The Hidden Queen, page 30
There’s weapons on display, too. “Blessed” axes, spears, and shields Da warded with his own hand, donated to the temple or acquired by the Tenders. I know my da’s script at a glance, and can confirm the pieces are authentic, even if I can’t follow the complexities of the wardings without my night eyes to cheat.
Around the chapel are heroes’ bones, like in Sharik Hora, but rather than decorating out of the bones, Hollowers keep their fallen together, embedding their skeletons in the walls like silent guardians, commemorating with gold plaques the names of those who fell in the Battle of Cutter’s Hollow.
The sun has not fully set, but there is darkness enough here in the chapel for my night eyes to come to life, along with the wards of sight on Rojvah’s headdress and Arick’s turban.
As with the martyr’s bones in Sharik Hora, the greenland skeletons glow with that same golden magic, like and yet unlike the energy I can see drifting up from the Core, or in the auras of living things. These people died protecting their loved ones, and that final act shaped their magic into something…purer. Anathema to the corelings.
I know what to expect when we reach the front of the chapel, but Rojvah and Arick ent expecting it. To the right of the altar in a place of honor is another illuminated case of warded glass. But this is no robe or warded mattock. Within is the polished skeleton of their da, Rojer Halfgrip, here at the very center of the cathedral grounds.
Halfgrip is a hero of mine, and I’d sneak in here sometimes late at night to have a look, but I hear Rojvah and Arick gasp as they see it. With our night eyes, the golden glow of Halfgrip’s bones is unmistakable. Overpowering. Even if you removed every other relic from the chapel, no corespawn could set foot inside while Halfgrip was here.
I can hear Arick’s heart thumping in his chest. He lets out a moan and I can smell his anguish as he ignores the pad and falls to his hands and knees on the floor. “Forgive me, Father. I did not understand. I did not see!”
He weeps, but Rojvah kneels at his side, putting an arm around her brother with one hand as she scoops his tears into a tiny bottle with the other. All along she whispers soothing words.
I hate crying. Like your body’s betraying you, making itself sick right when you need it most. And it ent got rhythm, so you can’t predict it, or grow used. Arick’s sobs cut at me, and I want to put distance between us, to lessen the discomfort.
But what kind of friend would I be if I did that? “There was no undercity for the Hollowers to flee to, that first night,” I say instead. “Soot from the fires had marred every ward left in town. Folk were defenseless, and not everyone could fight. Sickness laid out half the town, and others had burns and breaks and demon wounds. They hid here in this little chapel, the last place standin’, while the few who still had their feet under them faced the corelings come to feed. Ent a soul to say those who did the fightin’ ent heroes, but it was Halfgrip that kept the demons from getting in here.”
Arick’s still shaking, but I can tell he’s hanging on my every word. “Don’t just take it from me.”
“Young Mr. Bales speaks honest word,” Shepherd Jona says from behind us. I smelled him coming. “I was there when the demons came. This chapel was my Holy House. The Hollowers, my flock. I believed in the Creator’s love, but even I expected to die, that night. Without your father, even if the Cutters had won the battle, they would have lost.
“I never saw Rojer Inn touch a spear,” the Shepherd continues. “He could thread a needle at thirty paces with one of his throwing knives, but I never saw him kill a demon with them. And yet he saved as many lives that night as any short of the Deliverer himself.”
Even without night eyes, Halfgrip understood the effect music had on magic. He rippin’ invented it, or as good as. Mam says he could march a line of unsuspecting demons right into the spears and axes of a waiting ambush, trick a wind demon into thinking the ground was lower than it was and crashing, or play so fast and loud that the resonance could shatter a stone demon’s armor.
It wasn’t just the sound. It was the emotion he put into the music, and how it affected those that heard it, how it shaped the magic in the air. Arick and Rojvah ent the only ones who wish they’d got to meet Rojer Halfgrip. Reckon he might’ve understood me, even when other folk din’t.
