At the cathedral’s doorstep, a little knot of people had gathered. An animated crier in ragged clothes stood on the broad threshold, bathed by evening light and blocking the way in. He blazed with faith, fiercer than the sun itself, and Anya felt her pulse quicken. Orielle let out a small, disapproving sound, but both she and Roger stopped and Anya stood with them, rooted to the spot by the stranger’s conviction.
“Our god is a consuming fire!” the crier called, his wild eyes roving across the onlookers. “Even now, his wrath burns through Banevale, and soon it will overtake every city in this blasted land. He will purify us with flame, until each one of us bears his mark. Until we are set apart for his service and cleansed of our willfulness, for the time of our renewal is at hand!”
