Chapter 37
There’s no ceremony. Benj’s body is dragged off with the same regard as a sack of dirty laundry. Death is so common in Vinguard—more so among the Mercy Knights—that none of them spare it a second thought.
But, for the supplicants… Even if we’ve all seen death in one way or another, this feels different. I know all of us are now imagining how effortlessly their blades would strike our flesh. How quickly we would fall.
For a second, smoke hits my nose and I see the bodies on the rooftop. I press my eyes closed and suck in a breath through my mouth. When I open them again, I’m still in the monastery, and the memories abate.
“He wasn’t cursed,” Saipha whispers. “Merely hungry.”
“He asked for Mercy,” Lucan says solemnly.
“And it was given gladly.” She shakes her head and looks away.
There is nothing in Vinguard more unforgivable than being dragon cursed. But disobeying Mercy Knights, and the will of the Creed, are close seconds. He signed his fate multiple times over.
“We should go.” Lucan starts for the stairs once more.
The three of us make our way to my room as the sunset glows orange through the window at the far end of the hall.
Lucan shuts the door with purpose, putting his weight against it.
His expression is calm and collected, probably the result of years of practice under the vicar’s roof, but I can tell he’s as stressed as Saipha and me.
“They know. They all know we have food.” Saipha begins to pace. This is the most on-edge I’ve ever seen her. “They’re going to come for us.”
“Saipha, they don’t know if it’s true or not. Benj sounded absolutely crazed—he asked for Mercy, for Valor’s sake. I doubt most of them will put any stock into anything that came out of his mouth,” Lucan says calmly.
If Saipha hears him, she doesn’t react. She’s half a world away. “They will come in the night, and they will kill us for our food. We should get rid of it.”
“We are not getting rid of our food, Saipha,” I say firmly. “That’s the only reason we have any strength at all, and we’ll need that strength to fight them off if they do come.”
“We only have a little left anyway.” Lucan opens the lockbox at the foot of my bed with a grimace. Two stale rounds of flatbread. Three bags of dried mushrooms. And who knows how long we have to hold on before the next test… Assuming they stop starving us after that.
“Why are they doing this? Why would they do this?” Saipha continues pacing.
“To try to force the curse to manifest,” Lucan says.
She stops and shivers, wrapping her arms around herself.
After a moment, I suggest, “Let’s all sleep together.”
Saipha halts.
Lucan tilts his head and quirks a brow, and I quickly realize what I said and clarify with a soft cough to clear my throat.
“We’ll pull my mattress to Saipha’s room, since hers is farthest from the stairs, at least by a small margin, but it’s something that might give us a better chance to hear someone coming down the hallway.
The doors open in, so maybe we can use her lockbox as a barricade.
Two can sleep while one stays on guard duty. ”
“Sounds good to me.” Lucan nods.
“I’d probably feel better not being alone,” Saipha agrees. It’s a relief to see her calming.
We do exactly as I suggested. My mattress takes up nearly all the floor space in the small room, but it does fit flush between Saipha’s cot and the opposite wall.
Then I take the first watch. Saipha is on her bed, and Lucan on my mattress on the floor, each falling into a restless sleep.
Nothing happens. No inquisitors and no supplicants come for us.
Not on my watch. Or Lucan’s. Or Saipha’s.
“Did we really make it through the night?” Saipha’s disbelief is palpable.
“Looks like.” I yawn.
“The day can pose just as much of a threat,” Lucan says grimly. He’s sitting on the lockbox in front of the door. “We should stay here. They’re not feeding us anyway.”
“Wouldn’t it be suspicious if we don’t leave?” I rub my brow, trying to alleviate the pain pulsing between my temples. I’ve never been this hungry before in my life.
“That’s a good point. Maybe we go out in shifts? One here while two go out?” Saipha suggests.
“Then they could know that there’s only one person here guarding.” Lucan frowns. “I don’t think we should leave.”
“I suppose if we don’t, it conserves our energy,” I muse. “Everyone’s been sleeping later and napping more…maybe it won’t actually look that suspicious?”
Saipha sighs in agreement and stretches back out, staring up at the ceiling. There’s not much conversation the rest of the day.
We’re down to just one wheel of cheese for the three of us the next day.
None of us are convinced that they’re going to feed us even after the test. The fear of the other supplicants has lessened some the longer the days drag on.
Everyone is too weak to launch any kind of meaningful attack on us, even when we venture to the bathroom at the end of the hall for water or other needs.
And while we’re in a much better position than most thanks to our rationing, a toll has been taken on our bodies.
“I feel like someone has scooped me from the inside out.” Saipha groans. She’s perched on the lockbox in front of the door. “I won’t be able to stand by the time the test comes.”
“You still have strength you don’t realize.” Lucan doesn’t really sound optimistic. More like grimly determined based on experience he has yet to share with us.
“We can’t do poorly on the tests. They look at those most of all for entry into Mercy.” Saipha presses her eyes closed and shakes her head before opening them once more.
She has a point.
I sit on the edge of the bed. “I have an idea.” I’ve been trying to avoid it, but I don’t think I can.
“I know that look of yours…” Saipha leans forward. “What kind of an idea?”
“Neither of you have to be involved. I can do it alone.” The risk of this only needs to be on me.
If the inquisitors have any reason to suspect I’ve been given outside information about the Tribunal, they might think I have even more.
Maybe even enough to hide the curse. I think of Benj and fight a shudder.
The inquisitors are ready to jump at any opportunity.
“We’re not leaving you alone.” Lucan’s conviction startles me.
