Twenty-Eight Sanctuary

TWENTY-EIGHT

Sanctuary

SAMUEL

I lay in my cot that night with a full belly, a warm blanket, and the sound of Ben's gentle breaths drifting across the small chamber we had been given. He looked younger, not simply because of the dim light or the fact that we had both shaved and bathed. There was a vulnerability to him that reminded me of countless childhood nights, sharing a room just like this.

From beyond the door, I heard the echo of a soft, gentle singing. Night prayers. The Mereish the Servants of Adalia Day sung in was old and complex, but I picked out phrases. It was a song to the moon, to the forest. To the ghisting that was their saint.

When I closed my eyes, the sound shifted—merging with another, simpler song sung by a long stream of robed strangers on the night my mother, in her madness, had destroyed Ben and I.

A chill swept up my arms, raising gooseflesh, and I rolled onto my side. Mary was right not to trust this place or the ghisting Adalia Day—my Sooth's senses affirmed it. Still, I could not regret coming here, not with all our wounds tended, a warm bed, and all that I had learned from Scieran.

Someone approached our door. A touch at my Sight told me it was Mary, and my thoughts promptly dissipated. Was something wrong? Did she need me?

Was there another reason for her to visit in the dead of night? Against my better judgement, the tension in my body shifted into an entirely different variety. But after a moment's hesitation, her footsteps moved on, softer than before.

"Are you going to stop her?" Ben prompted from the other side of the room. "Or must I?"

I was already halfway to my feet. "Sleep."

"Gladly."

I slipped out into the hallway and closed the door softly at my back. Night prayers still drifted though the hush, haunting and beautiful. Mary was already out of sight, but I caught the soft tread of her feet around a corner and followed.

"Mary!" My hissed word caught her just as she started down a set of stairs. "Where are you going?"

She looked back at me, and I recoiled. Her eyes—her human, natural eyes—were sheathed in a ghisten glow, opaque as sea-glass.

"Tane?" I asked.

Mary's lips twitched into a flat line and something of her human self resurfaced. "Yes. Adalia has summoned us again." With that, Tane seemed to take control once more. She nodded for me to follow her and disappeared down the stairs.

Unease, perpetually close to the surface now, coiled. I lowered my chin and hastened to catch up, but, even when I hovered at her shoulder, she ignored me. I wanted to grab her, to stop her, but Tane was not to be trifled with.

Instead, I whispered, "Do you have Mary's permission to do this?"

"We are one and the same." Tane spoke through Mary's mouth. Her voice was Mary's too, though it bellied into the woman's lowest register, rich and deep and feminine.

"Then why can I only see you in her eyes?" I asked coldly.

Tane glanced back at me then, those sea-glass eyes taking me in with a clinical detachment. "Because we share this body. And there are some matters that should stay between ghistings. Which is why you may accompany me now but will let me enter the Oruse alone."

We had already reached the end of the passage, with its broad steps and flickering sconces. There was not a single acolyte or Servant in sight.

"Wait here," Tane instructed. She mounted the remaining steps and turned right, vanishing through a circular archway.

I followed more slowly and lingered outside the door, taking in all I could see of the shrine—its carvings and gilding, softly illuminated by candle and ghisten light. I saw the trail of Mary's robes swish around the far side of the gilded room's central pillar, then silence fell.

I stood vigil for long, painstaking minutes, until I heard footsteps in the tunnel, distant but echoing, and glanced around for a place to hide. I could go into the shrine—but Tane had forbidden that, and I had other options.

I darted across the mouth of the stairs and went the other direction. The corridor split, and I ducked down one way while the footsteps ascended the stairs. They approached, driving me farther down the passage and away from Mary.

I plastered myself into a window alcove, layered with glass that did little to keep out the cold, and held my breath.

The steps went down another passage. I listened to them fade, counting them and judging the distance until a familiar, presentient whisper stole through my mind.

