Chapter Five
Five
Prior. Bellator. Arbiter. Cleric of the Blood. Each calling has its own esteem, its own distinctions. But Executrix—its call must be answered by only the finest of our blood brethren. For they serve at the Goddess’s side, acting as their hand, their blade, and, when necessary, their executioner.
I AM EVER SO KINDLY allowed the last few hours before dawn to prepare myself.
Which means I’m ready to go early, since there’s nothing for me to do besides put on a clean uniform and give my sickles one last going over to make sure there’s no crusty bits of Emmaus left on them. (There are a few. Ick.)
The Cloister stable yard is shadowed and silent, save for the faint tread of my steps across the cobbles, enough to alert the horses, who nicker a faint greeting as I enter.
Stall by stall, I pat their muzzles as I pass, choosing two of the draft horses to draw the carriage Prior Petronilla and I will use.
Attendants’ work, but I’m not cruel enough to wake them hours before they need to gather for morning prayers.
My fellow Potentiates will follow suit a little after that…
or not, I suppose. I picture that daily gathering, erasing familiar faces I’ve seen strained with effort, twisted by anger, broken and bleeding.
When I get to Jeziah, his features are laughing.
A lump forms in my throat. I swallow it and get the horses hitched, even if it risks a chastising from the Prior for “lowering myself.”
I lead them into the yard to wait. The silence turns immediately oppressive, my thoughts flipping to and fro between getting stuck as the Dawn Cloister’s candidate for Executrix and the possibility that it will lead me to answers about how Emmaus nearly eviscerated Tempestra-Innara.
A smile touches my lips. At least that thought is a warming one.
Instinct throws me to the side a split second before a spear embeds itself in the wood of the stable wall next to me. There, it quivers with disappointment.
I draw my sickles and calmly turn toward its source. “The proper response is ‘Congratulations.’ ”
Morgan is about as furious as I’ve ever seen her. Which is saying something. “I should have been offered.”
“Yeah, well, next time our blood mother is attacked, make sure not to choke during the rescue.”
“I didn’t—” She wisely cuts herself off. Morgan may have dumped me on my ass in training plenty of times, but she knows better than to engage me in a war of words. “You don’t deserve to be a candidate for Executrix.”
No, I don’t. “Take it up with Prior P. Or try to kill me again. But I’m warning you, I’m gonna make a run for it. Think you can keep up on that leg?”
For a moment, I do think she’s going to come at me again. She’s practically vibrating with fury, not the focused, calculating Morgan I’m used to facing here in the yards. I almost consider telling her that I agree with her. But she did just try to kill me, so fuck her feelings.
“Go back to bed.” I lower my sickles but don’t put them away. “You do your holy duty and I’ll do mine. Just like we’re supposed to, right?”
Morgan scowls, but she’s done. The decision made is the Goddess’s will, and one murder attempt is as much insurrection as she plans today. “May the Goddess see the truth about you—your weakness and unworthiness.” With that, she turns away and limps back into the Cloister, and the night.
But her words hang in the air. May the Goddess see the truth about you…
I hope not. Because if they ever do, what happened to Emmaus will look like a mercy.
In a dim chamber off the chilly corridors that worm their way beneath the Cathedral complex, the bodies of the divine dead lay on stone tables, shrouded in white linen.
All except for their faces, where a single thin strip has been laid across their eyes.
There’s something impossibly still about them, less than even meat now, no more life in them than the statues in the Cathedral’s halls above.
The twinge in my stomach has returned, digging deeper this time.
With the exception of Jeziah, I can’t claim to care about the deaths of my fellow Potentiates, but there’s an unfairness that nags.
An injustice. None of them had any more choice about their fate than I did, even if they embraced it.
And now they are dead before fulfilling the purpose they strove so hard for, robbed of two lives instead of just one.
The reason for that stands above them, a thin trickle of tears running down their cheeks.
I have never seen the Goddess cry. Never seen them like this.
It’s odd, almost obscene, an unmooring sensation that buffets me in the wake of their usual swell of divinity.
I know they are our blood mother, that we are referred to as their children, but that holy parenting is mostly absentee, the Cloisters doing the real work to beat us into proper shape, both figuratively and literally.
So, the tired sadness in their face is unexpectedly visceral.
A Bellator Prime, High Cleric of the Blood, Prior Superior, and a Senior Arbiter—the chosen among the Chosen—watch the Goddess.
I watch them, mainly the Arbiter, whose very presence crawls through the chamber.
Her eyes are milky white, the color leached from them like a cloak washed too many times, along with most of her sight.
It’s the effect of decades of judgements, fueled by the cordial the Arbiters drip into their eyes, the one that allows them to see truths within someone.
They can’t exactly read thoughts, but they can ascertain whether a person’s devotion and love for Tempestra-Innara is true.
Or if it’s not, and that person is a heretic.
I’ve always found the whole concept unsettling, and right now, it’s damn near unnerving. If passing an Arbiter’s judgement is part of the evaluation to become Executrix, this little party may be over with real quick.
But so far Prior Petronilla’s and my arrival has been ignored. The vigil continues—the Arbiter stays on her side of the room; I stay on mine.
And the Goddess mourns.
A pale, graceful hand rises and falls, brushing a cooled cheek.
My innards quiver, jealous of the touch.
It’s a sickening bliss, the memory of which tightens around my throat.
Then, my muscles stiffen as a different thought rises to combat that desire: the Goddess laid out like the corpses before me, eyes covered, marble cold.
I banish it, the fantasy too dangerous to entertain. Not here, not now.
