Chapter 18
M y sin lashes at the bars of its cage, claws unsheathed. Longing uncoils low in my belly, my breath caught somewhere in my throat. The Lupa Nox’s lips barely brush my skin and yet I tremble anyway, the wickedness of my soul reflected in the weakness of my flesh. The knight releases me and shifts her weight away, her expression devoid of humor. Instead, she is examining me so intently that, for a moment, I fear she may possess the ability to peer right into my mind.
Four bells ring out, faintly echoing down into the Vincula. My own foolishness becomes so apparent all at once—seeking out the Lupa Nox in the middle of the night? Pinpricks cluster on my skin, my stomach flipping. The Holy Guard will surely report my presence to Sergio, perhaps even Renault. For one skittering moment of madness, the two men blend into one—an impossibly tall shadow, looming over me, clawed hands outstretched.
I release a long breath, settling myself as I reach for the healer’s kit. It is a simple enough explanation: I was having trouble sleeping and wanted to get a start on the day’s duties. The First Son approves of productivity, of hard work.
“How are you feeling?” I ask her, keeping my gaze on the healer’s kit as I rummage through it. “Any headaches or nausea?”
“No, I don’t think I have a concussion,” she says. “A rib may be broken, though.”
I still, only my head turning to examine the knight, immediately feeling like the most selfish monster alive. The bruising I saw yesterday across her face has darkened further, and there is a bone-deep weariness to her, none of the usual elegance in her limbs.
“I was worried about internal bleeding,” I say, “but none of your ribs felt damaged beyond a bad bone bruise, perhaps.” My stomach twists, some part of my mind already knowing what she might be about to say.
The muscles in the knight’s jaw strain and her eyes dart away, slippery as silk. Then her gaze captures mine again. “No, not when you last examined me,” she replies slowly, like she’s measuring each word. “But your people have . . . visited me since then.”
Guilt consumes me in a furious gale, just as vicious as the Godwinds that barrel across the Sundered Lands. “We don’t want to hurt you,” I murmur. “It would be easier if you cooperated.”
The Lupa Nox stands up straight then, her eyes alight with a dark fire, every angle of her sharp features standing out like the edge of a knife. “ You don’t want to hurt me, Ophelia,” she replies, her voice strained. “You don’t. But your knights, your priests? They want my blood.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “They may be angry about the people they’ve lost at your hand. But that is not the Way of Light. On the battlefield, yes, we cannot allow you to slaughter our people. But here, within our walls? No.” I dare to look at her again, and she is so much wolf, so little woman.
“Lift up my shirt, then,” she hisses.
My face burns at her words. I gather myself, moving more easily thanks to the salve, and close the distance between us.
With a shaking hand, I gather the hem of her blouse—loose, untucked from her waistband, thankfully—and slowly raise the fabric. The linen is stiff with sweat and grime, I notice, but then the planes of her muscled abdomen become visible to me and I gasp.
Bruises gobble up the floral tattoos that seem to cover every inch of her, twisting the lovely, elegant designs into something ruinous. One side of her stomach is a deep blue-black, almost the same color as her eyes but sickly, like the shade has been perverted. I drop her shirt, glancing up at her face. Up close, I can see one eye is slightly swollen and her split lip looks like it may have reopened.
“I suppose you’re right,” she says in the ghost of a whisper, dark eyebrows knotting together. “I did not cooperate. I would not give them what they wanted.”
I swallow hard, clutching at the pillars of my belief, the fences that have hemmed in my life and my mind. These are, after all, extraordinary circumstances, I tell myself, though all I can see is the purpling shadows on her skin, the pain such blows must have caused. But she is the Lupa Nox, after all. She has taken so many of our people between her teeth, torn their throats in two, salted the earth with their blood.
“This, Ophelia,” she says, her breath stirring the loose strands of hair around my face, “is the truth of your God.”
My hand clutches at my skirts, and my tongue leaps to decry her blasphemy. But this is not idle conversation—I am meant to persuade her. Convert her. It is, after all, the only way I can save us both. And with every watchful glance of the Holy Guard, every blow of the flail, every desperate prayer, I feel closer and closer to damnation, to an eternity spent in the fires of Inferna.
“What, exactly, do you think about the First Son?” I ask, preparing a strip of flannel with chamomile-infused vinegar to clean her split lip.
The knight lets out a long laugh, dark and low. When I look up at her, that dangerous mouth is curved into something arch and unkind.
“Namely that He is a liar and your city is built on bones,” she tells me, her tone airy, as if she’s stating a fact.