I stepped out of the alcove and turned. There, at the end of my passageway, was a door. Curiosity assailed me—half a child's curiosity, half an uncanny need. There was something of the Other behind that door.

I quickly returned to the main passage and glanced at the shrine. Mary was still there, her robe visible, and did not appear to be in any distress.

Returning to the mysterious door, I cracked it open. A dragonfly lantern hung from the center of a domed ceiling, illuminating a small, octagonal room. It might have reminded me of an observatory if the roof had not lacked any hatches or openings.

In the center of the chamber was a massive looking glass. It was directed up at the ceiling, and golden light from the lantern ran down a smooth, polished surface of faintly glowing ghisten wood.

"It is an observatory."

I spun to see Mary, Tane still shining from her eyes. She watched me with an odd posture—her arms loose, a bit too far out from her sides, her head cocked. It was eerie and unnatural, and I longed for Mary to wake up.

"To observe what?" I asked, speaking just as quietly as she had.

Tane's eyes trailed over the spyglass. Coming forward, she pushed my hand from the door latch and pulled it shut with a soft tap of wood. "The Dark Water—its suns and moons and stars."

Questions rushed forward, but she spoke before I could. "All that is irrelevant right now, Captain Rosser. We need to leave. Now."

Moments later, we were striding back down the tunnel.

"What is happening?" I pressed. "Mary! Tane? Answer me. Is Adalia banishing us?"

"Adalia is arrogant and reaches beyond her place," Tane returned. "But she is not our greatest concern. There are soldiers at the gates."

We re-entered the cells to the sound of hammering fists and low, hurried voices echoing off the wooden walls and floors. A monk shoved between Tane and I, pulling up his cowl as he went, while others streaked by in varying directions.

I saw Mary stagger as someone shouldered past her. I reached out to steady her, then sheltered her against the wall as two more monks hurried past, heading into the tunnel and out of sight.

Tane trickled from Mary's eyes, and Mary blinked wholly awake. I started to step back, conscious of every place our bodies touched, even as my mind calculated our next steps. Get Ben and Grant. Get out of the monastery.

Mary looked as though she might be ill. She clasped my upper arms, keeping me in place as more and more monks ran past. "Give… Give me a moment. Tane has never been in control for that long while I was awake. The soldiers are looking for us, Sam. Adalia… her roots spread everywhere here. Everywhere . There is nothing she doesn't see. And she blames us for this."

"Does she intend to hand us over?" I pressed.

Mary shook her head helplessly, her face and lips inordinately pale. "She gave her word to protect us. But I don't trust her. She was so angry."

"There you are." A breathless Grant shoved in next to us, Ben on his heels. Grant looked harrowed, while Ben looked so dour that even the panicking Servants of Adalia Day began to give us a wider berth. "Mary, are you well?"

"I may throw up," she warned.

"Let's do that outside, shall we?" Grant patted her perfunctorily on the back. "Time to flee?"

"Past time," Ben grumbled.

I nodded. "If we are separated, meet where we left our gear and weapons."

A bellow overrode the shuffling chaos of the hall. "To the courtyard! Everyone is to convene in the courtyard, now!"

A final few monks fled into the tunnel or rocketed down side passageways, then the soldiers were there. Rifles glinted, boots tramped. Mary inched behind us, towards the tunnel, and grabbed Grant's robe to pull him with her—or hold herself up, it was hard to tell.

A rifle leveled at us.

"You four, to the courtyard," a soldier snapped.

Ben shot the man a glare so full of sorcery, even I felt it. The soldier wavered, then ground his teeth and shoved the mouth of the musket into Ben's chest.

"Try that again, Magni," he hissed. Four more soldiers saw the confrontation and gathered in, all armed. "We are prepared for your kind."

In the background, someone dragged a shrieking, bloodied monk out of a cell and shoved her into a line of her shuffling fellows.

"Well, this is looking worse and worse," I heard Grant murmur behind me.

"Move!" another soldier yelled at us.

