Chapter 11
Later that night, once dinner was long finished and the priory had grown quiet, I gathered my courage to go to Brigid, who was recovering in the infirmary. But Danesh found me first.
As I crossed the entrance hall, she emerged quietly from the shadows, as if she’d been waiting for me there, and matched my pace.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
Danesh was two years older than me—pale, square-jawed, with bright hazel eyes that always seemed to be flashing with anger—and a squadron captain in her own right.
Unusual for a vissera, even an Anointed one like Danesh.
Reading animal entrails to glean information and prophesy was certainly useful, but those abilities usually didn’t warrant a command position.
A fact Danesh boasted about at every opportunity.
I continued toward the infirmary without looking at her. I liked Danesh well enough, even admired her. We’d been in the same recruiting class. I’d spent more than half my life with her. But her arrogance rankled me. Confidence was a must in the Order; arrogance could get people killed.
Danesh’s long ash-blond braid whipped through the air behind us. “I heard about what happened earlier today.”
My stomach turned over with fresh shame. It seemed I possessed an endless supply of it. “Many things happened today,” I said.
“Don’t be coy with me, Mara. We’ve been in this together since the beginning. What’s going on with you? Brigid’s been in the infirmary for hours. It’s not like you to lose control.”
Danesh’s words brought forth flashes of memory:
The two of us as children on the shores of the black lake.
Are you fast? The first words I’d spoken to her.
And hours after that, her words to me: You did the right thing. Petra was a coward.
I rolled my shoulders, shaking off the ghost of Petra’s hands pressing against my arms. Trying in vain to stop me. Begging me for mercy.
“Just a bad day,” I replied, lengthening my stride.
But Danesh was relentless, jogging after me. “The Warden told me about Sablemire. She’s concerned about you.”
“What about Sablemire?”
“That you’re torn up about it for some reason. That it might affect your work going forward.”
“It won’t.”
“Oh no?” Her voice was deceptively innocent. “Hasn’t it already? Last I checked, you weren’t supposed to completely incapacitate your sparring partners.”
I squared my shoulders as we passed the wing housing the librarians, determined to react to neither Danesh’s needling nor the nearness of Gareth. He was somewhere in those rooms. Working, probably, or maybe sleeping. I wondered what his face looked like when it was soft with sleep.
“Is there a point to this conversation?” I said.
“Whatever’s wrong with you, resolve it,” Danesh replied. “I don’t want to go on missions with someone I can’t trust to have my back.”
That made me stop short. Not once in my years of service had anyone expressed doubt about trusting me.
“Did the Warden tell you to say all of this?” I said quietly, no longer bothering to hide my anger. “Or are you just scrambling to get on her good side yet again, since fucking her hasn’t worked?”
Danesh grinned slowly, her eyes flashing with victory. “You should try it sometime. Might take the edge off.”
I walked past her without another word, afraid of what I might do if I lingered. After all, Danesh was right, wasn’t she? It wasn’t like me to lose control, and yet I had.
It wasn’t like me to be unkind, either, and yet look what I’d done to Gareth.
Once I was alone in the infirmary hallway, I paused for a moment, trying to clear my mind of all things—Danesh’s words, Gareth’s face.
Then I pushed through the door and found Brigid sitting on a cot reading, propped up by several fluffy pillows.
A cup of tea steamed on the table beside her.
She took one look at me and set down her book.
Nanette, our head nurse, bustled in behind me. She was a stout, no-nonsense woman with cropped gray hair, gentle gray eyes, and a convenient talent for keeping secrets.
“No visitors right now, Mara,” she said curtly, “not even you.”
“Please let her stay,” Brigid said. “I’d like the company.”
Nanette pursed her lips. She cast a quick look at me, scanning me from head to toe. I met her gaze steadily. I knew what she was thinking. Gareth had interrupted that afternoon’s trip to the Old Country, but there had been many others, and Nanette had discreetly patched me up after several of them.
