Chapter 7 Csilla #2
‘This is a kindness you should remember when you think of the Faith.’ Abe’s voice was soft as he took her hand and pressed it against the wooden counter. ‘We could have mutilated you so your soulless tongue couldn’t speak against the Church or sent you to the North to starve.’
She nodded. This pain would be a goodness. She would repeat it over and over until she believed it.
‘Stay still,’ ágnes said. It was an order she’d heard a thousand times, fussing as a child, mind and feet wandering during lectures. She’d never heard it with tears behind it before.
Abe pulled the knife vertically across her palm and a thin line of blood split where it bisected the fresh scar, white at the corners of her vision.
In the doorway, the inquisitor watched with narrow eyes, making no reaction to Csilla’s gagging cry of pain.
She’d been accepted for less than one day. The humiliation was worse than the cut. Abe claimed he was showing her kindness, but she’d find no warmth anywhere.
ágnes led her out of the kitchens by her uninjured hand, and for a brief second Csilla wanted nothing more than to be a child again, warmed by the belief that everything would be right in her world as long as she was good.
But she hadn’t been good enough, and there was no one to blame but herself.
‘I’ll prepare some things for you. We won’t throw you out empty-handed.’
The gratitude was warm until the finality of it scalded.
‘I’m sorry to be such a disappointment.’
She’d grown up telling herself if she were better, quieter, the first to offer comfort, the one who knew every prayer, everything would be alright. That the Faith served Asten, and everyone had a place, and hers was at ágnes’s side in service.
‘I understand your choice,’ ágnes replied as she led her up twisted stairs towards her own rooms.
But she didn’t deny that Csilla was a disappointment.
‘It’s not fair!’ Csilla clenched her hands until she felt the slice of fingernails into her palm, digging at the fresh wound and not caring how it hurt.
‘I’ve done nothing but serve since I was a child.
I’ve cared for the people of this city, cared for our people—’ The end of her sentence was lost in memories of other wounds, other tears, and the comfort she’d tried to offer.
ágnes sighed. ‘It’s up to a higher judgement than ours. The rules are to show us . . .’
‘Show mercy to souls in need, keep them safe and whole so they can be guided to Brilliance. Isn’t that what we’re taught?’ The tears were coming faster now, her words interrupted only by tiny gasps.
‘Souls, Csilla.’ ágnes shook her head. ‘All my prayers weren’t good enough for a miracle. Perhaps I’m the one who should have been better.’
The resignation in her tone stilled Csilla’s heart.
The elderly woman led her to a window where the light was good and wrapped oil-soaked cotton and linen over the bleeding hand.
Csilla almost stopped her, but she didn’t have the strength to advocate for saving the supplies for those worse off, and her selfish heart craved that last bit of care.
‘But I don’t know anything but here.’
Worse, there was nowhere in the Immaculate Union that would fully trust her, especially now, and nowhere on the continent that wouldn’t belong to the Union soon enough.
The edges of the wall that protected the sanctity of the city teased her eyes, rising just above rooftops and smoke to divide the Brilliant City from a world that tried its best to fall to Shadow.
Each roof was a story of the lives inside, people she’d fed, babies she’d watched delivered – some red and squalling, some grey and silent – old and young hands she’d held as the bodies of their loved ones were taken for burning.
There might be work outside the city, but this was the only work that mattered.
‘Perhaps someone will take you in,’ ágnes suggested, a sigh in the words. ‘At least then you wouldn’t be far.’
Csilla closed her eyes and let her lids grow heavy. There was a better chance of Asten returning this second than finding someone willing to take responsibility for a cross-marked soulless girl in the holiest city of the Union.
Except perhaps Mihály. The memory of his warm-honey gaze crept over her.
He had come back for her. He’d tried to warn her.
‘I’ll be sleeping on the streets.’ A sharp thought prodded her. ‘The Izir told me something curious. He said there was a killer in the city.’ There were dangers on the streets she was being banished to.
ágnes’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t listen to a thing that man says, Csilla. Yes, there have been deaths.’ She drew a shaking breath. ‘But they are being handled. Panicking and making more of it than what it is, that’s the type of thing that drives people to heresy.’
