Chapter 41
A grippina shoulders the door with all her might. Though the iron latches rattle, it doesn’t give.
“Here,” Nyatrix says, handing the healer the lantern she’s been carrying as we’ve wound through what felt like endless hallways, the sound of the sea growing closer and closer. The knight steps up to the door—which Agrippina already unlocked—and drives her shoulder into it. Unsurprisingly, it yields to her strength and swings open.
The room awaiting us beyond it is spacious, smelling of dust and sea salt. Tiberius enters first, and only once he assures us it’s safe does Agrippina walk to the far side and yank open a set of shutters. To my surprise, golden-gray light pours in, and I find myself looking out onto the sea. Not a terrible place to hide while the manhunt for Lucretia’s murderer sweeps through Liminalia.
“Thank the goddesses,” Nyatrix mutters, pulling waxed sheets off a stone table with plain wooden chairs. “I don’t know how you all manage in these damn caves.”
Agrippina laughs, unlocking a chest and pulling out a perfectly preserved woolen blanket. “I’m in the greenhouse every day,” she explains. “And my rooms are in the outer courtyard, so I do have a window.”
I agree with Nyatrix’s sentiment, though I’m too exhausted by everything that’s happened to voice it. The vast majority of the Conclaves are ancient chambers, burrowed deep into the sea cliffs at the edge of the Sepulchyre’s land. Though the rooms are high-ceilinged and decorated with lovely frescoes and tiles, accented with tiny alcoves showcasing gleaming reliquaries, it still feels suffocating to me.
“And once,” Agrippina continues, pulling down a faded wall covering to expose a second door, “greenery used to fill these halls. The walls were alive with blooms. Vines crawled across the ceiling, every corridor an orchard. Once, both goddesses were present here. It used to be more than Death that stalked these halls.”
Tiberius pulls a chair out for me, and I sink into it. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, wondering if my nose will find some lingering memory of petals trod underfoot. Instead, asphodel floods my senses—sweet, dark earth and the rich spice of decay.
The sound of Agrippina pulling a door open, the wood scraping across the tiled floor, forces my eyes open. Liminalia’s golden-gray evening slinks through the opening, illuminating the space. Outside, what looks like curls of steam reach into the air.
“If you need to bathe,” Agrippina explains, turning back toward us, “these old rooms were for visiting dignitaries, so they have access to the hot springs along the shore. You’ll have to be very careful with the tides to not be swept off the cliff face, mind you. The ocean is a different animal than it once was. But you should be safe here until we figure out what to do next. I won’t see Tiberius and Nyatrix executed for treason, nor will I see Ophelia returned to the Host like a lost puppy.”
Tiberius only nods in reply, moving to stand in front of the door, arms crossed. Nyatrix settles into a chair across from me, drumming her fingers along the table’s surface.
I look at these three brave, strange people, summoning my own courage. “I need you to tell me everything you know,” I say. “About this Tithe. About what your Centuria has done.”
Nyatrix glances at me, pleased as a cat with a canary between its teeth. “Nothing would bring me more pleasure than giving you precisely what you want,” she replies. Her gaze slides away for a moment and returns twice as dangerous. “ Whatever you want, little dove.”
“Do you ever stop?” Tiberius demands from the doorway, while Nyatrix just laughs.
Agrippina takes a seat beside me, her mouth curved in amusement. Then she turns her startling blue gaze toward me, examining me, like she’s trying to decide if I’m strong enough to weather the storm she knows is coming.
“This city is divided,” Agrippina finally says, her words accented by the crash of waves outside the chambers. Over her shoulder, I watch an arc of sea spray shimmer in the evening light through the window. “It’s a division many of us cannot see. The Centuria, the wealthy, those with proximity to the ruling class—they made a decision for all of us. We give the Host our children with a natural inclination toward Mysterium. In return, the First Son provides just enough resources to keep us alive.”
Nyatrix pulls a dagger from somewhere on her person and flips it between her fingers. “As you heard,” she says, her gaze meeting mine, though the complex movements of the dagger do not halt, “Lucretia believed that she was somehow playing the Host. Tricking them. That we’d win out in the end.”
“But the Host keeps upping the Tithe number every few anni,” Agrippina says. “The Centuria has resorted to claiming Hexen are breaking through the Ossuary Walls and carrying children off into the Sundered Lands. They’ve even shown parents battered and broken little bodies that I believe are nothing but illusory Mysterium.”
My stomach churns, and I lean my elbows onto the table, feeling faint. “Why does the Host want these children?” These children , I say, as if I were not one of them.
“We think,” Tiberius says, his helm tucked under his arm, “that the First Son can’t access Mysterium, not directly. Some lingering Curse from the Creatrixes, maybe. So instead He has to consume the natural gifts of this land, unable to simply channel them. Children brimming with a Mysterium affinity are useful as soldiers . . . or a meal.” His jaw tenses as he falls silent, one hand rubbing his closely shorn black hair as he gazes at me. It takes me a second to understand the expression on his face—sorrow, maybe a bit of pity—and then I blanch.