I dreaded the day when she decided that she didn’t like me quite enough to continue lying for me.
“Very well,” Nanette said at last. “But I don’t approve of this, and I’ll only allow you to stay for an hour. Once I’m back from tending to the librarians,” she added, pointing sternly at me, “you’ll leave without a word of protest. Not a single word.”
“The librarians?” I felt a thrill of nerves at the innocuous word, which had never once in my life thrilled me. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Professor Fontaine has requested that they all be examined daily,” Nanette replied.
“The materials they’re working with are volatile, he says.
He wants me to look out for signs of strange illnesses.
” She scoffed, briskly gathering supplies from her shelves.
“Strange illnesses. As if they won’t get enough of those just being here in the Mistlands.
And as if I don’t already have enough to do these days.
But he insisted. What a menace that man is.
It’s a good thing he’s so handsome, otherwise someone would have beaten the lights out of him a long time ago, I’m sure. ”
Nanette hurried toward the door and stopped at the threshold to look back at me. “One hour,” she said, and then she was gone.
Brigid broke the silence. She had always been braver than me and better in every way I could think of.
“What happened to you?” she asked. “You look awful.”
I quickly took stock of her. The gash on her cheek had been stitched closed and was already fading. Her face was bruised brown and blue, but her nose looked straight, no longer broken. My heart sank at the sight of her wounds, but I made myself look at them anyway. “I’m fine.”
“You ran off earlier. No one could catch up with you. Cira couldn’t find you. Where did you go?”
I tried to smile. “I’m glad to know my speed records are safe for now.”
But Brigid wasn’t amused. She knew my deflection strategies far too well. “Mara.”
“Don’t press me on this,” I said. “Please. I can’t talk about it. Not right now.”
Brigid watched me for a long moment. “Fine. I won’t. But I’m not happy about it. And I could change my mind at any moment, at which point I’ll pester you mercilessly until you break.”
My mind provided an image of my body shattering, cleaved in two by some merciful villain. It would take something like that, I thought numbly, for me to actually die. Every wound I’d ever sustained, even mortal ones, had healed. Every broken bone repaired, every lost drop of blood restored.
“I’ll never break,” I said quietly. “Not really.”
“You’re still human, Mara. Even with that sentinel blood of yours.”
A confession danced on my tongue. In the wake of everything that had happened that day, I longed with a sudden ferocity to tell her, to tell someone: My mother is the goddess Kerezen. Brigid would think it was some kind of strange joke and take a jab at my odd sense of humor.
“I’m so sorry about earlier,” I said instead. “That’s what I came here to say.”
Brigid nodded in thanks. “No lasting harm done. Nanette patched me up quite nicely.”
“I’m glad.” I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. “Brigid, I don’t know if I could have gotten through all these years without you. It terrifies me that even with all of my training, I could lose control against you of all people.”
“I just look at it as a sign that we’ve crossed over from the realm of friendship to that of real sisterhood,” Brigid said. “Only around family can you truly be yourself.”
That stung. I lifted my gaze to hers. “That isn’t my true self. What I did to you today. That isn’t me.”
But it was, wasn’t it? Even the shape of the words felt wrong on my tongue. You’re right, Brigid, is what I should have said. I am indeed a monster. A monster with a god’s blood in her veins. A monster who torments perfectly kind librarians and seeks out pain the way others seek out love.
Something of my thoughts must have shown on my face. Brigid softened. “I was only teasing,” she said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have. Do you want to talk about anything? About Sablemire?”
“I can’t think of anything I want to talk about less. Can I just sit here with you until Nanette returns? I’m so tired.”
“Of course,” she said, making room on the narrow cot. “But if you fall asleep with your mouth open, I’ll kick you out.”
I sat down beside her and nudged her gingerly with my elbow, feeling so grateful for her that I found it difficult to speak. “What about all that talk of family and real sisterhood?”
Brigid picked up her book with a smile. “That only applies until you start snoring.”