Page 46 of The Starving Saints
“Well, youneedto be,” Treila snaps. She begins to pace. “What do you need, to be able to focus? What little is left in this damned place, I can get it for you.”
“It’s not a matter of resources. I’ve already beengiveneverything, don’t you see? It either happens or it doesn’t, with barely evenintentbehind it,” Phosyne says angrily, too tired to think better of it. “I didn’taskfor the Constant Lady to arrive!”
Treila’s eyes widen. Her mouth falls open. Her brow draws together, and Phosyne realizes with a lurch that she has badly miscalculated. Offering to help solve the mystery of the saints would have been one thing, but now she has taken ownership of the whole mess. She feels a noose around her throat, or maybe Ser Voyne’s fingers.
“They’re here because of you?” Treila asks.
Phosyne squeezes her eyes shut and tries to fall through the floor or, failing that, a minute into the past. The world refuses to move. Time, likewise.
“You say you didn’taskfor them, but—” Treila’s voice falters. Confused. Young again.
“It’s not the first time,” Phosyne confesses. “Months ago, two—creatures appeared. Arrived. I don’t know from where, but the gates hadn’t opened, just like they didn’t open yesterday. And at the time I must have known how I’d called them here, but now I can’t remember, so I must be going mad.” She chokes on a laugh, covers her face with her hands. “I don’t knowhowI do any of it! None of it makes sense, except that itdoes, somewhere inside of me, my thoughts go every which way and then they crystalize. Today I passed throughsolid stone, when Ser Voyne fell upon me, and—and—” Phosyne gasps. “And this is the first time I’ve been rightfullyscaredof it all!”
She’s shouting by the end of it, tearing at her hair.
Treila doesn’t look the least bit frightened, though. She steps closer, instead. Looks at the mess that is Phosyne withhunger.
“Solid stone?” she asks.
Phosyne nods, head jerking on her spine, a broken puppet.
Treila grabs her wrist. “Then you’re coming with me. Now. Because if we can get out, none of this is our problem anymore. Do you understand me?”
“It’sallmy problem,” Phosyne whispers.
“Just because something’s your fault doesn’t mean you have to fix it,” Treila counters, and tugs Phosyne after her.
“My research—my notes—thecreatures, they’ve gone missing, somebody must have opened up this room while I was at the chapel, and oh, Treila, the prioress—”
Treila slaps her again. This time, Phosynefeelsit, and stops talking. Stops moving. Stops thinking, just for a moment.
She just stares at the floor.
“Sometimes,” Treila says, slowly, carefully, enunciating every word, “you just have to leave it all behind and start over.”
Phosyne nods, and lets herself be dragged from her tower.
20
Ser Voyne knows these halls.
They are as familiar to her as breathing. She has spent time here, but when she tries to remember how she has spent her days, she comes up empty. It doesn’t bother her in the slightest, but it is curious, and she has had a most curious day all around.
In the great hall, the grand feast is being laid out. Something more wondrous even than the meal the saints provided the night before. She can smell the roasting meat even from where she stands inside the main keep tower. Her job, bestowed on her by her beautiful Lady, is to walk the ramparts and these towers to find anybody who lingers, anybody who has not heard of the most generous invitation to eat and be merry. She’s already found a few small clusters, mostly people too weak to move. She has fed them honey and smiled upon them until they roused and staggered off toward salvation. The others she has persuaded through alternative means.
Her hands are covered in a sticky mix of red and gold.
This is the last retreat left to check. The ground floor, which smells of leather and sweat and metal, is empty. In fact, most of the keep is empty. The king, that wretched, glorious man, has been loyal and true. He has taken his household, and Ser Leodegardis’s too, to the great hall. They have been there all morning, providing the hands her Lady has needed to give them all such bounty.
Mostof the keep is empty. She does, however, hear scrabbling from below. The lower rooms, storehouses, workspaces.
Rats, searching for their next meal. Thieving little rats, who do not have the decency to heed her Lady’s invitation.
There should be metal on her shoulders, she thinks, an errant thought that distracts her just as she reaches the steps. There should be metal, like the Warding Saint wears. Where has it gone? She doesn’t rightly remember, and that, too, is curious. But then the rats shift and squeak again. Closer this time.
She descends a few steps, rounds a corner. This room is lit by thin shafts of daylight, throwing heaps and piles into shadowy relief. A perfect place for hiding.
She spots her rats, two forms huddled above...