‘But sending the bodies outside . . . and I saw the dying Seal.’ There was no pretty way to excuse that.
ágnes took her hand. ‘Yes, the Seal is suffering with the fear and lack of faith in the city, and wild rumours will only make it worse. Don’t add to it any more than you already have. Please.’
Csilla clenched her teeth and nodded, though the rebuke hurt. ágnes had been so quick to accept Csilla’s role in the Church and now was treating her like a child again.
‘Rest. They won’t begrudge me one night. I’ll sit a vigil for you and see you off in the morning.’
The woman could sit a year’s worth of vigils and it wouldn’t change anything.
‘You don’t have to.’
ágnes touched Csilla’s head lightly and turned towards the door.
‘I want to.’
Csilla nodded, all further protests wrapping up inside herself. If there was one thing she knew about prayer, it was that it wasn’t always for the sake of the person being prayed for.
Her eyes fell again to her bandaged palm, drops of red seeping through. If only there were a way to convince the Faith she wasn’t worthless. She couldn’t even comfort ágnes, so clearly shaken. The fear wasn’t just outside. The Church was walking the line of its own tenets to get to the heart of it.
A frantic idea took flutter inside. Mihály knew about magic and souls, might know something of the trouble with the Seal and the fear eroding it.
And right now, he was one of the most connected men in the city, with followers who would give him information.
She nodded to herself, each motion deliberate and steadying.
The Church would never work with a heretic, but, soulless and outcast, she could.
She could help the city. She could help herself.
?
Csilla fretted and dozed until well past the midnight bells, only getting up when it was safer to wander.
Stained-glass windows and the milky white candles below them illuminated the hallways, the cold eyes of angels and saints and Blessed Asten in all Their aspects heavy on her.
She couldn’t even lower her gaze to escape; the glass cast coloured flecks underfoot and she walked on ripples of sanctified light.
Behind her came the quick padding of a cat, and Csilla paused to let her catch up. At least someone cared enough to check on her.
She approached the cathedral library as if the door itself might have teeth, but the latch was plain iron, worn down with years of finger pressure.
She slid it out and pushed, only to find there was no give.
Csilla pursed her lips. She’d meant to see if she could find anything about the Seal, the deaths, or even the strange theories Mihály seemed to have, but someone had it bolted from the inside.
She stiffened and pressed her ear to the door, but the thick wood muffled any sounds, and the only thing she caught was the echo of a cough.
Maybe she could hide in an alcove and wait for whoever it was to emerge.
Depending on exactly what they were researching, it could be hours.
It wasn’t unheard of for particularly deep studies to take days.
The head archivist once took his meals inside for a month.
Erzsébet chirped before giving a pleased meow as she rubbed against Csilla’s legs, ignoring the fingers that tried to hush her. She meowed again, louder, waiting for a response with no care for the secrecy of the mission, only protest that she wasn’t being included.
There was no reasoning with cats.
Csilla picked her up to stop her fussing, letting their foreheads bump together.
‘We have to be quiet,’ she whispered, snuggling the cat against her chest, wincing as kneading claws dug into the fabric of her overdress.
Maybe Mihály liked cats. If she could sneak Erzsébet out, at least she’d have one friend in wherever her new home was to be.
Erzsébet meowed loudly with fresh insult at whatever it was about being gently held that offended cats, mouth wide enough to show little fangs and pink tongue, and before Csilla could shush her again, the door opened.
Ilan. Looking even more worse for wear than perhaps she was, his eyes rimmed in bruise-like dark and his skin wax pale.
Csilla froze. There wasn’t anywhere to run, or any way to pretend she hadn’t been trying to get in.
The inquisitor leaned against the door frame, annoyance giving way to momentary surprise.
‘You’re supposed to be gone.’ His voice dripped with exhaustion.
You’re supposed to be asleep.
‘I will be, in the morning. I just wanted to look at something.’ Not a lie, at least.
‘What could you possibly need in here?’
‘I . . .’ Erzsébet squeezed out of the sudden constriction of Csilla’s clenching arms and leaped to the floor with an all-over shake. ‘My own records. I should copy down my birth record if I’m to live elsewhere.’ That was also true, even if it wasn’t what she intended to do.