Chapter 61
Elegy waits with held breath for the priest’s response.
The priest’s eyes tighten, as if she’s frowning. There’s a patch of hazel on one of her otherwise--dark irises.
“We are not in the habit of performing this ritual on demand in the middle of the night,” the woman says. “Particularly when the demand is made by one of our enemies.”
“I thought it was your policy to pass the Fever on to the willing,” Elegy says. “That Cedrae are considered untested and unrefined thanks to our avoidance of Fever, a weakness your people seek to correct.”
“Political rhetoric has no place here.”
“Yet you still referred to me as your enemy. Is that not a political distinction? Certainly you don’t think I, personally, mean you any harm.”
“You haven’t been cleansed,” the woman says firmly. “You can’t enter if you haven’t been cleansed.”
Elegy doesn’t have time for this. She needs to persuade this woman, and she needs to do it now.
“I spared a friend of yours,” Elegy says. “Nisov was his name. I escorted him off Cedre Station and delivered him safely to the Cenobium. If you won’t do this simply because I ask it, maybe you’ll do it to repay me for that act of mercy.”
The woman stares. Elegy considers removing the pins from the door’s hinges.
“We received word of his arrival at the Cenobium just this morning,” the woman says. “We didn’t think he would survive the attack.”
The woman slides the panel across the window again, and just as Elegy returns to contemplating the hinges, the door opens.
Elegy walks into a dim basement chamber.
The air is moist, so dense she feels like she could take a bite out of it.
The woman takes down her hood to reveal stark white hair that reminds Elegy painfully of Hela, in danger somewhere upstairs.
The priest mark on her throat is distorted by her creased skin, but still distinct enough to see in this lighting.
“I take it you don’t have time for the ritual bath,” the woman says, a little wry.
Elegy can’t quite tell if the woman is kidding.
But then she sees lantern lights reflected in the faint ripples of a pool, and she realizes why the air is so moist. The woman takes her hand, and leads her past the pool and into the room beyond it, which is smaller, some kind of utility room.
There are robes and towels piled high in the corner, spare lanterns, boxes of matches, bars of soap.
The woman drags a stool from the corner, sets it down in front of a low wooden crate, and points at it. “Sit. I must prepare.”
Elegy sits on the stool and watches as the woman busies herself at a low counter. She picks up a small vial of something Elegy doesn’t recognize, and holds it up.
“This will calm you, if you’d like,” the priest says. “We offer it to everyone. It can produce a more . . . pleasant experience, for those who fear death.”
“Doesn’t everyone fear death?” Elegy asks, and the priest shrugs.
“Not to an equal degree.” She sets the vial in Elegy’s outstretched palm so Elegy can consider it.
The substance is dark red, like a Cedrae military uniform.
She might have mistaken it for blood if she hadn’t been told otherwise.
She feels afraid enough to take it, eager for the peace it might offer her, but she needs her wits about her for what comes next.
But she doesn’t give it back to the priest—-one thing she learned from her four years as a Scout is that you never give back a potentially useful object if you don’t have to.
She tucks it in her pocket, instead. The priest doesn’t seem to care.
“Who may I credit for winning you over to the Fever?” the woman asks.
“The augurs,” Elegy says.
The woman performs the sign of the Fever over her lips, and then turns to Elegy with a small bowl in hand.
She sits down on the wooden crate across from Elegy, and sets the bowl in her lap.
There’s a slice of lemon in it. It’s a beautiful object, Elegy thinks, the instrument of her death.
Gleaming with delicate filigree. Blue and copper.
“Some of my younger brothers and sisters are more romantic about this process,” the woman says. “They offer the Fever in a kiss, or they disguise what they’re doing to make it more comfortable. I think it’s better that you prove your commitment.”
She holds the bowl up to her mouth and spits into it. Then she squeezes the lemon over it. Which is how Elegy realizes she’s about to drink this woman’s saliva.
“Elegy Rosyk,” the woman says. “Until this day you were a child, untested by the world. After this day you will be an adult, or you will cease to be.”
Elegy chafes at this, but doesn’t comment. She’s aware that her entire body is shaking, but her mind is clear and steady. Sometimes there are no choices.
“Do you know the words of our blessing?” the woman says.
Elegy shakes her head.
“The Fever, we say, is change. To face change is to die.” The woman licks her lips, and continues. “The past self must die for the new self to be born, you see, and the Fever facilitates that birth.”
She holds the bowl up to her mouth again, and spits again. Elegy’s stomach turns.
“To die, we say, is to experience annihilation—-just as the caterpillar dissembles itself in the chrysalis and reassembles in a new body. To be reborn, we say, is to conquer it. May it be so. May it be so.”
She holds out the bowl.
“Are you certain?” the woman says.
It’s probably too late regardless, Elegy thinks. She’s been breathing the same air as this woman for several minutes now, which is enough to spread the Fever. But when she drinks this mixture, there will be no uncertainty: she will contract the Fever, and she will die.
Whether she comes back or not . . . well, even the augurs weren’t sure.
But they also told her she would need to see the future to navigate the doorway in the stars. And it’s not like she can kidnap an augur for her journey without starting an all--out war with the Talusar.
Elegy nods. She holds the bowl up to her lips.
The woman reaches for her, cradling her head as she drinks.
“I am eager to meet the real you,” the woman says.