“I think I might know where we can get food. Maybe,” I say. Down the red staircase, behind the black dragon shield for food. I repeat in my mind what Callon told me on Convening Day before I entered the monastery.
“How?” Saipha’s voice has dropped to a whisper. She knows the implications of what I’m saying. If there’s a way to get food when they’re intentionally starving us, it means breaking rules.
“A hunch. An instinct.” I meet her gaze and hold it, bidding her to understand that I’m not going to say anything more.
Saipha bites her lip. She’s too smart not to suspect that I have some kind of information I shouldn’t if I’m being this confident but this cagey.
But she knows better than to ask. It’s safer for her not to know; if she doesn’t, I can take the fall alone.
“It might not be anything.” His information is out of date, and I know better than to assume the monastery’s Tribunal layout is consistent from one year to the next.
It’s clear that they open and close different sections to us as supplicants that I imagine are all open for the curates usually here.
“But if there’s a chance, it’s worth it to get our strength back before whatever they throw at us during the next challenge,” Lucan says my exact thoughts.
“You’re both thinking with your stomachs.
” Saipha folds her arms and raises her knees, curling into a ball.
“It isn’t worth the risk.” She definitely knows I was given illegal information about the Tribunal.
“They know we’re all starving…they won’t throw something too intense at us for the next challenge. ”
“Do you honestly believe that?” I ask her. She has no response, so I add, “They are determined to root out the curse by whatever means. No one has shown signs—yet—so they’re still hunting.”
“They won’t ease until the very end,” Lucan adds grimly. “Two more tests left.”
“They had Benj,” Saipha says weakly.
“He wasn’t dragon cursed, and we all know it.” We all sit in tense silence until I add, “I’ll be careful, but I don’t see any other way. They could use our weakness against any of us, claiming it’s a sign of the curse manifesting. Let’s not give the inquisitors any more reasons to suspect us.”
Saipha sighs. Lucan says nothing. Finally, as if reaching the same conclusion at the same time, they both nod.
We make the decision to go the next night. Better sooner than later, while we still have some strength. Saipha is still resistant to the plan. Being even proximally related to anything that has to do with someone revealing secret knowledge about the Tribunal has her on edge.
The problem is, I don’t know where to “go” other than a red staircase. Which I haven’t seen. And I’ve been up and down this whole place multiple times. While I haven’t been explicitly looking for one, I think I would’ve noticed.
“Are you sure you want to go alone?” The slow dragging of the lockbox across the floor almost hides Lucan’s soft words. Saipha is still sleeping.
“I’ll be all right,” I tell him, a little surprised at how worried he looks. It almost makes me want to touch his arm to reassure him. But the idea of reaching out and closing the gap between us has my stomach fluttering in a way it never has before, so I don’t.
“If you’re not back by the time the sun is fully up, I’m coming looking for you.” He nods toward the window. The first beams of a gray dawn are threading through the slats.
“Don’t worry. You won’t have to.” I flash him a bright smile, more confident than I feel. And I think I imagine him leaning forward slightly. But I leave before I can be sure.
The monastery is quiet. Everyone is still asleep, but I still am alert as I strike out on my scouting mission.
Benj’s death still hangs over the monastery like a shroud, and some part of me knows that Cindel is going to blame me for it.
Then there are the late additions, who are wild cards—I’ve no idea what orphans who grew up “fighting for scraps” will do when pushed like this.
Not to mention all the other supplicants…
I take a breath and steady myself before my worries spiral.
I mentally prepared my route last night, so I can keep my head on a swivel as my feet carry me where I need to go.
Callon said “down” the red staircase, not up.
Assuming he spoke from ground level, that substantially narrows my options.
He also said explicitly regarding food, which draws me in the direction of the refectory.
I check the short stair that leads to it first for any signs of red.
I scan the walls for the ghosts of old signposts and see none.
There’s no artwork hung. I do find holes left behind from a long-gone runner bolted over the stone and hope that wasn’t it.
I scan for any kind of string or lint left behind but find nothing.
I do the same on the next staircase. And then on the third. That’s when I see it, in the corner of one of the stairs that dead-ends in a storeroom I wrote off on the first day: a fleck of red paint that’s been almost completely scratched away. Easily overlooked if you aren’t searching for it.
Glancing down the stairs, I debate going now, but instead return to Saipha and Lucan. It’s getting later in the morning, and I don’t want them to worry. Or for Lucan to come searching for me.
“How’d it go?” he asks when I enter.
“I think I know what I need to do.”
“What we need to do.” Lucan shuts the door behind me.
“Lucan—”
“I don’t want you to go alone, Isola. Scouting is one thing, but whatever it is you’re about to do… I know the look you get in your eyes when you’re about to do something risky.”
I stare up at him, realizing how close we are. My throat is tight. Body hot. But the way he looks at me, it’s like he wants to devour and savor me all at the same time.
“It’s not worth you taking the risk, too.”
“You are always worth the risk.” He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t waver. Lucan speaks so matter-of-fact that the fluttering in my stomach I felt earlier is now full-on soaring.
Saipha murmurs in her sleep, rolling over.
We both jolt slightly away from each other, like two children caught sneaking. Finally, Lucan says, “You should get some sleep while you can. I’ll take the first part of your watch.”
“But you need rest, too.” Especially if you’re coming with me tonight.
“I’ll be fine.” He smiles reassuringly and takes his place on the lockbox.
I feel his attention on me as I stretch out on my mattress, pulling the covers up to my chin. I have to fight for sleep. I’m anxious about what tonight will hold. But also…excited? I’m excited at the idea of going alone…with him.