Prodded by muskets, we joined the flow of devotees. Footsteps, pleading and frustrated voices jarred against the walls, growing louder and louder as we reached the entry hall. Too many bodies were crammed into the tight space. Tall, narrow windows with murky glass panes filtered dashes of torchlight from the courtyard outside—more soldiers—and open doors spilled wafts of cold, biting air.

Mary shoved in front of me, and I pulled her into my chest, protecting her as much as I could from the jostling of the crowd.

Her breath ghosted across the side of my face as she leaned back to whisper in my ear. "Ben and Charles. They're gone."

I glanced around. We were being herded like sheep, dozens of faces and bodies pressed close, but none of them belonged to my brother or the highwayman.

I touched the Other. Lights sprang up—in the crowd around us, in the courtyard beyond. Ben was nowhere to be seen, hidden by his talisman, but I glimpsed Grant's subtle indigo-grey somewhere behind us in the crowd.

I quietly translated this to Mary.

"Is Ben abandoning us?" she asked, her voice more defeated than accusatory.

A sick feeling twisted in my chest, but: "He knows his chances are best with us."

"What happens when they're not?" Mary's back bumped into my chest as the movement of the crowd slowed. Cold air from the open exterior door blew over our heads. "He couldn't control the soldiers; they have talismans. Does that mean they're Ess Noti? What if we are captured and he's not?"

"I have no answers, Mary."

The jostling of the crowd increased and we were squeezed out into the courtyard. Soldiers sifted through the Servants, directing men and women into different groups on the trampled snow.

"I'll meet you in the forest," Mary hissed. She sounded calm, but her hand clenched mine too tightly.

I held hers just as firmly, valiant promises drying up on my tongue. If I tried to fight the soldiers and keep us together, I would call attention to us and likely end up getting both of us bloodied.

"In the forest," I affirmed lowly, but could not manage to let go of her hand.

"You, here, now." A soldier grabbed my arm and hauled me across the yard. I nearly slipped in the snow, and Mary was torn away. The soldier snorted something derogatory then shoved me into the knot of male monks.

Mary was prodded into a knot of shivering women, both monks and novices.

"Stand in a line and pull back your hoods!" a Mereish officer shouted.

No one moved. A frigid breeze threaded through the yard, rustling the leafless branches of occasional trees and biting my cheeks. Mary watched me briefly then looked down, pulling her hood deeper and easing back into the press of women. I lost sight of her.

Soldiers elbowed into the crowd, grabbing women and lifting their heads with rough hands and musket muzzles. A figure I thought was Mary edged backwards, ducking behind older, more stoic monks and keeping her head down.

A soldier seized her by the robe and spun her around.

I lunged out of line. Soldiers shouted and swarmed. The cold mouth of a pistol pressed into my forehead, and I went still.

I saw the monk and soldier again a moment later when he forced her back into line. Her cowl was gone, red hair escaping at the temples from carefully wrapped braids. Not Mary.

"Him."

A Mereish officer took stance in front of me. He looked vaguely familiar, with sun-narrowed eyes, smooth black curls tamed into a queue, and light skin with the slight hint of brown.

The officer snapped to his men in Mereish, sending more of them scattering off across the grounds, then gave his full attention to me. As soon as our eyes locked, I knew him for what he was. Another Sooth.

Furthermore, I recognized him. He had bumped into me on the docks in Tithe, right after I had glimpsed Enisca Alamay.

"Where are your companions?" the man asked.

I gave him a flat, cold stare. "You are Inis Hae."

His eyes narrowed for a breath, then he shrugged. "I am. Now, where are your companions?"

Shouts erupted, and I glimpsed a blur of horses and men near the gates. The horses were wild, the men panicked, their eyes wide with feral, unconstrained terror. Ben or some other Magni had found an outlet for their sorcery.

Hae, too, glanced in their direction. In that briefest of openings I ducked to the side, snatched his pistol, and smashed the butt down towards his forehead. He deflected with preternatural swiftness, but I was already running.