“Services will begin in a few minutes,” Jona notes. “We would be honored to have you participate? Perhaps a blessing?”
It seems like he’s speakin’ to all of us, but he’s looking at me. I hold my breath, hoping Rojvah will step in and give my regrets like she did at the party, but she hangs back, breathing silent words into her veil. “This is for you to decide, Intended.”
I suck in a breath and put up my hands. “Just here to pay our respects, thanks. Ent got any business handin’ out blessin’s.”
“Indeed,” Rojvah adds. “I have yet to take the veil, and I think my brother would prefer to pray privately.” She’s right, there. Arick’s still on his knees before his da, and I can smell his relief.
Jona nods at that, his scent and aura calm, but I smell irritation from Hayes and Halvan.
“You are the Deliverer’s son,” the Inquisitor presses. “Who has greater right to give his blessings?”
“Never met him,” I say. “How do I know what he’d want?”
“You think he would not wish to bless the people of Hollow and give praise to Everam?” Dama Halvan demands. “You dishonor his memory.”
I clench up. This is why Mam never liked Holy Men. They’re all sunshine, so long as you agree with them.
“Honest word?” I ask. “Reckon you’re the one dishonoring him. You talk about my da, but what you really want is me to stand up and give the Creator credit for what he done.”
“How dare…” Halvan balls a fist.
Arick is on his feet at that. He doesn’t speak, but he’s quick to put himself between me and the dama.
“You ent got any more proof than I do the Creator is even real, much less what He wants,” I say, “but you talk like He sends you parcels every Messenger day.”
Hayes thumps the leatherbound copy of the Canon that hangs from his belt. “He sent us His book.”
I snort. Know I ent bein’ polite, but I think Mam would forgive it. “Book written by men like you, who claim to speak for a Creator they don’t even know is real.”
Both Holy Men are equally offended at that. Looks like I’ve finally found something they agree on.
“You sound like your father.” Shepherd Jona remains serene. Ent fakin’ it, either.
“Mam, too,” I say.
“But is that not the essence of faith?” Jona asks. “To believe something so strongly in your heart that you don’t need proof to know it is true? And there is power in faith.” He gestures to the glowing bones of heroes. “What do you believe, Darin Bales?”
The question hits harder than I expect, because I ent got an answer. “How do I know the difference between what I believe and what I want to be true?”
Jona shrugs. “Sometimes they are one and the same. The only way to know is to take a leap of faith.”
That ent exactly a comfort. “Sometimes you take a leap and end up cracking your head on the cobbles.”
Jona nods. “And sometimes, you fly. When the flux came to Hollow and the demons burned the wards, we didn’t stop struggling, but hope was in short supply. Then Mistress Leesha returned that very day with two strangers in tow, offering their own lives to protect a tiny chapel of sick and injured, and asking folk to have the faith to stand with them in the night. In all my life, I have never felt a miracle as clearly as I did then. It does not steal from their heroism to know it was part of the Creator’s plan.”
A bell chimes, and there’s a break in tension.
“Come, come,” Jona says. “The sun is setting and services are about to begin.” An acolyte appears, and the Shepherd instructs him to show us to our seats.
I listen in as we walk to a private entrance to the cathedral.
“Insolent,” Halvan growls. “I expected more from the son of the man even Shar’Dama Ka called Deliverer.”
You and everyone else, I think.
“The boy is lucky to be offered such an honor,” Hayes agrees. “How dare he refuse?”
“Darin Bales refuses to speak words he does not believe true in the House of the Creator.” Jona does not raise his voice, but it shocks the other men like the sting of a lash. “Perhaps the two of you should meditate upon why this strikes you as insolence.”
I smile a bit at that. Mam says Jona’s as much a fool as any Tender, but he’s a fool with a good heart.
* * *
—
We’re escorted to the front-row pews, roped off from the other congregants, but right where all of them can have a good look at us. I wonder if just bein’ here is as bad as standing on the altar and givin’ a blessing.