“But I can’t work Mysterium,” I sputter, a tangle of frustration knotting tighter and tighter in my belly. “So why was I taken? Why was my mother killed for nothing?”
“The Tithing Massacre happened because we initially refused the Host’s demands,” Nyatrix tells me, her words soft. She lays the dagger flat on the table and reaches for my hand. “We thought after that day, it was over. Formally, the Centuria rejected the Tithe. It was done.”
“But it wasn’t.” Agrippina sighs. “And I’m so angry at myself for taking so long to notice.” She leans back in her chair, reaching into her robes. From their voluminous folds of fabric, she produces a thick stack of papyri, wrapped snugly in a thin leather cover. “Here,” she says, placing it on the table. “Birth records. Disappearance reports. I’ve noted the total sum of discrepancies on the first page. Every record is followed by my and Nyatrix’s notes on what we think may have actually happened.”
Hesitantly, I unwrap the leather and scan the first page, written in Commonia. My heart skitters. “This would add up to almost three hundred children,” I gasp, looking up at them.
“Have there been three hundred foundlings since you arrived?” Nyatrix asks, her gaze sharp.
“No,” I sputter. “Not even close. Perhaps eighty? Some went into the military and died in the war, of course. But I can tell you with certainty that three hundred foundlings have not passed through our gates and into our halls in my time.”
Nyatrix and Agrippina exchange a look. Tiberius lurches forward, as if he can snatch the foundlings back, his expression grim.
“Do you think...” Agrippina’s jaw grinds and she closes her eyes, as if to find refuge from her own thoughts.
“Yes, I do,” Nyatrix replies, her words hoarse with horror. “I think He’s devouring them.”
L ater that evening, I pull the candlestick closer to the papyri, trying to make out the characters of Old Ceremonia scrawled in faded ink. Night has fallen, and the moons are in their waning phases, making my translation work that much harder.
“Ophelia,” the Lupa Nox calls, voice sweet as sin, from where she’s seated on the low couch, reading Mare Regina by the faint light. “You should try to sleep.”
“I just want to finish this line,” I tell her, angling the papyri away from me, hoping it might catch the candlelight better. It doesn’t, and I sit back in the chair with a grunt of frustration.
It’s been maybe seven bells since Nyatrix killed the Centurion, since I learned of the Tithe, and already I have discovered so much of Sylva’s suffering is orchestrated by a handful of people in power. People with true power, not the pathetic servings they dole out that let us think we might have some control over our own lives.
My jaw grinds as I dig my fingernails into my palms. The god I spent my life worshipping procures children— children —who can work Mysterium, and likely devours them in the same way He did His siblings, the way He yearned to swallow His own mothers whole. I can’t think too long about how badly I wanted one of those false Saints to choose me, how much I wanted to be given that stolen power, ripped from the hearts of little ones. How much I yearned to be a loyal hound receiving the table scraps from my god’s endless feast.
And Liminalia, the land I thought might be better, even if only a little, is ruled by people who broker this transaction. I imagine that, like Lucretia, the rest of the Centuria tell themselves it’s for the best, that a sacrifice must be made, that everyone would starve if they did not agree to this Tithe. Sylva once held other cities, their names long lost to time, their structures long since fallen to ruin. Perhaps a few of the outlying villages were once making Tithes, too, but the Sundering and the Hexen have spread so far, most of the larger settlements were abandoned in the last fifteen anni or so. I remember the refugees arriving in Lumendei, their hollow gazes, their tattered robes.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to focus on the present, on the scrolls before me. On the burden of the First Son’s hunger that Liminalia bears. Or, at least, that some of Liminalia bears. From the records I’ve been poring over, Centuria mothers aren’t being told their child was stillborn despite a perfectly healthy pregnancy. There are no reports of any Patroni—the Sepulchyre’s upper class—families losing a toddler to supposed Hexen attacks. Even the families Agrippina’s notes mark as simply being associated with more powerful lineages are often free of such tragedy.
No. Instead it’s the Cult of the Mater Dea, the carpenter who built a table for Nyatrix, the only groom Argento actually likes, the craftsman who makes the glass panels for the greenhouses, the cobbler who figured out how to craft shoes from all kinds of materials when leather became too resource-intensive to produce.
I drop my head into my hands and seethe. All of this, and for what? So a god can sate His hunger for more power, devouring nearly all of this Tithe for Himself and doling out meager portions to His favorite followers? And for the mortals who participate in it—do they think it brings them any closer to godhood? Do they not understand they will never be divine, will never have the kind of power the First Son wields? How do they not understand they are so much closer to the cobbler who goes out every night, calling his lost child’s name into the mists, than they are to a god who eats and eats and eats ?
“Ophelia.” Nyatrix’s breath ghosts my neck.
I bolt upright, twisting at the waist. She’s standing right beside me, her palm flat on the table. One of her dark brows arches, and her eyes drop to my mouth.
I suppose I do know something of hunger after all.
“Just this line,” I protest as she slides the candlestick away from the papyri. “I just want to finish this line. You know how important the translation could be.”
“You said that four lines ago,” she replies, that brow arching higher. “You need rest.”
