Chapter Fifteen After
LIKE MOST PORTS, Alvaris was a tangle near the water, a hectic knot of streets and buildings that unraveled as soon as one moved inland.
She had only a few hundred yards to lose Jasper Fell, before there was only one road to run and all would be done for.
Cat was quick, but not quick enough to outrun a naval officer over open ground, let alone a crew who hated her in their marrow.
Good, then, that it was a market day. Cat thanked her luck as she ran, pressing through narrow gaps between sugar carts rolling in from the fields, carrying barrel after barrel of golden-grained treasure across the island.
Mules brayed and porters shouted, but she paid them no mind, even stealing a scarf from one of the Esperese merchants’ stands.
She tied it as she ran, hiding her coin-bright curls, a dead giveaway in a crowd of black-haired Esperese traders.
Her thighs burned and she tried not to think of the cobblestones, praying none came loose under her feet. It had been some time since Cat Rose had truly run anywhere, and there was already a stitch forming in her side. But there was no stopping, not if she wanted to keep her head.
Not if she wanted a chance.
Only when she reached the jungle did she risk looking backwards, down into the teeming streets. She panted hard, one hand braced against the trunk of a palm tree, her tightly laced boots firmly planted on stone steps leading up the volcano.
Bright red flashed in the distance—Fell’s waistcoat. He forced his way along an alleyway, his men behind him. But it was a losing battle against the thickening crowd. Cat grinned, heaving another gulp of air.
They don’t even know where I’m going, she thought, triumphant as she turned to look up the green slope.
Her smile quickly dropped, wide eyes following the crooked path of stone steps leading into the misty jungle. There was no steepled church in sight, the path ahead disappearing over a distant ridge.
A bead of sweat rolled down her neck and under the collar of her plain dress. It would hardly be the last.
Steeling herself, she forged ahead before she could think better of the situation.
After a few minutes of climbing, Cat started thinking of shedding the coins sewn into her hemline. They grew heavier by the second, and she lamented every circle of silver and gold, not to mention the clinking pouch in her pocket. Or the little knife in her boot rubbing a raw edge against her leg.
But tossing it would be stupider than tossing away her money. If anything, she needed the knife more than gold.
If only I had time to buy a mule to take me up the mountain, she thought, wheezing, step after blistering step. Or pay a porter to carry me.
Though the ascent made her knees scream and her lungs sear, the jungle offered some welcome respite from the blazing sun.
Palms and knotted fig trees closed overhead, tossing a blanket of shade over the path.
The air was thick and humid, but smelled of fresh dew and earth, not dock water and fish.
Cat gulped it down as she hauled herself forever up, trying not to think of how much farther she still had to climb.
At least the way was well cared for, the ferns and vines cut away from the stone, though Cat doubted many traveled this path anymore. Precious few pilgrims sought this church, the wayward seeking rare salvation. And now, the disgraced Lady Rose.
Fitting.
A pair of monkeys followed along in the treetops, their furry silhouettes leaping from branch to branch.
Cat wished she had something to give them.
Monkeys had grown rare in the Lyrian Sea and the two little beasts, black with a ring of white around their faces, seemed a good omen.
Certainly, they were better than the more dangerous animals that made their home on the islands.
Wolf bats were few, jaguars fewer, but not impossible to find.
She watched the jungle sharply. She hardly wished to flee the noose to walk into a waiting set of jaws.
But there was no predator she feared so much as man.
Which man above all—Osprin, Fell, or Valerian Kane—she could not say.
When she crested the next ridge, Cat almost sank to her knees in defeat. The path led farther still, winding back and forth in merciless switchbacks that made her chest tighten. But at least she could see the church now, her destination clear, if distant.
“I’m too old for this,” Cat muttered, using the stolen scarf to mop her brow.
The Esperese must have built the church many decades ago, when Alvaris was little more than a single dock in the harbor.
It looked crudely hewn from this distance.
Unlike the new church in the port, washed pink and with its gleaming spire, this was a low, squat thing, built of unassuming white stone and faded red tile.
The jungle seemed to bloom around the church, consuming it.
In a few years’ time, Cat ventured it would be swallowed entirely, reclaimed by the roots and trees and the yearly march of howling storms. Part of it had already crumbled, one side of the long stone chapel collapsed.
