I ripped open the doors, a stained-glass panel shattering in my wake. Two paxiams guarding the sanctum jumped to attention as I barrelled through them, one slamming sideways into the wall.
“Your Holiness…how can we ser—”“Fuck off.” I had no need for paxiam spears. The fewer witnesses, the better if blood needed to be spilled, for under the scent of Ashara’s fear was the unmistakable tang of rotting meat and truffle.
I sprinted.
The templum’s labyrinthine curves had always served my cause: places to hide, places to scheme, places to spy. Yet, for all its uses, I cursed the sheer idiocy of whoever designed this many fucking stairs and doors and stupid, narrow fucking corridors. Unlatching my pauldrons, I shed the bulk of the metal weighing me down, slowing my steps. They fell to the floor with athump, my gauntlets following suit. Bits of metal shed from me like leaves, bread-crumbing a trail to her chamber. I clutched at the underside of my helm, fingers twitching, readying to tear it from my head. My hands trembled—fuckingtrembled.
Just take it off. Take it off.I left it on.
Monks and sisters passed in a blur. I was close now, yet the scent of her fear was thinning, wilting like plucked flowers left too long in the sun. What replaced it made my stomach churn…for under the acuteness of horror lurked the peel of excitement. Something citrusy and tart, though tainted with a fusty kind of rot that belonged to one druid, and one druid only.
Falstaff.
As I ran, I grappled with the possibility that I might have to end his life, though the consequences could be disastrous. An acolyte’s head was an inconvenience—something I could explain away after a slapped wrist. But a druid’s? It could unseat me.
Still, whilst my father would condemn it, no decree had been issued against it. I could take a hammer to his neck, chisel awayat that crusted skin until his head toppled just like the rest. No matter how thick the coating, there was always soft flesh to be found beneath.
One more turnpike.
I vaulted the steps two at a time, chest heaving, grateful for the lightness of bare linen and breeches, free of metal, save for the helm and my veil.
As I caught sight of the top, something in the air shifted, and I ground to a halt. The fear…its earthiness, gone. In its wake…
My mouth watered as if I were back in the catacombs, drunk on the reek of bloodstone. The very ground seemed to vibrate with the hum of it, and I almost crashed to my knees, steadying myself on the Ovidian wall.
Sugared almonds. Spring peas. Ripe peaches splitting under the tongue.
It was joy, or something close to it. Not Falstaff’s…hers. It grew heady, twisting into something else.
Powdered pollen, crocuses, trumpet lilies.
It eclipsed her fear tenfold. Stronger than anything I had savoured in an age. Too strong. I coughed, chest tightening as I sprinted onwards, the cloy of it coating my lungs. It thickened, making every breath akin to inhaling rosewater, the perfume of it burning like grace. I powered through, making quick work of the final passage.
With a kick, her door crashed to the floor, the weight of it squelching in a puddle of… I lifted my boot, the sole of it drenched in blood.
The scent of another’s fear struggled to rise under the weight of the bouquet roiling over from the cot. It still lingered though, the tinge of onion, far tangier than the peatness I’d come to recognise as hers.
I took in the scene before me. Amongst the carnage, Falstaff was nowhere to be seen, the space too small for him to hideanywhere but the armoire. From the faintness of his scent, it was likely he had already left the chamber.
I gazed at the floor.
A dead acolyte, face down, leaked with blood, piss, and shit, the fluids crawling into cracks in the stone and soaking the rug where he lay. Next to him, another clutched at his neck, blood spurting from between the gaps in his fingers. He gargled, words indecipherable but perfumed with the overripeness of desperation. In the corner, another huddled, pinned between the dresser and the wall, as if he had shoved it there to serve as a shield to the woman and his front. His eyes were locked on her, standing at the foot of the cot. In a shaking hand he grasped the knot of his belt, brandishing it, ready to strike.
Back turned, her slate hair swirling like storm clouds, she faced him, the backs of her thighs pressed against the cot’s lower frame. Fisted at her sides, one of her hands dripped with blood. The red beads of it pattered harmlessly onto the floor—harmless, at least, considering the ceiling had not rained down on their heads and the walls did not shake. Unlike the acolyte.
“Ashara?” I took a step closer to her. The acolyte, paler than parchment, opened his chappy lips, hope fizzing through his fear as if I were his saviour come at last.“Your Holiness! She is possessed. Such blasphemy, such profane injustices to my brothers this day. To the cells, to the cells with her!” Craning his neck, he dared search behind my shoulder, hunting for a paxiam spear or two.
Ashara turned, following his gaze, and I emptied. Every thought, every feeling, every plan, stripped away to nothing. I was derelict, turned to rubble by the sight of her. Herface… I had expected panic, fear, or at the very least, some sort of shock at the scene that lay at her feet. But her lips, full and blushed pink, bloomed into a smile. It was all teeth, unapologetic in its brilliance, not the bashful sort I’d glimpsed over a book. Hereyes were lidded, as if drunk or cast in the throes of desire. She threw her head back and laughed—not a manic sound, or one born of a grimace, but true, unabashed laughter from the pits of one’s belly.
Under the veil, I smiled back like a dolt.
It soon fell when I beheld the rest of her. Cut down the middle, her dress sliced in two, her breasts lay exposed to the chamber. I stared and stared, not with wantonness, but because one had beencarved,the tissue of it opened and parted, blood flowing freely at its sides. Another wound, padded with linens, bled crimson, like a rose attached to her hip.
He’d touched her.
He’d maimed her.
And I wasn’t quite sure why I wanted to kill myself for it. The urge to plunge a dagger into my heart overwhelmed me, so much so, I grasped for its handle.
