Interlude
THE PRIESTESS
Six years after the blade
The woman had held her blessed blade for six years when she met the priestess. She had not yet met the fighter. She and the blade and the machinist, now only twelve, traveled the world on their own.
The woman, by now, was accustomed to the attention that came along with her title. Frequently, acolytes of the Goddess of Justice would appear at her doorstep, trailing after her while murmuring prayers or begging for blessings.
The woman enjoyed chasing them away. She found an ugly amusement in their expressions of disgust when she rubbed her blasphemy in their faces, even as her blade tsked at her.
So when the priestess first appeared, introducing herself at a grimy inn on the road, the woman thought little of her.
Perhaps this acolyte looked more dignified than the ones who usually followed her around, with her pristine white robes and her armor gleaming, but religious types, the woman had learned, were all the same.
This priestess did not attempt to mutter prayers in her ears.
She did not beg for blessings. For the most part, she did not say anything at all—just watched, like a silent guardian, with a serene smile on her lips.
“I don’t intend to bother,” she said, the first time the woman confronted her.
“I’m merely sitting here. But should you want my assistance, I’m happy to offer it. ”
The woman told her that she did not need anyone’s assistance, let alone an acolyte’s, and the priestess merely smiled and nodded politely.
That night, the woman was sure to make a disgusting spectacle of herself.
She drank. She gambled. She sent the machinist to bed and then tangled herself up with a drunk stranger in the corner of the pub.
The acolytes were typically thin-skinned and easily offended.
Any of this would have been enough to send them running.
But not this one. She remained, sipping her drink, unmoved.
And the next morning, when the woman and the machinist set off on their next mark, the priestess followed.
And followed. And followed. She followed as they slaughtered blubbering men for bounties.
She followed as they gambled in seedy pubs.
She followed as they fought soulless and hunted wiry, tough game and camped out in the middle of nowhere on the road.
She followed even after witnessing the woman kill and steal and gamble and commit any number of sins, and she said nothing at all.
“Why not just let her stay?” the machinist said one day, as they ate a breakfast of hunted squirrel, the priestess sitting a hundred yards away, eating her own alone. “She seems nice. And she’s got a sword. Maybe she can be useful.”
{A fair idea,} the blade agreed. {Perhaps she could be a positive influence on you.}
The woman sniffed. “She’s clearly insane.”
“She doesn’t seem insane,” the machinist said.
“Acolytes are always insane, Val.”
{The bounds to your blasphemy never cease to amaze me,} the blade said drily.
The woman ignored her and eyed the way the child picked at the bony remains of her squirrel. It had been a pitiful meal. “Here,” she said, and gave the machinist hers. “I’m not hungry.”
Days passed, then weeks, and the game continued. Other acolytes came and went, easily deterred by the woman’s deeply unholy behavior. Still, the priestess remained.
At last, the woman and the machinist went after a particularly difficult mark.
The mission had not gone as planned, plagued by technical mishaps and inconvenient soulless and plain bad luck.
In the end, the priestess stepped in, silently slaughtering one final wayward soulless that had its eye on the machinist before returning to her own camp without a word.
That night, the woman washed the blood out of the machinist’s nest of waves. She arranged the heads of their marks neatly in her pack. And then, still covered in the guts of the men she’d slaughtered, she walked to the priestess’s camp.
The priestess sat cross-legged by the fire, her blade neatly laid out before her. Despite the spatters of black soulless blood on her white robes, she looked aristocratic.
The woman stood before her, hands on her hips.
“Well?” she said expectantly.
The priestess’s dark eyes assessed her, calm and steady. “Well?”
“I’m here. Give me whatever lecture you came here to give me. Just know you only earned it because you saved Valentina.”
“I don’t intend to lecture you.”
The woman scoffed, and the priestess tilted her head. “Why is that funny?”
“I’ve met a lot of acolytes, priestess. They never have anything to offer but judgment.”
“I’ve followed you for weeks now, and it turns out I have seen nothing to judge.”
It was a blatant lie, of course. The woman knew what an acolyte expected when they met her—a divine warrior who nobly pursued her goddess’s mission, not a bounty hunter who shirked it at every opportunity.
“Bullshit,” the woman said. “You’ve seen drinking and hunting and killing and gambling.”
“I have. But I have seen many other things, too.” The priestess’s gaze turned pointedly to the machinist.
“You think you can flatter me into letting you stay?”
“I think you misunderstand why I’m here, Kyrene. I am not here to help a goddess. I am here to help a human. I never expected to find the former. Only the opportunity to know the latter.”
The woman wanted to roll her eyes. She wanted to dismiss this. And yet, the priestess had a way about her that made the woman pause. Made her believe that perhaps this priestess truly saw her and still believed she was of value.
She nodded to the priestess’s sword. “How good are you with that?”
“Good enough.”
“Fine. Then you can stay. But don’t you dare start preaching at me, priestess. Then you can head back to the temple.”
The priestess smiled. She had a smile that only touched the corner of her eyes, like a serene secret. “Maybe tomorrow.” Then, as she rose, “I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Mirie.”
Four years later, the priestess would die at the hands of the vampires she had devoted her life to defeating.
She was a woman of faith. She had believed in justice, in the power of goodness to triumph over evil, her entire life.
She believed it even as prayers went unanswered.
She believed it even as teeth sank into her throat.
In her final moments, she would think of the woman who had become her closest friend. And even though it did not save her, she believed in her, too.
What is true faith, if not that?