Chapter XXVI
XXVI
Seeing is belief. While we take the utmost care in raising up those destined to become shadows, we can only offer a facsimile of the world they will encounter across the sea.
Here, the gods do not move us through dreams or marks or holy orders.
There, they do. Here, we can teach the language and practices and particulars of life and faith, but none of the conviction and passion.
Those can only be discovered upon contact, and many of our shadows are drawn into full belief.
So be it—faith is not at odds with Vesper’s interests, although it is not part of our own traditions.
—FROM UNDERSTANDING THE RELIGIOUS PRACTICES OF THE HAND: A GUIDE FOR VESPERIN SHADOWS
Once again, there was no apparent way out of the castle proper.
The nobles remained locked down by the guard, though Fia and the Priest were making free use of the servants’ corridors.
Several times, Fia had found other courtiers in the warren of back passages riddling the mountain.
They ignored each other, all bent on their own nefarious business.
Fia’s latent anger sparked into a blaze of aggression any time she passed someone recognizably titled, however, for she was determined to get out via the kitchens and had Justus in arms. If anyone attempted to harm him while he was in her care, Fia knew she’d tear them to pieces with her nails and teeth.
Perhaps everyone was right. Perhaps she wasn’t cut out for life as a soria.
Whatever was happening in the rest of the castle, the kitchens were unchanged.
If anything, the pervasive clamor and chaos there were heightened.
Glora shouted directions to a bevy of servants, all bearing trays which would be brought to the ostensibly captive nobles.
The cook was sweating and roaring equally loudly, overseeing a half dozen steaming cauldrons and several spits of roasting pigs.
Apparently, the Inver response to crisis was to ensure their masters continued to eat well.
For a moment, Glora caught Fia’s eyes from across the room. Then she moved toward her, and the postulant’s heart beat like an altar drum in her chest. She tightened her grip on Justus and could feel herself bristling.
“There are guards,” Glora said. “Even at the kitchen gate. But I can get you out, if you’re leaving.”
“I’m coming back,” Fia said. “I have to. This won’t take three hours. Will I be able to get in again?”
Glora nodded. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Fia’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“You’re working on behalf of the little king and the Priest’s bid to become regent for him, yes? The Priest’s already enlisted my help.”
“I am the Priest’s bid for a regency,” Fia corrected grimly, but she followed Glora out into the enclosed courtyard behind the kitchens. Sure enough, she could hear the raucous voices of guards laughing and joking from the other side of the kitchen gate.
Glora skirted the kitchen’s exterior wall rather than leading Fia across the courtyard.
Off to one side, there was a narrow alley that smelled of rotting food and refuse, and the postulant covered Justus’s face gently with one sleeve.
She was back in the cast-off riding habit of Ariana’s, which she’d worn before when wanting to travel unnoticed through the city.
The ill fit of it left her more irritable and uncomfortable than ever but couldn’t be helped.
“All our castle waste gets hauled away through here,” Glora explained, gesturing to another gate, this one hardly larger than an interior doorway.
“They take it out by handcart and dump it off one of the cliffs. The gate’s always kept locked, and only opened when the waste’s taken out, so there won’t be a guard.
I’m the only one who holds a key, and I change the lock weekly to make sure it stays that way.
I’ll unlock it for you now and leave it open until you’re back.
Everyone else will assume it’s a dead end and not bother to try it as a way in or out of the castle.
Besides which, none of the other nobles will want their assassins or armies smelling of kitchen refuse. ”
“I don’t care what I smell of,” Fia answered. “So long as I can do what’s needed.”
“As it should be,” Glora said with approval as she opened the heavy lock.
On the threshold of the dregs gate, Fia stopped. She turned back to Glora and found the woman watching her closely.
“What do you know about this Hadrian Inver, who the Priest’s planning to make an ally?
” Fia asked. “I mean, I’m aware there’s history between the two of you, but is there anything valuable you know?
Anything someone with the best interests of Honoria and the Priest at heart might use, if they needed to?
The Priest said he wants Hadrian backing him because Hadrian’s always been his loudest detractor.
I don’t like that, particularly. I’d prefer to feel I have something that can be held over him. ”
Glora kissed her teeth, thinking for a moment. “I want something from you before I give any information. For you to do the witchcraft that binds you to keep quiet about what passes between us now.”
