Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Demetri
The Grace
Each sister retrieved a small bag from a different druid, and recovering quickly, I searched to grab one of my own.
“Take mine, Sister Marguerite.” Capriche thrust his pouch towards my waiting hands, its woven “C” catching the light.
As I took it, careful not to meet his eyes, he pulled me forward, mouth pressed to my ear.
“Can I be as bold as to say, your tits look particularly ripe this evening?” His low whisper tickled my cheek, breath heady with wine.
His hand crept up and up over my skirts, and it took a while to realise he was drawing lazy circles around my left breast, where my nipple should be, not a stalk.
Shit…the apples.
“How unexpectedly firm.” He drew back, smile tight and eyes twinkling like rubies.
Fuck. Could I end him with my bare hands and a shard of flint or a splinter of wood?
I had breaths to decide. “Do try not to brush past anyone too closely; you might take out an eye.” His own flickered to Falstaff before appraising me.
“Make haste, then, sister.” He returned to his chalice, dismissing me and joining another in conversation.
I clasped his pouch, trying it alongside the bell at my waist.
Mind reduced to horse dung through the riddle of Capriche’s whisperings, I stared, dazed, ahead. A sister nudged my elbow, prompting me to follow, and I swiftly fell in line, one behind the other, all headed for the doors.
I churned over the revelations, one by one, considering how they each affected our tatters of a plan. To find each other. To fly.
Ashara was being hoarded by Vetrius.
They were going to use her blood. Blood that was supposedly blessed.
Capriche was either blind as a bat or knew I was masking as a sister and chose not to speak of it, anyway.
And the druids…
I shuffled along, unsure of where we were headed to replenish their grace. I’d lost sight of Adelaide and could trust no other to ask. Head down, I trudged onwards, distracted by the new pulling weight at my waist.
Capriche’s pouch.
We stepped through another half-concealed door, nondescript in the shadows, and found ourselves in an open-roofed space, the air no longer stagnant but alive with the sharp bite of a breeze.
Above us, great sheets of canvas and leather blocked the moon and the stars, pinned to walls that stretched unfathomably high on every side.
We were in a ditch. I sighed, hand rubbing my temple.
Fortune indeed, to be led to a ditch in the belly of a templum full of diseased, blood-thirsty maniacs.
Crusiax training’s first lesson was simple: the lower you go, the more likely your death, and a ditch is as good as a grave.
The mountains of walled stone stood windowless, the door we had come through the only exit or entrance. Fires in buckets of hatched metal lined the gravel path we shambled down, the sound of crunching grit setting my teeth on edge.
The farther we walked, the louder the crunch became, until the air itself seemed to tremble with the grinding of mulch and stone, louder than anything our footsteps alone could make.
A cart, pulled by two acolytes, trundled past, our long line of sisters stepping to the side just in time before our toes were crushed by its wheels.
Every drop of my blood seemed to drain from my body as I beheld its bounty.
Piled high in the back of the cart was the distinct cut of bloodstone, mounds of it, crudely hewn in irregular chunks from the size of a finger to a grown man’s chest. The whole of me numbed as I gaped, open-mouthed.
It was a finger, and the other slab was part of what once was a chest. An arm here, a leg there, the foot of a babe.
Reality crashed like an acolyte’s mallet. This was no ditch, but a quarry.
Memories snapped into place, morphing into an image that made me want to pluck out my own eyes.
I was back in the Room of Rites, before Ashara’s blood had watered the tree, watching the acolytes gather around its base, harvesting the crushed bodies of the laurels.
The druids’ red eyes. Their apparent youth.
The succumbing, as Falstaff had called it.
Their spoons, their pouches. The sniffing.
Fuck me.
They were ingesting us…us and the relics from the blood plagues. The relics Capriche had told us had been lost to time.
A sister behind me reached round to tug at my red scarf, pulling it over my nose and mouth. A quick glance confirmed that everyone else had already done so. I forced my feet to move, trying my best to feign indifference to the horrors, but I burned with it. Thromarra needed to know…
We approached the quarry’s centre, the line of labour apparent.
I examined it all, searing it into the deepest recess of memory for when I’d shout what they were doing here from the rooftops of Dendra.
I’d write to every corner of Thromarra, send pigeons to the deserts of Saile and the Other Lands.
Let it carry on the wind. Everyone would know the truth…
Did Ashara know?