I almost give in. It would be so easy—her eyes so blue they’re nearly black, her berry-sweet mouth. We’re alone, Agrippina and Tiberius having long since taken their leave. But then I remember what Nyatrix said to her commander back in the waiting chamber. I remember how Renault, too, thought he knew what I needed.
“Do not pretend to care,” I snap at her, anger rising in me like a tide. “You used me. Seduced me to escape.”
Nyatrix sighs and sinks into a crouch at my side so our gazes are nearly level. “I said that to protect you,” the knight replies with a weariness that makes my heart skip a beat. “I’m sorry you had to hear it. But Ophelia, I swear that’s all I was doing. Protecting you.”
I push up to stand, my legs wobbling. I catch myself on the table, one palm flat against the wood. “Protect yourself , Nyatrix,” I reply. “I was using you, too.”
She rocks back, surprise sliding into her expression. Her lips part and then smooth into a firm line. I lean forward, into the wolf’s face, pushing my advantage with a twisted kind of glee simmering in my chest. So rarely do I find myself with the upper hand.
“Are you surprised?” I demand, my hand curling into a fist. “Surprised that something as weak as me could fool you? Well, I believed with my entire heart that if I could convert you to the Church of the Host, then I would be saved.” I pause, breathing heavily. Nyatrix watches me soundlessly, her eyes glittering in candlelight. “I was using you for my own salvation.”
She says nothing, nor does she rise to her towering height. The only movement she makes is to cant her head to the side, examining me—but not like she’s never seen me before, not with the surprise I’ve found in Sergio’s and Renault’s expressions. Just a studious kind of attention, heavy and luxurious.
“I am so tired,” I breathe, my chest heaving as I gulp for air, “of everyone thinking they need to protect me and then using that as an excuse to control me.”
The Lupa Nox speaks then, finally. “I had thought,” she murmurs, asphodels surrounding me, “I’d made it quite clear I had no desire to control you, little dove.”
My heart pounds as she looks up at me, her mouth curving into something dangerous, a dagger that I would die to cut myself upon.
“Back in the chapel,” she continues, “I said that you were in control.”
I scoff at the words even though every part of my body burns for her. “Wasn’t that just more manipulation?” I ask.
She watches me, listens to me, and then considers. Her lips—by the heavens, her lips —purse, and then she rises to her feet like a shadow. Nyatrix towers over me now, standing a hair’s breadth from where I sit. With a long sigh, she takes my chin in her fingers and gazes down at me.
“It was only manipulative,” the Lupa Nox murmurs, “in the sense that I made it out to be entirely about you. It was, mostly. But, by the goddesses, how badly I wanted it to be me plumbing the depths of your pleasure, summoning those pretty little noises from your mouth.”
Desire uncoils low in my belly, the apex of my thighs throbbing. Her fingertips slide along my cheekbone, her palm meeting my jaw.
“Right now,” I whisper, unable to speak any louder, “are you just using me? Manipulating me?”
“Would you believe me,” she begins, her eyes never leaving mine, “if I swore I wasn’t? If I said I wanted you to use me , little dove?”
My mouth goes dry, and every vein in my body pounds, the hum of my heart so loud in my ears that I almost can’t think. “No,” I say, my voice strangled.
I try to stop myself from devouring her outline hungrily—the broad strokes of her shoulders, the narrow taper of her waist, her strong, elegant hands. She runs her gaze down my body, and suddenly I feel every stitch of clothing against my skin.
“I can no longer trust words,” I find myself saying, my voice so much stronger than I feel. “Not after the lies in the Catechisma, the falsehoods inscribed in the plinths.”
Her mouth curves, sweet as overripe blackberries. “If you would permit me,” she murmurs, a half-mad gleam in her eyes that makes me tremble, “I would gladly prove myself with actions of the flesh, enact such devotions with my hands and mouth and tongue.”
The world narrows to this hidden chamber at the edge of a dying city. Caelus, even if it exists, is worthless if I have to abstain from her to gain my entrance. I stand at a precipice so far from anything and everything I’ve ever known. Outside, the sea roars, and it roars differently than it does against Lumendei’s cliffs. So much is the same, I suppose, and yet nothing has ever felt like this before.
Nothing has ever felt like I think she might, her hair in my hands, the curve of her waist in my palm, my mouth on her breast. I do not know if I can trust her—if I can trust anything ever again—but Saints, I want to.
“Perhaps,” I hazard, nearly tripping over my tongue, “you might help me get ready for a bath. Help me down the stairs. Keep an eye on the tides. Keep me safe.”
The Lupa Nox watches me, her eyes glimmering in the candlelight. She holds perfectly still, the same way she did just before she slammed Lucretia into a wall. Wildly, uncontrollably, I want to be her prey. I want her teeth on my throat. I want to be at her mercy.
And, most of all, I want to know that I can tell the most powerful warrior in these abandoned lands what I desire, and she’ll give it to me. A feverish thrill spears me, damp heat pooling between my legs.
“Your wish, my lady,” the Lupa Nox whispers, “is my command.”