Chapter Twenty-Six
The one time she allowed someone his last words, and he refused the honor.
“I will kill them all.”
Seraphina rose to her feet. Snow and mud sloshed under her boots.
A twig snapped. She had Idris’s knife, her eyes, and her tongue.
She could feel the apex relic vibrate underneath her skin.
The power that spread through her limbs was eager, scorching.
It gathered at the base of her throat, waiting to be spoken.
Willa jumped in front of her, hands raised.
“No, you should run!”
Seraphina locked eyes with her.
“You. Find Peter and Hans. Take them away.”
Willa froze for a moment, not understanding what was happening. Her inner fight only lasted a few seconds, then she turned on her heel and launched herself into the chaos, looking for the father and son.
“Seraphina, wait!” Idris ran after her.
She didn’t stop.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, panting. “You won’t…”
“Kill them all?” she chuckled, unhinged.
“You won’t, won’t you?”
She fixed him with her blue gaze, grinned, placed a hand on his chest and gently pushed him away.
“Stay back, please. I don’t want to worry about you.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she’d turned away, increasing her pace.
The first rebel to cut into her path was ordered to fight the wolves with his bare hands.
So was the next, and the next, until Seraphina made all the rebels who met her gaze and heard her voice walk to certain death.
At first, the beasts ignored them and merely growled and pushed them away, which meant they knew who the enemy was.
But after the men and women in Seraphina’s thrall attacked them relentlessly, the wolves turned on them.
Michael started shouting at the beasts. They were feral and annoyed. His commands were disregarded.
Not a bone that manipulated animals, then. Seraphina tucked that information away. The leader of the rebels probably had a lesser relic that allowed him to speak to animals but not control them. She didn’t know if her own thrall relic worked on beasts, and she didn’t have time to find out.
“You. Bring Michael to me.”
Not that she believed one person could do that, so she gave the order to five more.
Every rebel who approached her was disarmed, held at arm’s length, and enthralled.
She moved with grace, slicing left and right, not allowing anyone to get close enough to draw blood.
When they were too many, she commanded them to attack each other.
She made her way to the center of the battlefield, where she saw Rune, a few heads taller than everyone else, daggers lodged into his chest and back, staring at the ground.
She couldn’t see what he was looking at.
Michael fought his own people, six of them, and when he couldn’t convince them to back off, he shouted at Rune.
“Free me!”
Rune didn’t react at once.
The rebels brought their leader closer to where Seraphina was. He shouted again, and Rune turned his head and saw her. Even as he held her gaze, he didn’t come to her. He grabbed two of the people swarming Michael and threw them on the ground.
Seraphina knew her window was closing. She started running, slammed into a bunch of people who tried to stop her, and when she was a few feet away from Michael, she shouted:
“You!”
He didn’t hear her in the commotion. She noticed the nuns had started to retreat. The wolves had left them alone, and the rebels were fighting amongst each other.
“You!”
Michael was yelling at his men and at Rune. Rune grabbed another by the scruff of his neck and threw him into a tree.
“You son of a whore! Listen to me! Look at me!”
She screamed at the top of her lungs until she got the attention of everyone in close proximity. She walked purposefully toward their leader, pointing at him. When he turned and met her eyes, his own widened in confusion. She had him.
“You, tell Rune to stop.”
Michael did.
Rune took a few steps back, hands going to his head. He sank his fingers into his black hair and pulled at the roots. The sight of his tormented, tear-streaked face spurred Seraphina on.
“You will not address Rune anymore. Not a word.” Then to the men holding Michael: “Step away from him.” They did as they were told.
She stopped in front of him.
“Kneel.”
Michael dropped to his knees, his terrified gaze never leaving hers. His blond hair was messy and dirty, his face was stained with mud. At his sides, his hands were turned into fists. He was shaking so hard that his teeth chattered.
“You did this,” she said, shaking herself, waving at the gore around her. Then something in her mind snapped. “Briar! Where is Briar?”
Rune let out a guttural wail.
A few feet away, a woman screamed and cried, screamed again.
Seraphina took a moment to truly look around her.
The wolves were gone, having run into the woods.
Bodies littered the ground, some whole, most torn, some wearing veils and habits, most in peasant clothes.
