Chapter 7
7
“Z EPHYRUS !”
He pushes onward, walking so swiftly I’m forced to run. By the time we emerge behind the waterfall, sweat and mist drench my skin.
Zephyrus leaps across the slick rocks, landing lightly on the opposite bank. I scramble after him, but I should know better than to think I can outrun the West Wind. He lengthens his gait, driving continuously forward. It does not take long before we return to the underground lake with its pulsating drums and shattering noise. Grass sprouts before me, Zephyrus only two strides ahead.
“Wait.” I reach for him without thought as he stops, stiff in the frame, and angles his face away from me.
“The Orchid King,” I gasp. “Why did he…?”
My gaze drops to Zephyrus’ chest, but his tunic shields the aftermath of that gruesome feeding. The image marks my vision, set to scar. A dark cavern. A blanket of pink blossoms, the scent of honey in the air.
“Drink my blood?” he offers.
I nod slowly. We may as well be standing alone in the vaulted cavern, for the fair folk, every shape and every shade, seem to diminish in light of what has just occurred, veiled behind the red brightness dousing the walls.
The West Wind sighs. “There are forces at work you will not understand. Old blood. Old debts. For your safety, it is best to remain in the dark.” He speaks all this without looking at me. His voice, however, trembles.
“But why does he treat you so poorly?” No, poorly is not the right word. That display of power? Absolutely disgusting. “If Pierus—”
“Please.” Zephyrus lifts a hand. The long, tapered fingers curl slightly, as if grasping for something to hold. “Do not speak his name.” Quickly, he searches the crowd. It has somewhat dispersed, though I spot a number of the smaller sprites, identified by their rotund figures and twig-like limbs. “If you must, refer to him as the Orchid King. It is disrespectful to do otherwise, and many fair folk are employed in his service.”
I take a few breaths, trying to process this new information, arrange it beside all I have learned this evening. The effort fatigues me. It is too complex, too overwhelming. “What I don’t understand is why you had to complete that—” My stomach turns at the recollection. “ Ritual .”
Only now does Zephyrus turn. His eyes are darkened moss with little light to brighten them.
“The only thing I can tell you is that the past is always present. As such, this is the life I must live.”
“But you’re his captive,” I press. “Why? For how long?”
He rests a hand against the wall. Beneath his touch, the stone shimmers into a bright opening that reveals a familiar bend of water singing over rocks. There is no mistaking it. Carterhaugh lies on the other side of the doorway.
“This is where I leave you,” Zephyrus says.
A gentle push sends me stumbling through the quiet wood. When I turn around, there is no sign of the entrance, nor the Bringer of Spring, only the smooth, leaden face of a boulder.
I blink, a bit dazed. Daylight streams through the broken canopy. Noon, judging by the sun’s position, which means I have missed not only service, but breakfast and morning chores. Zephyrus failed to maintain his end of the bargain. My absence has no doubt been noticed.
Lifting my dress, I hurry back up the mountain, trying to think of an adequate excuse for my absence. I could claim I was gathering pearl blossom, which only blooms under moonlight, and which the infirmary is dangerously low on. Soon enough, the church spire breaches Carterhaugh’s leafy crown. Once the porter admits me through the gatehouse, I fly across the grounds toward the cloister. As I turn a corner, I run into Isobel and Fiona, both of whom I was supposed to harvest barley with this morning.
Isobel shrieks and recoils against Fiona, whose face drains of color so quickly she teeters. “Brielle?”
I offer my most apologetic smile. Perhaps it is not too late to fix the damage I’ve wrought. “Sorry for missing chores earlier. I lost track of time and…” And nothing. The lie is so pathetic it doesn’t seem to be worth voicing.
They stare at me, slack-jawed, eyes wide.
Isobel recovers first. “What are you going on about?” she cries, and the strength of her ire sends me back a step, my shoulder knocking one of the pillars. “Mother Mabel has been worried sick about you. Is this some kind of joke?”
Joke? I look to Fiona in confusion. The younger novitiate approaches me, slow and watchful. Never before has she regarded me this way: as though I have risen from the dead. “Brielle,” she says hoarsely. “What happened to you?”
Too much , I nearly say, but I must remain tight-lipped. “The infirmary is low on pearl blossom, so I went to gather some at the riverbank. I’m sorry I lost track of time.” It has happened before, so it isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility.
Fiona’s expression grows troubled. She knows, as I do, that traveling from Thornbrook to the River Twee, where pearl blossom thrives, takes less than an hour on foot. “Did you get lost?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?” Isobel demands. “We looked everywhere for you. Mother Mabel sent for the sheriff.”
“The sheriff?” My voice crests sharply. Through the open doors at the end of the corridor, a group of novitiates startles at the disturbance. Shade obscures their features, but someone gasps, “Brielle?”
