3
“The Regiment is the regulatory body established following the official unification of church and state in Sundbourg. When a series of smaller countries erupted into what many historians now consider to be the peak of intracontinental discord, the Regiment oversaw the dissolution of individual governments and consolidated military, parliamentary, and religious power in Valestadt, Sundbourg’s capital city. ”
For a heartbeat, shock overwhelms all else. “I thought I was forbidden from going to the Trench.”
The Trench is the unofficial name for the southernmost part of Valestadt.
The Regiment lost control of the area some time ago, which means it’s now a haven for criminals, heretics, and dissenters.
Most casual sinners frequent it often, or even live there, but there’s nothing casual about the sins I commit.
The Trench is supposedly overseen by a mysterious figure called the Warden, who—if you believe the rumors—is anything from a former hired sinner to an organized crime boss to a diabolist.
Not that most people dare voice the latter aloud. Gabriel is meant to have killed the last diabolist, after all. Thanks to him, there is no longer any creature that can grow more powerful through sin. Instead we can only suffer from it as the Savior intended.
Despite my skepticism, part of me wishes diabolists had been real. To grow stronger from sin, instead of weaker? I want that. I want it so badly my bones ache.
As for the Warden, they say nobody has ever seen him or even knows what he looks like. Perhaps he’s merely a story designed to keep the Regiment away from the Trench and not a real person at all.
“I am making an exception,” Gabriel says, “because word travels faster in the more…unsavory parts of the city. I’m trusting you, Talin.
Share nothing with others, but learn what you can from them.
Last time we received a report of a new branch of Solemn Apostles, it turned out to be a group of practicing skeptics. ”
As if that’s somehow worse. To Gabriel, I suppose it is, given that impiety is a sin. I only nod, schooling my expression back to one of calm.
“Now, I have work to do. I’m giving a sermon tomorrow.” Gabriel drops his gaze to the papers on his desk, and I take it as the dismissal it is.
As I stride back down the hall lined with artwork, buried memories come rushing up.
The phantom sensation of Vicar Johannes’s broad hand at my throat, and the way he shoved me against my mattress with the full force of his weight.
His prayers, soft and low. The green of his eyes and the graying auburn of his beard.
I’d been lying on my back, my mother sitting at the end of the bed.
I screamed for her to help me while I’d still been able to breathe.
But no help had come, and I knew from looking into my mother’s wide, tragic eyes that none ever would.
The Vicar was going to get the demons out of me, and she was going to let him.
To this day I can’t remember how it ended.
I know the prayers had eventually melted into nonsense while my thoughts wandered.
What came after that, I don’t recall. But I’ll never forget the feeling of the Vicar leaning over me, speaking no earthly language I’d ever heard before, and pressing down on my windpipe until my vision began to spot black.
That’s how it feels to work for Gabriel. Like I’m being suffocated. Like he’s stealing the breath from my lungs little by little.
And I have no choice but to let myself choke.
* * *
When I finally get to sleep that night, I dream of smoke.
The nightmare is a recurring one, but my unconscious brain never stops feeling the horror as though it were fresh. Not the type of horror that accompanies fear, but a deeper, sicker kind. I stand at the edge of the clearing, heart in my throat, my thin dress tangled around my thin limbs.
Behind me, the temple burns.
I never saw the moment when it finally collapsed, but I heard it.
The crack of beams giving out. The squeal as they slowly collapsed, crushing what remained of the sanctuary.
The pulpit where Vicar Johannes had preached his sermons was gone, the stained-glass windows behind it blown out.
If anyone managed to survive the flames, the clogging smoke would certainly have finished them off.
I had done nothing but stand there, choking on the air.
When I’d slipped away, my parents and sister had been praying alongside the rest of the congregation, their eyes tightly shut. They hadn’t even seen me leave.
This time, though, the dream doesn’t end there. It takes me back further to a different scene entirely. To Ilse, her belly swollen with child and her face still round with youth, the day she told me she hoped I’d burn in hell. It was, she said, the only thing I deserved.
