Chapter 22
‘As soon as we have the Frozen Heart, we should get out of here.’
They were waiting for the priest to finish preparing for the next rite. He was using a small iron tool to sweep away the ash of the previous offerings while the couples stood together, absorbed in each other.
‘Sunay said they don’t give it to us until the final trial is over,’ said Artair.
He was watching the other couples, she noticed, openly curious.
His curiosity for the world was in every movement and gesture.
It both fascinated and annoyed her. ‘I don’t really understand,’ he admitted.
‘It’s not like we’re sneaking in here and stealing the thing under the cover of night.
They’re going to give it to us because we’re doing their tests.
If Tisk only takes tithes stolen from other gods, how does that count? ’
‘Because we’re not really a couple,’ she hissed back.
‘We’re taking something to which we have no right.
’ Her eyes drifted to the young man and woman, who were standing by the pil lows, eager to start the next trial.
They were holding hands. Her own hand found the conker she’d transferred into the pocket of her doublet.
It felt good to have it close to hand; as if somehow the Jih Forest wasn’t really that far away.
‘And there’s a good chance we’ll still fail the rites.
’ She snorted. ‘If this god is any good at their job, we should fail. Anyone can see we’re not in love. ’
‘Right,’ said Artair. He nodded. ‘Well. Let’s hope not. We really need that spell.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Can I ask… What memory did it give you? Of me?’
‘Oh, nothing that interesting. What did you expect? You’ve lived in a monastery half your life.
’ Elver paused. She had seen him standing in front of a tall iron gate that had once been painted red.
He was young and skinny back then—fragile—and his face had been wet with tears.
Two burly men, guards by the look of them, had been standing at his back, one with a hand on his shoulder that looked less than friendly.
Eventually, the gate had opened and a monk in a yellow robe had peered out.
He looked cheerful enough, but when the monk reached for him Artair had pulled away, trying to run, and the guard nearest had grabbed him; none too gently either.
Together, they had wrestled the resisting boy beyond the gate, unmoved by his screams. ‘You were, I don’t know, meditating or something. It was very dull.’
Artair nodded. ‘Oh.’ He looked relieved.
The priest got the couple to place their next offering in the fire and then they sat facing each other on the pillow, their hands still clasped. Sam stood to one side of them and held his hands over the tops of their heads. A faint pink glow filled the space between.
‘The trial of truth,’ he intoned solemnly. ‘Perhaps the most difficult of the three, for the Threshold looks within each heart and sees what is truly there—truths we sometimes do not even ourselves know.’
A pair of pink lights winked into life, hanging just in front of each human’s chest. As Elver watched, they grew and took on familiar forms, until they were two little copies of the humans they hung in front of, like dolls made of pink light.
They moved independently of the couple themselves; the tiny pink girl pushed a lock of hair behind her ear while the girl herself looked down at it in astonishment.
‘Speak,’ said Sam. ‘Let us know the truth.’
The glowing figure in front of the girl went first.
Markan speaks kindly to me. Sometimes he is late to do his chores and that annoys me a little, but I believe he is my true love.
The girl laughed nervously. The boy looked a little put out, Elver noticed, but then the figure that floated in front of him was speaking.
Vellerie is fine for now, but I have my eye on her sister.
Markan jumped like he’d been pinched, and Vellerie gave a squawk of horror before running for the door, her eyes already streaming with tears.
Both the figures of light winked out of existence.
All the colour had dropped from the boy’s face and when he stood up it was on unsteady legs.
He made to go for the door too, but Sam’s hand settled on his shoulder, holding him in place.
The priest’s face was carefully neutral but Elver thought she detected a twitch of distaste beneath the beard.
‘Now then, Markan. Best let her go for now, don’t you think?’
Sam led the boy out of a separate door, and while he was gone Elver and Artair exchanged an uneasy glance. There was no way, surely, they would get through this trial. They would be asked to leave too, without the artefact that Sunay needed in exchange for the spell.
‘I knew I didn’t like the look of him,’ said Barnard. ‘Something shifty about the eyes.’
‘Oh come on, Barny,’ said Diamin. ‘You thought no such thing.’
When the priest came back, he looked cheerful again and gave them all a wry smile.
‘It happens more than you would hope,’ he said, ‘but just think of the wasted years and pain that poor girl has just avoided.’ He chuckled lightly. ‘Now then. I believe it is your turn next, my dears.’
Trying not to look as doom-laden as she felt, Elver knelt on the grey and gold pillow opposite Artair.
Once again, the priest muttered words that she couldn’t place, and she felt an odd kind of warmth in her chest as the pink light coalesced in front of her.
In front of Artair’s chest there was a tiny version of him too, only…
She squinted. She half thought she was imagining it, but it almost looked like there were two images, one slightly out of sync with the other—an echo, or a shadow.
Elver glanced up at the priest, but he didn’t appear to have noticed.
Then the figure of light in front of her was speaking.
When I look at you, I see the one person who might understand what it is like to be me.
Elver swallowed hard, her heart turning a somersault in her chest. Artair’s eyes widened, and she wished fervently that she were somewhere else, anywhere else—even a crowded tavern in Addersport would be preferable to being here, her face burning and Artair’s brown eyes seeing the secret, shameful truth.
For a wild moment, she wanted to leap up and grab the priest by the hand and poison him, poison all of them…
But the thought of the cub, and her oath to the Queen of Serpents, kept her in place.
She gritted her teeth and stared back at Artair defiantly, daring him to comment.
What he said was, ‘Thank you,’ and somehow that was even worse than mockery.
The figure in front of him shifted—no, it was definitely two figures, she was sure of it—and then two voices were speaking at the same moment.
You are brave and fierce and extraordinary , said the first voice.
I need to be closer to you , said the second.
Elver saw her own look of surprise mirrored in Artair’s eyes, and above them the priest was spluttering.
‘Well, well,’ he said, ‘I’ve never known that to happen before.
’ He looked troubled for a moment, then shrugged.
‘We must trust in the wisdom of the Threshold, my friends—it seems that your love for this girl, young master, is so powerful that one pronouncement is not enough, and we should all be so lucky, aye?’
They got to their feet. The remaining couple, Elver noted, were beaming at them happily. She tried not to make eye contact.
‘Now, these two,’ Barnard was saying to his partner, ‘I have a good feeling about. There’s a palpable tension. Don’t you see it, Diamin?’
‘My friends,’ Sam continued, ‘the final rite, the trial of connection, takes place in the Room of Hearts. There you will go together, without me, and face the Threshold themselves. There, they will reveal to you the moment of deepest connection you have shared thus far, and give you a glimpse of what is to come in your future.’ He sounded very pleased with himself.
‘You will just give me a moment to prepare the room.’
When he had gone, Elver fiddled nervously with the buttons on her doublet.
‘One more to go,’ she said quietly. ‘We’re almost there.’
Artair looked flushed, and a few strands of hair had come loose from his braid.
‘That other voice…’ he whispered. ‘Was it him ? Or is it like the priest said…’ He trailed off, his face turning even redder. ‘I mean, that both voices were me.’
‘I don’t know,’ Elver said quickly, although both were echoing in her head. I need to be closer to you. ‘How could I possibly know?’
‘Because I do think you are brave,’ said Artair. Hesitantly, his fingers brushed the back of her hand, as though he meant to take hold of it. ‘And kind of extraordinary. And…’
Sam came back into the room, his affable face serious again.
‘The Threshold awaits.’