I do not understand. Only once before has our abbess sent for the sheriff. It took seven days of searching to find Madeline, whose mysterious pregnancy led to her eventual dismissal from the abbey. “Why would she send for him? I was only gone for an hour.”
“An hour?” Fiona is incredulous. “Brielle,” she whispers. “It’s been seven days .”
The words do not immediately process. “What?”
“You’ve been gone for a week.”
“Stop.” My voice cracks. “Do not toy with me. I went down to the river, but I am here now.” Have they fashioned this hoax as a punishment for my tardiness? If so, I do not appreciate the distress it causes me.
I begin to brush past them, but Fiona snags my arm, her expression grim. She is stronger than I had anticipated. “It is no act. We’ve been searching for you for many days. We believed you to be dead.”
My blood pounds so forcefully my skin throbs with each heaving beat. In the far doorway, the novitiates have multiplied, their mystified whispers seeping out into the open air. Any attempt to neutralize my features crumbles as my mind falls quiet.
It cannot be. Because if what they claim is true, then somehow, over the course of a single night in Under, an entire week has passed in my absence.
“Mother Mabel truly sent for the sheriff?” I croak.
Fiona nods. Isobel shuffles backward as if I carry a pox.
“I will speak with her.” I nod to myself, for it is a good plan. We will speak, and I will explain my mysterious absence. “What time is it?”
“The midday bell rang a short while ago.” Isobel and Fiona stand as a single unit against me, wariness in their eyes. “She is at the church.”
The weight of their suspicion trails me as I head for the church, hurrying as quickly as my weary soles will allow. My dress has dried into a crusty mess, and my red curls have become so snarled it will take the entire evening to separate them. Mother Mabel will know something is amiss.
The sanctuary doors stand open. It feels silly to wash my hands when the rest of me is so filthy, but I stop to use the lavabo prior to entering, watching the clouded water settle into the basin. The air cools as I step onto hallowed ground: gray stone walls, jeweled glass. The rug that runs between the rows of pews mutes my footsteps as I pad toward the altar, atop which the trio of candles burn. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Never to be extinguished.
Mother Mabel kneels at the railing surrounding the sanctuary, her back to me. She wears the ornate, sleeveless chasuble, which she dons during Mass and other ceremonial events, a symbol of her unselfish service. Beneath it, the billowing white sleeves of her alb frame her clasped hands.
Joining her at the railing, I kneel on the cushion and bow my head. What are the ways in which I’ve strayed?
I have taken a man into my room.
I have watched a private, sexual act and did not shut my eyes to it.
I have entered a place that is forbidden to me.
Shame rises to clot my airway. It hardens, becomes stone. Forgive me, Father . For He will know where I have been and with whom.
Mother Mabel stirs at my side. A long exhalation streams from her beaked nose. “I have questions for you,” she murmurs.
My eyes open, and I turn to meet her gaze. My stomach twists. Disapproval or disappointment? I’m not sure which is worse. “Yes, Mother Mabel.”
“Come.” Pushing to her feet, she gestures for me to follow.
A short aisle branching from the main altar flows into the sacristy. The tiny room is barred by a heavy oaken door, which thuds shut upon our entrance, the wood thick enough to muffle any sounds from within.
I have visited the sacristy countless times over the past decade. Here, the abbess vests and prepares for service. It also houses the sacred vessels used during Mass—the altar linings, the chalice and paten, and the Text itself.
Tapestries depicting particularly violent scenes from our literature line the walls: the story of Byron, from the Book of Fate, who was beheaded after admitting to incestuous relations with his daughter; the story of Bram—Carterhaugh’s last true king before northern barbarians slaughtered his clan—from the Book of Night.
“Sit,” Mother Mabel says.
I obey. It is for the best, since my knees have begun to tremble. The abbess’ features are never more severe than when cast in the shadow-dark flicker of candlelight.
She strides past me with a scuff of silk slippers. “You were missed this week, Brielle. When you did not show up for service, your fellow novitiates believed you to have fallen ill.” She stalls, pivots, and slowly paces the opposite direction, sweet incense wafting in her wake. “But when Fiona checked your room, she found it empty, your bed unmade.”
Nothing I might say could explain my absence. I cannot stop a stone rolling downhill.
Sometimes it is easier to say nothing.
“When you did not show up for breakfast, I grew worried. It is unlike you to miss meals, which is why, when evening fell, I decided something terrible must have befallen you and called on the sheriff.”
The hair on my body stiffens. Then it is true. Someone must have trekked all the way to Kilkare to alert him to my disappearance.
“He lost your trail at the River Twee. We feared you had drowned.”
My eyes widen at this. When a person drowns, their soul is denied the opportunity to pass into the Eternal Lands. Water, which touches the earth, rather than the heavens, is believed to store the sins of all who have come before us.
“No, Mother Mabel.” My sweating palms stick to the inside of my gloves as I rub my hands over my thighs. “I am well, as you can see.”
