Chapter Nine #2
A lesson I’ve done a poor job learning. But luck is on my side; the Bellator has mistaken us for one of the countless hopefuls who converge on their city, hoping to earn a place in a legion.
That, apparently, is enough to buy me a smidgen of mercy.
Eyes down, we get out of the road, my fingers twisting in Mortimer’s reins as the company starts moving again.
Only when they are well away does anyone speak.
“Thank you again for your help.” But the earlier warmth in the tinker’s words has disappeared, and he urges his wagon along, in the opposite direction that Nolan and I were traveling. Nolan also remounts and continues, not waiting for me.
“That was idiotic,” he snaps when I catch up.
So much for friend. “There was no need to strike the old man,” I counter.
“No need for you to stop it either.” Nor for him to step in, but he did. A little surprising. “You understand that this isn’t the Cloisters? Or Lumeris?”
More than he knows.
“We are no one out here. No one owes us respect,” he continues, the words growing more heated. “You didn’t pay that Bellator the deference she deserved from a Potentiate, much less some normal commoner.”
“I get it, okay?” Anger flares again, if briefly. Those icy eyes, staring down… “I’m not used to it, that’s all. I… forgot myself briefly.”
“Make it the last time,” say Nolan. “And the comment about the tinker’s cart… do you not realize that your ignorance is as much a threat as your attitude? We need to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention, no matter how small and insignificant it seems.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were such an expert.” I’ll give him attitude. “I guess that means you know all about Belspire? Been there before?”
“No.”
“Have you ever stayed in a guesthouse? Or spent the night drinking and playing cards and burping and whatever else it is that people do in them? Did the Dusk Cloister allow you all sorts of freedoms to travel the Devoted Lands and learn the minutiae of how to conduct oneself as a commoner?”
Silence is his only response.
“Exactly,” I snap. “You were as sheltered as I was.”
“I’m not putting my inexperience on display.”
I bristle, but it’s my turn to be speechless.
We continue on a little farther. Then:
“Once.”
“What?” I say.
“I stayed at a guesthouse once,” he replies, “when I was very young.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. Potentiates aren’t supposed to talk about their lives before their choosing.
Some of us barely remember it. And as far as anyone is concerned, we were all birthed anew in the Cathedral, the moment Tempestra-Innara’s blood hit our lips.
But he brought it up, so… “With your family?”
Too far. His features tighten. “The Goddess and our blood brethren are my family.”
“Yes, yes,” I say quickly, “but you had a life before we became their children.” I should be more careful with my wording, but fuck it. If he’s so concerned about the success of our cover, this is relevant. Which is probably the only reason Nolan is tolerating my near blasphemy.
He doesn’t answer quickly, but eventually, it trickles out. “I… stayed in an inn once with the man who… who cared for me before I came to the Goddess. He was a bookbinder. We were delivering commissions to a client.”
A bookbinder. Nolan was plucked from a town then, maybe even a city.
“No, it was a library,” he corrects. “Belspire’s castle is supposed to have a fine library.”
He doesn’t specify whether that tidbit of information came with him to the Cathedral or was picked up after. And as curious as I am, I don’t press. “Good. One of us has experience with the world outside the Cloisters, at least.”
That catches his interest. “Because you haven’t?”
Fair is fair. He answered my question, so I’ll answer his. “I’d never experienced a lot of things until the Goddess’s forces came to my village, though if we find ourselves surrounded by a plethora of pine trees and snow, I’m your girl.”
“You came from the northern mountains.”
A statement, not a question, or an accusation.
Our lives before the Goddess may be forbidden territory, but there are some things that can’t be hidden.
Jeziah’s tattoos. Or the faint ways Morgan forms certain words that betray she came from somewhere in the east. But Nolan figures me out with scraps.
“How did you know?”
“Pine trees and snow? No guesthouses or peddlers’ carts? You’re clearly nervous about an unfamiliar city, which means you likely haven’t seen any besides Lumeris. Which makes the far north your likeliest place of origin, in the wilds of what used to be the Storm Goddess’s territory.”
Used to be. And probably still is. But that’s not a line of discussion I feel like following.
“The first time I saw the Cathedral, I think I blacked out a little. I didn’t know anything built by people could be so big.”
“I shook.” Thankfully, Nolan doesn’t press for more about my old life. “But with awe. Somehow, I knew it was where I was supposed to be.”
He speaks reverently, as if ending a prayer. I don’t ask Nolan what happened to his father—a word he couldn’t even say—any more than I’d ask him what happened to the other children he was undoubtedly presented with. I’ve already trod unwelcome territory enough.
“Well, I’ll leave the guesthouses to your vast experience. Any other pointers on playing normal?”
It’s clear he catches the tartness in my words. Still, he replies. “Remember your etiquette lessons… assuming the Dawn Cloister actually had those.”
I snort. “Better than your insult lessons, clearly.”
“Keep an eye on how other people act and mimic it. And try not to draw attention or say anything you don’t have to.” He sighs. “I know that’s going to be the hardest part for you…”
“I’ll manage.” I’m still clutching the gifted bread. I tear a hunk of the end. “Oh… oh, you need to taste this.”
Nolan’s brow furrows in a way that tells me he couldn’t care less, but he accepts the piece I hand him. Then makes a face. “It’s dry. Gritty.”
“Right? Can you imagine them serving this in the Cloisters?”
“Maybe to the pigs.”
I scoff. “Now who is showing their ignorance? This is what the regular folks eat, so better get familiar with it.” I let a beat pass. “Wouldn’t want to seem suspicious.”
His mouth thins, but he doesn’t have anything to say to that.
We don’t speak again until the sun is almost down and we make camp.
We feed the horses, shake out our bedrolls.
I build a fire as Nolan starts on a simple, sparse meal.
Nolan even serves me first, as humbly as one of the Cloister attendants.
In the Cloisters, all this would be done for us.
But this is what normal people do, when they aren’t bound blood and soul to the Goddess.
The family I was born into is dead. Nolan’s too, most likely.
But the difference between us is that he truly sees the Goddess as his mother, the other Chosen and me as siblings.
And if we do manage to find the reliquary, if by some unlikely chain of events I am able to use it to kill Tempestra-Innara, I will be taking all of that away.
But Nolan’s devotion isn’t my problem. Neither is anyone else’s.
I have seen the cost of divinity’s reign, paid by both heretics and the devoted alike.
The Goddess’s world might be destroyed, but another one will rebuild itself eventually.
It always does. And maybe, with the last of the gods nothing but memory, it will have the chance to become something better.
And if not, well, I’ll still be free.