Chapter 30 #4
“They are known to be the vainer of the sexes, Your Holiness. A capricious sin that the Blood God detests.”
“Hmm.” Falstaff stroked his veil, the metal tinkling.
“Yet still, the Blood God fashioneth each of us for a purpose; some are made to be fair, to be gazed upon, and set to use and favour. A gift, for those whom He doth cherish.” His free hand traced the length of her arm, the back of his fingers gliding over her flesh with perverse gentleness.
“I have ever held that women who lack somewhat are oft more fair to behold; for when whole, they be too proud. Humility is most virtuous.” He lifted the finger, inspecting its bloodied length through the sheen of his veil. “But then again, so is symmetry.”
Before I took my next breath, he’d punctured her other eye, removing it with brutal efficiency in one forceful jab.
He retracted, revealing her face, now marred by two gaping holes—sticky and red with globs of thick blood.
The sound of retching filled the cell and soon, I wasn’t the only laurel who had emptied their stomach onto the straw-padded floor.
“Let the restless laurel feel His love next,” Falstaff instructed, a bony finger aimed at Maxius’ chest.
***
After forever and no time at all, it was done.
We had each taken our turn on the slab, though none of us were an eye poorer for it this day, save Esioul.
Instead, His fingers had found purchase in our forearms, our ears, between the toes, the backs of our calves.
Misfortune favoured Iagor, for his cock had also met the sharp end of a spike.
Pissing yourself was an offence Falstaff didn’t take lightly.
Escorted by sisters and bound in hemp torn from an acolyte’s belt, we limped towards the stillrooms, the narrow healing chambers where they patched us once His love was spent, ready for another dose on the morrow.
With every step, I damned a druid to the pits.
Falstaff. Capriche. Tommen. Giamo. Paewle.
The Butcher. Servants of the Blood God or no, let a plague consume me, for it would be kinder than this.
Ahead, two sisters carried Esioul. They did so carefully, cradling her head.
Bells chiming, they made a sharp, sudden left, smuggling her down a corridor different from our usual path, one that faded into darkness.
“Esioul,” I started, wincing at the pressure on my punctured feet as they quickened.
I needed to say goodbye, if this was her end.
If she could not be healed. For the apple. For the silence.
“Esio—”
A hand clamped over my mouth. A small, chubby hand, its owner behind my back.
The two sisters beside me paused, their lips pinched, boxed headdresses tilted inward towards one another.
After a breath, the larger one stepped aside, allowing the one behind me to pass, her small hand now returned to her waist. The short sister led the way, her back to us, and beneath the thudding ache of Falstaff’s carvings, the exhaustion, the nausea, my heart fluttered.
Find me. We fly together.
Chaperoned by two, sometimes three, sisters, bound or no, the Dendralis took no chances, ensuring enough bodies were in the room to thwart an escape, even if I hadn’t been half-dead with exhaustion and riddled through.
After the murder of Druid Duncan, they were wise to fear the rats, knowing vermin are nothing if not persistent.
But today, the sisters at my sides halted short of the stillroom door, their polished shoes nudging the threshold.
The larger rapped once against the wooden panel and at once, the smaller one turned, her eyes swallowed beneath the bulk of her headdress.
She flashed both hands, once. A signal I could not decipher.
Ten, perhaps? Either way, I held my tongue, keeping silent as my heart tore itself to tatters.
Tutting, the larger one swung the door shut. The rattle of a key and the click of a lock were my signal to sit.
With shaking hands, the sister lowered herself into the chair opposite me and lifted her head.
The questions on my tongue, the ones about Ashara, the letter, the apple, the schemes, the plans; they dissolved like chappellum wafers.
In fact, the muscle turned leaden, forcing open my jaw like a dolt.
My hand, pressed to the deepest of the holes in my forearm to staunch the bleeding, fell away, hot blood pulsing in a slow, heavy stream.
With wide, tear-ladled eyes, she brought a trembling finger to her lip, pressing it firmly against the line of them.
“What the fuck?” I breathed.
I had died. There was no other explanation for it. For what else could explain the face I saw before me? The face of a ghost.
It was a pitted face. Cavernous scars covered the expanse of her flesh, as though carved with a spoon.
The sconce light fell into their hollows, giving her skin the texture of lump-ridden gruel that we used to eat when we were children.
Yet it was a pretty face, with warm brown eyes and soft, full cheeks.
Beneath her headdress escaped a wayward curl, frizzled and brambled and so devastatingly familiar.
“Adelaide?” I mouthed, her name barely more than breath, yet ringing like a templum bell all the same. Her lips wobbled beneath the pressure of her finger, and she closed her eyes, sending two thin trails of tears over her pockmarked face. The face that someone had dug her free of her buttons.
I already knew the bastard who’d done so.
At long last she opened them, and gave a small, shaky nod, the movement constrained by the crimson knot at her throat.
The best I could give her was simply to gape. Gape and remember to force air in my lungs.
“What have they done to you, sister?”