“Yes.” Head jerking, she thumped two bound fists to her chest. “I fight my whole life.” Angular shoulders squaring, the goats hair draped from them like the finest of silks.
“I believe that,” I admitted, smiling despite myself. “I am no warrior, just a seamstress.” I motioned to my bodice, the white now stained with small dots of cherry wine.
Esioul mimicked the gesture, eying her own. “The goats make mine.”
“It’s…” Whatever it was, I hadn’t the nerve to say.
Her answering scoff was deserved.
“Itches like flea,” she spat, clawing at her skirts to reveal pink, irritated calves. “Stinks of dung and death.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathed, the words tasting like nothing.
“Sorry?”
“Yes, sorry. I am. Truly.” Suddenly, it wasn’t Esioul before me, her dark hair morphing to a mess of warm curls whilst her midnight eyes turned the colour of bark. “Sorry for all the spite. Sorry for what you’ve endured. Sorry we both must die.”
She leant forward, knobbly knees indenting the cushions and crawled towards me. I did my best not to wince at the stench of the pits’ yarn, its taint overwhelming the cling of cherry wine and sweat. A hair’s width away, her black eyes bored into me, holding me rapt.
“You no understand.” She spoke slowly, each word pressed through her teeth. “I cry not because we die,tusu moros. I cry because happy.” Her lips spread like oil in water, curving into a grin. “Soon, I will see them…mea oíkos.I will see them in place of honey and milk, where we use bones of druid to pick at our teeth.”
I jumped as she threw back her head, a raucous laugh erupting from her still-smiling mouth, rebounding off glass and rock to circle our heads. It was a wild, abandoned thing, sending my heart racing.
“Tusu apomor imni! Tusu apomor imni!” she shrieked between bouts of hysterics, shoulders shaking so hard they could shatter.
I desired two things: to either scramble into a shadowy alcove and hide my face until dawn or join her.
But the paxiams gave me no chance to do either. Spears thrust to her neck, they barked orders at her to seal her lips, cease this madness, be silent and good and return back to her flock.
But Esioul kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing.
She laughed when they dragged her away, her smile pulled tight, even as they hauled her through the doors by her long, black hair.
And for a moment, just a moment, I laughed, too.
Chapter twelve
Ashara
The Confession
For we are consumed not just by thine wrath…but by thine puddles of blood with unknown depths of unspeakable ruin. -90:7–8 - Book of Dendralis
My laugh, small but true, whittled to nothing as the doors reopened a breath later, the hulking mass of a druid wrenching them apart.
“Kneel for His Holiness, Drui—”
“Her.”
Framed in the maw of the hallway, the Butcher stood with his back to the darkness. Light from the torches glinted off his blackened armour, haloing him in fire. A gloved finger pointed to my chest, slightly to the left, as if mindful of where my heart pealed like a chappellum bell. I glanced over my shoulder, finding only crumpled pillows, empty chalices, and the tall, arched windows.
I blinked once, twice, thrice, and the world narrowed to a needle point.
Unable to cajole my feet, the vice-like grip of a paxiam banded my upper arms. Manhandled through the maze of cushions, they shoved me towards the shadow of the Butcher, his veil of chain honed to every clumsy step. Laurels—the ones who weren’t weeping or asleep—eyed me through slitted lids.
“Blood Demands Blood,” the acorn-haired woman mouthed when I passed her, cupping both hands before lowering to her knees, head bent in prayer.
I had an urge to kick her in the stomach.