The rest leaned like a drunk man, with only the tower to hold him up.
Something flashed in the window at the top, and Cat braced for the bellow of a tolling bell.
It did not come. Her arrival went unnoticed.
Or unwanted.
She nearly collapsed at the top of the path, her breath like a stabbing knife.
But whatever dignity she had left would not allow such things.
Instead, she pressed a hand to the now-searing stitch in her left side and hobbled towards the wall surrounding the church.
There was no gate but an open archway wound with flowering vines.
Jasmine perfumed the air, though she could hardly enjoy it.
Breathing was difficult enough and Cat forced herself to take even, rasping gulps until she steadied somewhat.
Only then did she realize how silent the church was.
The monkeys are gone.
Suddenly Cat forgot the pain in her ribs and her aching feet. She even forgot Jasper Fell, still stuck and searching the streets of Alvaris, if she had any luck at all.
The courtyard was overgrown as the church walls, with weeds and flowers springing up between the cracked flagstones. A fountain in the center was long dry, discolored to patches of brown and green.
She raised her eyes to scan her surroundings, noting the door to the church hall and the even older tower, itself built of sun-washed white stone.
It was almost worn smooth, eroded by weather and time.
Almost. With a lurch, Cat realized she recognized the patterns coiling up the church’s belltower.
Braided lines, twisting geometric coils—the same carvings as the new song tower in the harbor, and the old towers across Arcayo.
Cat blinked up at its height.
This church had not been built by the Esperese but overtaken, claimed when they conquered the island and drove its inhabitants away. Her stomach twisted, and she tried to imagine the tower before the church, before Esperin took this island and everything on it.
As the wind used to sing through the arch in the old harbor, the jungle seemed to whisper here too. But its voice was little more than a passing breeze across the rooftops, an echo of what was, and would never come again.
“Hello?” she chanced, calling out once in Meridian and once in her poorly accented Esperese.
Something scuffled and she whirled to find herself facing a priest robed in rough spun wool, his tanned face peering out at her from a window. He glared and shook a finger at her.
“You are in a holy place, madam!” he scolded, speaking Meridian so she could understand. “Show some respect.”
“My apologies, sir,” Cat replied quickly.
She crossed the courtyard to approach the older man, weathering his look of disdain with ladylike grace.
Her face smoothed into an expression Cat hoped looked like humble penance.
“Forgive me, Father, but I am looking for a sister of your order. I have sins to confess.”
“You certainly do,” another voice answered behind her, ringing out over the churchyard.
A chill settled over her in an instant, falling over sweating skin like a frigid wave. She swallowed hard, throat working.
Perhaps this was a bad idea.
Her heart thumped.
Too late.
With all the will she could muster, Cat turned on her heel, steeling herself to face the church tower, and the black-haired woman standing in front of it.
She wore a robe like the monk, bound at the waist with a length of rope. One sleeve was pinned up, unneeded, for the woman was missing her left arm. But the dull clothing did little to hide her true shine, her eyes like two burning black coals.
Her lips parted, showing four silver teeth.
It was not a smile.
“Ana,” Cat said, her voice sharp and clear.
“Widow Rose,” the pirate answered, holding her ground.
A long moment of silence stretched between them. Even the monk stayed quiet, looking between the two women.
What does she know of the world now? What does she know of me? Cat wondered as she stared at Ana, keeping her face a blank mask to hide her trepidation.
What has she heard?
What does she suspect?
Anamina Rualcon left the life of piracy years ago, but Cat knew she would rather slit an officer’s throat than aid the Meridian Empire, even now. The Seawolf no longer sailed, but she was a wolf still.
Silver flashed in the sunlight, and Cat braced, expecting to be bitten.
Instead familiar, unbridled laughter filled the courtyard, and Ana threw her arm wide.
In a few short strides, she crossed the flagstones and wrapped Cat in a soft embrace.
Cat could not help but melt, leaning in, her arms tight around the former pirate.
She was careful to avoid the curve of flesh below her shoulder, though it had been years since Ana lost the arm.
She was certainly healed by now, but Cat was loath to find out her assumptions were incorrect in the worst way.