The sisters were spread out in a semi-circle to her right, the surviving rebels – only a handful – stood to her left, holding each other.
They were in her thrall. They wouldn’t move until she told them to.
From the skies, the flying sister floated to the ground.
She had her musket lowered at her side. She saw the Mother Superior holding her crucifix to her lips, praying silently.
Seraphina stepped around Michael and reached out to touch Rune’s arm.
He flinched away. She turned to the crying woman and saw that it was Sister Margaret.
Her habit was drenched in blood. She was cradling something to her chest. It looked like a bundle.
No… Seraphina saw black hair, a flash of pale skin.
She stepped closer. At her feet, a body.
Where the head should have been – torn flesh and a puddle of blood.
Hanging askew, half buried in the mud, a gold crucifix.
And that was when she understood. Sister Margaret was holding her daughter’s head.
Briar.
She’d told Seraphina stories when she was delirious with fever and pain, her body fighting infection after her eyes had been gouged out.
Briar.
She’d held Seraphina at night, huddled in one bed in their cramped room, woke her up from every nightmare, watched over her until dawn.
Briar.
She’d stopped Seraphina from jumping off the highest tower. Once, twice. Every time.
Briar.
She’d taught Seraphina how to navigate in the dark, how to fight with a stick, with twin daggers, how to defend herself and take a life before one attempted to take her honor.
Briar.
She’d broken Seraphina’s little finger in sparring and called it tough love.
Bri-ar. Was dead.
She lifted her gaze. Her eyes landed on the Mother Superior. She tilted her head and waited for the nun to look at her. She was not in a hurry; she was in control. When the Mother Superior finally met her gaze, Seraphina considered her next words carefully.
“Would you say,” she asked, “That what happened here was also your fault?”
The woman shuddered visibly.
“Give the command already. What do you want me to do?”
“You knew I could stop this. Briar begged you to give back my tongue.”
The Mother Superior pursed her lips. She didn’t look away, and Seraphina had to admit it was brave.
“You claim you care about the sisters. You only want what’s good for them. You protect the convent, the vault, their bodies and their souls.” She spread out her arms. “How many have you killed tonight with your stubbornness? With your pride, your foolishness, your insistence that you knew better.”
There was a subtle shift among the sisters. They stepped away from the Mother Superior. Seraphina looked from one face to another. They avoided her gaze, choosing to stare at the ground or in the distance.
She moved aside and waved toward Michael, on his knees, paralyzed, waiting for the end he knew was coming. The only thing he didn’t know was how it would happen.
“Join him, won’t you?”
The nun didn’t move.
Seraphina lifted an eyebrow, rolled her lips, waited a few more seconds.
Sister Hedwiga stepped forward.
“Seraphina, please…”
Seraphina’s eyes snapped to hers.
“You, stand back.”
Sister Hedwiga’s chin trembled. Tears poured out of her eyes, but she took a step back, and the other sisters did the same.
That was when the Mother Superior started moving, walking past Seraphina, past Sister Margaret crying over her daughter’s dead body, past Rune, who was turned away from it all, and knelt beside the rebel leader.
Seraphina nodded, shot one more lingering look at the nuns, and went to stand in front of the two kneeling people that she held fully responsible for the massacre.
Two leaders who’d failed their people. Two souls she intended to send straight to hell.
One day, when her time came, she would follow them and ask them if it was worth it.
Her grip tight on Idris’s knife, she raised her hand and pointed the blade at Michael.
“You killed Briar. She was my friend. My best friend. She was tough, loyal, headstrong. She loved fully, with no consideration for herself. She carried the world on her shoulders and didn’t complain once.
She sacrificed herself for me. You could’ve stopped it then.
You could’ve looked at her, in her eyes, seen how honest and pure she was, could’ve taken a bow, called for a retreat, and it would’ve never gotten this far. ”
The rebel leader swallowed hard.
“You want to end the war. You say you and your rebels should be trusted with sacred bones because you will use them for good. Do you think the High Harvester doesn’t say the same?”
She shook her head.
“Show me the relic you used on the wolves.”
He reached into his shirt and pulled out a metacarpal bone.
“Tell me about it.”