There are wards cut into the wood pews, forming a net more complex than I could easily follow in daylight, but with my night eyes, it is alive with power, Drawing from the heroes’ bones and the Hollow greatward, forming an impenetrable web of protection over this place.
I glance around the great nave, overwhelmed by images of my da.
Tenders don’t have idols on the altar, but there are stained-glass windows, friezes, chapel nooks, and statues, all showing Arlen Bales performing his miracles.
Mam used to find me in here, too, late at night when the clerics had gone to bed. Don’t know what I was looking for. Some kind of link, I reckon, to a father I never knew.
Artists never knew him, either, Mam said.
My eyes pass over the great stained windows depicting the time Arlen Bales floated in the sky. There’s a halo of power around him, coming down from above as he wields fire and lightning to destroy demons by the thousand.
Mam tells that story differently. He floated in the sky and threw lightning at the corespawn, ay, but he was pulling power from the greatward, not the heavens. And then the corespawned fool forgot to breathe and nearly got himself killed when he tried to pull too much.
There’s more bells and a choir and acolytes with stinky incense burners as we all stand to watch Jona’s procession head to the altar.
“Before we begin,” the Shepherd says, “I would like to dedicate tonight’s service to Rojer Inn, in honor of his children’s first visit to his shrine.”
There’s applause at that, and I can hear everyone talking about the three of us as Arick and I wave weakly in response. Only Rojvah scents of pleasure at the attention.
Reminds me a bit of the funeral back in Sharik Hora. The service seems to go on forever. Pews are packed, folk gathered to give thanks for Olive’s safe return. In some ways it’s okay. So many people in a tight space can be overwhelming to me, but it’s easy to push all of it into the background, like playing my pipes by a waterfall. All I need to do is focus on Jona, who stands at a pulpit that blends wardings with plain old acoustics to amplify his speech and dull sounds from the pews.
But the Shepherd’s service is as boring as any other. Jona might be kinder than the other clerics, but it ent a comfort that he thinks my da was Heaven-sent. I’d like to believe things are as simple as his sermon, but the stories of my father floating in the sky give lie to that. Everything can look like a miracle—or a curse—from the right point of view.
Still his question sticks with me.
What do you believe, Darin Bales?
What do I believe?
I believe Mam is alive, and I can save her. Gonna make a leap of faith, let it be that.
At last the service ends, and they open the great cathedral doors, letting in sounds from the outside.
And I hear alarm bells from Olive’s keep.
There is a crowd in front of the keep’s infirmary. My spear brothers have gathered at the news of Faseek’s injuries, spurring the house guard to outnumber them decisively. All of them take one look at my face and part with military precision to clear my path.
Selen is waiting inside with Lord Arther and Tarisa. She takes my shoulders, looking me over. I must look a sight, covered in blood and makeshift bandages. “You all right?”
“No,” I don’t stop moving and Selen moves to clear my way to the surgery, “I’m a ripping far sight from all right.”
There is always a Gatherer on call in Mother’s keep, though the duchess was apt to see to anything serious personally. But the duchess is not about, and the Gatherer on call wrings her hands, still staring at the arrow in Faseek’s chest. She’s cut away the robes and armor, but the arrow remains embedded, my brother breathing in short, ragged gasps.
I turn to the Gatherer. “Why haven’t you prepped for surgery?”
She shrinks from my glare. “There’s nothing I can do, Highness. The arrow is barbed and warded. It’s unbreakable, and I cannot pull it clear in either direction without causing further damage. Even if we did, his lung has collapsed.”
I want to shout, but then I truly see the woman, young and frightened. A night Gatherer used to fevers and broken bones, not battle surgery. She’s out of her depth.
I turn to Selen. “Send a runner to the university. Have Favah meet us in the surgery.”
Arther clears his throat. “Favah is…not a young woman, Highness. She will have retired.”
He isn’t wrong. If Favah has not seen a hundred winters, she is close to it. Mother thought her older still, her life unnaturally extended by her use of hora.