My heart pounds against my chest, every bit of air in my lungs fighting to bring praise to His name. Despite all the destruction that Sergio has wrought, the curl of doubt I feel about Renault, they are still mortal, still fallible, perhaps. I do not doubt my God, so I quell the urge.
“How is He a liar?” I ask, reaching forward to dab at her split lip. She heals fast—there’s only a bit of dried blood and a shallow wound. I don’t—can’t—meet her gaze as I work.
“The Sepulchyre does not wish to fight you like this,” the knight says, and there’s a weariness in her tone I don’t understand. I can feel her dark eyes searching for mine, but I keep my gaze averted. “We want this war to end, too.”
Unease tightens in my stomach. How wonderful it would be to lap up the words dripping from her mouth like honey, to taste the sweetness of this other world the knight offers on my tongue.
I tuck the used cloth into a side pocket of my kit and search for a tincture for her ribs. She’ll need a physician with Mysterium, though—I can’t fix such damage on my own. When I turn back to her, the candles sputter as if a breeze has tumbled through the cell, deepening the sharp angles of her beautiful features.
“You have no reason to believe me,” she says with a sigh, her shoulders sagging as she examines me, “but it’s true.”
Without thinking, I measure out a full dropper of the tincture and raise it to her mouth, like I would with any other patient. But the knight is not any other patient. Something like a flame unfurls low in my belly, sweeping up to my chest, making the place between my thighs throb mercilessly. With a trembling hand, I hold the dropper to her lips. Her gaze locks onto mine, and I do not have the strength to pull away. My throat constricts as her lips part, like the blossoming of a rare flower. It takes me several seconds to release my finger from the top of the dropper and administer the tincture.
As I pull away, my heart fluttering, the tip of the knight’s tongue darts out to moisten her lips. For some reason, this makes my blood pound against my skin, as if the sin living beneath may burst out and consume me entirely. I can find it within myself to resist the knight or resist her lies of a different world; I cannot do battle with both at once. But I try anyway.
“I grew up in a small village,” I tell her, tucking the dropper into the same pocket as the dirty flannel. “I don’t remember much, but the Sepulchyre raided when I was a child and killed my mother. The Host took me in. Gave me food, clothing, shelter, a vocation. Taught me all there is to know of the world and the First Son. The War of the Sundering only happened because the Sepulchyre would not allow Him to establish Lumendei. He was willing to give you the entire continent except for this one holy city for His people, but you refused. And now much of our land is destroyed, haunted by strange beasts infected with your cursed goetia, tortured by the endless gale of Godwinds and their dangerous Nocturnes, luring in anyone who gets close enough with the voices of those they’ve loved and lost.”
I draw in a deep, shuddering breath, surprised to have spoken so many words all at once. Chewing on my lip, I reach over to check the binding on her broken finger. She does not reply to my statement, though I can feel her gaze on me, hot as the midday sun. As I unwind the cloth, I’m astounded to find her bone already healed.
“The Fatum of your city are, to us, the Fallen. Your Exalted High Ecclesia,” she tells me, her voice soft. Before I can stop myself, I glance up at her to find her eyes gone inquisitive, head tilted to one side. She studies me in the same way I’ve watched Renault study a manuscript he cannot decipher. “We called the Fatum lured to join your God’s faction the Fallen many, many anni ago. He promised the one thing even the most powerful Fatum can’t have: immortality.”
I sigh, leaning back on the stool. My hips and knees protest my lack of rest, but there is no salve I’ve found that eases those pains. “My Lord teaches that there are many who use wicked tongues to twist the truth,” I say as gently as I can. “That the Creatrixes set the diaboli upon the world when the First Son banished them, gifted with silver tongues to lure and trick good-hearted people away from the light. Yes, He offers to save us from the depths of Inferna, to bring us into the eternal light of Caelus. But it’s not immortality, not like you think.”
Sympathy for the deadly knight creeps into my bones. How terrible it must be to discover the world is entirely different than you thought. My own heart is still heavy with the jagged truth of the Saints.
She levels her gaze at me, those thunderstorm eyes glimmering like rare jewels. Her lips part and then close before she takes a deep breath. “Ophelia,” she says, the sound of my name in her mouth a temptation I fight to ignore. “You misunderstand me. I do not speak of my people’s history that I learned in so-called study or from a carefully worded papyri.”
I twist a clean strip of cotton in my hands, anxiety pounding beneath my breastbone. “What do you mean?” I ask, trying to steer the conversation, clinging to my salvation, my chance at avoiding the horrors of Inferna after I die.