Wind blasted through the crowd, throwing back hoods, tearing away hats and snapping clothing like flags. A Stormsinger's voice rose, then another, and another, chanting and harmonizing and building off one another in a twisted version of a midnight prayer.

Mary's voice was not among them.

I ducked reaching hands and exhaled half my consciousness into the Other. The Dark Water swelled around my ankles, lights pricked into view and I marked the Mereish mages. There were two Magni, desperately trying to calm the horses and ensorcelled soldiers. Then the bright, Sooth beacon of Inis Hae.

I caught a flash of teal. A nun fled past me, her body shrouded in Stormsinger's light. But there was no grey in her aura, and her face was older—in her fifties. Other Stormsingers shifted at the edges of my vision, but they, too, lacked Mary's signature blend of mage and ghisting. She must still be wearing her talisman.

I could not see Benedict directly, but his power burned in the Other—close, then far, near Hae's light and then passing me by. Magni force laced out like flames, wrapping around soldiers and horses and Servants alike. The Servants broke from their lines, and the chaos in the courtyard became complete.

Someone caught my arm. The human world resumed its solid forms and snow-blurred lines as Ben hauled me behind a hedge. He had commandeered a staff—now streaked with blood—though his other arm was still in its sling.

"Where are Mary and Grant?" I panted.

"Grant's already on the road south, took four horses. He will fetch our weapons and gear," Benedict replied, craning to keep watch behind us then motioning me to move. We edged into the shelter a cloister. "You lost Mary?"

As if in answer to his question, Mereish voices cut the night in sharp, coordinating shouts. I could not catch all their words over the chaos, but I heard a warning cry of, " Ghiseau !"

Figures scattered from our path as Ben and I rounded the hall, the chapel, and passed through the gardens. The snow was a chaos of footprints, but I needed no trail. I knew where Mary was now. I could hear her screaming and swearing.

We rounded the kitchens just as a soldier wrestled Mary to the ground. Another soldier fought a Stormsinger's mask over Mary's mouth, momentarily drowning her shouts. She struck him on the head, a fist to the temple, but the soldier holding her down flipped her over and ground her face into the snow.

I lunged, but three more enemies leveled muskets into our path. Ben struck one. I raised my pistol in return, and time slowed.

I pulled the trigger. The shot took a soldier square in the chest, and I swung the butt of my weapon into the face of the man next to him. They both toppled. A third swerved past me and, on impulse, I reached out and grabbed the glistening Magni talisman at his throat. The talisman broke free, and Ben began to laugh.

The soldier screamed as he drove his sword through his own stomach. Still smiling, Benedict strode around him, surveying Mary's remaining assailants.

The one with the mask froze, turning his eyes slowly up. He was clearly fighting Benedict's influence, but not well enough—either he did not have a talisman, or not all of them were created equal. He spasmed, falling back, and Mary shook the mask loose.

She screamed a single note, thick with rage. Tatters of wind raced away from her, and the last guard spasmed, gasping without sound. When I grabbed his hair and jerked him off her, he toppled with blood-shot eyes and a terror-stricken face.

Mary rolled over, face scraped raw and covered with mud and snow, tears and blood. She coughed and raised both arms, one hand reaching for me, the other for Ben. Together, we pulled her to her feet.

"What did you do?" Ben asked, glancing at the blood-shot man before he grabbed a fallen pistol and set to reloading it, grimacing as he utilized his bad arm.

"Told the air to leave his lungs," she managed, blinking back tears and stooping to grab the sword of a dead soldier. She rubbed her face with a sleeve and pointed towards the main building—and a side door standing open. Figures flitted through the night, but the chaos was ebbing. It left us in a fragment of stillness, but it would not last long.

"We can try to escape through the Oruse," she said. "It's outside the walls."

"Will Adalia let us past?" I asked.

"I will manage her," Tane's lower voice replied.

Ben shrugged and tossed a musket to me. "Then lead the way, witch."