What are you doing, Victoriana? Simply throwing yourself into the gears to jam them is no plan.
This monastery was wrong from top to bottom and I was finished complying with any of it. I’d already lost a friend. I did not want to lose my soul in the bargain.
But must you lose your head, also? Think!
Hefertus cleared his throat, looking between us, one hand twisting through his topknot of golden hair. “The Poisoned Saint has worn himself out and we can hardly leave him here alone.”
“If the other trial was any indication, then we cannot leave him here at all,” Sir Coriand said reasonably. “It will take all of us or none of us in the next task and the clock is ticking.”
“And the dog?” Hefertus asked, eyeing Brindle warily.
As well he should.
I laughed — a grim, gallows laugh.
Both the male paladins glanced at me, Hefertus nervously, Coriand grimly, as if I were a mistake he must set right.
“The dog must come along,” the older paladin said. “It was there last time. I think you understand, Hefertus, that we must go through this trial. I think you see that.”
Hefertus looked back and forth between us.
“This place is evil.” I felt so tired. The kind of tired you only feel when it is you against all others.
“A wild assumption,” Sir Coriand said, with his big trust-me grin spread wide. “I see no evil here, except the poor lost thing stuck in a trap on the ceiling — and if these monks were evil, why would they have trapped one like a mouse?” His eyes narrowed, and while his easy smile never flickered, I felt the moment that he shifted his emotions. “And of course, Lady Paladin, the one you brought with you.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
One of the voices in my mind — maybe both — spat one curse after another, some foreign to me, others familiar. I tried to block them out.
“What?” Hefertus asked carefully.
I shifted my feet. But I knew myself. And I knew he was seeing the truth of it all over my face.
Be on guard!
Sir Coriand delivered the killing blow. “A dangerous game to play, Beggar. Are you even a paladin? No paladin I’ve ever known has been so cozy with a denizen of hell.”
Hefertus turned his body to me, blocking Coriand out. “Deny his charge.”
I swallowed. “I cannot.”
He paled. “Treachery,” Sir Hefertus breathed out. “Vile treachery.”
He made a stumbling lunge toward me and I pivoted out of the way. He was wrong about me. At least, in the way that mattered.
Watch out!
“Hefertu —” I began and then something grabbed my foot and yanked hard.
The room spun upside down. My braid swept back and forth over the mosaic while Hefertus turned abruptly upside down and looked down at me in disgust. I kicked against what was holding me with my free leg but it was solid as bone and after a second, it was manacled in place, too.
Hefertus’s boot drew back and kicked, and for a moment all I saw was black and all I felt was pain. I forced myself to stay aware through the pounding in my head. I must not lose my grip on my sword. I must not lose consciousness.
My mouth was full of warm iron. I spat blood. My face was on fire.
“Suture will bring her, and Cleft has the dog,” Sir Coriand said calmly, as if he routinely kidnapped other paladins with the help of his golems. “If you would be so good as to carry your friend. He deserves more honor than a golem can offer and we’ll be sure he’s safe enough in the trial to come.”
“Of course,” Hefertus said, and I could hardly blame him. Wouldn’t I do the same myself if I’d discovered a friend was hiding a demon from me?