“I’m glad,” she replies, but the terseness of her response reveals her distaste for my frazzled appearance. “It is a miracle you have returned healthy and whole.” There is a pause. “I would like an explanation.”
She demands something I am unable to divulge. By entering Under prior to the tithe, I have broken the abbey’s oldest rule, set in place to secure our safety in the wilds of Carterhaugh.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, and bow deeper. “I left because I wanted to help gather supplies for the physician, but it is no excuse.”
“And what, exactly, did Maria ask you to gather?”
“Pearl blossom,” I stutter.
She hums, a flat, shapeless sound that offers no indication of her thoughts. “That’s interesting, because when we questioned Maria about your absence, she claimed not to have spoken to you in days.”
And I have officially said too much.
“Did anyone else know where you were going?” she demands.
“Fiona.” It is the first name that comes to mind. “I informed her I might be late for morning chores, but I grew disoriented in the darkness. I must have lost the trail.”
Her eyebrows climb high. “You, lose the trail? But you have been exploring those footpaths for a decade.” A moment of silence passes. “Look at me.”
My throat contracts with the force of my swallow, and I lift my head. Mother Mabel’s facial muscles have frozen in an expression of polite interest.
“What are the Seven Decrees?” she demands.
I have not had to state the Decrees since I was a child. It is the worst form of humiliation, that the abbess believes I need reminding of the Decrees when I carry them in my heart all days of the week. “Please, Mother Mabel.”
“The Decrees, Brielle.”
I take a shaky breath as the flush climbs my throat and singes red across my face. “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not disrespect thy mother or thy father. Thou shalt not forsake thy God.” My voice grows hoarse the longer I speak without pause, each rule a dead weight I must cast aside. I swallow and finish with, “Thou shalt remember the Holy Day.”
“You missed one.”
I had hoped she wouldn’t notice.
Once I complete the set, it will become real. The last vestiges of this dream-like state will peel away. I am not ready.
“What is the Seventh Decree?” she snaps.
“Thou shalt not lie.”
Mother Mabel links her fingers together, studying me. Cold radiates through my dress, and my knees begin to ache from pressing into the hard stone. “You vanished for a week. Where did you go? What was so important that you thought it necessary to leave without informing anyone where you were going? And I want the truth.”
Sweat slithers down the column of my spine. Once this information comes to light, I might be dismissed from Thornbrook. I do not think I could survive the world untethered. “As I said, I was seeking pearl blossom.”
“Then why did your trail lead northwest as opposed to southwest, where the plant grows?”
The lies spin webs, but I cannot keep track of their sticky threads. Whatever the consequence, I will accept it, however sharp the barbs. Do I deserve to bleed, then?
“Mother Mabel—”
“Enough. I have heard enough.” Presenting her back, she shrugs off the impressive chasuble, hangs it on a wall hook. Beneath, she wears her alb, the gold stole, the cincture with its trio of knots.
She unties each knot deliberately. Her long nails pick at the rope and slide it free. Setting aside the cord, she then removes the stole, hanging it with the chasuble. Lastly, her alb.
Mother Mabel now wears only a flimsy white tunic. I stare at the pasty skin of her exposed calves.
She crosses the room to remove something from a box that sits on a low shelf. After a moment, she returns to my side. “Knowing the Decrees that guide us, is there anything you would like to add? Anything at all?” She regards me with much knowing. I think I have fallen far in her eyes.
Nothing I say would change my fate, so I do what I have been taught to do since I was eleven years old, hunched on the abbey stoop beneath the pouring rain, watching a dark figure descend the mountain out of sight.
I keep my mouth shut.
Mother Mabel strides for the door. Its lock thunks into place. “Please remove your dress.”
My eyes drop, fingers twitching into loose fists. A wave of cold drags at me. “I do not understand.”
“I will not repeat myself.”
The punishing edge of that statement sends me to my feet. Presenting her my back, I remove my dress so I’m left in only my chemise and breastband. I shiver in the cool air.
“Kneel.”
My knees crack against the flagstones. There is a faint snap of leather—the lash. A metallic taste coats my tongue.
Mother Mabel rounds my back. The church’s incense has always comforted me, but now it turns my stomach, its sweetness curdling to rot. “I am sorry to do this to you, Brielle. I hope you understand.”
The air keens seconds before pain ruptures across my spine.
I scream, lurching forward as the searing line burns with increasing agony. My fingernails bite into the rough stone. My head hangs, and I pant through the shock, the wounded girl within me whimpering.
“A lash for every day you were missing,” the abbess whispers from behind. “A lash for every lie that spoils your tongue.”
The lash comes down. Then—fire across my back.
Seven lashes for seven days.
Seven lashes for seven decrees.
Seven lashes for the stark cruelty of a realm beneath the earth, and rivers, rivers, rivers of blood.