Acolytes deposited the bodies of plague victims into piles, then sisters—different to those serving in the Great Hall, their hands calloused and stained red—moved them to a platform.
There, they took hammers fashioned of bloodstone, smaller than the mallets the acolytes used in the Room of Rites, and smashed.
Toes, hands, thighs, flanks, all were pounded until chipped to the size of pebbles and gravel.
I winced at each crack, watching as what was left of someone’s brother, daughter, or friend was broken and split into tiny pieces of grit.
Sisters deeper in the quarry bent over tables, using red pestles and mortars to grind the smaller fractures to dust, ready for consumption.
It was back-breaking work, their brows beaded with sweat despite the cold, their mouths and noses guarded by the crimson scarf at their throats.
Acolytes loomed over their shoulders, assessing their work, swinging their belts, making threats of penance, lest there be any waste.
I let Capriche’s pouch fall among the others, beside a set of brass scales where sisters weighed the milled remains. The work was meticulous, each dish balanced to the exact grain. I resisted the urge to run my arms down the table, sending it all crashing to the floor.
Finally, they funnelled the dust into the waiting pouches, each druid claiming an identical measure. My fingers closed around the one marked with a “C,” but I hesitated to take it, now knowing what it held.
Heavier than a ball of lead, it seemed to drag down my arms, each step a burden. I cradled the remains in the sack, perhaps holding part of a child, a grandparent, someone’s twin.
Blood God, drown them all.
It was the best I could pray for. I only hoped they had bastardised their divine purpose, that this was not His command.
Yet… Fuck. Which was worse? The bloodlust of a god, or the cruelties of men?
As I beheld the excitement of the druids upon our return, I reasoned perhaps they were one and the same.
Some snatched their bags from the sisters, others dragged them in for an open-mouthed kiss, a few toasted and cheered.
Approaching Capriche, I braced for assault, hoping I could stomach a pinch or a grope and stay silent enough to keep my head down and spit in their face.
Instead, he accepted it with gentle hands, not even bothering to untie its strings and check he hadn’t been shortchanged like most others were doing.
“Sister Adelaide,” he bellowed, his red eyes on me.
Adelaide appeared to my right, head bowed, as mine should be.
I was standing too straight, both fists in a ball.
“Take Sister Marguerite here to the infirmary, she looks rather pale. Can’t have her heaving all over the good wine and meats.
” Her eyes raised, for just a moment, before she nodded, once and succinct.
“I suppose you can’t tell the healer I sent you, what with…
” Capriche’s brows raised as he wiggled his fingers over his throat, mouth downturned like the whole vocal cord severing was a distasteful tidbit.
“But if you do find a way, it may help you to get better if you tell them Capriche relieved you of duty.” With one last look, he sat down to his pheasant leg, barely deigning to chew.
With a flick of its thigh bone, he ushered us away. Adelaide wasted no time.
The maze of the templum was something I was certain could never be mapped, yet I tried. We hurried down a tunnel of panelled wood, its ceiling marked with old scratches, leading to a narrow turnpike stair.
“Thank you for showing me.” It was the wrong choice of words now that we were alone, but I had no others to offer. “Fuck—” I paused to rest my forehead against the wall, needing a moment. Adelaide rubbed my arm. “We need to tell someone.”
She shrugged, pointing her finger towards the top of the stairs, beckoning with her other two.“Ashara?” I asked, preparing myself for all manner of states she could be in. Alive. Breathing. Not crumbs in a druid’s pouch. That would have to be enough.
We reached an arched door. Adelaide did not knock but took a key from her ring and lifted the latch. She turned, signing for me to remain where I was for a moment.
I struggled to grapple with why. Perhaps she wanted to warn Ashara, or check to see if she was conscious.
Was Vetrius beating her? A red haze clouded my vision as I impatiently tapped my foot, craning my neck over her shoulder, but there was nothing beyond the door but darkness.
I’d rip off his fucking dick and make him choke on it if that was the case.
The darkness swallowed her, and done waiting, I made to cross its threshold. She returned as my foot nudged the boundary, gesturing for me to go inside.
I stumbled into the room, squinting in the dim. “Ashara?”
The door swung shut behind me, lock clicking.
“Ashara?” I repeated, grateful for Adelaide’s penchant for privacy. Blindly, I stepped further into the room. It was silent, no shuffling of skirts or whispers of breath.
But then, the clunk of metal.
“Hello, Demmrick.”