“It is a lesser relic that comes from Saint Blaise,” Michael said. “It allows one to speak to animals, ask them for information, favors, strike bargains.”
“Quite powerful. I assume it was classified as a lesser relic because animals are seen as lesser.”
He didn’t comment.
Seraphina reached for the bone. She changed her mind when her fingers were inches from it.
She and Michael stared at each other for a few long moments.
She couldn’t let him live. Not that she wanted to.
Divine justice would’ve been to tell him to call a wolf, or the entire pack, and ask them to tear him to shreds.
Fitting. Cruel, though. Degrading. Not for him, but for her.
She took the bone and slipped it into her pocket.
The sisters would later search the bodies for relics. This one, she intended to keep.
She could give Michael a dagger and command him to drive it through his gut. She could give him an axe and tell him to crush his own skull with it.
She could make Sister Blandina put her hands on him and scorch him until he gave his last breath. No, that wouldn’t be fair to poor Sister Blandina. She’d hurt enough people, and she wasn’t a violent person by character.
She could ask Sister Blandina to give her relic to the Mother Superior, and then make the Mother Superior…
No.
Seraphina had to do it herself. Briar’s killer would die by her own hand.
That was fair. It was clean and just. Because she wasn’t a maniac, a deranged woman who spilled blood for the sake of it, she would do it fast. Like she’d done it to Mayer – a dagger to the throat – and to Holzer’s brother – a musket ball to the head.
She weighed Idris’s knife in her hand. It was smaller than her daggers, the blade thin and sharp.
She knew Idris had never hurt a soul with it.
He had it for self-defense, but even in those circumstances, he avoided using it.
The knife had been baptized in blood tonight, and Idris would likely not want it back.
She stepped closer to Michael, placed the blade under his chin. He swallowed hard. He was trembling, but he didn’t beg. There were no tears and no apologies for what he’d done.
“Last words?” she asked.
She waited. He remained silent. The one time she allowed someone his last words, and he refused the honor.
Seraphina slashed his carotid open. She moved away so as to not be sprayed.
The Mother Superior turned her head but was splashed, nonetheless.
Her veil, her right cheek… blood was on her lips.
The man collapsed, hands to his throat, trying to stop the jets that pumped out in rhythm with his heartbeat.
His face drained within seconds, his skin turning gray-white.
He gasped, gurgled, and shook, his body rigid before the muscles started to relax as he lost consciousness.
From there, it didn’t take long. Seraphina watched every second of it, feeling like it was her duty to bear witness.
This was the third man she’d killed with her own hands. She didn’t take it lightly.
The Mother Superior sobbed silently. Eyes shut tightly, fingers clutching her crucifix, she swayed on her knees but remained upright.
She’d crawled about a foot away without realizing.
Seraphina could tell she was fighting very hard to stay put while all her instincts were telling her to bolt, save herself.
But there was no running from Seraphina. The Mother Superior knew that now.
“You…” Seraphina said gently.
The nun didn’t look at her.
“It’s all right, I won’t make you do anything. I will only tell you that I don’t think you’re welcome here anymore.” She looked up at the sisters. “I don’t think they want you to shepherd them. They don’t trust you. You’ve failed them. You’ve failed Briar.”
From silent and contained, the woman’s crying turned loud. Shattering. She fell forward, bracing herself on her hands.
Seraphina watched her for a few seconds, then walked away. She approached Rune, and ever so gently, brushed her fingers over his wrist. He drew away, but this time, she didn’t let him. She pushed her hand into his wide palm and intertwined their fingers. She could feel how hard he was shaking.
“Briar needs us,” she said. “Let’s take her home.”
He nodded and followed Seraphina, head held low, feet heavy, dragging through mud, snow, and blood.
Sister Margaret stood up on shaky legs. Seraphina grabbed her elbow to steady her. She didn’t let go of her daughter’s head, pressing it against her breast like a mother would do with her new-born baby. Seraphina didn’t judge.
Rune bent down and slowly lifted the rest of Briar into his arms. The gold chain slipped. Seraphina picked it up before it got buried.
They started toward the convent, Rune in the middle, Seraphina and Sister Margaret flanking him. Behind them came the sisters, shuffling their feet, holding onto each other, keeping a respectable distance.
The Mother Superior did not follow.