Fia’s hand went to her goddess mark. “How would you like me to swear?”
“Promise that anything I tell you, you’ll only repeat if it serves the best interests of the Priest. Not of Honoria, mind—you and I have different ideas about what would be best for the country, I’ll warrant.
So you’re never to speak on what I say unless it will keep the Priest safe or bring him power. On that, I think we can agree.”
Fia swore, and Glora gave a satisfied nod.
“Here’s something I’ve never spoken a word of to anyone else: not a year after leaving Hadrian Inver, I got a bastard by another man, and I gave the child up for all our sakes.
The baby gained better chances, his father avoided any trouble with his lawful wife, and I rose to the position of chatelaine.
But that means Hadrian was the barren one, not me.
Which begs the question: Whose children has he named his heirs?
Because they’re none of his, much as he believes them to be. Adri Inver has him hoodwinked.”
Pondering this a moment, Fia shook her head. “I could use that to wound him, perhaps. But not to shift him in the Priest’s favor. Is there anything else?”
Glora put her head to one side, thinking further.
“I do keep tabs on Hadrian’s family, much as I don’t want them underfoot.
He’s raised the eldest, a boy, to take over his title and lands someday—Felix has been at the Vesperin front for two years now, and by all accounts should make a hard but fair successor.
It’s the younger child, a girl, that Hadrian dotes on, though.
Aryn’s still a little thing, five summers old, and he only brings her to his principal estate occasionally, for fear of something happening to her.
He knows she’s a weakness. So most of the time she’s kept somewhere secret, in care of a tutor.
He always had a liking for a forest town called Mistral, and I expect if he’s stowed her anywhere, it’s there.
He’d want her to be somewhere beautiful, that feels safe, and Mistral comes closest to those things in Hadrian’s province. ”
“Good,” Fia said decisively. “Thank you, Glora, that’s exactly the sort of thing I need.”
For a long moment, Glora stood staring at Fia, a closed-off, distrustful look in her eyes.
“If you play the Priest false, I’ll see it goes hard for you,” she said at last. “I will find a way to end you, if you’re the death of him. I knew as soon as he spoke of the throne and a regency that it wasn’t him behind it, but you.”
“I understand,” Fia answered. “And I swear to you, I want nothing more than to see the Priest live. But there are others I love, others I must work for, too, starting with this boy in my arms and ending with Honoria itself. I am hungry and perhaps foolish enough to believe I can protect them all, though to succeed will certainly require risk.”
“That’s the difference between you and me.” Glora’s voice was terse, and she no longer met Fia’s eyes. “You’ve other things to love, and I only ever had the one.”
Fia hesitated a moment, unsure if she ought to push for a further confession. But she was nothing if not bold, and after a moment she spoke.
“May I ask you something? What was the name of your child?”
Glora shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. He doesn’t use a name any longer. Only a title.”
Fia nodded. She’d suspected as much, seeing the way Glora watched the Priest. “I understand. Will you ever tell him?”
Sniffing, Glora tossed her head, and when her gaze locked on Fia’s, Inver fire flashed between them. “No. And you won’t, either. It wouldn’t do him any good to know.”
On impulse, Fia stepped forward and pressed one hand to Glora’s chest, above the place where her heart beat.
She felt Glora’s surprise as the chatelaine stilled and received the gesture for what it was.
After a moment, Glora raised her own calloused and workworn hand and placed it over Fia’s heart as well.
“If it’s needed, I will keep your son safe with my own body and blood,” the postulant promised before turning away.
The small track Fia found herself on wound around the outside of the castle proper, emerging near the city’s laundries.
She lost herself in a restless crowd—people were everywhere, the news of Orden’s death already spreading like wildfire.
Shops were shuttered, foundries silent, market stalls abandoned.
Inverlyn was bracing itself for upheaval.
Even the faithful district wasn’t immune.
There were people in the streets there, too, albeit more sparsely than in the populous areas of the city.
Fia made her way to the single taberna she’d seen in business, and pushed through a relatively subdued knot of gossipers who’d gathered in the doorway.
“Maybe Charin Inver?” someone asked as Fia passed by.