“My elders were there ,” the knight says, one dark eyebrow arching. “And I was but a babe, but I was there, too, for the very end of the War of the Sundering. And every day, I watch the Sundering spread farther.”
My mouth drops open, and I gape like some silly novice. I barely recover myself enough to say, “But the War of the Sundering ended nearly five hundred anni ago.”
I know that the Fatum are long-lived, and I’ve known since the first day what that delicate, pointed curve of her ears means, but the knight’s face is flawless. A raw, primal energy pulses from her that I cannot equate with a being of that age—which would be toward the end of a Fatum’s lifespan, from what I understand. Granted, the only aged Fatum I’ve ever interacted with are the High Ecclesia, and They keep Their faces veiled.
“Five hundred anni?” the knight asks, the corner of her mouth curving into something that looks like amusement. “Is that what he tells you?”
“That is the tracking of time here in Lumendei, yes,” I reply, confused.
“Oh, Ophelia,” she says with a strange tenderness, “it’s barely been eighty anni since the end of the war.”
Panic clots in my throat, choking me. I know she is only misled, I know she only speaks what she believes to be true, but I am too fragile with the Saints a farce, Sergio stalking me like a predator, and Renault—in His name, I hope I’m wrong—perhaps not even being so different after all. The idea that another world exists, another truth prevails, is too dangerous, too intoxicating.
Just like her.
“I don’t wish to fight with you over simple arithmetic,” I manage to choke out, hoping she cannot see how much it takes from me. My mind latches onto this discrepancy, storing it away, that small, wicked voice burrowed deep in my body whispering falsehoods. “I love my Lord. He saved me. He’s saved countless others. I wonder if you might be willing to let just a little of His divine love into your heart and see what it does for you?”
Her mouth parts again, ink-dark brows drawn together, and for a moment she looks at me like I’m completely insane. Perhaps I am.
“How would one . . . go about that?” she asks, shifting her stance, chains clinking with the movement.
This moment should be a triumph; victory should surge in me as sure as any floodwater. The Lupa Nox, willing to experience the First Son’s love. And led to it by a simple foundling girl, no less. A miracle, I might’ve said a fortnight ago. But now it only feels hollow, like an apple that appears perfect when plucked but upon closer inspection is filled with rot.
“Perhaps I could read you some Catechisma?” I offer.
“You can read me anything you want,” she tells me, her tone heavy with suggestion. “I rather enjoy the sound of your voice.”
The gentle throbbing between my legs erupts into a vicious, needy pounding. My bust strains against the soft-boned corset of my dress. “How am I to bring the Holy Word into this chamber if you dirty it with such speech?” I stammer, curling my hand into my skirt until I can feel my nails pressing through the fabric and into my palms. “You’re no better than a diaboli.”
“Perhaps I am one,” she replies, straining against her shackles, the rigid muscles of her shoulders far too visible beneath the thin linen of her blouse. The movement pulls her neckline open further, and my traitorous eyes drop to the elegant line of her collarbone. “Perhaps I was sent here to tempt you.”
I press my lips shut, not trusting myself to speak. Gazing down at the dirt floor, I draw a deep breath, wincing as the fabric of my shift strains against the wounds on my back. But the pain is what I wanted—a reminder of what awaits me when I give in to my temptations.
“All I want,” I say, finally raising my gaze to hers, “is to help you find the truth. And the truth is that I pity you. I pity the way you’ve been taught to see the world, the way you can only find the sacred in bloodshed, in death. I pity you for not knowing the guidance and love of the First Son. I pity you for the sad, cruel way you exist in this world. Can’t you see the Sepulchyre have done nothing but make you a weapon for their own means?”
I don’t know where the words come from, how they all tumble from my tongue, or why I can’t seem to stop them. The knight lets me finish, making no attempt to interrupt, though her expression grows darker and darker, her brows drawing together, the luscious curves of her mouth flattening into a firm line.
“If we are going to speak of the truth, little dove,” she says in a drawl, her eyes flashing in the dim light, “would you like to know what your holy, perfect betrothed was feeling as you flayed your own skin open to repent for whatever sin you think you committed?”
Despair pins me to the stool, unable to move or speak, my throat collapsing in on itself. Before I can muster any type of defense, the knight lunges forward, straining at the limit of her chains.
“Pleasure, Ophelia,” she says, her teeth bared like a shadowed monster rendered in the margins of a manuscript. “Because he delights in your pain, your misery. Because to the men of the Host, there is nothing more satisfying than a woman’s suffering.”