How terribly ironic that she’d been the one to burn in the end.
When I wake, it’s in a sweat that has long since turned cold.
I quickly shower, then spend the rest of the day in my apartment trying very hard not to think.
My living quarters came pre-furnished but remain sparsely decorated.
On one side is a kitchenette and small seating area; the other boasts a bed, desk, and wardrobe.
The walls are painted beige, and the wooden floor is warped and discolored.
I hadn’t brought anything with me to Valestadt.
The Apostles believed everything was owned communally, and I didn’t want any reminders of them besides.
I was content to let my past go up in flames alongside the rest.
Last year Gabriel offered to find me someplace better than this cramped, dingy apartment building occupied largely by casual sinners, but I didn’t relish the idea of being any more indebted to him than I already am.
He gives nothing freely—after all, I’m working for him in return—but it felt too much like yet another thing for him to hold over my head.
Another way of reminding me that I am owned.
Besides, this is where I belong. It’s a place nobody will look twice in my direction while still being a step up from the Trench.
Visible sinners might be shunned by the rest of society, but in this part of Valestadt, at least we’re not shunned by each other.
Regular agent patrols—to ensure we haven’t lost our minds yet—are an annoyance, but I prefer it to the judgmental glares of ordinary citizens.
By the time evening comes, I can put it off no longer. I drag myself into the bathroom, scowling at myself in the tiny oblong mirror over the sink. I avoid my reflection as much as possible these days, but I’m compelled to ensure I can play the part once I make my way into the Trench.
Despite the dim light in my apartment, I still wince when I see the circles under my eyes, the misery etched into the lines around my mouth.
My hair is lank and unbrushed, most of it a dirty blond, though the ends are dip-dyed black for no reason other than a bout of midnight boredom several weeks ago.
The Markovich family crest hangs on its pendant around my neck, stark against the pale skin of my throat, and I tuck it down the front of my shirt.
My gaze is dark and unreadable. That’s good.
The one thing I can count on is that my face rarely betrays how I feel.
I take more care with my appearance than usual, setting my hair in loose curls and painting my lips a demure pink.
I line my eyes with black and don a slinky onyx ensemble with matching boots.
Sexy, but not fancy, lest everyone know at a glance that I don’t belong.
My plan isn’t complicated; it doesn’t need to be.
I’ll make my way to one of the speakeasies or gambling dens in the Trench, then strike up conversations until I get the information I need.
It’s easy, I’ve learned, to keep someone talking if you pretend to be interested in what they’re saying.
I’m no good at flirting, but I am good at pretending to be good at it.
I have to take a train to the Trench. I don’t sit, but stand alone in one of the compartments, my back against the exterior wall.
My body jerks with the incessant chk-a-chk of the steam engine’s movements as I watch the city pass by in disorienting starbursts of light that illuminate the grit-encrusted concrete.
It’s funny, really, how the Valestadt built by the Regiment stands in direct contrast to everything they once fought for.
They’d promised to push out the upper class—to yank Sundbourg back to its traditional roots while putting the working class in positions of power.
What they failed to recognize was that those same working-class people become the elite, should you give them the opportunity.
That’s exactly what happened, and Valestadt’s clustered high-rises and narrow alleys reflect its too-rapid growth.
Toward the city outskirts, however, the buildings become squat, dilapidated.
Many are abandoned, or at least appear that way.
The already narrow streets turn positively labyrinthine.
Valestadt gets little sunlight at the best of times, but as you approach the Trench, oppressive darkness seems to permeate every crevice.
I squint into it now as the train trembles to a stop.
The platform is abandoned save for a single figure slumped against the exterior of the station, chin lolling against chest and features shadowed.
An addict, no doubt, or perhaps someone in the final stages of the Bloodrot.
It’s not always easy to tell the difference.
They howl something nonsensical at me as I pass, then launch into furious muttering.