Steps approach. I practically pounce on the distraction, turning to find a robed Prior and—will today’s surprises never cease—the Demon.
Now the Dusk Cloister’s candidate for Executrix, apparently.
Up close and not covered in gore, he’s what Jeziah would have called fetching (or perhaps tasty), with an alabaster complexion and dark hair swept to one side in a rakish style that doesn’t quite match his quiet serenity.
I scan him head to toe; he ignores me completely.
Guess he’s not too concerned with his competition.
“Forgive us for making you wait, my Goddess.” The Dusk Prior sounds genuinely remorseful.
Meanwhile, Prior Petronilla oozes satisfaction, as if this is the first test in choosing the next Executrix, and we’ve scored the point.
“Forgiven.” The word is tiny, barely carrying despite the quiet chamber.
Tempestra-Innara caresses Jeziah one last time before turning their attention our way.
Once again, their divine light washes over me, a drink I cannot get enough of.
One I would joyfully drown in. Yet, when the Goddess moves closer, out of the shadows, some cling, darkening the skin beneath their eyes with a markedly human fatigue.
But the tears are gone now, disappeared, though I never saw them wiped away.
“I apologize for summoning you here so quickly,” the Goddess continues, “but grave matters call for grave haste. Priors of the Cloisters—which of my children have you brought me?”
Prior Petronilla begins first, as if our prompt arrival has earned that right. “The Dawn Cloister presents your honored and gifted daughter Lystrata.”
“Lys,” I correct. Lystrata may be my full name, but it’s not the one I hear in the few memories that remain from before I arrived in Lumeris.
Lys, those whisper. Always just Lys. Prior Petronilla immediately shoots me a look of horror, as if I’ve just dropped my pants to shit on the floor.
And maybe I have, figuratively, but if there’s no unringing that bell, might as well make sure it was heard. “My name is Lys.”
The Goddess smiles faintly. “Lys, yes.”
I tremble as my name passes over their lips, suddenly wishing I hadn’t made the correction, dipping my head deferentially to hide the discomfort.
As pissed as Petronilla undoubtedly is, the Goddess moves on without any sign they share that sentiment. “And this one?”
Now the Dusk Prior is the one who seems bloated with confidence. “The Dusk Cloister presents your honored and gifted son Nolan.”
Nolan. He proves he’s smarter than me right off by keeping his mouth shut. Instead, he gazes at the Goddess with a wide-eyed, unbroken stare, overflowing with devotion.
Great. A suck-up for sure.
The Goddess nods. “My children. A new Executrix must be anointed, and you, as the finest of your Cloisters, have been chosen to prove yourselves worthy of that appointment. In the past, this has meant setting your abilities against one another.” They pause.
“But I am afraid the events of yesterday have invariably altered that course. Now, contrary to the usual evaluations, what I must ask you to do now is something entirely different: to work together.”
My jaw tightens. Work… together? What does that mean?
Winning the position of the Executrix has always meant exactly that—winning.
Being stronger, faster, stabbier. I have many questions, but the Goddess’s mention of the slaughter in the Cathedral keeps them tangled up on my tongue.
It also confirms that Prior Petronilla was playing straight with me when it comes to learning more about the whole affair.
So, I muster one of my least practiced skills: patience.
Which is a good thing because, once again, no explanation follows. Instead, the Goddess heads for one of the arched doorways. “Follow, please.”
We do, a line of somber ducklings in order of importance, the silent quartet of my most senior blood brethren falling in behind the Goddess first, then the Cloister Priors, and finally Nolan and me.
I steal another look at him, but his attention is still for the Goddess and nothing else.
A sword is belted at his waist, a heavy, brutal thing without an ounce of subtlety.
It’s the same weapon he used against the Emmaus-monster, and he seemed to be handy with it, so I’m not exactly disappointed that we aren’t headed for hand-to-hand combat.
As to where we are headed…
The deeper we go into the Cathedral, the more the ornate trappings fade, the lower the vaulted ceilings grow.
They press down, ancient and heavy, chalky spots of niter clinging to the bare stone, a vague dampness scenting the air.
It’s too dark here for even our divinely blessed eyesight, but the Goddess has that covered.
Lamps set into niches light as we pass and extinguish behind us.
Black in front, black behind, our steps barely echoing, as if the darkness is absorbing all signs of life down here.
It’s enough to make me miss the corpse room.
Finally—a door. Solid iron, it’s heavily riveted, with no handle, no keyhole, and absolutely nothing to indicate what might lie behind it.
The Goddess presses a palm to it; the heavy clunk of some mechanism disengaging follows, and the door creaks open.
Slightly anticlimactically—beyond the portal is even more darkness.
The Goddess enters. Nolan and I wait for the others to follow, but instead they step aside.
“Come,” the Goddess calls. “They will wait.”
Definitely not the most encouraging of invitations.
What’s inside that a couple of lowly Potentiates are allowed to see, that the most elevated of the Goddess’s Chosen aren’t?
I risk a glance at Nolan. There’s no fear in his features, no emotion at all save for a slight thinning of his lips to show he might be having some apprehensive thoughts too.
Which is only smart, given we’re being invited into the sort of chamber that feels as if an exit isn’t always guaranteed.
But that’s where the Goddess is, and the Goddess has answers.
Fuck it.
I go ahead of him with a haste that I’m sure makes Prior Petronilla proud, letting the darkness swallow me. I hear Nolan follow. He’s savvy enough in the dark to make his way to one side of me, the sound of his breathing the only orientation I have.
Again, the door creaks, and what’s left of the light disappears as it closes behind us.