“Give the command already. What do you want me to do?”
“You knew I could stop this. Briar begged you to give back my tongue.”
The Mother Superior pursed her lips. She didn’t look away, and Seraphina had to admit it was brave.
“You claim you care about the sisters. You only want what’s good for them. You protect the convent, the vault, their bodies and their souls.” She spread out her arms. “How many have you killed tonight with your stubbornness? With your pride, your foolishness, your insistence that you knew better.”
There was a subtle shift among the sisters. They stepped away from the Mother Superior. Seraphina looked from one face to another. They avoided her gaze, choosing to stare at the ground or in the distance.
She moved aside and waved toward Michael, on his knees, paralyzed, waiting for the end he knew was coming. The only thing he didn’t know was how it would happen.
“Join him, won’t you?”
The nun didn’t move.
Seraphina lifted an eyebrow, rolled her lips, waited a few more seconds.
Sister Hedwiga stepped forward.
“Seraphina, please…”
Seraphina’s eyes snapped to hers.
“You, stand back.”
Sister Hedwiga’s chin trembled. Tears poured out of her eyes, but she took a step back, and the other sisters did the same.
That was when the Mother Superior started moving, walking past Seraphina, past Sister Margaret crying over her daughter’s dead body, past Rune, who was turned away from it all, and knelt beside the rebel leader.
Seraphina nodded, shot one more lingering look at the nuns, and went to stand in front of the two kneeling people that she held fully responsible for the massacre. Two leaders who’d failed their people. Two souls she intended to send straight to hell. One day, when her time came, she would follow them and ask them if it was worth it.
Her grip tight on Idris’s knife, she raised her hand and pointed the blade at Michael.
“You killed Briar. She was my friend. My best friend. She was tough, loyal, headstrong. She loved fully, with no consideration for herself. She carried the world on her shoulders and didn’t complain once. She sacrificed herself for me. You could’ve stopped it then. You could’ve looked at her, in her eyes, seen how honest and pure she was, could’ve taken a bow, called for a retreat, and it would’ve never gotten this far.”
The rebel leader swallowed hard.
“You want to end the war. You say you and your rebels should be trusted with sacred bones because you will use them for good. Do you think the High Harvester doesn’t say the same?”
She shook her head.
“Show me the relic you used on the wolves.”
He reached into his shirt and pulled out a metacarpal bone.
“Tell me about it.”
“It is a lesser relic that comes from Saint Blaise,” Michael said. “It allows one to speak to animals, ask them for information, favors, strike bargains.”
“Quite powerful. I assume it was classified as a lesser relic because animals are seen as lesser.”
He didn’t comment.
Seraphina reached for the bone. She changed her mind when her fingers were inches from it. She and Michael stared at each other for a few long moments. She couldn’t let him live. Not that she wanted to. Divine justice would’ve been to tell him to call a wolf, or the entire pack, and ask them to tear him to shreds. Fitting. Cruel, though. Degrading. Not for him, but for her. She took the bone and slipped it into her pocket. The sisters would later search the bodies for relics. This one, she intended to keep.
She could give Michael a dagger and command him to drive it through his gut. She could give him an axe and tell him to crush his own skull with it.
She could make Sister Blandina put her hands on him and scorch him until he gave his last breath. No, that wouldn’t be fair to poor Sister Blandina. She’d hurt enough people, and she wasn’t a violent person by character.