“Wake her,” I say. “Tell her if my spear brother dies, I am sending Prince Ramm’s head to his mother in a box.”
“That could start a war,” Arther says, but Selen is undeterred, already out of the room and shouting.
“All this for a desert rat,” one of the house guards murmurs.
No doubt she did not expect me to hear, because the big woman nearly jumps out of her armor when I turn my eyes on her.
“He took an arrow for Olive, Manda,” Becca says.
Manda tries to press herself into the wall as I move in to stand nose-to-nose with her. She’s taller and broader than most women, but I’ve got inches on her still. “You guarded Mother as well, Manda. What do you think she would have said, if you told her a Krasian patient is worth less than a Hollower?”
Manda swallows hard, and it’s all the response I need. I turn to Tarisa on my way out the door. “Find some chamber pots for Manda to empty while she considers if she wants to remain in our employ.”
“Of course, Highness.” Tarisa turns her hard eyes to the woman, and I trust she will reinforce the lesson as I stride to the door.
“Brothers!” I shout. “Extraction!”
Immediately, my spear brothers march into the room and load Faseek into a stretcher with practiced precision. “We’re moving!” I order the moment they have him secure, marching at the head of the procession to ensure the way is clear as we head out of the infirmary. The house guard scrambles to form an honor guard around us.
* * *
—
Dama’ting Favah is waiting in the surgery with the much younger Dama’ting Jaia to assist. I cannot say if my venerable teacher, unreadable as always, is vexed at the disturbance. The dama’ting stand washed and prepped beside Headmistress Darsy, who must have heard the commotion and come running.
“Tsst,” Favah hisses as she examines the wards on the arrow shaft jutting from my spear brother’s chest. “These wards are designed to pierce Krasian armor, not that of the alagai. Leave it to the Mehnding to create something so devious.”
Wrinkles become deep fissures as she narrows her eyes at the symbols. With a huff of breath that billows her veil, she holds out a hand. “Brush.”
Jaia has the item ready, putting a slim warding brush smoothly into Favah’s hand, the bristles already wet with ink. Favah paints wards around the arrow shaft in a quick hand, though the symbols are too small for me to see. With a grunt she holds out the brush and Jaia takes it. Then the old woman reaches out to grasp the shaft on either end of her work, breaking it with a quick snap and a flash of magic.
Then she looks at me. “Step back.”
“I can assist—” I begin.
“You’re filthy, and still bleeding yourself.” Favah cuts me off with none of the deference others have shown since my return. “Have Darsy tend you before you infect and I need to treat two.”
She’s right, of course. I’m used to stitching up my brothers on the floor of the Maze, but this is a sterile room in Gatherers’ University, the greatest hospit in the world. There’s nothing I can do Jaia cannot do better.
Reluctantly, I let Darsy lead me from the table as Favah resumes her work.
“You shouldn’t be running around like this,” the headmistress scolds, looking at the torn bedding hastily wrapped around my midsection and arms after I pulled out the throwing triangles.
But as she removes the bandages and clothes to clean the wounds, she’s surprised to find the pressure alone has stopped the bleeding and closed most of them. Even my bruises have gone yellow. The healing of a full day in less than an hour. “Olive, what…”
“Mother’s magic did more to me in the womb than bond me to my sibling,” I say quietly.
Darsy nods, eyes flicking around to see if anyone overheard even that small bit of information. Mother is gone, but we are all still bound by her secrets.
The wound in my side still seeps blood, and Darsy needs to put me on a table and open it further to stitch and cut. She offers to put me to sleep, but that’s the last thing I want. Instead I embrace the pain as I watch over my spear brother across the room.
Favah has painted wards around the entry and exit wounds in Faseek’s chest, as my friend breathes in long, faint wheezes. He doesn’t have the strength to resist as Jaia braces him and Favah takes the arrowhead in her forceps, pulling with surprising strength.
